{"id":11959,"date":"2016-01-09T09:51:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T14:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=11959"},"modified":"2016-01-09T09:51:46","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T14:51:46","slug":"lets-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=11959","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Party!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"American-Political-Parties\"<\/a>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 \u201cin your face\u201d 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 naivet\u00e9 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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.
\nThose are my thoughts, what are yours?<\/p>\n

Feel free to comment, like, share, agree or disagree with this article. Please consider a free subscription. Options to like and subscribe can be found elsewhere on the page. Thank you for reading the Townehouse Blog.<\/p>\n

This material may be published, broadcast, or redistributed. In fact, I encourage it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextrevo_audio_file_creation_date":"","_daextrevo_text_to_speech":"","_daextrevo_document_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/THFI.png?fit=214%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":765,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=765","url_meta":{"origin":11959,"position":0},"title":"The People Have Spoken!","author":"Tom Lind","date":"November 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Tuesday was election day. The votes were all counted, the results are in. The people have spoken. What remains to be seen is, what are the people saying, and is anyone listening? The election this article is referring to is the Cincinnati Mayor, Council, and Issue 4 results. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"ThePeopleHaveSpoken_WebImage","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/ThePeopleHaveSpoken_WebImage-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":354,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=354","url_meta":{"origin":11959,"position":1},"title":"The More Things Change. . . . .","author":"Tom Lind","date":"February 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Recently my wife and I decided to watch a few episodes of an old TV series called The West Wing, via the magic of Netflix. The West Wing was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999 to May 14, 2006. The show chronicled the\u00a0adventures\u00a0of a Democrat president named Jeb\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political"","block_context":{"text":"Political","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=22"},"img":{"alt_text":"politics","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/politics-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14199,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=14199","url_meta":{"origin":11959,"position":2},"title":"Old Friends and Politics","author":"Tom Lind","date":"August 16, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I have discovered, as have most of you, that old friends and politics seldom make a good combination. \u00a0I found this out after having a few old friends decide to not be old friends because of our opposing political ideologies. Recent events have caused me to think about this, in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/THV-08-16.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":869,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=869","url_meta":{"origin":11959,"position":3},"title":"Federal Government Abuse of Power","author":"Tom Lind","date":"April 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been watching with interest, and with growing concern, the chain of events as they unfold in Clark County, Nevada with regards to Cliven Bundy's fight with the Federal Government. The back story is this: In 1993 the Bureau of Land Management, a federal government agency, declared public grazing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"ClarkCountyLogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ClarkCountyLogo-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":246,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=246","url_meta":{"origin":11959,"position":4},"title":"Politically Speaking!","author":"Tom Lind","date":"November 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We The People? I, for the most part, am not a political animal. I believe in personal freedom, states rights, and small government. I realize that my political views will not change the hearts and minds of those with opposing points of view. But there are certain basic concepts that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political"","block_context":{"text":"Political","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=22"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screwed","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Screwed-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14188,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=14188","url_meta":{"origin":11959,"position":5},"title":"We the People!","author":"Tom Lind","date":"August 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"As an advocate for personal freedom, limited government, and the sovereignty of individual states, I firmly believe that there are certain core tenets that should be universally upheld, regardless of political persuasion. In his historic and moving Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln spoke of a government that derives its powers from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=21"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/We-the-People.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p38YRh-36T","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}