One of the themes that we are seeing more of lately in the news is the unrest that ordinary Americans have toward their government, big business, and other things that they perceive are causing stress in their daily lives.
I could not be happier to hear this. The point of my blog is to make people think. To think about their lives and ways that the wool has been pulled over their eyes to the benefit of others.
So I’m happy to see that people are paying more attention to what goes on in the world. There are a lot of issues that people need to be careful of, though. Because, just like Wall Street and corporate America, there are thousands of groups who are interested in taking advantage of any situation that presents itself in order to further their cause. These groups would love to become entrenched in any movement that would further their power at the expense of those who have been keeping them from power in the past.
Personally, I would love to see a 4 party system rather than a 2 party system. I would like to see the conservatives divide themselves into the Republicans and Libertarians (basically the members of the Tea Party movement). This is a chance for conservatives to really show exactly what it is they stand for, because right now it’s difficult to tell. It’s easy for me to call the current crop of conservatives a bunch of racist morons since they were complacent during the various Reaganomics administrations of the past that delivered our country to the nightmare it’s in today. If that’s not true, it would be nice to see conservative political leaders align themselves to a set of core values that show the rest of us exactly what it is they stand for and why they are suddenly so angry. They might gain a few more recruits that way as well. I have a feeling though, that there would emerge more than one set of core values, since there are some real divisions in the conservatives. For that reason, two conservative parties makes all the sense in the world, and I’d be happy to see it happen.
I would also love to see the Liberals divide themselves into the Democrats and Greens Party. There is a real division among the Democrats that has existed for decades and yet has no resolution. Many democrats align themselves with their party because they believe that socially and environmentally responsible and sustainable practices will lead to greater progress and personal success in our lives for everyone throughout the world. To many people, these are the so-called tree huggers, although their philosophy extends far beyond that simplistic view. There is also another subset of Democrats (the larger group) who are pushing for increasingly socialist changes to our government. In my own area, the bottom echelon of these guys are the fat, lazy, pot smoking comic book store workers who wear the socialist tee shirts and want to do nothing and get paid for it. That socialist mentality trickles all the way up to the top ranks of the Democratic party and creates a natural dividing line between two factions that currently share the same name.
As a country, the divisions that are being created within our ranks are natural and healthy, but we have to be extremely careful here, because of what I said at the beginning… There are whacko groups, wealthy elites, and even corporations, that are going to attempt to align themselves with the new divisions for power and profit. There are issues that people are going to try to align with a particular conservative or liberal movement, in the hopes that individuals have not really thought much about those issues and will blindly accept them.
As an example, earlier I said that I can’t tell anymore if “conservative” has just become another term for “racist”. Well it seems that nearly all Aryan and other supremist organizations have managed to align themselves with the conservative Tea Party movement, proving my point precisely. Basically what this is saying is that the Tea Party movement was founded because we have a black man in the “White” House, and we are going to come up with all sorts of justifications of why we are right and why our current “government” needs to be eradicated.
My point is that if the Tea Party and Libertarians in general are to be taken seriously, you have to stand up and make a statement against those that are attempting to align themselves to your cause. If you can’t do that, then you as a group are no better than the lowest common denominator.
On the other side of the table, many Liberals don’t really want to be associated with Green Peace for various reasons, and yet they are. Another perfect example of what I mean. Many tree huggers don’t want to be associated with an environmental terrorist group when the key values of the Greens are so very different than that, and yet everyone is being grouped together into something that they are not. Some Socialist Democrats don’t want to be associated with any of the tree huggers because it cramps their style, but many of them love the association because it serves as a disguise to their socialist politics. It’s time for the Liberals to stand up for what they really are, and close the door to the ideas that they are truly against.
What we have at the moment is a political system based on opposition. A new issue emerges, and one party takes a stand on that issue. The other party instinctively takes the exact opposite stand on the issue, and each try to find reasons why they support their cause from the tangle of supposed values that define who they are. There can be no forward movement in a system like this, only gridlock. The reason is that one party aligns itself properly with some ideas that can move us forward as a society, and the other party does exactly the same with different issues. Well none of those issues can move forward because party lines won’t allow it. The conservatives are 100 times more responsible for this type of idiocy than the democrats, but it exists on both sides nevertheless.
I want to see all conservatives and liberals stand up for what they believe in AND PUT IT IN WRITING, just like the Greens have already done in their ten key values. People are awake and thinking about these issues, so now is the time. Out of that process I would expect at least 4 parties to emerge from the current 2, and I believe that individuals would learn a great deal about their core beliefs and how those beliefs relate to the rest of society. Not to mention the fact that the parties would have to defend their positions against their ideology in ways that they currently do not. What could be better?
