The Patriot Post® · Time for Third Party

Last week I wrote a column about the reality that House Republicans are ready to cave on so-called comprehensive immigration reform. There was a final paragraph in that column my editor decided not to use. That is the editor’s right for two reasons: one, every site has a voice they wish to adhere to interns of form and content; and two, he who pays, gets the final say.

Ironically, what was omitted by my editor was not lost on scores of astute letter writers who commented on the piece. I would like them to know that I have the same feelings as they do regarding what House Republicans are contemplating. Here is the paragraph that was omitted:

“Hence, a prediction. If Republicans abet the passage of comprehensive immigration reform – piecemeal or otherwise – a third political party will emerge from the ashes. That third party will be the Republicans, who will be relegated to the back of the political bus by Democrats, and whatever party manages to address the concerns of millions of ordinary Americans who have been marginalized by the ruling elites in both parties. For those millions of Americans, a federal government run by one-and-a-half parties attuned to the progressive agenda is rapidly approaching the end of its shelf life.”

Friday afternoon, I was listening to Mark Levin’s radio program. Like many Americans, he is disgusted by the relentless advance of a rapacious, out-of-control federal leviathan that has made an utter mockery of states’ rights. He is heavily invested in the idea that Article V of the Constitution, which concerns the amendment process, is a way for Americans to take their country back. The relevant passage is italicized below:

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

Levin, if I understood him correctly, also proposed amendments that could emerge from such a convention, one being the idea that if three-fifths of the states agreed, they could negate any regulation imposed by the federal government, be it from Congressional legislation or, as is this president’s particular won’t, issued as an Executive fiat. Levin further proposed that once such a decision was reached, not even the Supreme Court could overturn it.

To his credit, Levin was quick to point out that such reform would be ridiculed and thwarted at every turn by our ruling elites in both parties, who have a vested interest in making sure that Washington, D.C. remains a nexus of power far beyond anything the Founding Fathers envisioned. He further noted that, even with widespread support from the people, such a sea change would take a considerable amount of time to realize.

I believe a third political party would facilitate the process in the sense that it would represent a so-called second front, articulating the same overall objective, namely the restoration of a government by, of, and for the people. For me, one of the simplest, and likely most resonant parts of the platform would be a promise by every third party candidate that Congress will no longer be exempt from the laws they write for the rest of us, or entitled to any special perks, or lifetime pensions.

Taxpayer subsidization of Congressional staff members for the cost of Obamacare

The latest outrage in that regard, the taxpayer subsidization of Congressional staff members and other Washington insiders for the cost of Obamacare, is ruling class elitism writ large. The even lamer excuse for it, that the nation’s capitol would suffer a “brain drain” if these insiders were forced to underwrite the total cost of their own healthcare, is laughable. Many of these so-called brains are the same committee staffers responsible for pulling the elements of the healthcare bill together in the first place, just as they are responsible for creating many of the other gargantuan – and unread – bills passed by their equally irresponsible Congressional employers.

If this is the best Washington, D.C. has to offer, by all means, let the brain drain begin.

How powerful has the federal government become? Nothing speaks to this reality better than this news story released on Friday:

“The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new plan to change U.S. neighborhoods it says are racially imbalanced or are too tilted toward rich or poor, arguing the country’s housing policies have not been effective at creating the kind of integrated communities the agency had hoped for.”

What in the world gives the bureaucrats at HUD the unmitigated chutzpa to think that they have a right to determine who lives where? Or perhaps even worse, that they are the arbiters of neighborhood “balance?” In keeping with the true nature of progressivism, this is nothing less than the attempt to regulate society irrespective of talent, ambition and, above all else, liberty. Once again, it illuminates the left’s lust for control and their pathetic misunderstanding of human nature. It is the notion that utopia can be achieved simply by changing an individual’s zip code, or reaching a sufficient level of “diversity” – as determined by a bunch of faceless elites, who invariably know what’s better for us than we do. And as they always do, progressives will trumpet this pernicious nonsense as the latest effort to achieve “social justice.”

A government program aimed at making sure every neighborhood in the nation adheres to a bureaucratic checklist of equality isn’t social justice. It’s Communism.

Enough is enough. Millions upon millions of Americans utterly reject these and all the other tyrannical impulses of our ruling elite. They’ve had it with the idea that government is top down enterprise, as well as the notion that the entire American ethos should be determined by handful of runaway egotists in Washington, D. C.

Egotists who invariably exempt themselves from the disastrous consequences of their handiwork.

A third party may be a quixotic effort at first, and it may take years before any serious changes occur. Or maybe not. According to the Real Clear Politics website, 61.8 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, and a whopping 75.8 percent of the nation disapproves of the job Congress is doing. In other words, millions of Americans despise intolerable status quo, the one that is squeezing the lifeblood out of the middle class, even as it coddles the “too big to fail” crony capitalists at the top of the heap, and promotes an unprecedented level of dignity-depleting dependency on the other end of the scale.

Such numbers indicate a seismic potential. It is a potential that could be enhanced by a marvelously simple principle of government philosophy that desperately needs to be reinvigorated:

Leave us alone, unless we decide it is absolutely imperative to do otherwise.

I urge Mr. Levin and others bright lights to flesh out a third party platform that speaks to such a reality. Keep it simple, Constitutional, and something that does not get bogged down by exactly the kind of cultural issues that progressives and their media enablers use to divide Americans and obscure the true nature of their agenda. The bet here is that an overwhelming majority of Americans are willing to embrace a live and let live attitude, most assuredly if the consequences of one’s decisions are borne completely by the one who makes them.

Most Americans love this nation. The current level of bipartisan-induced rancor only accrues to the legions of government officials who create the very same problems they tell us can only be solved by more and more of their intervention. This vicious cycle has gone on long enough. Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” So is tyranny if we choose to eradicate it. Let’s eradicate it.