Would Three Parties Really Be A Crowd?

If you have always considered yourself either a Republican or a Democrat, take a moment and try this little thought experiment with me.

Suppose you're on a bowling team. All the league dues have been paid over the last season and its time to plan the year-end banquet.

Now imagine that two of the league's most prominent members, let's call them Fred Kramden and Barney Norris, each propose to organize the event. In fact one or the other of them has run the annual banquet (with the assistance of the one not chosen that year) for as long as anyone can remember.

Needless to say, the pair have acquired a good many friends over the years who are caterers and florists, banquet hall owners, trophy sellers, and so forth.

With this system, of course, neither really loses out completely. While the year's winner does get to choose the hall and the caterer, the other is still involved in much of the preparations, such as decorations and trophies.

While the two compete vigorously for the honor of running the year's festivities, claiming to have very different views of how banquets ought to be organized (though in truth most league members fail to see much difference between the events planned by one compared with those of the other), one thing on which they absolutely do concur is that their's should be the only two proposals submitted for consideration.

They express heartfelt concern for the members who, they aver, would only be confused by having to review any additional plans. And being in charge of all the banquet committees for as long as anyone can remember, they've set up committee rules that all but guarantee their continued exclusivity. They will not permit a third league member to be involved in any of the planning -- strictly out of concern for your own limitations, you understand.

In such circumstances mightn't you be just a tad suspicious that whichever proposal you ultimately choose, somehow both Kramden and Norris are going to do alright for themselves and their friends?

Now, the setting for this little musing is only a bowling league. If you were really in such circumstances and my hypothetical pair's shenanigans become too blatant or expensive (though, I can't imagine real people letting the kind of situation I described actually come to pass in the first place), you could simply quit and join another league.

So, now let's make the scenario a bit less frivolous.

In place of Fred Kramden and Barney Norris put Bill Clinton and Trent Lott. Or John Engler and Geoffrey Fieger. Make planning a bowling banquet into running the government. Now put guns in their hands. And block all the exits because they run the only game in town.

What you then have is the state of contemporary American politics -- what the old political parties conveniently call "the two party system."

The notion that our government was ever intended to be controlled by a duopoly is pure myth. There is absolutely nothing in the constitution or any of the other founding documents of the United States or the state of Michigan that designates either a "two party" system.

Indeed, there has never been another representative form of government anywhere in the world that has effectively restricted itself to only two political parties.

When you go into the voting booth next Tuesday think about the dynamics inherent in two-way power sharing, the kind of mutual back-scratching made manifest in the half trillion dollar budget agreement recently adopted by congress that is so larded with pork for both Republicans and Democrats that you can almost feel your arteries clogging up just reading it.

Then consider the control on such tacit understandings that inevitably happens when you add even one additional player to the mix. And please consider doing just that.

Being the Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Michigan, I would, of course, like to see as many people as possible vote for Libertarian candidates.

But if you are not comfortable with the Libertarian platform (basically, a lot less government at every level), vote for the Natural Law candidates. Or the Reform candidates. Any candidates other than Republicans and Democrats.

Let's add at least one more party to the power sharing circle and do away with the destructive and wrong-headed idea that ours is somehow a "two party system."

Unless, of course, you're perfectly happy with the way Fred and Barney have been running your life.

Tim O'Brien is the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Michigan.