by Tom Evslin
The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all agree: we the people should have to choose between candidates from the established parties. Good thing they weren’t around in 1860 when the new Republican Party candidate Abe Lincoln had the effrontery to get elected. Actually the NYT was around then; they didn’t like him.
Then as now the establishment parties had failed to deal with the pressing issues of the times and rampant corruption.
No Labels is an organization which is working to get on the ballot in every state so that they can run an alternative slate in case we’re once again left with a dismal choice between Trump and Biden. I donated to this effort as well as to the campaigns of several Republican primary challengers. Democrats are particularly alarmed (with some reason) . Establishment Republicans are nervous, too. Tellingly, Dems don’t say “No Labels will deny us four more years of Biden”; instead they say “No Labels might help give use four more years of Trump”. If that’s the only problem with No Labels, all the Democrats have to do is have a primary and come up with a better candidate and all the Republicans have to do is nominate someone else.
Last week No Labels published the chart below (available as a PDF here) showing where they stand on issues (green column) as opposed to Trump (pink) and Biden (blue). I don’t agree with No Labels on every issue but I was blown away with how often I do agree with their common sense approach. It was impressive that their first row is refusing to pander on the necessity of Social Security reform. They agree with Biden on universal background checks for gun buyers and with Trump on school choice.
Please, before you let the failing traditional parties and mainstream media on both sides scare you away from more choices, take a look at this chart.
| Issue/Position | Common Sense | Idea | Trump | Biden |
| Social Security | Our leaders must act now to solve today’s economic challenges before they become impossible to solve tomorrow. | Fix Social Security now toprotect beneficiaries from 24% cuts within a decade. | “I will do everything within my power not to touch Social Security.” | “I guarantee you I will protect Social Security and Medicare without any change.” |
| Debt | Washington must stop spending more than it takes in. | Congress must vote on adebt reduction plan from an independent bipartisan commission. | National debt during term:$19 trillion -> $27 trillion. | National debt during term:$28 trillion -> $32 trillion. |
| Immigration | America is a nation of laws anda nation of immigrants. | Secure the border.Attract hardworking taxpayers.Protect the Dreamers. | “Why do we want all these people from s***hole countries coming here?” | 2022 saw the most illegal border crossings in U.S. history. |
| Energy | An all-of-the-above energy strategy is the best way to lower prices for American families | Don’t inhibit oil and gas production; do expand reliable, carbon-free nuclear power. | “I’m not a believer in global warming.” | “No more drilling on federal lands. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period.” |
| Free Speech | The free flow of information iscrucial for a democratic society. | Ban social media companies, government institutions, and political parties from censoring information unfavorable to them. | The FAKE NEWS media … is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” | A federal judge said that under President Biden, “the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth” and is potentially guilty of“the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” |
| Voting | Every legal voter should have the ability to vote, every legal vote should be counted and every counted vote should be verified | Restore faith in elections by making it easier to vote by mail and requiring an ID to vote. | “Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country.” | Said voter ID requirements are “an attempt to repress minority voting.” |
| Transgender | Every American deserves respect and freedom from discrimination | Three quarters of Americans support laws to protect transgender individuals fromdiscrimination, but also don’t want sexuality and gender issues taught to young children. | “We’re going to defeat thecult of gender ideology.” | Says efforts by states to limit access to puberty blockers and hormones for minors is “immoral” and “outrageous. |
| Abortion | America must strike a balance between protecting women’s rights to control their own reproductive health and our society’s responsibility to protect human life. | Most Americans do not want bans on abortion, but most do want limits on it. | “There has to be some form of punishment” for women who get abortions. | Supports legislation that would overturn almost all state limits on abortion |
| Guns | Americans have a constitutional right to own guns but society also has a responsibility to keep dangerous weapons away from dangerous people. | Universal background checks. | Mass shootings are “not agun problem.” | Supports universal background checks. |
| Education | No child should be forced to go to a failing school. | Open 10,000 public charterschools in the next decade. | Says school choice is “the civil rights issue of all time.” | “I am not a charter school fan.” |
The author, an author, entrepreneur, former Vermont state cabinet officer, lives in Stowe. He founded NG Advantage, a natural gas truck delivery company. This commentary is republished with permission from his blog, Fractals of Change.
Categories: Commentary
The more parties, the better. The more candidates, the better. The less corruption, the better. However, I would hardly equate Donald Trump to Joe Biden and referring to them both as abysmal.
One made the country become less abysmal when he was elected. One made the country become more abysmal when he was elected. The one who was much more abysmally wretched was not Donald Trump.
However, I have the distinct feeling that the article’s writer was so incredibly convinced by the reputed abysmal characterization of Donald Trump that he took the cue and helped elect the much more abysmal candidate, that being Joe Biden.
Abysmal: immeasurably low or wretched : extremely poor or bad
abysmal ignorance/poverty
abysmal living conditions
an abysmal performance
Abysmal: having immense or fathomless extension downward, backward, or inward
an abysmal cliff
Being an Independent voter, I would say that the last two Presidents are equally abysmal.
Evslin’s rather pollyannish views on current federal elections is interesting. He proposes that a third better option candidate be available come Nov. 2024, never once considering that the 2020 election outcome wasn’t pre-determined by the RNC and DNC- and the 2022 election- and 2024.
Until there is change in whom controls the ballots and whom controls how the ballots are counted- election outcomes are not determined by voters. Yes, even here in Vermont. Especially here in Vermont.
Good ol’ Tommy a RINO/NO TRUMPER till the bitter end. Did you see his middle of the road chart with the great fence sitter ideas. They are the outdated ideas of Lieberman, McCain, etc. The guys that ran to the cameras and touted bipartisanship so they can say, look we compromised, we went along to get along, love us.
Great ideas like on immigration, protect the dreamers. Hey, Tom my grandparents came from Italy legally, went to Elis Island, were vaccinated, deloused and quarantined, had to have a sponsor and a job.
Voting by mail is the easiest way to corrupt an election. No Labels fixes their own demise with mail in voting. The rampent election fraud from mail in ballots would guarantee they wouldn’t get elected.
Guns – Universal Background Checks? Don’t you really mean on private sales between citizens. The present background checks are blatantly unconstitutional. They question you under penalty of perjury without probable cause that a crime has been committed. Funny I didn’t see anything in your little chart about upholding our Constitution to the letter.
Education – How about the federal government getting out of the education business. Want to cut the deficit? Abolish the Dept. of Education.
You didn’t even mention the corruption of the DOJ and FBI. The Ukraine War, Child Trafficking, the border, fentanyl, spying an Americans on your little chart.
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.” – Ayn Rand
“Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides”. Margaret Thatcher
Social Security – Transition to a return of the money to the people; promote individual responsibility; Stop all government spending for everything that isn’t absolutely essential; Hold individuals in government personally accountable for their failures. The government has shown that it can’t be trusted with our wealth. We can take care of ourselves, our families, and our communities if they give us our wealth back, and stop destroying our wealth.
Debt – Disallow Federal Reserve IOUs; Stop all government spending for everything that isn’t absolutely essential and authorized; Hold individuals in government personally accountable for anything they participate in that results in wealth destruction or for results that weren’t advertised. Stop rewarding failure. If a program fails, it must not be allowed to continue, and those who created it must be punished. Currently, failure is rewarded with “more funding”. Force each line item of spending to be approved/unapproved. No more slush funds and budget approvals.
Immigration – Remove the welfare state; Quarantine and screen international travelers for known communicable diseases or criminal history; Allow private business and land owners to invite foreigners in visa programs, and disallow foreigners from participation in government service positions and roles or contracts. Criminally punish government officials that break the current laws with harsh sentences.
Energy – Disallow government involvement in energy, however the arbitration process shouldn’t allow nuclear power to have any of their materials trespass outside of their own property, and any trespass of nuclear materials should be subject to criminal prosecution via prison time for the amount of time that the half-life of the contaminating substance holds. (The risk of creating a “forever contamination” such as the Fukushima disaster, should never allow it to have been created in the first place) There is safe nuclear technology that would allow nuclear spills to never happen, but it is cheaper to lobby for government “permits”, which create more risk than would otherwise exist if full responsibility and risk analysis was required.
Free Speech – Hold individuals in government personally accountable for the high crime of using public resources for that which is not explicitly authorized by the constitution. Including but not limited to curtailing the flow of information (speech) by we the people.
Voting – Hold individuals in government personally accountable for every election crime to the fullest degree. Secure elections are already a requirement, but nothing happens when they are proven to not be secure. Regardless, 99.999% of everything everyone elected is doing currently, is illegal, and voting shouldn’t matter too much for our every day life in America. The things elected officials are working on SHOULD be very dry and boring to the average person if the laws they were supposed to be following were followed. The majority should never be ruling over the minority. The minority should always be protected FROM the majority.
Transgender – If a law is good for a “Transgender”, the law should be good for everyone. The minority should always be protected from the majority. We don’t need ANY specialized victim-group laws. All laws should protect everyone FROM the government. A legitimate government would never be authorized to steal money from one group of people, and then give that money to a special interest of curtailed services. That is the role of private individuals who support a curtailed service. The government can surely promote the welfare and collect a go-fund-me style voluntary system, but it should not be done through force. Forceful collection of funds by those that don’t want to participate is good for neither group as much as it might sound good to the supporters of that involvement. You can only promote love, you cannot force it. If you try to force love, you will only get more hate.
Abortion – The government has a role to protect life. Government arbitrators also have a role to enforce contractual precedent. Nature has created a precedent of babies that don’t come to term, where naturally, babies will not come to term usually in the first 90-days quite often. Abortion should be between a doctor and their patient normally, and is none of the government’s business, in general. However, there can be a case made by the IMPLICIT contract made between the unborn child, and the hosting body (mother). The government may have a LEGITIMATE interest in protecting life that has gone past a period of time deemed contractual precedent, such as 90-days (nature often aborts during this period – thus regular). If the host of the unborn child is made aware of a 2nd party relying on them for life, they (government) may have a legitimate reason to advocate for that unborn child. I think it is reasonable for a government to advocate for the unborn child if they are viable after a period of time. The unborn child’s host should not have unrestricted and indefinite amount of time to cancel their contract with the unborn child. There are however exceptions where the host of the unborn child has a right to protect their own life, for example in cases where there is great risk to their own life due to medically accepted risk of complications. These cases shouldn’t be considered an “abortion”, they should be considered a life saving medical procedure at that point. Additionally, victims of rape should also be considered as false contracts and again, it wouldn’t be an abortion, it would be considered a corrective medical procedure. A society without individual responsibility will become a sick society.
Guns – The government isn’t authorized to RESTRICT arms. REGULATE (at the time of writing), means the government is only authorized to do things that make them more abundant and common. We need to hold individuals in government personally accountable for any act which restricts the ownership of guns in any way, with severe criminal penalties. If the government doesn’t want criminals to own guns, they need to provide the criminal database directly to the public for dissemination and empower everyone to find out who they are dealing with when transacting in any dangerous machinery, and do their own criminal database lockups without digital tracking schemes. Drug companies (drug dealers) that sell products that list “homicide” as a side effect, need to be held individually responsible for their damages they cause. Schools should be teaching Americans everything about guns from an early age so we have less safety issues, and less folks learning about guns from action movies.
Education – The government education system is defunct. It comes from the old Persian system introduced by early immigrants, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but has become a bloated mess of ineffectiveness. Each individual needs their own “special education”. The government may have a role to promote the general welfare by creating different accreditation that private business could use to determine different qualifications, however they should not be stealing funds by force from the public in order to pay for their ideas, because this inherently creates a market for special interest and removes checks and balances or any markets tests. We are in the internet age where education can be mostly free and very low cost. Today’s fast moving information is too fast for the current systems to catch up. We need to re-think how we are currently doing education, and let families decide for themselves what’s best for their own children. Give families the money to spend on their own children, and have them earmark the use, and any unused funds can be returned to the public coffers.
*** THE PEOPLE need to have THEIR OWN police force that THEY CONTROL, which stops and frisks government, tickets and arrests them when they break the law, in court systems run by we the people. Government servants should be going through checkpoints. They need to be watched an monitored, and they need to pay for it. The private people need to be left alone NOW!
Much love!
I heard a commentator say if there is a 2024 selection, he is writing in Jesus Christ. I will too. I consider that commentator’s sentiment to reflect the reality that many refuse to accept or swallow one more grain of the outright lies and distortion of facts perpetrated upon the masses. Fix it or forget about it. There is no legimate reasoning to allow criminality to go unpunished – doing so is the end of the Republic – full stop.