Have It Your Way

Have It Your Way
by Dave Munger

Do you feel obligated to be politically involved, but not to bother figuring out the two party system? Are you unable to tell the difference between diametrically opposed theories of government? Do you want to vote in your own interest, without being compelled to support the principles that would logically follow from your position? Are you just too cool for existing parties and too important to remain silent, even for the five minutes it would take to explain the basic ideological tenets of the Republican and Democratic parties, and why your own beliefs inevitably place you in sympathy with one or the other? Then start a Third party! Here are some suggestions:

The Women: Since it is common to assume that women all support certain positions on "women's issues", simply have all women who register as neither Democrats nor Republicans automatically registered as members of the Women's Party. The platform and candidates would be based on the results of a survey of a small random sample of women and would changed as often as the surveys are held.

Revival Coalition: Round up whatever old leftover Anarchists, Red Owls, Anti-Masons, Communists, Know-Nothings, Whigs, etc. that you can find and put them under one banner. Leadership positions and candidacies would rotate among the various groups. A platform could be agreed on if it was kept brief and vague; "Fight the power!", or "We oppose The Man."

Post-Libertarian-Neo-Socialists: will someday lobby to subsidize, regulate, and sometimes mandate all of the things that the Libertarian Party will eventually succeed in having legalized.

Bleeding Hearts: A name that I took from the freedom-fighters in Larry Niven's "A Gift From Earth", which I believe has a nice "Queer Nation" ring to it. Bundle the "consistent life ethic" of pacifists who oppose abortion and the death penalty with the compassion-mongering liberalism that allows the Left to exchange taxpayer's money directly for votes. Should appeal to Catholics and could take the White House eventually if enough Mexican aliens are naturalized and become voters.

Moderates: Since so much leftist dogma is now taken for granted as the global default ideology (so much so that it's considered "non-ideological"), the Democratic party could officially disband, purge its most unappealingly extreme elements (let them join the Socialist Workers or the Green Party), form again under the name "The Moderate Party" or the "Anti-Partisans", espouse a more efficient form of Socialism (like Gore's "reinventing government"), and lay claim to the support of all those voters who complain about politics being too divisive, as well as many of those who say that's why they don't vote.

Utopian Hempists: This party's platform would call for the legalization of hemp and marijuana, and subsidies for pot farmers. This would be presented as the solution for all political and social ills. Woody Harrelson is a likely Presidential candidate. The U.H. plan would include environmental regulations that would allow old growth forests to be levelled, as long as hemp is planted among the stumps to prevent erosion. A one-tenth of a cent tax on each ton of marijuana transported across state lines would pay for a plan to convert prisons into schools and libraries, after crime becomes virtually non-existent. Eventually, everyone would be expected to become too mellow to ever coerce another person, and the state would wither away.

Amalgamated Separatists: Get the leaders of the black separatist and white separatist movements to pool their resources to advance those goals that they share. The spectacle of Farakkan shaking hands with klansmen would call national attention to the cause. The plan put forth would be for two islands to be put aside (possibly Aleutians or some of the uninhabited isles of the Pacific), settled by racial separatists, and recognized by the U.S. as sovereign nations. Political and financial support would be forthcoming as soon as the public realizes that this could rid us of them all, once and for all.

Reactionary Capitalists: would realize that Socialism can no more be effectively combated by conventional means than addiction can be cured by gradually cutting back on one's use. The collapse of the Soviet Union will be considered an example of the one way Socialism can be brought to an end: by its own self destructive element, like a junkie hitting rock bottom, then either dying or getting into real recovery. Reactionary Capitalists will pay as little in taxes as possible, perhaps forming communes and associating with the voluntary simplicity movement. On the other hand, they will take Bob Dole's uncharacteristically astute advice to "Take the dough, then vote no", by getting all that they possibly can from the government in the form of grants, scholarships, and possibly outright fraud. They will educate the general public in how to do the same. They will smuggle illegal aliens into the country. R.C.s will use Marxist tactics, such as consciousness raising (to make people aware of how high their taxes really are, or of the political implications of their religious beliefs, for instance), and barefoot doctors (possibly barefoot lawyers, tutors, security guards). The Party may run candidates for public office in order to promote the cause and project some of the legitimacy of a conventional political party, or they might simply endorse anti-socialist candidates from other parties and sponsor initiatives to foster highly inefficient government programs.

Alternately, you might cast your vote for whichever of the two real parties is closest to your beliefs, or protest by occasionally voting for one of the existing third parties, or by abstaining.