The Demise of the GOP

Check out my latest at The Partial Observer. Tagline: "The Republican Party can't win with Ron Paul, but can't win without him either."

Third Parties I'd Like To See

Check out my latest at The Partial Observer. Excerpt:

[W]ill new parties arise? Only if there's greater commitment by the people to break up the two-party monopoly. Which is unlikely. Many people don't like what the current alternative parties stand for. And of the two major parties, it's not that the people dislike either entirely, they just don't like the mix of branding and issue-items offered on the shelves of the Republican and Democratic stores. When someone from a major party comes along who charms them enough to get them excited - an Obama or a Palin - then they cast their votes for the same old same-old. Others, in mortal fear of these "charismatic"(?) but "dangerous" candidates, go on defense and vote for the Lesser of Two Evils. So the two-party cycle continues even as the people complain about the two parties.

I don't know how, exactly, we get from the current status quo to a multi-party system. But I'd love to see a United States with countless local and national parties.

Paul wouldn't have made a difference

So, Ron Paul runs in the Republican primaries and receives "more than 1.3 million votes." About the same as the combined totals of Nader, Barr, and Baldwin in the general election.

Of course, far less than half the electorate voted in the Republican primaries.

This suggests two contradictory things:

1. Ron Paul should have run as an independent. The Libertarian and Constitution parties probably wouldn't have run candidates, as a tacit endorsement of Paul, and he would have done much better than all the third party candidates combined.

2. It's a good thing Paul didn't run in the general election. He would have been ignored, and his "movement" might have ended with a whimper. Even if he had exploited the Bailout as an issue, it's unlikely he would have have made much of a difference in any particular state, or earn many more votes than Nader did in 2000.

DownsizeDC.org's latest Dispatch says,

What does the average person assume when he or she sees third party candidates listed in his newspaper with tiny vote percentages next to their names? We think he or she assumes that . . .

"Those are fringe candidates with fringe ideas that no one supports. Therefore, I need not consider what they have to say."

The system is rigged against third parties. This guarantees low vote totals for those parties. It also guarantees that the ideas those parties represent will always be viewed as marginal.

Third parties don't promote ideas, they marginalize them!

George Stephanopolous at Disney News said yesterday that the lower-than-expected turnout came at McCain's expense. In other words, people who don't like their party's candidate, but don't like the other party's candidate either, don't show up at the polls and vote Third Party, they instead stay home or don't vote in the Presidential race. Who can blame them?

Ron Paul had the most successful "small government" campaign in decades, collecting more votes in primaries than any Libertarian could win in the general election. But even then, he was soundly trounced and rejected by his party. Unless a billionaire libertarian runs for President himself, and frames all his policy proposals in pragmatic rather than libertarian terms ("Government program A hasn't worked; I believe policy proposal B will work, and here's why"), it's not likely that the "message" will reach and persuade very many people.

That's why I think the DownsizeDC.org route should be given a chance:

The way to a better future lies in withdrawing our consent and issuing direct orders to our supposed public servants. Votes send confusing signals. But plain talk is rarely misunderstood.

The new way involves building a new social force with the power to make public servants miserable. Withdraw consent. Issue orders. Make the public servant submit.

The politicians are busy right now convincing themselves that the public wants top-down, centralized, Democratic social engineering. Who can disabuse them of this notion? After all, the votes have been cast. The people have spoken.

Only YOU can disabuse the politicians of their self-serving interpretations of inarticulate votes. The Republicans were repudiated. Therefore, the things the Republicans did must also be repudiated. This should be the mandate for the new Congress. Fortunately, we have a vehicle for doing just that . . .

Ron Paul's "American Freedom Agenda Act" would repeal a good chunk of the bad things the Republicans did. Use our Educate the Powerful system to ask your elected representatives to pass this bill.

Use your personal comments to tell your elected representatives that the Republicans were repudiated, therefore the things the Republicans did must also be repudiated.

Votes may not mean much, but we can peacefully overwhelm Congress and force it to bend towards liberty. We just have to do it.

On the Lottery and Third Parties

How's this for an Election Day Strategy?

1. Today, when you have time to plan, estimate how long it would take to vote, how much it will take out of your day. Perhaps the polling place is next door; perhaps you live in the country and you have to drive. Maybe the only time you can go is after work, when it will be most crowded and there will be lines. In any case, rely on past experience, or, if you've never voted, ask someone who has. For myself, I'm estimating it will be 20 minutes.

2. Select a day before Election Day when you can spare the same number of minutes that you expect you would need to vote (eg, in my case, 20 minutes) by working on a project to improve your life in some small way, preferably by saving money or making money. The tasks I'm talking about can range from clipping coupons to reading an article on improving your resume, to working an extra amount of time if you're self-employed, to making a maintenance repair that, if left neglected, will cost you money. The project you choose to do is up to you, but it should be economically beneficial in some way.

3. Then, estimate how much money your efforts have saved you, or will earn you.

4. Pat yourself on the back for your accomplishment! You may be tempted to set aside more time like this.

5. On Election Day, instead of going to the polling place to vote, go to your nearest convenience store and, using the estimated amount of money you saved or earned doing your project, purchase lottery tickets.

Even if you purchase just one ticket on the game with the biggest jackpot, you have made a far more rational decision, and increased your chances of financial freedom and a better quality of life, than anything you might have done in the polling booth. This is true even in battleground states; your vote is far more likely to go uncounted or miscounted by error or fraud than it has any chance of determining the outcome. Your vote will not be a factor in who wins, let alone what decisions they will ultimately make.

I'm putting this idea "out there" for others to pick up and run with if they choose (though credit and a link back would be appreciated!). There is something to be said for this strategy: what if most people were persuaded, actually did take a positive action step or two in their own life, and played the lottery instead of voted? What if, on Election Day, only one million people cast votes nationwide, while 130 million others bought lottery tickets, many for the first time in their lives?

Talk about a crisis of legitimacy! Imagine a President facing the nation knowing that more than 99% of the people believe he's a ridiculous person who has no right whatsoever to do anything that may impact their lives?

And the advantage of buying a lottery ticket (as opposed to staying home and doing nothing) is that it wouldn't be evidence of apathy, which non-voting is perceived to be. Buying a lottery ticket on Election Day, especially if one never buys it on on any other day, would create a statistical spike that would provide information to the political class, which is: we can't be bothered to waste our time on people like you, and playing the lottery makes more sense than believing we can impact your corrupt and rigged system.

But here's a problem. Personally, I've never been spent any money on lotteries. If I'm not competent to earn millions of dollars, I'd be more likely to squander that amount in lottery winnings, and end up more miserable and unhappy than before. So I'm uncomfortable with my own proposal, even though I can't argue with the logic.

And here's another problem. I agree with the the Four Points of the Green, Nader, Libertarian, and Constitution parties. It is reminiscent of what I wrote four years ago, that the third parties are:

1. For peace.

2. For the Bill of Rights.

3. For balanced budgets.

4. Against crony capitalism - against the web of laws, regulations, taxes, and subsidies that favor corporations over small business and the people.

To vote for one of the four "minor" party candidates is to vote against the System, and to vote for the Four Points.

And here's the math:

• To "hold your nose" and vote for the "lesser of two evils" will mean you will have a less than one-in-120 million chance of determining the election.
• To win the "big jackpot" is something like a 1-in-20 million chance, though that depends on the particular game in your area.
• To vote for a third-party candidate will mean roughly, on average, a one-in-100,000 chance of increasing its influence and the likelihood of attaining "major party status" in your state.
  

To vote for the Republican or Democrat changes nothing. To choose the lottery option is logically compelling, but would require a mass, organized effort to even be newsworthy. But every vote for a third-party candidate builds momentum for that party and decreases the lifespan of the the Two-Party Monopoly. It is perhaps the only approach that satisfies both personal satisfaction and improves the odds of a better future.

All that said, taking the time before Election Day to improve your life would probably be a good idea, even if you don't choose the lottery option on Election Day.

Corsi Should Have Gone After McCain

Jerome Corsi says he endorses Chuck Baldwin for President. He has a funny way of expressing it.

By writing the #1 bestseller"Obama Nation," designed to tell us how horrible Barack Obama really is, Corsi is more likely to scare disenchanted conservatives who dislike McCain and may have voted for a third-party candidate like Baldwin, to vote for McCain anyway.

Corsi himself doesn't seem to be terribly credible, and this book is apparently a clumsy hatchet job. But if he's going to play this game, he should do a similar book on McCain. There is plenty of material to work with.

Vote For What You Want

This is my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

In 2000, Bush was better on Gore on the most important issue, war, but as President he switched positions and became the world's biggest threat to peace. Presidential candidates break promises, and there is very little we can do about it.

I,like many others, would wish we could rewind and see how a Gore Presidency would turn out. But the fact is, the Clinton-Gore position of murdering innocent foreign peoples "for their own good" was intolerable. True, Gore would probably have been better than Bush, but the 2000 campaign didn't demonstrate it.

Barack Obama is presumably smarter and more knowledgeable than McCain - at least he comes across that way. And, as Bush did in 2000, he's taking the relatively more moderate and humane view toward foreign affairs than his rival.

But what does that prove?

Barr Wins LP Nomination

I saw most of the balloting on C-Span today. It looks like everything went like clockwork. The non-endorsements by George Phillies and Mike Gravel probably hurt Mary Ruwart, but the combined Barr and Root votes were favoring Barr throughout.

For months my argument was Barr centered around stealing votes for McCain to ensure McCain's defeat without giving assent to the Democratic nominee. But here's the key point: Bob Barr would make a better President than any other candidate. But will he represent libertarian ideas? As "Fluffy" comments at Reason:

In 2008, if a candidate talks about shrinking government, pushing back the nanny state, restoring civil liberties, halting the frenzied rush to a surveillance society we've seen in the last 8 years, foreign policy restraint, and drug policy liberalization, those are core libertarian beliefs.

Further Thoughts on "Divided They Fail"

Suppose you see yourself as a hard-core libertarian. Who would you rather win an election: a pro-gay marriage candidate who wants to nuke Iran and invade the Sudan, or an anti-gay marriage candidate who wants to end undeclared wars and bring the troops home? To me, the answer is clear: I want peace, liberty, and legal equality, but peace must come first.

Likewise, I want to get rid of the national oppressor before the local oppressor, because the national oppressor oppresses more people. In elections, would prefer Libertarian Party candidates first, Constitution Party candidates second, and nobody else third, because of this.

What sparked my piece "Divided They Fail" was the fact that Libertarian Party members were embarrassed and angry that Mary Ruwart, seeking the Party's nomination for President, takes the libertarian position on child sex and child pornography.

It's as if Ruwart was disqualified as a spokesperson for libertarian principles - which is essentially what an LP Presidential candidate is supposed to be - because she held to libertarian principles even in a particularly tough and controversial case. It made me, like this commenter G.E. at Third Party Watch, think that I'd rather vote for the Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin and know I'm getting a "consistent Constitutionalist" than support an LP candidate who somehow draws the best line between aiming to be principled and aiming to please.

The LP's problem is that it tries to do two things. First, it tries to be ideological, and recruit individuals willing to "certify in writing that they oppose the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals." Second, it tries be a political party dedicated to shrinking the size of government - the federal government first and foremost. It can do both, but it can't succeed at both.

• If the LP is to be radical and hard-core, its leader should be a consistent libertarian. Of course, this won't win many votes or lead to long-term growth, which makes one wonder if the Libertarian Party as an outreach tool was a good idea whose time has passed in the Internet Age.

• If the LP's purpose is to win elections and take power on a small-government platform, well of course Ruwart's position on child porn won't help. But if there are differences of opinion on this issue, then there will definitely be differences on major issues as well. Libertarians will differ on specific solutions and the next steps to take. One says sales taxes are worse than income taxes, another says the opposite. Person A says get rid of the welfare state first and then immigration laws, Person B says says the order of what gets repealed first doesn't matter. The one will accuse the other of "betraying" libertarianism.

I respect LP members who want to remain hard-core. It just seems to me that those who would agree with the hard-core position the most will take it to the logical conclusion of not voting and not participating in party politics at all. It is very conceivable that a person could move from frustrated Republican or frustrated Democrat, to being drawn to the Libertarian Party message, to getting deeper and deeper into the libertarian philosophy, to becoming a non-voting anarchist - all within a two-year election cycle. Guess what - the Libertarian Party would have done its job! All too well, in fact - it never does get this person's vote. I respect the hard-core line, but I would suggest building agorist activist organizations and educational institutions would be a better use of their time than campaigning in elections. If nothing else, ballot access laws make their efforts inefficient at best. The sheer irony of a "libertarian" party trying to win power is another drawback. But if that's how some hard-core libertarians want to spend their time and money, I respect that.

I have a bigger problem respecting LP members who a) condemn Mary Ruwart, and/or b) supported Ron Paul, but would never consider an alliance with Constitution Party members. (For the record: I'm not a current LP member, I agree with Ruwart, and I supported Ron Paul.) They won't forgive Ruwart for her consistency, they will forgive Ron Paul for his deviations, but they'll write off the CP as theocrats - even though their differences with libertarianism are in many of the the same areas Ron Paul deviates from it.

I'm not sure what the problem is. The CP opposes abortion because, supposedly, they're religious nutjobs, whereas Ron Paul and pro-life libertarians have a different but principled view of when human rights begin. The CP doesn't believe the First Amendment applies to the states because, supposedly, they're theocrats, whereas Ron Paul - who has sponsored legislation expressing this view - just has an unorthodox but logical interpretation of the Constitution. (For the record, I agree with Paul's view: if the First Amendment was meant to apply to the states, either it or the Fourteenth Amendment would have said so explicitly.)

I think the objections are special pleading. I think libertarians resent the paleoconservative's finger-wagging condescension toward libertarianism, and I think paleoconservatives resent the libertarian's stridency and abstractions. Both sides (except the most hard-core of each) give Ron Paul a pass, and are willing to disagree with him on a few points and still love him, but they won't support anyone else who could bridge this divide.

I'm not asking members of either party to set aside their principles. I'm asking them instead to come together and form a party based on their many points of agreement.

I'm calling for a national party focused strictly on the national issue of the size, scope, and powers of the federal government. Statewide and locally, there may be LP candidates who want legal casinos in the state and strip clubs in the county, and CP candidate who want both banned. Fine - but they can all sign on to a national agenda of downsizing the size, scope, and power of the federal government:

• bring the troops home; no entangling alliances; only Congressionally-declared wars from now on;
• no ceding of legislative, executive, or judicial authority to international organizations;
  
• repeal post-9/11 curbs on civil liberties; restore crime control as a state function; defend the Second Amendment;
  
• cut spending across the board; abolish unconstitutional departments and programs such as the Department of Education;
• deregulate and desubsidize the energy industry;
• work toward a free market in health care;
• simplify the tax code and cut taxes;
• restore a Constitutional money system.
  

Allow differences on these issues:

• the specifics of tax reform;
  
• immigration restrictions;
• tariffs and trade;
• the role of Congress and the federal judiciary on First and Fourteenth Amendment issues pertaining to state and local laws;
• state and local controversies.
  

The goal of downsizing the federal government are the same in both the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. There, and only there, can they and should they work together. Perhaps a national platform could be a new "contract with America" based on points of agreement that could be signed by all party candidates. They can run against each other in primaries emphasizing issues where the platform allows for differences. But if and when elected, they will support the contract they had singed onto.

So everyone gets to keep their principles and ideology, while they support a national party that is dedicated to a smaller federal government but doesn't advance a particular ideology. Say what you will about Republicans and Democrats, but they swallow both their principles and their pride to vote for candidates who differ with them on major issues. Indeed, they do this all the time. Why can't advocates of small government do the same, especially if their differences are minor or technical?

Maybe for the same reason we never succeed: most of us who want small government are driven by principle, not power - and although we are all principled, we continually disagree on which principles. So even when we're in agreement 80% of the time, we go nowhere because those who should be our strongest allies are instead our bitterest enemies.

Perhaps non-voting anarchists and spiritual gurus were right all along: we will never achieve freedom through politics.

Divided They Fail

My latest at the Partial Observer, wondering "If they both support Ron Paul, why don't the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party merge?" Excerpt:

I don't know if it was ever strategically sound to promote philosophical principles through a political party. Principles, to remain principles, must be untarnished, whereas politics works through compromise, which means tarnishing principles. In any case, the Internet has made the dissemination of libertarian principles, and education in the libertarian philosophy, much easier than it used to be. If the Libertarian Party exists to educate, I don't know if that is necessary anymore. If anything, it could lead people who take the philosophy far enough to see the contradiction of the LP's own existence.

But if the purpose of the party is to win elections and govern, it would do well to disband or change its name to something more generic and non-philosophical. It could then do a better job of advancing libertarian ends without allowing the various, necessary and inevitable compromises to besmirch the libertarian philosophy. This is where joining together with the Constitution Party, Ron Paul Republicans, and others come in. If the immediate and primary goal is to downsize the federal government, the various groups that support this goal can no longer be divided against themselves.

Keyes Loses Yet Again

I can't believe it was only eight years ago that I voted for Alan Keyes in the Illinois Republican Presidential Primary. Not that I regret it; he was clearly smarter and less war-mongering than McCain and more explicitly for smaller government than George W. Bush. But I didn't know just how pathetic his act would become. After the Illinois GOP dumped its Senatorial nominee for Senate in 2004 over a personal non-scandal, they chose Keyes, of all people, to move in from out-of-state and get obliterated by Barack Obama.

Not getting the hint that his message was relevant in 1996-2000 but no longer, Keyes entered the GOP race in 2007, only to find out that Ron Paul already had part of his message (the good parts) and Huckabee the rest (the stupid, bad parts). Now, this pro-war neo-conservative tried to get the nomination of the Constitution Party - which has always been anti-war and isolationist. Fortunately, the CP has backed away from Keyes, who probably has yet to figure out that name recognition doesn't serve you if you are a laughingstock.

The CP nominated its 2004 VP nominee, Chuck Baldwin, instead. I have read several of Baldwin's columns and agree with a lot of them. And he has been a Ron Paul supporter. I hope all conservatives, and especially, Ron Paul supporters, unwilling to vote Libertarian will vote for Baldwin. Matthew Roberts writes, "as Chilton Williamson Jr. argues in his recent article “Time for a Multi-Party System,” there could be long-term gains (such as a “multiplicity of parties, representing a multiplicity of interests") in abandoning the two major parties, which have become a “broad and contradictory coalition of factions.” (Better said than done, but a sizeable defection is a start.)"