Changing The Republican Party

Political Realities ^ | 11/19/12 | LD Jackson

[EternalVigilance]

You betcha.

But folks could still stand to remember what an actual “republican” really is.

And there are some few parts of the old broken-down jalopy known as the Republican Party that are worth salvaging.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Yours is better put than mine, Norm. Hope you’re well.

[Norm Lenhart]

Sure. Take the Platform and run/elect people that believe it. Make deviance from the platform an ‘excommunicating’ offense.

The GOP put out a hyperconservative platform and then all the pols ignore it completely.

Yes, take the good things and strip the carcas. Then junk the jusk. Send the ‘steel’ to China with the rest of their agenda.

[EternalVigilance]

It really isn’t that conservative any more.

They turned it into a Romney document. It gives with one hand while immediately taking everything important away with the other.

But you’re right, of course. They ignore it anyhow.

Busy work for conservatives at election time. That’s all it is.

[Finny]

We demand strength ...

When I was a little kid and asked my dad what the difference between a Republican and a Democrat was, he said that basically, Republicans wanted less government.

Social conservatives who look to government to manipulate morality, stop and consider that this nation didn't start becoming blatantly immoral until the government stepped into the morality business -- or, at least, its compassionate version of "moral."

Government causes many problems when it assumes a moral role.

The less government, the more moral that the good, solid, majority of Americans can be because they can work, produce, create, and generally prosper by being moral people in a free world. The ones who are immoral self destruct. It's an ongoing battle that's been happening for well over 2,000 years. We have a pretty good code book of basic laws, the Christian Bible, that provided the foundation for the moral principles of this nation, as in EV's tagline: America's creed: Our rights come from God, not men. Governments exist to secure those rights.

So we have governent, trying to be God, securing the rights of open homosexuals to participate in our society, punishing with discrimination laws those who resist. We have government securing the rights of atheists to shut down nativity scenes in city parks.

We have government, via welfare and social programs, comanding the moral dictate of charity. Government's charity has created a dependent class, whereas the charity provided by a prosperous, moral people helps foster self-reliance and self-direction. But government deciding to take a moral role, now bleeds so much of what Americans would normally give to their choice of moral charity, that they can barely continue to support it, because of government.

Pro-government thinking prevents a moral people from living morally. Get government out of the way and let people exercise their morality freely. Give them more of their freedom of enterprise so they can become more prosperous and more generous. That's what Americans do when they're prosperous.

The folks who talk about "branding" and "framing the narrative" are on to something. I think a lot of American Republicans don't know they're the kind of Republicans my dad meant, and what I've also been voting for/with. Why doesn't the Republican party burst the "race" pimple and call it how it is: color and ethnicity are irrelevant when it comes to the rights bestowed by God.

Most Americans, certainly most Americans who are truly legitimate voters, the ones who would actually take the trouble and the time to bone-up on the issues, go somewhere specifically to register (no Moter Voter or table-side registrations drives), and then take the trouble, one measely day of the year, to prioritize getting to the polls, would love to have a guy they could vote for on the assurance that he was going to keep government out of our hair and fight the liberal hacks who try to advance government.

You have to know that in that sense, and even beyond it, to the pretty much apolitical Joe Blow American, most folks are sick of government and sick of the liberal media bias, and would vote for Republicans if they knew that's what they were voting for. They're not dumb -- they don't buy the liberal crap. It looks like a lot of "voters" who do are spun out of sugar and elbow grease.

We outnumber the left in every way except for the Talking Heads.

"What it means to be a Republican" should be something every American can grasp and understand in one phrase, and for every politician who vies to be a Republican to pursue: making government smaller so people can live bigger.

[EternalVigilance]

Republican governance is not in the first place about size. It is about the character of government and its legitimate purposes. In other words, government should be exactly as big as its legitimate purposes require, and no bigger.

Here's my definition of what real republicanism is all about:

A REAL REPUBLICAN is an American who adheres politically, in word and deed, to the original natural law moral principles of our republic, to the sworn duty to support the stated purposes and explicit provisions of the U.S. Constitution, and is firmly committed to the preservation of representative self-government.

I'm working on a new site right now that expands on that statement and spells it out in more detail. Not quite ready to publish it yet, though.