America May Be Ready for a New Political Party

Posted June 1, 2006, 1:54 p.m.

Some of you may know that I came very close to joining the Republican Party last year. I backed off (and have maintained my status as ‘conservative independent’) because of rampant moral inconsistency and fiscal irresponsibility among Republican politicos. Sadly, the Democratic Party has not yet provided a viable alternative—so I still find myself sympathizing with the Republicans as the lesser of two evils.

Interestingly, I am not alone. President Bush’s low poll numbers are largely because Republicans are now turning their backs on the Republican Party’s newfound wishy-washiness.

Peggy Noonan points to this trend as evidence that the time is right for a new political party—one more closely aligned with the will of the people than either of the two major parties today. I’m not sure I buy it, but I would sure like to—especially with the continuing degradation of discourse between the left and right these days.

Third Time: America May Be Ready for a New Political Party (Wall St. Journal, free email registration may be required).

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

If you start with nothing, demand 100%, then compromise for 30%, you’re 30% ahead.

Saul Alinsky

When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will fly no more.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Success requires a persistent misreading of the odds.

Tom Peters

All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves. . . .

Aristotle

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Ayn Rand

One man, however little, must not be sacrificed to another, however great . . . [or] to a majority, or to all men.

Theodore Parker

‘Stand on the other side from where the physics is happening’ is actually a good general rule for scientific equipment.

Randall Munroe

If marriage is centrally an emotional union . . . it becomes much harder to show why the state should concern itself with marriage any more than with friendship. Why involve the state in what amounts to the legal regulation of tenderness?

Sherif Girgis

Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion.

Steve Jobs

The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference.

Ian Kershaw

If the Constitution, intelligently and reasonably construed, stands in the way of desirable legislation, the blame must rest upon that instrument, and not upon the court for enforcing it according to its terms. The remedy in that situation—and the only true remedy—is to amend the Constitution.

George Sutherland

Western man got rid of God in order to make himself God, and then he became bored with his own divinity.

Fulton Sheen

The essence of the modern state is the union of the universal with the full freedom of the particular, and with the welfare of individuals.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith.

Paul the Apostle

Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Dorothy Parker

God therefore neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills to permit evil to be done; and this is a good.

Thomas Aquinas

I made a misstatement and I stand by all my misstatements.

Dan Quayle

The preservation of civilization and culture is now one with the preservation of religion. If the anti-God forces of the world conquer, culture and civilization will disappear, and we will have to start all over again.

Fulton Sheen

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice. . . .

Alexander Hamilton

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will.

John Marshall