Waking The Sleeping Dragon

Most of you have been gradually becoming disenchanted with your political parties mostly because they have gone in a direction that you do not agree with. Therefore, you have registered as any one of a number of third party political organizations from the Green Party, to Reform, Libertarian, Constitution, Independent, or maybe even unaffiliated because you hate the others.

My friends, you are the Sleeping Dragon I am referring to because together you make up a voting block far larger than both the Democrat and Republican parties combined. The problem is that to many of the third party organizations out there are so far out of the mainstream that they will never be elected to anything and are simply flushing good money down a sinkhole. Most of the electorate out there is neither liberal nor conservative but a mix of the two. The rank and file voter in this country is basically lightly socially liberal but staunchly a fiscal conservative. I will explain.

You see most folks have a view of abortion that is a mix of pro life and pro choice. A woman should have the right to make a choice between aborting the pregnancy or having the baby. However, she does not have 9 months to make that decision, she should decide within the first few weeks or the choice is no longer an option. Everyone on both sides of the issue feel that partial birth abortion is unacceptable and infanticide is equally unacceptable.

Most of the people also believe that welfare is a necessary program but should never be used in lieu of a real job and was only meant as a lifeline to help folks over the bumps in the road that life throws at us from time to time. People believe in the Second Amendment that everyone has the right to keep and bear arms especially in the violent society we find ourselves in today. Most of the electorate believes in a strong military and that we need to support the troops whatever the mission. Everyone believes in the right to free speech as long as that does not endanger the lives of others. Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not free speech and neither is publishing classified information that enables the enemies of America to better attack our soldiers and undermine our government. Loose Lips Sink Ships was a saying coined in WWII and still applies today.

So, how do we awaken this Sleeping Dragon and still remain true to our beliefs? Well, a good start would be to step back from our radical, off the wall ideas and beliefs that the American people will never embrace. All of the third parties need to unite under a single banner with a platform that the American Electorate can both agree with and rally to. Dump your little power bases that never have and never will allow you to be considered a viable candidate. Most of the folks running these various 3rd party organizations are only there for the power it gives them over their immediate peers and mostly that is a core group of like minded people who have no chance of ever being elected to anything. You see their whole goal is not to get elected but just to get 5% of the vote so they can access the federal funds available and maybe get invited to a legitimate debate with the big dogs. None of these groups have fielded a serious candidate since Ross Perot and never will. But they are the ones that have to make the move to consolidate their power and resources into a single voting block and when they do then we can say that we are waking the Sleeping Dragon.

Eventually someone, somewhere will craft a platform that strikes a chord with the American Electorate and the idea will catch fire. However, without the resources to feed that fire it will only die a whimpering death crushed by the arrogance and unwillingness of political parties to join together for the good of the country. You call yourself patriots but in reality you are just greedy little men and women looking for your 15 minutes of fame and hoping that you can turn that into a personal fortune or become a national power broker. There is no difference between you and Washington, it's just that the politics in Washington are more visible and larger in scope than yours.

I beseach you oh Lord, help us wake the Sleeping Dragon!