Liberty Party (1 Viewer)

slisk250

slisk250

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I wish there was a viable third political party in America. Neither of the other two match my ideals and I'd propose something like this.

1. Supports personal freedom. This includes the right to choose for women, rights for gay and lesbian couples, rights for birth control, limited gun control but supporting the right to bear arms. Legal Marijuana with tax money used to support public education. This is just a start of what could be a very long list.
2. Freedom from religion - This would mandate that religious agendas stay at your church but out of our government.
3. Economic responsibility - limited flat taxes across the entire wealth range. There could be some modifications, but this is the basis for the ideology. No tax breaks for the rich or business owners. If you make money, you pay the limited tax.
4. Border protection. No walls but a refocus of existing military personnel to secure borders and protect the nature preserves that are being destroyed .
5. Term limits for Senate and House equal to Presidential 8 year max.
6. Fair trade - trade agreements between countries free from surplus and deficits.
7. Protection of natural resources and emphasis on renewable energy, recycling, sustainable living in all ways.
8. Quality K-grade 12 education funded by alcohol, weed and tobacco taxes.

Probably a whole bunch of stuff I left out needs to be added. If there were ever a time in our nation's history for a meaningful 3rd party. Now is the time. We have the Reform and Green parties plus some others that have never amounted to much. I wonder if there could be something like what I've listed above in my make believe political world wish list?
 
slisk250 said:
I wish there was a viable third political party in America. Neither of the other two match my ideals and I'd propose something like this.

1. Supports personal freedom. This includes the right to choose for women, rights for gay and lesbian couples, rights for birth control, limited gun control but supporting the right to bear arms. Legal Marijuana with tax money used to support public education. This is just a start of what could be a very long list.
2. Freedom from religion - This would mandate that religious agendas stay at your church but out of our government.
3. Economic responsibility - limited flat taxes across the entire wealth range. There could be some modifications, but this is the basis for the ideology. No tax breaks for the rich or business owners. If you make money, you pay the limited tax.
4. Border protection. No walls but a refocus of existing military personnel to secure borders and protect the nature preserves that are being destroyed .
5. Term limits for Senate and House equal to Presidential 8 year max.
6. Fair trade - trade agreements between countries free from surplus and deficits.
7. Protection of natural resources and emphasis on renewable energy, recycling, sustainable living in all ways.
8. Quality K-grade 12 education funded by alcohol, weed and tobacco taxes.

Probably a whole bunch of stuff I left out needs to be added. If there were ever a time in our nation's history for a meaningful 3rd party. Now is the time. We have the Reform and Green parties plus some others that have never amounted to much. I wonder if there could be something like what I've listed above in my make believe political world wish list?
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Those all sound pretty reasonable. What would your party's stance be on crimes for first timers and repeat career criminals along with capital punishment?
 
I could be way off base, but I think we are starting to see the emergence of a third, middle ground party.

The old base of the Democratic Party is leaving, the working class, union. They are seeing the Party as becoming to Socialist with to much depending on the Federal government for daily needs.

On the other side the far right of the Republican Party is the Tea Party and they are just as crazy in my opinion.

What is left is the majority or the middle class with similar views that you posted. What we need are some political leaders to come forward though. We have some RINO Republican's like Governor John Kasich that seems to be in the outs with the party that could step up.
 
Mr. Cheese said:
Those all sound pretty reasonable. What would your party's stance be on crimes for first timers and repeat career criminals along with capital punishment?
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While I am liberal, I'm not anti-death penalty. The crime question would need some extensive details to even render an opinion. First time rapist, or petty theft are certainly different.

In general, I'd like to take what I believe to be the most solid ideologies of the Dems and Reps. There also needs to be some common sense. For example, it is hard to make the argument that abortion should be illegal but capitol punishment should be. Since I believe in women's and individual rights, I support abortion rights. That said, I do not believe that I would personally make that choice for myself or wife. However, I have no problem, ordering the execution and a 1st degree murderer when we have absolute resolution of guilt.
 
Rhodeman77 said:
I could be way off base, but I think we are starting to see the emergence of a third, middle ground party.

The old base of the Democratic Party is leaving, the working class, union. They are seeing the Party as becoming to Socialist with to much depending on the Federal government for daily needs.

On the other side the far right of the Republican Party is the Tea Party and they are just as crazy in my opinion.

What is left is the majority or the middle class with similar views that you posted. What we need are some political leaders to come forward though. We have some RINO Republican's like Governor John Kasich that seems to be in the outs with the party that could step up.
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If you could sieve out the conservatives lacking a religious agenda, those are the ones we are looking at for Liberty members.
 
How much of the Libertarian platform do you disagree with? You sound closest to that mindset... There are some "extreme" concepts in Libertarianism... like eliminating the IRS and Board of Education... but other than that... you sound fairly inline.
 
Shaggy said:
How much of the Libertarian platform do you disagree with? You sound closest to that mindset... There are some "extreme" concepts in Libertarianism... like eliminating the IRS and Board of Education... but other than that... you sound fairly inline.
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You need some central control of education IMO. That way you keep the religious agenda out of public schools. The IRS can oversee the new flat tax structure, it's not too much different than Perot's original Reform Party stance on the issue.
 
slisk250 said:
If you could sieve out the conservatives lacking a religious agenda, those are the ones we are looking at for Liberty members.
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Yea, that is the problem with being a Republican, you are expected to have certain religious beliefs and want to impose those into policy. I am all for gay, woman, etc rights and liberty. But I am also for fiscal responsibility which the Democratic Party doesn't feel is important.
 
@Tommy gets my vote...

In this election, both parties got a lesson in just how out of touch they really are.

There are several minor parties out there. Reading their platforms, they all sound reasonable. But then you find out the founder or leader use to head a group of Illinois Nazis or the KKK.

Ross Pert came closest, but still only got about 20 percent of the vote, despite being highly qualified. He was probably as qualified or more qualified than his opponents, but the press and both major parties succeeded in falsely portraying him as crazy.

We'd certainly have a different country today if he had been elected.

You are right. We really do need a third (and maybe fourth) choice.
 
I concur with the 3rd party concept, but first we need to restructure our voting system. Too many people are (rightly) afraid to support a 3rd party because it would take away from their second choice. How many Jill Stein's 50,000 Florida voters would have preferred Hillary over Trump? Enough to give Clinton Florida's electoral college I imagine. This will just force more 3rd party voters to dump their dream date and vote for the sure thing, just to avoid the nightmare candidate. This is not the way we should vote, but it's the way we have to vote.

Run-off elections in any state that fails to garner more than 50% of the vote. Then we can start discussing viable 3rd party candidates.
 
Term limits across the board and get rid of professional, lifetime political bureaucrats. Harry Truman said it best, "A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants". The same thing can be said in reverse.
 
I would love to see each candidate get a proportion of the electoral vote as close a equal to the popular vote they received on each state.
 
You will not see viable third parties without proportional representation rather than winner takes all by district. There are good game theory reasons why third parties die in the United States, or if they somehow thrive, they replace one of the old parties (even if they keep the same name). I do not consider the plethora of minor parties like the Greens or Libertarians to be anything more than eye candy - none of there candidates ever win significant offices, nor gather any substantial vote totals.

Read up on how most other nations run their elections and government to understand better what it would take to transition to a multi-party system of government. Then plan on shredding the constitution because much of the document isn't compatible with proportional representation. And finally, imagine how we are going to convince the House, Senate and 37 States to agree on a restructuring - or - How we are going to convince 37 States to call a special Constitutional convention to rewrite the entire document and then agree to adopt what comes out. Not saying it can't happen, but I would need huge odds to bet on it happening.
 
Poker Zombie said:
I concur with the 3rd party concept, but first we need to restructure our voting system
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Maine just voted in RCV - Ranked Choice Voting. I think it's the easiest-to-understand "alternate" voting concept, so I think it's a huge step forward.

RCV, in a nutshell: everyone ranks the presidential candidates in order of preference. The candidate who wins over 50% of the first-choice votes wins, but if there isn't one, the least popular candidate is crossed off. For those people, their second choice becomes their first.

Repeat as necessary, until the new first-choice candidate has more than 50%.

This way, nobody is afraid to vote for a third party for fear of their vote being wasted - it's never wasted; their second choice comes into play. Or their third. Or whatever.

Also, I'm all for a third party that's fiscally responsible, but provides lots of liberty on social issues. I'm a centrist, myself - actually slightly on the conservative side of center - but find a lot of Republicanism really offensive and, frankly, anti-conservative.
 
DrStrange said:
You will not see viable third parties without proportional representation rather than winner takes all by district.
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Third parties would have a chance at some electoral votes if it were winner takes all by voting district - instead, we have winner takes all by State, in most States. That is not, at all, what the founders intended. They didn't actually want people voting for Presidential candidates. They wanted people voting for electors, and the electors to get together, meet the candidates, deliberate, and then vote their conscience. And that method would allow for third parties far more than today's winner-takes-state system.

DrStrange said:
Then plan on shredding the constitution because much of the document isn't compatible with proportional representation. And finally, imagine how we are going to convince the House, Senate and 37 States to agree on a restructuring - or - How we are going to convince 37 States to call a special Constitutional convention to rewrite the entire document and then agree to adopt what comes out.
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Actually, that's not quite true, for the presidency. The Constitution stipulates how many electors per state (one for each Congressman and Senator the State has), but it leaves it up to the state to decide how to choose them. In the first several elections, many states didn't have popular votes, at all - the electors were chosen by the legislature (who had, themselves, been previously elected by popular vote.) It's entirely constitutional for a State to choose electors however they like.

Currently, Maine and Nebraska allocate their electors based on district results and/or popular result. (For example, in Nebraska, they have three Congressmen and two Senators - five electors. The popular vote in each of the three congressional districts dictates those three electors, and the last two are given to the winner of the popular vote for the state.)

Maine just voted for the RCV system for voting. That's also perfectly constitutional.

The states have a lot of leeway, here. There's also a movement to get multiple States to form a compact to force the national popular vote to dictate the presidency: the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact. Again, Constitutional, because each State is Constitutionally free to choose how to allocate their electors.

Ten States (plus DC) have already signed on, making it the law of their State - but the Compact only becomes binding when enough states sign on to bring the electoral vote total of the group up to 270. They've currently got 165 electoral votes' worth signed on.

This would make the presidential election seem more fair to people who feel slighted when the popular vote and the electoral college have a mismatch, like this year and 2000... but it probably just makes things worse for third parties.
 
I am not sure that allocating 20 electoral college votes to minor parties would accomplish anything more than occasionally allowing the House and Senate to select the President and Vice President. Third (and fourth and fifth) parties need legislative clout to have meaning or influence over the affairs of the nation.
 
dennis63 said:
Ross Pert came closest, but still only got about 20 percent of the vote, despite being highly qualified. He was probably as qualified or more qualified than his opponents, but the press and both major parties succeeded in falsely portraying him as crazy.
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FiveThirtyEight had a great podcast about the 1992 cycle and specifically Perot's significance. Here's a link. It's very much worth the listen.

And I definitely don't want to argue in a thread intended to pitch a good third way for our country, but I have to take issue with the statement that Perot could possibly have been more qualified than George H. W. Bush in 1992. Bush remains the best Republican president of my lifetime imo. He was my go-to example when I had to argue with Hillary people about whether she was the "most qualified person to ever run for President." Great man and a very good president.

Mental Nomad said:
Maine just voted in RCV - Ranked Choice Voting. I think it's the easiest-to-understand "alternate" voting concept, so I think it's a huge step forward.

RCV, in a nutshell: everyone ranks the presidential candidates in order of preference. The candidate who wins over 50% of the first-choice votes wins, but if there isn't one, the least popular candidate is crossed off. For those people, their second choice becomes their first.

Repeat as necessary, until the new first-choice candidate has more than 50%.

This way, nobody is afraid to vote for a third party for fear of their vote being wasted - it's never wasted; their second choice comes into play. Or their third. Or whatever.
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Came here to post this. Would make a world of difference if this were implemented in every election in this country.

EDIT: I spaced and completely forgot to put the link to the FiveThirtyEight podcast about Perot. Added above and here.
 
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DrStrange said:
I am not sure that allocating 20 electoral college votes to minor parties would accomplish anything more than occasionally allowing the House and Senate to select the President and Vice President.
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That may be true.

Perhaps ironically, that's also something the founders wanted - they thought the election would be kicked back to the Congress pretty often. In fact, their first plan was to have the members of Congress choose the president; that's why we have one elector per Congressional rep!

The idea of putting it out to outside electors was a secondary idea that caught traction. They feared that too many members of Congress, meeting together in the Capitol each year, might get too chummy and tied into the factions that form, and lose track of their home district's concerns... Hence the idea of independent electors coming from the states.
 
Rhodeman77 said:
.... But I am also for fiscal responsibility which the Democratic Party doesn't feel is important.
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Every democrat I've ever met does. The problematic area is 67% of discretionary spending going for "defense,", particularly when it includes weapons that the services themselves don't even want.
 
If we're going to have meaningful parties beyond the main 2, it needs to start at the grass roots level. There are 511,000 elected officials in the us. 100 of them from the Green Party. How is a Green Party president going to hope to get traction in our polarized congress. There are no Green Party elected officials at the national level.

A combination of rank order voting, proportional representation, and parties getting involved at all levels in a meaningful way would be the path towards a much better political environment.

Until a 3rd party starts making inroads as dog catchers and county deed registrars, up through senators, I think it's a pipe dream to think they can get into the Oval Office.
 
Rhodeman77 said:
Yea, that is the problem with being a Republican, you are expected to have certain religious beliefs and want to impose those into policy. I am all for gay, woman, etc rights and liberty. But I am also for fiscal responsibility which the Democratic Party doesn't feel is important.
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The only balanced budget we've had in recent history was under Clinton. Bush squandered the surplus immediately, and we've been running deficit spending since. Republicans say they are about fiscal conservatism, unless they need to fund a trillion dollar war or something.
 
Rhodeman77 said:
Yea, that is the problem with being a Republican, you are expected to have certain religious beliefs and want to impose those into policy. I am all for gay, woman, etc rights and liberty. But I am also for fiscal responsibility which the Democratic Party doesn't feel is important.
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I tend to be socially liberal but a fiscal conservative.
 

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