Is America destined to move from a two party system to a three or four party system? Is it moving towards a political system without political parties at all? The Huffington Post, with its predictable attack on the putative “Far Right,” with special venom reserved for the John Birch Society, suggests that the rise of the Tea Party has produced an attack from the Right on the Republican Party which may — with the Left disillusioned with Obama — lead to four political parties.
The Founding Fathers never wanted political parties. It is not that these men did not know about political parties, this political invention was as old as the Athenian Democracy, the Roman Republican, or the Blues, Reds, Greens, and Whites of Byzantium. Parties presume that government should advance the interests of some within a system of government. Our Founding Fathers, however, believed that government should not take sides in the consensual interactions of its citizens at all. It should be more like a traffic cop, who insures that the rules of the road are followed and that collisions are held to a minimum.
When there are few laws, when those laws are uniformly and reasonably applied to all citizens, and when the function of elections is not to advance the agenda of a single group, but rather to insure that honorable and impartial (nonpartisan) men run the government, then who needs political parties at all? But when parties become the instrument of interest groups, when the function of government is to rule over economic and social interactions, when winning or losing elections become critically important for certain Americans, then political parties are like armies: necessary evils needed to deter or to win internal political wars.
The Huffington Post, predictably, misreads what the Tea Party, The John Birch Society, or any group of Americans placed on the notional Far Right really want: restoration of a system of government that adheres to the limited functions set forth in the Constitution and which cannot be used as the private army of any group of Americans waging political war on others through parties. We want an America in which winning an election is no more significant than the replacement of an umpire in a baseball game or a referee in the football game. We are not obsessed with politics, but rather disturbed by the number of our countrymen who view government as something they own because they have conquered it with their party.
Most conservatives support the Republican Party, but very few conservatives view men like Nixon, Eisenhower, Ford, or Bush as believing what we believe about America. Nixon created monstrosities like the EPA and OSHA. Eisenhower appointed the odious hack, Earl Warren, to be Chief Justice. Ford chose John Paul Stephens to the Supreme Court and pointedly refused to meet the noble, brave, and brilliant Solzhenitsyn. Bush Sr. broke his No New Taxes promise and appointed David Souter to the Supreme Court.
Moreover, we object to being placed on some mythical Far Right, unless that means we support the foundational principles of ordered liberty upon which our nation was founded. Freedom-loving people should dread one-party government. The Communist Party in the Soviet Union, the Nazi Party in Germany, the Fascist Party in Italy, and all the dreary copycats of those bad regimes these represent the antithesis of what we know good government should be. Increasing the number of parties to two at least creates uncertainty of power, and so some relief from oppressive rule. Would adding more parties make things better? Is Europe, which is filled with national legislatures with three, four, or five major parties better than America? No, unless we like the way Germany or France are run. These parties simply add more interests to be placated. These is only one way in which an increase in the number of political parties would increase our liberty: what if every single American was his own political party?
That is a party system that would work.
Photo: A sample ballot poster for the European Parliament election 2004 in Italy shows multiple party lists.
