There's a fairly alarming degree of solipsism and relativism in quotes such as "I only have to justify my views to myself and to God.” or
"We...believe in something based on our own morals and principles."

That kind of talk is scary-wild-eyed prophet type stuff. That's the kind of talk that channels Jim Jones, David Koresh and Tim McVeigh. I guess on that basis they'd admire Bin Laden for his steadfast refusal to justify his beliefs to anyone but God and to base it all on his morals and principles?

Granted, this is probably just late teenage identity-formation bluster and brag, but me-myself-and-I is no foundation on which to build a democratic party platform.

I guess they have a lot to learn about politics, where they actually have to justify their views to the voters, not God, and represent the needs and concerns of their electorates, not themselves.

Any movement in decline -- like political parties, like the Christian religion -- tends to move to extremes as the more moderate members drift away first. As people realise how little power they actually have, political party membership has dropped to an all-time low: as a result the parties are now run by a handful of dedicated extremists.

One solution would be to ban parties altogether and force people to run as representatives of their electorates, but the current geographic electorate system makes this nearly impossible. With the Internet, however, western countries are no longer confined to geographic systems and should be able to come up with much cleverer and more logical electorate methods, giving voters a chance to elect people who genuinely represent their interests, not merely the lesser of two evils.