Preface

When I got to college and started my first history class, my father, who was a Ph.D. in American History, told me to make sure to always read the preface of any book.  With so much reading to do, however, I didn’t want to read any more of a book than I needed to.   “Why was it so important to read the preface?” I asked my dad.  His answer – because history is not just about the story, but also about the storyteller.  Like any imperfect human being, historians are biased. They are biased by their age – their own and one they live in.  They are biased by their experience, their education, their upbringing and, especially, their politics.   There’s nothing wrong with that.  But a good history student needs to understand that bias in order to be able to fully understand – and question – the telling of the story.  In a good preface, a good historian will tell you his or her bias as s/he lays out the reason why s/he wrote this book and what s/he hopes to convey to the reader.   And, my father told me, reading the preface will make reading the book easier.  Sold!

So here’s my preface.

Politics, and therefore government, in the United States has been broken for a long time.  And the parties that broke them are… the Parties.  The Democratic and Republican Parties have grown, separated and congealed to such a state that the struggle between them is what defines political activity (I dare not say progress) in America today.

  1. The President’s higher priority these days is to “protect and defend” the party rather than the Constitution and “We the people.” More and more, he does what his party leaders and financial supporters lobby his administration to do – with or without the backing of duly approved law.
  2. Members of Congress and the President’s administration largely do not work together to prioritize the issues their constituents want them to work on and compromise with one another to find “agreement by mutual concession.” (Atticus from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird)  Instead, they just argue with and insult the Other across the aisle while waiting for the President or the Courts to do their job for them. 
  3. The Congress does not check the power of the President as it was meant to according to the Constitution.  In reality, the majority parties in Congress blindly support or impede the actions of the President depending on who is in charge where. 
  4. And, in the past few decades, the Courts have become a patchwork quilt of Trump judges and Obama judges, Bush judges and Clinton judges rather than independent scholars and interpreters of the law, the Constitution and how they should be applied to today’s society.


Simply put, the Parties have become the Powers, backed by their powerful financial supporters, and they have taken over and forced any reasonable and independent member to toe the line or take a hike. 

It wasn’t meant to be this way.  Our Founding Fathers did not want it to be this way.  But the pull towards political parties is strong and the Founders’ vision of “men of prudence and good sense” (Hamilton, The Federalist Papers #74) who are balanced by the “dispersion of interests” across America (Madison, The Federalist Papers #51) never lasted for long after the founding generation.  By the election of 1800, political parties had begun to form around geographic (North vs. South) and powerful economic (Industrial vs. Agrarian / slaveholding) lines.  Over 200+ years, our inability to break the grip of the power of political parties has led us to Civil War, multiple economic calamities and our current state of massive and growing economic inequality.  And, now, it literally threatens to lead us to destroying our own planet!  Alas, we as Americans have rarely if ever lived up to George Washington’s attempt in his Farewell Address to “warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.” 

But it doesn’t need to be this way.  “We the People” (The United States Constitution preamble) can change this course by doing one simple and one hard thing.  The simple thing is so simple.  Go to Town Hall tomorrow and re-register yourself as an Independent or Unenrolled voter.  Take your agency back from the political parties.  DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!  The hard thing is so hard.  As an independent voter, you must take the time to learn, think, read, listen, understand and discuss with others how YOU personally feel about different issues.  When you do that you will find that your views are often different from others on some issues but similar on others.  That’s okay.  You will find that you are unique.  You are, in fact, independent.  Then, learn the candidates’ stands on the issues you care about and vote for the ones who you believe will best represent you… and only you.  Last, pay constant attention to the issues facing America and how your elected representatives act on those issues, and engage with the political process by going to Town Hall meetings and staying in contact with your representatives about your view on those same issues.

Register to vote as an Independent. Vote for who you to believe are the best candidates – whether Republican, Democrat, on other – independently. And engage with the political process based on your independent assessment of the issues. Take your power back from the political parties.

This is my preface.  The remainder of this site attempts to convince you to DECLARE INDEPENDENCE. When more of us do this we will cease to have a government of, by and for the political parties but, instead “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” (Lincoln, Gettysburg Address).  And we will make progress towards “a more perfect union” again.  (The United States Constitution preamble)

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!