Matt Stoller of MyDD reports that “[Joe] Lieberman is considering running as an independent.” Good for him, if he does. He’d have my vote in a heartbeat… Okay, I don’t vote in Connecticut, but American party politics as currently constitued badly needs a shake-up. In the age of the Internet, the independent mind should be applauded and supported. We don’t need political parties anymore to tell us how to think. (via PJM)
PJ Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that PJ Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. Please note that comments are reviewed by the editorial staff and may not be posted immediately. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pjmedia.com.
Hear Hear!
People should, in my opinion vote for the person that best represents their views… not the person that their party believes represtes the views of the party.
No sane conservative can think that the Republicans are any longer conservative in any true sense of the word. Just as no sane liberal can look at the democratic party as anything other than a reactionay pile of confused and disallusioned anti-republicans.
Robert Anton Wilson has, for the past 10 years been pushing the idea that real time access through techonolgy should, at some point in the future reduce the need for parties and eventually reduce the need for representatives (he thinks that eventually that all citizens could be polled via the net for voting, as well as having realtime access to nationwide debates on the issues).
At the very least, I agree with his view of the antiquated idea of parties.
Roger:
I applaud the notion of independent thinking. I am a ex yellow dog democrat, I am currently a registered independent. I tend to vote republican but I will never put myself in the position of treating my politics as a substitute for my religous faith. If Lieberman runs as an independent so he can stay in politics then I say great for him because I like him. He may need to do this to avoid a primary defeat when he knows he can win the general election in his state. In his particular situation it probably is the right thing to do. But this does not mean it will work all over.
Direct democracy is possible. we could all have a computer in our house and vote for everyhting directly. Be careful what you wish for. When the Iraq war was first proposed I think it would have won a direct vote. And today a vote to pull them out right now might pass. Lend Lease probably would have been voted down during WWII and Hitler would have taken Britain because of the widespread isolationist attitude of America at the time. Before Gettysburg Lincoln was in the tank politically and there was a strong, popular trend toward ending the war. If you have direct democracy you would have constant whipsawing of policies. As flawed and crazy as it is representative Democracy works.
Look at the “third parties” we have today. Yes, there are other parties other then R and D. And some of them, depending where you are on the political fence, have some good ideas. But as far as having coherent plans that can attract a majority that can govern they are an abject failure. Bernie Sanders is an independent. Sanders is a political non entity. He will continue to win his state but he gets little to nothing accomplished, the best he can do is be a spoiler.
Third parties can eliminate one party or the other and become the second of two parties but our system is a two party system. This disgust with the political system is not unique to our times. Study history. Every national third party has been a failure. The Republicans replaced a destroyed Whig party, they did not become part of a threesome.
Look at what has worked. People have worked to change one of the excisting parties, for good or for bad. Reagan, and others changed, the Republican party, over a long number of years. Roosevelt began the transformation of the Democratic party. This is how change is brought about. It takes a lot of work and time. The “third party” solution has been tried over and over again. Teddy Roosevelt, John Anderson, Dixiecrats, Nader, and all the others failed.
Just praising independent minds does not create a movement. What policies are going to be the bedrock of this third party? How much different then the excisting parties are they? If you build it around one person he will have no party to govern with once he reaches the White House. I can stay a independent voter in California because I can pick one of the main party slates to vote for in the primary. But if I couldn’t I would pick one of the main parties and hold my nose.
I liked Joe Lieberman. If the Dems had the brains to vote him in I would have probably voted Democratic for President. If he had run as an independent I wouldn’t vote for him because he would have had no chance to win. He would have got 15% of the vote. Third party candidates on the national level are spoilers, not winners. And once they leave the party they no longer have any influence to change the party.
Kevin,
I agree that direct democracy, with the existing set of systems and laws would likely leave us mired in complete gridlock. However, I think that a representative democracy (much like ours) where the representative was able to see in real-time the actual preference of his constituants, could be a much better representation of the People.
Look at some of the things that are passing through our ‘representative’ government that appear based solely on politics, not on a representation of what the People desire.
Of course, some things would need to change, some systems would need to be modified. However, if we truly wish to be Free, then we must progress toward a system that allows each citizens voice to count as equal, not a ‘pay to play’ system, not a ‘scratch my back’ system… but a system where the representative only represents the Will of the People.
Lysander Spooner, shortly after the Civil War, made this observation:
“The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.”
“Notwithstanding all the proclamations we have made to mankind, within the last ninety years, that our government rests on consent, and that that was the rightful basis on which any government could rest, the late war has practically demonstrated that our government rests upon force — as much so as any government that ever existed.”
“If it be said that the consent of the most numerous party, in a nation, is sufficient to justify the establishment of their power over the less numerous party, it may be answered:
First. That two men have no more natural right to exercise any kind of authority over one, than one has to exercise the same authority over two. A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.
Second. It would be absurd for the most numerous party to talk of establishing a government over the less numerous party, unless the former were also the strongest, as well as the most numerous; for it is not to be supposed that the strongest party would ever submit to the rule of the weaker party, merely because the latter were the most numerous. And as a matter of fact, it is perhaps never that governments are established by the most numerous party. They are usually, if not always, established by the less numerous party; their superior strength consisting of their superior wealth, intelligence, and ability to act in concert.
Third. Our Constitution does not profess to have been established simply by the majority; but by “the people;” the minority, as much as the majority.”
(From “No Treason” by Lysander Spooner, 1867)
Spooners idea that consent is key in Democracy (consent of all, not consent of the majority) appears to me, to have some merit. I think his overall view appears extreme, bordering on anarchism, but this concept of requiring consent seems to ring true to me. Anything that we can to to further engage The People in decision making seems valuable to me.
dclydew:
Look how well the initial government we had after the defeat of the British in the Revolutionary War worked. It didn’t. Like it or not, the creation of a strong central government with checks and balances is the beauty of our country. Getting the consent of everyone gives the minority the veto. The language is beautiful, the reality is inaction and chaos. Look at this blog. No one here agrees on everything. Even on things that we agree on the method to achieve any agreed upon outcome varies. Imagine if the Dixiecrats of the 50′s knew they could block all civil rights laws by sticking together. They were able to delay what we needed to do for decades even under the current system. They were forced to change, they fought it all the way to the bitter end and if they knew that their consent was needed to achieve change it would have never happened.
One of our greatest Presidents, Washington, warned of faction(partisanship) and he was right about the divisive nature of that malady. But even with men like Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton,and Adams leading the country he could not stop it. These men make our current leaders look like schoolchildren. Yet they all contributed to the creation of parties and faction. Washington was a incredible President but on this issue he was living in the clouds. The nature of man was left out of his thoughts. Jefferson and Hamilton went after each other because they believed that if the other gained power our country would be destroyed or turn into something that was beneath what we should be. And they both had ideas that were polar opposites. They couldn’t both work at the same time. A choice between the two had to be made. And the political battlefield was created.. So they formed parties of like minded men and went to war politically. These were brilliant men. Yet they were not able to follow Washintons advice. And it has been that way ever since.
On paper anarchist principles are beautifull because, as Spooners puts it, no one is forced to do what they don’t want to do, we are all given equal power and we can’t be forced into anything. It’s utopian and it will not ever work because we are Human and we are imperfect.
Kevin,
I think you make some great points. In fact, I don’t disagree with the jist of what you’re saying. However, I’m not trying to say that we must be anarchists (I thought I had made that clear in the earlier post, sorry). I think that we should get closer to the idea of equal rights and equal say for all.
In today’s society, the ruling party sets the agenda, sets the policies and pushes through the laws.
Our current situation appears quite the example. Many people disagree with many aspects of the Bush Administration and the Republican leadership. However, those same people disagree quite a bit with the Democrats on the GWOT and security. So, they get representation in regard to security, but no representation in anything else, not budget, not states rights, not personal rights, not civil liberites, etc.
However, if there were no parties, and if politicans were able to have direct communication with constituants, then we could elect the guy who is willing to Bomb Saddam, but clearly communicate that he’d better be balancing the budget and protecting rights as well.
As things stand now, a minority elects a smaller minority, with whom they can find a few planks to agree on. Out of that ruling party, a powerful (and even smaller) minority then sets the stage/tone and rethoric for the entire party and further for the nation. I think this aspect of our representative democracy could actually be greatly improved by more direct interaction by the citizens.
I don’t think anarchism is workable, I don’t think that every citizen voting on every issue is a workable solution either. I do however, think that the destruction of parties, the rise of realtime communication between constituants and representatives as well as the reduction of the governments size, influence and beuraucracy would result in a ‘more perfect union’.
What about Lieberman running as a “Bloomberg Republican”? Too “treacherous”?
He certainly would be one of the few Dems who could, in the silence of the voting booth, get away with that without losing too much of the Jewish Vote (not an insiginficiant fact if you ask the geniuses at Harvard).
Seriously, Condi and Joe (or Joe and Condi) would be something to see!
dclydew:
There is nothing , in our current system, that stops anyone from participating in our form of democracy. Some don’t get involved because they are happy to stay out. Some are depressed so they have quit. This notion that if we didn’t have parties all would be hunky dory is a dream. If the Democrats and the Republicans disbanded tommorrow some form of parties would form just as they did after Washington’s call to avoid faction. There were no official parties during Washinton glorius reign. They sprang up over ideas. Jefferson, Madison, Adams, hamilton and the rest were some of the finest men this country ever produced. And they creted political parties. Every nasty thing that is bad about our politics will not go away by claiming the end of party politics. Groups of citizens will rally around different ideas, they might call them groups instead of parties but the result will be the same. Yes, we could go to direct democracy, but you will have people who won’t particpate, or who lean on others to guide them. You will have vote buying, you will have betrayal of promises. It will just be more chaotic.
Politicians can have as much contact with their constituants as they wish. Citizens can communicate with their reps and tell them exactly what they want. People can vote out anyone they want. They just don’t agree with each other. They all have different priorities. The only thing that stops 100% voter participation is the voters themselves. Those who bitch and moan and don’t vote will do the same thing under any system because there is no way to make everyone happy. Poll after poll shows that voters don’t like congress as a whole but they like their congressman. They keep voting the “scoundrels” back in. They would vote against most pork except the pork that copmes to their town. That pork they like.
If people had direct democracy you would get bigger government, not smaller. Tax decreases and more government spending. far greater then our currnet parties do.
LIke Kevin I am an ex Democrat turned Independent who tends to vote Republican. In fact in rrecent elections I have voted Republican.
But I do not think a third party will make it.
And as much as Washington hated partisanship, Adams hated it more. But it seems to be the nature of the beast.
dclydew:
If you want a peak at the direct democracy you espouse look at the California Initiative process. Yes, California ctizens have the right to write and vote in real legislation. The record has been very similar to the politiciians that we have now. And even though it is open to anyone who can get organized and convince enough of their fellow Californians it is used in practice by the very groups that influences the process in Sacramento. And even though they have been given legislative power our turnout is not any better then the national average, in many cases it is worse. And just like Washington it votes in laws without paying for them through Bonds. The taxes it does impose are, for the most part, sin taxes directed against minorities, smokers for example, and not on the populace as a whole. It passed prop 13 which set up a two tier tax code on property taxes, one rate for those who had homes bought before the law passed, and another for those who bought property after the fact. And the iniatives that pass often mirror the results that would have come out of Sacramento. The majority of the groups that get iniatives on the ballot are the very same special interests groups that influence our elected officials. And it allows Sacramento the political cover to not make the hard choices and blame it on the “people.” The record isn’t pretty.
Connecticut may well be the worst state in the Union in which to run as an independent. I think that voters remember too well, or at least are too ready to be reminded, of our former independent governor, Lowell “I have to pay alimony to all these ex-wives, so don’t you dare call me rich!” Weicker, who snuck out of Hartford before he could be ridden out on a political rail.
No one even remotely familiar with the history of ancient Greece is remotely sanguine about the prospects of direct democracy. Technology advances in communications make it possible to have direct democracy in a far larger state than was heretofore possible. Those advances do not change the nature of direct democracy one iota.
In any case, partisanship does not go away merely because of the form of a democracy or a republic. It will conform to the new environment.
As for Lieberman, the positive side of an independent movement is not that the independement movement will get somewhere. It probably will not. And if it does, it will be because it takes over one of the two existing parties. No, the positive side is that even a “failed” independent movement may move one or both of the existing parties in a good direction.