Bi-Partisan

 

As Time Goes By

This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension

Four dimensions? How about more than one.

Characterizing politics as liberal and conservative is probably TOO restrictive. It makes the assumption that politics is one dimensional when it is probably has at least one other dimension. A political position should be based on the type AND scale of government. We do not need bi‑partisanship. We need pan- partisanship.

This argument should sound familiar to people who remember the old Miller Lite beer commercial (“Less Filling/Tastes Great”) or the old Certs commercials ( “It’s a Candy Mint! It’s a Breath Mint! Its Two, Two, Two Mints in One.”). In the case of these commercials, people seem to accept that something can have more than one dimension.

		Filling
		Less	More
Taste	Great	Miller Lite	Not Miller Lite
	Not So Great	Not Miller Lite	Not Miller Lite

 

In political positions, the form of the government according to the Constitution is a lower case "r" "republic". As Benjamin Franklin famously described it ”a republic, if you can keep it.”   The Constitution does not specify the size of that government. There has always been a healthy debate between liberal and conservative positions as to the size and role of government.

		Size
		Limited	Big
Form	republican	Conservative	Liberal
	Authoritarian	Pseudo Conservative	Pseudo Liberal

 

A problem is that Authoritarians masquerading as Conservatives seem to have taken over the upper case "R", "Republican" Party. True Conservatives, such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, must contend with Pseudo Conservatives who appear to be Authoritarians. And those are not just limited to Trump. While Pseudo Conservatives exist, Pseudo Liberals also exist. For example, Napoleon began as an officer in the French revolutionary army. Modern day Authoritarians such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin are big government, Authoritarian,  Pseudo Liberals.

The US Constitution describes a republican form of government. You can not be in the government if you are an Authoritarian unless you want to overthrow that Constitutional government. The Republican Party needs to decide if it supports this, lower case "r", "republic". If so, so it should eliminate Pseudo Conservative Authoritarians from the Republican Party, even if it means in doing so they will reduce their membership. If their argument is over the size and role, not the form of government, that needs to be clear.  The problem might not be owning the libs.  It might be eliminating pseudo conservatives.