An Appeal
Our government is out of control. If our government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, then we can no longer consent to be governed by the system. The limitations on authority and divisions of power are dysfunctional. Our ability to petition for redress of grievances is inadequate.
Therefore we have a monumental task ahead of us. We must put aside our differences and focus on what we have in common, and what is at stake for all of us at this historical moment. Both sides are being sold out by our respective parties. The issues we agree on are being ignored, and everyone loses. The issues that divide us are used deceptively by our so-called leaders to keep us fearful, unquestioningly loyal, and complicit.
An Appeal to Conservatives
Our so-called “conservative” politicians pay little more than lip service to fiscal conservatism. They preach free markets and economic liberty out of one side of their mouth, then they support favoritism, corporate welfare and bailouts. They give some companies unfair advantages over others. Mostly the middle class small businesses suffer because of policies that completely fly in the face of our ideals of free and fair markets. Republicans in Washington are doing very little to get out of the way of American small businesses.
Personal responsibility, similarly, is a concept to which our party barely gives a passing glance. When it comes to big banks and the Fed, the conservatives in Washington have no problem using tax dollars to socialize the risk inherent in irresponsible investing and lending. Golden parachutes and other forms of bailouts pose a moral hazard orders of magnitude greater than any of the social welfare programs of the left.
Republicans have consistently expanded federal spending on social programs and regulatory activity, despite their claims of being the party of ‘small government’. Government payrolls have increased under every recent Republican administration. There is no shortage of examples, either, of Republican legislators and judges taking a very broad view of the constitution when it’s politically convenient. State’s rights? Ron Paul is the only politician in Washington with a track record that even remotely resembles a dedication to limited federal government.
Search your hearts, Tea Party Patriots. If you’re really looking for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free-market economics, the Republicans have sold you out, and you know it.
An Appeal to Liberals
Business and financial regulation in Washington is a joke. The Democrats have done so little to truly push for corporate accountability it’s sickening. Progressive ideas about taxes, foreign trade, corporate regulation, and the international banking system are paid even less than lip service in Washington. If the Democratic party is the party of progressivism, there is nothing left for a progressive beyond utter despair.
Social policies have been carefully measured and approached hesitatingly at best. Democrats seem to have the guts to push gay rights legislation only after it becomes extremely safe and politically convenient. Oddly enough, it is Ron Paul again who is probably the only legislator in Washington who has ever been willing to take a truly progressive stance on social issues that matter. Beg, plead, call and write day and night, your Democratic legislators will not likely push civil liberties issues until it’s convenient for them.
Against a rising tide of privatization in education and healthcare, the Democratic party has been largely silent. The department of education under Obama’s administration has pushed nothing short of a corporate agenda. The fiery opposition to the healthcare bill has largely obfuscated the fact that it represents corporate healthcare and insurance interest far more faithfully than it represents the healthcare needs of average Americans.
Protectionism, foreign interventionism, corporate welfare, the war on drugs...is there anywhere our party is actually willing to stand up for us? Sorry, not unless it fits conveniently into the agenda of the Democratic Party’s corporate sponsors. Our party is bought and paid for. Just like the Republicans, we’re being sold out, and we all know it.
A Bipartisan Appeal
We all believe in constitutional government. We all want a balanced state power whose authority is defined by law and kept within the parameters we, the people, have set. Yet both major parties distort and exaggerate our ideological differences to distract us from the fact that we no longer have control over our government’s exercise of authority at any level. We are being herded, coddled, and penned like sheep.
None of us want to see despotic global powers, horrific human rights abuses, abject poverty, torture, genocide, and unnecessary war. We all want our military to be a global force for good. Yet both major parties present blatant lies in order to justify unnecessary, aggressive military actions that have cost trillions of dollars and billions of human lives, including American military personnel and civilians, despite majority popular opposition. They play on our fears and doubts to pit us against each other when we could all easily agree that we do not want to cause death and destruction. We are being manipulated and used.
Every single one of us, as Americans, believe in our basic freedoms. Human rights, civil rights, political rights, and economic rights. Foremost among all of our rights, we believe in our right to Democratic participation in the process of government. We all want decentralization, a system that places meaningful political power with individuals at local levels. And yet, while we are left to squabble over our petty differences, more and more political power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, our voices becoming less and less meaningful in the political process. We are not just being corralled - we are being fleeced as well.
The ultimate indignity, the crowning accomplishment in our two-party system as an act of total dominance over the people with no accountability to anyone and no hope for meaningful dissent, is our country’s foreign trade practices. While we are pitted against each other in the ideological battle over free trade and free markets versus human rights and social justice, neither side is getting what they want from either major party. Both parties support, and always have supported, economic policies that violate our most conservative notions of laisses-faire free markets and at the same time our most liberal notions of social and economic justice.
We are at a standoff. If we choose to perpetuate the two party system as it currently functions, we condemn ourselves to a future of political impotence, meaningless elections, pointless squabbling, and mutually assured destruction. The only way out is for all of us to stand down at the same time. We will never regain any real control over our government as long as our party loyalties override any desire we might have to reform the system we know to be corrupt.
We must demand democratic control of the political agenda.
We must demand full access to sources of relevant information.
We must demand a meaningful voice in the national political discourse.
We must demand a system where all people have the necessary means to participate.
These are basic principles of Democracy. These are principles everyone of every party affiliation in America can support. And yet attaining these would constitute a radical change in the current system. Search your heart and you will know it is true - we are a long way from being a Democratic Republic. We deserve better.
No meaningful change can take place without increased transparency. Light must be shed on current practices by comprehensive, impartial media. Our education as citizens must include learning what we need to know in order to be effective citizens. Otherwise we simply do not have the means to participate effectively in our government. Neither party supports this, and no major party politician is even talking about this. We are being intentionally kept in the dark.
No meaningful change can take place without giving a voice to all. The same comprehensive, impartial media must allow for an expression of all views through free, open dialogue. We cannot claim any true control over the legislative agenda otherwise. Our voices cannot be drowned out by the stories hand-picked by the major parties for their own benefit, with whatever spin suits their whims. Neither major party supports true Democratic media, and we are not even talking about it. We are being intentionally silenced.
No meaningful change can take place while the ability to spend money determines control of the agenda, opportunities to participate, and ability to voice opinions and preferences. Americans idolize the rich and famous. Economic success is something we all strive towards. But should the privilege of political petition, the expression of opinions and preferences, and the ability to suggest legislation or affect the agenda, be reserved only for those in our society who can afford it? “Class warfare” is just another divisive ploy being used to pit us against each other when we have a clear common goal that happens not to align with the agenda of either major party. We are systematically and intentionally being left out of the system.
If you are an American, then you must demand more truly Democratic control over the process. Demand that the people be allowed to debate and decide the issues that really matter. Take back control of our military. Take back control of our economic system. Take back control of our government. Let’s get back to debating the issues on which we disagree when we’ve addressed the fact that, for now, such debate is essentially meaningless, a deliberate distraction from the fact that we have lost everything we’ve ever had that resembles Democracy and freedom. Let’s do this before our government drives us into economic, social, and diplomatic ruin, when it might be too late.
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