The Tea Party as a Third Political Party ... by Texas Fred

The TEA Party as a Third Party?
by Texas Fred

LINK: http://texasfred.net/archives/7869

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In the immortal words of Kinky Friedman; “Why the hell not?”

Lately a lot of people are talking about the TEA Party, it’s potential to affect changes in the 2010 elections, and more specifically, in the 2012 elections. Also a HOT BOTTON TOPIC is the question of whether the TEA Party may or could possibly become a viable Third Party.
The very issue of a Third Party stirs the emotions of Americans, of all political tilts.

There are some good points made in the blockquote below by Thomas Friedman, but be warned, Friedman appears to be an Obama fan. Read the next paragraphs with an open mind and try to put his obvious Obama favoritism aside.

There is a revolution brewing in the country, and it is not just on the right wing but in the radical center. I know of at least two serious groups, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, developing “third parties” to challenge our stagnating two-party duopoly that has been presiding over our nation’s steady incremental decline.

(SNIP)

Obama probably did the best he could do, and that’s the point. The best our current two parties can produce today — in the wake of the worst existential crisis in our economy and environment in a century — is suboptimal, even when one party had a huge majority. Suboptimal is O.K. for ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times. We need to stop waiting for Superman and start building a superconsensus to do the superhard stuff we must do now. Pretty good is not even close to good enough today.

(SNIP)

“We basically have two bankrupt parties bankrupting the country,” said the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond. Indeed, our two-party system is ossified; it lacks integrity and creativity and any sense of courage or high-aspiration in confronting our problems.(SNIP)“If competition is good for our economy,” asks Diamond, “why isn’t it good for our politics?”

We need a third party on the stage of the next presidential debate to look Americans in the eye and say: “These two parties are lying to you. They can’t tell you the truth because they are each trapped in decades of special interests. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. I am going to tell you what you need to hear if we want to be the world’s leaders, not the new Romans.” SOURCE

I know the immediate response that some will have regarding a Third Party, we’ve heard it for a long time, “A third party only splits the vote…” And my response is, “Yeah…so?”
Assuming such a candidate truly exists, what does a Third Party accomplish if they can find and run a candidate of outstanding character, impeccable background, solid education, with experience and unquestionable moral and social standing?

That would be a winning candidate and the 2 major parties would be standing on the sidelines shaking their heads and wondering what just happened.

I have to wonder if the TEA Party, in it’s grass roots mode, could actually muster such a well rounded candidate. Grass roots is a wonderful place to start, but it will only take you so far in the big picture part of the equation.

This is from Libertarian Lew Rockwell, and speaking for myself, clearly defines exactly why I can’t, and won’t wear the title of Libertarian.

You might as well know right now, however, that the Tea Party, no matter how successful it is at the polls in November, will certainly betray the party of liberty. There are several reasons for this, but the fundamental one is intellectual. The Tea Party does not have a coherent view of liberty. Its activists tend to be good on specific economic issues like taxes, spending, stimulus, and healthcare. They worry about government intervention in these areas and can talk a good game.

But just as with old-time conservatives, there are many issues on which the Tea Party tends toward inconsistency. The military and the issue of war is a major one. Many have bought into the line that the greatest threat this country faces domestically is the influx of adherents of Islam; in international politics, they tend to favor belligerence toward any regime that is not a captive of US political control.

On immigration, the Tea Party ethos favors national IDs and draconian impositions on businesses rather than market solutions like cutting welfare. On social and cultural issues, they can be as confused as the Christian Right, believing that it is the job of government to right all wrongs and punish sin.

This doesn’t describe them all. A poll taken last spring divides the activists into two camps: Palin and Paul. Both groups are mad as heck at the mainstream Republican Party, but only the Paul camp has broadened that anger to the government generally. SOURCE

When Rockwell says “the Tea Party, no matter how successful it is at the polls in November, will certainly betray the party of liberty”, the party of liberty is the Libertarians.

Rockwell is a well known disciple of Ron Paul. Rockwell borders, in MY opinion, on being an anarchist.

Nowhere have I ever seen or heard anyone within the TEA Party claim that it was the duty of the government to right all wrongs and punish sin.

There are some excellent points in the Libertarian platform, there are some that are not so well received by Conservatives.

The reason I bring Rockwell into this post is because many in the TEA Party do lean to the side of the Libertarian Party. I personally have been described as a Conservative libertarian. That’s a big *C* Conservative and little *l* libertarian.

There are many hard core Libertarians that believe it’s nearly impossible to be a Conservative libertarian, just as I believe it’s nearly impossible to be a Conservative Democrat.

Again I reference back to Thomas Friedman; "The Tea Party that has gotten all the attention, the amorphous, self-generated protest against the growth in government and the deficit, is what I’d actually call the “Tea Kettle movement” — because all it’s doing is letting off steam.

That is not to say that the energy behind it is not authentic (it clearly is) or that it won’t be electorally impactful (it clearly might be). But affecting elections and affecting America’s future are two different things. Based on all I’ve heard from this movement, it feels to me like it’s all steam and no engine. It has no plan to restore America to greatness.

The Tea Kettle movement can’t have a positive impact on the country because it has both misdiagnosed America’s main problem and hasn’t even offered a credible solution for the problem it has identified. How can you take a movement seriously that says it wants to cut government spending by billions of dollars but won’t identify the specific defense programs, Social Security, Medicare or other services it’s ready to cut — let alone explain how this will make us more competitive and grow the economy?

And how can you take seriously a movement that sat largely silent while the Bush administration launched two wars and a new entitlement, Medicare prescription drugs — while cutting taxes — but is now, suddenly, mad as hell about the deficit and won’t take it anymore from President Obama? Say what? Where were you folks for eight years?" SOURCE

Apparently Mr. Friedman didn’t read MY blog when Bush was taking us into Iraq. I had Republicans and Conservatives all over America blasting me for my views of what I still consider to be a highly ill-advised effort. But, I digress.

The TEA Party has a plethora of detractors, as many detractors as it has supporters it seems.
The crux of the matter is this; the TEA Party could very well become a viable Third Party, but they will never do so as long as they adhere to a grass roots style of being. To become a player on the national front, to effectively influence elections on the national scale, you have to be an organized power. The TEA Party does not have that power or position.

If the TEA Party were to become a national power they would have to work diligently to assure that they weren’t co-opted by ANY party, be it GOP, Dems or Libertarian.

The TEA Party must stand as a beacon of truth and hope, honesty and stand for the America 1st patriotism that other parties have cast by the wayside. The TEA Party must stand for it’s Core Values, Uphold the U.S. Constitution, Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Free Markets.

If the TEA Party could do all of those things and maintain a level of integrity that has long been gone from the American political scene, the TEA Party could very well BE that viable force that is needed to bring REAL change to America, change for the better. Not the *Hope and Change* that has become the grandest example of *Epic Fail* in American history.

Texas Fred

LINK: http://texasfred.net/archives/7869

Renewed Effort Toward Global Governance At The UN?

Renewed Effort Toward Global Governance At The UN?
One-World Government Aborning?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

“Outlining priorities for the 65th session at a news conference last week, Mr. Deiss (Thomas Deiss, the UN General Assembly President) called for efforts to “reinstate” the UN and its 192-member General Assembly to the centre of global governance.” (SOURCE)

The paragraph above is from an article titled: “Countries welcome new Assembly President’s focus on global governance,” which can be found HERE. The article is dated the 21^st of September 2010. It also states: “Several countries have expressed support for the initiative of the General Assembly President to make global governance a central theme of the current session of the United Nations body.

Prime Minister Klaus Tschütscher of Liechtenstein, as well as Sheikh Khalid ibn Ahmad Al Khalifa, the Foreign Minister of Bahrain; Xavier Espot Miró, the Foreign Minister of Andorra; and Amr Moussa, the Secretary-General of the Arab League concurred with Joseph Deiss on prioritizing such an important topic.”

The article quotes Mr. Deiss as having said: “The challenges which we face today have acquired a global dimension and require global solutions. Our actions must have broad legitimacy and be the result of inclusive processes. We have to improve the mechanisms for information, consultation and cooperation between the United Nations and other actors and tools of global governance ... ."

It surely appears that warnings concerning the determination of the UN to formulate a one-world government were prescient, indeed.

It is fairly easy to understand why an organization, any organization, would want to rule the world … RAW, UNADULTERATED, POWER … but, it absolutely escapes me as to how they plan to actually GOVERN all the peoples of the earth for a single instant, let alone forever.

The expression “herding cats” comes immediately to mind when I think of the impossibility of a single ruling body governing the “earth people.”

But first we must ask ourselves how, exactly, will global governance be established? It will surely be through one of two avenues. Think about it. A one-world government must be achieved either by consent -- or by conquest.

It is inconceivable that the people of the United States would willingly give up their freedom and liberty, forsake their constitution and their bill of rights, and swear fealty to the United Nations, or any other would-be global ruling body … at least for a few more generations, anyway.

Americans, of a necessity, will have to be conditioned to accept less and less freedom, as the years go by, before there can be any thing approaching a reasonable expectation that they will accept what can only be described as “global slavery” overseen by a single globe encompassing authority.

Look, a one-world government would immediately bring us global poverty, and global war(s). That is the bottom line. Earth would overnight become a single battleground as the forces of that ruling authority attempt to impose its will on every single person on the planet. All wars would be “world wars” as they would affect every person on the globe.

Only one form of global governance has any chance of success – at all. That is totalitarianism -- a one-world dictatorship – period. As we said above global governance is all about power – absolute power.

The current American government is trying, as best it can, to condition Americans and drive them toward acceptance of global governance at some level, to some degree, with the goal of having America willingly submit itself to a single global authority. Unfortunately, the current American presidential administration is, for all intents and purposes, just a puppet government whose strings are being pulled by international financiers and moneymen.

Nobody has been able to convince me, yet, that the 2008 financial crash was not orchestrated to elect the Obama Administration in order to pave the way for the totalitarian one-world government those powerful world financiers covet.

Sounds like another conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? Well, as the television program says: “Not all conspiracies are theories.”

I am convinced the idea was to bring America to her knees to make her malleable to their wishes. For a global government to have any chance, at all, the puppeteers need America in the vanguard of the creators of that government. But most of all they need the American people to willingly submit to it.

But, they ran into a problem, a big problem. The problem they mistakenly thought they could avoid turned out to be -- the American people themselves!

Almost immediately, Americans began fighting back. Can you say: “TEA PARTY?”

The weak-spined American government will be shown the back of the American people’s hands in about four weeks at the polls.

Much of the world does not understand that here, in America, the government serves at the pleasure of the people. The power of the American government is granted by the “consent of the governed.” We, the governed, are about to rescind the privilege to wield that power for a great number of those in our government in about a month. Its what we do to a rogue government.

While the Obama Regime is busy back-slapping each other, and applauding each other, and reveling in the deepest depths of denial we have seen since “Baghdad Bob,” their world is about to crumble about them. And the global governance crowd? Well, their plans will be set back, at least for a while. But they will be back. Count on it. And we will confuse their plans again. “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”

J. D. Longstreet

Can The US Survive Intact -- Or Split Into Multiple Countries?

(Published in March 2010)
Save Your Confederate Money, Boys!
The South’s Gonna Rise Again!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

In my youth there was a popular song entitled: “Save Your Confederate Money, Boys… the South Is Gonna Rise Again!”

I began thinking about it as I watched a group of talking heads discussing the future of America, as a single entity comprised of 50 states. The consensus was -- America will not survive as a 50-state nation. It is a conclusion, which I, unhappily, arrived at years ago.

I am convinced we Americans are being lied to by our government. I am also convinced our economy is on the verge of collapse. Maybe it is just my natural paranoia, but I simply don’t see the “silver lining” inside the dark clouds hanging low over Wall Street and other financial centers in America. I think we are in for a total collapse of our economic system.

What then?

Well, we start over. I mean, literally, we START OVER.

Stand back, mentally, and take an objective look at the country we call the UNITED States of America. Can we really say we are UNITED? I mean, REALLY? If we are truthful we have to admit the union has been strained since its inception. Sure, we were united against the British during The Revolution… and several times since. But that lasted only until around 1840. Things went downhill rapidly in the 1840’s and 1850’s. By the spring of 1861 we are at war, internally, with each other. It was the most vicious war Americans have ever fought. United peoples don’t fight each other; certainly not the way Americans did in the War Between the States.

After four years of the bloodiest war this continent has ever seen, my southern ancestors were forced back into “The UNION” at the point of a bayonet – a bayonet, which was wielded by Federal Government very unlike the federal government the colonies/states created to act as their agent. At that moment -- power slipped from the hands of the people into the hands of the government and Americans have never been able to reacquire it, or rescue it, from the grasping fist of that government – a government many now say has gone rogue.

There is an old expression I have heard all my life. It says: “When one door closes, another door opens.” If that is the case, then we Americans may have a chance, and fairly soon, to set aright much that has been wrong with our country since the middle of the 19^th century.

The State Sovereignty Movement has been underway for many months now and the last report I saw had the figure at close to two-dozen states already involved, to one degree or another. That is close to HALF the states! For more on the State Sovereignty Movement go HERE.

No, I don’t think there will be another civil war in America. I think we learned our lesson from the last one. I have come to believe that, when the time comes, we will simply agree to separate. I'm not sure, geographically, how that will play out. But, it will not, necessarily, be a north/south split. Some think the northeastern states will most likely join with Canada. Frankly, I am not so sure. I see the northeastern states becoming the country of “New England.” a socialist nation.

To say that the Old Confederacy will re-emerge, is a bit of a stretch. Although, there is at least one group, I am aware of, that would certainly like to see that. But we are a different people than our confederate ancestors. Having said that, I DO believe, however, that many of the contiguous southern states will make an attempt at forming a country of their own.

Texas will, most likely, revert back to a republic. I’d have to guess that the mid-western states, where the labor unions have such a death grip, would form some sort of union as a socialist confederation of some sort. The plains states and the mountain states, well, I have no idea what they will do, but I do see them forming a country of their own – a republic of some sort.

The states of the west coast will, no doubt, become a socialist/Marxist nation more closely allied with Red China than with it’s former sister states.

Taking a closer look at the southern tier of states I can see them adopting the original US Constitution and making an effort to revive the original country, with the original government, as the founders of the US had intended (as they made clear so many times in the Federalist Papers).

So, there is the possibility what we now refer to, as the USA will become 4 or even 5 different countries. Which of the new nations will blossom and thrive? My money will be on the southern states… if they heed the mistakes of their forbearers and make every effort not to make those mistakes again.

The important thing is to be able to live peaceably with each other on this continent. That will be no mean task, for when the socialist states begin to fail; there will be a huge migration of their citizens to the southern states. That will create immense friction between the states.
This is not an easy thing to contemplate. It is, most assuredly, unpleasant to talk about. But each of us needs to evaluate our principles and determine our own paths into the future.

Obama told us plainly, during his campaign for President, that he intended to “fundamentally” change America. If he has not accomplished anything else, he has certainly accomplished that.

J. D. Longstreet

No More Trips To The Moon ... Alan Caruba

No More Trips to the Moon

By Alan Caruba

I turn 73 on October 9th and, to be honest, I feel sorry for anyone who has not lived during much of the last century. In a very real way, America’s Apollo program that put men on the Moon on July 20, 1969 was as an exciting a moment in history as anyone could ask to experience.

On Friday, October 1, a total of 1,100 employees at Cape Canaveral reported to work for the last time. No more space shuttles. No more trips to the Moon. Not even trips to the International Space Station.

In February President Obama called for an end to NASA’s Moon program. In fairness, the U.S. hadn’t put a man there since December 1972, the fifth of the Apollo missions. The spacecraft and Saturn launch vehicles were later used for the Skylab program and the joint American-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz test project.

I can remember John F. Kennedy’s speech to Congress in 1961. “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

In the 1980s I visited Cape Canaveral on assignment for a magazine and had the opportunity to go out to the launch pad. You cannot imagine how big those Saturn launch vehicles were unless you stood there and looked up at the huge structure, realizing that launching a Moon mission or any other is comparable to putting a skyscraper into outer space.

I confess that I always suspected that our space program was actually a cover for our development of ballistic missiles. The idea of going to the Moon was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in 1960 when many of the early decisions about the development of a missile program took shape.

At the time, the Russians had put Sputnik into space in 1957 and had scored a huge propaganda victory. What it said to Eisenhower and others was that the same missiles that lifted it into outer space could be used against any of our cities. By April 1961 Yuri Gargarin, a Russian, became the first person to fly in space. Americans took notice.

Now the only way to get to the space station is aboard a Russian vehicle. How’s that for irony? There’s a lot of talk about developing a new generation of space vehicles and, since we’ve been using technology developed in the 1950s and 60s, that’s probably a good idea.

Or maybe not? Despite all the Star Wars films and Star Trek television shows, I have my doubts about the wisdom of putting humans in space for any reason. Probably the best space project we have undertaken involving humans was the Hubble Telescope, but it has been other unmanned projects, the Mariner, Voyager, and Cassini flights that have told as just as much or more about the planetary system we’re in.

What we know for sure is that humans are not designed to live in outer space because we are creatures of our extraordinary and singular atmosphere, not the black vacuum of space.

Us old codgers must tip our hats to Kennedy and his predecessor in the White House. We must marvel at the engineering and other scientific genius of those who worked for NASA and gave us reason to take pride in being Americans.

We will not make any more trips to the Moon, but we were the first and last to do so. That speaks to the American exceptionalism that today is in doubt because we have a President more likely to apologize for America than to praise it.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

The GOP’s Choice For President

The GOP’s Choice For President
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

There are those who will say NOW is not the time to expend mental energy on ciphering the inner workings of the GOP and the machinations they go through to choose a presidential candidate. Those who say that may very well be correct, but here we go, anyway.

If I could make one suggestion to the GOP candidate selection corp – it would be that they not present their base with the same tired old candidates they continue to run out each h election cycle.

Oh, and allow me to mention something they may have missed. Sarah Palin, for all her likeability within the conservative branch of the Republican Party, will not be an acceptable choice to carry the GOP banner into the 2012 election for President of the US.

Don’t misunderstand. I LIKE Ms. Palin. In my opinion, she is a powerful engine within the conservatives of the GOP. She can gather a crowd, create a tidal wave of energy within the ranks of the party, and her skill at raising money is akin to that of a money machine. Her support can push a little known candidate across the finish line to victory, as we have seen a number of times already. But she cannot win a race for President against Obama.

That needed saying, as the expression as it, so I said it.

In the first place I think the upper echelon of the Republican Party had rather ingest cyanide than support Ms. Palin as their candidate for President. Left to their own devices I am convinced they would, as they did in 2008, discard the conservative wing of their party and place their support behind a liberal or a RINO candidate with the belief that they can win the 2012 Presidential Election with the support of only liberal and moderate republicans, plus the independent voters. That move was doomed to failure, right from the start, in the 2008 election cycle and it has even less chance of ending in victory in the 2012 election cycle.

I have voted a conservative ballot since my first election at the tender age of 21. I will do the same this next month and again in November of 2012. Like all conservatives my votes always reflect my core beliefs. Conservatives are like that. We will not compromise our beliefs to vote for a GOP candidate who does not share those beliefs just so the Republican Party can claim a victory. Such a victory often turns out to be pyrric, anyway.

There is some evidence that the “higher-ups” in the GOP are beginning to understand this fact. I hope so, for, indeed, the survival of the Republican Party, as a political force in America, literally hangs on their understanding that and accepting that and embracing conservative republicans.

The Republican Party must recognize that Conservatives have the power now to create that viable “third Party” which, I am convinced would quickly move the GOP into third party status and itself into direct contention with the Democratic Party to become the controlling political party in the US. The truth is the Tea Party Movement in America has accomplished that for conservatives.

In one month America’s electorate will go to the polls to decide whether America remain a constitutional republic or is dragged into the slavery of a socialist state akin to the pathetic European socialist entities sometimes referred to as “states.” The conservative movement in America is going head-to-head with the liberal socialists in America to stop that from happening. Conservatives understand, better than anyone, it seems, that socialism is assured death for the American way of life. They give all indications they are determined to concentrate their considerable power on preserving the country and the political system our forefathers labored so hard to obtain and to guarantee for us.

The GOP MUST understand conservatives will settle for nothing less than a genuine conservative candidate for President of the US in 2012. This is not negotiable, period.

Before the GOP makes a mistake they will rue to their dying day, allow me to state as clearly as I know how the following: Conservatives are not so desirous of being rid of the Obama Regime that they (conservatives) will vote for practically anyone the GOP decides to push forward as the party’s choice for President. I assure you that is NOT the case. In fact, it is a sure and certain way to return the Obama Regime to power for another four years.

The bottom line is this: If the GOP decides to ignore the conservative branch of their party this time around, then I expect conservatives will accept the GOP rejection of their values and move on to form their own political party, separate from the Republicans, into which they can pour their considerable political clout, their energy, and their collective talents in an effort to build a better America.

J. D. Longstreet