From the Easy Chair

The Third Party; Do We Need One

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 54-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161BA98

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161BA98, The Third Party; Do We Need One from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[Rushdoony] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 208, November 21, 1989.

Tonight John Lofton, Otto Scott, Tim Vaughn and myself are going to discuss a question that was suggested by some of you and also by John. Especially after the last election, November of a year ago, a number of you expressed your disillusionment with both parties. You felt that what we needed was something new, something different, something to express a faith other than Pragmatism. It is interesting that a number of very diverse groups including the Feminists have expressed a desire for some kind of third party.

Well, that is going to be our subject, the third party. Do we need one? Why do we need one? Before we get into that, I am going to call attention to an article which will probably appear in National Review by Lou Rockwell, Junior and the title “Ayn Rand really is dead. The Resurgence of Christian Libertarianism.” And what Lou Rockwell says in this article is that increasingly people are disillusioned with the right and with the left. And as a result, there are Christians who are Libertarian who are saying we need something more than the current Libertarianism which is dedicated to Immoralism and to hatred of Christianity. Ironically someone who 30 years ago was very much an enemy of the Christian faith and one of the founders, if not the founder of modern Libertarianism, Murray Rothbart, in 1971 warned Libertarians, and I quote, “The Christian ethic is in the words of the old hymn a rock of ages. Those who abandon that rock sink into the quagmire of the capricious and the bizarre,” end of quote.

And Rockwell adds, “But the quagmire prevailed as Randian Atheists and Woodstockian drifters came to dominate Libertarianism,” unquote.

Well, this is one of a number of very interesting straws in the wind. John, would you like to go from that point and make a general statement?

[Lofton] Well, what prompted me to suggest the topic of the possibility of a third party... Do we need a third party? Do we need a real second party? It was prompted by a couple of statements I have heard recently in Washington, DC. On a recent 700 Club broadcast, Pat Robertson was deploring the fact that the Republican party, its chairman, specifically Lee Atwater, had taken a very equivocal position on abortion saying that there as room in the Republican tent for all kinds of views on abortion, the baby killers, those who are against the baby killing and that he was sure that all these views could be accommodated by the party. George Bush has said basically the same thing, I believe, that there is a room in this tent, this idea of the party as tent, not unlike the circus. It is.... it is sort of the metaphor of the moment. And Pat Robertson said, flat out, that if this evasion on abortion continues that there would definitely be a third party. He said, “You can count on that as sure as I am sitting here.”

Now I interpret that to mean that Pat Robertson was announcing his candidacy again for president, possibly as a third party candidate as he had been urged last time to run, but didn’t. So that wasn’t too surprising.

The second statement regarding the third party to me was much more surprising, much more significant. It was a statement made by Pat Buchanan on the Cable News Network program Crossfire on November 15th of 1989. He was attacking this latest effort of Congress to raise its pay. And Pat blasted both the Republican party and the Democrats for becoming a permanent bureaucracy which he said it will take a third party to get rid of.

Now since I came out here Otto and I talked and Otto had also noted that observation by Pat and I think he was ... and will say shortly, I think, equally surprised that Pat said this. And the reason it is surprising is because Pat has basically been a very much of a defender of the Republican party. And when he has been inside the White House he has been a very vigorous defender of the Republican party, sometimes in a way that, I think, was sort of silly and I would like to believe that he had... he said things when he was inside that he didn't really believe.

So when Pat Buchanan talks about this bipartisan permanent bureaucracy in Washington made up of Democrats and Republicans it says that it will take a third party to get rid of, he did not say some people are saying it might take a third party. Pat was angry and said it will take a third party to get rid of. I think it is very significant and it is very likely that we may see a third party.

[Scott] Well, it is one of those consummations devoutly to be desired as far as I am concerned. We have right now a rather spectacular thing underway. We have a great government, enormous in size, expensive, baroque, biting its own tail, sitting up in the middle of the air without any foundation of support among the people whatever. This government has lost the respect of the world, of the world. It has no respect for itself. And if we don’t have a third party it will mean that the American people have absolutely gone brain dead and have lost all their courage.

[Rushdoony] A very good point. Tim, before I let you speak, let me follow up there. One of the things that I feel very strongly about and a great many people I find feel very strongly about because I hear about it very often is the contrast that is set forth in the Bakker case.

Now Jim Bakker was obviously a sleazy character. He deserved to be punished, but 45 years? He did not hurt this country as much as Speaker Wright of the House of Representatives did. And what Wright did to this country and to our civil government affects every person and yet he has a pension of over 85,000. I believe it is 87,000 dollars a year, all kinds of perquisites that go with it, is a highly respected man drawing fat fees as he speaks everywhere. He is getting invitations with fat speaking fees.

[Scott] What sort of people would pay that man to come and speak?

[Rushdoony] Oh, universities and various business groups and so on. Tony {?} has not suffered. Garcia has... a congressman, has been convicted and is still in Congress. Barney Frank with his homosexual prostitute friend whose bedroom was turned into a place of prostitution is still in Congress and nothing was done about it.

We have five senators who cost this country two billion, not million but billion dollars in a savings and loan bailout who were paid off. And there will be an investigation. It is pretty hard to escape, but what is going to be done? It will be like all the others. But we are going to get legislation aimed against the church as a result of the Bakker case, an extension of IRS powers. Congress is about to act, but not against itself.

So there is a bankruptcy since neither party is really doing anything and if anything happens to these Senators it will be because of public outcry and then it will be minimal. Nothing such as this happened to Bakker.

So people are morally disgusted, sick at heart about what is happening to this country.

Tim, now I will let you speak.

[Vaughn] No, I... I... Otto expressed my opinion better than I could have myself. So I do like {?}. I don’t have anything to add to that.

[Lofton] Well, I... I tell you. When they put forth this recent so-called pay raise proposal and ethics bill, which is an empty combination since the request for the pay raise is unethical, but they are calling it a combined pay raise ethics bill, and you saw that picture on the evening news of Congressman Foley in the House and Senator Mitchell in the Senate coming forward and leading behind them like little puppy dogs Robert Michael, the Illinois congressman and who? Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich. He is supposed to be the big new conservative firebrand, the maverick, you know, the hope of conservatism, the new conservatism. And there he is. He is in the halter there just has his little prepared statement and just... I will say he looked a little bit ashamed. He looked just a... around the left eye he looked a little ashamed, but he read his lines. Everybody was on board. All of them going along with that thing.

So I don’t know how the third party thing is going to manifest itself. I don’t think before the Republican party became the second party over another moral issue, slavery, that people were sure exactly how a new party was going to manifest itself. But I do know that the Republican party has treated Christians in many parts of the country, the state Republican parties, the national Republican party, treating Christians like dogs. They have been very explicit in some states in saying, “Christians, keep out.”

They have treated... they have treated the right to lifers like dogs. They don’t want them in the party. So when this thing comes about the Republicans will have caused it.

[Scott] Well, I think you may be right. Well, I hadn't through of it before that abortion is a rallying issue. But there are a number of positions that a possible third party could take which would reform our government without revolutionizing it. I received a manuscript just a few days ago by a scientist down in Baton Rouge and he made the obs... he was talking... he was shredding apart some of the environmental claims and the green house effect and all of that which he just dismissed in very nice language as not sensible. But he made an observation in passing which was very important. He said, “Our Congress creates goals in the name of the law and leaves the means of achieving that goal to the agencies.” And he said the agencies then sit down and create a whole raft of regulations which are printed in the federal register and which have the force of law.

But, he says, only Congress is supposed to make the law. These agencies, he said, should be restricted to gathering information and that they could then give to Congress and Congress should do its own work and specify what the law is supposed to be. That, he said, was... I realize, when that suggestion meant that we would wipe out a whole fourth, anonymous, faceless branch of government that is monitoring our lives from cradle to grave. What a ... what an issue.

[Lofton] I want to comment on that. In his book The Twilight of Authority Robert Nesbitt called this passing of power to the administrative agencies, the new despotism. He said that that was really one of the.... in his opinion it was the greatest shift of power, I guess he meant in our government, in the past half century, this Congress, in effect, sort of drawing a ... you remember the connect the dots, drawings you used to have in grade school where Congress will generally put two or three dots on a piece of paper and then it gives the pencil to the administrative agency and it draws 1000 dots and then the Congress said, “Hey, we didn’t... we didn't mean that.” And then the congressmen can hold hearings and they all look very indignant as they question their own creatures there in front of them for exceeding.... well, they can’t charge them with exceeding their authority because they spelled out no real authority. They gave themselves the authority. In fact, the religious right, so-called, Christian school movement, thank God, was spawned by this usurpation of power.

Remember when the IRS, as they say, promulgated a number of guidelines to bind Christian schools without any such demand from the Congress and, of course, every witness that came... and I think there were over 200 of them ....

[Rushdoony] I was one of them.

[Lofton] Yes. Every one was against these things and the IRS, I think, withdrew the thing.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Lofton] Now let me add... let me add one...

[Rushdoony] No, let... let me...

[Lofton] Ok. That is...

[Rushdoony] Correct you at one point.

[Lofton] Yes.

[Rushdoony] The IRS was for those regulations, but they did not inaugurate them. Reagan did. Reagan and Meese and the IRS was very happy with them.

[Lofton] All right, now wait a minute. I think the... since you are correcting me here, I think the chronology is a little out of whack because Reagan was not in power when...

[Scott] At the hearing you are talking about, but after the...

[Lofton] IN the 70s, in the 70s...

[Scott] After the hearings...

[Rushdoony] Yes. There was... there was another...

[multiple voices]

[Rushdoony] You were right. There were two incidents.

[Lofton] It is... it is easy to get confused here.’

[Rushdoony] Seventy eight and then the other one in 81 or two. You are right.

[Lofton] Yeah. See, it is easy to get confused.

[Rushdoony] I stand corrected.

[Lofton] ... when you are talking about... when you are talking about save this statement. Ah... it is easy to get confused when you are talking about which usurpation of power.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Lofton] ...by the IRS. But I... I had a little opportunity ... I had an opportunity to work several days trying to find out how does a regulation get promulgated. I tried to find how the regulations actually came about, who thought of them? Because they clearly did not originate in the Congress. And to make a long story short after many days of working with the public affairs officer of the IRS he finally located the attorney in the IRS who was a GS-15 who one morning look at his Sunday New York Times newspaper, he saw some little item about a Christian school and the attorney said, “Well, we have to stop this.” So that... that is the way all these regulations came about. That is the way these hearings came about is that one guy said he didn’t like something he saw in the New York Times and so he started promulgating.

[Scott] Well, her we have what I would call the real genesis of a third party, because there have been two successful third parties in the country. The first, of course, was the Republican party over the slavery issue. But was ... it was a more issue involved than simply slavery, as we know, tariffs and so on.

Also certain rights which were established as a result of the civil war. The bull moose party in 1912 by Theodore Roosevelt was much more left wing than people remember, because Roosevelt moved over towards Socialism to a considerable degree. But he had one very interesting, I think, issue that he brought up and he called it the issue of judicial recall. He said that whenever the Supreme Court of the United States made a constitutional ruling the people should be allowed to vote that up or down in a national plebiscite. Otherwise, he said, we are ... we will be at the mercy of nine unelected men.

Now that was a... not a bad suggestion, because at this point we have a runaway Supreme Court, not only a runaway Supreme Court, we have a runaway federal judiciary, because district judges are now making constitutional rulings.

[Rushdoony] Well, let me throw in something as a problem. I think that we have had many influential and powerful third parties. The Populist movement...

[Scott] True.

[Rushdoony] ...elected congressmen, governors and more, a whole series of third parties that have appeared and shifted the course of American history and then disappeared. One of the problems we face now is a very, very dangerous mentality on the part of the people of this country. They want to start big and they want victory now. One of the things that has been are road block is that men of wealth who could start very important things are not interested unless they can start big, create a national thing over night, which doesn’t work. On top of that people want to win in a single election or on a single issue.

When Reagan was elected a great many Christians and conservatives alike acted as though the millennium had arrived. And immediately after the election the income of conservative organizations took a disastrous nose dive. They would lose sometimes two thirds, four fifths or five sixths of their income immediately because the assumption was the American millennium had arrived because Reagan was in the White House.

[Scott] Don’t you remember? Liberalism was defeated.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] It was... it was over.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Now any time a third party is mentioned no one talks about the long haul, about building for the future, can they win in 92? Well, as long as Americans have that mentality they are going to get more of what they have had, only worse and this country will go to hell in a hurry, because they didn’t grow to be mature men and women over night. And it takes time to educate people, to develop a strategy, to develop a party. It is step by step, here a little, there a little.

[Scott] Well, it is ... it is also a matte of principles. A third party should stand for more than a single issue. A third party should lift its sights up to look at the nation as a whole.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And look at the structure of our government as it is and then say, “How can we restore this government to a rational proportion? How can we restore the limits of government?” Because we are running into an unlimited government. And this is the monster that we are confronted with.

[Lofton] Well, now... now you are... you have stopped preaching and done gone to meddling as they say. You are absolutely correct. Conservatives used to run on a platform of, you know: What have you undone for me lately? But, of course, they come to Washington as ... as one of them said. They come to Washington thinking that it is a cesspool, but after a few years they find it is a hot tub. It feels pretty good.

Let me given an example. A recent article in the Washington Post by Ed Fulner, president of the Heritage Foundation.

[Scott] Yeah, we know Ed.

[Lofton] How you doing, Ed? Hi, Ed. He says in this article... I will just skip around to get... give you the flavor of it. “For all of his faults, George Bush could be a godsend for conservatives.” God, at least, is not capitalized in this sentence. “Bush is the right man for the times. If Ronald Reagan was the architect of radical thinking,” that is a good one right there. I don’t think he thought at all. “What we need now is an engineer to build on Reagan’s foundation.” I think the engineer was Carter. I don't think Bush was an... is an engineer. “Bush understands the market.” Maybe that means we can go to the grocery. “Education is another area in which Bush and conservatives are singing from the same hymn book if not always the same key.” Whatever that means. I think when {?} is their general ambiguity.

“By being a steady leader, Bush could be what Harry Truman was to Franklin Roosevelt.”

[Scott] Oh, dear.

[Lofton] That is supposed to be good news.

[Scott] Roosevelt didn’t speak to Truman.

[Lofton] Now, Ed Fulner, I pick on him because he not only intensifies the problem, he is the problem. He is one of the problems. He is on more than one government panel board.

[Scott] He is a conservative who has been co-opted by the government. He is not a member of any opposition. He is almost a door keeper at the oval office.

[Lofton] He is like that Dr. Doolittle push me, pull you with two heads.

[Scott] That is great.

[Lofton] Ed doesn’t know if he is in the private sector or the public sector. He is ... he was a cheerleader for Reagan. He is a cheerleader for Bush. Conservatives that used to stand in opposition like Human Events, Human Events still does... Human Events, the weekly conservative publication is an honest critic of Bush and it was of Reagan. But Fulner typifies your Washington conservative now. He is totally sold out.

[Rushdoony] Well, he has got a good argument. Look at the money he and Heritage have and look at what you and I have, John.

[Lofton] Well, I never thought of it that way. Maybe he has got a point in his column.

[Rushdoony] Yes. In other words, compromise pays. That is a moral fact.

[Lofton] The headline...

[Rushdoony] And this is the moral problem we face today.

[Scott] That is a big point.

[Lofton] The headline on the column is, “Bush: Less is More.” That is... Washington talk.

[Scott] More or less what you are... you are both really saying that John mentioned abortion and you are talking out morality. The American nation is interesting. Its intellectual level has declined after its founding generation went off the stage. Since then, there has not really been what you would call an American intellectual class. We have academics instead. The ... but a third party that took a moral position on the great issues of our time, which is what the people need, would certainly, I think, succeed, not overnight. But one of the ways it would succeed, would have to succeed would be to confidence the Average American who has been browbeaten and bullied that it is possible to change things.

I know I do a lot of traveling and I sit in the plane and unless I speak first, the other fellow will not speak. I have tested this all the way across the country. The minute I speak, well, then, he will speak.

[Lofton] I think I am the other fellow. That is why I am not {?}.

[Scott] And... but he is usually very guarded about what he says.

[Lofton] Sure.

[Scott] He is scared to death. He is not going to tell you anything significant.

[Lofton] Well, you might be from the government.

[Scott] I don’t know what the source of the fear is, but this is a fearful country.

[Rushdoony] Well, they may figure you have the IRS look, Otto.

[Scott] Oh, yes. I have to get out my heavy glasses.

[Lofton] Well, you know what we are talking about here is what George Wallace said a long time ago, that the wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, that you put them both in the sack and shake them up, we used to say. And it didn't matter which one tumbled out.

[Scott] What is the worst part of it is that elections don't seem to change anything.

[Rushdoony] No.

[Scott] Well, that is why fewer and fewer people are voting in national elections.

[Rushdoony] Well, I said the same thing long before Wallace and I was not original with me. He said... that observation has been around for a generation.

[Lofton] Probably less than a dime’s worth of difference now.

[Rushdoony] Well, to get back to Lou Rockwell again briefly, he points out that the Libertarian party was started with a lot of the Ayn Randian baggage which meant she exalted the virtue of selfishness, hated God and thought Christianity ought to be stamped out. And he goes on to say, and I quote, “The Libertarian party founded in 1971 was infected from the beginning with Rand’s pet hatreds, albeit with some odd lacunae. New Ageism was welcomed, for example, and the party’s Randian hippie coalition even embraced a witch. Only one group was made to feel unwelcome, Christians, “ unquote.

Well, the sad fact is that has applied, as well, to the Republican and the Democratic parties. They have made it clear they do not want Christians. Now the answer to that may be a bit difficult. We have had Christian parties in recent years. In fact, there is one in formation in Canada right now. Whether it will get off the ground or not I don’t know.

For a time in Europe there were some parties that were self consciously Christian and by name, especially Catholic parties were very powerful. But, again, the weakness of those parties was that they had a general affirmation of church loyalty, but you could not be sure at all times what they stood for, beaus the men who came under the party label had a variety of opinions. And while they were often better than some of the other parties, there was nothing in the way of a clear cut statement. And I think for a third party to succeed it is going to take time, but it is also going to take having a perspective that embraces more than a single issue, that is an across the boards Christian position so that it will be Christian not by label, but in terms of an approach to the problems of our time.

[Scott] I think that is important. I noticed that the Christian parties of Europe are not particularly Christian.

[Rushdoony] No.

[Scott] And the ... to call a party Christian is almost to ask for an argument.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] But if you took principled positions that are consummate with Christianity, then, I think, you would get the orthodox all across the board.

[Rushdoony] One of the things that Ayn Rand stressed was, as the Lou Rockwell brings out that there was a total hostility between faith and freedom. And she is not the only one who says this. Any time you have a columnist writing about the church and state issue, they assume that Christianity is totalitarian.

[Scott] They make... they invented that.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And what we need to do is to educate people to this. Norm Geisler, of course, supposedly a Christian and I say supposedly because of the outrageous statement which he loves to repeat from coast to coast that what we want is not a Christian America, we want a free America.

[Scott] Yeah.

[Lofton] Yeah, we don’t... what he said, we don’t want a biblical America, we want a moral America.

[Scott] Well, that is illiterate, because our ... all our freedoms come from a Christian foundation. This is a Christian civilization. Christianity is what taught people the meaning of the individual soul. Everything we have comes from that. The Pagan Totalitarian societies from which Christianity broke out the human race have no idea of freedom. There was no freedom in Rome. The was no freedom in Greece. There was no freedom in any of the non Christian countries or civilizations.

[Lofton] I ... I think what we have to try to get away from is the definition of totalitarian as necessary bad. I mean, I think the average person when we say Totalitarianism they think of Communism, but Christianity is totalitarian in the sense of it ... it is a sovereign God who is the God of everything. But then so is the Republican party platform totalitarian if you ever read one of the platforms, but... or the Democratic platform. They are totalitarian. I mean, they have been on the cheek Totalitarianism, but...

[multiple voices]

[Lofton] ... write the platform they try to spell out every single thing.

[Scott] You are using totalitarian...

[Lofton] Yes.

[Scott] ... as a term of organization.

[Lofton] Yes. Christopher Dawson once said that ...

[Scott] That is... that is... that is kind of stretching it a bit.

[Lofton] Yeah. Dawson, Christopher Dawson once said, you know, Christianity was failing in modern times because of the... oh, he was writing about why Nazism had taken over so easily in Germany and he said because Christianity had been insufficiently totalitarian.

[Scott] Well, insufficient... it... it lost its authority. It lost its moral authority.

[Lofton] Totally...

[Scott] Therefore all its authority.

[Lofton] Yes.

[Scott] Now authority is not a bad thing. So this is... we are... but what we are getting in here ... if we were to ... if somebody, not we, but I ... I have always taken the position as far... when such subjects arise, that if people begin to talk about what can be done, then a movement has been born.

[Lofton] It is already underway. That is right. And that is why you were right...

[Rushdoony] Good point.

[Lofton] I think you said that if there is a third party it is not going to be because a bunch of conservative or any other kind of fundraisers got together in a building in Washington, DC and made a mailing and ... and crated this thing. It is going to come from the grass roots of this country and the... the people... those people are going to tell us what the issues are going to be.

[Scott] The main thing is to get the people to start thinking about what to do, because otherwise they are simply sliding into oblivion.

[Lofton] Yes.

[Rushdoony] One of the things that, oh, it has been perhaps 16 years ago, Bill Richardson told me when we were in Sacramento and I was speaking to members of the Senate. It was interesting because they have a high order of intelligence, but they have a totally present oriented perspective. And I commented on my amazement at the type of questioning and yet the limited perspective. He didn’t use the word existentialist, but that is, in effect, what he said they represented, the moment.

[Lofton] Yeah.

[Rushdoony] And he said that they all know that except in rare instances, voters do not have a memory that extends over 90 days, that whatever he may have done is forgotten in 90 days so that what they have to think of is the here and now, neither the voter’s memory for good or for ill extends to any length of time. What have you done for me lately is the premise.

So they are completely divorced from long range thinking.

Otto has pointed out that the business world is oriented that way because of the report to the shareholders.

[Scott] Every three months.

[Rushdoony] Every three months. So we have a culture now that has become existentialist. And as a result the voters themselves as the problem with their existentialist mentality are not ready to look at the long haul. It is going to take time and work to be shaken out of that existentialist mentality.

[Scott] Well...

[Rushdoony] They are... it is going to be, perhaps, the judgment of God plus conversion, plus a reshaping of their minds.

[Lofton] I have figured out that the attention span of your average voter is about the length of an MTV video. I think an example of what you talk about...

[Scott] How long is that?

[Lofton] About as long as it took me to say that. It is not very long. It is about two and a half minutes.

[Scott] Well, I...

[Lofton] A current example of what is being talked about here is the ... the blood bath in China. It now seems like ancient history.

[Scott] Yes

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Lofton] When they murdered all those people, students, others.

[Scott] Right.

[Lofton] This is a horrible thing.

[Scott] But it was covered over by the next day’s news.

[Lofton] Now all the American... I mean American businessmen, government officials are going back in.

[Scott] Well, the government is encouraging them to do that.

[Lofton] Sure.

[Scott] But I had a lesson on the... on the... on the public. And I have been dealing with the public a long time in various ways. When I wrote that silent majority speech for Rex {?} at Ashland he was... he gave that speech at the Chicago Men’s Club and he went.... he was a fraternity brother of the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. So I called the publisher’s office and talked to the guy’s secretary or his assistant and said, “My book... my man is a fraternity brother of your guy and I think it would be good idea if you assigned somebody to cover the speech.”

So he did. And you remember the speech. It was if all this disorder, anarchy and what not and everyone said, “Well, somebody is going to come along and stop all this one of these days.”

Well, the guys who come along are the one’s who do it. And in those countries where they were silent involuntarily they are now silent voluntarily they are not silent involuntarily, so you better speak up. Don’t be a member of the silent majority, words to that effect.

Well, when it went on to broad tape and within a week there were silent majority committees and we got mailbags with American flags in them. Rex got so scared he wouldn’t speak again in public for a year. But it was a real lesson to me, because if you hit the right button and nobody, of course, knows where the button is. Strange things happen.

[Rushdoony] Well, to go back to what I said earlier, I learned something very interesting in the early 30s when I was finishing high school and starting college work. It was from a woman who had made her money in the post World War I era playing the piano in a movie theater.

[Scott] Oh, sure.

[Rushdoony] You remember ...

[Scott] Oh, sure, I remember. We used to cheer when we saw her walk down the aisle.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ... toward the piano.

[Rushdoony] There would be mood music to go with the...

[Scott] Light {?} overture.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And she said the movies did something very interesting to the American character. When they first started, of course, there was a total absorption and fascination with everything. But the essence of the movie was fast action and the speeded up tempo. You know, the old silent pictures so that people looked jerky because they are going around so rapidly, you know, on the speeded up film. And she said, “Very quickly the people got used to the whole idea of action,” especially since there was no speech, an occasional written thing in the film to indicate conversation. And when they got acquainted with that it suddenly changed the character of the film, because now things had to move. And where as, say in some of the earliest films if the hero hugged the heroine and held her in a long and passionate kiss as was very common in those days, because that was considered very daring and romantic on the screen. After a while, by the mid 20s it no longer worked, because if it were more than so many seconds, they found, people would start laughing, whistling, stamping their feet, making a disturbance. Get on with it. That was the whole thing.

So we now have a copula of generations that have been bred up... bred on this speeded up action. Get with it.

[Scott] Short lived attention span.

[Rushdoony] Short attention span, exactly. So we have people today that have a short attention span and are very difficult for anyone who is trying to accomplish something to change this country to work with.

[Scott] But the quick, again. It carries me back to not too long ago. I can’t get rid of it. This fellow said to me in a scornful way, who reads? And I said, “People who give orders to people like you.”

[Rushdoony] Good.

[Scott] Now the things... the issues we are talking about would only affect the beset minds in the country.

[Lofton] Well, it is going to be interesting to see. I mean, if it is true that 20, 30, 40 million people in this country are believing Christians who don’t go to church they probably don’t go to political parties either. It is going to be very interesting to see how that manifests itself in the political realm, because you are going to have a lot of people that don’t have habits to break. They don’t have any habit of being, you know, life long we vote the straight ticket for the last 19 generations.

[Scott] Well....

[Lofton] They are not floating around. They are looking for something.

[Rushdoony] Most voters are church goers.

[Lofton] They are ticket splitters, too.

[Rushdoony] And... and they have not put the connect... made a connection between their faith and their political affiliation and voting.

[Lofton] Well, I think for a lot of people in both parties to suggest that they leave a party is like suggesting they leave their church. It is particularly difficult for those for whom their politics has become their religion.

[Scott] Well... well, you have ethnic groups who are wedded to the Democratic party.

[Lofton] That is right.

[Scott] And there is a self interest involved because they feel that the party does something for them. It has... it sends Rostenkowski to Congress. It sends Teddy Kennedy to Congress.

[Lofton] Yes.

[Scott] But that is...

[Lofton] Instead of jail where he belongs.

[Scott] Yes.

[Vaughn] I have noticed a big theory... Christians that... when we are talking about a third party they think often times that if there is a third party and it does capture a significant percentage of the vote that will ensure a democratic victory in the next election. How... how do you respond to that?

[Scott] Well, that is your short attention span again.

[Vaughn] Right. I... we know the reason. How do you... I guess... how do you convince them that it would be good idea anyway.

[Rushdoony] Well, interesting thing in this last election was that the Democrats welcomed the Republican victory of Bush because they control Congress and it was easier to buffalo a Republican president than work with a strong Democratic president.

[Scott] That is true. And also every group that manages to organize itself into impressive numbers in this country, immediately has political clout. You don’t have to win an election to win.

[Lofton] Well, I think Tim puts his finger on a very important question. A lot of Christians seem not to want to do anything in the present... in the present unless you can assure them what happens in the future. And to me a person who consistently thinks like that, that is...

[Scott] It is bound to lose.

[Lofton] ...strong evidence that they are not very Christian, because we don't... I mean, there is a sense in which Christians don’t do the future. That is... that is... the job is to... the idea is to do what is right now ad the future...

[Scott] Is in the hands of God.

[Lofton] Exactly. And...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Lofton] I know that a lot of Christians sort of become de facto relativists in their thinking. For example, I over the years and earlier on in this first administration was a very strong critic of Reagan. And I saw the reaction to my criticism was one of, well, Reagan is better than Mondale, isn’t he? You know, well, he is better than Hitler, isn’t he? Well, he is better than the devil, isn’t he? And I kept saying, “You know, this is an interesting question.”

The answer is: I don’t know to all three of those. Prove it, is what I say. The interesting thing is that started out saying if what we were to measure Reagan by as Christians was... would be Christianity and then his own promises or the party platform, but all that was quickly just thrown away and so you couldn’t be... you couldn’t criticize Reagan because you might bring in a Mondale...

[Scott] Well....

[Lofton] And you might. I don't know, but you might not.

[Scott] That is another point. The whole of the United States has gotten into his genteel goodness party where you are not supposed to criticize anybody or anything.

[Lofton] Yes.

[Scott] That is... that is breaking up the party. Negative campaigning.

[Lofton] Oh, I love that, the attack, the negative attack...

[Scott] The negative campaigning consisting of describing the man’s record.

[Lofton] Well, but... I... I wrote a whole piece one time. It was a rather tedious piece about how people were just too negative about negativism. That was the whole problem m that they should be more positive.

[Scott] Well, we should have a... you know, let’s get a few more Dobermans in this act.

[Lofton] That was from Mrs. Gloucester. She will remember that piece. But the attack on negative campaigning is it is ... is itself negative.

[Scott] Of course it is.

[Lofton] People are campaigning against negative campaigning.

[Scott] I mean, have we gotten to the point where we can’t even speak straight English because we don’t want to be negative.

[Lofton] And most people vote against somebody. That is a fact. Not often enough do they vote against them, because too many are elected. But I think something is happening here. A number of people who have been traditional Republicans and Democrats.

It starts out that what we are... it starts out the way we are doing it right now. Of course, we are doing it on tape, but ....

[Scott] It starts out with...

[Lofton] People talking.

[Scott] It starts out with word of mouth.

[Lofton] Ok.

[Scott] It starts out with, listen, this is a big country. We have got more highly skilled people than any country has ever created in the history of the world, but they are all too specialized. They don't want to think beyond their specialty. They have no opinion beyond their specialty.

[Lofton] Yes.

[Scott] I used to be squelched ever so often by somebody who would say to me, “Did you study that?” Meaning did I have...

[Lofton] Yes.

[Scott] ... did I go to school? When did I sit in a classroom and did somebody testify to the fact that I had studied it?

[Lofton] By the way, could I briefly solicit some mail on is issue here about ... as far as our listeners are concerned and if the mail is too voluminous you can ship it to me and I will sort and mark it.

[Rushdoony] Why not give them your address right now and ask that it be shipped to you?

[Lofton] Ok. All right. Why not? I was just about to do that. Sure I was. To let us know what you think about this third party idea and if so what kind of party and what ought to be the issues that it ought to stress. You can send this mail to my house, to John Lofton, 313, 313 Montgomery Street in Laurel, Maryland, L A U R E L, Maryland, 20707.

[Rushdoony] The reason why I think that it should be sent to you because you are in a position to share it with people who will be interested in this and are on the Washington scene politically.

[Lofton] Yes, I am on... I am uncomfortably close to those people. it is true.

It tickled me, you know. There was third party talk a few years ago when we tried to get Lester Maddox to run with ... I even forget.

[Scott] That was a ridiculous...

[Lofton] I know.

[Scott] I mean it was... a ridiculous effort. And when Lester Maddox wound up as... as the winner, it made it even more ridiculous.

[Lofton] It was not the kid of thing I have in mind now, but I remember the Republican party officials were so historically ignorant that they just repeatedly were sent out across the country to attack the idea of a new party. And nobody ever did stand up and ask them if they knew that their own party started...

[Scott] ...as a third party.

[Lofton] That is right.

[Scott] And a radical party, too.

[Lofton] Oh, yes, absolutely.

[Scott] Very radical.

[Lofton] I guess....

[Rushdoony] With some very seedy characters.

[Scott] Indeed.

[Rushdoony] At the founding thereof.

[Scott] Indeed.

[Lofton] Yeah. I remember Mary Lou Smith, a Republican actual committee woman from Iowa. She spoke... she spoke as if Moses had brought down the 10 Commandments and then the Republican party, that it was just sort of like food. It was. It was always there. Not hardly. And it may not be there much longer. A lot of people think it really in no real sense now is there.

[Scott] Well, when you see the rapidity with which these enormous crowds that appeared in middle Europe once the ... once the police were told not to kill them...

[Lofton] Yes.

[Scott] You get some idea of the pent up frustrations of people. We have tremendous frustrations in this country and if you don’t believe it, just drive along the freeway and look at the other guy.

[Lofton] You know, I would like to say to anyone who thinks that we are totally all wet and that the Republican party or the Democratic party is really terrific, to spell out for me what do you think are the significant differences between the parties anymore. I... I... I am there at ground zero. I certainly don’t see them, but I am interested if anybody thinks there are...

[Rushdoony] Oh, I think there are differences.

[Lofton] Yes. All right.

[Rushdoony] I won’t mention names, but I think the one party is made up of crooks and the other of stupid people.

[Lofton] Well, there you go.

[Rushdoony] Stupid and cowardly people.

[Scott] I would say... I would say the Democratic party has got more courage than the Republican party. So far as I can see, the Republican party is all neutered.

[Lofton] Well, that is what I...

[Scott] They are... it is the capon party. And the other party, of course, is... is the cow... the cowbird party that lays its eggs in other people’s nests.

[Lofton] That is right. Well...

[Rushdoony] Well...

[Lofton] New Gingrich looked very much like a capon when they brought him out to that press conference to read his lines, really pathetic.

[Scott] The Republican party hasn’t got the nerve to govern and the other party hasn’t got the brains.

[Lofton] Take that.

[Rushdoony] Well, John, our time is just about up. Do you want to make a last statement before we conclude?

[Lofton] Well, I... I am not sure that I want a party that calls itself a Christian party.

[Rushdoony] I don’t think any party...

[Lofton] ...necessarily...

[Rushdoony] ...should arrogate that title, but I think they should try to be godly.

[Lofton] Yes.

[Rushdoony] And Christian without exploiting the name.

[Scott] That is the point.

[Vaughn] Yes.

[Lofton] I think it can be said that we have given this two party thing a ... an honest chance to work.

[Scott] Since 1860.

[Lofton] Yeah. I think we have not rushed into this third party idea. I really think something is happening, though. I tell you. At the risk of belaboring the point, when Pat Buchanan talks about a third party and he was pretty close to advocacy there. That is very significant.

[Rushdoony] You want to give your address once again...

[Lofton] Yes. Sure.

[Rushdoony] ...before we end.

[Lofton] Send us those cards and letters. I am turning this into a talk show or a write show anyway. Send it to me, John Lofton at 313 Montgomery Street in Laurel, Maryland, L A U R E L, Maryland, 20707.

[Rushdoony] Well, thank you all for listening and thank you, John. And God bless you all.

[Voice] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.