(Republican) Change I Could Believe In...
I've been pondering an article for a while. Basically the current political climate makes it pretty necessary for the Republican party to do a bit of revising on it's image. If Obama overspends to insanely and America is still balls-deep in a recession come 4 years, I'm pretty sure a brain-dead chimp with a cross around it's neck leading the GOP could win the election, but if Obama is at all competent then we may be looking at a definite liberal shift in America's politics. Now if Liberal meant "rooted in Liberty" as it did once upon a time then I'd be all for it, but today Liberal is sononomous with socialism where a single government gets more and more control over larger and larger areas.
The problem is that conservatism isn't standing against that socialistic agenda anymore, in many ways they've adopted it and have betrayed their base who are turning to religion because they feel that there's no control of big government any more. This problem is compounded by the fact that people seem to be getting brainwashed to the point of rather than turning to organizations with enough power to act as a counterpoint to unassailable lawmaking they're integrating these organizations further into the government body. The lines between church, business and government are getting increasingly blurred and as they do so power shifts more and more into the hands of the few and voters get less and less control.
I consider myself fairly eclectic politically, but if you're at all familiar with my opinions on this blog you'll know that I prize one thing above all others; Freedom. Without freedom the things we have, or we do mean nothing because they're only things we can have or can do and the joy of possibility is taken from us. The Republican party once stood for freedom, less taxes meant more freedom to do what you want with your money, free-market capitalism meant freedom to sell and buy what you wanted with it. Before that Socialism stood for freedom, freedom from one individual dictating how you get to live.
To me, a real change would be endeavoring to clearly define the separations between business, church and government, and this is something that I believe all Republicans could get behind and such policies would have the potential to convert many Democrats and independents.
Policies that such a shift would include would be such as:
• Removal from religious influence around civil unions. According to Maritime Law, a person is a corporation, and is treated as such under the law, it would be unthinkable for the church to have influence over corporate unions, so why does it have influence over personal ones?
• Less corporate taxation but greater corporate oversight. There is a direct relation between corporate taxation and corporate growth. This means that when a government taxes a corporation more the corporations grow less, and employ fewer people which hurts the populace. However implementing laws that force corporations to spend money to comply with government standards generally doesn't stymie corporate growth, employs more people and protects the people from corporate opportunism.
• A shift towards a non-intrusive foreign policy. Currently the Liberal agenda is to increase the power of the UN to the point where the UN is able to dictate the allowed size of any nation's military. Russia will never agree to that, and neither should the US. Let the UN send peacekeepers to nations and try to fix the world. Republicans need to stand for a military that stands as a third point of power to the growing UN and Russian militaries that exists only to protect the homeland and aide military allies.
These are just some of my hopes for a newer better Republican party, but my thesis on this is still incomplete, I'd like to get some input from the community about this and see what you think, from both sides of the political fence, what changes should the GOP adopt to it's party policy and image?
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Comments
If only they would return to what they stood for for so many years. They have been hijacked by extremists and it will take allot of work to undo what has been done.
They may just do it if they want to survive or compete. They simply need to return for what they stood for for many, many years. That is change I could believe in.
The religious right have waxed and waned in the party. It's fairly cyclical. The party (like any other) get desperate for support when they lose the plot and start looking for large groupings to shore up their position. The Fundamentalists as part of the religious vote see a chance to gain influence and clamour on board.
Eventually the party gets identified with the higher profile, more extreme, elements and the Voters and less extreme Christians get nervous and abandon the Party. Then they go back to basics and win general support.
The trick is to get the Palin-like folk out of the limelight so they can rebuild without the ghosts of the last trashing reminding everyone of their involvement. Currently the party appears to be in denial but eventually they will get there.
I'm amazed how closely it followed the Aussie experience except the Reps seem to be recovering faster. The Liberals here suffered exactly the same loss of fundamental principals as the Republicans.
The Public is stirring at least.
Actually I have been trying to stir up the National Party over here via direct email. They are supposed to stand up for the country folk but they side with mining companies against farmers. Consequently they are disappearing as a party. Looks like they will die as a very financially viable party. Dumbies.
Sorry I'm not commenting nmore on this. I'm knee-deep in editing your other article for HS. It's a tough call which is better- this one or that....
1. Socialism, at its root, is about balancing the power between laborer and executive and not about taking from the rich in order to give to the poor. That's a common misconception. The Robin Hood aspect came out of a misguided use of Socialist tenets. There would be no need to rob Peter to pay Paul if Peter didn't so magnificently subjugate Paul by fighting the minimum wage at every turn and refusing to grant benefits to employees while simultaneously taking home a notable fortune -- millions of dollars made off the sweat and sore backs of his low-paid workers.
2. Freedom is nice, but without Equality, it is a complete myth. If you disagree, consider your typical inner-city minority youth from an abusive and broken home. Does that kid really have the same chance to prosper as a kid born rich and white? Of course not. Why not? A decided lack of Equality. Freedom is non-existent to him because he hasn't the means to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, the solution has been to just hand him something to placate him instead of giving him what he needs to actually become equal.
Consider the stimulus package. It might have been good if the money alotted to local governments didn't get roundly nixed. By empowering state governments, the stimulus might have prompted a community-wide boost (the money would get spent and might even create some jobs), but they instead decided to give the boost only to those people who make enough to pay taxes. So schools don't get built and roads stay beat up, but I get $15 more on each paycheck. Lovely. That inner-city kid benefits not one iota.
3. George HW Bush once said atheists shouldn't be considered American citizens because the United States is a "nation under God". We aren't, of course, but that doesn't matter to the Religious Right. The words "under God" weren't added to the Pledge until 1954 and the message "In God We Trust" wasn't added to our money until the following year. There is every evidence that keeping religion out of government was precisdely what the Founding Fathers wanted. We have since failed them.
I think it's a pipe dream to expect Republicans to put any effort at all into closing the gap between rich and poor. Indeed, championing the rich is how they get their power. That, and the deliberate ignorance of those who don't make enough to benefit from their agenda and yet vote for them.
Thing is, an idea is an easy thing. It's when the absolute examples of that idea are examined that we are able to see the real world effects. I can make a case for just about anything if I remain in the abstract.
As a side note, I think it's funny how everyone says human greed is the downfall of Socialism when it's quite obvious the free market fails us as a direct result of unchecked avarice.
I believe you and I are on the same page with regard to what every citizen should have access to in a model society, but I think the party responsible for things like removing the very regulations that helped control the housing market would have absolutely no interest in oversight of any kind. Indeed, it is antithetical to everything they believe.
If you really expect any oversight, you'll want to remain liberal and not look to the right for even a split-second. Regulation is decidedly a liberal affair. Here are the words of famed liberal economist Robert Kuttner from 2007 which I think back up my claim quite well (emphasis is mine):
A bias in the Bush administration and the financial sector against regulation!? Imagine that!
Republicans hate having their duplicitous schemes limited by regulation. In fact, that might be the single largest reason the party has evolved so revoltingly into NeoConservatism.