WHO WE SHOULD BE
I read Feddie’s thoughtful post below and I believe he makes some good points. He is absolutely correct that the Republican Party lost its way after the 1994 elections. The party that promised limited government and restrained spending in The Contract with America ultimately morphed into the pork barrel party that lost the majority in 2006. I also agree with Feddie that what is needed for the Republican Party to resume the majority is a committed return to first principles. Feddie lists these principles as the following: (1) promoting family values and protecting innocent life; (2) personal and national defense; and (3) fiscal responsibility.
Although I agree that the above principles are important they represent only a partial list. The Republican Party must also be the party of limited government and taxation as well as personal freedom. Furthermore, fiscal responsibility, while important, is not really an end in itself. You could have a fiscally responsible large invasive government that meets its budget through high taxation. Conservatives need to promote fiscal responsibility within the context of a more limited government.
As conservatives we should be trying to preserve the constitutional order established by the Founding Fathers, a constitutional order that envisioned a more restrained and limited role for the federal government than what is represented by today’s bloated regulatory state. We need to commit ourselves to defending Federalism by opposing encroachments by the national government in areas traditionally reserved to the states. If we as conservatives offer our fellow countrymen nothing more than a slightly scaled back version of the liberal super state then we have failed in our commitment to the Constitution.
Conservatives must also be champions of personal freedom in opposition to the nanny state the left would saddle us with. This does not mean we should become Libertarians. Some things like prostitution and drugs entail social costs that are simply too high for the nation to assume. Nevertheless, we should oppose overly intrusive policies that micromanage human behavior. If people want to eat fatty foods, smoke, drink, gamble, ride motorcycles without helmets or drive cars without wearing a seatbelt they should have the freedom to do so. These may not represent advisable personal choices, but they represent choices available to free people. As G. K. Chesterton said, “The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.”
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Not to be a wet blanket, but this sounds like more of the status quo. The GOP’s problem is not which principles to hold, but in how to apply those principles when they come into conflict. Put another way, the core problem is not of principle but how much weight we give each principle in ascertaining which “social costs … are simply too high for the nation to assume.”
The issue becomes easier when we regard our opponents in the most charitable light.
Take for example gambling. It is not that the opponent of gambling doesn’t believe in freedom, its that he doesn’t believe the weight of the freedom to gamble outweighs its social harms. Conversely, its not that the proponent of gambling doesn’t care about gambling’s social harms, its that he doesn’t see the harms caused as outweighing our freedom to spend money in this way. Both sides are applying the same basic principles, but because they differ in the weight they give they come out with different results.
We could further draw this out by looking at the case of waterboarding. On one side there is the Bush administration. It is not that they don’t care about its psychological impact on prisoners, but they believe there is a net social benefit from its safe, legal, and rare application than from not using it. Conversely, its not that opponents of the practice don’t care about keeping America safe, its that they don’t see the benefits reaped as justifying the degradation of the prisoners’ human dignity.
So then, I submit the problem is not one of re-establishing first principles, but in re-establishing how we go about applying those first principles. I offer this not as a rebuke to the formulation of the principles, because that is important, too. However, having not met a politician that doesn’t claim to believe in human dignity, freedom, a strong national defense, mom and apple pie, I find the distinctions between them to be the way in which they balance them. Thus, in reshaping a party I see that as the critical factor.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
The problem is that The Republican Party has allowed weaker Repubicans to govern and represent condusive to their areas.
The result has been Big Government Republicans, liberal Repubicans et al, have all been allowed to run and operate under the Party banner while doing so contrary to the first principles.
Accountability, and reinvestment to our basic principles should be administered. Just another reason I chose Fred Thompson.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Jason,
Would the following be running contrary to first principles:
Congressman X (R) is in a swing district and has only won by narrow margins, indeed, his district is trending Democratic with each election. His Democratic opponent has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List. Polling shows Congressman X losing by 3%. Because his constituency are rabid baseball fans and his opponent is saying he is out of touch, Congressman X earmarks an additional $50,000 for a baseball field. Although he believes in limited government (he voted against the prescription drug benefit), he also believes in the right to life and knows that his earmark will will pick up an additional 5% of the vote and secure a victory in November.
I would say that he hasn’t. Instead, he has weighed the various principles and decided that it was more important to keep a pro-life vote than to eliminate an earmark. To the conservative who prioritizes small government he has betrayed the trust of the people, and done more social harm in his vote for pork than he has done by keeping a pro-abort out of office! To the conservative who prioritizes the right to life, he has prudently decided to protect innocent life, which is worth the slight harm of a pork barrel project!
It is these sort of choices that are what define the Republican party. Although it is good to determine what principles need to be weighed, the reality is that few districts are 51% hardcore conservative. Consequently, the real issue is determining which principles can be sacrificed and which ones cannot. It is this process of weighing the social harm caused by violating one principle in favor of another that is the real battle ground. To unify the GOP Republicans must agreed upon a hierarchy of principles: that is the overarching issue in defining the party.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
The problem with the GOP is it acted like Democrats when it came to spending and pork.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:53 am
Steven,
I understand the importance of practical politics — it is the one thing that is constant. However, it’s a slippery slope, my friend. Why stop at baseball fields? Why not subsidize local industry? Why not set aside 1 million for waterless urinals and an additional 500,000 for a nature walk and a small park for children.
After that is well received, why not go further with earmarks. I mean, after all, in order to beat a Democrat you have to better at his own game, right?
You see, when we start acting like Democrats and going against what brought us to power to begin with that’s when you get an all out revolt and exodus among members. Much like the one we are experiencing now.
Your argument is principled and truthful, but flawed. It was a very well written summary of the very problem we are facing.
-Jason
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 am
Jason,
Perhaps I did not make the meaning of my comment clear. The drum I’ve tried to beat here is that conservatives don’t need to reiterate or “reinvest” in their basic principles, but come to agreement on the way in which they prioritize those principles. The old coalition of libertarians and traditionalists did this by emphasizing the defeat of atheistic communism as having priority over all else; that was the weld that fused the two groups together. That weld is gone, and now each group fights for its own share. Thus you have the splits over stem cell research, Terri Schiavo, gambling, etc.
Perhaps I can elucidate this by riffing off your comment that “when we start acting like Democrats and going against what brought us to power to begin with that’s when you get an all out revolt and exodus among members.”
In the 1980’s, what brought Republicans to power was the specter of communism, 70% taxation, and the collapse of moral values. In the 1990’s, it was prioritizing social issues to play off Clintonian overreaching on gays and guns from ‘93-’94, and welfare reform. In the 2000’s, Bush tried to make it terrorism, but the response to Iraq shows that he failed to successfully capitalize upon the public’s new found priority. So what pushes us?
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
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