At first glance, no doubt at least some of you may think I’ve gone off my rocker. No comment. What I will say is “hold on while I explain”.
What got me to thinking about this is a couple of intersecting trains of thought. First, there is an ongoing discussion on X about the upcoming election and how, as conservative citizens, can bring those who hold opposing views to our table.
Then I got to thinking about the past few primary and election days. You see, I spend those days – more than 12 hours each time, with a mix of republican, democrat, and “independent” citizens – my fellow election officials. Despite the fact that we signed on to different political parties, we have become fast friends. One of those closest to me is a black woman who, surprisingly enough, is a democrat.
You should know that none of us are, ahem, fanatical, about our party affiliations. If anyone does any ranting at all, it would be me. Nothing ever actually gets heated. We’ve experienced no “shouting matches”. We’ve had no serious disagreements. Quite the opposite, and this is why I’m writing this now.
Do note, our polling place is in a very rural area so voters trickle in throughout the day. Thus we are left with long stretches with no one else within earshot. We have lots of time to talk and talk we do.
What I’ve found is at some very basic level, we are all very much in agreement. This doesn’t mean we’ve all declared we are voting for Trump. In fact, nobody has openly stated who we have or will vote for. It is understood that our privacy is paramount and so this is one thing we don’t talk about.
This doesn’t mean we, meaning mostly I, do not talk about principles. It surprise you or not to learn on principle, we all more or less agree on a lot. We think government interferes with our lives too much. We certainly think we pay too much in taxes. To a citizen, we love freedom. As we discuss much and I’m doing all this from the memory of an old man who never developed the habit of committing conversations to memory, I’m sure I missed a lot, but you get the idea, I’m sure.
While we never got into this aspect, no doubt if the discussion turned to it, I suspect we would all offer greatly different approaches to solving the issues we agree on. For now, it is not the finish line I am focused on but the starting point. We will never get anywhere unless a far larger percentage of citizens make the decision to finally participate in our nation’s business.
So… Democrats are US??
For the most part democrats and republicans want the same basic things – we want to be free to live our lives, speak our minds, and worship or not as we see fit. We want to be able to choose where we live, what we spend our money on, and whom we associate with. Hence the premise for this article.
If you know anything about me, you likely know how much I despise politics – more accurately the two-party debacle we call a “system”. This true “social construct” divides us and pits us against each other. But there is one more, far more sinister purpose for the two-party system. That purpose? To deftly transfer our inherent power and authority to others who control the political parties. Who are these “others”? They are individuals who control great wealth. They use this wealth to control anything and everything they can wrap their fingers around.
These “others” have split us citizens into two “camps” – democrat and republican. As someone who has identified for most of his life as a “republican” I can tell you this so-called “identity” carries no satisfaction. As far as most of the stated principles, I do agree. Heck I agree with some of the stated principles on the democrat platform.
Who doesn’t want to “heal the soul of America”? Who doesn’t want to build a stronger, fairer economy? Who doesn’t want to renew American leadership?
I want all of those things. The devil is in the details – in both cases. When it comes to the republican party, I have deeper issues. My issues stem from the fact that the leadership in this party is confidently content to pay lip service to the party’s stated principles.
If we are to reclaim our nation, we need to reconnect with fellow citizens. We cannot allow political parties to control and limit our debates. We cannot allow these controllers, these usurpers to dictate the terms of our discourse. We need to find common ground and work from there.
Common Ground
What common ground do we need to find? I wish there was some sort of ultimate answer, some list of “talking points” we can all ascribe to and depend on. It ain’t gonna happen. I don’t think it would be all that useful in the long run. Why?
There are simply too many issues swirling around us. One Xer recently pointed out “most citizens are one issue voters”. I found that observation profound. He is right. To that end, we should endeavor to find what issue each person we face resonates with, then present a liberty-focused solution. We need to understand the foundation all globalism is based upon. It’s no mystery. They exert control through fear. Consider this. Climate change, gun violence, open borders, all of it is fear-based. I get it. Living independently, taking responsibility for one’s own self is scary, but God tells us time and time again to fear not.
To this end, I propose we identify and list as many democrat platform planks and talking points, then come up with liberty-focused alternatives. The goal should be to present principles with wide appeal with an eye towards developing solutions we can all live with. The solutions should be secondary. Again, we first need to find common ground. Fortunately, the democrats have taken such a hard left, they no longer tolerate any dissenting ideas. On many issues they are as short-sighted and rigidly resistant to modifying any of their assertions, they nearly mirror what they despise most on the right. We should see this as an opportunity. They have created barriers blocking off many of their own rank and file who used to simply “vote blue”.
In other areas, we need to dissect the “democrat solutions” i.e. government programs and legislation so we can clearly demonstrate where they have failed.
For me LBJ’s “Great Society” is particularly vulnerable right now. For 60 years we’ve thrown mountains of taxpayer money to fufill Johnson’s pipe dream. It is time to end it.
Here is a response to a search on “LBJ’s Great Society”
The Great Society was Lyndon Johnson’s vision for America which demanded an end to poverty, racial injustice, and an opportunity for every child.
Wait! What!?? “end to poverty, racial injustice, and an opportunity for every child”. Isn’t this exactly what the democrats are proposing today? What have we been doing for the past 60 years? It simply is not working.
This is just a start. Take gun violence for another example. Forget about the 2A for a moment, let’s talk gun violence. What about it? Where gun violence most problematic? Would the violence vanish if the guns were removed? What about “hand and foot violence”? What about “blunt object” violence? Does it make you feel better to learn someone was beaten to death rather than shot? Violence is violence. Let’s deal with the base issue and set the topic of guns aside.
I’m sure you get the idea. I’m open to exploring any topic to find those areas of common ground and discussing ideas on how to bring citizens together on them.
Whether or not you are open to such, I urge you to at least start thinking on how you can change the course of whatever discussions you find yourself involved in. If we are going to make any sort of impact on the future of this nation, we need to find that common ground, expand on it and bring our fellow citizens to it. If the democrats were at all liberty-minded, I’d be happy to join them but they are not, and never have been. Thus our only logical choice is to throw in on the republican side, armed with the understanding that we cannot stop once we’ve voted. We need to do more, demand more. We need to set our sights on freeing ourselves of party politics but do accomplish this we must first overwhelm them by our sheer numbers. There is strength in numbers and WE the People have them in abundance. The real job is to mobilize these numbers and assert ourselves as a force to be reckoned with.