The ‘Two Party’ sham-the mask is slipping

My last posting has sparked numerous and thoughtful responses, as well as lively discussions, in many quarters. Reading them I think the following analysis may be worth sharing.

Some people adamantly make arguments based on the notion that we presently have a two party electoral system. This phrase purports to refer to a system in which people freely select from amongst a wide range of different possibilities, two alternatives, and then choose freely between them. My knowledge of the facts, as well as extensive firsthand experience, have forced me to conclude that this is simply not so. There is no such 'two party system'. The American people are presently suffering under a 'one faction' elite political monopoly reflecting the collusion of powerful elites across different sectors of our national life. These elites share a common spirit, one that rejects the basic premises of constitutional self-government, i.e., the principles of just government articulated in the American Declaration of Independence. Because they differ as to the alternative that should replace the form of government required by those principles, real disagreement and competition exists among them. But they agree in accepting the unspoken premise that government of, by, and for the people was never more than a half-truth, and is now at best an (arguably) useful fiction.

In terms of the elite political spectrum, toward the right are those more inclined to believe the fiction is tolerably useful, toward the left those more inclined to regard it as an intolerable and unnecessary imposition. The right leaning elite (exemplified by the Bush wing of the Republican Party) go through the motions required to maintain the fiction with a sense of noblesse oblige. The appearance of serving and catering to the will of their inferiors actually feeds and strengthens their sense of superiority to the masses. The left leaning elite (exemplified by the Kennedy/Clinton Democrats) maintains the façade more grudgingly, with an angry resentment just below the surface occasioned by the constant sense that every gesture of subservience disparages their status and achievements. In the strict sense, both sides are studiously hypocritical, though with none of the pejorative implications Christian sensibility associates with the word. For these self-aggrandizing elites, hypocrisy is one of the essential performing arts. The skill and power of the individual performers is measured by their ability to maintain a reassuring façade that projects an appearance of respect for their inferiors, while actually cultivating perfect freedom from any real sense of their intrinsic worth.

From the elite perspective, the so-called 'two party system' functions as a series of auditions in which performers seeking key roles in the political arena prove that they are masters of the hypocritical arts. Elections are like applause meters. But applause alone cannot be permitted to decide the outcome. Sincere advocates of positions and views that reflect the egalitarian principles of morality and justice are likely to win the greatest applause from the masses. But their sincerity violates the key prerequisite of the hypocritical profession. Therefore those guilty of sincerity must be painstakingly eliminated from the competition. The actual 'one faction' elite political system maintains its control through a host of informal arrangements and decisions meant to assure that sincere advocates of the people never appear on the political stage (except occasionally to be ridiculed in order to chasten and discourage the just convictions of the people.) Manipulation of the so-called 'mainstream' media is part of this. So is the tangled skein of rules and regulations imposed under the specious guise of 'campaign finance reform'.

Since the left leaning Democrats ultimately move along a spectrum that ends in one-party dictatorships such as those in the old Soviet bloc, the one faction reality of the present political system poses less of a problem for their support amongst the people than it does for the Republicans. The Democrats promote control, regimentation and regulation in almost every sphere of life. They are now quite openly the party of Chicago style bossism and political/economic slavery. (The sexual freedom they seem to promote actually encourages people to become slaves to their physical passions.) But the Republicans purport to favor free enterprise, competition and limited government. But without political free enterprise and competition the people cannot enforce constitutional limitations on government power. The Republican Party's collusion with the elite 'one faction' political system therefore contradicts the views that have recruited a substantial majority of its electoral base of support.

It's striking that the Republican apologists who argue most adamantly that there is no alternative to the 'two party system' are the very people who place the highest priority on the elements of the Republican platform that favor economic liberty. Now, they make these arguments in the name of political victory for Republican candidates. They seek unity for the sake of political success. They pretend that third party efforts must necessarily hand victory to the Democrats, the leftists, the Obama faction bogeymen. But from the viewpoint of the people, what good are Republican political victories when the Republicans collude in maintaining a system that screens out sincere advocates of the constitutional sovereignty of the people? No matter who wins such elections, the people lose. At best, they act as the manipulated, powerless chorus in a stage play meant to procure their docile acceptance of a form of government based on the self-righteous exercise of elite power instead of the people's exercise of their unalienable rights.

The fate of the recent 9-12 March on Washington is a good example of how this system operates. Many Americans reject Obama's hasty putsch toward national socialism, and the open consolidation of elite control it implies. Large spontaneous gatherings of the people have occurred all over the United States. At many of these gatherings, both in their homemade signs and in the speeches they most heartily applaud, people have made clear their strong sense that both hitherto dominant political parties are implicated in the surrender to socialism that aims to destroy the sovereignty of the American people. The 'tea party' movement is proof that the resilient spirit of self-government and constitutional sovereignty remains vibrantly alive in the hearts of a majority of the American people. Aside from demonstrating the existence and size of this spontaneous uprising for liberty, what good can be expected to come from these gatherings?

They are in fact informal opportunities for people to review and select those who best represent and articulate what is on their hearts and minds. Unfiltered by the structures of elite control, they can lift up representatives to hold up a banner emblazoned with their concerns so that others who share those concerns will see, take heart and join in the movement that acts to address them. Apart from crowd size, media attention or anything else, the identification of such effective and truly representative leaders does more than anything else to consolidate the strength and ongoing effectiveness of a populist movement, particularly at the national level. It is both tragic and profoundly informative that no such leaders emerged from the 9-12 March. No 9-12 Martin Luther King strode onto this page of history to crystallize the people's fervent hope for the restoration of their sovereignty, their liberty, and the responsible fulfillment of their obligation to posterity. A gaggle of Republican front groups managed to turn the podium into a parade of organizational memos, whose content and delivery carefully avoided anything that would really correspond to the crowd's love of liberty and the Constitutional Republic, or their angry, impartial resentment against the elitists of all political stripes who have betrayed them both.

This reality of the 9-12 March on Washington epitomizes the function and effect of the so-called 'two party' system. Ancient tyrants would carefully identify and somehow eliminate potential representatives of the people's love of liberty. They aimed to eliminate the poles round which opposition to their tyranny could crystallize and grow. With the 'two party' system, control minded elites take this shrewdness a step further. Like modern scientists, they construct a system that encourages the growth of leadership crystals, but only those that favor and increase their power. Thus they aim to turn every spontaneous movement of the people into a new locus of control.

Those who argue that there is no alternative to the 'two party' system are in fact part of this controlling process. Even though people by the millions have mobilized, on their own, in search of the opportunity to raise up new leaders who will not betray their decent love of freedom; these Republican apologists want us to believe that they are helpless to reclaim their sovereignty. But there is a sure sign that this is not so; a sure sign that the elites already fear for their control. It is their willingness openly to attempt the suppression of widely known facts and information about what millions of people are doing. Their naked exercise of raw, collusive power casts aside the discipline of their hypocritical professions. But even as it discredits the media outlets they control, it offers them up as an absorbing target for the anger people feel. The media's Judas goats are already striving to lead the people to vent their anger against these targets, so as to dissipate their energy in fruitless prayers to the false gods of the 'voodoo' media. Such prayers are a blasphemous waste of time. People should disregard the Judas goat apologists, talkers and pundits whose function it is to discourage and distract them, diffusing their energies and turning them from the only actions that can in fact serve and reclaim their sovereignty.

The people themselves are the only media that counts. Instead of begging the false media gods please to let them see better leaders, they should draw on the self-confidence that best comes from their faith in the one true God, and produce and lift up better leaders of, by, and for themselves. They should continue to band together. They should consciously go on the hunt for those who represent their hearts. The controlling elites have falsely amassed great power in the name of the people. They will not surrender it because we ask, no matter how many millions we gather. We must build a new ark to house the covenant of our liberty. But we don't need a new party so much as a new politics, based first of all on fulfilling the responsibilities of sovereign citizenship rather than exclusively pursuing government power . We will not restore the sovereignty of the people until we have once again become individuals willing and able to exercise it.

I think this ark is already under construction. You can find one example of what is involved if you visit the AIP website. To paraphrase the poet (with a little help from the company whose name means victory), "Do not send to know what is to be done, go out yourself and do it."