'Republiocrats' stifle third parties

by Curry Taylor

GUEST COLUMNIST

Sure, you've heard the names before: the Greens, the Libertarians, the Socialists, the Constitution Party.

Why don't you see many of these third parties represented very often in elected office? Could it be that all these factions are completely undeserving, and the Democrats and Republicans are the best choice for public office 100 percent of the time?

Or, much more likely, is it possible that these groups are not earning seats because the voter -- you -- doesn't know about them, doesn't understand their positions on certain issues or is literally unable to vote for them?

The truth of the matter is that the politicians (consisting of -- you guessed it -- mostly Democrats and Republicans), on both a federal and a state level, have collaborated to make the rules such that it is very easy for the "Republiocrats" to qualify for ballot access but is comparatively very difficult for any third party to make the same qualification.

How? Third parties are required to obtain more than twice as many signatures for ballot access as are either the Republicans or the Democrats, despite the fact that the populations of all third parties are less than that of either of the two major parties.

The purpose for this requirement is obviously partisan in nature. There is very little rational reason, in the "land of the free," to limit a voter's choice on election day by forcing him to choose between only two people as our esteemed ruler.

The typical excuse, that the voter will "get confused" by the ballot if there are too many choices, is irrelevant in light of fair political process and is intolerable.

Let's take presidential debates as another example. Do you think that any third party candidate with a both a strong message and following has an equal opportunity to participate in the debates as the two major parties? Of course not!

The presidential debates are run by a group called the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). No member of this group is a member of a third party. Further, the commission continually sets new policy which is aimed at including themselves (the two major political parties) and excluding all other parties.

May I now remind you that you do indeed live in the United States of America! In a free society, There can be no purpose for the CPD except to arbitrarily censor ideas and solutions to which the commission's constituents are disagreeable.

In our modern society, there are surprisingly few issues upon which the Democrats and Republicans disagree. The issues you see debated on NBC or read about on cnn.com are those rare issues for which there is substantial disagreement, and therefore they make for good press.

However, there are a great multitude of very important issues out there which have never surfaced as major political battles, or which you haven't heard about in a very long time. A few examples are welfare, gun rights, nonintervention, freedom on the Internet, the rights of drug users, school accountability, and individual privacy.

Why haven't you heard about these issues? It's because the two major parties in this country already effectively agree on them, and therefore there is no reason to discuss them, even if the standing policy on the issue happens to be unconstitutional. The media doesn't give you a chance to get angry about these phantom issues, and that suits the Republiocrats just fine.

In a truly free country, if people do not agree with the tenets of the status quo, then they should still be able to find a comfortable place, both physically and politically, to live outside of the status quo. Such is the nature of freedom.

When the government becomes vast and homogenized (as it has in this country), majority opinion becomes law and individual freedom emerges as a whitewashed concept.

The two major parties monopolize fair political process, and dissent is seen as annoying, or worse destructive, to that monopoly. So, through underhanded means, the political voices of dissenters are silenced before they can begin to be heard.

In short, the respective controlling bodies of the government have collaborated in order to ensure that their dominance in American politics will continue, perhaps forever. They achieve this by stifling diversity of opinion in ballot access, debates, and in the press.

As a result, your choice on election day is often either limited or misinformed, and therefore, the relevance of your vote, your only voice in government, is eliminated.

After all, just as Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate for the presidency, says, "If you vote for the 'lesser of two evils' this fall, you still get evil."

Taylor lives in the City of Ithaca.

Originally published Monday, September 27, 2004