Which is really the third party?

On the whole, the present spectacle of GOP floundering confirms the view that the two parties are simply two legs of the same body. As one steps forward, the other steps back. But both are moving toward the same end, which is to overturn the sovereignty of the people. For the moment the people still retain what appears to be the decisive role in deciding what individuals actually occupy the seats of government power. So both parties must clothe themselves in language that appeals to the overriding passion of the people, which is the passion for equality.

At one time, both professed to accept the premise of the American founding that equality is the imperative of natural justice, as determined by the will of the Creator God. This translates the passion for equality into a reasonable demand for equal justice.  Obviously, equal justice cannot be achieved by disregarding the requirements of justice, which include respect for both the God given rights of individuals and the right of the people to government based on the consent of the governed. Therefore neither political party openly advocated the notion, commonly associated with socialist regimes and communist party dictatorships, that the ends justify the means. But the Democrats tended to define equal justice in terms of material goods and outcomes. The Republicans defined it in terms of equal rights and opportunity.

Unfortunately, throughout the twentieth century forces worked in the United States to destroy allegiance to the basic tenets of the American founding. They aimed especially to invalidate the idea that the authority of God is the basis for individual rights as well as the right of the people to self-government. The Democrat leadership first and most openly committed itself to this work. Over time they advanced it far enough to cow or convert key elements of the GOP leadership, until both acted with the tacit understanding that politics should be redefined to exclude any and all references to moral standards derived from what the American founders recognized as "the laws of nature and of nature's God." This meant first neglecting and then openly rejecting the premises of the American Declaration of Independence. But without these premises, concern for doing things justly gives way to an obsession with material outcomes. Political issues are redefined in terms of the standard measure of material outcomes, which is money. All that matters is how much or how little the government spends.

But this effectively means that the Republicans have simply surrendered to the Democrats' materialistic understanding of equality. After all, once the authority of the Creator has been discarded the goods defined in terms of that authority (like unalienable rights and political liberty) no longer make sense. Material goods are left as the only measure of equality. But the measurement can only be taken after the fact.  It provides no basis for making judgments about the means employed to produce the facts. In the absence of "the laws of nature and of nature's God" outcomes are all that matters.

Since justice is simply an outcome (not a standard or principle) there is no basis for the demand that the use of government power be limited by respect for rights as an element of justice. What's right is whatever contributes to the "right" outcome. But there's no way of deciding the right outcome except the command of superior power or force. However rhetorically disguised, this allows the reemergence of the age-old excuse for political injustice: "might makes right."

In every respect, from its premises to the provisions of the U.S. Constitution meant to implement the decent sovereignty of the people, America's democratic republic was intended to reject and decisively banish this excuse for evil. Yet now we have two entrenched political parties that embrace an understanding of politics that effectively contradicts this intention.

What can the American people do to defend their sovereignty? What are they willing to do? The Tea Party movement suggests that there is in fact a third party, a party of right and rights and liberty. In the sentiments and aspirations of the people, it is the majority party. But though it fights for and represents the assertion of the sovereignty of the people, the operation of the present entrenched two-party party system works to assure that the political position it ought to occupy is in the hands of a usurper that wears the label but no longer serves the purposes of the republican cause.

Given this situation, there is an ironic and almost mocking ambiguity in the name given to the grassroots movement that now embodies citizen protest against the so far successful elite drive to overturn the sovereignty of the people. In the historical context the Tea Party label harkens back to the Boston Tea Party and the colonial protest against Great Britain's refusal to work with and through the institutions of representative government Americans established for themselves during the colonial era. But today the NEA dominated government schools routinely give short shrift to the founding period. Apart from the ugly sexual innuendo the Obama faction puppet media has used to denigrate the movement, all the tea party appellation brings to mind for some people are Alice-in-Wonderland images of characters gathered for a diverting but otherwise purposeless ritual: all form and little if any substance.

This suggests that somewhere behind the original impulse that stirred the Tea Party gatherings there may have been a tactical ploy, intended (probably by Republican operatives) to rouse feeling for political purposes, but not as an authentic focus for truly representative political action. But the failure of the entrenched political duopoly has been egregious. Everyday new facts and episodes confirm that it is painfully at odds with the feelings and expectations of a large number of Americans. It is also responsible for the most precipitous overall decline in the nation's well being and prestige in our history. This has led to great grief and concern among the American people which in turn has fueled intense citizen activity that includes many people never before moved to be so politically active. They sense the passing of government of, by and for the people. They are not content to let it die without a fight.

America's constitutional system was set up precisely in order to provide them with effective means of restoring real representation to their legislatures and other political institutions. But the extra constitutional party duopoly has subverted the constitutional system.  In its stead there emerges a system of elite control that uses specious laws and regulations to hobble the citizens' free associations and organizations, destroy their funding mechanisms, and altogether to suppress their independence. In effect it reestablishes the regime of elite tyranny that dominated human societies until the United States became the first nation truly to implement the sovereignty of the whole people.

America's democratic republic came about because, by God's providence, people who were highly influential American leaders at the time followed the discipline of faith and reason to conclusions about justice that recognized the right of the people to govern themselves. What leaders will do so now? Whoever they are, they represent the leaders the Tea Party movement needs to lift up as its representatives if, as its name implies, it is to be a faithful reiteration of the fabled spirit of 1776.  Where will they be found?  One thing is certain: not among those touted by the "Great Mentioners" in the puppet media, or in any way served up by the "God is unmentionable" crowd in control of the present party system.