Posted on 04/01/2006 7:02:16 PM PST by Nicholas Conradin
Now that the GOP has been transformed by the rise of the South, the trauma of terrorism and George W. Bush's conviction that God wanted him to be president, a deeper conclusion can be drawn: The Republican Party has become the first religious party in U.S. history.
We have had small-scale theocracies in North America before -- in Puritan New England and later in Mormon Utah. Today, a leading power such as the United States approaches theocracy when it meets the conditions currently on display: an elected leader who believes himself to speak for the Almighty, a ruling political party that represents religious true believers, the certainty of many Republican voters that government should be guided by religion and, on top of it all, a White House that adopts agendas seemingly animated by biblical worldviews.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yes, of course, the left absolutely wants to tell us what to do - AND so do the parental social conservatives. Perhaps you don't see it because you agree with them?
To me it is the same kind of thinking (parental) that says that the government ought to decide *how* people live their lives (their moral values). And it is just as dangerous and those who want economic socialism.
This article points to a real problem. Many people on the right absolutely do want to control others and shove their religion down the rest of our throats. For so many to deny that on this thread - tells me that they don't even see it. They are just so sure they are right - that they cannot even *see* that they are advocating taking away others' rights and privacy.
Generally speaking, I think *they* could agree that a proscriptive law makes inaccessible some sort of personal liberty. There has never been a successful sustained government that did not do this. And since the absence of government, anarchy, is as bad or worse than having no freedom at all, tradeoffs are definitely necessary. Let us agree that, some problems aside like Campaign Finance Reform shredding the First Amendment, under the status quo individual liberties are sufficiently sancrosanct. Within that framework, various political forces will advocate various laws including proscriptive ones - in all cases, it will be argued (sometimes speciously) that a citizen's ability to pursue happiness is best served. These questions can never be settled and will forever be the subject of politics as long as the republic shall exist.
All that said, most policy preferences of social conservatives can definitely be argued in a way that would deflect your charge.
My point is that many social conservatives are so attached to their ideology that they cannot even *see* the truth of what I am saying.
guess Phillips missed every Democrat candidate under the sun preaching at black churches in the periods before elections?
Bingo!
You're certainly right this time!
Neither a hard-core secularist nor cleric am I. Rather, I prefer rational discussions and a resolution based on sensible accommodation vis-a-vis' ideology.
I will be quite straighforward about it. I believe the state must return to regulation of morals, as it did for the first 170 years of our nation's existence. I don't believe that regulation would be a good thing in and of itself. Rather, I have become reasonably convinced that men cannot have a stable, safe or useful society without it, especially a capitalist society.
Social libertarianism, in which I once was a great believer, has failed completely. Look at every statistic on the things that glue a culture together-marriage, family, sobriety, violence--they are grim. The 21 year olds my wife supervises are completely without a moral tether and they don't even know it. The notion is alien to them.
In part, social libertarianism may just be a reflection of a deeper breakdown--a convenient excuse to do whatever you want with whomever you want or to have convenient access to pictures of women's genitals on the internet. But there's a good chance it is the central idea that has powered the trip over the cliff our culture has taken since the 60's.
It's really the combination of the marketing power of capitalism and social libertarianism that is the toxic brew. Capitalism is amoral. It will exploit any human trait to sell stuff. Since the 60's, capitalism has been loosed from its marketing fetters and now explicitly markets to each of the, dare I say, seven deadly sins. It has been a progressive change, each step setting up the conditions for the next. Human nature is not such that it can, or even wants to, resist that onslaught.
What I am saying is that we have to choose between moral and economic freedom. They cannot coexist stably for long. And I am also saying the founding fathers made the best compromise possible between them.
And the compromise really wasn't so bad. People have been doing perverted things all along and the police have almost always looked the other way as long as they kept it private and discreet. In other words, the only real burden on the pervert or the heroin addict was to hide the problem, thereby admitting, in a sense that their behavior was, dare I say again, sinful. If you really wanted a divorce, you could get it; but it was painful and you carried the social stigma for decades. If you really wanted an abortion, they could be had. As long as perversion and bad decisions stayed in the dark, they were tacitly accepted.
That compromise is long gone. Perversion is public and celebrated--have you ever seen a gay parade or talked to a homosexual man about what goes on in bathhouses? Divorce is something you do to 'grow' and is about as difficult to get as a stroll in the park. Abortion is a sacred constitutional right and taxpayers pay to make sure that poor people can kill their kids with the same freedom as the wealthy. And, Abercrombie and Fitch do marketing campaigns that might as well be explicit child pornography while teenage girls stop female porn stars at the mall and ask for their autographs.
I would greatly prefer a society that was, at core, libertarian in all spheres. I see now that, in the sphere of morals, down that path lies William Golding's vision. I see our society going there fast. Put simply, I have had to change my thinking as the facts come in--and one fact is clear, our experiment since the 50's and 60's with moral libertarianism has been a complete failure. Our founding father's wisdom, divinely inspired in my opinion, is once again driven home to me. They worked it out about as well as a society can be designed and we have tossed their work in the crapper.
There is the crux of it. And that is exactly what I don’t want. And it is what the article is about….the attempted institution of a theocracy by social conservatives. That is not to disagree with those who point out that the left is also attempted to institutionalize their ideology. Of course they are. But, for me, it is sad to see the right is no different. Each side believes they belong to the only true church – just like so many Muslims do. All these people who are so sure they are *right* that they want to control everyone else for their own good I suppose.
The 50’s which you say were libertarian times were one of the most repressive decades - especially for women – so you are way off there. Nor do I think we have ever had a time of social libertarianism. The 60’s were, in part, a reaction to the repressiveness of the 50’s. It was a bunch of adolescents rebelling.
We disagree as to the nature of humanity. I think that people can self-govern – as did the founders. I think that humans are meant to be free and that with freedom comes responsibility. In other words – greater freedom entails greater personal responsibility. And it is on the later that I think we have failed. Because we had democrats in charge of Congress from FDR until the 90’s (essentially) we did not allow people to experience the consequences of their choices.
So, we don’t agree. I don’t want to be forced to live by your values, nor do I want to force you to live by mine. I am interested in limited government and greater freedom – freedom that allows failure and success, freedom that says that you are indeed responsible for your choices and that if you break the law – or if you demonstrate that you cannot handle freedom – you lose it.
I agree with Jefferson in that government exists to “secure” rights – not to enforce religious dogma. Surely we can see the harm done in that kind of thinking within the Islamic world!
When a conservative thinks of Kevin Phillips, he is reminded of the adage that employs "teats" and "boar hogs".
Kevin Phillips is a dried up old queen who has been hawking this line for the last twenty years.
Really? That would be suprising to the original party of big government, the Whigs, that became the Republican party. Granted it was formed out of problems from the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act but it was not 'founded by abolitionists' as some hope of eliminating slavery. Abolitionists in the north amounted to less than 2% of the total population. lincoln's first inaugural address spoke specifically on the first 13th Amendment, an Amendment that would have kept slavery perpetually. Doesn't sound like a party 'founded by abolitionists' does it?
I have problems with those that would tie a political party to God Almighty. God is not a Republican or a Democrat, he is not an American, nor is He conservative or liberal. God is God.
Liberals believe anyone who leads a moral life, has a conscience and believes in country and family is religious.
Meeting in a Congregational church in Ripon, Wis., he (Alvan E. Bovay) helped establish a party that represented the interests of the North and the abolitionists by merging two fundamental issues: free land and preventing the spread of slavery into the Western territories.
Realizing the new party needed a name to help unify it, Bovay decided on the term Republican because it was simple, synonymous with equality and alluded to the earlier party of Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic-Republicans.
Above excerpt from:
http://www.gop.com/About/AboutRead.aspx?AboutType=3&Section=9
More here:
At the time of its founding, the Republican Party was organized as an answer to the divided politics, political turmoil, arguments and internal division, particularly over slavery, that plagued the many existing political parties in the United States in 1854. The Free Soil Party, asserting that all men had a natural right to the soil, demanded that the government re-evaluate homesteading legislation and grant land to settlers free of charge. The Conscience Whigs, the "radical" faction of the Whig Party in the North, alienated themselves from their Southern counterparts by adopting an anti-slavery position. And the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed territories to determine whether slavery would be legalized in accordance with "popular sovereignty" and thereby nullify the principles of the Missouri Compromise, created a schism within the Democratic Party.
A staunch Anti-Nebraska Democrat, Alvan E. Bovay, like his fellow Americans, was disillusioned by this atmosphere of confusion and division. Taking advantage of the political turmoil caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bovay united discouraged members from the Free Soil Party, the Conscience Whigs and the Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Meeting in a Congregational church in Ripon, Wis., he helped establish a party that represented the interests of the North and the abolitionists by merging two fundamental issues: free land and preventing the spread of slavery into the Western territories. Realizing the new party needed a name to help unify it, Bovay decided on the term Republican because it was simple, synonymous with equality and alluded to the earlier party of Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic-Republicans.
On July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Mich., the Republican Party formally organized itself by holding its first convention, adopting a platform and nominating a full slate of candidates for state offices. Other states soon followed, and the first Republican candidate for president, John C. Frémont, ran in 1856 with the slogan "Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men, Frémont."
Even though he ran on a third-party ticket, Frémont managed to capture a third of the vote, and the Republican Party began to add members throughout the land. As tensions mounted over the slavery issue, more anti-slavery Republicans began to run for office and be elected, even with the risks involved with taking this stance. Republican Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts experienced this danger firsthand. In May 1856, he delivered a passionate anti-slavery speech in which he made critical remarks about several pro-slavery senators, including Andrew F. Butler of South Carolina. Sumner infuriated Rep. Preston S. Brooks, the son of one of Butler's cousins, who felt his family honor had been insulted. Two days later, Brooks walked into the Senate and beat Sumner unconscious with a cane. This incident electrified the nation and helped to galvanize Northern opinion against the South; Southern opinion hailed Brooks as a hero. But Sumner stood by his principles, and after a three-year, painful convalescence, he returned to the Senate to continue his struggle against slavery.
And the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed territories to determine whether slavery would be legalized in accordance with "popular sovereignty" and thereby nullify the principles of the Missouri Compromise, created a schism within the Democratic Party.
Well there is an issue with that. It sounds nice but the Corwin Amendment would have made that very thing beyond question. You do know of this Amendment don't you? Introduced by a Republican representative from Ohio and by that most worthless Senator Seward from New York
No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.--Corwin Amendment
I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.--lincoln, First Inaugural Address
But of course, the GOP was founded by abolitionists. Right....I would also refer you to the northern tyrant's impassioned speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories,is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States are places for poor white people to remove FROM; not to remove TO. New free States are the places for poor people to go to and better their condition. For this use, the nation needs these territories.
There was a reason a man like that was a manager of the Illinois Colonization Society did not want slavery in the new territory and it had nothing to do with humane concerns
The whole point of this post is that the Republican party was not founded specifically to fight slavery. It is not the 'party of God'. It is nothing more than another political party, one that I might add has forgotten the meaning of the term conservative.
The whole point of this post is that the Republican party was not founded specifically to fight slavery. It is not the 'party of God'. It is nothing more than another political party, one that I might add has forgotten the meaning of the term conservative.
I never claimed it was 'the Party of God'..
No, you did not. However too many claim that it is.
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