Thirds

Via CNS News, a new Gallup poll is reporting that 52% of Republicans think America needs a third party. 

The standard joke is that I'd settle for a second party.

Seventy-one percent of Independents and 49% of Democrats agree with the Republican majority. 

Finally, it is something we can all get behind.  Democrats and Republicans apparently represent a grand total of 26% of the American people.  This means that one in four of the people you meet on the streets are union bosses, welfare queens or bankers. 

This points up the reason that Republicans are losing ground in public opinion.  Those of us with small government, libertarian leanings are quite unhappy with the GOP-e big government, interventionist types like McCain, Graham, Cornyn, and Blunt. 

What would a viable third party look like? 

First, it would be non-interventionist.  That's not the same as the isolationism often associated with the Libertarian Party. 

Second, it would be neutral on social issues.  Kind of non-interventionist domestically as well as internationally, we might say.  To the extent possible, this new party would let people live their lives with minimal interference and allow local communities and states to make their own decisions on things like education, abortion, religion, environmental restrictions, criminal laws, licensing and regulation. 

A third plank in this new party's platform would be balancing the budget:  no expenditures that are not matched by revenue.

As a sort of corollary to that, I would suggest a new party advocate for serious, far-reaching tax reform.  Even though it would hurt me, I would still back the elimination of the income tax with the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment and a move to the Fair Tax. 

The new party should take issue with the militarization of police forces and of many government bureaucracies.

There should be a demand for an audit of the Federal Reserve and an insistence that the Fed be held accountable for inflationary monetary policies. 

Returning health care to a market-based, supply-and-demand system without government intervention is probably going too far for a lot of people, but it would be nice to hear someone at least suggest that as a goal. 

Small, controllable, efficient government would be the vision. 

It would be nice to have a choice, like when you are shopping, and the salesman comes up and says, "Perhaps you would like to see something in a Constitution?"