My friends and family seem to think I’m a right wing radical – I think that’s because they don’t know any.
If I were a Republican, I’d be expelled for my determined lack of purity and unvarnished distain. Today’s Republican Party is so much a part of the problem that its singular redeeming characteristic is not being the Democratic Party. The Democrats are not worse – as the Republicans cannot stop demonstrating – they’re just bad in a way that is more repugnant to me at the moment.
It’s exactly like choosing which fatal cancer you would prefer – while I would have preferences, my far deeper preference would be none of the above. It is precisely the same with political parties, they should not just be avoided; they should be eradicated.
While I see the Republican Party as momentarily less objectionable than the Democrats, I cannot be as forgiving of most Republican Party activists or almost any current Republican Presidential candidate. Anyone who believes Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Jim DeMint, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann is of Presidential caliber deserves a lifetime of President Barack Obama. If Republicans nominate one of these turds, four more years of the President are exactly what we will get.
Among the stupidities of today’s right are its immigration policies and exclusionary rhetoric. This George Will column celebrates a unique Hispanic Texan running for the Senate and, to my eye, bemoans the goofiness of the hard right.
In Ted Cruz, a Candidate As Good As It Gets
By George F. Will, Washington Post - June 15, 2011
Ted Cruz believes Hispanics are – by reasons of faith, industriousness and patriotism – natural Republicans. He says the military enlistment rate is higher among them than among any other demographic and he asks, “When was the last time you saw a Hispanic panhandler?” What makes otherwise intelligent people so uncharacteristically and self destructively rabid about Hispanics is debatable but there is no Republican future without Hispanic support.
The Founders – by definition – were limited-government constitutionalists. Today, such people are labeled “conservatives” and set in automatic opposition to “liberals and progressives”. We take it for granted that Republicans are conservatives and Democrats are liberals even though both sides have long since abandoned their bedrock principles.
Meanwhile, Americans consistently share the Founders values with great pride. We believe in American exceptionalism and would rather live in America than any other nation. We don’t put party or ideological labels on these things – unless we get to Washington.
· 77 percent of us said that “whatever its faults,” the United States “has the best system of government in the world.”
· 74 percent of Americans feel strongly they’d “rather be a citizen of my country than any other.” Comparable responses were 58 percent for Canadians, 37 percent for South Koreans and 18 percent for Germans.
· Our huge national pride – which often strikes others as arrogance – rests on what scholars call the American Creed: faith in freedom; the rule of law; equal opportunity; and democratic ideas and political institutions.
· What defines us as Americans is not ethnicity, race or religion but our bedrock beliefs. That makes America exceptional because it differs from most societies.
· Other nations and some Americans – including President Obama – think of “American Exceptionalism” by the dictionary’s secondary definition of exceptional: “unusually excellent or superior”. But properly construed, America is a “rare instance” or “unusual example” of a nation founded on individual liberty, limited constitutional government and proud welcoming of “the wretched refuse of [other nation’s] teeming shore.”
America’s Unhappy Birthday
By Robert J. Samuelson - Washington Post – July 4, 2011
Samuelson says, “Unfortunately, widely shared values do not settle most specific conflicts.”
Samuelson is right. If you’ve ever been forced to solve a knotty problem or negotiate an agreement, you will know that it is essential to decompose the issues into basics and think carefully about what is most important. Even a child knows that the rigid purity of today’s politicians and activists dooms problem solving. Too many of today’s citizens have taken sides and can no longer become outraged by any egregious action taken by their own. Activists are telling us what to think and who to blame while politicians abdicate their duty to study complex issues and act for the common good – instead they do whatever the polls tell them at the moment.
Left or right, we believe in America, the Founders, the Constitution, our exceptional three branches of government and the American creed of individual liberty. Consider Classical liberalism and the things that philosophy finds important:
· human rationality
· individual property rights
· natural rights
· the protection of civil liberties
· individual freedom
· equality under the law
· constitutional limitation of government
· free markets
· global free trade
· fiscal constraints on government
Classical liberalism is a philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets. It’s a Western concept enumerated in the 19th century but practiced in America, I believe, from our founding. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism]
I’m a classical liberal and so is every one of my family and friends. But then we get to issues.
Limited government is now an abandoned concept in both of our political parties which is exactly the reason that the nation is in such serious straights.
Americans pride themselves on their political institutions as well as on the personal responsibility that is inextricable from our individual freedom. We are aghast when government proposes to radically alter institutions and traditions that anchor the social order. It is impossible – arguably un-American – to even consider that America would stop treating the sick and injured, feeding the needy, educating the young or providing an income to the old and disabled. At the same time, Americans are awakening to the extent to which we have violated our founding principles, ignored the Constitution – the powers not enumerated there belong to the states – and grown the federal government. We are alarmed that the poor receive the same services as the needy and are made dependent in the process. Most alarming are deficits, debt and unaffordable liabilities.
Obamacare is radical, not because of its content or objectives. It is radical because it was passed by only one party. It is radical because one party subverted the standard process of Senate/House reconciliation. It is radical because it affects every American, encompasses over a sixth of the federal budget, is 3,000 pages long, contains the most egregious of vote buying, raises costs during a recession and most outrageous of all, nobody knows exactly what’s in it or what affects it might have.
Obamacare is hated because it’s radical and this is America.
Americans no longer select the best statesman in the land to lead us in the Presidency and the Congress. Instead, we play varying roles in the political parties’ war to elect the next king of the nation and his vassals. Once selected our vassal Congress ignores the Constitution and happily lets the king take the heat. Responsible Americans walk away from politics in disgust – that is disaster enough regarding voting but far worse when considering those willing to serve.
If I were going to form a Third Party, I would begin with classical liberalism and limited-government constitutionalism. I’d lay out a list of the most urgent problems facing the nation. When enumerating alternative solutions I would include the most compelling ideas in the land. Once elected, I would translate all legislation from legalese into ordinary English. Any law requiring more than a few hundred words would be split into multiple laws. And most important, I would establish the mechanisms for the demise of political parties, including my own – simply enough, those would be open primaries and independent districting.
Anyway, while I dream on, I think I’m a liberal. Happy Fourth of July.
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