1. Independent voters will have to use write-in candidacy to break the hold that political parties have on ballot access. Federal court here in Arizona habitually upholds this un-Constitutional signature requirement for independent candidates, more than three times the signature requirement for an independent than for a major party candidate and more than two hundred times the signature requirement for a minor party candidate such as the Libertarian Party.
   The latest attack on independent voters here in Arizona was the removal of the option to register independent from the voter registration form in 2005, leaving only a space marked Specify Party Preference. This caused the following change in number of independent voter registrations:

   2000-2002 107.715
   2002-2004 165,771
   2004-2006 26,483

   The parties might as well try to stop the Missippi River as to try to stop people from registering independent. The United States government was organized and established by independent voters. There were no organized political parties in the United States government until the election of 1800. Political parties are self-created societies which seek special status for themselves in government the same way royalty has special status in European government. The United States will have to return to political independence if it hopes to survive as a nation.
   Robert B. Winn

2. God bless independents. People have every right to be independents, but people also have the right to be party stalwarts.

   “There were no organized political parties in the United States government until the election of 1800.”

   That’s simply not true, sir. The first parties took shape in Washington’s cabinet in the debates between Jefferson and Hamilton. The Jeffersonian Republicans (the “republican interest”) met in Philadelphia in 1792 to nominate Jefferson for president by acclamation.

   Every U. S. president has been a member of a political party. Even Washington was sympathetic to the Federalists.

   Iraq– the size of California– has 75 political parties. People even start political parties in countries where they have been outlawed.

   As the U. S. Supreme Court has said, “Representative democracy… is unimaginable without the ability of citizens to band together in promoting among the electorate candidates who espouse their political views.”

   Having grown up on a bluff overlooking the ‘Missippi’ River, I can attest to the fact that it would be a waste of time to try to stop it.

3. Actually, the Republicans– forerunners of today’s Democratic Party– first nominated Thomas Jefferson for president in 1796. Since he finished second to Vice President John Adams– the Federalist candidate– Jefferson became vice president.

4. Well, Steve, if you want to take it further back than a bunch of political hacks meeting to put up Jefferson’s name as a Presidential candidate in 1792, then go back to the beginning of the two-party system, which began with a declaration of war issued by King Charles I against Parliament. The king lost the war and was tried for treason and beheaded. Parliament met and abolished the office of king forever, and Oliver Cromwell served as head of state of England with the title of Lord Protector until his death.
   The problem with all of this is that Parliament had made no provision for replacing Cromwell. With Cromwell’s death, as the nation of Great Britain sank deeper into political confusion with each unsuccessful attempt to replace Cromwell, a faction favoring re-instatement of the office of king gained a majority in Parliament. A delegation was sent to France to invite Charles, the son of Charles I to return to England and become king. Charles graciously consented.
   Charles II was one of the worst kings in English history, but he did two things as king that affect government to this day. First, he ordered the executions and drawing and quartering of the eleven judges who had condemned his father to death, and second, he started the two-party system of political corruption.
   Charles II was a weak king who could do almost nothing he wanted to do. In his search for ways to weaken Parliament’s hold over him, his attention was drawn to two disruptive factions in Parliament which called each other by the derisive names of Whigs and Tories. Whigs was short for Whigamores, a rebellious group of Scottish separatists, and Tories were a notorious band of Irish highwaymen. Charles II announced that he would select all of the ministers of his cabinet from the faction which held a majority in Parliament, and accordingly, he selected all of his ministers from the Whig faction.
   Now we notice from this what it takes to start party controlled government, official recognition from the government of a political faction. Your little delegation of people meeting in Philadelphia to nominate Thomas Jefferson does not qualify. A single American citizen could have done the same thing they did, file papers of candidacy with the government for a United States citizen registering as a candidate for President. The people who nominated Jefferson could all have run for President, but instead used their right to assemble to agree that they were going to support Jefferson.
   As you noted, similar other groups nominated Washington, Adams, and others. These were not political parties.
   An organized political party was formed when Madison and Jefferson hit upon the idea of caucuses, use of elected officials in the extra-legal capacity of party organization, to organize faction for the election of 1800. This was so successful that the Federalists, still meeting as little groups of concerned citizens, were completely overwhelmed and faded into political obscurity. As yet there was no official recognition by the government of either of these factions, so neither was a political party registered with the government, although the Republican-Democrats had set the stage for party takeover of the government by their use of elected officials for party organization.
   The actual takeover resulted from a mistake in the Constitution. In the electoral college, each elector voted for two candidates, the candidate receiving the most votes for President being elected President and the candidate receiving the second most votes being elected vice-President. This could not accomodate the Republican-Democrats because they ran two candidates for President hoping to exclude the Federalists from both top offices. When Republican-Democrat electors met in the electoral college to cast their votes, they all voted for Jefferson and Aaron Burr, resulting in a tie vote and throwing the election into the House of Representatives to be decided. The House voted more than thirty times before finally selecting Jefferson.
   Members of Congress considered this to be such a traumatic experience that they turned the government of the United States over to the Republican-Democrat Party by writing the twelfth amendment to the Constitution, turning the office of vice-President over to party appointment rather than election by the people. This amendment gave the parties implicit control over the second highest office in the land and excluded independent candidates such as George Washington and John Adams had been from being elected to that office.
   From that foothold, the parties wrote election laws at state level to exclude independent Americans and insured that only candidates who conformed to the European ideal of party candidacy would be elected in America. Americans are just beginning to realize that they were sold a bill of goods that has resulted in their present ineffective government.
   A brief history of two-party government in England can show us what to expect here. The Whig Party used its position in Charles II’s cabinet to put money from public revenues into the pockets of Whig party members. Eventually, the Whig Party became so corrupt that the people of England voted it out and elevated the Tories into power amid promises of reform and honest government. The Whigs quickly faded into political oblivion the way the Federalists later did in America and were replaced by a new party in Parliament arising in opposition to the Tories which was called the Labor Party. By 1776 the Tory and Labor Parties had raised taxes so high that the American colonies revolted.
   Now you will notice that the Labor Party today claims to be the duly elected voice of the people of England and will continue in that claim until such time as they make a serious error and are voted out, making the Tories or some other party which has supplanted the Tories the duly elected voice of the people. This is all according to King Charles II’s original idea of weakening Parliament, written into English law during the reign of Queen Anne.
   Although the political parties in America are proficient at imitating everything they see happen in European government, the only thing they are proficient at, the situation is different here. The Supreme law of the land is defined in the United States to be the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees American citizens certain rights. Those rights are now subject to party interpretation since parties control the government. Party interpretation is that only those individuals who can meet the requirements of European political parties should be allowed to run for public office. Party interpretation is that all criminal prosecutions do not include most criminal prosecutions with respect to the right to trial by jury. Party interpretation is that European police state government is the best form of government.
   So it is time for Americans to begin to take back their government. Party interpretation is that this should not happen. We understand why party members would feel that way. It is going to happen anyway. Party members are just going to have to adapt to American government.
   Robert B. Winn

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