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Ron Paul’s success in the Republican nomination process has very little to do with Ron Paul the candidate. It has everything to do with ideas. It has everything to do with a mission. After wandering in the big government political wilderness for over a century, Paul is leading us to the land of freedom promised in the Constitution. He probably won’t make it there himself, but like Moses, he’ll show it to us across the river. (OK, the Moses comparison is a bit much. I got carried away. Sue me.)
Paul would never be picked by central casting for the role of political leader. He’s old. He’s short. He’s far from charismatic. He’s far from perfect.
But those imperfections are of the man, not of the ideas. People are starting to realize that government, indeed, is not the answer. Free markets and voluntary action is the answer. Less government is a start. Unfortunately, neither half of the two-party duopoly has ever – ever! – made the federal government smaller.
Voting for the same-ol’ same-ol’ results in ….. more of the same. At the very least, Ron Paul is not more of the same. A libertarian philosophy may never win over a majority of voters. That makes it no less correct. But without someone spreading the message – even a flawed, short old man – we know for certain the philosophy will never win over a majority of voters.
And what if those that understand and believe in a constitutionally limited government actually vote for it? They might actually get it.
You want to throw away a vote? Keep voting like you have, America.
A. Reject failure.
“We live in a two party system! We have to work within it!”
That’s exactly what Wall Street, Big Agribusiness, Big Pharma, Big Government Contractors, Big Insurance and all other cronyist corporatist rent-seekers want you to believe.
It matters not if Democrats or Republicans control the White House, the House of Representatives or the Senate. Wall Street, Big Agribusiness, Big Pharma, Big Government Contractors, Big Insurance and the other corporatist rent-seekers get paid regardless.
I am embarrassed when I hear any liberty minded person embrace the “two-party system” as a physical inevitability, as if it were Newton’s Fourth Law. Liberty minded people proudly embrace and admire revolutionaries who fought the biggest military in the world… and won. Liberty minded people proudly embrace and admire revolutionaries that fought, killed and died to defeat a political system that oppressed them.
Then these same liberty minded people dismiss out-of-hand the mere notion that defeating a two-party duopoly that perpetuates an ever-growing leviathan as “impossible.” What American revolutionaries did was nigh on impossible. Changing a political system is merely hard. Let’s adopt that revolutionary attitude. Let’s drop the timid meekness of impossibility. You think it is impossible? Then it is.
The first step in changing the status quo? Quit accepting it as inevitable. Reject the notion that it is an impenetrable bulwark that can not be breached. Admit it is broken and must be thrown out and replaced.
Quit enabling the behavior we want to stop. Quit telling yourself, “this time, it will be different.” We pity abused spouses that keep taking back their abuser. How many more times will you accept being lied to? How much more abuse will you take?
It is shameful when liberty minded people – in the name of liberty – accept the system that oppresses them. If the GOP nominates a big government candidate, what do they tell you? “Vote for the Big Government Republican,” whose beliefs you do not share, “or you are just helping the Big Government Democrat!” Where else in your life would you accept such a Hobson’s choice?
I submit nowhere. Yet we have been indoctrinated into thinking that two bad choices are inevitable. That nothing can be done. To just accept it. Lie back and enjoy it. There is nothing you can do.
As long as people believe that there is nothing that can be done… there isn’t.
Do not accept tripe just because it’s not offal. Do not accept losing a pinkie just because it’s not a thumb. If you are told, “well, those are the only choices, so choose!” Say “No! No more! I will not choose just because that’s the way we’ve always done it! I will suffer, I will fight, I will sacrifice, but I will not voluntarily partake in a system that does not serve me!”
B. Envision success.
Once we refuse to participate in a system that rewards cronyism at the expense of liberty, then what?
I do not know. Not exactly. But John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and our other revolutionary heroes did not know exactly what they were going to do once they defeated the British. The first attempt, The Articles of Confederation, failed.
But they knew they had to throw off their shackles. They knew they wanted liberty. That’s a good start for us, as well.
The first step in fixing a problem is to admit there is a problem. Then we can start coming up with alternatives.
I do, however, have some suggestions. One suggestion is to question plurality voting. Plurality voting is where each voter can pick one candidate to support, regardless of the number of people running. The candidate with the most votes, a plurality, wins. A majority is not needed. The winner frequently is opposed by a majority. What sense does that make?
63% of the electorate could vote against you, and you are the victor. Stupid, right? Yes, it is stupid. Yet we blithely accept it as “the way it is.”
I am not making this up. Steve Hogan, the newly elected Mayor of Aurora, was rejected by 63% of the electorate, yet won. It is nonsense. Is it not reasonable to question such a system?
Let’s look at the 2011 Aurora mayoral election results:
Steve Hogan 37.5% (13,498)
Ryan L. Frazier 30.2% (10,856)
Jude Sandvall 14.5% (5,244)
Debbie Stafford 11.4% (4,107)
Sheilah Thomas Davis 3.5% (1,291)
Barbara J Yamrick 2.5% (924)
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the 63% of voters whom voted for someone else hated Hogan. (Hogan is probably a wonderful person and a great mayor. I use his election for illustration only). Each of them would have voted for any of the five other candidates before they voted for Hogan. We really have a perverse result, don’t we?
There are many ways to avoid this perversion. Some of them are:
Score voting – Voters gives each candidate a score from 1-5. (Or 1-10 or 12-68, the range is irrelevant.) In our example above, 63% of voters would have given Hogan a “1,” the lowest possible score. He would have lost – and the voice of the voters would be more accurately reflected.
Approval voting – Voters look at each candidate independently and decide if they approve of that candidate or not. If they approve, they vote “yes.” If they disapprove, they vote “no.” The candidate with the most approval votes wins. Once again, 63% of the voters would have disapproved of Hogan and he would not have won. The voice of the voters would be more accurately reflected.
Other forms of voting exist, as well. Our slavish devotion to an absurd voting method, plurality voting, is based on nothing but tradition. Nothing. It is not in the U.S. Constitution. It is not in the Colorado Constitution. It is statutory. It can be changed by the state legislature.
But like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, people are frightened and confused by anything new.
I highly recommend “Gaming the Vote” by William Poundstone as a great nonpartisan resource on alternative voting methods.
So why do we use plurality voting? Perhaps because it is easier for the corporatist rent-seekers to control. In partisan races, third party candidates have nigh on zero chance with plurality voting. That just leaves two traditionally viable choices. It is far easier to tell the public that they must vote for one candidate over another candidate or horrible things will happen. The rent-seekers, however, don’t really care who wins, as long as it is one of the two.
As a result, government gets bigger, corporatists get their money, and voters think they have a real choice between two very different candidates. (And on abortion, immigration, homosexuality and other hot-button issues voters care about, they do differ. But neither will stop the corporatism. And that’s all the corporatists care about).
But what if voters could score, or approve of, 10 different candidates? It is much more likely one of those ten would buck the corporatist system. That is against the interest of those in power.
It is, however, in your interest.
C. Don’t quit.
Just give it some consideration. Our current system has failed to protect individual liberty. It has allowed the Constitution to become a mere suggestion. I know many liberty minded people hope to change the system from within. I wish you all the best.
It just appears to me, however, that such hope is misguided. For instance, if Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee, our choice for President will be between two people whom believe in government run healthcare. Do you accept those two choices? Or do you believe defeating Obama is more important than limited government? I grant we will be marginally better off with Romney than with Obama. Marginally.
But just looking at 2012 is shortsighted. It is exactly what the corporatists want us to do. If they can keep us looking ahead no more than the next election, the two-party duopoly will never end. We’ll have great arguments between choosing Corporatist A or Corporatist B. And Corporatism wins.
We have to look at the next hundred years, not just the next ten months.
Dropping plurality voting is relatively painless. It is a start. It’s not the only one. But it is something.
But like Andy Dufresne slowly scraping away at his jail cell, year after year, one tiny bit at a time, freedom won’t come quickly. And we’ll have to crawl through hundreds of yards of vile smelling foulness we can’t even imagine.
But freedom is worth it. Isn’t it?
-Yoda
Those of us that believe in a federal government limited by the U.S. Constitution are in a small minority. Most Americans want to keep sucking on the government teat until it’s dry. They want to keep running up the credit card debt until they hit the limit. They want to party all night and not worry about tomorrow.
Those of us in the minority do what we can, to quote Susan Powter, to “ stop the insanity!” Many of us believe that the only way to rein in the federal government is via the ballot box – to vote in “the right people.” Many rational people believe this, despite it having never worked. Ever. Nevertheless, those in the pro-liberty movement have been taught – most via government schools – that if they work within the system, they can achieve change. Too many of us believe it. This is what we must unlearn.
The system, however, is not broken. It is a mistake to think otherwise. The system is doing exactly what the statists want it to do: grow. It grows no matter which wing of the two party duopoly is in charge of Congress. It grows no matter which wing of the two party duopoly sits in the White House. It grows no matter which wing of the two party duopoly controls the federal courts. It always grows.
Always.
To think that the federal government can be reigned in by “voting for the right people” is belied by history. It is belied by the facts. It is wishful thinking at its worst. A problem can not be solved until it is properly diagnosed. The diagnosis we must accept is that the current political system feeds a cancer. We can not cure the cancer by feeding it.
Let’s look at an example. Those of us in the liberty movement understand that social security should be privatized. What happens to any candidate that speaks the truth on this topic? They are soundly defeated and a candidate that is willing to continue the Ponzi scheme is elected. The cancer continues to grow.
The two party duopoly is part of the problem. Plurality voting is part of the problem. Our two party, plurality voting system requires that anyone that wants to win an election pander to the masses. Telling people that they can not have any more free stuff is not pandering – it is the truth. Our current system results in an untenable and unworkable reality: Telling the truth means defeat.
Of course, statists will point out what they perceive to be a fatal flaw in my argument: They will say social security is just fine and will continue indefinitely just as it is. This is not the place for that discussion, but the continued redistribution of wealth from a dwindling group of those that are working to a growing group of those that are retired can not continue. (And I’m sorry, Virginia, but there is no social security “trust fund” to which you have contributed. You, like Bernie Madoff’s victims, were lied to.)
I do not pretend to have a solution to our demonstrably failed process – but I know we have a demonstrably failed process. Most of use refuse to even see that.
The first step to recovery is to admit the problem.
Once we recognize our problem, I suggest we trash our voting method where candidates with less than 50% of the vote can win. Seriously, what kind of system declares someone victorious when most of those that voted wanted him to lose?
This is not question posed by the Mad Hatter at tea. It is our reality.
Plurality voting is nonsense. Approval voting is one, far better, alternative. There are others, as well. No matter the ultimate solution, we need to “unlearn” the notion that we can reign in the federal government by our current political process. It has failed for 150 years. The country will not be around another 150 at this rate. It might not be around another 15.
Abandon the myth that that one party is more likely to shrink the federal government than the other. At best, one party will allow it to grow slower than the other.
Unlearn. It is the only chance we have to learn.
“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”
– From the Wachowski Brothers’ 1999 movie “The Matrix.”
Change the first sentence only slightly. Substitute “two-party duopoly” for “the Matrix.”
Then prepare to unplug.
In real life, the people still plugged in to the system are not our enemies. Not at all. They just need to be shown that freedom does not exist until they unplug.
Prepare to unplug.
You don’t need the system to survive. The system needs you – it bleeds you – so it can survive.
Unplug.
My small-government GOP friends tell me often that I should accept the reality that we live in a two-party system with plurality voting.
They miss the point.
I accept reality.
They, however, fail to see that reality can be changed. At one time, we were a group of colonies subject to a monarchy. That reality changed.
At one time, Blacks in this country were chattel. That reality changed.
At one time, women were not allowed to vote. That reality changed.
Most of my small government Republican friends will acknowledge that they, themselves, want to change reality. The reality is that Barack Obama is in the White House. They want to change that. So do I. But I also want to change the reality that, right now, the only alternative is a Big Government Republican.
I will listen to arguments that perhaps Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee or John McCain would be better than Obama. Those arguments, alas, miss the point. All of them, Obama, Romney, Huckabee and McCain want the federal government to tell you and me how to live.
I reject the proposition that any degree of state control over my sovereignty is acceptable. The argument that a Republican wants slightly less control than a Democrat over my life is meaningless. I will not give it to them: not voluntarily.
Americans should never accept state control over our personal lives. Not even from a Republican.
Reality is, our government controls us. We can change that reality.
The U.K., like the U.S., has been dominated by a two party political system. The U.K., like the U.S., is in an economic mess created by the two parties.
The U.K.’s two traditional parties are the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. (The Brits like to use the letter “u” superfluously.) Out of the wreckage caused by the two parties, a third party has emerged: The Liberal Democrats.
In the recent election over there, the Liberal Democrats obtained sufficient support to keep either of the two major parties from a majority. A coalition must be formed.
Nick Clegg, the leader of the insurgent Liberal Democrats, has a crucial demand to join such a coalition: ” a change in the voting system to help smaller parties gain more seats in future parliamentary elections.” (See “ Electoral Demand Stalls Coalition Deal in Britain.”) Of course, the two traditional major parties oppose any such change. It would loosen their grip on power. And, like in the U.S., the two major U.K. parties are more interested in keeping power than they are in good governance. If there are those in the power parties that actually believe in good governance, they have failed miserably. They present all the more reason for structural change.
Don’t let us down, Nick. Fight for structural change.
Jonah Goldberg has offered his take on where the Tea Partiers where while George W. Bush was expanding government and spending money he didn’t have. (See “Tea parties a delayed Bush backlash.“)
Concerning W’s Big Government Republican proclivity, Goldberg wrote:
Conservatives didn’t necessarily bite their tongues (remember the Harriet Miers and immigration fiascoes), but they did prioritize supporting Bush — often in the face of far nastier attacks than Obama has received — over ideological purity. Besides, where were conservatives supposed to go? Into the arms of John Kerry?
This perfectly illustrates the problem. With our two party system, we are given two bad choices: Expand government a lot, or expand it slightly less.
As long as we accept two bad choices, we’ll keep getting them. If you keep buying tripe for lunch because the only other option is haggis, guess what you’ll keep being offered? Tripe.
You can gag it down while you tell yourself, “well, it sure beats the hell out of haggis.”
We need more options. We need to be creative. The two party system ain’t in the Constitution. Neither is plurality voting. My immediate suggestion is adoption of approval voting. I’m open to ideas. I’m begging for ideas! Bring me ideas!
I love the Tea Party movement. I spoke at the event on tax day 2009 before about 8,000 people and am scheduled to speak at the upcoming event on tax day 2010. Claude Ford, of Arvada, asks a question about the movement in his letter to the editor published in today’s Denver Post. (See “ Faces of the Tea Party,” second letter). It says: The outrageous policies of the Bush administration have led directly to the financial and economic collapse we are experiencing now. Columnists Mike Littwin, Paul Krugman and other fine journalists sounded the alarm bell on the impending perils of these policies.
Were letter-writer Nanette McBride (April 3) and other Tea Party-goers asleep for eight years? Their failure to protest then makes their protests now seem far more political than patriotic.
Claude Ford, Arvada
Regardless of his approval of Paul Krugman, Mr. Ford’s overall point is correct. There was no Tea Party movement while George W. Bush and the Republicans outrageously expanded government.
There is, however, a political group, formed right here in Colorado, that has been speaking out against both Big Government Republicans and Democrats since 1971. The Libertarian Party has been around for decades and will be around long after the last tea cup is put away. Believers in small government have a home, and it is not the party of George W. Bush, John McCain, Jane Norton, Bill Owens or Scott McInnis. That a political party can espouse small government, yet consistently support Big Government candidates, is absurd. But the joke is on the rank-and-file Republicans who actually believe in small government. And I know there are lots of you out there.
After the GOP nominates Big Government candidates, the GOP politburo will look at you and say, “What? You have to vote for our Big Government candidates. What ya gonna do, vote for the Democrat? You have no choice. HA HA HA HA.”
You do have a choice. The two party system is not in the Constitution. Neither is plurality voting, which keeps the two-party duopoly in power. I hear well-meaning people say, “well, we have a two-party system and we just have to live with that.”
Hogwash.
Did Sam Adams say to his cousin John, “we live in a monarchy and we just have to live with it.” Hell no, he did not. They fought. For years and years. And were eventually victorious.
Join the fight against all Big Government politicians, regardless of the letter after their name. Do not accept the false choice of the Big Government Democrat or the Big Government Republican. If you do, you perpetuate the problem. I know you want to solve the problem.
Let’s have some tea.
===========================
The Libertarian Party of Colorado just had a tremendous 2010 convention.
We nominated candidates for U.S Senate, U.S. Congress, Governor, Lt. Governor, Colorado Senate, Colorado House, CU Regent and county commissioners from Boulder to Mesa County. (Click here for more details).
For the first time, we will have a state wide primary election. It will be on Tuesday, August 10, 2010. We had candidates get at least 30% of the vote in three important elections at the convention. According to state statute, we must have a primary for those three nominations.
While primaries are a waste of taxpayer money (there is no reason each party should not pay for its own selection of candidates), we are forced to participate by law. Therefore, we will take full advantage of the process to spread the message of small government.
I have already heard the same tired nonsense about how we will sabotage the election of members of the Big Government duopoly . The arrogance behind that ridiculous assertion is astounding. Members of the two-party duopoly assume every vote belongs to them, and any attempt to change the status quo is blasphemy.
As you know, Libertarians do not vote for Big Government politicians. Every Libertarian vote is a vote AGAINST Big Government politicians of every stripe, from Barack Obama to George W. Bush to Bill Ritter to Bill Owens. The notion that every third party vote would have otherwise gone to the Big Government Duopoly is absurd. We offer voters that would otherwise stay home an alternative: Freedom.
Even if the assertion were true, it is beside the point. Members of the two-party duopoly make the rules. Plurality voting works for them to maintain a grip on power and it discriminates against third parties that actually have principles. Plurality voting is not in the Constitution. Neither is the two party system. Both can – and must – be changed.
If they think we can “spoil” an election, let them think so. For instance, if a Green Party candidate got 2% of the vote in a given race, and the Republican beat the Democrat by 1%, let the Democrats cry and whine. Then point out to them that they make the rules, and if they do not want their elections “spoiled” then they can adopt a different system, like Approval Voting. “Spoiling” an election is impossible under approval voting.
It is never a third-party’s “fault” if they play by the rules forced on them by those in power. I hope every race between the Big Government Democrats and the Big Government Republicans is decided by a margin smaller than the number of votes received by a third party. Then maybe those in power will realize it is in their best interest to change the voting system.
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”–John Quincy Adams
And Let Freedom Ring.
David K. Williams, Jr.
Libertarian Party of Colorado State Chair |
Regarding a potential Republican comeback in 2010, Vaugh quotes former state Sen. Mike Feeley, a Democrat, “I think it’s inevitable that the pendulum swings back the other way.”
There is no pendulum.
Instead of movement from one side all the way to the other, political shifts are more akin to a mother moving her infant from one arm to the other. There is a slight shift, but the baby is never far from the teat.
The mother notices the difference, but the baby doesn’t.
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