The Next Party

Plenty of Americans fed up with both the GOP and Democrats, looking for a new party.

Here are some questions to ask, before looking for such a party.

Are you an advocate of free association or forced association? Do you think there should be very high hurdles before the state can enforce any act of forced association?

Is rape OK as long as pure democracy breaks out and there is a vote, or would you just call that 'gang rape?'

Do you believe in a government fettered by some ethical principle, or one limited only by the whims of the current 51%?

Do you believe that every issue of public policy should be turned into a national steel cage death match struggle for domination, or are you ok with 50 states running 50 experiments in parallel, local school boards, county government, setting community standards consistent with some ethical foundation or principle that would justify national action only in instances of local tyranny?

In complex system design, do you favor single point of failure, OneSizeFitsAll, all our eggs in one basket, get it all wrong at once solutions, or resilient systems designed in parallel, like The Sears Tower(s), or a suspension bridge cable?

Do you think monopolists with guns/totalitarianism is a reasonable American concept, consistent with freedom?

Do you think the American phrase is "United We Stand" or "United It Stands?"

Do you think a properly sized government is one which could easily be staffed by drawing random names from the phone book/voter roles in order to construct our pool of candidates-- such as we do for juries, who we trust to make life and death decisions over us as peers, from which we would vet and qualify candidates for office like we do now, via election, or do you prefer the present system, which has a bias of selecting only from a pool of candidates whose first action was to actively seek power over others?

Do you believe America needs to elect Maximus Leader Emperorus, or would you prefer that we ask folks to take time from their lives to be honorable state plumbers, and please keep the plumbing of state clean and free flowing for a while while we live our lives and run the nation?

Do you take offense when state plumbers mistake the plungers we hand them for scepters, or do you believe that it is the purpose of American citizens lives to live for the plumbing and be ruled by plumbers?

A quarter century after the visible collapse of the Soviet System, do you believe it is reasonable to follow them down the road of Centrally Planned, Command and Control "The Economy" running?

Do you believe that "S"ociety is God and the state is its proper church, or would you prefer to practice your own religion in the church of your choice, not dominated by a single national theocratic religion based on Social Scientology?

These are questions that I will be asking when finding that next party. There are no doubt more that should be asked.

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 1/25, 10:30am)

Post 1

Friday, January 25, 2013 - 1:18pm

Fred ...

It is my purely anecdotal impression that for roughly the past century, with each passing election cycle, We the People have sheepishly allowed the purposes of government to gradually slip their ethical moorings and become nothing more or less than the Grand Prize for victory at the polls.

The party that wins gets to re-invent the government with utterly no regard for any commonly-held overarching principles.

And thus it's inevitable that one of those purposes, if not the primary purpose, of government is to facilitate victory for the ruling party in the next election.

Hence, we have ....... Democrats and Republicans. Pick 'em.

Sadly, Fred, I think any party founded on the principles implied in your original post can succeed only as a revolutionary party ... rising from the steaming carcass.

Chalk it up to cowardice if you must, but I've yet to decide if that's something I hope to witness in the 2 or 3 decades I may have left.

Ken
(Edited by Ken Bashford on 1/25, 1:55pm)

Post 2

Friday, January 25, 2013 - 3:57pm

My understanding is that just today the Senate voted to change the filibuster rules so that a filibuster can no longer effectively stop a bill. This was a long-standing safeguard and Harry Reid was able to get the elimination of the filibuster by threatening to have an illegal vote to get rid of it. I know, confusing. Legally, to change the senates voting rules it would take a super majority and he would not get that. So, he just told Mitch McConnell that he would 'call it passed' if he got 51 votes and no one could do anything about it. So, they went into secret negotiations and Reid gave McConnell some rules changes that made the GOP leadership in the senate more powerful relative to the other Republicans and he said okay. Now, Obama can run gun control, immigration, labor laws, and whatever else his little progressive heart wants and the senate is much closer to filibuster proof.

Only a small number of senators voted against this loss.

I think we are seeing a massive shift in the rate at which the nation is becoming totalitarian. And there are already many laws on the books that would allow what you don't see till the final days of freedom (arrest without habeus corpus, no public trial, held incommunicado, lying to a federal officer is a felony, FISA warrants that void probable cause, etc., etc.)

John Kerry was testifying before congress today and when asked about the president being able to start a war without the consent of congress, as per the constitution, he said that "sometimes the constitution doesn't work."

We seem to be adrift... no longer attached to the limits set by the constitution.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 1/25, 5:08pm)

Post 3

Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 9:48am