No Party, No Politics

No Party, No Politics!


Hi! Happy Thursday!


The Rise of No Party Politicians


Recently Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, announced he's exploring running for President as an independent in 2020. On its face this makes no sense because how could a no party politician garner any support from the Democratic or Republican parties? Without any party support what can be done? Howard Schultz is declaring a run for President having served no time in party politics.

Andrew Yang is running as a Democrat in 2020 on a single issue platform: universal basic income of $1,000/month for anyone over eighteen years of age. Andrew Yang is declaring a run having served no time in party politics.

Bernie ran for President as a Democrat even though he is registered as an independent and has been for thirty years. Bernie has served no time in party politics.

Trump declared as a Republican having served no time in party politics.

What we are seeing is a rise in politicians with no time in party politics.

If we combine these "no time in party politics", independent politicians with the recent, unprecedented calcification of party opposition then the result is weak tea politics:
  1. Major legislation such as the ACA of 2010 or the tax cut of 2017 have been passed with no votes by the opposition party. 
  2. Overturning major legislation of the opposition party becomes top campaign issues of subsequent elections.
  3. The opposition party to the President blocks as much as possible the legislation of the President. 
  4. Parties vote solely as a block and politicians do not cross party lines, putting party before country. 
Consider when Obama became President.  Senate leader Mitch McConnell said that he intended to stop one-hundred percent of everything Obama wanted to pass. One hundred percent.  And he did. His blockade was so effective that Harry Reid had to change the Senate rules to allow votes of fifty-percent majority in order to get judge appointments through the Senate. McConnell then used this rule change to pass the largest tax cut in recent history without a single Democratic vote.

Party Presidents Today Are Independent of Their Party


Presidents of the same party have very limited support of their party because they run on agendas without first getting any support from the party they belong too. 

Party politicians today run as independents. I say this because politicians today feel no need to first consult with the party before they promote a campaign legislative agenda.

Obama ran a campaign with no party input for his health care promises; he had no buy in and no approval by the Democratic party. As a result when Obama submitted his proposal to the House then Nancy Pelosi rejected his proposal outright, one-hundred percent. We know this because there was a leak in the Obama administration where a transcript of a phone call between Pelosi and Obama was leaked to the press. Pelosi and Obama were at loggerheads and came to no agreement at all. Instead, Nancy created the ACA bill with no input for Obama. It has oft been touted that Obama lied to Americans being able to keep their current doctor. Obama didn't lie. His proposal did allow people to keep their doctors, it is just that Pelosi rejected his proposal outright.

Trump also ran as an independent. Trump proposed his border wall with no input and no support from the Republican party. As a result the Republican party never funded the border wall for two years.

With Party, Minimal Politics


So both Obama and Trump experienced both one-hundred percent opposition from the opposition party and at times one-hundred percent opposition from their own party on major legislation like the ACA and the border wall. The root cause of this is politicians run as independents even when running as a party politician. They do not get approval or support of the party for campaign agendas.

Back before 1968 then politicians had to adhere to a party platform,  run on the party platform and not just their independent agenda. Today party politicians can run on any campaign promise independent of party approval. The result has been the ACA passed with no Obama input and no border wall funded by Republicans for Trump.

No Party, No Politics

 

What this country needs is party politicians and not independent politicians, especially when we consider historically unprecedented party calcification. We've had two administrations now where the President was effectively independent of their party and we've seen the results. So what could we expect then if Bernie Sanders, Howard Schultz, or Andrew Yang were elected? First, we'll see at least one party with one-hundred percent opposition, like Republicans with Bernie Sanders. Howard Schultz may well experience one-hundred percent opposition from both parties. Arguably Bernie would fair better. Bernie thinks by running for President as a Democrat then this will buy him some political capital with the Democratic party to spend. Uh, no. Bernie has been in Congress for thirty years and snubbed the Democratic party outright for all thirty years. Do you really think the Democratic party is going to get over that?

If we really want to see change in this country then we need to change course:
  1. Politicians should run on approved party platforms of very likely support once that politician is elected.
  2. Full American support and not just one party. 
With respect to full American support then I'm thinking specifically of Andrew Yang and his Universal Basic Income agenda of $1,000/mo. I mean, come on, even if Yang somehow gets Democrats convinced he'll never convince Republicans who refuse to even raise minimum wage because they consider it giving away money to lazy bums. Republicans will never support Universal Basic Income. Why run on a platform that is anathema to one party from the get-go?

Full American Support

 

We need full American support for agendas. We are living in an absurd time where if one party passes legislation such as the Affordable Care Act then immediately the opposition party works to undermine and repeal the law. This is no way to run a country.

We must demand that a politician appeal to more than just the party of choice.


Full American support means we the people have a role. We the people of the US need to grow up. We need to decide to come together. United we stand, divided we fall. Today our political divide is ensuring our fall. Is that really what we want?


Freethinkers unite!

Freedom!

Party On!

Let's get cracking!

Voluntarily Reject Demagoguery!

Politics as Science!

Demand Irreni World Scale!

Anti-theism is feminism!  

Think disruption!

Empathy for all!

Moral relativity: think it, breath it!

Prove it or lose it!

Conversations equal consensus! 

Welcome to the 21st century!

Scale your empathy, scale the world! 

Find your tribe!

Be sexy people!

The future is coming! 

Innovate at a rapid pace!

Slow speed ahead!

Well come! and well met!



 










Comments

Post a Comment

Explore

You Need To Start Making Political Decisions

Image
Hi! Happy Wednesday! Yesterday Jimmy Carter was interviewed where in essence he was saying the US is no longer a Democracy, but an oligarchy. But that is actually being nice. It is corruption plain and simple. The US has become like Mexico, China and most other countries around the world. Corruption rules. I posted Carter's interview on Facebook yesterday and made two important arguments yesterday regarding Carter's observation: Root cause was scale. Our success has become our failure. Our success has been since WWI the US has become the richest country in the world, by orders of magnitude. In Silicon Valley we say that your success becomes your failure when something "goes viral", or the scale of growth quickly overwhelms either the company or the technology. Internet start ups fail because ten, twenty or even one-thousand times more web visits can bring down a site. Going viral means scale grows orders of magnitude too quickly to manage. This is ca
Read more

Love, Hard Work Book Draft: Introduction

Image
Love, Hard Work By Mybrid Wonderful A New Government (For Making New Governments) Irreni World Scale "Irreni World Scale means hard work. Hard work in the past meant physical labor, back breaking labor of long hours. Hard work today means brain labor of social skills, getting along with people productively." -Mybrid Wonderful, "Love, Hard Work - Introduction" "Don't Panic! Two-hundred-million world governments as proposed by Irreni and opposed to today's two-hundred world governments is not meant to happen over night, but rather over two-hundred years." -Mybrid Wonderful, "Love, Hard Work - Introduction" Welcome to Love, Hard Work! Introduction    Before we get started, duty demands I lay down a couple of things first. Irreni World Scale means hard work. Hard work in the past meant physical labor, back breaking labor of long hours. Hard work today means brain labor of social skills, getting along with people produ
Read more

Irreni Manages Bad Reasoning

Image
Bad Reasoning Bad reasoning. We all have it and do it. Some of us more than others. How many times have we heard the average person doesn't understand finances? And yet everyone is expected to have their retirement invested? What kind of mad world is this? We demand financial savvy where none exists? It is almost as if the system is rigged to rip us all off while telling us it is our fault and we buy it hook, line, and sinker? The sad fact is we do let them get away with it because we do think it is our fault. Irreni World Scale manages bad reasoning. Some people may naively think that ignorance of something like finances is the only cause. Not at all. I know people with degrees in Math who buy lottery tickets. When I ask them if they know they are just throwing away money they say yes. On a more personal level I know I should be exercising but I don't. I guess in some ways one could consider this bad decision making over bad reasoning because I know the right answe
Read more

The Amercian Anthem: Drawing Cartoons of Muhammed

Image
Hi! Happy Thursday! Irreni World Scale is about solutions, not political punditry. This solution presented is how to think about the current national turmoil about NFL players taking the knee during the playing of the national anthem. No one can disrespect anyone unless someone lets them. That's worth repeating: No one can disrespect anyone unless someone lets them. What is the correct morality with respect to this national outrage? What is good? The Good: No one can disrespect anyone unless someone lets them. The Evil: Anything else. When I was but a wee young lad I read a couple of books that brought this point home to me. One is a book by Piers Anthony, "Xanth",  Worthless people's opinions are worthless. -Piers Anthony, "Xanth" Another book with a positive spin on the same message is, "Dorsai!", by Gordon Dickinson. I respect those people's opinion whose opinion I respect. -Gordon Dickinson, "Dorsai!
Read more

Introduction to the book "Irreni World Scale"

Image
What is Irreni? Introduction to the book "Irreni World Scale" Irreni World Scale is a political, scientific laboratory for proving claims of politics. What is Irreni World Scale? Irreni World Scale is new kind of governing. Irreni World Scale has nothing in common with today's central governments of Democracy, Communism, Socialism, etc. As such Irreni World Scale is going to be strange to you. It is going to be weird. However, don't let that stop you from reading this book. Just take a few deep breathes when needed. Perhaps set the book down when things get too weird. Take as much time as you need to digest things, perhaps even taking days in between reading chapters. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly. Obtaining the understanding in this book will not be cheap because the worth is a heavy esteem. Irreni World Scale is not a central government. Irreni World Scale is not a "rule of law" system. Irreni World Scale is a distributed system that uses
Read more

Kavanaugh Debrief

Image
Kavanaugh Debrief Hi! Happy Tuesday! Who should you believe: Kavanaugh or Ford?  I don't know. One of my throw-away lines with respect to atheism is that religion is for people who cannot accept "I don't know" as an answer. I could brag that a religious inability to accept "I don't know" is due to a lack of humility. But that's not the case. The reason people cannot accept "I don't know" is that "I don't know" is unsatisfying, it doesn't satisfy to provide ground for traction to move forward in life. But that's not true. I don't know is an actionable and tractable answer, and so I give to you this debrief. For example, in science a hypothesis starts with "I don't know" as the only actionable answer to the initial hypothesis. The answer is only known after an experiment is run and results analyzed. So how is "I don't know" actionable with respect to Kavanaugh vs. Fo
Read more

No Party, No Government

Image
Hi! Happy Thursday! <3 An excerpt from The Hitchhicker's guide to the Galaxy* Chapter 36           The flying saucer in which Ford Prefect had stowed away had stunned the world  [and] there marched from it, down the ramp, an immense silver robot, a hundred feet tall.      It held up a hand.      "I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."      Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the non-stop frenetic news reports on the television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.      "It comes from a very ancient democr
Read more

Love, Hard Work Book Draft: Chapter 1

Image
Love Hard Work By Mybrid Wonderful A New Government (For Making New Governments) Irreni World Scale Welcome to Love, Hard Work! Introduction    Before we get started, duty demands I lay down a couple of things first. Irreni World Scale means hard work. Hard work in the past meant physical labor, back breaking labor of long hours. Hard work today means brain labor of social skills, getting along with people productively. Don't Panic! Two-hundred-million world governments proposed by Irreni as opposed to today's two-hundred world governments is not meant to happen over night, but rather over two-hundred years. Introduction: December 4, 2018 You ever wake up, roll over, look at the blue-glowing clock to ask yourself if it is time to start thinking? And in part do so by asking  yourself, "Do I rule the Universe today?" Over the many mornings of my fifty-six years I have devised many different methods for answering that question: do I
Read more

Legalize Prostitution? We Are Not Computers.

Image
Hi! Happy Sunday! Should we legalize prostitution? Yes. And No. We are not computers. There has been news lately surrounding Amnesty International's proposed new platform to decriminalize prostitution.  Should we? From the linked article above: But equally, critics and anti-trafficking activists say decriminalisation fails to take into account backgrounds of economic deprivation, pimp coercion and the intrinsic link between prostitution and sex trafficking.  Let us look at the word 'intrinsic': " belonging to a thing by its very nature: " This is not mere word parsing. Dogma can be manufactured anywhere at any time. And given there is no single world-wide religion and further given topics such as prostitution, abortion, and climate change are world-wide then expect rapidly growing non-religious dogma in public opinion. What is going on here is an attempt by the author to make human trafficking and prostitution one-and-the-same and t
Read more

Empathy for All to Data Center On The Moon

Image
Hi! Happy Wednesday! Your daily hug is at the bottom of the page. This may be a lengthy post so take the time, get your hug, and come back to the top. Originally I thought about entitling this blog "Empathy for All" and not "Irreni". Empathy for all is how one thinks in scale of a planet of seven billion people. There is no us versus them: just us. On this planet. Us on this planet. Us on this planet we call Earth. And wait for it...! I will get to the Data Center on The Moon by the end of this post. When I was growing up I ran into a narrative that I could not empathize with. I was raised to be Christian. I was raised that in order to be moral and do good one needed to be a Christian.  The only problem with that narrative is that it did not fit with my reality. As a child I had already met many non-Christians, non-religious and none of the non-Christians were axe wielding murderers. In fact I could not distinguish between a Christian and a non-Christian just
Read more