Our Political System

With the current political environment I am certain that, like myself, some of us just want to have a choice in our country’s future that doesn’t involve gritting our teeth or plain just staying home. Although I am sure there is plenty I will say about our political system, what I intend is to make the case for liberty, and to shamelessly promote the Libertarian Party. Because America utilizes an archaic republic voting platform and an electoral college, the individual vote is often viewed as worthless. In Montana for example we take to the opinion, quite regularly that, federally our vote won’t matter, the state will go Republican as it always does. As a result we as a state trade social programs locally for those overseas. That’s right folks, I said it. Republicans would rather funnel money to poor people elsewhere than help the inner cities of the United States. We’ve done it for decades, we call it “national security spending”. You know nation building in Iraq, security funding for Israel and Pakistan, and those kinds of things. We don’t stop Republicans from that spending, but heaven forbid we help the homeless guy down the street, because did you hear he is lazy, he drinks alcohol, and he chooses not to work. Never mind he probably has a mental health condition and could use health care to get the help he needs but we shouldn’t help with that. What have Republicans protected us from? The thought that we might become socialists for spending compassionately in our own towns? Wow.

Anyway, I digress. The fact is both parties are hypocrites trying to appeal to so many people that they can’t keep their identities solid. Hence Bernie and Donald appeal to the disgruntled masses that just want someone to act in the way they desire instead of kissing babies and making empty promises. Never mind the fact that If we operated a system like a run-off election we could vote for the candidate most closely related to our own views instead of the lunatic picked by the mockery that is the primary elections. If they lose, then we would keep going until we had only two candidates that a majority of people can actually support. Elections where extremist minded people try to choose a career politician that hasn’t lied to them a hundred and fifty times, and usually, I emphasize usually, would appeal to the masses doesn’t seem to be working presently.

What I really want to say is that we, in Montana at least, should be focused on liberty and a self-government ideal that allows us to control our own destiny locally. That way when environmentalists show up to close power plants or open free range bison preserves we handle the situations as they should be, by locals. Not by federal regulators or federal judges that truly have no right to manage or judge the microscopic details of our daily lives here.

I say these things knowing that by now most of you on the left and right are nodding in agreement that it is all screwed up, and no doubt you are blaming the other side for our woes. I, however, truly blame both. Instead of banding together to claim some responsibility for the world at hand we instead point fingers. We whimper that they screwed it up. Instead of working towards solutions we just ignore it, or worst, sabotage it, or arbitrarily block it so that we get nowhere, and then we cast blame.

Instead of focusing collectively we all focus on the “others” living constantly in a state of fear of those gay people, or those transgender people, or those illegals, or those refugees, or those Islamists, or those Evangelicals, or those anarchists, or those Catholics, or those gun lovers, or those hippies, or those welfare leaches, or those PTSD Veterans, or those cops, or those coal miners, or those bankers, or those poor people and so on and so forth. What is wrong with us? We lost the true nature of community and I hate it.

So what is the answer? I say we need to start respecting people and all ways of life, not just our own perspectives. By design Liberty is the answer. Libertarians seek to make autonomy and freedom of choice paramount. Put simply, we trust you to be an adult. We support the rights of people to choose and live their own lifestyle, and to set their own standards. Letting individuals live as they deem fit. In other words we don’t care how you define marriage, where you go to the bathroom, if you make too much money, if you use recreational drugs, if you don’t wear a seat belt, if you want to control your choices, if you own a gun, and if you do not want to be dictated to by a dispassionate political system worried about money and power. Our parties are too big trying to appeal to so many people that anyone with a lobbyist and campaign contributions can get what they want. The rest of us, however, have to put up with it because we believe we have no other option than what the “parties” throw at us. I would encourage you to look up the Libertarian Party or almost any other party and consider if they represent your vision of government, because honestly is what we have now working?