Abolish Political Parties

Political Parties are Gangs and Politicians are Gangbangers

It’s safe to say that most people are revolted at the sight of glaring, snarling slogan shouting gangbangers whose loyalty is to the gang and nothing else.

They live for the gang, dress for the gang, fight for the gang and die for the gang. They slavishly obey orders from their leaders and live to destroy rival gangs. Nothing matters to them but the survival and supremacy of their gang and the destruction of a rival gang, and they will do anything and everything to achieve those two goals.

In polite quarters, gangbangers are considered misguided and oppressed. In more realistic ones they’re thought to be pathetic, hopeless, scum, dangerous and a threat to everything decent, moral, productive and honorable.

While we can’t outlaw gangs, we abhor and shun them, and we know instinctively that the world would be safer and better off without them.

So why don’t we feel the same about political parties? They’re nothing but gangs, and their leaders and members, especially elected officials, are nothing but gang members. Politics is gang warfare waged by people in nice clothes.

What else can it be?

Republicans and Democrats legislate and govern only with the party in mind. Everything they do is to ensure that more of their party (gang) members get elected and that the other party (gang) is destroyed. Each party has its own slogans—Tax the rich! No more taxes!—which their members mechanically spout to anyone who will listen. Members who think and vote contrary to orders from party leaders are ostracized and punished. Majority leaders and minority whips work to ensure party discipline. Votes in Congress, state legislatures and city councils are routinely along party lines.

In New Mexico, former Democratic state Senator Manny Aragon, who’s now serving prison time on a bribery and corruption conviction, bullied and threatened his fellow Democrats during his rise to and grip on power. Although many Democrats abhorred what Aragon was doing, they kept silent. They were afraid that Aragon would punish them by denying them capital improvement money and committee appointments. They sold out the truth, and all New Mexicans, out of fear and a lust for power, money and the gang.

Every chance they get, party members denounce the other guys. Democrats are turning us into a self-destructive welfare state and forcing us all to marry gay people, the Republicans cry. Republicans, snarl the Democrats, are out to make all widows and orphans homeless and deny old people their heart pills. Their lives are dedicated to the party and its subgangs—unions, trial lawyers, Wall Street and chambers of commerce. They wage turf warfare and call it politics.

So if these people care about the party and nothing else, who cares about the rest of us? The answer is no one.

That’s why we have to abolish political parties. Their gang warfare is destroying us.

Minnesota government has been shut down for two weeks as Republicans and Democrats wage their gang warfare. Obama and the Republicans can’t reach a budget deficit or debt cap deal because they’re locked into party—gang—mentalities. Any compromise means the other side wins, and that just can’t be tolerated. In Wisconsin, Democratic state senators ran away and fled the state in a move they thought would prevent Republicans from passing a budget bill.

Let’s stop the gang warfare. Although we should, we can’t abolish political parties because we have free speech and the right to organize and affiliate with whom we please. But we as individuals can do something about it.

Go to your county clerk’s office and change your voter registration to independent or not affiliated. If the rules don’t allow that, bitch and moan to your elected officials, neighbors and the news media and demand a change.

If every American registered as an independent, the gangs would be exposed as meaningless. Candidates could then run as citizens and spout their own ideas, not those of the gang.

Let candidates know that you won’t for anyone who affiliates themselves with a political party or spouts divisive party—gang—slogans. Demand that they run as independents and as citizens, not as party members. Demand that their loyalty be to the nation and its citizens, not to the party.

If one of these nitwits comes to your door and identifies him or herself as a party member, tell them they’re a sleazy, unprincipled gangbanger and slam the door in their face.

Don’t put up with this gang warfare a second longer. It’s destroying us. The nation and the government belong to us, not to political parties.

Police departments in major cities have gang units that track gangs and work to dismantle them. Let’s do the same with politics.

Destroy the political parties.