The Future Third Party

[PoliticalChic]

1. “ On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. This is the partnership in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.”

2. Thus these Republican leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans.

3. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.”



4. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. …the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.

a. … only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side….any democratic government’s claim to the obedience of citizens depends on the extent to which voters feel they are party to the polity.

5. … of the ruling class does not concede that those who resist it have any moral or intellectual right, and only reluctantly any civil right, to do so. Resistance is illegitimate because it can come only from low motives. President Obama’s statement that Republican legislators – and hence the people who elect them – don’t care whether “seniors have decent health care…children have enough to eat” is typical. Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms because they do not want to beat the ruling class, but to join it …


6. …the closer one gets to the Republican Party’s voters, the more the Party looks like Goldwater and Reagan. The closer one gets to its top, the more it looks like the ghost of Rockefeller. Consider 2012: the party chose for President someone preferred by only one fourth of its voters – Mitt Romney, whose first youthful venture in politics had been to take part in the political blackballing of Barry Goldwater.

7. … the ruling class’ near monopoly on credentials, advancement, publicity, and money draws ambitious Republicans into the Democrats’ orbit. That is why for example a majority of the Republican Establishment, including The Wall Street Journal and the post-W.F. Buckley National Review supported the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and its premise that big, well-connected enterprises are “too big to fail” - which three fourths of the American people opposed vociferously.




8. Some Democrats seem to believe that taking these Republicans unto themselves while deeming the remainder “unworthy,” withdrawing “tolerance toward [their] regressive opinions,” will crush serious opposition. Maybe.

9. … In short, the Republican leadership finds itself in a position analogous to that of Episcopal bishops: They own an august label and increasingly empty churches because they have been chasing off the faithful priests and congregations.





10. Those on the electronic distribution list of the “Club for Growth,” for example, are at least as well informed on economic matters as any credentialed policy maker. The several pro-life organizations have spread enough knowledge of embryology and moral logic to make Roe v. Wade, which the ruling class regards as its greatest victory, a shrinking island in American jurisprudence and society. The countless Tea Parties that have sprung up all over have added their countless attendees to networks of information and organization despite the ruling class’ effort to demonize them. The same goes for evangelicals, gun owners, etc. Though such groups represent the country class fragmentarily, country class people identify with them rather than with the Republican Party because the groups actually stand for something, and represent their adherents against the ruling class’ charges, insults, etc.

A new party is likely to arise because the public holds both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the nation’s unsustainable course. Indebtedness cannot increase endlessly. Nor can regulations pile on top of regulations while the officials who promulgate them – and their pensions – continue to grow, without crushing those beneath. Nor can the population’s rush to disability status and other forms of public assistance, or the no-win wars that have resulted in “open season” on Americans around the world, continue without catharsis. One half of the population cannot continue passively to absorb insults without pushing back. As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned - Forbes

 

[emilynghiem]

The solution calls for
minting your own money, managing your own labor,
and watching where you invest your resources and authority for decisions.

Ithaca Hours - Local Currency - Ithaca, New York

Home

PC Do you think the poor villages in Africa or India wait for
Federal Reserve dollars to be allocated to them before they eat or build a house?
The natural way of building community and economy is to start pooling, sharing, and exchanging goods and services with others in your area or network.

Communities can and are already doing this legally through either online barter credits managed through a database, or actually printing their own local series of notes
and exchanging these through a network of workers and businesses accepting
to circulate them. The rules to be legal are (a) the bills must be larger in denomination than a $1 USD and smaller in size dimensionally (b) restricted to a certain geographic region (c) any local, state or federal laws still apply, where any sales or income taxes that would normally be reported or paid on an exchange of goods or services still apply where that institution would require USD.

People on all sides are criticizing political parties for selling out constituents and public for political office and financial campaign support; so why not start with parties and have members issue bonds or notes to finance programs and policies backed with their labor and capital they WANT to invest in those areas? And have the other parties do the same. We'd all be too busy working and negotiating how to pay for what, and which policies are cost-effective and sustainable to invest in, there would not be time to fight except to resolve things so we can get it all done!

There is already the independent Greens, Tea Party and Occupy influencing the other parties to push for change. Even if it doesn't require consolidating these under a new party, but delegating and organizing under the existing parties as they already are established, the "new" party system may be adopting a policy of equal representation, either isonomy/equal responsibility for laws and govt or at least proportional or direct representation by party so all interests are included and protected equally. This would reform all parties from within and how they work by together to use the diversity as an advantage instead of competing to bully each other down in the media to monopolize public control.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The solution calls for
minting your own money, managing your own labor,
and watching where you invest your resources and authority for decisions.

Ithaca Hours - Local Currency - Ithaca, New York

Home

PC Do you think the poor villages in Africa or India wait for
Federal Reserve dollars to be allocated to them before they eat or build a house?
The natural way of building community and economy is to start pooling, sharing, and exchanging goods and services with others in your area or network.

Communities can and are already doing this legally through either online barter credits managed through a database, or actually printing their own local series of notes
and exchanging these through a network of workers and businesses accepting
to circulate them. The rules to be legal are (a) the bills must be larger in denomination than a $1 USD and smaller in size dimensionally (b) restricted to a certain geographic region (c) any local, state or federal laws still apply, where any sales or income taxes that would normally be reported or paid on an exchange of goods or services still apply where that institution would require USD.

People on all sides are criticizing political parties for selling out constituents and public for political office and financial campaign support; so why not start with parties and have members issue bonds or notes to finance programs and policies backed with their labor and capital they WANT to invest in those areas? And have the other parties do the same. We'd all be too busy working and negotiating how to pay for what, and which policies are cost-effective and sustainable to invest in, there would not be time to fight except to resolve things so we can get it all done!

There is already the independent Greens, Tea Party and Occupy influencing the other parties to push for change. Even if it doesn't require consolidating these under a new party, but delegating and organizing under the existing parties as they already are established, the "new" party system may be adopting a policy of equal representation, either isonomy/equal responsibility for laws and govt or at least proportional or direct representation by party so all interests are included and protected equally. This would reform all parties from within and how they work by together to use the diversity as an advantage instead of competing to bully each other down in the media to monopolize public control.

1. I would hope that you find the time to read Angelo Codevilla's seminal piece in Forbes....from which I have drawn the synopsis of the OP.

2. "why not start with parties and have members issue bonds or notes to finance programs and policies backed with their labor and capital they WANT to invest in those areas?"

The Constitution grants the Congress the right to coin money and to regulate its value, and it is 'necessary and proper' to create the Bureau of the Mint.


3. "There is already the independent Greens, Tea Party and Occupy influencing the other parties to push for change."
The OP deals not with the various interest groups, but the quest for a national party.

a. "This of course is what happened to the Whig party after 1850. After it became undeniable that party leader Henry Clay’s latest great compromise had sold the party’s principles cheap, the most vigorous Whigs, e.g. New York governor William Seward and national hero John C. Fremont – joined by an obscure Illinois ex-congressman named Abraham Lincoln whose only asset was that he reasoned well – looked for another vehicle for their cause. In 1854, together with representatives of other groups, they founded the Republican Party. Today the majority of Republican congressmen plus a minority of senators – dissidents from the Party but solid with their voters – are the natural core of a new party."
From the original source.


4. "...reform all parties from within..."
Hardly.
The fact is that "Modern America’s homogenizing educational Establishment and the ruling class’ near monopoly on credentials, advancement, publicity, and money draws ambitious Republicans into the Democrats’ orbit."

Thus....we live under an oppressive one-party system, and those of us with other beliefs are political orphans.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

1. “ On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. This is the partnership in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.”

2. Thus these Republican leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans.

3. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.”



4. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. …the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.

a. … only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side….any democratic government’s claim to the obedience of citizens depends on the extent to which voters feel they are party to the polity.

5. … of the ruling class does not concede that those who resist it have any moral or intellectual right, and only reluctantly any civil right, to do so. Resistance is illegitimate because it can come only from low motives. President Obama’s statement that Republican legislators – and hence the people who elect them – don’t care whether “seniors have decent health care…children have enough to eat” is typical. Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms because they do not want to beat the ruling class, but to join it …


6. …the closer one gets to the Republican Party’s voters, the more the Party looks like Goldwater and Reagan. The closer one gets to its top, the more it looks like the ghost of Rockefeller. Consider 2012: the party chose for President someone preferred by only one fourth of its voters – Mitt Romney, whose first youthful venture in politics had been to take part in the political blackballing of Barry Goldwater.

7. … the ruling class’ near monopoly on credentials, advancement, publicity, and money draws ambitious Republicans into the Democrats’ orbit. That is why for example a majority of the Republican Establishment, including The Wall Street Journal and the post-W.F. Buckley National Review supported the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and its premise that big, well-connected enterprises are “too big to fail” - which three fourths of the American people opposed vociferously.




8. Some Democrats seem to believe that taking these Republicans unto themselves while deeming the remainder “unworthy,” withdrawing “tolerance toward [their] regressive opinions,” will crush serious opposition. Maybe.

9. … In short, the Republican leadership finds itself in a position analogous to that of Episcopal bishops: They own an august label and increasingly empty churches because they have been chasing off the faithful priests and congregations.





10. Those on the electronic distribution list of the “Club for Growth,” for example, are at least as well informed on economic matters as any credentialed policy maker. The several pro-life organizations have spread enough knowledge of embryology and moral logic to make Roe v. Wade, which the ruling class regards as its greatest victory, a shrinking island in American jurisprudence and society. The countless Tea Parties that have sprung up all over have added their countless attendees to networks of information and organization despite the ruling class’ effort to demonize them. The same goes for evangelicals, gun owners, etc. Though such groups represent the country class fragmentarily, country class people identify with them rather than with the Republican Party because the groups actually stand for something, and represent their adherents against the ruling class’ charges, insults, etc.

A new party is likely to arise because the public holds both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the nation’s unsustainable course. Indebtedness cannot increase endlessly. Nor can regulations pile on top of regulations while the officials who promulgate them – and their pensions – continue to grow, without crushing those beneath. Nor can the population’s rush to disability status and other forms of public assistance, or the no-win wars that have resulted in “open season” on Americans around the world, continue without catharsis. One half of the population cannot continue passively to absorb insults without pushing back. As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned - Forbes

I JUST heard that read, last night, by Mark Levin on his radio show.

Brilliant stuff.

Thanks for sharing it. For the first time in a very long time, I see at least a long shot of a viable third party being formed that can do something other than merely play spoiler.

 

[g5000]

I say all the good Catholics and Lutherans who obey the tenets of their churches by opposing the death penalty should join this new third party.

I also say all the critical thinkers who don't believe "Obama watched as they died" or that Obama was going to write "unconstitutional gun-grabbing EOs" or that Chuck Hagel took money from the Friends of Hamas should join this party.

I say anyone who does not blindly copy and paste from partisan web sites without fact checking the bullshit first should join this new third party.

I say anyone who believes all tax expenditures should be banned should join this new third party. If you believe you can't buy a Congressman if he can't put a subsidy or tax loophole in the tax code for you, this new party is for you!

I say anyone who believes we should raise the Medicare and Social Security eligibility age to 70 and index it to 9 percent of the population going forward should join this new third party. If you believe we are living decades longer than our ancestors and therefore should not be retiring the same age they did, this new party is for you!

I say anyone who believes gay people deserve the same rights and privileges bestowed by law upon others should join this new third party.

I say anyone who believes gun buyers should be registered, and not guns, should join this new third party. We register voters and then it is none of the government's business how they exercise their constitutional right to vote from there. If you believe we should do the same for gun buyers, this new party is for you!

 

[konradv]

Oh boy! A third evil.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I say all the good Catholics and Lutherans who obey the tenets of their churches by opposing the death penalty should join this new third party.

I also say all the critical thinkers who don't believe "Obama watched as they died" or that Obama was going to write "unconstitutional gun-grabbing EOs" or that Chuck Hagel took money from the Friends of Hamas should join this party.

I say anyone who does not blindly copy and paste from partisan web sites without fact checking the bullshit first should join this new third party.

I say anyone who believes all tax expenditures should be banned should join this new third party. If you believe you can't buy a Congressman if he can't put a subsidy or tax loophole in the tax code for you, this new party is for you!

I say anyone who believes we should raise the Medicare and Social Security eligibility age to 70 and index it to 9 percent of the population going forward should join this new third party. If you believe we are living decades longer than our ancestors and therefore should not be retiring the same age they did, this new party is for you!

I say anyone who believes gay people deserve the same rights and privileges bestowed by law upon others should join this new third party.

I say anyone who believes gun buyers should be registered, and not guns, should join this new third party. We register voters and then it is none of the government's business how they exercise their constitutional right to vote from there. If you believe we should do the same for gun buyers, this new party is for you!

It's not necessary for you to extend yourself to prove what a fool you are.....it is evident at first glance.

 

[NYcarbineer]

It's a makeover/rebranding of the Tea Party.

Good luck with that.

Form a third party to the right of the establishment GOP and effectively cede the entire center/left to the Democrats. Good plan lolol.

I'm in!!!!!!!

 

[Locke11_21]

The Republican Party is in trouble. I would say the likes of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove and other establishment trash like that have done more to destroy the Republican Party than the Democrats or the Democrats rump swabs also known as the media could have ever dreamed of doing. These establishment types attack other Republicans far worse than they attack Democrats. The establishment has made the Republican Party nothing more than a rubber stamp for the Democrats, people who vote Republican want opposition, not compliance. The Republicans have done nothing to earn my vote, I am voting straight 3rd party in 2014.

 

[editec]

I'd love to see a truly NATIONALIST party form.

I SUSPECT that there'd need to be at least TWO of them, though, since there are true nationalists who have wildly different ideas about how this nation is best served by policies.

I point this out merely because I do not think either the Dem or the Rep parties are nationalistic anymore.

FWIW I think at one time both of the truly were.

 

[there4eyeM]

An alternative is absolutely essential, but I can't see this as a real change, or at least not enough.

 

[editec]

An alternative is absolutely essential, but I can't see this as a real change, or at least not enough.

If true reformers controlled congress then it probably would.

Note, please, I said probably.

If true reformer actually took control of Congress, I think the gloves might come off and the authoritarians might very well try to pull off a coupe d etat.

 

[konradv]

The answer isn't a third party. We need to diminish the power of the ones we have. They should be purveyors of ideas, but because of the way we fund elections, they're money collecting machines contributing to the legal bribery of our representitives. The only way to change the system, IMO, is to go to public funding. It'll cost us less in the long run, if politicians have fewer expensive promises to keep to deep pocket donors.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The answer isn't a third party. We need to diminish the power of the ones we have. They should be purveyors of ideas, but because of the way we fund elections, they're money collecting machines contributing to the legal bribery of our representitives. The only way to change the system, IMO, is to go to public funding. It'll cost us less in the long run, if politicians have fewer expensive promises to keep to deep pocket donors.

"We need to diminish the power of the ones we have,"

Almost there!

C'mon....a tiny bit further.

OK...I'll help: "...and reduce the size of government."

 

[Spoonman]

frustration levels are at an all time high. all trolling aside, if anyone really believes their party is doing a good job, they really are nothing more than blind sheep. I feel sorry for anyone who really thinks any politicians are doing us any service. we've been screwed over by politicians for decades and are left with a real mess. the question is, are there people out there who can back away from the greed and help guide us on the right track again?

 

[Toronado3800]

1. “ On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. This is the partnership in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.”

2. Thus these Republican leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans.

3. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.”



4. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. …the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.

a. … only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side….any democratic government’s claim to the obedience of citizens depends on the extent to which voters feel they are party to the polity.

5. … of the ruling class does not concede that those who resist it have any moral or intellectual right, and only reluctantly any civil right, to do so. Resistance is illegitimate because it can come only from low motives. President Obama’s statement that Republican legislators – and hence the people who elect them – don’t care whether “seniors have decent health care…children have enough to eat” is typical. Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms because they do not want to beat the ruling class, but to join it …


6. …the closer one gets to the Republican Party’s voters, the more the Party looks like Goldwater and Reagan. The closer one gets to its top, the more it looks like the ghost of Rockefeller. Consider 2012: the party chose for President someone preferred by only one fourth of its voters – Mitt Romney, whose first youthful venture in politics had been to take part in the political blackballing of Barry Goldwater.

7. … the ruling class’ near monopoly on credentials, advancement, publicity, and money draws ambitious Republicans into the Democrats’ orbit. That is why for example a majority of the Republican Establishment, including The Wall Street Journal and the post-W.F. Buckley National Review supported the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and its premise that big, well-connected enterprises are “too big to fail” - which three fourths of the American people opposed vociferously.




8. Some Democrats seem to believe that taking these Republicans unto themselves while deeming the remainder “unworthy,” withdrawing “tolerance toward [their] regressive opinions,” will crush serious opposition. Maybe.

9. … In short, the Republican leadership finds itself in a position analogous to that of Episcopal bishops: They own an august label and increasingly empty churches because they have been chasing off the faithful priests and congregations.





10. Those on the electronic distribution list of the “Club for Growth,” for example, are at least as well informed on economic matters as any credentialed policy maker. The several pro-life organizations have spread enough knowledge of embryology and moral logic to make Roe v. Wade, which the ruling class regards as its greatest victory, a shrinking island in American jurisprudence and society. The countless Tea Parties that have sprung up all over have added their countless attendees to networks of information and organization despite the ruling class’ effort to demonize them. The same goes for evangelicals, gun owners, etc. Though such groups represent the country class fragmentarily, country class people identify with them rather than with the Republican Party because the groups actually stand for something, and represent their adherents against the ruling class’ charges, insults, etc.

A new party is likely to arise because the public holds both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the nation’s unsustainable course. Indebtedness cannot increase endlessly. Nor can regulations pile on top of regulations while the officials who promulgate them – and their pensions – continue to grow, without crushing those beneath. Nor can the population’s rush to disability status and other forms of public assistance, or the no-win wars that have resulted in “open season” on Americans around the world, continue without catharsis. One half of the population cannot continue passively to absorb insults without pushing back. As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned - Forbes

Not so much of an issues post but in this case I agree with you. Since Reagan the Republicans have had a split personality and have only given token support to some of their one issue supporters (abortion in particular).

I LOVE the idea of a third party to break up the ruling class. Perhaps an honest small government/libertarian (read no government in your womb, bedroom, or political party meetings) can surface. The current splits are odd.

How can libertarians avoid sounding like radicals and embrace 20th century standards in environental, workplace and healthcare regulations?

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. “ On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. This is the partnership in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.”

2. Thus these Republican leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans.

3. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.”



4. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. …the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.

a. … only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side….any democratic government’s claim to the obedience of citizens depends on the extent to which voters feel they are party to the polity.

5. … of the ruling class does not concede that those who resist it have any moral or intellectual right, and only reluctantly any civil right, to do so. Resistance is illegitimate because it can come only from low motives. President Obama’s statement that Republican legislators – and hence the people who elect them – don’t care whether “seniors have decent health care…children have enough to eat” is typical. Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms because they do not want to beat the ruling class, but to join it …


6. …the closer one gets to the Republican Party’s voters, the more the Party looks like Goldwater and Reagan. The closer one gets to its top, the more it looks like the ghost of Rockefeller. Consider 2012: the party chose for President someone preferred by only one fourth of its voters – Mitt Romney, whose first youthful venture in politics had been to take part in the political blackballing of Barry Goldwater.

7. … the ruling class’ near monopoly on credentials, advancement, publicity, and money draws ambitious Republicans into the Democrats’ orbit. That is why for example a majority of the Republican Establishment, including The Wall Street Journal and the post-W.F. Buckley National Review supported the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and its premise that big, well-connected enterprises are “too big to fail” - which three fourths of the American people opposed vociferously.




8. Some Democrats seem to believe that taking these Republicans unto themselves while deeming the remainder “unworthy,” withdrawing “tolerance toward [their] regressive opinions,” will crush serious opposition. Maybe.

9. … In short, the Republican leadership finds itself in a position analogous to that of Episcopal bishops: They own an august label and increasingly empty churches because they have been chasing off the faithful priests and congregations.





10. Those on the electronic distribution list of the “Club for Growth,” for example, are at least as well informed on economic matters as any credentialed policy maker. The several pro-life organizations have spread enough knowledge of embryology and moral logic to make Roe v. Wade, which the ruling class regards as its greatest victory, a shrinking island in American jurisprudence and society. The countless Tea Parties that have sprung up all over have added their countless attendees to networks of information and organization despite the ruling class’ effort to demonize them. The same goes for evangelicals, gun owners, etc. Though such groups represent the country class fragmentarily, country class people identify with them rather than with the Republican Party because the groups actually stand for something, and represent their adherents against the ruling class’ charges, insults, etc.

A new party is likely to arise because the public holds both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the nation’s unsustainable course. Indebtedness cannot increase endlessly. Nor can regulations pile on top of regulations while the officials who promulgate them – and their pensions – continue to grow, without crushing those beneath. Nor can the population’s rush to disability status and other forms of public assistance, or the no-win wars that have resulted in “open season” on Americans around the world, continue without catharsis. One half of the population cannot continue passively to absorb insults without pushing back. As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned - Forbes

Not so much of an issues post but in this case I agree with you. Since Reagan the Republicans have had a split personality and have only given token support to some of their one issue supporters (abortion in particular).

I LOVE the idea of a third party to break up the ruling class. Perhaps an honest small government/libertarian (read no government in your womb, bedroom, or political party meetings) can surface. The current splits are odd.

How can libertarians avoid sounding like radicals and embrace 20th century standards in environental, workplace and healthcare regulations?

You might like Codevilla's essay on the ruling class:

The American Spectator : America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution



I just noticed that even my notes on the article are about 12 pages long!

 

[konradv]

frustration levels are at an all time high. all trolling aside, if anyone really believes their party is doing a good job, they really are nothing more than blind sheep. I feel sorry for anyone who really thinks any politicians are doing us any service. we've been screwed over by politicians for decades and are left with a real mess. the question is, are there people out there who can back away from the greed and help guide us on the right track again?

Not as long as they have to go hat-in-hand for campaign contributions. Our politicians are owned by the biggest donors and their respective parties. If we want them to listen to us, we've got to foot the bill. Support public financing of elections. Not only will it cost us less in the long run, if politicians don't have to spend so much time shilling for campaign contributions, they might actually have the time to read a bill or two.

 

[there4eyeM]

An alternative is absolutely essential, but I can't see this as a real change, or at least not enough.

If true reformers controlled congress then it probably would.

Note, please, I said probably.

If true reformer actually took control of Congress, I think the gloves might come off and the authoritarians might very well try to pull off a coupe d etat.

Or just arrange a ride in a convertible....

...oops, sliding into the conspiracy realm! I'm sure (well, almost sure) Kennedy was not killed by the C.I.A. or Johnson.

 

[Obamanation]

There is no doubt in my mind that we need politicians who can be true to their ideals and not their lobbies. We have got to figure out how to fix the money problem in Washington. ...and this time I'm not talking about the defecit/gov't spending.