Ron Paul Third Party, 2008-2012: How to Do It

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AFR's powerful third-party plan to challenge Democrats and Republicans with the Free American Party -- a REAL third party with some teeth!

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by Nelson Hultberg

The political revolution spawned by Ron Paul will not be won in one campaign. No profound paradigmatic change in society comes so easily. Unfortunately those "sunshine patriots" who expected this to be easy sailing with no setbacks will now abandon the fight and accuse Ron Paul of selling out. Such is human nature.

This being said, however, we do have to acknowledge that the Ron Paul campaign had some serious flaws, and the most important one was this: He ran as a Republican! To anyone with a sense of history, it should be obvious that trying to change the Republicans into Jeffersonian individualists is a fool's game. They sold out the cause of freedom way back in '68 when they embraced Richard Nixon, and then furthered their capitulation by accommodating the neo-con infiltration of the 70s and 80s.

This sell-out took place because that ol' devil "human nature" gets in the way of common sense for all politicians after they have been in Washington for a while. They dare not opt for principle in front of the voters because they fear they will not get re-elected. It's basically been this way since 1913 when Congress established the Federal Reserve and the progressive income tax. These two institutions gave politicians the power to confiscate our earnings to redistribute wealth and buy votes. This has compelled the Republicans to ideologically merge with the Democrats to play the game of dispensing pork and privilege. It's the only way to survive.

Most Republican politicians start out with the desire to slay the spending dragon on the Potomac. They imagine themselves as Mr. Smith in the old Frank Capra movie; but they soon cave into the reality of the system and realize that they must tax and spend like the Democrats to be re-elected. None of this will change by working within the Republican Party, for the members of the party hierarchy know what serves them best. They know that they must maintain the tyrannical tools of wealth redistribution, i.e., the present tax and monetary systems, in order to maintain their power. And they will rise up in opposition to smear any maverick such as Ron Paul who attempts to attack their use of these tools.

Contrary to present thinking, this evil cannot be ended by trying to vote "more conservative" Republicans into Congress. Those that we manage to elect eventually cave in to the system just like their predecessors. Very few possess the integrity to become Ron Pauls, and those that do gradually get worn down, give up, and return to the private sector. This is the nature of the beast we created in 1913 and the nature of humans.

What I will try to show in the rest of this essay is that the evil of our present political system cannot be ended by changing Republican behavior. It can only be ended by changing the tax and monetary systems that lie at the root of the contemptible "vote buying" that the system's participants partake in. As we will soon see, this can only be done from without, from a third party that is not tied to perpetuating the system.

Here lies the flaw of all those who preach that we must work within the GOP to change the system. Freedom activists have been working within the GOP for 40 years now, and Republicans have only gotten more brazen in their statism as each decade passes. The reason for this is that without a third party in the field, there is no counteracting force to mandate that Republicans try to distinguish themselves from the Democrats and start acting on right principle. Without the people being aware of another vision (e.g., of small government), they will not demand that the Republicans change their stripes. If there is no demand from the voters, then good ol' human nature gets in the way, and Republicans take the path of least resistance, which is: join with the Democrats to tax and spend so as to assure their re-election every two years and every six years.

We must come to realize that Republicans are now one and the same with collectivist liberals, and they are not about to embrace a limited government perspective as long as they and the Democrats possess their present monopoly over the political system and the National TV Election Debates. The use of pork and privilege to buy votes will not vanish until their monopoly is broken.

Our nation is now a ONE PARTY STATE! Democrats and Republicans are nothing but two divisions of the same party -- the Demopublican Party. No matter who wins, we always get more taxes, more inflation, more bureaucracies, more wars, and less freedom.

There is only one hope for reform. We must challenge the Demopublican monopoly with a third political party. Ron Paul is the man to lead such a party; but it must be a real third party that can actually pose a threat to the Demopublicans' monopolistic rule.

It is a fallacy to say third parties in America cannot work! The reason why is because all third parties in the past century, like the Libertarians and Perot's Reformers, have been built upon TWO DISASTROUS STRATEGY FLAWS that automatically doom them to failure. But correct these two fundamental errors and a genuine challenge to the Demopublicans can be launched.

The Two Third Party Mistakes Explained

Ross Perot's Reform Party, The Libertarian Party, and the Constitution Party (formerly the U.S. Taxpayer's Party) have appeared at times to be a start toward genuine political reformation. But all three have failed to gain adequate support because they have structured themselves upon one or the other of two basic flaws: 1) Marginalization and 2) Cloning.

1) Marginalization is the flaw of the Libertarian and Constitution Parties. This takes place because these two parties both have ideal visions of the way that society should be politically organized, and they attempt to implement their visions all at once through the political process. They ignore the fact that politics is a game of incrementalism, that it is not an arena in which an "ideal society" can suddenly be voted into place. Because they try to do this, they are perceived by the public as not living in the real world.

For example, when asked what tax policy they advocate for the country, libertarians reply that the income tax should be totally abolished and government should be stripped down to a minimal state that can exist upon excise taxes and tariffs. Now this is a beautiful vision of a truly limited government. It would be wonderful to have an America like that. But this is not a credible political platform to be gained through a political campaign; it is rather an "ideal" that could be approached in 50 years or so.

The members of the Constitution Party respond in the same way. Both of these parties wish to instantly implement their visions of the ideal in total. There is no acceptance of the need for incrementalism that all of politics is based upon. As a result, both of these parties are marginalized as foolishly utopian. They end up getting at best 1% of the vote every year. They remain obscure fringe voices. No national media pursue them, no big money flows into their coffers, and most importantly they are never invited to the three National TV Election debates in September and October.

These three National Election debates are televised to 80-100 million voters by the major networks. It is these debates that legitimize a candidate and his party in the people's eyes. They are absolutely essential to participate in if a third party is to have a chance to substantively change the role of government in America.

Statism is running rampant throughout America primarily because our two major parties have a monopoly over the conveyance of policy information in the debates at election time. There is no counter vision being effectively presented to the voters that will demonstrate both the necessity and the means of restoring limited government. But if a third party could gain entrance to the National Election debates, then the Demopublican "monopoly of ideas" would be broken, which would allow the counter vision of freedom to be presented to the people. And if history is any judge, people always choose freedom if given the choice of freedom.

Until we give the people a clear choice between big government and small government in the National Election Debates there will be no end to our march toward tyrannical centralization of government. But this provision of choice must be done in a rational way that does not sound utopian and radical to the people. This has never been done in the past 70 years.

Thus since the Libertarian and Constitution Parties have no national media pursuing them, and since they never get invited to the National TV Election Debates, they garner nothing more than 1% and never pose a challenge to Washington. The result is that because they campaign on "instant idealization," they become marginalized and fail.

2) Cloning is the flaw of groups like the Reform Party that Ross Perot founded (and also John Anderson's Independent candidacy in 1980). Because of its desire for immediately winning the Presidency, the Reform Party ended up becoming nothing but a Demopublican clone. While the Libertarians project too much radicalness, the Reform Party projected no radicalness. They ended up with no substantive differences ideologically between themselves and the Demopublicans.

Because they wanted to win right away, they had to offer only more of the same statist pabulum of their opponents. They were thus reduced to running on the notion that they would somehow govern the monster welfare state better because they would bring "better personnel" to Washington. Their experts and bureaucrats would supposedly do a more professional job of confiscating our money and throwing it down the rat holes of political boondoggles. Needless to say, this did not excite the electorate who didn't see the need for still another big government party. The bottom line is that because the Reform Party campaigned on a platform designed for "instant victory," it became nothing but a clone and failed.

These then are the two crucial mistakes that any third party challenge of the establishment must avoid: 1) pursuit of "instant victory," which clones the party, and 2) pursuit of "instant idealization," which marginalizes the party. If a third party wishes to become viable and succeed, it must offer radical enough change to avoid cloning with the Demopublicans, but not so radical that it becomes marginalized like the Libertarian and Constitution Parties.

AFR's Plan to Take On the Demopublicans

Americans for a Free Republic in Dallas has developed an innovative plan to do this, to correct the two fundamental errors of all third parties and challenge today's establishment with formation of the FREE AMERICAN PARTY. I must warn the reader, however. To fully understand the essence of the AFR plan will require that one totally abandon conventional "paint-by-the-numbers" third-party politics and think "outside the box." The reader will have to forget most of what he has been taught about third parties; it's severely flawed.

AFR's unique "Two Pillars Strategy" of monetary reform and tax reform will garner the necessary 15% in the polls and put a freedom candidate with gravitas into the National TV Election debates held in September and October. This is because our plan does not sound "utopian and radical." This will get the libertarian-conservative message in front of 100 million voters and allow us to effectively challenge the Demopublican candidates every election year. This is an absolute must. Presently there are no counterveiling arguments at all to the Demopublicans in these ever so crucial debates. Is it any wonder then that the people opt for statism every election year? Statism is the only choice they are given because of the Demopublican monopoly and the media's complicity to support it.

A very important feature of the AFR plan is that its candidate will not strive for instant victory and thus have to clone himself to the Demopublicans like Ross Perot did. This will allow the party candidate to tell the truth to the people because he has no fear of electoral loss. His immediate goal is not to try and win the White House (it's way too early in history for a true Constitutionalist to do that). His immediate goal is merely to gain entrance to the debates in order to gain a podium in front of 100 million Americans every election year. This will allow him to put the Demopublicans' feet to the fire and explain to the people how both Democrats and Republicans are taking away our freedom, our rights, and our money. Imagine a Constitutionalist giving a half-hour lecture like Ross Perot did before each debate. Could the money be raised to pay for such TV time? Of course it could. Witness this last year of fund-raising for Ron Paul.

In this way the Free American Party candidate can explain the "Two Pillars" of monetary and tax reform to the people, which if persistently and persuasively presented will gradually destroy the validity of Washington's power to confiscate our money and regiment our country. Because of the way the "Two Pillars" of reform are designed, they can be used to pull power away from the Demopublicans every election year and gradually induce the people to begin voting for the restoration of limited government.

Space prohibits a discussion here of the intricacies as to how and why this will take place. For a more thorough analysis, see the AFR Mission Statement. It explains in layman's language how the plan will work over time through the persuasiveness of the "Two Pillars" of monetary reform and tax reform.

Please note: If the reader wishes to gain a true understanding of the AFR third-party plan, the above linked Mission Statement simply must be read. This present article is but a preface to it. AFR's "Two Pillars Strategy" is the only hope to stop our relentless march toward more and more tyrannical government. Remember we must think "outside the box" here! Treading the same failed paths that we have taken for the past 40 years and mouthing the same failed doctrines is what mules do. Freedom requires strong, open-minded human beings who think for themselves, or as Ayn Rand put it, "see through their own eyes." It requires real revolutionaries, not play actors.

There is a massive groundswell of Americans out there that now senses an alternative political vision must be formed. Ron Paul is the leader to accomplish this, but we must convince him to run a third-party campaign.

If we fail to convince Congressman Paul for the 2008 campaign, then we must plan for the next battle. We must set about building the FREE AMERICAN PARTY for 2012.

Will Paul be willing to run again in 2012? And if so, will he be willing to go the third party route? If he isn't, then we will seek elsewhere. The nature of all freedom movements throughout history is that there are always several revolutionary leaders that rise up to lead. If Paul feels he is too old four years from now, then there will be other passionate champions to pick up the flag and carry on.

This past eight year reign of George Bush II and the GOP's subsequent embrace of John McCain should certainly put to rest any possibility of furthering the cause of freedom with the GOP. Millions of conservatives and libertarians will now be looking for an alternative for 2012. This bodes very well for the launching of a viable third-party effort.

The upcoming years are going to be rife with crises (both economic and cultural). And it is in times of crisis that people begin to open up their minds toward changing the political paradigm of their society in a substantive way. Thus we are going to have a golden opportunity to further the cause of freedom in the next decade. But such a furthering is going to require the formation of a third political party with some teeth.

AFR's third-party strategy is big time, TV oriented, major league politics that will rock the nation and make history. It will not win right away, but it will gradually over the next two decades stop the growth of the Leviathan cold.