It's hard not being a member of a political party. Hard and inefficient. When people talk politics they first establish their stances. This is very easy for a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green or Communist. When you know what party they support you immediately have a general idea of their political beliefs. You have an established starting point.

Now it's true that next to nobody embraces all of the party line but when you have that known starting point it is very easy to clarify your positions. "I'm a Republican but I support freedom of choice" or "I'm a Democrat but I think socialized medical care is the wrong way to go" or even "I'm a Libertarian but I have a sneaking suspicion that the complete elimination of government would be a bad move".

For those of us who can't identify enough with a party to claim membership it is very difficult to even get to a conversational starting point. Before our debate can begin we need to essentially outline our complete political viewpoint. How do you feel about abortion? How do you feel about welfare? How do you feel about progressive taxation? How do you feel about government subsidies, social security, proactive national defense, deficit spending, etceteras, etceteras, etceteras. It can take fifteen minutes of this before you're even at a point where you can start discussing issues.

I want my fifteen minutes back. I tried to get around this hurdle by telling people I was a lower case "l" libertarian. Cute, eh? And absolutely worthless. Who the hell knows what that really is? I can't identify myself with the "I'm a Republican except I disagree on..." or "I'm a Democrat except I don't think that..." because there is so little of each party that I can fully identify with. My exception list takes as long to explain as the "l"ibertarian thing does. Not only that but there are some things from each party that I do agree with so if I start out by pigeonholing myself into one specific party people get this preconceived idea that I am against things from other parties when that isn't necessarily the case.

I need a definition.

I need a party.

Being the perceptive guy I am I have noticed that the Democrats are on a strong run to the left while the Republicans seem to be racing just as fast to the right. More and more people are here with me somewhere in the middle. With the major parties moving so fast to the outside isn't there room in the middle for a new contender?

Ilyka tried to get a handle on the Centrist viewpoint and discovered that there isn't one. Or rather, there are so many that any central theme is drowned out in the cacophony of opinions. I think that this can be rectified.

The key is simplicity itself. Literally. One of the big problems with the major parties is that they define their position on every issue no matter how inconsequential it is and, more importantly, no matter how much that issue should not be a political one. I propose that the chaff be discarded. Divisive issues can only divide. Get rid of the ones that are not rightly political decisions and the vast majority of the Centrist cacophony fades away.

Here are the basic precepts of my party:

1: Government exists to protect the rights of its citizens.

2: Legislatures should be more concerned about removing bad laws than creating new ones.

3: Morality must not be a political topic and should not be regulated.

4: Just about any service provided by the government can be done better and more efficiently by private industry. The Intelligence community and the Armed Forces being the sole obvious exceptions here and even they could use some privatization.

5: The law (especially the Constitution) is not to be fucked with for partisan agendas. See #3 above.

6: Pork projects and riders on bills are the most insidious evil ever created by the bipartisan government.

And that's about it. Short, sweet and to the point. If you're a member of my party you won't have to worry about that 15 minutes of explanation to define your positions. Go ahead and ask a political question. It's answered up there in those six short statements.

That's not to say that this list can't be improved. In fact, that's your job starting now. How can the basic precepts be made better, more concise and less divisive? Let me know.

Also, what do we call this new party? I think Centrists is already taken and besides there are too many people who already use that description for themselves. I don't want to deal with the whole "I'm a lower case 'c' Centrist" deal.