Topic: Political Parties
Where the People Lead, the Leaders Will Follow We are not even close to changing the direction of the GOP because so few people are doing anything productive about it.by Jahfre Fire Eater
(libertarian)
Friday, November 7, 2008
Nod to Jack Galway as his recent article sparked this article.
I don't think there will be any change in the party because nearly all the people who wish it would change don't do things that will cause it to change. Its like watching yourself in a mirror eating a doughnut while wishing you could lose 10 lbs. As ridiculous and self-defeating as such behavior is to an objective observer, the person doing it has no clue most of the time. They are unable to grasp the real-world connection between action and consequence or even attempt to measure if the consequences of their actions are, indeed, promoting their stated goals.
Actions do not align with the consequences of behavior often enough amongst the general population for any real momentum to build.
The party leaders have convinced their underlings that the members are there to support the leaders. The GOP leadership will defend against a "takeover" by dastardly behavior that the average citizen would never expect or tolerate. The GOP leadership wants people who do not agree with them to leave the party, join the LP or become an Independent. The GOP leadership KNOWS such self-marginalizing actions cannot result in a threat to their power and influence. They go to great lengths to push the right buttons to send these passionate, active, principled individuals into a self-righteous self-marginalization.
The GOP leadership maintains this inverted power structure easily because most Americans are focused on head-tackling the beast. Any decent football coach will tell you to tackle the legs but there isn't enough passion and outrage available through participation in local politics to fuel most of the voting citizens. So the legs of the party get ignored and the head just laugh at the futile attempts that third parties make at influencing it.
The only way to change the party leadership is to support candidates that meet your approval regardless of the GOP leadership. The candidates are the key. If good candidates are offered, voters will come out to promote them. Right now most candidates are trained to conform to the party leadership so the voters don't have a choice.
How do you get good candidates? You create them. You. Not they. You. It takes individuals, not herds, to promote individual principles and liberty. You don't wait until November every year and vote for the R or the D. You participate every month, every week, every day, whatever you can, to groom and challenge candidates WAY before a primary election and WAY, WAY before a November election. We will never have a good candidate at the top of the heap until the rest of the heap is filled with good candidates first. The head-tackle will never work.
The party leadership can only be ousted when the members take the party in a direction they cannot control by supporting good candidates. Without the candidates, without the regular individual efforts from people who want better candidates, nothing will change. We will just continue the dance and hate the democrats more each time we lose.
Here in Colorado we are oppressed by one of the worst neocons in the party as our State GOP chairman. There are a lot of people who would love to see him gone. The problem is that they want to mount a direct challenge or an outside pot-shot via 3rd party activity. So long as that is the strategy of the opposition, the GOP leadership, corrupt and slimy as they are, have nothing to fear.
The GOP leadership has adopted every nasty trick the Democrats have ever invented then sanctified them by wrapping them in the language of the Christian crusades. The party members have to ignore the faith-based splintering of the party and promote candidates who will pursue good government over self-righteous use of the force of bad government. That, the self-righteous use of the force of bad government is central to and formerly exclusive to the Democratic party. The reason so many people claim there is little difference between the GOP and the Dems because both parties field candidates who embrace this use of force to promote their faith.
Only through individual actions and regular participation at every level will the paradigm change. We want to instill a paradigm where the party leadership exists to enable the members to promote their values in society. The first place to start is closest to home. People who want to effect change must become county party chairpersons, precinct captains and dauntless self-promoters. Regardless of holding party positions, individuals who want change should be on the phone every evening talking to republicans in the neighborhood to find out who would make good candidates and who would not. This doesn't happen by default and your enemies certainly will not be doing it for you. In fact, if you don't have the time, energy or passion to participate at the local level the enemies of liberty certainly will. This is why I say, Liberalism always wins in the long run. They do this work at the local level. They know how the game works. If they had reasonable, rational ideals and didn't promote humans voluntarily behaving in ways that are detrimental to their own best interests, they'd be unstoppable.
The ONLY thing that keeps the balance is that most people can still tell candidates with good principles from those with flawed or destructive principles. This despite a century of government-forced mis-education and indoctrination, despite pervasive liberal messages in entertainment, news and the arts. So far, enough of them are willing to get off the couch occasionally to put in a vote against bad principles.
My bet is that if just a tiny fraction of the people who whine about the way the GOP works would just do something productive towards changing it, we'd have things turned around in 2-3 major election cycles. We can't even get started until enough people realize the folly of playing the game defined by their enemies.
If any of what I've said registers with any of you, you need to know that NOW IS THE TIME. While the rest of the country is suffering from political burnout, political victory hysteria and disillusionment, those of us who are willing to do the work need to be positioning ourselves for local action and office.
Not everyone on our side has time to participate regularly in person. Those of us who make the time need to establish contact with them. Not to chide them or guilt them into action but to keep them in the loop...to help keep them interested and aware of how good government improves their lives and that good government is possible if you create good candidates.
Jahfre Fire Eater
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Jahfre Fire Eater only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Jahfre Fire Eater is
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Man, Jahfre, you are a REAL cheerleader. Rah, rah, rah! Go get that new leader and groom him/her to stand up for us! What a bunch of hogwash!
Don't you know that people vote for people who THINK the way they think. You can't GROOM someone to be the "perfect" candidate because there is no "perfect" message, no "perfect" solutions, no "perfect" way to run a campaign.
And, starting EARLY is like telling that guy in the mirror, eating the donut, that if he starts eating the donut EARLIER he's going to lose weight! If you haven't got a candidate who represents the goals and methods of achieving those goals that the people who vote want to see, then you're going to get a Ron Paul, a Ralph Nader, a Chuck Baldwin, or a John McCain!
McCain lost because he's an OLD MAN, barely HEALTHY enough to campaign let alone make it through 4 years of the Presidency, and he showed AWFUL JUDGMENT by picking a lightweight like Sarah Palin and tried to paint her up like she was qualified, and he had all the WRONG IDEAS. If cutting taxes is the right solution, how are you going to PAY for all the damage that Bush did with his wars, the unbelievable deficits, and his bailout of the financial industry? You've got to have money coming IN from somewhere, not just flowing OUT.
If you think it's just a matter of finding a better candidate, you're waaaaay off base, Jahfre. You've got to find a candidate who LISTENS to the people and gives them what they want.
Posted By: Gary R. Carter
Date: 2008-11-07 22:47:40
Mast C,
Every once in a while, a statist such as yourself comes along here on the Nolan Chart. You espouse mainstream views, which is easy, and you attack everything and everyone. Eventually, your light fades because the textbook you are working from does not provide a playbook for alternative thought. You should rest easy, considering your socialist ways are the norm in this day and age, regadless of which party is in office. You are correct in that your mainstream views will continue to be the norm. So, what is your motivation in constantly pulling the hair of those that strive (possibly naively) for more? Do you consider your views so much more dignified, considering they are the views of the ruling establishment? For a so-called seasoned economic professor, you behave like a child. Get the hell over it and go read the NY Times.
The apathetic and non activist electorate is indicative of the fact that we still have it pretty good here in America. Some travel abroad has led to this conclusion.
There is lots of bellyaching among working people about being overtaxed so that the overflowing section 8 communities can continue to produce people who spend most of their time hanging out on the street, holding their pants up with one hand, and talking on a cell phone with the other (the Democratic base). But it hasn't gotten bad enough yet for a massive political upheaval, from the bottom up, to take hold.
When it does happen, and I suspect it will, it's good to know that there will be some Fire Eaters around to lead the charge.
You sound like one of those little kids in the playroom who is always yelling that the other kids get all the GOOD TOYS! Ha! Ha! You're right ~ WE DO! But, the reason is because we BEHAVE and LISTEN to the teacher, we don't brood and whine that EVERYONE else is the oddball and insist that YOU'RE the NORMAL ONE.
"Alternative thought" is what people resort to when they're on DRUGS! They think they see HEAVEN and "THE WAY", when actually all they're doing is sitting on their duff in a delusional haze of self-denial, self-approval, and self-congratulations. But, the result is the same. As Jim Carrey used to say as the Pet Detective (and THERE'S an "alternative thinker" for you) ~ LOOOOOO-HOOOO-SERRRRRS!
Hope you let the parade pass you by again next time. Keep supporting those "alternative thinkers" that you revere. THAT will really get you somewhere!
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2008-11-10 16:58:09
Thanks to everyone who has read this article and especially to those who took the time to write a comment about what I was saying. I guess that includes all the comments except the one that is full of all caps and shows no evidence of having read the article in the first place.
For the rest of you, it is nice to know I'm not totally alone. All liberals disagree with me, all practicioners of faith-based belief systems disagree with me including Atheists, Libertarians, Progressives, Christians and 911 Truthers. I figure that leaves less than 0.01% of the world's population who might get what I'm saying without it turning them into a defensive fortress of blind faith and boundless righteousness. My writing is aimed at helping these folks self-select so I don't have to spend much time trying to communicate with them.
So, since the deck is enormously stacked against me, I don't care what any one individual from that huge stack thinks about me. They are all the same as far as I'm concerned. They conduct their lives in little faith-based pantomines trying to fool each other into believing they are doing something productive.
Those whose opinions I care least about are those who show no sign of having read the article and those who use all caps in their comments.
So, please, write comments about my article; for it, against it, or elaborating on it, but don't use comments on my articles to carry on a dialog with the kind of person who has the least to contribute in the free marketplace of ideas. It just clogs my email with junk and adds nothing to the topic.
I quit participating in public messageboards to avoid having to sift through the back-and-forth with the all caps crowd. They all think they are witty and scathing and soooooo unique. To me they could all be a single, poorly programmed auto reply service. They are incapable of commenting on the ideas or grasping the context of a position. They always attack the author based on their unbridled feelings about particular buzz words and never about anything that was actually in the article. Any language parser program could be made to parrot one of these "people."
Posted By: Mrs. Fire Eater
Date: 2008-11-22 14:00:17
Does the fact that me and LB are about to hijack our local GOP (successfully, effectively and creatively) add anything to the discussion? Whatever this tactic is called, it's totally working. Soon, I will be working here and she will be at the state level as a county chair injecting her smile, energy and influence into the state party. We know of several others who are assured this result due to non-participation or disgruntled memberships locally, and others who have a little more work to do but are succeeding. The tool is laying there for the grabbing!
This is so much more fun than sitting around and pouting, whining, blaming others, etc. And way more effective. There are several in our local party who are not RP supporters but are eager to allow our influence to take hold in the party and supporting us. It's like magic! The McCain folly/Obama Nation has been a boon for us!! Thanks for promoting these ideals, husband. You say it so well.
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