Operative BJ writes in to remind the Czar of words he wrote only days ago:

Your Gloriousness,

I mostly agree with you re the effect a third political party has on elections in the US, e.g. taking votes away from the two major parties rather than actually having a chance of winning a seat. And I agree with you that the Tea Party cannot win elections on its own.

Naturally, because you have good sense.

The problem, as I see it, is that the current Republican Party leadership has done a bang-up job of opposing Tea Party candidates in order to maintain their own status quo. They appear to be more interested in re-electing old-guard candidates – the back-room cigar-smoking deal makers – than in electing new-guard conservatives who want to propose necessary changes to existing law, overturn and repeal bad law, reduce the size of the federal government, reduce spending, and aim toward a more “originalist” view of our Constitutional republic. Most are Republicans in name only… and barely even that.

The real question is: what do the independent voters want? Many surveys report that independents support many Tea Party principles but don’t trust Republicans to put them in place. For example, they look at the Republicans in Congress (specifically, the House of Representatives) and wonder why, at such a late point in the election cycle, they only call for the repeal of the PPACA when they still haven’t rallied around a single workable replacement for it – making themselves look foolish in the process. It’s not like alternative and workable health care plans don’t exist: Boehner obviously doesn’t see replacement of the PPACA as a high priority. The question is: why?

No, that’s two questions.

Independent voters, the Czar maintains, are a creation of the media. Independent voters are voters who may not be stupid and evil, but still cannot seem to vote for progressive radicals. In the 1960s, we called independent voters “Democrats,” even if they sometimes voted for Republican candidates.

Today, this idea boggles progressive liberals, who call this perplexing group “independents,” a label that will serve until these people can be herded into re-education camps. Because basically, you have it—independents want lower taxes, smaller government, a stronger foreign policy…but they do not think the Republicans will give them these things, probably because they have been indoctrinated enough to recognize that Republicans are stupid and evil. Or racist, which is great, because then they are stupid and evil.

It is the fault of the Republicans that for decades they refused to challenge this notion, and spend more time playing catch up, rather than advancing their ideas forward. There probably isn’t a Republican candidate who isn’t aware of this.

Your second question is why John Boehner doesn’t see replacement of the PPACA as a high priority. The reality here is also pretty simple: whether you agree with the premise or not, a lot of Republicans don’t think PPACA needs to be replaced. It needs to be eliminated and replaced with nothing: go back to good, old-fashioned common sense free markets. Assume that people are smart enough to figure stuff out.

The Czar agrees and disagrees with this premise. Yes, the ideal solution for healthcare cost containment is to go back to what we had before HMOs screwed everything up. Low-cost doctor visits, house calls, you name it. $10 for medicine, that sort of thing. But the reality is that this world ain’t coming back. Once insurance companies were introduced into the healthcare in the 1940s, you get “Partial deductibility for ancillary services not to exceed 15% for acute care during the accumulation period, provided the coverage includes actively-at-work family members.”

We can fantasize about Mayberry housecalls, particularly if the doctor is very attractive, but let’s face it: simply eliminating the PPACA without some sort of landing gear would be as bad as many other Tea Party proposals to slash hundreds of government agencies on Day One, resulting in tens of thousands of unskilled government workers hitting the streets with no employment prospects. The damage would last years.

But, Your Majesty, I think you may have stepped over a concept that most Americans don’t get: third parties do work… but not in our Constitutional republic. They work in parliamentary systems, in which the legislature elects the executive. That’s what “ruling coalitions” are all about: the elected members of multiple parties join together into a majority to “form a government.”

Our Constitution gives The People power to elect their Congress and, through the Electoral College, the Executive. Then, the two branches must coordinate and cooperate to appoint Justices. Hence, even the Justices are a reflection of the choices made by The People. Kinda clever, actually: government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people. Who’d a thunk it?

Instead of a parliamentary system, we have a Constitutional republic. Thank the Founders for this. And since money follows both party and ideology, and there are (well, used to be) two different political ideologies, we have two parties. Unfortunately, both parties have lost sight of the purpose of the Federal government: to provide a framework – and only a framework – to allow the States to work together. To cooperate with each other. Joined together as single country, but still independent States.

The Founders established a bicameral government because third parties do not work. Your example of parliamentarianism is precisely the mess the Founders wanted to avoid because—get ready for this, readers—parliaments and democracies do not exist together.

Think it over, readers: if democracy can be summarized as “Majority Rules,” then parliaments are inherently anti-majority. It is possible, through the exact coalitions that BJ describes, for a group of minority voters to band together to overpower a majority.

For example, imagine a government made up of a Yellow party, a Purple party, a Teal party, and a Beige party. It is possible for the Yellow party to have a whopping 48% of the vote and never get anything passed; the Purples, Teals, and Beiges can band together—even though they represent fractions of the voters’ wishes—and use their combined 52% to block every reasonable initiative. Europeans seem to think this is great: you can stop a single party from dominating the voting. But the reality is that nothing gets done. Ultimately, the Yellows can absorb the Purples and block elections as we unfortunately see in just about every country that has a parliament. Plus, if a minority power gets voted into leadership through coalitions, it becomes super easy to call for a vote of no confidence and stop all activity. Parliaments are a mess, and they just do not get results. Hence, the Founders wanted a different approach.

Great example, Operative BJ!

O Great One, I think we should really think of ourselves in terms of The United (Independent) States, not in terms of a single overpowering federal government. Unfortunately, the current Republican Party would rather continue the current trend toward more centralized power rather than its traditional ideal of reducing federal control and returning power to the States where it belongs. Hence their opposition to Tea Party principles, which would re-empower the States to do what is in their own interests without an overbearing federal government challenging every move.

May I ask, Great and Wise One, whatever happened to the 10th Amendment?

This minion pleads for your mercy for asking such a stupid question.

Actually, that’s now a third question. Please provide evidence, outside of talk radio rants, that Republicans are interested in undermining the states’ power. This is sort of the classic circular firing squad that conservatives love to engage in, much to the delight of the liberals.

There is also no statement in the Constitution that says that states should have the greater share of power; it’s one of the classic libertarian fallacies. The Tenth Amendment of course only guarantees that powers not taken by the federal government in the Constitution may be used by the states. It never stipulates that the federal government is done enumerating powers: in fact, the conflict there in is Article 1, Section 8, which is vague enough to make “all laws necessary and proper” mean anything politicians need it to mean.

And this wasn’t a mistake: the Tenth Amendments and Article 1, Section 8, work together, but because there is no ability for States to take powers away from the Federal government, the inevitable results is that the Federal government will by design erode powers away from the States. Unfortunate, but true.

Nor is this unique to our age. In fact, pretty much minutes after the Constitution was plugged in and powered up, arguments ranged about the growth of federal power. Jefferson and Hamilton were two of thousands who argued for or against federalism. Believe it or not (and many lower-case l libertarians do not), understanding the arguments around the Constitution is essential to understanding it. It requires almost its own bible study; otherwise, a vanilla reading of the Constitution’s language—great in theory—will inevitably lead to confusion. The Founders knew this while they were writing it, hence the stated value of the Supreme Court in helping interpret it.

Okay, we admit we went off on a tangent. But the Czar is curious about the source of your concern since he hears similar statements from so many angles. Where are Republicans calling for increase federal powers? Doubtless you could produce a few examples, as will others who will drop challenges in our mailbox and run, but before any of you do, ask yourself this: is this a question of policy or politics?

The difference between the two is essential. Because GOP politician says A, that does not guarantee a stipulated policy of the party. While the Czar is no fund raiser or drone for the GOP, he does find that much of the criticism of the party by folks like Glenn Beck and Mark Levin are based on a primal confusion of policy (what oughta be) and politics (how we get there) and thereby unwarranted.

And curiously, much of the promotional talk for third parties comes from those camps as well.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.