Many thoughts exist about what is wrong with government.
- Most explanations illustrate a symptom and fail to address the root cause of what is wrong in American government.
The problem:
The lack of accountability in government is a root cause of today's government.
The primary cause of this "lack of accountability" is a lack of viable alternative choices. To institute good government, a government that addresses the needs of the nation over the needs of individual political parties, changes with the current two-party dynamic is necesary.
Somebody has to win. In a contest between only two alternatives, the lesser of the two evils always carries the day.
In a system that offers limited choices, voters are powerless to hold representatives accountable.
The solution is the creation of a viable third party.
That’s why we are called the The Third Party of America.
Politicos behave in a partisan manner because they can get away with it. As they see it, the voter has no other choice but to vote for them or stay home. This is how the game is spun, and regardless of which party wins in any given year, it is the country as a whole that loses.
Today’s politicians put the party’s interests ahead of what is best for the nation as a whole because they can get away with it. What choice do we have? Right now, we have none, which is why we need a strong Third Party of America. Will you join us?
But why THIS third party?
Is this the one party that will finally "take back our country," the one that speaks for "the People" and will "clean up the mess in Washington"?
And what about those other "third parties" out there that promise to "take back our country," to stick up for "the little guy" and so on?
Why should you choose the Third Party of America over all these, some of which are larger and even have ballot status? Is it because they're just too wacky or too limited, too ideological, too left-wing or right-wing? Yes, but there's another reason as well:
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- HERE YOU HAVE A REAL VOICE.
The Third Party's Message Board ("Convention Floor") uniquely offers an opportunity to participate directly in shaping the Party's Platform. Nothing is imposed "from the top down" other than just some basic rules of conduct: being respectful, staying on topic, etc.
- Thus, you can address individual issues one by one.
This breaks from political party tradition which has you identify with a candidate or a party, i.e., a fixed agenda or set of issue positions which you must accept en bloc without distinguishing one issue from another, thus forfeiting independent thought and becoming an unquestioning disciple of the candidate or party, like a devotee in a personality cult.
- One factor in this is the urge to join a "team" -- or stampede -- which has a good shot at winning. And most third party alternatives to the Republicans and Democrats are trying to whip up a better stampede of their own and eventually out-stampede one or other of the two current major parties.
- But the Third Party's approach -- "from the bottom up" -- pretty much rules out the stampede and leads more to exposing diverse individual interests and quite a bit of dialogue and some disagreements, also much less chance of a narrow ideology or dogma being imposed, or of blind faith in a candidate or party.
Is this "Direct Democracy"?
Though this is not Athenian-style democracy, nor the same as holding popular referendum votes on every issue, it expresses another, and better, version of Direct Democracy, in which all interested citizens may participate in directly shaping the public policies. It may be only a symbol at this point, but why not a reality sometime in the future?
- Why couldn't we have a "participatory democracy" where the participation means citizens dealing directly with issues or policies rather than being limited to marking their "X" by a politician's name?
- If you think independently, it's almost painful to have to blindly mark that "X" for a demagogue, knowing he's little else than a good tongue-flapper with a pretty face and a brain filled with poll numbers and pages from the latest "How to Manipulate a Mob" textbook. You may find yourself voting for the guy -- but you have to hold your nose when you do it.
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"Everybody has a theory about what is wrong with government." So....
What's YOUR theory?
Because of its open message board and "from the bottom up" approach, the Third Party cannot escape being confronted with occasional offbeat or radical ideas. Which is good. Not every problem in America requires a mainstream solution.
- A process open to everyone is forced to entertain all ideas, rather than brushing aside the unorthodox ones as being "off the radar screen" or "out of the question." So the occasional good radical idea is not suppressed out of hand, as it is by other parties with their fixed rigid agenda.
- At the same time ideas that are truly nutty or unrealistic get weeded out, whether they're radical or mainstream. In the Third Party both radical and middle-of-the-road ideas are tested on their merit only.
Lots of questions are asked, but dogmatic answers and mindless slogans don't survive long, because they get challenged and tend to have a short life span; here you do your own thinking instead of being spoon-fed the talking points by party bosses; you may have to do a little homework, perhaps rethink some ideas, and --
Oh hell! maybe it's too much work. It's simpler to just join a stampede and mark your "X" by someone's name.
The Issues -- Parts 2 & 3 of the Platform
But if you like to deal with particular issues one by one, you'll be interested in the rest of our Platform, which is divided into Part 2 on domestic issues and Part 3 on global policy and national security issues.
- These issue statements are not final Party positions but are all subject to change. Anyone may join the discussions that are producing these platform statements and participate in the writing and editing of them.
- If you disagree with some of the policy statements in Part 2 or 3, our answer to you is not that you are therefore in the wrong place and should go elsewhere to join those of your own kind, but rather that you're invited to join this discussion process to improve our Platform for the future. In fact, we CHALLENGE you to jump in.