When the Roman Empire was broken, Diocletian fixed it. He completely revamped the imperial government, discarding centuries of tradition in favor of a new organizational structure designed to meet the challenges of the day. You can do stuff like that when you’re an emperor. It was sort of a one-man Constitutional Convention.To quote Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame:
I think of Diocletian whenever I contemplate the political mess in this country. We are broken and busted and in desperate need of change. And no, I don’t mean “change we can believe in,” which is obviously change we can’t believe in. If representative democracy is ever going to work again, I think we need to find a way around the existing two major parties. That’s what we were talking about in this thread, and it’s why I decided to put up this post.
The original impetus for this discussion was the Stupak amendment, which brought with it the realization (or confirmation, for some of us) that the Democrats really, really aren’t the party of women’s rights.
HAVE THINGS GOTTEN SO BAD THAT WE’RE dreaming of Diocletian? I think he’s a poor model. He took power in a military coup, vastly enlarged the bureaucracy, and tried to solve inflation caused by lousy fiscal policy with price controls, a disastrous failure. He persecuted Christians, and though he purchased some temporary stability via authoritarianism, he didn’t address the core problems and left an empire that was, overall, weaker than before. It says bad things when core Democratic constituencies think that’s what we need now . . . . Hope and change, anyone?I think that Violet of reclusiveleftist is missing something here. The party that she desires to form would be a fringe/radical party that might at best, elect a few city council/state representatives scattered around the country much like the Green Party has.
The thing is, there is already a third party beginning to coalesce in many parts of the country. It seems to be made up of moderates and independents of BOTH parties who are disgusted with the “business as usual/inside the beltway” mentality that reigns in Washington, DC. The Dem’s have shifted hard left this year, the GOP has become “Dem Lite” (”we’ll just spend a little less” and call ourselves a different party” of the past eight years) and neither party is at all responsive to the moderates (left/centre, right/centre).
That’s where the “Tea Party” protesters are coming from, they’re neither far right, nor left. Their social agenda is that of moderates. Most are FISCALLY conservative which is a horse of a far different colour from a “socially conservative” movement. By far the vast majority of these people want responsible government, not government that spends us into the poor house, or mortgages our great grand children’s future earnings to pay for NOW. Additionally, they want a balanced budget.
If you're going to spend more money on one thing, then you have to cut somewhere else, not borrow money that our decendants will have to foot the bill for. They're not ignorant rednecks crawling out of the back woods to spew invective, most have never gotten involved in any political arena beyond voting. Now, this past spring and summer, for the first time in their lives, they are getting involved and actually attending "congressional town hall meetings" and voicing their opinions. Most Congressmen, only have proforma "town halls" where their supporters are the only ones who attend. By having a very large group of people in attendance who not only don't support the policies that are being pushed in Washington, they vehemently oppose them, and that has scared, not jut their Congressmen, but the Main Stream Media as well.
If you look back at our own history, you’ll see that the Republican Party formed in the late 1840’s/early 1850’s through dissatisfaction with the then crumbling Whig party. They also gathered up more socially conscience people from the Democratic party…but I think that what we are witnessing now, is the coalesces of a new party that is a wee might different from the GOP.
Because, let me tell you, the “base” of the GOP is very unhappy with their leadership. Especially so over the past 6 years. The free spending ways of the former GOP majority in Congress genuinely angered a lot of people. That’s why the GOP lost their majority in 2006, and it’s seats in Congress shrank again last year.
On the other hand, with the economy in the dumps, people are very frightened of the huge increase in spending this year. Which is why independents/moderates are fleeing from support of the Dem’s in such large numbers now. If you take a look at the movement in polls over the past several months you’ll see the trend. It’s pretty obvious to see, unless you live inside the beltway.
But any way, I’ve written on this a couple of times on my blog. But as far down this is on your post, I doubt seriously if anyone will pay attention. Thanks for letting me vent.
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