Buy a bulldozer

This article by Glenn Greenwald, The Tea Party and civil liberties, got me thinking. For a long time I've been a supporter of third parties in America. From the Green party to the Libertarian party, I see a place in American politics for all of them. This article brings to light one of the fundamental benefits of having more players in the political landscape. By representing ourselves in smaller groups we are actually able to get more done. With two parties everything is black and white, on or off, 1 or zero. In the words of the so profound George W. Bush, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists". It's no wonder there such a polarized political climate in this country right now. But you see when we add a third dimension things get interesting. By having more concentrations of power there is more opportunity for intersection, and ultimately majority consensus. Isn't that what democracy is about in the end?

You see I believe in a limited federal government in every way. That means taxing less, spending less, but also stay out of my house, my phone, my computer, my office, my mind, and my bedroom. In also means stay out of other countries.

So with those sorts of beliefs where do I go ? Really neither party is good at spending less, but probably one is better about taxing less. Neither party has a good track record on staying out of my personal business. They want to get involved one way or another. One party might be better at staying out of the bedroom. I'm pretty sure both of them want to get inside my head and re-program it. Neither party has any kind of track record on foreign policy. It's either help this guy or hurt that guy. See I don't want to do either. Don't want war, don't want nation building, don't want humanitarian whatever. Don't want to support democracy, don't want to destroy communism. You want to do some humanitarian stuff, go for it. Lots of private organizations are awesome at it. You want to destroy communism, write a book, start a talk radio show. Don't come to my house telling me about how I can live on a planet with my family and fairies when I die, and I won't tell you I think you are brainwashed by non-Pepsi-drinking, Pepsi-owning, pyramid scheming con artists. You want to nation build, buy a god damn bulldozer. But don't tell me what to do, and don't tax my ass to do it.

But I'm thinking with a few more parties, there might be some intersection of my crazy ideas with some crazy ideas from some other people. At the end of the day we might actually agree on a few things, and get some real stuff done. That is also why I support bills that are 10 pages or less. Because I think the less words there are, the more room for agreement. But I could be wrong about this.

Anyway, its interesting to see the Tea Party having a chance to bond with the Democrats. I think there is more opportunity for this. I think there are places I could bond with the Green party on things like limiting corporate power. Corporations are not freakin people, but somehow we've established that on our law books and that is just stupid.

You see if we try to isolate our beliefs one by one, separate them from our ideology and not worry about who we are talking to, and why they believe what they believe, we might all be able to start agreeing on things. We might get to the same place taking a different road, and that is totally ok, that is what democracy is all about. Come on people, you can do it.