Internet Politics - internet primary anyone - 3rd Street

About: unity08

More at MSNBC . The idea of frustrating the left-right incumbent politics is intriguing. I'm not much for middle of the road politics, though. What would be the platform & the core beliefs ? For a long time I HAVE believed that the voters should turn out ALL incumbents just to show the political class who's in charge - this could be a way to do it. Third parties don't have much of a chance though, Ross Perrot only gave the election to the democrats, he didn't win!

San Francisco: Former Southern Pacific Depot at 3rd and Townsend Streets, 1941

Looking for a logo for the movement that might connote a 3rd way but not be confused with anything that calls itself that today. Any city that has a 3rd street or 3rd way or 3rd avenue could photograph the street signs & forward them here & maybe something could happen!

I think that something like this could happen for the 2008 election where the president is in the mix too. Right now sweeping a bunch of novices without leadership into office is a bad idea. Who wants a bunch of people in office who have no idea about how to get things done; besides perhaps libertarians ?

I would like to sire another node to collect specifically the attributes & characteristics of a person you folks would want in Congress both local & national. Ditto for presidents & governors. This is not about issues this is about character traits.

Comments

Seth says
I'm not sure how you want to crop these to brand your third streets ... but here is a directory from my camera of Renton's S Third St.

Seth says

Mark de LA says
It's just a crazy idea, but when we get enough pictures & awareness would like to have a simultaneous virtual block party on 3rd street & hold a virtual convention to do something political like say 'vote the bums out' !

Seth says

Well i think that a grass roots upheaval to de-emphasize the two party system is a

good idea. Perhaps people relate more to the Conservative or Liberal banners, but they are just as bad. I think politicians should be chosen based upon their individual merits ... can they write useful legislation or not. If you were just presented with examples of a candidate's thinking and voting record apart from the banners, could you not more easily decide if your wanted them to represent you?

Collecting thrid streets might be fun ... but what it has to do with a political movement needs to be better articulated.

Mark de LA says
Well the collection is like you say a branding representing a 3rd party. There's a 3rd street in just about every city across the country. The idea was inspired by the unity08 article cited in the about - & then I elaborated on it. The main platform is to throw out the incumbents. I dislike incumbents because:

They tailor their legislation to maintain their incumbency & spend most of their time insuring they get elected for the next 4 or 6 years.
As a result they build empires based on seniority which may or not be good or bad, but definitely are not to the electorate-as-a-whole's advantage.
As a result of incumbency they tend to think they know better what is good for their constituents than the constituents & ignore major disagreements (such as the illegal immigration & amnesty situation).
My stand is similar to that of my selective spending. I will probably choose those more aligned with my core beliefs but I will choose someone other than an incumbent whose personal profile & track record in other than government will represent those beliefs.
Everyone thinks their own representative is good, but others are bad. This is the hurdle we need to overcome. This was the problem that term limits ran into as well as lawsuits & lawyers. The theory is that the political class is corrupt and therefore it's just a matter of my corrupt politician against a novice corrupt politician.
Entrenched politicians tend to want to run things, make nanny state rules & do things to show their visibility & caring & so forth - this is bad in that it increasingly encroaches on the lives of others. My philosophy is that laws & regulation are inherently negative because it takes away invidual responsibility. I am a libetarian in this area.
The grand vision is simply this:

What would it be like if in just one election across the the United States a very large number of people turned out to throw out all incumbents & effectively send to the political class the message "You derive your power from us the electorate - NOT the contrary!"
I think that with a sufficiently large turn out it would not be necessary ever again. It could be like the signing of the Magna Carta

Seth says
Yeah throwing the bums out would be great ... and maybe THROW THE BUMBS OUT is more descriptive of that than THIRD STREET. In any case i'm with you. But i think we should not just throw the politicians out and get a new set, but throw out the political parties that they rode in on. These parties are in a rut and are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Jote the INDEPENDANT ticket.

Mark de LA says
There used to be a party or movement ~20 years ago or less called "Throw the Bums out" - I don't know where it went. Prolly died around the "term limits" era. The word "Jote" is obscure to me, I can't substitute a common word for it & make sense of your last sentence. IMHO, re the current parties:

nothing is strong enough to "throw them out" - what would that mean anyway ?
people will naturally organize themselves into left-right, conservative-liberal, etc. & there is nothing wrong with that - it is a natural polarity. There are also left-right wings of each of the parties making a nested polarity as well.
what I object to is parties pandering to the voters pretending to be what they are not - saying what will get them elected & then changing while in office
what I want is independent of ALL parties - "a government of the people, by the people & for the people" etc. The political class has forgotten that part except for making speeches on Memorial Day.
There is a polarity between democracy & leadership which needs the strength provided through this constitutional Democratic-Republic. Too much direct democracy & you get a mob mentality. Too much leadership & you get a dictatorship. The founders were geniuses when they created this form of government with states' rights etc.
Furthermore, we've all been there before. centralization versus network versus de-centralization etc. I'm not trying to reorganize government, just want them to remember that the Constitution & the Bill of Rights was created to limit the role of government NOT dole out rights to the people. Remember that they didn't like the monarchy of King George! (Hold your puns & polemics - please!)

Mark de LA says
Simply voting for the independent ticket has failed again & again! Without a clear alternative & a reason for voting that way it will elect the ticket with the strongest get out the vote machine. Ross Perot did the best of any in recent memory & he just managed to divide the Republicans & give the election to Bill Clinton - he did NOT get elected himself. What we need is a strong, charismatic leader who is not currently associated to any party & can articulate a unifying vision for the country.

Seth says

M 2006-05-31 09:00:05 3635

What we need is a strong, charismatic leader who is not currently associated to any party & can articulate a unifying vision for the country.

Yes, certainly

Just A. Citizen says
I hear people from both sides echo the sentiments but then immediately turn around and be just as partisan i.e., Republican and/not Democrat or vice versa, as ever before.

Blogs featuring Unity08 are just as offensive to Republican and/not Democrat or vice versa, so how is this

Mark de LA says
How's this going to work ?? I think that both parties & both sides of the political spectrum, particularly the inside the beltway crowd, the political class in this country have failed the electorate. Articulating a vision that cures this & motivates a future worth living into is my suggestion. I am open to any others which actually get the job done in a peaceful way!

Mark de LA says
& I'm not alone. Just go to [google incumbents] and sample the waters. Like this one: [url http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese237.html] . What I think needs to be focused on are a few of the reasons why like:

overspending
arrogant political class
pandering
....etc you folks supply some more (see the above)

Mark de LA says
BTW, Congress has a lower approval rating than Bush - which is only passed by the low rating of the media & used car salesmen!

LETS DO A BIPARTISAN FLUSH OF THE GOVERNMENT IN 2008!

Julie Whitten says
I like how Bipartisan Flush sounds. Can you dance to it?

Mark de LA says

Julie Whitten 2006-06-01 07:05:52 3635

I like how Bipartisan Flush sounds. Can you dance to it?

I like it too! If you can hum it, I will dance to it !

Seth says
Check out Zefrank's take on third partys

Mark de LA says

seth 2006-06-06 11:39:23 3635

Check out Zefrank's take on third partys

How much of his sillyness do I have to watch before he talks about the third partys ?

Mark de LA says

seth 2006-05-31 07:23:03 3635

Yeah throwing the bums out would be great ... and maybe THROW THE BUMBS OUT is more descriptive of that than THIRD STREET. In any case i'm with you. But i think we should not just throw the politicians out and get a new set, but throw out the political parties that they rode in on. These parties are in a rut and are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Jote the INDEPENDANT ticket.

What I am proposing is almost a 3rd way party. Independent means nothing - it already has sens. Lieberman & Jeffords.

Seth says

M 2006-10-20 09:15:37 3635

What I am proposing is almost a 3rd way party. Independent means nothing - it already has sens. Lieberman & Jeffords.

Yeah but to be practical ... one needs a viable option to vote for that does not just end up being throwing your vote away. If you do believe, as do i, that the current administration is pursuing a disastrous foreign policy and want to neutralize that, then the only practical move that you can make in this election is to vote the democratic ticket. Of course, you probably do not believe that, but that is a different subject.

Mark de LA says

seth 2006-10-20 09:31:11 3635

M 2006-10-20 09:15:37 3635

What I am proposing is almost a 3rd way party. Independent means nothing - it already has sens. Lieberman & Jeffords.

I think your vote & my vote are going to cancel eachother out this election. The thought of having some of the people who would ascend to power in Congress (if the Democrat party came into power) fucking with this country's security turns my stomach.
BTW, this is a solution node, not a debate on the upcoming November election - no further comments on that subject here, please !

Mark de LA says

Here is a link to some more stuff from the same cluster.

Mark de LA says

Interesting bookmark here:

source: ... Political structures need to change. They will emerge from people acting and communicating in the present, not talking about a fictional future.

... his ideas are about Open Source Currency & Open Source Democracy

RS probably would agree in part with the above. He was not into the intellectual organizations thought out by politicians & economists. He would caution, however, that one needs to derive such structures from an intimate knowledge of the soul & spirit of man.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-03-02 14:08:56 3635

source: M said
We know what is happening in government.

Point is we don't know what is happening.

Frankly, we do!

source: ...
"Listen, I mean, the president was elected by the people of this country to institute change in Washington and to finally demand a federal government that is accountable to the people," he said. "The fact that there are 9,000 earmarks in this bill and the fact that the vetting process just doesn't take place the way it should, we ought to stand up and draw the line right now and stop the waste."

...
While the exact language is buried somewhere in thousands of pages of government-speak in a bill somewhere doesn't make a whole lot of difference. If the plain language reporting doesn't piss someone off then the details will only put people to sleep! I suspect it is only the bread & circuses thingy yet again. Mostly people are eating the bread & watching the circus while their jobs & the stock market tanks! Tomorrow there will be more bread & yet another circus.

Seth says

Note when you copy comments like you have above from one item to another you should not copy the trash can icon. That will place a delete command on your copied comment that anyone can click upon which may not perform the function which they (or you) intend. If you must copy content ... delete the trash can from the copy.

Mark de LA says

Placed here for safe-keeping & better context!

seth 2009-03-02 10:22:46 [item 10819]

This is not a partisan issue - rather if you want to know more about what is happening in government - if you want to shed the light of awareness on that process, spend some effort and get involved, rather than hyperpartisan crapping around the edges. What are the actual problems with the way governmental information flows?

We know what is happening in government. Hyper-Pie budgets & full chage publication of laws & regulations might help a bit more. The problem is that government thinks it has a mandate to grow larger & larger & is not listening to those who object. It took a tea party to make King George listen & he sent more troops to the colonies as a result. I say that once in a century or two we need to remove the "mandate" mentality & permanent governing class from office, en masse & remind those in power that they can loose their mandate in a hurry. In strictly parliamentary democracies like the UK & even Israel a vote of "no confidence" can bring down the government immediately. We should think about that. Meanwhile, your attempt to make hyperpartisan crapping an n-word notwithstanding, I suggest that we

as [tags 3rd street] might suggest. You folks might also answer the ultimate question posed here

Mark de LA says

From 11519 :

The basic problem is that Congress & the president present absurdly large spending budgets & pass bills so large with non-specific aims that nobody can analyze & see what is really going to happen with taxpayer money. It is effectively a blank check for government spending. In many cases the monies get diverted at the last minute for something different under cover of darkness. If the people really groked exactly what was happening they would have another revolt. Unfortunately, the bread & circuses aspect of the situation makes few care except those being ripped off. It's time for a new Tea Party until the Congress & the President reform their spending so that it is absolutely transparent. It will take a revolution because it will not happen from within. Governmental power & incumbency rests in spending money. We are NOW entering the Circus & free bread & ice cream is being handed out at the door.

....

& from a comment above I like the sound of a

BIPARTISAN FLUSH OF GOVERNMENT

Mark de LA says

Let me put it more clearly - I like the sound of a bipartisan government being flushed down the toilet!

Mark de LA says

The only thing that is bipartisan in government is that both parties agree that they want to spend your money & stay in power. Who is on top in that wonderful coitus is where the bickering begins.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-03-02 14:31:35 3635

seth 2009-03-02 14:08:56 [item 3635]

source: M said
We know what is happening in government.

Point is we don't know what is happening.

Frankly, we do!

O really? What are the sources of your information? Care to enumerate them?

Apparently you can't read! The details don't matter. Nobody cares. They are still eating the bread & watching the circuses. Nobody has contradicted the 9000 earmarks in the spending bills.

Seth says

MR 2009-03-02 14:33:36 3635

seth 2009-03-02 14:31:35 3635

seth 2009-03-02 14:08:56 [item 3635]

source: M said
We know what is happening in government.

Point is we don't know what is happening.

Frankly, we do!

O really? What are the sources of your information? Care to enumerate them?

Apparently you can't read! The details don't matter. Nobody cares. They are still eating the bread & watching the circuses. Nobody has contradicted the 9000 earmarks in the spending bills.

The details do matter ... and all citizens should care. The problem is there is no way to cognize the details even if you do find access to them ... the domain is just too vast. My point here is about information technology, not partisan politics. I wish you would understand that. The partisan politics is what is getting in the way of clearly seeing what needs to be done.

Mark de LA says

Seth, your mindset is that of a fucking lawyer. You would argue to the last detail the meaning of whatever is written when the overall arching obvious facts are that those in power are spending like drunken sailors in a whorehouse after being at sea for a year. For those drunk on Obama-juice no detail is refined enough to convince them that the messiah has not spoken & his words are not true & good. Why waste my time trying to search 1050 page documents nor eliciting the 9000 earmarks when all you would do is argue that they are good projects or not earmarks. Obama lied when he said no more earmarks. The conn continues & Obama has upped the urgency to that of a major disaster. It's graft in plain words. Only the rest of us however must tighten our budgets while the White House parties on.

Seth says

source: M above
You would argue to the last detail the meaning of whatever is written when the overall arching obvious facts are that those in power are spending like drunken sailors in a whorehouse after being at sea for a year.

No Mark - again you ignore my message and go for the bullshit. Now, I am telling you that i am totally disinterested in your unresearched hyperpartisan bull shit. You, and Rush, are repeating the same platitudes over and over again varying only the snotty twists and the self righteours attitudes. You principals are that less spending, less government, and less taxes are the answer to our economic problems. We get it already yet. We are trying something different, thank you - perhaps even trying to find smart government. Now how long will it take you, and the rest of the republicans, to recognize that you are in a booring rut - not one that will be winning elections. Its too bad because there are good conservitive methods out there that we probably should be implementing. But it is a waste of time and energy to keep responding to your repititions and i will be ignoring them.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-03-02 17:41:03 3635

Q.E.D Obama-juice drinking robot wants to try something new but does the same as before which has failed every time it has been tried : spending a country out of a recession or depression.

Yep, that's why we need a very big tea party to throw these bums out!

Mark de LA says

What I am saying is simple! In the Obama generation ideas, evidence, proof, reason & other things of the thought world take a back seat to emotions & symbolism. He sold hope & change & very little in details. In that climate & until massive collapse happens research is futile. In your world where truth is relative, searching for the truth is futile. You would always argue that the context is not enough or lies somewhere else. Hence, what I do in these regards is for my own amusement. I don't ever expect to reach a meeting of minds with you in such a context.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-03-03 11:51:32 3635

source: M asks
How do you hold truth in the context of relativity today?

Sorry i don't understand what your term "hold truth" means to you. We believe things based upon evidence and coherence with the web of other beliefs. Obviously that is relative to who is doing the believing because each of us has a different set of evidences and a different web of beliefs. But that does not stop us from believing things. Then too there is the process of adding evidence to our knowledge and increasing the coherence of our web. Such a process does lead to better beliefs. It is a simple process ... say you see a man laying on the street not moving for 10 minutes and you start to believe that he is dead ... then you walk up to him and feel that he has a pulse and suddenly you hold a better belief.

That's precisely what I mean by saying that:

me: ... In your world where truth is relative ..

...perhaps when I said that "searching for truth is futile" I should have said "arguing with you about some truth is futile" because you will always find some context in which what I say is not complete or not to your liking. Cases in point are my items on racism & the Golden Rule. Holding something as true is essentially specifying what context you have for that truth (distinction). Without context you have nothing in your experience except sensations which may or not be in an objective world. In the regular world of reality, most people have very similar context for holding experience beginning with an objective world, mind, 5 senses etc. which need not be mentioned every time we speak.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-03-03 10:11:46 3635

source: M above
In your world where truth is relative, searching for the truth is futile.

You didn't get that false sentence from me - see better truth. But there was one sad but true sentence in your paragraph above: "Hence, what I do in these regards is for my own amusement" ... though even the premise of the "Hence" was false. Don't you even try to write true sentences anymore? ... or what is it ... are they not funny enough for you?

incoherent at best!

How do you hold truth in the context of relativity today?

Seth says

MR 2009-03-03 12:28:13 3635

seth 2009-03-03 11:51:32 3635

source: M asks
How do you hold truth in the context of relativity today?

That's precisely what I mean by saying that:

me: ... In your world where truth is relative ..

Good, apparently i answered your question. Now i have a question for you: Do you believe that you are immune to that process?

Mark de LA says

To be clear, what specific process? I said a lot.

Seth says

MR 2009-03-03 17:20:37 3635

To be clear, what specific process? I said a lot.

This one ...

source: Seth above
We believe things based upon evidence and coherence with the web of other beliefs. Obviously that is relative to who is doing the believing because each of us has a different set of evidences and a different web of beliefs. But that does not stop us from believing things. Then too there is the process of adding evidence to our knowledge and increasing the coherence of our web. Such a process does lead to better beliefs. It is a simple process ... say you see a man laying on the street not moving for 10 minutes and you start to believe that he is dead ... then you walk up to him and feel that he has a pulse and suddenly you hold a better belief.

... Are you immune to that process? Does some other process apply to you?

Mark de LA says

Well first off, this conversation really belongs on something besides a s 3rd street node. I am not immune from empiricism. I am not immune from the RWG. You seem to be referring to the paradigm of science, experience & ontology (maybe not). I have participated in all of those. Chemistry, Physics & Mathematics for science. Zen & other stuff cover experience & ontology (+67 years of life). A bunch of seminars from the left & right of philosophy (TR to LEC) . RS for Anthroposophy & religion. Individual study for semantics & etymology. I work/use elements of the whole spectrum.

Internet Politics - internet primary anyone - 3rd Street

About: unity08

San Francisco: Former Southern Pacific Depot at 3rd and Townsend Streets, 1941

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