Partisanship, and the Destruction of America

My fellow Americans,

Our government barely avoided shutdown yesterday. Many of you likely breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that government services- or maybe even your job- would remain open for another week. However, anyone with eyes can see that this shutdown is merely symptomatic of an issue tearing our government and our people apart: partisanship.

Indeed, our government has been torn asunder, ripped in two by their own ideologies. Rather than see the similarities in the other party’s desires (Freedom, Democracy, and what’s in the best interests of the country and its people), each party insists on vilifying the other over policy decisions with unknown outcomes, claiming hypothetical situations as facts and attempting to assassinate the character of their opponents.

Yet their attempts to destroy each other are not limited to each other, though it may seem so to them. Rather, their partisanship is ultimately destroying the Democratic ideals of our nation. Indeed, our republic was conceived as a way for all viewpoints to be heard and for the best solution to any problem to be debated over and found by taking every opinion.

But instead we have only two views on any issue. There is no such thing as political moderation anymore. You are a Democrat or a Republican. The only other possibility is that your political views aren’t even legitimate enough for consideration. You must be an insane libertarian, or an evil socialist. Indeed, in the current political climate, politicians deviating from one of the two political bastions are essentially viewed as having something wrong with them.

This is a totally illegitimate form of government. Indeed, it is dividing our entire nation down lines of ideology, to the point where different ideologies deliberately expose themselves to different media than their supposed rivals, thus further entrenching the divisions between them as each side is propagandized, each vilifying their opponents.

Yet what solution do we have? Both parties are so financially entrenched as to be impossible to overthrow. Both parties are worth essentially millions of dollars, and those parties and their media outlets convince many people now, that those parties, or even only one of those parties, have the only set of legitimate political views. This is, as we all know, a fallacy. We must refuse to buy into it.

And ultimately, we must refuse to buy into two party politics. The sort of ideological division they create is destructive for us and for the nation. And there is an alternative, a solution. Indeed, I doubt it will surprise you when I propose it.

Electronic direct democracy would undo partisan politics by undoing parties entirely. Indeed, by removing the politicians and their need to campaign, we undermine the financial political structure that upholds these parties in their power. Any third party has as much a chance of passing legislation when it has less to do with how much money they can funnel into electing officials to support them and far more to do with convincing people of their ideals, their opinions, and their policies.

We must eliminate those who seek only to hold us back, even if they are totally unaware of their attempts to do so. Even if there were a politician who thought he had the interests of the people at heart, as unlikely as that sounds, were he a Democrat or Republican, he too is contributing to the downfall of America.

Should partisanship threaten to shut down the government again, it will become only more apparent how destructive it truly is for our livelihoods, for ideological freedom, and for the safety, security, and future success of America. We need to make a change before the government refuses to offer us those important services we need. We need to make a change before the livelihoods of thousands are ruined by bickering parties, neither of which truly has our best interests at heart. The time is now. It’s up to us.

-Cleisthenes

“We stand now with a choice, not between Republican and Democrat, but between ideological freedom or self-imposed imprisonment of the mind.”

Democracy in America

I love America. We are a country of values and ideals, of rich history and great beauty, and of diversity and tolerance. Our people through hard work, diligence, genius, talent, and any other virtue you could assign have persevered and triumphed over some of the most devastating crises to face any people in the history of humanity. And yet we must preserve these qualities in the times to come.

Hard times are ahead, my fellow countrymen. I know that now, all but economic hardship seems small in comparison with that most pressing need. However, we must look the future as this, our beloved America, falls to corruption and mistreatment while we watch on blindly.

Did you know that corporations can and do donate money to political campaigns in America? Do you understand the gravity and seriousness of our sitting back and allowing them to do this?

Political campaigns are run on millions of dollars. It takes a great deal of money to ship your candidate around the country, to put his face everywhere, and to provide his slogans and signage to his supporters. And yet, while this is an important fact to take into account, claiming that corporations could have little influence on elections because of it is failing to take into account a far more important fact.

Corporations make billions. Even with only a billion dollars, though, how many campaign donations of possible millions could they make?

Quite a few, actually. See, a billion isn’t just the next step up from a million. It’s 1,000 millions. Meaning a corporation could donate, say, 30 of those millions to fund an entire political campaign (thereby assuring that their views are represented in congress- theirs rather than yours), and still have 970 millions leftover. That’s a lot of millions.

Of course, these numbers are wholly fabricated, products entirely of my thought. Yet the thought experiment is valid, and we see the enormous buying power of a corporation in politics. What if they’re a multi-billion dollar corporation? That’s thousands more millions for them to spend making sure their views are represented in legislature.

And how do you get to express your views? You can donate $15 if you can afford it. You get to write letters to your elected officials- as if it will change their minds. Even donating a few bucks hardly seems worth it in the face of the buying power corporations.

I’m here to tell you, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth writing letters and it’s not worth donating your hard earned money, when the politicians are practically bought and paid for. As depressing as this sounds though, we are on the cusp of a new alternative that we have brought ourselves to by our own amazing technological advancement and by the ideals on which this country was founded.

In fact, when I said new alternative, I lied. What I propose is called Democracy.

If you think America is a democracy, you are sorely mistaken. America is and has been since its founding a republic. We elect people to serve our interests in government rather than serving those interests ourselves.

Yet they persistently fail to serve our interests, as they are in the pocket of wealthy corporations that take the sweat and work of millions and spend it on the interests of some few. Why rely on them at all, then? Why not stretch back further for inspiration, to the society that inspired even those men who so wonderfully engendered our own beautiful nation?

Indeed, it was not in Philadelphia but in Athens that democracy was founded, and then meant what the word says in Greek: Rule by the people. Despite stringent citizenship requirements based on race, birth, sex and creed that would be intolerable today, the government nonetheless allowed each and every one of its citizens the right to vote on the issues that faced the community, rather than forcing them to trust some few, easily corrupted politicians.

But of course this system was practical for their smaller city-state. Wouldn’t it be impossible to even get a consensus on issues in time to react if the whole nation must be gauged for reaction?

Perhaps 50 years ago. Perhaps 25 years ago. But today, through our own labor, hard work, and technological aptitude, we have discovered the secret to instant communication amongst all our citizens: the Internet. What need is there for our voices to not be heard and reverberate throughout the task of legislature?

We have the technology at our fingertips and all the impetus we need to act in what is swiftly becoming an oligarchy dominated by the interests of the wealthy. We must save our country, and the only people we can trust to do it are ourselves. We are still the same people who won two World Wars. We are still the same people to survive a time of both economic and ecological disaster during the Great Depression. And with the same tenacity with which we survived those challenges, we must now face the challenge we have made for ourselves by our indolence. Yet who better to govern us than us? And what better time to demand better for ourselves than now?

-Cleisthenes

“Above all we must avoid sacrificing our freedom for convenience to he who asks the lowest price for our loyalty.”