Freedom & Progress

Freedom & Progress is very pleased to see the extent to which open contemplations of Third Party potential have been vocalized recently. Freedom & Progress has always thought that the time is ripe for the emergence of a serious Third Party. The Third Party could be filled with all those excited by Republican progressive innovation, like reforming taxation and social security, but disenchanted with the ultra-conservative motif of the past four years. Similarly, the Third Party could be filled with those that are proud of the Democratic progressive traditions of muscular foreign policy to inspire global standards for freedom and human rights (and particularly women's rights) and disgusted with the reactionary tendencies and utter hypocrisy of the modern Democratic Party, i.e. conserve social security, conserve international stability...

Ronald Brownstein discussed the potential emergence of the Third Party this week in the Los Angeles Times. Brownstein's thesis asserts that the Internet could provide the means for such an emergence by displacing the need for the significant party infrastructure that has inhibited the emergence of third parties in the past. Brownstein concludes by offering his fantasy Third Party ticket of John McCain (Republican) and Bob Kerrey (Democrat).

This fantasy ticket got a "Hallelujah" from our friend The Bull Moose. The Moose is a bit of an independent himself, and though he presently wears the skin of the Donkey, he has historically worn Elephant skin. Freedom & Progress imagines that the Moose would be among the first to sign up and contribute to the Third Party, should one in fact emerge.

Brownstein and the Moose are both correct in suggesting that a neccessary condition for the emergence of the Third Party is the participation of a few well-known, national political players. Freedom & Progress would welcome both McCain and Kerrey. Also welcomed (indeed recommended) are Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman on the Democrat side and Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Republican side. The announcement of the formation of the Third Party by such serious players would lend early legitimacy to the endeavor and perhaps provide the impetus for a flood of party affiliation changes from the great silent majority of independent-minded Americans.

The Third Party could potentially and finally provide a venue for consistency-hungry Americans who value both freedom and progress. The Third Party could advocate fiscal sanity while simultaneously emphasizing the Federal Government's moral responisbilities to its citizens. It could propose innovative changes to decrease the welfare state, like Social Security plus private universal savings accounts. It could address the looming crisis in healthcare without falling into the dogma of Republican and Democratic rhetoric on the subject. It could champion the sciences as the future of American economic supremacy and hegemony. TheThird Party could enthusiastically pursue a foreign policy that treats Democracies differently from Autocracies, and back up demands for global standards in human rights, women's rights, and basic civil liberty. And the Third Party could advocate all of this without appearing to be Republican hypocrites or Democratic relativists.

Finally, the Third Party should cry out universally for FREEDOM and PROGRESS!

Events such as the Terry Schiavo matter, the overarching internationalist theme of President Bush's inaugural speech, as well as the most recent Republican budget debacle, have brought the divergence of views within the GOP into public light. Such diversity often leads to overtly inconsistent positions. (For instance, the Party of small government got caught writing a law that applied to one individual.) Such public inconsistency has lead some commentators to predict the GOP's eventual breakup. Well, assuming arguendo that some members of the GOP who long for consistency and have principal differences with its leadership would be willing to part ways with the Grand Old Party – Where would they go?

If any reader here was about to suggest the Democratic Party as an answer, stop now. Because for Blue Republicans, the choice between becoming Democrats and remaining powerless as Republicans is not a difficult one. In other words, Republicans, disenchanted in their leadership, prefer to disagree with the extreme elements of their Party and remain powerless over being associated with the extreme elements in the Democratic Party. That the Democratic Party seems to have been taken over by their extreme elements does not help the equation.

Growing up, this author was schooled to believe that the Democratic Party was the bigger tent. Recently, however, Democrats who authentically believe in American leadership’s ability to inspire freedom and democracy throughout the world – and believe that someone named Bush deserves praise for efforts in this regard – are being pushed out of the tent. Democrats who think that allowing working Americans to get a market rate of return on a portion of their social security contribution is not a bad idea are called "faint-hearted" and are threatened to be purged from the tent. And if a Democrat dares to question the virtue of moral relativism, the tent closes down around them. The tent looks smaller and smaller.

And though a few prominent Blue Republicans do still tout the GOP as the bigger tent, no Blue Republican is considered a serious contender for leadership of the Party. Republicans who consider environmental protection a virtue, those who turn to science and research to find the answer to the world's most daunting problems, and those who do not take issue with Marbury v. Madison, are constantly and often publicly being pushed out of the tent. And Brooks' observation may indeed prove to be the GOP's undoing.

Independent minded members of both Parties seem to be unwelcome in their respective ranks as of late. However, Freedom & Progress believes that the majority of Americans are primarily independent minded. The majority of Americans are not nearly as dogmatic as the leadership of either Party. Most Americans are liberal on some issues, while conservative on others. And commonsensical Americans will listen to one another's differences and be ready to compromise. Compromise is not sin. Compromise is virtue, and necessary for progress.

So as we collectively witness the rifts in both Parties develop... and if indeed, some honorable, clear thinking members of each Party are brave enough to defect, where will they go? There is no credible Third Party. Perhaps the time has come for one.

It is often said that the first step is always the most difficult to take. Months of contemplation of what to do about our current state of affairs has ultimately led to this author's present endeavor; Freedom & Progress. After the 2004 Presidential election, it was clear that something had to be done. A new line of thinking needed to emerge in the public discourse. New ideas and common sense need to be heard, thought that transcends the dogma of the false Left-Right debate.

The Republican's reaction to the outcome of the election, i.e. declaring a "mandate" based on the notion that "moral values" was the guiding compass of the majority of American voters, was flawed and dangerous. It also ultimately and recently exposed the Republicans' silent weakness. It has long been this author's opinion that the majority of Americans as well as Republicans do not equate "moral values" with extreme right wingism. The Democrats' collective reaction to President Bush's reelection has been even worse. The supposedly internal debate among Democrats has been especially external, and it is the observation of this author that the momentum seems to be on the side of extreme left wingism. After all, the Left expressly alleges that they "bought" and therefore "own" the party. (Incidentally, this is a humorous characterization coming from a group who seeks to impose control on capitalism.) So, rather than accepting a legitimate defeat, regrouping and replanning, the Democrats' collective reaction has been to merely react to anything that the Bush Administration or their Republican counterparts offer.

It is amazing that we have reached a time when one can hear friends on the Left urging realism in foreign policy and friends on the Right invoking the call for global democratic rights. Indeed, the circle is not round. Why have the Democrats stop believing? Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat, after all. As was Franklin Roosevelt when he sent armies around the globe and liberated populations in Europe and Asia. And President Clinton, who Americans elected twice as President, was surely a Democrat when he used military intervention in the name of global rights in Kosovo. The Left now calls an end to this proud tradition and act instead in the name of stability because the latest messenger of our historic calling is not only a Republican, but the figure that they most loathe, President Bush.

Almost invariably, the Left always invokes cultural relativism to justify its tolerance of oppression and acts of terrorism. Similarly, it is cultural relativism that justifies the lack of political and economic freedom in Arab parts of the world, particularly the lack of any iota of womens' rights. The friends on the Left who fashion themselves feminists when it comes to a woman's right to choose to abort a fetus, or affirmative action to add more women to the Harvard's math and science student roster, cry "cultural difference," as they watch women in the Arab and South Asian world denied the right to vote or drive or choose to marry someone not designated for them.

This author expects that should any of my friends on the Left read this first entry of Freedom & Progress, they will call me ethnocentric. I submit to you all that it is better to be called ethnocentric and be on the side of both Freedom and Progress, than honor cultural relativism and tolerate oppression and terrorism.

Domestically, we have reached a time when Republicans are the only ones offering new ideas that address concrete problems. In areas such as taxation and social security, where real, systemic problems threaten our long-term security, Republicans are not only the only party with ideas on how to solve these problems, but also seem to be the only party that recognizes such problems exist to begin with. Of course, in Republicans' overreaching pattern, they seek to privatize social security without addressing its long-term solvency problem, and want to do away with the progressive tax code without considering the immediate effects of such reform on the working classes. Rather than advocating new ideas of their own to counter Republican shortfalls, Democrats instead offer nothing substantive, but resistance. Resistance, not only to the ideas offered by Republicans, but resistance to even the acknowledgment of the problems themselves.

There are false imperatives alive in the present public discourse. Is it progressive when the Left argues to conserve the foreign policy status quo in the name of stability? Can it be called conservative to advocate global rights of freedom? Can it be called progressive when Democrats advocate conserving the present model of social security - a system over eighty years in age? Is it conservative for Republicans to completely abandon programs that historically brought a leap of progress to American culture; programs that Americans have come to rely on and trust? Why are these phrases so misused, and so mangled in our ongoing conversation? Freedom & Progress aims to reclaim and clarify the use of these terms and to add to the public discourse new ideas, clear perspective, and common sense.

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