Counter-Currents
1,279 words
A major impediment in the anti-GOP approach of creating and running alternative parties is the issue of ballot access. Some states have insanely strict requirements for access, requiring thousands, or even tens of thousands, of signatures, which, even if obtained, are subject to legal challenges by Republican and Democratic operatives intent on preserving their “one party with two wings” electoral monopoly. Further, social pricing concerns create a problem for any explicitly pro-White party in getting the required number of signatures to begin with.
However, Colorado is much more enlightened and should serve as a model for what we need nationwide.
As in 2008, Colorado has 16 candidates listed, the most of any state. Others, such as Oklahoma, are far more restrictive, allowing only incumbent Democrat Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.
Also qualifying for the Colorado ballot are Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, both with registered minor parties, and Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party, which, thanks to Tom Tancredo’s rogue 2010 gubernatorial run, is for now deemed a major party here.
Eleven other candidates simply had to submit a “letter of intent” and a $500 filing fee. No petition of signatures is required.
Such loose eligibility criteria means the crop of contenders is a motley bunch, including Ayn Rand devotee Tom Stevens of the Objectivist Party, actress Roseanne Barr with the socialist-leaning Peace and Freedom Party and Merlin Miller of nationalist group American Third Position.
I would suggest however that it would be optimal to make access a bit more stringent than the Colorado system, for three reasons. First, to dissuade crazies with $500 from clogging the ballot with insane and/or frivolous candidacies – for example, the National Hamsters’ Rights Party or some such thing. Second, to make malicious sabotage campaigns more difficult. Imagine a pro-White party on the ballot, with some support, and opponents wanting to disrupt that. Any “anti” or “cogelite” with $500 could quickly create a pseudo-“Nazi” party to be put on the ballot, to siphon support, confuse the masses, and run a “false flag” campaign to discredit honest racial nationalism. Third, a somewhat more stringent requirement would force the third party candidates to be better organized and more serious and therefore run a better campaign.
In addition to the Colorado requirements, I’d also suggest the following.
First that the party be an actual organized political entity (like the A3P) and not something thought up by one individual on a computer in their parents’ basement. This requirement would be proofed against Republicrat challenges – as long as some sort of minimal standards are met – for example, an officially registered and chartered party with a platform, etc. – then ballot access will be granted, with no question. The standards required should be clearly laid out and, as already stated, minimal and within the grasp of any small yet organized political group.
Second, that to be on a Presidential ballot in any given state, the party must run a minimum of three candidates: President, Vice-President, and at least one candidate for another high-level position such as senator, congressman, or governor. To be on the ballot in all 50 states would therefore require a minimum of 52 candidates, including the two on the Presidential ticket. This again would raise a real yet minimal barrier to frivolous campaigns.
Ballot access in non-Presidential election years, for other positions (e.g., senator, congressman, governor, mayor etc.), would require “official party” status as well as a requirement to run candidates for at least two different positions on the ballot (assuming more than one open position on the ballot for that election).
This proposal is a rough draft and others may have additional ideas on this subject. But I think what we minimally need is: (1) a liberalization of ballot access, doing away with signature requirements, (2) some minimal standards that would ensure that only serious candidates are on the ballot, and (3) the whole procedure needs to be secured against Republicrat legal challenges, so that the ballot can be kept open to any candidate/party that can meet the clearly defined, minimal requirements.
We need to cooperate with other existing or potential third parties across the political spectrum to get ballot access liberalization actualized. This is as good a time as any to do so, with rising dissatisfaction with the current political process.
Now, I’d like to briefly change direction and make a few additional points. I know that some “conservative Republicans” have been following the political discussions at Counter-Currents recently. To those who refuse to break with the GOP, can I ask that you at least make yourselves useful? How about organizing some PACs to politically target any GOP senator or congressman who supports amnesty? Get challengers to them in any future election cycle, get them out of office, and send a message. Speak up and oppose amnesty, ask why Reagan’s amnesty didn’t create an army of Latino Republicans. Ask why the GOP is intent on adding millions of Democrat voters. Point out that amnesty would cost the GOP support of their voting base. Doing so may help your precious party (what you want) and at the same time would increase racial balkanization (what we want) by enraging minorities and bringing racial conflicts of interests – at least implicitly – to the forefront of American politics. And when the GOP caves in on this issue, as I am sure they eventually will, these talking points can be used to underscore Republican betrayal and stupidity.
Finally, I’d like to comment on the hypocrisy of the whole “amnesty compromise” scenario. We hear talk that any amnesty will be tied to “strict border enforcement.” What that implies is two things. First, it is an admission that we do not currently have strict enforcement. Second, and more importantly, it also implies that the System knows the things it can do to improve enforcement, but is willingly not doing them – and is making amnesty a condition for enforcement. It’s a form of extortion – “we’ll refuse to enforce the law and we’ll refuse to secure the border, unless you agree to give the amnesty.” Amazing that all the Republican droolcups can’t see this.
Of course, the whole border security promise is a sham. Did Ronnie Raygun and those who followed him in office, including the two Bushes, keep the original promise to “secure the border?” No, it was a lie. The same will happen now. After a show of enforcement, they’ll eventually just let it fade away. After all, what can be done about it? You won’t be able to reverse the amnesty, once given. You see, the amnesty is a “done and over” sort of thing, but enforcement and border security is an ongoing, continuous process. You think the political will to carry out strict enforcement will be there once the amnesty is over and done with and irreversible? No way. If for no other reason, all the new Latino voters will make sure that enforcement is gutted as soon as possible. Again, if the security promise is reneged on, there’s nothing you can do about it. It happened before and it will (eventually) happen again, guaranteed.
And, anyway, the long-term “solution” to illegal immigration is to legalize the whole world, to increase the immigration quotas to such an extent that illegal immigration becomes unnecessary, since anyone and everyone who wants to come to the USA would be able to do so, easily, legally, and immediately. Enforcement would then be completely superfluous. And the GOPers with their “I’m not against immigration, only illegal immigration” would sputter and fume but could say nothing – for that would be “racist.” Amazing that the GOP droolcups don’t recognize any of that, either.
9 comments
Ballot access is a red herring. States with liberal ballot access laws are no better at developing systems with three or more serious parties than other states. Duverger’s law provides an explanation.
Er..in my previous writing I stressed that we also need to promote proportional representation. But to casually dismiss ballot access does no good. From the wiki article on Duverger’s law (said law which is no more than common sense):
A third party can enter the arena only if it can exploit the mistakes of a pre-existing major party, ultimately at that party’s expense. For example, the political chaos in the United States immediately preceding the Civil War allowed the Republican Party to replace the Whig Party as the progressive half of the American political landscape. Loosely united on a platform of country-wide economic reform and federally funded industrialization, the decentralized Whig leadership failed to take a decisive stance on the slavery issue, effectively splitting the party along the Mason-Dixon Line. Southern rural planters, initially lured by the prospect of federal infrastructure and schools, quickly aligned themselves with the pro-slavery Democrats, while urban laborers and professionals in the northern states, threatened by the sudden shift in political and economic power and losing faith in the failing Whig candidates, flocked to the increasingly vocal anti-slavery Republican Party.
The problem there is that if the Whigs had been able to keep the Republicans off the ballot, then, obviously, no one would be able to have voted for the Republicans. The infrastructural challenges for third parties are well known. However, if they are not on the ballot, then it is obvious that they are not going to get any votes. Ballot access is necessary but not sufficient – and I never argued that it is sufficient.
But to imply that it is not necessary is absurd. And, if the point is to drain enough votes from the Republicans so as to destroy the party as a national entity, then third parties need only be sufficiently developed to take sufficient votes to tip close elections. For that they need ballot access.
While the Electoral College might favor Democrats over Republicans, and might even favor Democrats over a potential pro-white third party, I have some reservations about trying to abolish it.
First, would we want to advocate an increase in democracy as a solution to our problems? It seems like continuing down a wrong path our society has been following for generations.
Second, selection of the President by the Electoral College is a recognition of state’s rights, and of the importance of local communities rather than merely atomized individuals.
Finally, I don’t expect an electoral solution to our problems, at least on a national scale, and if the Electoral College were to elect a candidate who received less popular vote than an opponent, it would further discredit the system. (Well, there are those who contend that this just happened due to vote fraud, but if the official popular vote total had favored Romney while Obama won the electoral vote it would have further eroded the legitimacy of the system.)
Mr. Sallis, what do you think of directing our efforts towards abolishing the electoral college? O got half the vote (1/4 of all eligible voters) and 2/3rds of the electors.
Also, what about raising the minimum voting age? On average, coloreds are younger than Euros.
As a stop-gap measure, eliminating the electoral college is a good idea (what happened to Perot is reason enough, from a third party perspective). I certainly wouldn’t object to increasing the age either.
The former is I think much more possible than the latter. The electoral college, to the average person, sounds “elitist,” and championing “the popular vote” fits in better with the modern direction of “empowering the people,” “equality,” blah blah. That’s an example where our interests and PC rhetoric overlap. Although of course, small states have an interest in maintaining the current system.
Restricting the voting pool by age goes against the modern direction of “empowerment” – and would of course lead to hysterical comparisons to voting restrictions based on race and gender. People will point out that teenagers can go to war, why can’t they vote, etc.
So, while both are good ideas, abolishing the electoral college is the one that fits better to a politically correct culture and thus has a better chance of being adopted.
A wise man told us to vote for Romney if we were in a swing state but to vote for a third party if in a solid blue or red state. The wise man felt Obama was too dangerous for another term but that we also needed to build up the visibility of the third parties.
I voted for Virgil Goode anyway (I didn’t realize I could write in Merlin Miller).
The Obama win is working out as well as we hoped. The left media is rubbing the noses of whites in their demographic displacement at the polls.
They are saying the Rebpublicans have to abandon opposition to amnesty or keep losing indefinately as the demographic shift continues. They are saying the Republicans have an angry white male problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6GLIl7GEP8
The right wing media is posing it as a debate on wether to abandon whites.
Either side fence sitting whites listen to they are getting their demographic demise and political marginalization pointed out to them.
I also voted for an independant funning for the U.S. senate here in Florida, Chris Borgia.
He’s an Iraq war vet and has a decent platform.
If nobody minds, a few more off-the-wall ideas.
How about setting both a maximum and a higher minimum age for federal office holders and possibly bureaucrats? In the process; eliminating some of the rotten old geezers gumming up the works and blocking the entry of fresh, new blood into the govt, and simultaneously making it more difficult for coloreds to legally assume office (see my comment above).
Also, what about requiring presidential candidates and their financial backers to deposit a fixed and large sum of money with a suitable public entity, which will become legally forfeited in the event of a loss? No more throwing elections or electioneering like a clueless clown without serious financial loss to you and your backers.
And finally, what does the forum think about this:
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
I haven’t reviewed the site completely but it looks interesting.
P.S. I think we should organize some kind of event for this coming MLK day. Lets brainstorm and plan ahead and do something constructive.
Is it required that registered voters in a state with restrictive ballot access can only sign one potential candidates form?
If not, a practical option (unless and until these restrictions can be removed from the statute books) may be to have a national politically neutral campaign group that arranges registered voters in each state who pledge to sign any forms of prospect candidates regardless of affiliation?
I may well be missing some vital detail here being a non-American, but it suggests one way to enter the paddock.
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