Fifty-two percent of Republicans say that America needs a third party, according to a newly released Gallup poll. Forty-nine percent of Democrats say the same thing.
Actually, that’s not quite right. America does not need a third party; it needs a second party.
Right now, we have two parties who compete in the game of wealth redistribution via power politics. One party does it with trillion dollar deficits, while the other proposes mere billion dollar ones; the highest bidder naturally wins.
A second party would look nothing like the Republican Party. A second party would support individual rights.
Examples of individual rights?
The right to keep every penny—or billion, or trillion—that you earn. If you earn it without coercion or fraud, it’s yours, plain and simple.
What about charity? According to a second party: It’s voluntary. Nobody has a right to the property of another. Nobody’s real or alleged need is a claim on another’s property, merely because another happens to have passed the magic income level of $250,000 per year.
What about health and retirement care? Voluntary and private sector. We can’t pull the plug on current beneficiaries of Medicare and Social Security, at least not those forced to pay for those fraudulent schemes for decades. But the next generations will have to save on their own. It always should have been that way. If you scoff at this, then look at the unsustainable deficits and ask yourself what’s superior about the current system we have. If you don’t favor “single payer” government control of groceries, houses, automobiles, computers, cell phones or haircuts, then why “single payer” for medicine and retirement?
What about defense? Under a second party, it won’t be about nation-building. There will be no foreign aid to dictatorships so politicians may say, ‘Look at me. Look how generous I am.’ Nothing that passes through government hands ever remotely leads to anything like generosity. War? Never, except for self-defense. And when in legitimate self-defense, let no bomb or weapon be spared.
What about ‘family values’ and social issues? Under a second party, those will have nothing whatsoever to do with government. The only time government concerns itself with sex? Molesting of children, and rape. Beyond that—government, stay the hell out of the way, just as with business and economics.
These policies clearly have nothing whatsoever to do with the policies, beliefs and attitudes of either of our present parties.
If it’s a second party you want—or a ‘third party,’ if you insist—then this is what it will look like. Otherwise, you might as well keep what you have now.
“In fact,” said Gallup in its analysis of the poll, “this marks the first time that a majority of either party’s supporters have said a third party is needed.”
I don’t know why nearly half of all Democrats propose a third party. Under Obama and the Congress (aside from the Tea Party minority), they’re getting exactly what they want: Higher taxes; socialized medicine; increased government regulation of every sector of the economy; environmentalist agendas imposed by presidential fiat; a Supreme Court who agrees with them on Obamacare and most other things. What in the world do Democrats have to complain about? They control all of academia, Hollywood and most of the media. Dissenting opinion (by non-leftists) isn’t quite illegal, but it’s barely tolerated. It’s always their agenda that wins in the end, and we live in the midst of Democratic socialist ideas from Obama back to FDR, Woodrow Wilson and before. Witness the results.
The real problem is deeper than Democrat vs. Republican. Most people who want a ‘third party’ are seeking to resolve an impossible contradiction. Most Democrats—and frankly most Republicans—seek an elusive ‘third way’ between capitalism and socialism; between prosperity and equality of conditions; between freedom and force.
You cannot have it both ways. If you like the perks of freedom, you have to accept that people will not be equally wealthy, equally intelligent or equally happy. Under freedom, you’re free to help anyone you wish, any time you wish.
But under freedom we’re also free to be ourselves, and we’re simply not all the same. If your heart bleeds over this fact, then start a charity; don’t enlist the aid of an army or an Internal Revenue Service. Don’t impose a police state on the rest of us, so your conscience can sleep soundly at night.
Most people detest capitalism. Republicans treat it as a necessary evil, while Democrats demand its elimination. Of course, it’s not even capitalism unless all property is privately owned. Most ‘capitalists’ are at least partly owned by the politicians who rule them, politicians who are bought by the donations made to them. Of course it’s corrupt—what we have today—but it’s not “hands off” (i.e. genuine) capitalism. Yet capitalism—the system we do NOT presently have—gets all the blame for literally everything that goes wrong.
It’s easy to blame the Republicans—or the Democrats too, for that matter. But the real problem is with the people themselves. Leaders who would speak the truth, and require Americans to face the truth about their contradictions? They’re out there, but they’d never be elected. This is the fault, first and foremost, of the people. When the people change their minds, the politicians will follow suit. And not a moment sooner.
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