Let’s Party!

I am not a political guy, contrary to what others may say or think about me. I never paid that much attention to politics. I guess I am a bad citizen. But, it seems that of late, politics are much more “in your face” than they used to be, or maybe since I am now retired I have more time to pay attention. So now, as I begin to pay more attention, I log for the old days when my naiveté allowed me to believe all was good in government and that the government was here to help. I am writing this article today hoping someone out there can help me understand what it is all about.

First off, how many political parties are there? To my knowledge one can only have and R, D, or I behind their name when their name is on the ballot. But what of all the others I am hearing about? What about the Tea Party, the Coffee Party, the Libertarian Party, or the New Black Panther Party? How do they become official political parties. Not that I really want them to be. That would just make that many more parties I do not wish to be a member of. Are these parties just subsets of the two officially recognized political parties? Originally I thought I should have paid more attention in civics class. But then on reflection, I think I did pay attention. Back when I was snoozing in civics class there were only two political parties. And my recollection was that neither party was totally whacked out with so many splinter groups as we see today. Parties are supposed to be fun, but this isn’t fun. Where is the beer and the balloons and the bunnies?

Another point of confusion are the splinter groups that are presumably part of the major political parties. Are liberals always Democrats? Do liberals still exist or are they now Progressives. What is progressive about them? I haven’t seen much to impress me. Are Tea-Party people also always republican? I think they may have some good ideas, particularly when it comes to limiting government, but it so far has been too difficult to sort through all the rhetoric to make a valid determination. Are libertarians not republicans or democrats but a who new species of political animal? They too seem to have some good ideas but they also seem to want to take those ideas to the extreme. Thus far, what I have learned, is that thee are a number of parties, and sub parties, none of which I want to be affiliated with. In all honesty, I lean towards the right and find myself aligned more with conservative views than views of a liberal bent. I might explain why that is in a future article, if I ever figure it out. What we need is a common sense party?

I think the word party is misleading. I checked with Google to see what is an antonym for party. Google suggested chore, task, or work. Not exactly what I was looking for, but it makes me think it does have some validity in this conversation. Specifically, that those who are elected to office by the people are only incidentally also members of a political party. That they are elected not to represent the party but to represent the people who elected them. That would be a good notion for them to concentrate on as they realize what are the chores we sent them to do, what tasks we want them to strive to do, and what work is required to do all that.
Those are my thoughts, what are yours?

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