The Nutcase Across The Street
Reflections On American Politics
The Case For A Third Party
It is not only the media that divides us, but parties. In his farewell address, President George Washington warned us against entangling alliances. He recognized that an ally with common principles and interests today may not share them tomorrow. It is the classical Faustian bargain: do you continue to support your party as it betrays your deepest principles so that it might serve you better in the long run by perhaps defeating the opposing party? Parties lead people to give loyalty to the party rather than to the principles. Over time this can lead to partisanship and corruption.
I’ve never liked parties. They almost force people to disagree when they might not otherwise. It seems that many people feel obligated to defend their leaders against any who threaten their good standing. I’ve always been an independent, but even I was so disgusted by the Democrats constantly lying about George W. Bush that I eventually found myself continuing to make excuses for him even when I began to suspect that some of the lies were actually true. When confronted with Bush quotes that made him sound dangerous, I used my imagination to think of other things he might have meant. When confronted with tales of minor corruption and incompetence, I looked for any reason to believe that the higher-level administrators were not involved. I notice that this is the same type of partisan/loyalist behavior that Democrats engage in. People are much more likely to believe rumors that fit with what they already think they know than they are to accept new information that runs counter to it. My love affair with the Republicans is now over, but if the Democrats don’t shape up, it won’t make any difference.
The two-party system doesn’t serve me very well. On the one hand, Democrats continually increase the centralization and intrusive nature of our government, regulating more and more. This might not be such a problem if the government could not muster the power to enforce these regulations – but that’s where the Republicans come in. Republicans like to project the image of being tough on crime and upholding the rule of law. As part of this, they add measures that make it easier to find and apprehend those who break the law. To be sure, there are dangerous criminals that need to be caught, and Republicans may generally be responsible enough to be trusted – but the same measures used to catch bad people can be misused by future Democrat administrators to catch good people. No institution should have that much power! Likewise, some activities do need to be regulated, and Democrats may generally be bright enough to know how and what, and set policy accordingly – but the same regulatory agencies used for good may be misused by future Republican administrators. In this way, the parties work together to gradually bring us ever closer to tyranny. One does not need to erect an entire tyranny oneself when the opposing party will do half the work and receive all the blame. The two-party system leaves us with no third option and so only serves the interests of the power-hungry elites.
In any election cycle, the winning party often wins based on promises not to continue the excesses of the ruling party. To be fair, they often follow through on these promises, but do they ever repeal anything? Do they ever reverse anything? The Federal Government seems to only increase in size and expenditures. Do those leading your preferred party truly share your interests or do they secretly like the new powers the other party has created? After all, the more power the other party grabs, the easier it is to win on a platform of promising to end these types of power grabs, and then inheriting all that power oneself. Consider: Obama failed to close Guantanamo in a timely manner. The Democrats continue to fund our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush failed to partially privatize Social Security – even when his own party controlled congress. There is little incentive to be good. When the opposing party is perceived to be awful, one merely needs to be less bad.
At this point, I may begin to sound like a conspiracy theorist – the type of people I warned you about in the first chapter, but this is different. I make no claim that leaders of both parties have met together and explicitly discussed this plan. I have no evidence to support that. Indeed, the phenomenon I describe could have happened purely by accident – or as a result of poorly understood, large-scale, social forces. What I’m saying is: if I was able to perceive the pattern and the benefits to those in power to continue “playing the game”, so surely must have those in power – and at least some of them must now be playing deliberately, whether they have discussed it amongst themselves or not.
The only way we can get out of this mess is to have a viable third party. The more parties we have, the more likely there can be an upset, and therefore the more incentive each party has to behave to prevent that. Competition is good. It works in the marketplace. Look, I’m not saying that both parties are equally bad. In fact, I myself have a preference. What I’m saying is that the two-party system itself is flawed and becoming ever more dangerous.
The parties collude in other ways as well. Both parties are heavily involved in currency devaluation. The Fed has been monetizing the debt (17). Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke was appointed first by Bush and later by Obama. Majorities of both parties voted to confirm him(18). Both parties passed NAFTA (19). Both parties support at least some military interventionism. Bush got us into Afghanistan and Iraq. Clinton got us into Bosnia and Kosovo, not to mention ordering missiles fired into Sudan. Both parties are heavily involved in gerrymandering districts, redrawing district boundaries with an eye to demographics to make it harder to unseat incumbents (20). Both parties are up to their eyeballs in corporate donations and lobbyists. Both parties are riddled with corruption. Democrats love to point out with glee Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who for years ran an overbilling scam and had close ties to over one hundred Republican congressmen (21), but the Democrats have ACORN, an organization involved in so many different illegal activities (22) I could devote a whole chapter to them! If you oppose NAFTA, are you being served? If you are a pacifist, are you being served? If you dislike corruption, are you being served? True, there are differences between the parties, but that isn’t enough. We deserve another choice.
Why then don’t we have a third party? Actually, we have several: the libertarians, the greens, the socialists, the reform party, the natural law party, the constitution party, and others. Yet none of them does well. Are the dominant two parties really so much more popular? Why do so many vote for Republicans and Democrats? I can’t speak for everybody, but I have often found myself in the position of being made so afraid of one candidate, that I felt had to defeat them at all costs. Knowing that the candidate receiving the most votes generally wins (ignore the electoral college and what happens with pluralities for the moment), and not wanting to allow the “anti-” vote to be split among several parties, I always vote for the candidate with the greatest chance of defeating the candidate I don’t like – in other words, the one most of the others are voting for.
From what I have heard, this is the same problem plaguing many others. They speak of worrying they are “throwing their vote away” if they vote for a party other than the dominant two. In other words, many of us vote for the dominant parties primarily because the rest of us do. Might we not also vote for another party if we thought that more people were going to also? They vote because of how we vote and we vote because of how they vote. This is crazy. How many actually vote for who they want? Is there any way out of this dilemma? Without knowing how others are going to vote, we will never be free from the fear of losing big. Is there another way?
There has already been a system invented for dealing with just this sort of problem. It is called Condorcet voting. Under such a system, one’s second, third, and sometimes further choices are counted as well as their first. In this way, preferences among the populace between every combination of two candidates are added up. Why should one give up the right to vote on the race between the Greens and Libertarians simply by voting on the race between the Greens and the Democrats? Your vote will never be “thrown away”, and so there is nothing to fear by voting for who you truly like. This is what we need to institute at all levels of government in every election, to respect often neglected points of view. This is the only way to have a fair shot at ending this madness. Condorcet elections are an absolute must if we wish to end our practice of voting for “the lesser of two evils.”
Other measures that have been proposed include lowering the number of signatures necessary to get someone on the ballot, thereby boosting name recognition. Term limits have also been proposed to solve a multitude of ills I won’t go into here, but they will also aid third parties trying to make inroads. Incumbents are hard to unseat, but term limits would open those seats up. The media is perhaps the biggest obstacle to third parties. They claim that candidates low in the polls have no chance of winning, so why put them on? But the reason these candidates remain low in the polls is often in part because the media doesn’t cover them, and so few know who they are. This creates a feedback loop, keeping the dominant parties on top. Some in the media even claim that voters can’t mentally handle more than two or three choices, but the media will often set up debates with nine or more during primaries! Do the same during the general election, that’s all I ask. Personally, I would like to see just the top seven.
How might we get these measures through, if any? The major parties certainly won’t help us. Could we form a coalition of every minor party, united around a few core principles, and running on a platform of ballot reform, term limits, and Condorcet elections, hoping to break through and win in one, big, united campaign? It’s possible. Another option is to create a pledge. Candidates signing the pledge agree to do their utmost to enact each of the measures listed. Whatever is done, now is the time to do it. Anger with the Democrats and Republicans is at an all time high. Forty percent of those registered to vote are now independents (23).
If we do form a coalition party, can we agree enough on core principles to make it work? This I don’t know. Compromise may be in order. In any case, the first step towards working together is listening.
I’ve never liked parties. They almost force people to disagree when they might not otherwise. It seems that many people feel obligated to defend their leaders against any who threaten their good standing. I’ve always been an independent, but even I was so disgusted by the Democrats constantly lying about George W. Bush that I eventually found myself continuing to make excuses for him even when I began to suspect that some of the lies were actually true. When confronted with Bush quotes that made him sound dangerous, I used my imagination to think of other things he might have meant. When confronted with tales of minor corruption and incompetence, I looked for any reason to believe that the higher-level administrators were not involved. I notice that this is the same type of partisan/loyalist behavior that Democrats engage in. People are much more likely to believe rumors that fit with what they already think they know than they are to accept new information that runs counter to it. My love affair with the Republicans is now over, but if the Democrats don’t shape up, it won’t make any difference.
The two-party system doesn’t serve me very well. On the one hand, Democrats continually increase the centralization and intrusive nature of our government, regulating more and more. This might not be such a problem if the government could not muster the power to enforce these regulations – but that’s where the Republicans come in. Republicans like to project the image of being tough on crime and upholding the rule of law. As part of this, they add measures that make it easier to find and apprehend those who break the law. To be sure, there are dangerous criminals that need to be caught, and Republicans may generally be responsible enough to be trusted – but the same measures used to catch bad people can be misused by future Democrat administrators to catch good people. No institution should have that much power! Likewise, some activities do need to be regulated, and Democrats may generally be bright enough to know how and what, and set policy accordingly – but the same regulatory agencies used for good may be misused by future Republican administrators. In this way, the parties work together to gradually bring us ever closer to tyranny. One does not need to erect an entire tyranny oneself when the opposing party will do half the work and receive all the blame. The two-party system leaves us with no third option and so only serves the interests of the power-hungry elites.
In any election cycle, the winning party often wins based on promises not to continue the excesses of the ruling party. To be fair, they often follow through on these promises, but do they ever repeal anything? Do they ever reverse anything? The Federal Government seems to only increase in size and expenditures. Do those leading your preferred party truly share your interests or do they secretly like the new powers the other party has created? After all, the more power the other party grabs, the easier it is to win on a platform of promising to end these types of power grabs, and then inheriting all that power oneself. Consider: Obama failed to close Guantanamo in a timely manner. The Democrats continue to fund our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush failed to partially privatize Social Security – even when his own party controlled congress. There is little incentive to be good. When the opposing party is perceived to be awful, one merely needs to be less bad.
At this point, I may begin to sound like a conspiracy theorist – the type of people I warned you about in the first chapter, but this is different. I make no claim that leaders of both parties have met together and explicitly discussed this plan. I have no evidence to support that. Indeed, the phenomenon I describe could have happened purely by accident – or as a result of poorly understood, large-scale, social forces. What I’m saying is: if I was able to perceive the pattern and the benefits to those in power to continue “playing the game”, so surely must have those in power – and at least some of them must now be playing deliberately, whether they have discussed it amongst themselves or not.
The only way we can get out of this mess is to have a viable third party. The more parties we have, the more likely there can be an upset, and therefore the more incentive each party has to behave to prevent that. Competition is good. It works in the marketplace. Look, I’m not saying that both parties are equally bad. In fact, I myself have a preference. What I’m saying is that the two-party system itself is flawed and becoming ever more dangerous.
The parties collude in other ways as well. Both parties are heavily involved in currency devaluation. The Fed has been monetizing the debt (17). Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke was appointed first by Bush and later by Obama. Majorities of both parties voted to confirm him(18). Both parties passed NAFTA (19). Both parties support at least some military interventionism. Bush got us into Afghanistan and Iraq. Clinton got us into Bosnia and Kosovo, not to mention ordering missiles fired into Sudan. Both parties are heavily involved in gerrymandering districts, redrawing district boundaries with an eye to demographics to make it harder to unseat incumbents (20). Both parties are up to their eyeballs in corporate donations and lobbyists. Both parties are riddled with corruption. Democrats love to point out with glee Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who for years ran an overbilling scam and had close ties to over one hundred Republican congressmen (21), but the Democrats have ACORN, an organization involved in so many different illegal activities (22) I could devote a whole chapter to them! If you oppose NAFTA, are you being served? If you are a pacifist, are you being served? If you dislike corruption, are you being served? True, there are differences between the parties, but that isn’t enough. We deserve another choice.
Why then don’t we have a third party? Actually, we have several: the libertarians, the greens, the socialists, the reform party, the natural law party, the constitution party, and others. Yet none of them does well. Are the dominant two parties really so much more popular? Why do so many vote for Republicans and Democrats? I can’t speak for everybody, but I have often found myself in the position of being made so afraid of one candidate, that I felt had to defeat them at all costs. Knowing that the candidate receiving the most votes generally wins (ignore the electoral college and what happens with pluralities for the moment), and not wanting to allow the “anti-” vote to be split among several parties, I always vote for the candidate with the greatest chance of defeating the candidate I don’t like – in other words, the one most of the others are voting for.
From what I have heard, this is the same problem plaguing many others. They speak of worrying they are “throwing their vote away” if they vote for a party other than the dominant two. In other words, many of us vote for the dominant parties primarily because the rest of us do. Might we not also vote for another party if we thought that more people were going to also? They vote because of how we vote and we vote because of how they vote. This is crazy. How many actually vote for who they want? Is there any way out of this dilemma? Without knowing how others are going to vote, we will never be free from the fear of losing big. Is there another way?
There has already been a system invented for dealing with just this sort of problem. It is called Condorcet voting. Under such a system, one’s second, third, and sometimes further choices are counted as well as their first. In this way, preferences among the populace between every combination of two candidates are added up. Why should one give up the right to vote on the race between the Greens and Libertarians simply by voting on the race between the Greens and the Democrats? Your vote will never be “thrown away”, and so there is nothing to fear by voting for who you truly like. This is what we need to institute at all levels of government in every election, to respect often neglected points of view. This is the only way to have a fair shot at ending this madness. Condorcet elections are an absolute must if we wish to end our practice of voting for “the lesser of two evils.”
Other measures that have been proposed include lowering the number of signatures necessary to get someone on the ballot, thereby boosting name recognition. Term limits have also been proposed to solve a multitude of ills I won’t go into here, but they will also aid third parties trying to make inroads. Incumbents are hard to unseat, but term limits would open those seats up. The media is perhaps the biggest obstacle to third parties. They claim that candidates low in the polls have no chance of winning, so why put them on? But the reason these candidates remain low in the polls is often in part because the media doesn’t cover them, and so few know who they are. This creates a feedback loop, keeping the dominant parties on top. Some in the media even claim that voters can’t mentally handle more than two or three choices, but the media will often set up debates with nine or more during primaries! Do the same during the general election, that’s all I ask. Personally, I would like to see just the top seven.
How might we get these measures through, if any? The major parties certainly won’t help us. Could we form a coalition of every minor party, united around a few core principles, and running on a platform of ballot reform, term limits, and Condorcet elections, hoping to break through and win in one, big, united campaign? It’s possible. Another option is to create a pledge. Candidates signing the pledge agree to do their utmost to enact each of the measures listed. Whatever is done, now is the time to do it. Anger with the Democrats and Republicans is at an all time high. Forty percent of those registered to vote are now independents (23).
If we do form a coalition party, can we agree enough on core principles to make it work? This I don’t know. Compromise may be in order. In any case, the first step towards working together is listening.