Of Personal Milestones and Calls for Destruction

Not long after the 2006 election, I came to the realization that the Republican party needed to go, and so I wrote a piece explaining my reasoning and an overview of how I thought it could be accomplished.  But for various reasons (primarily I still lacked the self-confidence), I never posted it anywhere and eventually forgot about it completely.

Then buhdy posted his essay Good Thing They Don’t Believe In Evolution and I saw this line:

DESTROY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

“Holy shit,” I thought!  “I wrote something saying exactly that about a year ago!  Wonder if I ever finished it….”  So I went off in search of it, and lo and behold, there it was, still sitting on my hard drive.  And it was completed, too!

I wasn’t sure if I should post it in it’s original form or edit it to reflect my current outlook.  I was naive enough at the time to believe the Dems might actually start working for us, and I had done very little research into voting systems, laws, etc.  I might also have worded some parts a bit differently, now.  But after looking at it and wavering back and forth, I finally decided to leave it as is.  (Okay, I admit laziness played a part.  I don’t feel like rewriting it.)

I wrote this a little over half a year after I beat my depression.  (Took me about 15 years to do it, and it’s been about two years since, but that’s another essay.)  In a comment I wrote, I said that it can take me a long time to decide on something, but once I decide, I don’t mess around.  This is a case in point.  Once I decided to become politically engaged (around mid to late summer in ’06, I think; first comment I ever made on DK was in August), from that point to when I wrote this piece, I went from being completely clueless about politics to someone who was engaged and actually knew more in some cases than the rest of my immediate family (who aren’t exactly political slouches).  I became the family political geek.  So for me, this is not just an essay about destroying the Republican party, it’s also a look back at a milestone in my personal growth.

The only editing I’ve done is some formatting so it looks perty.

Destruction of the Republican Party

I’m going to begin by stating what this is not about.  This is not about harming the people who vote Republican.  This is not about abolishing conservative ideas.  This is not about eliminating discussion.  This is not about shredding free speech or religion.

This is about taking apart the foundations of a party that has lied and cheated and stolen from the very people who support it.  This is about breaking apart a party who’s only goal is the acquisition of more power for those already in power.  This is about erasing a party that has brought about unmitigated disaster upon our nation and the world.  For the sake of everyone, the Republican Party must be destroyed.

I came to this conclusion as I thought about what we voted for and what we voted against.  While it is true that many of us voted for a progressive and liberal candidate, many other people voted against corruption and lies.  While each Democrat singularly waged a positive campaign, the overall Democratic victory can be attributed to a negative view of the Republican Party.  In essence, without having to say a word, the Democrats won using a de-facto negative campaign.  Mind you, it was a negative campaign based upon a reality that could no longer be ignored, but it was still a negative campaign.

I do not belittle the Democratic candidates for their efforts.  This victory could not have been achieved without their hard work and perserverence.  However, were it not for the negative feelings towards the Republican Party, many of these Democratic candidates would have met with far greater resistance and been more likely to lose.  Without that negative energy, there would not have been such an impressive turnout.  Without that negative energy, the number of card-carrying Republicans who voted for the Democratic candidates would have instead voted for the Republicans, again.

And it was this conclusion that made me realize that the Republican Party must be destroyed.  It must be destroyed for many reasons.

First and foremost, it is a party whose power is based upon being negative.  They don’t get you to vote for them.  No one votes for the Republicans.  They get you to vote against their opponents, using lies and smear tactics.  Don’t vote for Democrats.  They want to kill your babies, destroy your family, and raise your taxes!  Don’t vote for Greens.  Hippy tree lovers!  Next thing you’ll know, they’ll have you dancing around naked and smoking hemp.  Don’t vote for the Libertarians.  They don’t believe in God!  Don’t vote for anyone but the Republicans.  They’re all out to destroy America!

You cannot have a reasoned discussion with an organization, and the people powered by that organization, whose claim to power is based upon making sure you don’t have a say in how things are run.  Therefore the Republican Party must be destroyed.

Second, it is a party that, given the chance to regroup, will rise once again to cause harm.  They are a threat so long as we allow them to stand.  We have now seen exactly how harmful the Republican Party can be.  We have seen that they will shred the Constitution without a second thought.  They will seek out power for themselves to the detriment of everyone else.  They are sociopaths bent upon personal power to the exclusion of everything else.

We may not all be congressmen or in the armed forces, but if we cannot take the oath to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” then can we truly claim to be Americans?  Without the Constitution, there is no America.  Without America, we cannot be Americans.

We have a proven domestic enemy: The Republican Party.  That party has become a means of sowing destruction within the very fabric of our society.  We do not need to take up arms to fulfill our oath to defend the Constitution against this threat.  Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. moved mountains without throwing a single punch.  But just as they removed power structures that were detrimental to society, we must also face the fact that the Republican Party is detrimental to society and remove that power structure.  Therefore the Republican Party must be destroyed.

Third, until the Republican Party is destroyed, we will always be forced to vote against them.  The reality is they are still more powerful than any other party except perhaps the Democratic Party.  I do not want to vote for the Democrats because they have the best chance of defeating the Republicans.  I want to vote for Democrats because they are the best choice for leading this country.  I want the choice to vote for candidates from any party or no party and know that doing so will not bring with it the very real possibility that the Republicans could once again take the reigns of power and run this country into the ground.  What we have now is a choice at gunpoint, and that really isn’t a choice.

The Democratic Party has regained its power now because it is the best choice for keeping power from the Republican Party.  The Democratic Party would be even more powerful if it were the best choice for running the country.  Having that choice requires that the other parties all be acceptable alternatives.  It requires knowing that were another party to gain control, it would not cause rampant destruction and chaos throughout the world just for the sake of a little money or temporary power.  So for this reason, too, the Republican Party must be destroyed.

Fourth, were we to allow the Republican Party to remain intact, the Democratic Party could wield the fear of a Republican takeover, much like the Republicans wielded the fear of terrorism, in an attempt to maintain their own power.  Vote for the Democrats or the Republicans’ll get’cha!

It is human nature to be tempted by power, and it is only a matter of time until the temptation leads to corruption.  The Democrats have been corrupted in the past, and unless we find ways to safeguard against it, they will become corrupted in the future.  Therefore it is in the best interests of everyone — including the Democratic Party — to remove those sources of corruption.  One of those sources is the Republican Party.

I do not worry that once the Republican Party is destroyed that the Democratic Party will become dominant.  The Green and the Libertarian Parties are waiting in the wings to grab new voters, and other independent candidates will always crop up.  And I would not be surprised if the remnants of the shattered Republican Party attempted to knit itself a new name and a vision that, one could hope, truly honors and respects the Constitution.  Therefore the Democratic Party would need to continue to work for its votes, but without the Republican Party, those votes would be given free of the threat of ruination, ensuring a better nation for us all.  Therefore, the Republican Party must be destroyed.

The Republican Party can be destroyed in two ways: politically or procedurally.  It is perhaps practical to use both methods as either method singly cannot both quickly destroy the party and ensure it remains that way.  The political method would bring about a direct and quick demise to the party, thus eliminating its threat against the Constitution.  However, it does not provide a lasting protection against this sort of threat.  That is what the procedural method would ensure: a long lasting protection against any political party which posed a similar threat.  These two methods combined could ensure a swift end to the current Republican threat to our Constitution, and safeguard against further threats of that nature.  And these methods should in fact give us greater freedoms than we had before.  In effect, the American people win on all fronts.

Political Destruction:

It is important to remember three things about the Republican Party as it currently stands:

1. It was once a party of ideals and those ideals are what attracted people to the party.
   

2. It is no longer a party of those ideals, let alone any ideas.
   

3. It is a party centered around power and money and doing everything possible to achieve power and money.

Therefore it is possible to destroy the Party by removing the source of their power: loyalty.  Many Republicans still vote for their party out of a sense of loyalty to its original ideals, not because the Party represents those ideals any more, much less the views or interests of its loyal members.  They buy into the Republican rhetoric because they do not pay attention to the actions of the Republican Party.  We have seen how the loss of that loyalty affected the outcome of this election.  But it is a transient victory unless the Democratic Party finds a way to keep those once loyal Republicans away from their old party.

Obviously not everyone will cease voting for the Republican Party.  For some, such as the super wealthy and the religious leaders, the Party truly does represent them.  Others, such as right-wing Christian extremists, will refuse to see what is in front of their faces.  But for most, when they see the demon for what it is, they will abandon it for a Party that better represents them.

To remove a person’s loyalty to their party, you must show them that their party is not loyal to them, and you must give them a reason to transfer their loyalty to you.  The Democrats have managed that first step with some of the people, but now they must maintain that loyalty or the people will return to their former loyalties out of disgust.  The Democrats will maintain those new loyalties not just by making the lives of those people better, but by making sure they know their lives are better.  When people know their lives are better, they are willing to vote for those who are making their lives better.  When done right, this can snowball very quickly.  It would destroy the Republican Party.

Procedural Destruction:

Let’s face it.  Our voting system is crap.  You have only three choices when voting:

1. Vote for the person who best represents you;
   

2. Vote for the person who has the best chance at defeating the person who you most oppose;
   

3. Don’t vote at all.

Nearly half of all Americans pick choice 3.  Most of these people believe that none of the candidates available are worth voting for; that they’re all the same.  Many others are just lazy.

Of those Americans who do vote, a large portion pick choice 2.  While they would prefer a particular candidate, they see the reality that that candidate’s chances of winning are slim to none.  They further see that one of the other candidates who is likely to win would cause great harm to their interests.  So rather than vote for their prefered candidate, they vote for the one who seems best positioned to beat the candidate they most oppose.  I would not be surprised to find out that many of the people new to this catagory learned this lesson after the 2000 elections.

Only a few stalwarts pick choice 1, except during Primaries.  It is only then that we feel free to choose our favorite candidates.  We do so because we know that in nearly all cases, even if the worst is chosen, they are still a good choice.  However, that only proves the existance of the underlying problems in the system.  Our voting system simply does not make choice 1 a feasible option unless all the candidates have only slight differences between each other.

Thus, even our system of voting is geared toward being negative.  We focus not upon what is good about the candidates; we focus upon what is bad.  We cannot remove campaigns and parties based upon negative values until we remove the system which promotes the use of those negative values as the best (and perhaps only) method for winning.

Furthermore, notice that the order in which people make these choices is reversed from what we want to see.  So not only does our voting system promote negative values, it is also clearly broken.  We need a voting system that encourages the vast majority of people to select choice 1 no matter what the differences are between candidates.  We need a voting system that has little or no need for choice 2.  And we need a voting system in which choice 3 is the choice of fools.

So if we are to change politics in America from those based upon negative values to those based upon positive values, we must change the voting system so that positive values become the preferable method for winning elections.  And if we are to change our voting system from one based upon people voting against their least favorite candidate to one based upon people voting for their favorite candidate, then we must make it so that when people vote, choosing their favorite candidate will not automatically help out any other candidate.  The need for a change in one does not preclude changing the other.  In fact, we can change both simultaneously.  The Condorcet system is one such method that could provide a solution to both fundamental problems, and one that I am personally most inclined to support.  However, there are others which have similar potential.

And when we establish a voting system that ensures these principles, we not only provide the people a means to more freely make choices, but we also ensure that making those choices does not automatically help any party — whether it be the Republican Party or some other as yet unknown — hold us hostage to their destructive goals.

And so the Republican Party must be destroyed.  It must be destroyed because it poses a present and continuing threat to the Constitution and by extension America and her citizens; because that threat results in limited freedom of choice; and because that threat could become a means for fostering corruption.  The Republican Party can be destroyed by showing people that their party is no longer loyal to them; and that destruction can be ensured by fixing the voting system so that the Republican Party, and any other party which might threaten the Constitution, may never come into power again.

For these reasons and by these methods, the Republican Party must be and can be destroyed.