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Administrator (Idle past 2561 days) Posts: 2073 From: The Universe Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Introduction to the Federalists Party - Kuresu | |||||||||||||||||||
anglagard Member (Idle past 1095 days) Posts: 2339 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
Good luck in trying to start a new political party in the USA. Everything is rigged against you. Having actively worked for a third party for a few years, I know from where I speak.
Back in the mid 80s, during the time I was in the US Army, some coke-snorting basketball player died on the court due to cardiac arrest, Len Bias was his name I believe. As a result, Congress went into action to pass the Drug Control Act in 1986 which allowed asset forfiture upon suspicion rather than after conviction. The act was passed with bipartisan support without any real debate (just like the more recent Patriot Act). As a result, property could be siezed from anyone "suspected" of drug involvement. The act changed the entire judical concept of presumption of innocent until proven guilty on its head. Now people were guilty and had to prove innocence to recover such seized assets, if they could afford the time and money required. Needless to say, the act resulted in massive police corruption, and continues to do so to this very day. Just say the magic word, drugs, and a citizen loses the right to property. Upon leaving the army in 1987, I saw the effects of this corrupt legislation upon the populace. Yet no one from either major political party dared criticize the act lest they be open to the accusation of "being soft on drugs." It was a return to the McCarthyism I had only read about. This was not the same nation I had sworn to defend with my life three years earlier. Because I felt that both major parties had betrayed the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the fourth and fifth amendments to the Bill of Rights, I sought to actively fight for any movement that would restore the rights of citizens to their former state. Since I was a fiscal conservative and social liberal, I found the best fit was with the Libertarian Party. I soon became involved with activists within the party and actively campaigned for their elections. Third parties must gain a number of signatures to appear on the ballot and so I went trooping around to gain such signatures. I soon found that even under the best of circumstances, a small majority of voters do not want to place anyone from a third party on a ballot as they are against providing the voters the choice. So much for public support for democracy. After a few years, I got married, my wife became pregnant, and I no longer had the time to remain politically active. I passed my position of county chair of the party to someone else, who after a month of activism, stopped, which acted to undo all my hard work of the previous three years. Around this time, I became somewhat disenchanted with the party as well when someone who ran for the state senate received one vote in a county that had hundreds of supporters. I asked him what he planned to do about this clear example of election fraud and he replied "nothing, things have always been that way." {some dozen years later the county clerk got 10 years for a 20-year history of election fraud, as in ballot-box stuffing} So much for democracy. I felt that as long as the party couldn't even fight against election corruption, they would be completely ineffective at fighting for anything else. I also came to realize that Libertarianism was a utopian political philosophy and would never be effective as a political party because they could not compromise on their beliefs. However I do think they have a role in at least providing a choice other than having to vote for one of two amoral crooks. So the point I wanted to make here was that it is very difficult to get the majority of voters to stop supporting indebtedness, mudslinging, fiscal waste, or the gradual loss of liberty.
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anglagard Member (Idle past 1095 days) Posts: 2339 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
Mudslinging in American politics is nothing new, in fact many historians would say it was worse at the beginning of the nation before the laws against libel and slander were fully worked out against a press that was unfettered by any respect for truth.
Sometimes such mudslinging even resulted in death, ask the guy on the $10 bill.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2771 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
I'm about to find out myself. I know that no third party has ever existed for a long while, or ever gained any real influence--republicans excepted.
it's a grass roots kinda thing. It's got to be on a national level, and what really stinks is that it has been rigged so that it is difficult for third parties to exist. but, if I don't give it a shot, I can't say I've really tried to do something. All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2577 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
As an outsider, your policies don't seem distinctive enough. I think I could happily stand as a Democrat or a Republican and still espouse your policies without anyone stirring a hair.
If you're not distinctive, nobody's going to vote for you.Make yourself too distinctive, though, and nobody will vote for you either . 'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2771 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
you ever expect the repubs and dems to compromise on anything?
you ever expect either to at least attempt passing an in budget budget? you ever expect either parties to actually clean up their mess? we're a moderate party. they generally don't have that "distinctive" edge, so we're left with either two (when it comes to voting). that's gotta stop. right now, the parties are locked down in ideological fist fights, refusing to budge. that's not good for this country. as such, the distinctive edge, I think, is the compromise part. I don't know of a single party that actually espouses that as part of the platform. All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences
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NeuroCycle Inactive Member |
With current campaign finance setup, winner-take-all and majority voting system, and the publics attitude toward politics it will never get off the ground. The systems is only set up to handle a 2 party arena - it is very flawed in that way.
I agree with most of your ideas and attitudes, but it will never see the light of day with the current system.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2771 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
thanks.
one question-how many more people are out there, like you?you know, the moderate, who does agree with this platform (for the most part)? we can always give it a try--and if we don't at least make an attempt, well . . . All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences
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NeuroCycle Inactive Member |
Making an attempt is all you can do and hope if you fail that your message might be adapted into one of the other major parties. You don't have to win to create change.
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Phat Member Posts: 18651 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
Introduction to the Federalists Party - Kuresu
Kuresu writes: we want to shift the current course of the political system from the bickering partisanship to a cooperative bi, or rather, tri-partisanship. What must occur for this to happen might as well be called a paradigm shift in how politics is done.Phat writes: It has come to the point that he who wins destroyed his opponent more effectively than his opponents attempts to destroy him. We witnessed this in the presidential campaign. Its really hard to get people to agree on anything. Even now, the two party system can't agree in Congress. What makes us think that a Third party would be able to achieve unity?Phat writes: The solution to this problem is easy to see, but not easy to implement. The solution”compromise. I agree that political commercials are despicable. Perhaps credibility and honesty are sacrificed in the name of raw voter numbers. Look for a more modern MTV like approach in the next Presidential election---as the big political machines seek to get your vote.Phat writes:
Unfortunately, it is seen as a weakness to compromise on issues today, and as such, the politicians get dragged down into battles over the most silly of things. I ask this”how can our government work efficiently when it is consumed by these battles? The federalist party, therefore, focuses on compromise, not strict adherence to ideology. Don’t get me wrong”we’ve got our ideas, but we’re not going to fight tooth over nail for them. Human nature only compromises so far, though. To give up ones ideology requires drastic paradigm shifts---you are right.Phat writes: Hopefully, this would allow the legislature to get to work on other issues, instead of fighting for more than half a year over the issue of a tax raise. The squeaky wheels always get the grease..(or tax dollars) If you don't fight how will you garner support? I see your strategy, though---you hope to be experts at political compromise. Good luck! Phat writes:
We aim to present our ideas”and to let the best idea, or man, win. We want to make politics more about having good ideas than about having a better looking face. Great idea in theory...Phat writes:
As it stands, here is the general platform: It helps to have a good face as well, though. Clinton was tall and had the image of a good leader. Image is important.We must recognize that we can no longer remain isolationist, xenophobic, or unilateral. We are the most powerful nation on this planet . . . for now. This does not mean, though, that we can ignore what the world thinks of us, nor can we ignore the consequences of our actions on the world. Gone is the cold war and with it, our unilateral power. We have to become a partner in world affairs, not a nation that thinks it has no bounds our limits to its power. Point put simple, we are not invincible, and yes, we will need the world’s help on the international stage. Phat writes:
We must also restore the faith of the public in government. Thanks to a long history of the expansion of federal power, and the pointless expansion of the bureaucracy, the government has become too removed from the common person. Not only that, but most politicians are considered lying, thieving, and uncaring when it comes to their constituents. While we are in the age of federal power, and while we must accept that on the federal level we can no longer argue for state advantages and privileges, we have to reduce the size of this behemoth and make it more accessible to the public. But how will you appease big business interests? The Corporations have incredible sway.Phat writes:
Along with the reduction of the size, if not power, of the federal government, we must adopt a new spending policy, and most probably a new tax code. The goal of this is to begin reducing, and finally eliminating, one of the most important threats to our nation. The national debt. It is an unfortunate carry over from the Reagan administration that the national debt is of no concern. Reagan used this to destroy the USSR. Unfortunately, the one currently carrying out the same spending policy has more than doubled a national debt that took us 200 years to get, in the space of 6. But that will involve cutting jobs--and people will get hurt. The behemoth has human faces behind it. Phat writes: The national debt is an important issue, but again---it will be painful and people have a hard time living with pain. The final general area of interest is the improvement of America. And that is something we all surely should be able to agree on---as long as it does not hurt a few of us for the benefit of the majority. That is the real issue.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2771 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
Something tells me it’s time for the second installment of my supposedly monthly column feature. It’s also the second of a series dealing specifically with the, as I think our name is now (my friend and I have had quite some trouble with this, but it looks like we’ve settled on the Christian Democratic party. This time, it’s our take on international relations and the US.
Fortunately, when writing out the first column, I had done a much more comprehensive outlining of the party, and then used the version at EvC (as the sign now reads niotulove susrev noitaerc) to introduce the party and it’s basic ideas. For convenience, here is the blurb that shows up in the version dealing with international relations: [blurb]We must recognize that we can no longer remain isolationist, xenophobic, or unilateral. We are the most powerful nation on this planet . . . for now. This does not mean, though, that we can ignore what the world thinks of us, nor can we ignore the consequences of our actions on the world. Gone is the cold war and with it, our unilateral power. We have to become a partner in world affairs, not a nation that thinks it has no bounds our limits to its power. Point put simple, we are not invincible, and yes, we will need the world’s help on the international stage. [blurb] The reason I have chosen to go further in detail with this is that this was the major thorn in Catholic Scientist’s side”preventing the loss of US power. It seemed to him (as I understand it) that our position threatened US power. I will now attempt to show, much more fully and completely, how our position on international relations is a response to what my friend and I feel is the beginning of the end of American power, and what we can do to try and reverse this trend. What follows is the full (for now”it needs work, and there is another section that I grouped with this, though upon further reflection, it belongs in a slightly different category, and is not germane to this area) explanation of the statement above. [blurb]For now, that wraps up domestic goals. Onward ho to the foreign goals. Or perhaps more precisely, the international arena goals. For the last half century, after World War II, the US has most definitely been the preeminent power in the world. This power was also around prior to our entry into WWII, but latent. Or, hidden. Proof of this would be the Great Depression. When our economy crashed into the ground, we took out economies all over the world. So while we didn’t have the military power, we had the economic power. Both were very important during the Cold War against the USSR, now Russia. Today, we still have, if not the most powerful, one of the most powerful militaries in the world. And our economy is still powerful, if growing at an anemic rate. The problem today is, we are no longer the sole holder of power. Other nations are joining the ranks of the Great, and we are now moving from super power to great power. Much like when Britain moved from being the super power of its day (the British Colonial Empire) to being a Great Power by the end of the First World War. The consequences of this shift in the power balance are obvious. First and foremost, we must recognize that we are not the power of the world, but one of several. Second, we must realize what this means in terms of what we can do as a nation unilaterally. We have enough power, just enough, to handle the Iraqi War on our own. Compare that to when we had enough to take on the entire Japanese Empire on our own. And Iraq is no Japanese Empire in terms of capabilities and strengths. This means that we will need to talk to other nations and yes, get help. We can no longer try to be the single mother refusing to get help. If we want to accomplish specific goals, we will have to learn how to build coalitions with other nations. We will have to learn how to get along. This is unpolished, mind you. And it needs to be expanded upon. However, it was written in regards of laying out the most basic premises of our foreign policy goals and for keeping this editorial and the platform paper short. [blurb] Hopefully, this will give you all a rough idea of where we’re going. I’m looking forward to what will hopefully be a more active discussion, and it will be the debate that will help to crystallize the ideas present. Want to help give back to the world community? Did you know that your computer can help? Join the newest TeamEvC Climate Modelling to help improve climate predictions for a better tomorrow.
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Damouse Member (Idle past 5164 days) Posts: 215 From: Brookfield, Wisconsin Joined: |
I hate quoting, as it makes some readers simply skim over what was written, so ill directly comment on Kuresu's last post, and the comumn in general.
Well now... the first part in th OP says maaaany things. Among those things that are written, you say what you hope to acheive. This is admirable, as if one has no goal, they have no solution; case in point, politicians are flawed and the nation in debt. But at this point you stop. At this point this column becomes idealistic, and no longer a battle plan. You have not listed HOW these politicians will be specially selected to root out the bad ones. You have not described how you will take a behometh of the largest centralized government in the Western World and make it shrink. You have touched on it, but your plan does not provide for every problem, it only deals with what we generally want to do. Was it Montesquieu? Spencer? "To hold the beast at bay you must pit it against itself" Im not sure who wrote it anymore, or if thats the exact quote even, but that was the general idea behind our trifecta of checks and balances, and it works rather well in the grand scheme of things. As to the second post, there are some historical problems. you say that America came out of the second world war on top, and thats generally true. But im forced to argue when you say that this power was latent before that. When the Great Depression set in, our economy crashed, and we recovered at the begining of the second world war. Herein lies a problem: how could there have been a second world war if everyone(including the germans) were economically defunct? Hmm... You say that the US is no longer the leading military force. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, we currently have 10000 functional nuclear weapons, and have produced 60000 in the years since the end of the second world war. The closest leader is Russia, with 5000 functional. Id definatly say we're still a big player. You also vouch for global unity. Who is the driving force in all UN movements? the UN decided to move into IRAQ, we led the way. the UN is still keeping the peace in the korean DMZ, who has most if not all of the soldiers still serving there? Id say we're a player in the global community too, if even a little too much. We've been going on a lot of vacations in the middle east in the past decade or so.... I dont mean to disprove or prove your point(s), but some of the things you say are either not clear or the line of logic is lost. Perhaps a clearer outline-ish form where all of the goals are stated and how to acheive them? Otherwise, its a good plan/party(?). Its time to start making some changes. WWGD- What Would G.Washington Do? -I believe in God, I just call it Nature -One man with an imaginary friend is insane. a Million men with an imaginary friend is a religion. -People must often be reminded that the bible did not arrive as a fax from heaven; it was written by men. -Religion is the opiate of the masses
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Damouse Member (Idle past 5164 days) Posts: 215 From: Brookfield, Wisconsin Joined: |
Ok, i posted and then re-read my thread, then happened to glance over the title. the Christian Democratic party?!? WHAT?!?
There are multiple possibilities:1- you misspelled it 2- you meant something completly different 3- you honestly changed the name of your party for the american government to the Christian democratic party. In the case of one or two, please change it, its kinda scary. In the case of 3, i regret to inform you that im inclined to call you all sorts of questionable names. Please tell me its a mistake....Ill wait till you respond before flying off the handle.... but a bit for now, bit for later. what are you talking about?! that would violate the roots of the foundations of this country! the Puritans came over for RELIGIOUS freedom, and it REALLY doesnt bode well when you call the party the Christian party, and exclude the other religions. if thats what your plan is, then i must respectfully ask you to eat your foot. Not to mention the gross infringement between church and state, which should be obvious. -I believe in God, I just call it Nature -One man with an imaginary friend is insane. a Million men with an imaginary friend is a religion. -People must often be reminded that the bible did not arrive as a fax from heaven; it was written by men. -Religion is the opiate of the masses
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2771 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
just to keep in mind--this whole thing is a work in progress, and how many platforms do you know of are very detailed? This is, as the thread title says, an introduction. now then, on to the points.
When the Great Depression set in, our economy crashed, and we recovered at the begining of the second world war. Herein lies a problem: how could there have been a second world war if everyone(including the germans) were economically defunct? the german economy was being rebuilt by building up hitler's war machine, as well as the re-evaluation of the german mark. we were quite defunct economically until we built up our war machine to fight off Hitler and the japs. And I'll still argue the military one. We have ten thousand nukes you say. Russia has five thousand. nukes don't really matter--unless you are trying to get one and have never had one before. If we are so powerful militarily with the nukes, why don't we just use them? After all, we can blow up twice as much as russia. conventional weapons are still the only capable weapons of war. you know, the whole mutually assured destruction keeps them from being used (at least for the moment). In the last iraqi war, the UN did not support the invasion. while their support may not have been needed, we still just can't go around dissin' the friends we do have. Even if alliances are sometimes traps (such as the case in NATO or SEATO, the Triple Alliance or the Triple Entente) we need them if we are to manage to at least preserve the power we do have. oh, and I never claimed to be a clear writer, especially when the topic is still muddy. half the point here is to help crystallize the party with debate. Want to help give back to the world community? Did you know that your computer can help? Join the newest TeamEvC Climate Modelling to help improve climate predictions for a better tomorrow.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2771 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
Okay, may as well explain the name history.
First we were the nationalists. then jar told me about this lovely neo-fascist group that had taken that name. then we were the federalists--while no one has the name now, one of the first-two parties had this name--and wanted to keep the vote to the wealthy. not a good historical stigma. then my friend and I settled on american party, but that sounded kind off weak, and it turns out, there is an american party already. Now then . . . as to the christian democrats. It's the best name we've (well, jar actually) come up with--the union between the conservative bastion of christians and the democrats. a union between the typically conservative with the typically liberal. which is what we're aiming for--this is the party of findingthe middle ground between the two ideologies. We may yet again change the name to CARD--christian american republican democrats (by jar). but I've got to run it over with my friend to see if he likes it too. as to the whole religious freedom bit, I'd like to point you over to europe's christian democratic parties. They tend to be liberal, and while those nations still have a national religions (a carry over from the monarchial days), those of other religions are no longer persecuted. (oh, and that comment about the puritans--yeah, they came over here for religious freedom--only to deny it to those who disagreed with their intrepatation of christianity) Want to help give back to the world community? Did you know that your computer can help? Join the newest TeamEvC Climate Modelling to help improve climate predictions for a better tomorrow.
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Damouse Member (Idle past 5164 days) Posts: 215 From: Brookfield, Wisconsin Joined: |
quote:Yes but their economy was not shot because ours was, it was messed up because of the first world war. Mutual destruction does not assure anything... If that were true noone would care that north korea has nukes. My old history used to say "In 1980 the largest air force in the world was the USAF. The second largest air force in the world was the US Marines." What does this mean? China probobly has a larger army then we do, but whos more prepared? who has billions spent in each division of the military, who has physical and projected military presance in almost every corner of the world, on land and sea? We still do. Big money talks more then lots of people with small guns. We are spread thin throughout the world, but we have the ability to spread ourselves such. No, id say that any country is hard-pressed to match the States in a Raw display of force. Edited by Damouse, : spelling -I believe in God, I just call it Nature -One man with an imaginary friend is insane. a Million men with an imaginary friend is a religion. -People must often be reminded that the bible did not arrive as a fax from heaven; it was written by men. -Religion is the opiate of the masses
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