Brown won. So what?
Or, Don't be a Political Lemming

   By Carl Bussjaeger, January 20, 2010

OK, Scott Brown, a Republican, won the Senate election down in Mass. Aside from the ability of the Republicans to filibuster, what does this mean?

On one level, I'm tickled pink just with the thought that a seat held by the Democrats generally, and the Kennedy Klan specifically, for 58 years was lost to anyone else. I'd have been amused even if it went to the official Communist Party of the United States.

Now the immediately obvious point is that the American people are pissed. They're pissed at the Dems for insane spending. Brown didn't win so much as Dem Coakley lost. This (hopefully) presages a Dem purge later this year. But as things stand, that just means the Reps take over again. And there's the problem.

Remember back a couple of years, when pissed off people turned out the Dubya-tainted Reps, hoping Dems would make it right? Yeah, the same Reps who were the problem then are supposedly the salvation next November. Just like the problematical Dems were the solution to neo-conniving Reps. Do you see a pattern here? And if not, why not?

The Dems and Reps aren't independent parties; they're merely separate factions of one big incestuous family. Sometimes the factions even swap members, while changing nothing. You even see it in campaign finance disclosures: Reps donating to Dems and Dems giving it to Reps. A perpetual "69" of obscene political fellatio.

The point being that just voting one party out, and the other in, isn't going to fix the problem. A recent Washington Post poll showed that 58% of Americans want a smaller government that spends less money and inflicts fewer "services". But, somehow, despite turning out the Dems for Reps, then Reps for Dems for the past several decades, what we get from both parties is humongous government, instrusion into every facet of our lives, tax rates that would outrage a medieval peasant and his feudal lord , and spending into bankruptcy. Do you see the pattern yet?

I hope so, for all our sakes.

So if the Reps and Dems are the problem, who is the solution? The Libertarian Party? I don't think so. At least not until they find their missing principles. I quit the LP back in the '90s when Lib candidates started trying to get matching fed funds, and the LNC didn't object. As small as it is, principle was the only thing the LP had going for it. They abandoned principle for pretense and expediency. So by '08, when they ran Drug Warrior Bob Barr (he claims he changed his mind about the War on – some – Drugs, but I don't see him doing restitution to the thousands whose lives he ruined), I could sit back and laugh. And laughed harder when ex-Rep/new Lib presidential candidate Barr's foundation gave campaign donations to Reps running against Libs. Yeah, that's a "party of principle". Nope, the LP isn't the answer either.

Stop flip-flopping between nut-case parties. Purge 'em all.

Step 1: Refuse to vote for an incumbent. Period. I don't care if you like one guy. As an incumbent, he's either part of the problem directly, or he was ineffective at fixing the problem. Out with them all. Yes, Ron Paul, too; that would be the "ineffective" part.

Step 2: Don't look to any particular party with a canned platform and policies. That's how we got into this mess. People got lazy; they didn't want to research issues and candidates' positions. "I'm tough on crime, so I'll just vote the Rep ticket all the way. There; done." Or, "I want more social programs, so I'll vote straight Dem and get the heck outa here quick." I'm sorry, but if you want to play democracy, you have to apply yourself. Take the time to look at every candidate, regardless of party, and see whose ideas best fit your own.

Generally speaking, I favor maximizing personal liberty and responsibility. I've found that a candidate's take on the right to keep and bear arms (RKBA) tends to be a good indicator of his view of liberty in general. But Pro-gun Reps also have a tendency towards Constitution-violating Wars on Freedom (drugs and victimless "crimes" and such), so RKBA isn't a stand-alone test. But it's a start.

Happily, there are 300+ million of us. We can spread out the work of checking candidates. For example: I do RKBA. I survey the Senate and House candidates for my state and district. I ask specific questions and make the candidates' answers , evasions, or tell-tale silence public. I do the legwork for you on RKBA. For your part, you might help the Marijuana Policy Project canvas candidates on decriminalization. Or the CPUSA on universal welfare, or whatever your specific interests are.

Step 3: Once you've got someone in office who made the right promises while campaigning, hold them to their words. Don't let them weasel out with, "Well, the situation isn't quite what I thought, so I have to vote to ban your guns and tax you at 105%." If he couldn't consider various scenarios when he made the promise, he isn't good competent enough to represent you. And isn't representing you. Recall time! Don't wait years for the next election, while he lies and abuses you. Circulate a recall petition and get rid of the liar. (Some of us are starting the recall process on a senator even now.)

Optionally, consider H. Beam Piper's delightful novel, Lone Star Planet* for the ultimate... constituent feedback system. It would cheer me immensely if America adopted that process, to properly apply the Second Amendment.

We have an ongoing problem, of long standing, that party politics cannot fix. Recognize that. Get rid of the existing offenders. Replace them with people, not parties. If the new people repeat the problem, repeat the solution. Codify a means to keep them honest between elections.

Yes, it's work. But sitting back, waiting for bread and circuses hasn't exactly turned out well, has it?

* Piper's innovative recall process may have been inspired by H.L. Mencken's essay, The Malevolent Jobholder:
"...that it shall be no longer malum in se for a citizen to pummel, cowhide, kick, gouge, cut, wound, bruise, maim, burn, club, bastinado, flay, or even lynch a [government] jobholder, and that it shall be malum prohibitum only to the extent that the punishment exceeds the jobholder’s deserts. The amount of this excess, if any, may be determined very conveniently by a petit jury, as other questions of guilt are now determined."