My crystal ball is in the shop for extensive repairs. However, I did foresee the election of Obama long well before the November election in 2008, so perhaps I don’t need it in 2012. For the record, I foresaw Obama election, but certainly didn’t support it in any way. I also foresaw that his policies wouldn’t work to solve any societal problems and would, in fact, make them worse. 20-20 hindsight now you say?
So, what do those of us who want more freedom and less government, expect to see in 2012?
Every presidential election cycle is a turning point. The President and Vice-President, one-third of the Senate, and every member of the House of “Representatives” are up for election.
So, every presidential election cycle “we the people” have a chance to change course.
Sadly, every time “we the people” have chosen more government and less freedom.
Sometimes, as with the case of Ronald Regan, they thought they were choosing less government, but in fact, they always got more government and less freedom.
2012 is another year like that.
The Democrats and the Republicans have proven that they can’t govern. They haven’t passed a budget since 2009. And even when the Senate and the House shirked their responsibility and established a “Super Committee”, that to failed to perform.
At a gut level, both the TEA Party folks and the Occupy Wall Street folks know something is wrong, dramatically wrong.
We Libertarians know that the TEA Party agenda of a balanced budget without cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Defense is not possible. Libertarians know we need to cut all three.
We Libertarians know that the Occupy Wall Street agenda of regulating Wall Street and Big Business caused the financial meltdown which led to the bank bailouts and that is definitely not the solution to crony capitalism. In fact, that is the very essence of crony capitalism, which we oppose.
This year, more than ever before, “we the people” are rejecting politics as usual. Numerous polls show a majority of the American voting public want a viable third party.
Between 2008 and 2010, the latest dates for which we have data, every political party lost voter registration, except the Libertarian Party. And the real dramatic growth has been the rise of the independent voter. It’s been so dramatic that Reason Magazine editor Matt Welch and Reason TV editor Nick Gillespie wrote a book called “Rise of the Independents” to chronicle the phenomenon.
“We the People” are feed up, but time will tell if we continue to take it or if we finally rebel.
The unexpected rise and support for Ron Paul in the Republican Party is a strong indication that “we the people” are feed up and aren’t going to take it anymore. And to a lesser extent Gary Johnson’s support within the GOP was also an indication of that feeling. Both Ron Paul and Gary Johnson have very loyal supporters of the message that we need less government and more freedom. It’s a message that the Libertarian Party has been reciting for over 40 years. Finally, some of the “we the people” are listening.
In 1995, a former Libertarian Party presidential candidate, the late Harry Browne, wrote a book called “Why Government Doesn’t Work”.
He foresaw the structural problems that would cause government to fail to address societies’ problems. Now you’d have to be a hermit to realize that not only doesn’t government work, but it’s also causing businesses to fail, unemployment to rise, educational scores to drop, poverty to rise, more homelessness, and to make it all worse, we’re exporting our failures to other countries to harm their economies, and to make the world less safe for freedom and the responsibility that comes with it.
Every major government program that “we the people” are forced to support, has led to failure:
The U.S. Post Office: broke
Social Security: broke
Medicare: broke
Amtrak: broke
Government pension systems (at every level): broke
And finally: the U.S. Government: broke to the tune of $15,142,758,997,472.35 in debt as of 1/3/12. And that’s not counting future liabilities already promised by our government.
The national debt is increasing at the rate of $3,940,000,000 per day since September 28, 2007.
And since neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are doing anything to address the major problems of today, I predict the trend towards alternative parties will continue throughout 2012 and beyond.
If the economy continues to worsen, and it will, and if it gets bad enough (debatable), then and only then will the American voter get angry enough and fed up enough to reject that status quo that is the duopoly we call the republican and democratic parties.
I predict the status quo (the R’s and D’s) won’t give up without a serious fight. If a third party starts to emerge that seriously challenges the establishment, whether it’s the Libertarian Party or perhaps this vague America’s Elect, the R’s and D’s will use every trick in the book to maintain their power. They will lie. They will certainly try to keep all third parties out of the presidential debates. They will challenge third party petition drives required to get their candidates on the ballot. They will continue to introduce falsely named “open primary” initiatives which effectively eliminate all third parties from appearing on the November general election ballots (as they have already done in the states of Washington and California). And for which they are trying to do in Arizona as I write this piece. Beware of republicans and democrats bearing initiatives called “open primary” or “top two”. They are designed to eliminate the competition and to reduce your choices. They only want you to have two choices: so-called republicans and so-called democrats.
We Libertarians just see them as two sides of the same coin. A coin that represents big government, big business, big special interest, and an interventionist foreign policy devoted to supporting the military-industrial complex.
The same military-industrial complex that former president Eisenhower warned about in his farewell speech in 1960. I strongly urge you to
look it up on the web and read it. He knew of the dangers involved and sadly “we the people” have not heeded his warnings. We do so today at our peril.
I predict a very interesting election cycle in 2012. I know, not a stretch of my imagination.
Will “we the people” open our eyes and see every failure of the policies of the republicans and the democrats and vote to reject them at the ballot box? Or, will “we the people” once again, be fooled by the “don’t waste your vote” argument from the R’s and D’s and like lemmings, stampede over the edge?
I predict we’ll find out on November 6, 2012.
Yours in liberty……………..
