Is anyone in here a communist? OK, can you come up here Tim and explain it to us?

We are going to talk a little bit about politics today. You can scream at me after the meeting.

Here are some articles that were printed in The Huntsville Times recently. I know you can all read this fine print even in the back of the room, but I will explain some things about them anyway. The article at the top is a reprint of the front page of The Republican of Nov. 16, 1901. The interesting thing about this page is that under the main banner it reads "Stands for Protection, Sound Money, and Good Government." This gives us some insight into what republicans thought they stood for back at the turn of the last century.

What does the republican party stand for now? Why can’t they give us a clear definition of their stand? If you vote republican what are you voting for? If you vote democrat what are voting for? Both parties will not take a stand on some issues because they know that if they do votes will swing against them.

The second article tells us that the republicans tried to get an across the board reduction in government expenditures. This seems like a reasonable thing to do. But the democrats in congress whittled them down to a wimpy 1% cut and then the president vetoed it. This article illustrates the conflict and ineffectiveness of a government where the congress may be controlled by one party but the president is from the opposite party.

We are going to talk about the political spectrum in general today from a higher level. I am not going to dignify the hate groups with any mention of their names, nor will we consider them as part of the political spectrum in this talk. We will talk about the ultra-conservatives and the ultra-liberals on the right and left ends of the political spectrum respectively.

First, the ultra-conservative believes in individualism, minimum government controls, minimum entitlements like social security, minimum income taxes for himself, and definitely no taxes on his capital or capital gains. For a good view of individualism you should read Ann Rand’s book "Atlas Shrugged". The policy is "sink or swim". This will make it very rough on the poor, the handicapped, and the mentally or physically ill person who is poor or indigent. Under a system like this money is power and capitalism rules. The middle class will carry most of the tax burden. "The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer" as the old saying goes. The middle class will struggle to pay their bills. The salaried workers will most likely get laid off at age 45 and go into debt because expenses exceed their income. Does any of this sound familiar? Maybe not many people realize that our political system has shifted quite a bit to the right in recent years. We do practically nothing to help people in the ghettoes. They need help to improve their situation. We are risking rebellion and chaos by ignoring the problems of the poor as we do now.

What about the ultra-liberals? We don’t have many in the US right now. But the ultra-liberals are even more dangerous than the ultra-conservatives. Ideally the ultra-liberal wants birth-to-death security for everyone. They want programs like government provided health care, education, and even government controlled occupations. There would be essentially no private companies or organizations. Ideally, everyone should be of equal status in society. What’s wrong with this system? First of all it has been tried and has not worked very well (This was essentially the early communist and socialist philosophy.) Second, not everyone will be on the same social level in reality. Certain people will gather power through influence, political connections, or a position in the ruling hierarchy. The average person in such a system does not have many opportunities to improve either his social standing or his economic condition (which will be generally at a low level. ) Corruption and eventually even dictatorship will most likely take over. Examples of this are Cuba and China . People will also probably be under constant surveillance by police who could arrest anyone for any reason. The courts will exercise summary judgment without a jury.

Is there a middle ground? I don’t know. If there were a centrist party, it would be perceived by liberals as a right wing party and by conservatives as a left wing party. If such a party gained seats it would most likely be beat down by both the conservatives and the liberals. It would not be able to accomplish much. Eventually, it would probably drift either right or left and be almost indistinguishable from either the liberals or the conservatives. But if there were a centrist party I would vote for it because I don’t like the extreme policies of either the conservatives or the liberals.

So what should you do? Should you just vote for whoever you think is the best person for the office no matter what party they belong to? No, I don’t think you should because that is what causes a divided government like we have now, with a republican congress and a democratic presidency. To get away from the conflict, as illustrated in the second newspaper article, and get back to the "good government" advocated by The Republican , I think we should decide which party is best for our interests and then support it. A party that has whole-hearted support by its members will be a strong party! Work for it internally to help make desirable changes if you can, and vote the party candidates wherever possible.

In summary, we have the older generation of republicans who said what they stood for (protection, sound money, good government). Now we have a divided government with each side fighting the other. The parties will not say precisely what they stand for. The conservatives are almost extreme individualists while the liberals have turned into a fairly conservative group. The whole system has shifted to the conservative side. The poor and disadvantaged are mostly ignored. Don’t vote for the best man regardless of party as this weakens the party and causes the division and lack of progress that we see in government today. Choose a party and support its candidates.