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Is it time for a third party?
- Thread starter 2ndamd
- Start date
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
Once the Third Party wins the presidency, I predict it will be time for the 4th Party.
It is a fantasy that a hard rock social conservative party could win a national election in the USA. It's fun for the true believers to talk about it but it is as realistic as the guys wanting to fight a civil war for gun rights.
It is better for the RKBA to adopt a strategy to get folks across the political spectrum to value the RKBA as a basic freedom than to think one could impose conservative social values as a prerequisite and correlate of preserving gun rights.
In fact, IMHO, it is the perceived necessary link of gun rights with socially conservative nut bags that is a major weakness of the RKBA.
It is a fantasy that a hard rock social conservative party could win a national election in the USA. It's fun for the true believers to talk about it but it is as realistic as the guys wanting to fight a civil war for gun rights.
It is better for the RKBA to adopt a strategy to get folks across the political spectrum to value the RKBA as a basic freedom than to think one could impose conservative social values as a prerequisite and correlate of preserving gun rights.
In fact, IMHO, it is the perceived necessary link of gun rights with socially conservative nut bags that is a major weakness of the RKBA.
As was posted, but to restate:
A real third party or in reality a real 2nd party (non-establishment party) will never happen unless there is a sustained grassroots movement that focuses on building it from the ground up through local elections and local offices. The people of this country are not going to elect someone to the presidency from a party that has no track record of governence. A famous celeb that people "feel" they know might be able to get elected in theory - but without a solid party platform or set of established ideas about what the party stands for, then nothing would have been accomplished other than electing a single powerless third party candidate that would be investigated, blocked, and relentlessly attack for his/her entire time in office.
Even trying to build a third party from the grassroots in local elections is almost impossible - the moment the party started to gain any traction the national parties would start to investigate, demonize, and most effectively - begin to co-opt the third parties most popular issues while avoiding any significant changes in the status quo - the continued growth in the power of government.
I would imagine therefor that the most effective way towards a sea-change in government would not be through a third party at all but through the gradual co-opting or taking over of the existing parties. That would mean starting at the local level - starting to run candidates in the primaries - candidates with a shared political belief system that could, as they win primaries and then general elections, begin to change the national parties from the inside.
Aye, but there's the rub, what belief system. What belief system can inspire enough people to join together,to work hard enough to effect true change? Such a belief system would have to have great appeal and power to bring so many together to work for change.
The irony is that such a message, one that could move people to make real change and put aside their non-essential differences, would by itself be so powerful that no political organized movement or third party would really be necessary - as the existing parties would eventually bend to the prevaling wind.
So, anybody got the "message," the magic formula for igniting and uniting a large portion of the people of this country into reversing the growing power of government and to restoring liberty. I'll wait.
Cynically, as has been said many times, people generally get the kind of government they deserve - that does not paint a rosey picture for our nation.
A real third party or in reality a real 2nd party (non-establishment party) will never happen unless there is a sustained grassroots movement that focuses on building it from the ground up through local elections and local offices. The people of this country are not going to elect someone to the presidency from a party that has no track record of governence. A famous celeb that people "feel" they know might be able to get elected in theory - but without a solid party platform or set of established ideas about what the party stands for, then nothing would have been accomplished other than electing a single powerless third party candidate that would be investigated, blocked, and relentlessly attack for his/her entire time in office.
Even trying to build a third party from the grassroots in local elections is almost impossible - the moment the party started to gain any traction the national parties would start to investigate, demonize, and most effectively - begin to co-opt the third parties most popular issues while avoiding any significant changes in the status quo - the continued growth in the power of government.
I would imagine therefor that the most effective way towards a sea-change in government would not be through a third party at all but through the gradual co-opting or taking over of the existing parties. That would mean starting at the local level - starting to run candidates in the primaries - candidates with a shared political belief system that could, as they win primaries and then general elections, begin to change the national parties from the inside.
Aye, but there's the rub, what belief system. What belief system can inspire enough people to join together,to work hard enough to effect true change? Such a belief system would have to have great appeal and power to bring so many together to work for change.
The irony is that such a message, one that could move people to make real change and put aside their non-essential differences, would by itself be so powerful that no political organized movement or third party would really be necessary - as the existing parties would eventually bend to the prevaling wind.
So, anybody got the "message," the magic formula for igniting and uniting a large portion of the people of this country into reversing the growing power of government and to restoring liberty. I'll wait.
Cynically, as has been said many times, people generally get the kind of government they deserve - that does not paint a rosey picture for our nation.
Adopting Range Voting makes the parties independent of each other. One party would no longer need to take votes away from other parties in order to be voted higher.I would imagine therefor that the most effective way towards a sea-change in government would not be through a third party at all but through the gradual co-opting or taking over of the existing parties.
Changing two major parties from within is a very slow process, and politics needs to adjust faster than that.
Time for a 3rd party?
NO!
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
*Norman Thomas {1884-1968 American Socialist Party Leader}
All the existing parties have to do is make it know to the American People that the Democratic Party is now THE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC SOCIALEST PARTY and, they will go away.
NO!
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
*Norman Thomas {1884-1968 American Socialist Party Leader}
All the existing parties have to do is make it know to the American People that the Democratic Party is now THE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC SOCIALEST PARTY and, they will go away.