excerpt from Chapter 2 - STAND UP AMERICA election campaign

excerpt from Chapter 2 - page 33

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The circumstance that I chose to be positive throughout my communications with the American public touched a lot of positive nerves as well.  As mentioned previously, by 2012 many people had been hurt by the recession and were extremely disillusioned and lacking a bit of faith in the American system.  My goal was to restore faith and confidence not only in America but in themselves.  Hence my election platform became STAND UP AMERICA.

STAND UP AMERICA became a rallying cry through the latter part of 2012 as a spirit of renewal took hold.   We as individuals have all been down at one time or another and the measure of any person’s strength is the ability to get going again.  This is the same for a nation, especially one as great as the USA.  The spirit of “standing up” for one’s own situation and then being responsible for improving ones personal state of affairs fuelled a culture of success and hard work that lead to a much more positive attitude within our borders and lead to an almost immediate recovery.

One of the difficulties we have as Americans is the ability to admit that maybe we make mistakes or that we can occasionally let ourselves down.  I’ve mentioned numerous times that we were embracing a culture of blaming others for what has happened in our individual lives but for most Americans to admit that they were wrong is just ludicrous.  Well, what I recognized and shared was that we had created our own mess through a very out-dated governmental model that was no longer relevant in the twenty-first century, a business culture that celebrated profit as the only reason for being and a citizen base that had lost its collective American spirit.  

The Party System Has To Go

The Democrats and Republicans have to go. The party system has fundamentally crippled government and stymied any type of effective debate in the nation.

The fundamental flaw in party ideology is that it assumes a predetermined response to any issue that might arise. These responses sadly just fall into the black or white, right or left typical responses and as a result no enlightened dialogue is generated. The result is that the government becomes just an organization that recycles the same old policies and innovation becomes stagnant.

Secondly, the party system dissuades most talented people who have their own opinions from participating in the political process. Very few individuals who are self-determined and hold their own views are willing to subjugate those views for the acceptance of a party. Therefore, the party tends to attract only individuals who are concerned with power, wealth or recognition rather than those who can generate solutions in a complex modern world.

Thirdly, party politics dismisses the democratic process. Though the process of becoming a member of a party or its leader might appear democratic the result is not so. The individual whom ultimately makes it to power becomes a party representative first and foremost and that loyalty is the priority.  Toeing the party line is fundamentally more important than representing your constituents and infinitely more important than putting your own opinion into the debate.  America suffers greatly as a result.

Finally, the party system has simply fallen into a mindset of opposition whereby any and all actions initiated by the other party is inherently wrong.  This in and of itself is not necessarily bad as opposition can be effective, but it has gone so far that opposition has become synonymous with skewering the opposition as evil or un-American.  This is unacceptable practice in a democratic environment adn really serves no purpose other than alienating Americans against each other.

The party system needs to be 100% replaced so that those elected to office are able to perform their role in a free manner unencumbered by party pressure.

Representative Democracy is not Democratic

America is free, but is no longer a democratic country.

Representative democracy is fundamentally defined as representation of individual citizens segmented into constituencies. The party system however, has become so prevalent and powerful that elected officials are now representative of the party platform rather than constituent concerns. This obvious situation is clearly not democracy.

The all-pervasiveness of party politics also means that the original intent of the House of Representatives which was to serve as a governing and legislative body is more often that not merely a conduit for confrontation and negativity. The goal of many party members is simply to besmirch the governing body and the President's office such that their party position appears more favorable and increases the power base and the chance of winning elections in the future.

Finally, representative democracy was a concept invented hundreds of years ago and has ultimately lost the ability to deal in an efficient and timely manner in regard to most of the issues of the modern world that have become much more complex. Even under freer circumstances for choice and direction and with the right-minded members, no single individual representative can propose intelligent and appropriate direction on every issue thus further making the case that representative democracy is non-existent. Even with ideal members, they still only have a limited range of knowledge and cannot therefore represent the entirety of the their constituency on every issue.

Good governance and fiduciary duty to constituents has to come back to the forefront as the primary role of any elected representative. Increased access points for the general population and specific expertise must be increased such that intelligence is brought to the table, common and differing opinions are debated openly and fairly and most importantly that non-agenda driven conclusions are arrived at.

Hence a "new way" is required to replace representative democracy.