Here’s what the GOP should do now

For Immediate Release

November 7, 2024

Freedom, Indiana – Author Andrew Horning was a candidate for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2024, and is now, and henceforth, just Andy.

Congratulations, Republicans!  The people chose you in what must be considered a strong endorsement and mandate.  And I understand why.  I know y’all have been at least half our troubles for a long time, but in hopes that the people’s trust means something more than donors’ dollars this time around, I have a few recommendations and requests:

First, don’t try to “go after” all the cold Malthusian eugenicist psychopaths currently running the world.  They’ll kill you all (remember JFK?).  Just peacefully defund, disempower and disentangle their global web.  Stand down our global “military-industrial complex” and “scientific-technological elite” monsters Eisenhower warned us against almost 64 years ago.  Stop the covert surveillance state, put all spying powers under direct, regular military control and strict congressional supervision, and let’s move on with a more open, constitutional government.  Forget revenge or “justice.”  Let the evil rats slip away into darkness.  But in humble mea culpa honesty, open the vaults to truth with a more in-depth Church Committee-style revelation, so that we can see what our government has become …so that it never becomes that ever again.

Get OUT of NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the UN, and nullify all anti-constitutional agreements (like Agenda 2030)!  I suggest Peace, Commerce and Cautious Friendship with All Nations, Entangling Alliances with None.  End every military action that wasn’t directly authorized by specific congressional vote as either a declared war, or under letters of marque and reprisal (every overt and covert military action since WWII has been unconstitutional).  And let’s face the truth that our shamefully-numerous economic sanctions are, in fact, acts of war that have killed and impoverished countless millions worldwide.

Next, make good on your trans-generationally-broken promises to dismantle the bureaucracy.  Only lawmakers can make constitutional laws – no more edicts from unelected bureaucrats in executive agencies.  End all agencies not specifically authorized by the federal constitution.  I said “specifically authorized.”  Re-read the tenth amendment, please.

End the Fed.  This will be complicated, but we’re doomed if we don’t kill this arachnidian creature that monetizes political debt.  Let the free market determine what it wants to use as money, of course, but make sure that all government-issued money is constitutionally legit.   All federal money should be issued by only the Treasury, under total congressional control, as demanded by the federal constitution.

Here’s the hardest one: We must deal with the national debt.  I’ve suggestions to fix Social Security and Medicare, of course.  But we’d still need to repudiate a lot of debt.  We have to.  We should never have bailed out the banks.  We should never have let our politicians and the Fed get us into such a dilemma.  But the past is the past, and the present is about to kick our whole nation into the past, if we don’t wake up and smell pleuro$i$.  We’re going to either go through an intentional and orderly bankruptcy-like process, or we’re going to crash to a depth of widespread poverty and destruction that no “Western Culture” has ever experienced.

In summary, do constitutional rule of law, as is your oath and bond of office.  Nobody has ever come up with anything better, you know; and it still is the only thing that authorizes the existence of any USA government at all.  It is both the fundamental charter that protects us from you, and the law that protects you, from us.

Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning

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“‘Relighting the Torch‘ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time..”

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet

For Immediate Release

Contact: Andrew Horning
Horning for US Senate

October 23, 2024

Freedom, Indiana – Author Andrew Horning is the Libertarian Party of Indiana’s candidate for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2024. 

No matter the outcome of the election, pain is coming.  I of course hope it won’t be in the form of another “forever war” in the Middle East… or worse, nuclear Armageddon, but it’s already too late to prevent a socioeconomic catastrophe that, to too many of us, will be just as deadly.

Assuming the “military-industrial complex” and “scientific-technological elite” plutocracy Eisenhower warned against, and that now own and operate the Democratic or Republican parties, don’t get their warmongering way, and we somehow avoid radioactive self-destruction; it’s already too late to stop massive inflation and monetary collapse.

The facts:  The USA has, for generations since the Breton Woods Agreement, benefited from the “exorbitant privilege” of the US dollar’s reserve currency status, to both enrich the investment and donor classes at the expense of the lower and middle classes (see the Cantillon Effect), and charge other nations for the use of our currency at the expense of domestic inflation (see the Triffin Paradox) and eventual collapse.  The interest on our national debt, is our #3 federal budget expense – ahead of national defense, and just behind Social Security and Medicare, and growing fast.  The BRICS economic block is meeting this week in Russia to admit Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to the original nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.  Turkey, Azerbaijan, Venezuela and Malaysia have filed for admittance as well.  The ASEAN alliance is growing in importance as well. This rapid growth was accelerated by the USA’s theft of other nations’ dollar assets, particularly Russia’s, and the literally thousands of sanctions we’ve placed on others as financial war.  Understandably, several nations, including western allies, started pulling away from obviously insecure US Treasuries and dollar dependencies which make them susceptible to our incessant sanctions.  ASEAN and BRICS’ goal isn’t hostile; it’s merely self-defensive against the USA’s weaponized monetary aggression.  Dozens more nations want to join the growing economic bloc, to throw off the USA’s global monetary/military sanctions and coercion.  Many nations, even “petrodollar” nations like Iran, have already begun de-dollarizing their transactions, including the purchase of oil, erasing the power of our petrodollar system.

What this means:  In the words of economist Herbert Stein, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”  The inevitable and calamitous collapse of our nation’s economy and global empire has already begun.  Democrats and Republicans have proven unwilling to cut spending and government’s destructive size; and even their not-so-covert plan to reduce Social Security benefits while raising the age of retirement, won’t help much.  So, short of defaulting on our nation’s financial obligations, that leaves only The Fed’s usual solution – print more fiat currency to pay debts, which makes each dollar worth less and less.  And that means, in terms of inflation rates, that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. 

What I propose: We immediately do what’s proven to be the best design for society in all of human history, as I’ve been offering for decades.  That’d include, of course, a MASSIVE reduction in government spending and debt. It’d be rough for probably several years; but only by what only I’m proposing in the US Senate race, can there be a better future on the other side of what’s surely coming.

Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning

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“‘Relighting the Torch‘ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time..”

MAKE PEACE, YOU FOOLS!

For Immediate Release

Contact: Andrew Horning
Horning for US Senate

October 4, 2024

Freedom, Indiana – Author Andrew Horning is the Libertarian Party of Indiana’s candidate for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2024. 

Through three decades, I’ve written, spoken, sued and campaigned against corruption, the danger of war, collapse of the dollar, rise of BRICS against us, and in general, the fall of the USA Empire.  I’ve exhaustively proven that the unconstitutional, self-appointed and inherently-divisive “Two Party System” our founders warned against, has to go.  And for thirty years, I’ve been proposing solutions that are not only different from what the crony parties foist upon us, they’re also proven to work better than anything humans have ever tried.  Of course, for thirty years, I’ve also been fighting an organized system of deceit and mind-hacking.  Sigh…

But all of that was in a looking-forward, prepare-for-the-future mode that is now too late.  It’s too late to avoid major financial calamity, social unrest and, well…political governments do have a 100% eventual failure rate, after all.  No matter what we do now, USA hegemony is done.  Our standard of living will fall. …As it has begun falling already.

But what then?  We’ll have an awful mess to clean up.  How big a mess?  Will we clean it up?  Can we come back, better-than-ever?

That depends upon what we do with foreign entanglements and what Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex,” and the “scientific-technological elite,” right now.  More importantly, it depends upon how We The People decide to live, right now.  And I mean, like, right now – before self-immolation in nuclear war.

I of course hope I’m wrong about the war with Iran that’s been on the Greater Israel Plan list of nations to destroy for decades. But Iran is powerful in its own right, and has strong ties to both Russia, and of increasing importance, China. A war on Israel’s behalf could end up a global catastrophe. It will at least be a tragic mistake with long-lasting consequences…at the very least will be debt, inflation, and skyrocketing fuel prices.

We The People have always had the numbers, and power, and accountability over everything.  We have both weapons of peaceful revolution in our votes, but also the power of nullification in our actions.  It’s only by ignorance and passive obedience that we humans are ever oppressed, enslaved and murdered by the millions, by the governments we empower.

It’s time to choose.  What next, my fellow citizens?

Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning

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“‘Relighting the Torch‘ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time..”

The coming monetary catastrophe

For Immediate Release

Contact: Andrew Horning
Horning for US Senate

July 22, 2024

Freedom, Indiana – Author Andrew Horning is the Libertarian Party of Indiana’s candidate for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2024.

For most of the last three decades, I’ve written extensively about the USA’s monetary madness, inflation, impending monetary/economic and social collapse, and how to fix it all.  But now’s not the time to detail the Cantillon Effect, the Triffin Paradox or the still-constitutionally-required gold/silver “specie” backing of all official notes and currency, because we are about to get smacked upside the head by a world that is sick of our $#!+.

Some necessary history: Before our entry into WWII, the USA had acquired a huge percentage of the world’s monetary gold, and still had a fair bit of it after the war.  So, given the stability and growth of our society back then, the Breton Woods agreement made the US Dollar an at least partial “reserve currency” for the world – a sort of monetary exchange/credit card system that paid the USA a debt-based credit of 2-3% on all dollar-denominated transactions because of our inherently inflationary “fiat currency” Fed scheme.  This is what the French Minister of Finance Valéry Giscard d’Estaing famously called our nation’s “exorbitant privilege.”   So, in 1967, Charles de Gaulle called the bluff on the USA’s gold reserves on the claim that we’d spent it all on the CIA, Vietnam war/military-industrial complex, and political spending recently spurred by LBJ’s “Great Society” programs.  This led to a sort of global “run on the bank” of US Dollars, prompting Nixon to end the aforementioned Breton Woods agreement.  This led to rapid inflation, and an emergency deal with Saudi Arabia to create the “petrodollar system,” whereby we fought wars for the House of Saud, in exchange for a global market for USD in the oil trade.  The USA has since used that petrodollar leverage, and military force, to get what we want out of other people’s countries.  Through the years, our sanctions, manipulations, and recently, the REPO Act, to literally steal other nations’ assets (specifically Russia’s, for now), have made nations lose so much faith in the worth of the US Dollar, that the BRICS nations, and their growing list of partners, are launching a new monetary exchange system, and a major effort to “de-dollarize” in October of this year…as many of us (not just me!) have warned for some time. 

Whew!  That’s a lot of stuff, I know.  But it’s important to understand how we’ve used our money as a weapon of global hegemony, a scheme that has now turned against us.  What this means to USA citizens is that, starting very soon, maybe even by early 2025, we’ll see inflation like we’ve never imagined, a massively decreased standard of living, perhaps even World War (if we’ve not started one for other reasons), on top of the economic depression already underway.

In other words, our incumbent parties, politicians, and the puppet masters who own and operate them, have brought us to the edge of actual ruin.  But we could fix it.  I’ve a proven plan to do so.  You ought to ask me for details.

Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning

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“‘Relighting the Torch‘ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time..”

END the Puppet Show

For Immediate Release

Contact: Andrew Horning
Horning for US Senate

July 4, 2024

The Puppets can no longer hide the Puppeteers

Freedom, Indiana – Author Andrew Horning is the Libertarian Party of Indiana’s candidate for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2024.

After the now-infamous “Presidential” debate, we can no longer deny that We the People have been continuously reelecting a puppet show built on lies, money, censorship, cronyism and illegitimate power.  All the smart people since our nation’s founding tried to warn us against this threat of authoritarianism.  General Smedley Butler warned us.  Truman warned us.  Eisenhower warned us.  JFK warned us, and we should’ve paid attention; particularly when the warnings stopped after JFK was shot.  But the evidence, and even not-so-subtle hints kept coming.  Even Bill Clinton, speaking in Ireland in 1998 said, “You know, by the time you become the leader of a country, someone else makes all the decisions. … You may find you can get away with virtual presidents, virtual prime ministers, virtual everything.”

The problems we debate and call “issues” are really just symptoms of political corruption under a shadowy ruling elite.  What we’ve been told are two different parties are only a divide-and-conquer distraction from those pulling their strings.

In short, we’ve been deceived.  Hornswoggled.  Bamboozled and gaslit by a rich crony network of corporations, NGOs, INGOs, military/monetary industrialists and globalist Malthusian eugenicist psychopaths for too long.  You know the saying, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?”  Well, it’s time to wake up, and change our choices on Election Day.

This year marks thirty years since I started writing, campaigning and in every way I could think of, protesting against corruption, and offering the existing, once-revered but long-ago discarded state and federal constitutions, as the solution. 

But I, as a choice on the ballot, am not what any of this is about.  Elections are about voters, and what they want for our society.  Even the best Democratic and Republican Party candidates have voluntarily chosen to represent and sustain the status quo global crony network.  What I’ve chosen to do is oppose this crony network.  So the choice I’m placing on the ballot is simpler than ideology, law, or even money: 

Do voters want to continue re-electing the false hope, wasted money, inherent divisiveness and corruption of the costly, destructive, unconstitutional and self-appointed “Two Party System” our founders and all the wise people since, warned against?  Or do voters want to say NO to all this madness? 

This July 4 marks twelve score and 8 years since Thomas Jefferson wrote, “…that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Our founders had to take up arms against their own government.  But they gave us, with our votes, weapons of peaceful revolution.  We can, in airconditioned comfort and button-pushing simplicity, vote away the corruption, and, at long last, try something proven to be better – owning our own government.

That’s what I’m putting on Indiana’s US Senate ballot for 2024.  Any questions?  Please ask me, and let’s talk, while that is still an option.

Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning

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“‘Relighting the Torch‘ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time..”

Social Insecurity

For Immediate Release

Contact: Andrew Horning
Horning for US Senate

March 26, 2024

Freedom, Indiana – Author Andrew Horning is the Libertarian Party of Indiana’s candidate for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2024.

It is, of course, true that Libertarians oppose unconstitutional, costly and inevitably destructive “government programs” that make up most of what government does to us today.  But when people use that against us, as if we’re who’s wrong, they’re ignoring reality. 

Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are failing…fast, and badly, as we’ve been warned.  …For decades.  Democrats and Republicans play games with base-pandering rhetoric, but the fact persists:  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, are failing.  Nobody denies this anymore, yet nobody’s worried enough to fix what literally millions of Americans depend upon for basic living needs?  Even legacy media outlets, the ones who’re gradually conceding that most of Libertarians’ “conspiracy theories” are in fact, truth, are saying that our safety net programs will need to be scaled back in benefits, increased in cost, and will maybe fail anyway, as we add another trillion in USA debt every 100 days, for other priorities that rob us of rights and wealth, as government gains power, corruption, anti-civilian weaponry and secrecy.

The voters our government brings across our borders, may help with the demographic problem of too many retirees per taxpayer.  That’s one of the many reasons our government has been encouraging illegal border crossings since Reagan’s administration.  But the new aliens may not share our priorities, and may not want to pay into a system doomed by our government’s obvious priority of foreign entanglements, foreign aid, endless wars, and relentless spying, lying and crony capitalism here at home.

So, shall we continue to reelect people who rob millions of taxpayers 15.3% of their salary in combined OASDI and HI payroll taxes, as they prepare to stab millions of retirees in the back? 

This is worth repeating: The over-lauded keystones of FDR’s New Deal, and LBJ’s Great Society, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid are failing.  And we’re all paying for it, in every way.

While Libertarians rightly disdain impossible political promises, they are still promises.  And we believe in keeping promises.  There are ways to keep promises to citizens, by nullifying our other problems.  Ask me how.

It’s time to stop reelecting this catastrophic Two Puppet Party train wreck.  We need to FIX THIS to avoid genuinely impoverishing fiscal, monetary and social calamity.  NOW!

I pray it’s not only Libertarians who think so.

Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning

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“‘Relighting the Torch‘ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time..”

Even the Best Republicans Can’t Fix Our Mess

Freedom, Indiana – Today, Andrew Horning is announcing his candidacy for the Libertarian Party of Indiana’s nomination for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2024:

Statement from Andrew Horning in announcing his candidacy

I admire loyalty.  But partisan divisions and contempt are tearing us apart. They make us believe we must double-down and reinforce this tribal warfare. 

It’s time to face the truth. Any vote for any major party candidate is a vote for a global puppet show of lobbyists, permanent partisan DC staffers, bureaucrats, bundlers, kingmakers, military industrialists and, increasingly, a relative few wealthy authoritarians scheming global domination and oppression behind the curtain of an unconstitutional, inherently divisive and destructive “Two Party System.” We should be enraged enough by the rising debts, inflation and cost of living, along with loss of rights, wealth, security, health, opportunity, and of course, freedom, that we’d vote it all away. Yet we embolden the status quo’s crony crime ring with our predictable votes of overwhelming approval.

The very best GOP officeholders, like Thomas Massie and Rand Paul, are well-intentioned, but voluntary cogs in a machine bigger than any candidate, bigger than the major parties, and, sadly, bigger than the USA.  The best Republicans (and there are many well-intentioned fine people in both major parties) can only waste our best efforts, money and time. They give us only false hope. They misappropriate our power of peaceful revolution. They waste our votes. We’ve been warned for generations, and not just by Eisenhower or our nation’s Founding Fathers.

Yet there’s no need to detail our culture’s many, vast, fundamental and catastrophic problems, or their surprisingly simple solutions. I wrote a whole book about it, and am offering a free Kindle Edition copy of “Relighting the Torch” from June 5 through June 9.

We have an opportunity to resurrect the best ideas in human history, and to vote away the worst.  We can have peace, prosperity, security, liberty and justice for all, at long last.  But we have to stop voting against ourselves…and for a better way.

The constitutional purpose of U.S. Senators is to be the voice of our sovereign states against the violation of constitutional restraints, concomitant encroachment and abuse of power and loss of individual human rights.  For that fundamental, constitutional, legal purpose, Indiana has not had a U.S. Senator for generations.  But there will be one such candidate for Indiana US Senate in 2024 — me.

Liberty or Bust!

Andy Horning

Freedom, Indiana

horningforsenate.com/

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“’Relighting the Torch’ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time..” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJ46CHG5  

The TRUTH about Excelsior…on Amazon

My brother Greg published a book about three years ago.  I don’t think of myself as particularly competitive, but doggone it, I couldn’t let him beat me!  So I wrote one too.

He also has a website for both his book, and a bunch of stories from my mom (she wrote and illustrated some hilarious stuff).

…Anyway, The Truth about Excelsior is now available in paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0849X45LQ?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860.

I don’t like the way it looks as an eBook, but I’ll likely publish that, too, in a couple of weeks or so.  It’ll be cheaper, of course.

But since some stuff gets lost in the eBook version, I’m resisting it as long as I can.

The blurb is, “Far more than the usual fanciful tale of precocious children, fire-breathing dragons, disastrous monetary policy and World War, “The Truth about Excelsior” offers a unique perspective on today’s cultural madness, and a glimpse into a world of peace, prosperity and …freedom.”

I mean it to be fun, but you know me…I had to insert some serious stuff in there, too.

Anyway, let me know what you think of it…and if you like it, tell everybody, and leave a review!

Indiana’s ballot access/primary election laws are unconstitutional and corrupt

We’ve been so systematically and trans-generationally deceived about the recent, unconstitutional, corrupt, self-appointed “Two Party System” that it’s understandably hard to believe the truth.  I’ve laid out my case several times in the past, but it’s worth trying again.  This time I’ll just lay out the facts and try (try…I really will try) to avoid pontificating.

Please read the following and come to your own conclusions.  If they’re different from mine, let me know what you think I’ve got wrong.  But if you agree with me…won’t you consider rising to action?

 

Facts:

Candidate caste system:

Indiana Code has in the past forty years created seven separate classes of candidates respecting ballot access, as well as for other increasingly divergent privileges, powers, immunities and liabilities under “law.”[i]

1. The “Major Political Parties” defined by IC § 3-5-2-30, and by which there can only be two, is by far the most empowered class. Only MPPs can have poll clerks, election sheriffs and other election officers, and have members on election-related commissions.  MPPs have the easiest, and in most cases, automatic ballot access in at least one election per cycle.  Few races require ballot signatures.  Only MPPs have actual ruling power granted to them (for example, appointment to the Indiana Election Commission IC § 3-6-4.1-2, Recount Commission, etc.).   At present and for the foreseeable future (see #2 below), only MPPs get the extra public exposure, debates, taxpayer paid promotion and primary elections to put the imprimatur of legitimacy and favorable odds on their candidates.  To be crystal clear – the MPPS are exactly and only the Democratic and Republican parties – which are, in Indiana, only recently incorporated (Indiana GOP incorporated in 2005) quasi-chapters of the national, private 527 corporations.
2. The second class defined by IC § 3-10-1-2 is hypothetical, since it would be any non-MPP political parties whose candidate for Secretary of State received at least ten percent of the votes cast in the previous election. That’s not just a difficult thing to achieve for a “third party;” it’s an odd, artificial goal for a political party where other offices would be considered much more important and ideologically relevant.  While no such parties exist in Indiana, second-class parties could have precinct committeemen, and participate in publicly funded primary elections.
3. Members of the Indiana Libertarian Party are the only people to have made the third class of citizens.  They have automatic ballot access by having maintained at least 2% of the General Election vote in the Secretary of State Race.  In some ways, third-class people have the easiest path to getting on the General Election ballot.  But they cannot participate in primary elections, or have the officers/organizational advantages and governing powers of the MPPs or 2nd-class parties.
4. In 1993, IC § 3-5-2-5.5 created the class, “Bona fide political party.” This includes the first-through-third classes, but also grants another class that allows a party its own poll watchers, and provides it certain election/voter-related information.  It is very difficult for them to get on the General Election ballot even in local races, as their hurdles are very greatly higher than the 3rd-class citizens’.  Their ability to participate in elections (debates, media, any public exposure), either General or Primary, is extremely limited.
5. All other political parties fall in the 5^th-ranked citizen class. There are many of these, but entirely out of the public view except in local races or as write-in candidates.
6. Independent candidates cannot possibly participate in primary elections, even if they can overcome the obstacles both put in their way, and doubled in severity through the past thirty years (double the ballot signature requirements for example). Independent candidates face more hurdles than even 5^th-ranked citizens, in some ways.
7. Write-in candidates are those who failed to meet the requirements for ballot access in any of the previous classes, though there is overlap with the 5^th and 6^th-ranked classes. Though it’s not supposed to happen, votes for such candidates have often been thrown out in my experience (my own write-in votes, for example).  It’s very unlikely that these candidates would ever be listed in any candidate information guides, let alone be able to participate in candidate debates and media interviews.

 

Primary Elections:

The primary election system in the USA was promoted by the “Progressive” movement (they were NOT Democrats then!).  The first statewide primary election was in Florida, in 1899; but not all states have them for all elections even today.  Most states didn’t until the 1970’s, when their importance and power to the Democratic and Republican parties increased dramatically.  The point here being that primary elections are recent inventions…not at all part of the constitutional design, or even universal today.

1. IC § 3-5-1-2 defines the purpose of primary elections to choose the following:
   1. The candidates who will be the nominees of a political party for elected offices in a general or municipal election.
   2. The precinct committeemen of a political party.
   3. The delegates to a political party’s state convention.
2. IC § 3-5-3-7 (and others) require that taxpayers bear the full cost of primary elections.
3. Primary elections provide benefits (debates, public exposure/advertising, listing in election reference sources half a year before other candidates) to only participant candidates and parties, which creates both relative and absolute disadvantages to all other candidates and parties.
4. “Blanket primaries,” which offer the most options/choice to voters in selecting candidates, have not existed since 2003, when the SCOTUS decided that primary elections are for parties allowed to participate in primaries, and not for voters.
5. Many candidates have no primary challenger. In these cases primary elections serve only the purpose of promoting candidates; not selecting them.
6. The whole purpose of a political campaign is to gain public exposure and the imprimatur of legitimacy offered in debates, public media and recent expectations of a “Two Party System.” The extended campaign cycles resulting from taxpayer-funded primary elections are worth more promotion money than most candidates can ever raise.

Issue: Indiana’s Constitution plainly forbids the separate classes of citizens under law.  The violation of Article I Section 23 by Indiana’s election/ballot laws provides benefits to only the politically favored class, and at the expense of everyone else.  The unconstitutional Indiana Code that created and maintains the anti-competitive entrenchment allows only Democrats and Republicans to write the rules, enforce the rules, and count the votes…all at taxpayer expense.

Rule: The Indiana Constitution’s Article I Section 23: “The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

Summary: Article I Section 23 was enacted largely to prevent corruption, anti-competitive favoritism, and government-entrenched monopolies.   Indiana’s recent election-related codes reward corruption through institutionalized favoritism and government-entrenched monopolies.

So, we need a court case.  Maybe an amicus brief.  Maybe ask for summary judgment.  If we had enough people to make it happen, a big honking jury trial with plaintiffs and damages and media and a movie starring only liberty-leaning stars from Hollywood to Bollywood.  But more likely, a multi-step legal challenge in Indiana (where we’ve got just about the worst ballot access rules, but one of the very best state constitutions) where we’d almost certainly lose the first round, but end up in the state Supreme Court with a more publicly visible, and maybe even winning case against what plagues us all.

But that’s up to you.  Whatever we do, we need more people than just me fighting this.

 

[i]Article I Section 25 nullifies any Indiana law depending upon any authority but the Indiana Constitution: “No law shall be passed, the taking effect of which shall be made to depend upon any authority, except as provided in this Constitution.”  If there can be no such law, there can be no judgment or executive action favoring laws that cannot legally exist.  Article I Section 25 is an absolute ban on any government action exceeding the limits prescribed by the state’s constitution.

A Modest Proposal to End The Madness

So perhaps now we can all agree that today’s Powers That Be – the self-appointed “Two Party System” that’s been expanding its powers unchallenged since WWII, is a destructive, unjust, wholly corrupt, costly, devolved-to-garden-slug embarrassment.

It’s also unconstitutional, in case anybody still cares about that.

I propose a solution.  Let’s end it.

Yeah, we have lots of problems for which I suppose we all have some solutions.  But I think this is one we can agree on:

The two private clubs called the Democratic and Republican parties have been left alone with power in a dark room for too long.  The system is broken, and it’s not going to fix itself.

While the phrase has been repeated innumerable times in declarations, constitutions, speeches and laws, it’s not entirely true that “all men are created equal.”  Some humans want to rule, too many are too eager to be ruled, and only a few of us don’t want any part of this follow-the-alpha tribalism and strife.

But everyone should be equal under the law.  No special deals, no special people, tribes, classes, castes or clans with respect to governance.  Every human gets the same deal when it comes to treatment by cops, judges, legislators, executives, bureaucrats, and…ballot access laws.

That sort of equality is law under both state and federal constitutions.

Indiana’s constitution says it well in Article I, Section 23: “The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

I’ll cut to the chase scene – The Democratic and Republican Parties are private, 527 “nonprofit,” and unreasonably tax-exempt and unaccountable organizations that never should’ve been allowed to grant themselves special powers, immunities, privileges and ballot access unavailable to any other people.  They’ve become a single crony network of corruption and destruction so costly, profligate and deceitful that you have to lie to yourself pretty hard and repetitiously to excuse this mess or fall for the lies any longer.

I’ll not bother to cite specifics here (that I’d be happy to beat to death if you ask), but just for example, there is no way possible for an independent candidate to get on Indiana’s primary ballot.  It’s almost always automatic for (D) and (R) candidates – but totally impossible for independents.  It’s not impossible for other party’s candidates to get on the primary ballot – but it’s so much more difficult than the (D) and (R) special access that no other party can do it.  Only (D) and (R) parties can have precinct committeeman.  And critically/absurdly, no other party’s members can be on most election-related commissions.

In short, only the members of two private, unaccountable and tax-free groups have colluded to grant themselves actual powers of government in violation of both constitutional rule of law, and fundamental principles of justice.

Indiana is among the three or four worst states in terms of unconstitutional ballot restriction and partisan chicanery.  And among these worst states, Indiana has the best constitution.

So, here’s what I propose:  An Indiana state court case to remove all special classes of people for ballot access, and fulfill the terms of state and federal constitutions, and fundamental fairness.  Same rules, no exceptions for anybody or any group.  Simple.  It’s already the law.

All we need is people.

We need people to help organize protests, write letters, gain media attention, occupy social media, and help bring a constitutional challenge to the Indiana Supreme Court.  Money would help, too, of course.  We need people willing to do at least a little for at least one of these actions.

We need to build and activate a focused political campaign team.

Not a lot of effort from any one person, hopefully; but it would be focused on a single goal of changing Indiana’s ballot access laws to declaw/defang/de-stink Indiana’s self-appointed “Major Political Parties,” and break their stranglehold on Indiana politics and media.

It’ll be fun, wholesome and successful if we gather a crew of focused people and build some momentum.

Whether you approve of the results or not, you’ve got to hand it to the LGBT movement.  They very quickly overturned centuries of law and social practice with determination and focus.  And that movement is focused on a low-single-digit percentage of the society.

How could we be less successful when our fundamental laws and centuries of judicial reasoning are already on our side, and everyone would benefit?  …Everyone.

Come on.  I know a lot of hard core Democratic and Republican faithful who admit this train has gone off the rails.  You do too, right?

Who’s up for this?