There’s an adage, an old wisdom that is as old as the Republic itself and that must be remembered if freedom and liberty is to be valued; it simply tells to us that where people fear the government there shall always be tyranny, but where government fears the people there will be democracy.
A constitutional Republic unlike anything the world had ever seen before, even from the time of the ancients, the fundamental basis would find itself rooted in the best principles of the democratic ideal. Keenly aware that though the hearts of men might be filled with the best of intentions, the founders also knew their deeds could be done with the worst of malice. In that they would derive the foundations of their vision of government on the inalienable, indivisible, incorruptible rights of the people, the justly derived liberties found within the actual equality of all humanity, both as individuals and as a collective society bound together.
For over 200 years, this has been America, that “Republic, if we can keep it”, in the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin, and it has always found itself within the tenants of that revolutionary wisdom handed down from one generation to the next.
And there… well there, as the people’s Representatives within government, the same basic truth has to find itself as a cautionary warning to the Political Parties that compromise the American landscape.
This isn’t to say that these Parties, they somehow constitute a inherent American foundation or a constitutional requirement within the nation. Rather, tying together, binding together elected and appointed officials within government, they have become what must be a body that is of the people, for the people and by the people, and there within they, as the government, must be fearful of the people.
The truth is that a long time ago, with the passage of time and history, as the nation has grown older, we have lost a significant portion of our revolutionary spirit. When outrages occur, when it is felt that the government isn’t representing us, we have lost that part of our national experience that tells us to take to the streets demanding something more of it. Perhaps with the technological revolution and the onset of the communications age a portion of that has been reclaimed by some as they take the time to mobilize or to voice their unhappiness with the system, but even there it has become largely institutionalized.
In that there comes a realization… that within the scope and the framework of this current political climate and this current chapter of political history, there is an absolute necessity for credible third parties that are willing to take up the banner of a fight, even if it is an uphill battle the entire way, all for the task of ensuring a voice for the people.
Without a doubt many out there who are a member of the Big Two Political Parties have felt as if their Party has left them. It has been a reality since the beginning of party politics in the United States. The Republicans would abandon their Whig and Free Soil roots in order to form this new Northern Abolitionist Party. Al Smith, the former Democratic Governor of New York and two time Presidential Candidate for his Party would walk away from it in 1936, outraged at the direction it had gone in, and would form his own movement to battle his one time colleague and successor as Governor and Party nominee, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt, the machine busting Governor turned Vice President then President, would find himself disgusted by the direction his onetime Vice President, William Taft, had taken the Republicans in after he exited the political scene. Once more returning to the stage he would form his own party. Though failing to win the election, he would take enough votes from Taft to withhold his re-election from him.
And round and round, so it has gone as one generation passed to another, and political re-alignment changed the landscape of the nation.
There, we are taught a valuable lesson and one that cannot simple be ignored, Political Parties in America must fear their members or pay the price for it. Then, as the old saying goes, a little revolution now and then is a healthy thing.
That is what makes a Party like the Libertarian Party vital. Though young and new, still within the pangs of its own adolescence, it serves as a potential warning to those who understand their history that there is a third way there. Though aimed at created for itself political success based on its platform and policies, the truth is that it serves as a watchdog against the larger party that might forget its base or forget its roots and seek a path that runs contrary to it in the arrogance of its leadership. What they offer is a home to those who feel not as if they were abandoning their party, but those who have come to believe their party has left them.
Though they are yet to break the three percent margin on the national political scene in a presidential race, they do remain a cautionary tale. Considering the fact that they had not, during the last election, ran a traditional neo-libertarian, as they had in the previous elections, but rather a conservative who had not long ago sat with Republicans in the same party, and the success they had in forcing a runoff ballot in Georgia when victory should have easily been assured to Senator Saxby Chambliss, it reminds the Republican Party and the elected officials that bear that R behind their name that they are taking aim directly at them. They have candidates that will appeal to conservatives and they will find a home their if the party forgets their base.
There, though they may not win, those Republican leaders should perhaps learn a lesson caused north of the border. In Canada, 12 years of continuous Liberal rule was assured because of the simple fact that the Conservatives had split, some feeling abandoned by their traditional alignment and forming a third party, handing election after election to their opponents.
But then just a few thoughts I suppose…
Wyatt McIntyre is a conservative political vlogger, blogger, commentator and co-host of Patriot Action Live. His writing and thoughts on a variety of topics, from history to politics can be found at www.wyattmcintyre.com
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