Independent Voters - Clueless?

I offer the question both seriously and with much opining. People complain about the two party system in this country, and to them I say the two party system is the greatest system in the world. Quel horreur! you say as you clench your green/libertarian/christian democratic fist and inch closer to clicking your mouse away from this page. How can I discount the beliefs of 20% of the population?

I'm not. No, you see, in the good old US of A, we have a system called the primaries, when everyone can run, any ideology, any values/beliefs system - you just need to pick one of two party primaries to run in. If those values/beliefs/ideas are truly the will of the people, the person will be voted to be the candidate in the general election. It's protection from fringe ideologies, a brilliant system. So how does a person of a "third party" persuasion fit into one of the two parties, you ask? This is where you weed out those who claim to be of a "third party" but don't really know what they believe. Change the words "Democrat" and "Republican" to "Community" and "Individual" and there's your answer.

Wait! I know that nothing is black and white. Let me explain what I mean by those two terms.

Community

It takes a village. It really does - humans don't exist in their own personal vacuums. Everything around them affects them in some way, even when butterflies flap their wings in the South Pacific. If one factory pollutes, someone can breathe it in, weakening his immune system. He gets sick, goes to Charmucks to order a hot tea, and gets his germs all over the money, which is passed back in change to someone, who uses it at the local hardware store. You walk into the hardware store to buy some nails to hang a painting you bought and get that germ-infested money back as change. You get sick, so sick you have to cancel a meeting with some important people and end up not getting a contract because of it. The contract ends up going to another company whose executives are corrupt. They take shortcuts on safety, resulting in an accident that causes the death of a man. His two year old daughter grows up without a father, which results in her having difficulties with relationships when she is older. She ends up divorcing her husband before they have a child, and the way the genes were arranged in the sperm and the egg that would have conceived a child is such that a genius was never born, one who would have discovered a cure for a certain type of cancer. A future president dies from that type of cancer during the middle of a war that was going well, and his successor makes poor choices and the war goes south. I could go on and on and on, but you get the point by now.

What it all boils down to is Democrats believe in strengthening the community of Americans to make this the best possible America for everyone. There are various means to achieve this - minimum wage, financial aid to college students, social welfare programs, education, ensuring everyone has health care, etc. The bottomline is that we believe that all humans are created equal with certain inalienable rights - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights are not reserved for only the elites, but for everyone.

Individual

Basically, this means "who gives a damn about anyone else?" Also known as selfishness, this idea is characterized by all types of mongering in the name of power and profit - fearmongering, warmongering, powermongering, greedmongering...That being said, here's why libertarians fit into the community category rather than the individual, despite their emphasis on individual rights. The basis of libertarianism is that smaller government benefits the common good, that lower taxes generate wealth and create jobs that benefit people, and that, friends and enemies, is why libertarians - CATO libertarians, not those who claim to be libertarians because they want to use their tax money to buy more junk for themselves - should vote Democrat. People make up the planet! Besides, more libertarians in the Democratic Party would serve as a moderating force within the party to control the taxation they don't like.

As for those other "independents" aka swing voters, today's WaPo says they prefer Dems 2-1. It's nice that they've FINALLY seen the light, but it took them long enough. These "swing voters" are the ones who vote for people based on whether or not a guy is likeable rather than capable. This type of whimsical, uninformed voting is a threat to our country, regardless of which way the pendulum swings. It is what gave us George W. Bush in the first place and got us into this mess we're in.

We need to reframe the debate for these people. They need to understand that what they are voting for isn't a "D" or an "R", but community or selfishness. Yeah, it's not black and white, but it is a good frame of reference, much better than the taxation or size of government measurements. The size of the Bush government proves this point.

Just thinking outloud...