7 votes

Let's accomplish something by finding common ground.

The best way for us to accomplish anything is to find common ground on specific issues and then pursue those issues (not just amongst ourselves here at the DP, but amongst the majority of people). What are some things that we can all agree on?

Here's one: We need to stop subsidizing agriculture as well as the oil industry.

What ideas do you have?

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Respectfully in a competitve way.

"If we change the focus from democrat vs republican to people vs corrupt government, maybe we can accomplish something."

I think the root problem is still rooted into the author of that sentence.

People cannot divorce themselves from being corrupt or not corrupt government.

I mean:

People versus corrupt government

That above is wrong headed, or suggests a wrongly headed person, and it may be me who is at fault, but that is the point exactly.

People versus People

That is more in line with the understanding of how good government is supposed to work, more in line with identifying the problem, and then more in line with identifying the way to solve the problem.

Which competitor (a sound bite) is more capable of communicating the facts?

People versus corrupt government

People versus People

People cooperating with People

If that is not a respectful way to compete (not "versus") with what appears to be wrong headed thinking, then the OP could, in some way, show why that is not a way to compete if the goal is Liberty.

If the goal is to inspire people to FIGHT against corrupt government, if that is the idea, then, in my competitive opinion, offered respectfully, that is wrong headed.

Instead of people being inspired to FIGHT corrupt government, it seems to me, that people aught to be inspired to cooperate with other people and to avoid the following:

Being victim to corrupt government (or avoid being victim to Legal Crime)

Becoming criminals themselves as they seek to gain control of crime made legal themselves, for any reason, even if the reason is to "save the children" or "spread democracy" or "profit" or "defeat corrupt government" or any other supposed reason.


This is exactly why we can't get anything accomplished.

The comments here, while very good overall to our side, disenfranchise 'the other side' of each particular issue. As the OP tried to state, it is this distraction that divides the whole and ensures that nothing gets done. Once we recognize that and act accordingly as the OP is suggesting, we may begin to make great strides. As I've said here many times before, I think that if you boil each issue down to its most basic root problem and go after that in an unbiased, non-partisan, even non-political way, there are many more than a majority who would go for it.

Take for example, voting. Both sides want their candidate to win so stay away from that. But both sides (the masses, that is) want fairer elections with more accountability to the people. So how do we do that? Well, we have to ask if there's already a system in place to correct that which is simply not working. In this case, it's the Federal Election Commission. The FEC is supposed to regulate all elections related to federal issues to ensure they're fair. I think it would be rather easy to change that system and fix their apathy. Since they cannot dictate how states hold elections, we can't touch that but they do regulate how states report the results. **Light-Bulb** How about we push a national movement for a regulatory or legislative change which requires that report to be traceable from each voter up the chain to the national database? I understand that we don't want to be able to trace the votes back to the people, so we must promote a one-way method of tracing forward only. This is a very common practice in computers so it's easy to do. By using computers, each entity (from the individual up the chain to the states) could report a list of codes representing each vote. This list could then be made public since it holds no personally identifying info... and that leads to anyone can run their info to verify that their vote was tallied accurately. It would also show exactly where any discrepancies were introduced into the system. This is my suggestion to repairing elections.

I have others which follow the same track but I'm not typing each out again because for some reason, none of these 'let's get behind this' comments or posts gain any traction here. It's rather frustrating.

Well said. I'm glad someone

Well said. I'm glad someone understands what I was aiming at.


I don't just understand it. I've been working my completed plan for it for two years. Stay tuned.

A balanced budget?

One thing I am able to get a consensus on while talking to either libs or neocons is the need for a balanced budget. I think this is important because it will require a conversation as to what the role of government ought to be.



Even my more liberal buddy has said, "the goal is freedom, right?"

How about transparency in government? I think liberals would be vey receptive to the idea that privacy belongs to the individual and transparency belongs in the public sector.


One would think.

But it's not necessarily true. Libs back obama and think it's for their protection. I bang my head against the wall trying to explain why warrants are necessary, that it's for their own protection against corruption and falsely placed evidence. They like fb and think their phones will help if they are stranded, and the rich paying higher taxes will pay for the government technology. Then the wars which are good because they don't want enemies taking over their town.

Not to mention obama is a really good person because he always smiles, makes jokes and is handsome.


I have been going straight to the jugular.

By writing my representatives, senators, informing them that I demand the Constitution be defended and followed, no matter what legislation happens upon their desks, republican or democrat initiative. I end by informing them that to do otherwise is treasonous, and during conversations and meeting we discuss them and let it be known.

This goes from state-wide preparedness all the way down to license plates and local city ordinances.

Whatever gramar you come up with pertaining to the above can be copied/pasted at the end of specific letters that you write.


Cyril's picture

A simple idea, not so random

Here's a simple idea I had recently.

Granted, though : it's a bit more than the underlying familiar idea, in fact (commitment to sound money).

It's actually a call for (bullish) action :


For Liberty.




I think we have bigger fish to fry

How about expose vote fraud?
Your example will immediately start division - farmers aren't going along with it, nor anyone profiting from the oil. Get to the root of the problem.
Oh, here's one - how about End The Fed!

Love or fear? Choose again with every breath.

Farmers are not a majority of

Farmers are not a majority of the population. It's something most people could get behind..

Universal consensus is unnecessary

I think there is only really 1 thing that everyone here agrees on.
Dr Ron Paul is the most honest politician this country has seen in over 100 years, and everything he was running on is either "right" or it is so much better than what everyone else was selling, it was worth getting behind.

The problem with liberals (and I mean that in the classic sense like adam smith and john locke, not the big government loving progressiveness sense) is that with freedom of thought comes independent ideas.

While there is significant overlap within the liberty movement from one person to the next, everyone will have different emphasis and priorities.

While on any one issue you can easily get most if not all of the people here to agree, every issue you add to the mix, as being "absolutely required" will whittle your numbers down until you cant reach a consensus on anything.

Dr Paul, while trying to audit the Fed joined forces with Barney Frank of all people. The two men have almost nothing in common. But... that wasn't a problem for Dr Paul. Because they did agree on that one issue ... it was time to crack open the Fed and get a peek inside.

In the end, its not about finding a core set of specific things that a person "must" believe in order to be a true "libertarian". We should be happy to work with anyone who shares ANY common belief rather than do witch hunts looking for places that we disagree with one another.

And we should foster an attitude of open, non-coercive discussion so that new people who come here because they dislike one thing can become acquainted with other things that they don't realize go hand in hand with the one issue they already agree on.

The principles that underpin liberty are attractive to almost all Americans. Its the details that divide us. I believe that with enough open discussion, we all get closer and closer to actually preferring liberty to tyranny. But we cant expect people to have already abandoned all other political views BEFORE they can feel at home here and learn what it means to be free.

I think you are

I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of my post. I am not asking for universal consensus on what it means to be a libertarian. What I am looking for is common ground between us and everyday people. Like when they were trying to pass SOPA- there was a general consensus and backlash from the people and it did not pass.

What other issues could be like this?

I agree with you that "we should be happy to work with anyone who shares ANY common belief.." That's exactly what I'm looking for.

I think most people...

Americans generally agree that everyone has a right to believe whatever he or she wishes to on a religious or philosophical level.


End the FED

End the IRS

Bring the Troops Home

If you do not stop the flow of POWER from those who produce it flowing to those who steal it and then those legal thieves spend that stolen power (subsidy) on stealing more, if you don't do that, then "we" are the victims and we don't get to do anything other than be victims.


Cyril's picture

+1. Though you forgot...

4. End The Fed

5. End The Fed

6. End The Fed

7. End The Fed

8. End The Fed

9. End The Fed

10. End The Fed



That thing is the Lernaean Hydra. Or...


Take your pick on the phrasing.




In fewest words

Too many words can lose a connection as if the information caused static in the brain of the reader?

3 3 Letter words isn't a small enough sound bite?


Something Concrete

Money at this point is based on nothing but shared believe that it represents ownership. Ending the Fed wont make it actually mean something substantial.

When pirates strike, business just pays them off to avoid money losing hassles, until piracy gets out of hand.

The US is finding more and more creative excuses to claim others owe the US money, some is total piracy like violating US laws claiming laundering money for Cuba, and some like fines for the same with Iran some other countries have a shared belief with the US on the matter. Some day real soon if the US keeps escalating the excuses for others to owe Uncle Sam money, since there are no actual stacks of $20s lying around, the same funds will be allegedly in a Dutch Bank and in the hands of the US Treasury at the same and the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro would become an unknown.

Ending embargo’s and arbitrator US fines is far more urgent then ending the Fed

In Philly PA RichardKanePA

I'm sure everyone here at the

I'm sure everyone here at the DP agrees with these 3 things, but most people do not. I'm really looking for things that people can all agree on. If we change the focus from democrat vs republican to people vs corrupt government, maybe we can accomplish something.

In few words II


If you do not understand one thing, how can you expect to understand two things?