A Third Way
Where to even begin given the false choice now offered up by today’s two-party political system: a Democratic party seen hijacked by a progressive wing; a Republican party commandeered by the neocons. Each party, it would appear, is taking us down the road to a reckoning.
With our Republic now on the eve of celebrating its 250th year anniversary, where might a sober citizen go to find a common sense platform to restore the founders’ original constitutional design of hard-wired limits on the size and scope of the administrative state?
Just imagine a platform that represents a much smaller government, fusing free-market economics and civil liberties. Consider the upcoming session as a thought experiment since the time for any sort of incipient third-party initiative has passed with our sclerotic system having been long held hostage by the entrenched interests of each current party.
Nonetheless, it’s worth discussing the following hypothetical platform. Let us start with a new piece of paper or perhaps dust off that very old one, the constitution. In no particular order:
Size and role of government: small central government, stripping most spending, regulations, and welfare programs as it retains only the limited enumerated powers and leaves others to markets, charities, individual state and local jurisdictions;
Economic Policy: slash or eliminate income and payroll taxes, abolish or drastically shrink the IRS, end corporate welfare, and move to deregulate;
Social and civil-liberties issues: become generally more socially liberal than either party by supporting strong individual rights and privacy protections; oppose “victimless crime” laws and broad surveillance;
Foreign Policy and War: adopt strict non-intervention with the military only for direct defense, not nation-building or preemptive wars.
Okay, for the one or two of you who might actually resonate with the above, we might just ponder the gag reflex by the others to those to these tenets of Libertarian Party and reflect on the degree to which our country has normalized this slouch toward central planning over two and a half centuries (click: Nation's Libertarian Roots). Just ask yourself whether you believe our current path is sustainable.
We might again look to that wonderful focus piece from our MM 3/27/17 Kludgeocracy In America session which tells us more about our government today than all the civics classes, political speeches, or even a close reading of the Constitution might reveal in terms of what actually drives opacity and incoherence in our system of government. The effects are seen in everything from our tax laws to what's often referred to as the education “blob.”
We might take note of these well-known words, “A democracy can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”
A good start would be the return to a hard money standard.
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