Who Stole My Party? 

It's hard to be a ____ these days. You can feel free to fill in your own party affiliation in that blank... because it's hard for us all. I'm not sure if the parties were really ever in touch with mainstream America... maybe they were 50 years ago, but I'm far too young to say. The point is that I don't think the parties are in touch with us. Maybe it's just me, and you should stop reading this right now. But let's look at the claims some people make about the parties.

If you consider yourself a Republican, you've probably heard that the "Christian Coalition" has stolen your party. I know I hear it from Shannon quite often, even though I don't consider myself a Republican. So often the Republican party is viewed as a bunch of Christian zealots who want to tell you how and with whom to have sex, and that they only talk about that small government stuff when they're trying to get elected to office. Either that or everyone in the so called Red States are bigots and hicks who are too stupid to vote correctly, and teach creationism in schools because Darwin is the spawn of Satan. "Honey - where's my toothbrush... I need to brush my tooth."

If you consider yourself a Democrat, you've probably heard that all those "Eco Terrorists" have stolen your party. All they care about is hugging trees, promoting peace even as someone is pointing a loaded gun to their head. Not only that, but they'll come into your home and turn you into a gay, cause you must be repressing something and we'll help you feel better. Oh yeah, we want to provide health care and social security too. "If you even look cross eyed at that rabbit - I'll shoot you and hang you up for public display!"

I'm constantly amazed at how quickly so many intelligent people can fall into the trap of believing all those stereotypes. I'm not immune to it either. We read so much crap in the papers, and see so much crap on television that its hard not to have them just permeate the skin. Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever get past this whole Red State/Blue State crap... but boy does the media love it. The more polarized we become, the more their ratings climb... even if that polarization is something they invented.

If you're like me, you like the idea of not being told what to do, and who to do it with. At the same time, I want small government. I think they go hand in hand. When you make government big, believe me when they'll find a way to intrude in your life. So I like to think I'm libertarian... I find the ideas they present match my views on the world quite nicely. Let me make choices about my life. Let the private sector handle as much as we can let it, because it can respond much more quickly. Not only that, it can respond to the wants of the majority and the minority, while government tends to be one size fits all.

But the problem is, the Libertarian party has been hijacked too. By whom you ask? By anarchists. I actually looked for a while at supporting Badnarik. Then I actually looked at his past and his public views. The guy's a nut job! The Agitator sums up his wild views quite nicely. Before I even think about throwing my vote away to a 3^rd party... the guy I'm voting for at least needs to pretend like he's worth voting for at all.

So I have a party that claims to like small government, but may or may not tell me what to do with my life. I have a party that loves big government because it thinks it knows best, while claiming it will leave me alone. Then we have a party that says that it's the best of both worlds, but whose major candidate says he would rather have no world at all. Ugh.