A different Republican Party

The Washington Times ^ | July 1, 2003 | Tod Lindberg

[sauropod]

A different Republican Party

By Tod Lindberg

Historians will mark the administration of George W. Bush as the point at which the so-called social issues, long a galvanizing feature of American partisan politics, finally lost their sting. The Supreme Court's rulings upholding diversity as a compelling government interest and striking down the remaining state anti-sodomy laws join the early Bush administration decision allowing stem-cell research to go forward. The trinity (as it were) of decisions leave those whose top priority has been the preservation of a certain traditional public morality now essentially voiceless in electoral politics. The Republican Party has moved on.

Just to review the importance of the now barely remembered stem cell decision: The real political question here was whether the Bush administration would continue to accommodate the wishes of the pro-life movement within the GOP. Politically, it would have been both simple and expedient for a Republican administration to turn down stem-cell research altogether. The link between the research and its precondition, namely aborted fetuses from which stem cell lines can be cultivated, is obvious.

The administration was cleverer than that. I don't know if it was Mr. Bush's intention from the outset to break the back of the pro-life lobby in the GOP, but that was the effect of his decision to allow research on currently existing cell lines but not on new lines cultivated from additional fetuses. Although the Catholic Church remained opposed, Mr. Bush won support for his decision from a number of evangelical Protestants who had for years been prominent in absolute opposition to abortion. He split the pro-life community, in effect ending its veto on party positions related to abortion. A pro-choice GOP vice presidential candidate is now conceivable, for example, something that has not been true for a generation.

I think the two Supreme Court decisions will be similar in effect. They are not, to be sure, administration decisions. But that is not the point. The real question is whether the Bush administration and the Republican Party more broadly will continue to contest these issues or simply let them go.

We should start with the composition of the Supreme Court itself. Seven of its nine members were appointed by Republican presidents. Three of those, of course — Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas — are consistently "conservative," whether one takes that term in the popular sense of right-leaning or more properly in the sense of embracing a constitutionally circumscribed view of what the Supreme Court should be deciding. But why aren't there seven conservatives on the court? The answer is that even staunchly conservative presidents have a very difficult time figuring out what their appointees will do once they get life tenure on the bench and final say on important matters of law and policy.

Far be it from me to suggest that partisan politics has an effect on Supreme Court decisions. Nevertheless, it's a Republican Supreme Court. The divisions among its GOP appointees actually reflect what is for many conservatives the uncomfortable fact that, while their positions command majority support within the GOP, it's not unanimous.

Second, the coalition politics within the GOP will shift as a result of the two decisions. In the case of gay rights, social conservatives long ago found it prudent to give up the public rhetoric of moral opposition to homosexuality. You can tell how true that is from the acute embarrassment felt within the party whenever one of its members breaches this understanding, as Sen. Rick Santorum did earlier this year. The only question fit for public debate, even in the eyes of those opposed to gay rights, was whether the Supreme Court as opposed to elected officials should be deciding on whether you can ban sodomy.

Well, the court decided that it would decide. And that's that. It seems inconceivable that a future Supreme Court will reverse itself, and anyone urging such a course would thereby marginalize himself. Before the issue is settled, such positions may entail a measure of coalition support. Afterward, no.

The same is likely true of "diversity." Diversity has actually been a settled issue in corporate America and the private sector more broadly for years: It doesn't really have any public detractors. [I guess Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams don't matter, eh, Tod?] Accordingly, again, conservatives narrowed the focus of their argument to the question of whether the government (and only government, the private sector being on principle free to make up its own mind) should embrace diversity at the expense of its traditional focus on the rights of individuals. Opponents pointed to the supposed social costs of doing so, and they drew some principled support. But that was then: Who now will stand up to propose that a future Supreme Court reverse itself and declare that diversity is not a compelling interest of government? No one with serious political ambitions within the GOP.

Democrats will continue to run against Republicans as if the latter were still contesting social issues. But increasingly, Republicans will find it convenient to repair to a "principle" of pragmatism: These issues have been decided.

[sauropod]

Tod Lindberg is now the editor of the Policy Review. He formerly had a regular column in the Washington Times and presents himself as someone that helps direct where the Republican Party goes and supposedly has his pulse on where it is moving at any given time.

I got furious when I read this article in last evening's newspaper. The arrogance and elitism of people such as Mr. Lindberg has helped cause the Republican Party to abandon conservatism.

This is your Republican Party today. Mr. Lindberg is proud of it. Wallow in it or change it!!!

[sauropod]

A disgusted ping.

[GaConfed]

Just more reasons why I am no Republican.

[jammer]

You SHOULD be furious, but, respectfully, isn't that fury misdirected? Where is he wrong? You point out Sowell and Williams, both of whom I like a lot. But, really, those two voices don't carry a lot of weight (unfortunately). I think this is just a sad, perhaps over-generalized, but true representation of the situation.

[sauropod]

I know. But my point is that now the differences between the Pubbies and the 'Rats are not worth a warm bucket of spit!

This is really sad.

Lindberg is wrong where he says that the issues are "already decided." with a dismissive handwave.

My question to the forum is: should activists such as ourselves accept this?

[kittymyrib]

Just one small problem for the LRP (Liberal Republican Party): Conservatives do not have to turn out to vote.

[sauropod]

If you have Constitution Party candidates where you are, you might want to consider them.

I will return to the Pubbie party when it upholds decent values.

[Dane]

The answer is that even staunchly conservative presidents have a very difficult time figuring out what their appointees will do once they get life tenure on the bench and final say on important matters of law and policy

And the machinations of selecting Supreme Court justices is totally missing from Mr. Lindbergh's article.

Justice Kennedy's seat should have been Robert Bork's. But Oldsmobile Ted and the dems put the kibosh on that. O'Connor was Reagan fulfilling a campaign promise and Souter has McCain mentor Warren Rudman's fingerprints, all over it.

Stevens was a Ford pick, what else can be said.

Ok that's four of the 7. Now let's look at the 2 most recent additions to the court, Ginsburg and Breyer, they were appointed by Clinton. If Bush 41 had been re-elected in 92 and not defeated with the help of Perot, would he have picked a couple more Clarence Thomas's? Nobody knows, but it is almost a certainty that he would have not picked Ginsburg and Breyer.

[sauropod]

That would have indeed been a blessing.

[Dane]

If you have Constitution Party candidates where you are, you might want to consider them

Go ahead and help elect another demo, maybe you will get a couple more Justices like Ginsburg and Breyer on the court.

[William McKinley]

This article is about the silliest I have read in the Washington Times. Most of it is not even worthy of a response. But picking a line to pick on:

Who now will stand up to propose that a future Supreme Court reverse itself and declare that diversity is not a compelling interest of government?

It certainly would not be anyone like Barry Goldwater. As I pointed out here, his nomination acceptance speech included no fewer than six references to the benefits of diversity and how intertwined it is with Republicanism and America.

But assuming Lindberg was sloppily adopting the language of the left and confusing the desirable 'diversity' with the undesirable 'affirmative action and state sanctioned racism', who will stand up and propose that a future Supreme Court reverse this?

That would be anyone calling for 'strict constructionists' who 'narrowly interpret' the Constitution for 'what it says', Justices like 'Scalia and Thomas'. As it so happens, this is exactly what President Bush has been saying. It has not just been empty rhetoric, though. His Judicial nominees have been exemplary, from Estrada to Kuhl to Pryor to Owen to Pickering to McConnell to Shedd to Sutton to Tymkovich to Roberts to Boyle.

The Republican party, as frustrating as it can be at times, has backed these nominees. The Democrats have prevented many of them from taking their seats.

So who will stand up? Bush has. He has most of the party backing him. Fools like Lindberg seem to want to say "but he is not standing the way I would."

I offer to Lindberg and people like him two more passages from Goldwater. The first is also from his acceptance speech; the second from another famous speech- his 1960 address of Nixon's convention. Both aim directly at those who demand a lock-step purist approach in exchange for their support:

Balance, diversity, creative difference-these are the elements of Republican equation. Republicans agree, Republicans agree heartily to disagree on many, many of their applications. But we have never disagreed on the basic fundamental issues of why you and I are Republicans.

This is a party-- this Republican party is a party for free men. Not for blind followers and not for conformists.

And the second is more concise:

Grow up, conservatives

[LarryM]

The truth is the GOP is too cowardly to fight, even about core issues, when they face left-wing hate campaigns in the media. The biggest coward of all has been George Bush. He was even too chicken to take a position on the marriage amendment.

[Dave S]

He was even too chicken to take a position on the marriage amendment.

Why should he waste political capital on something that's not going to be ratified, assuming its even passed. 38 states? I dont think so. Fred Barnes on Fox Special Report pointed out yesterday that other ammendments that were even more popular than this never were able to get ratified. He said it wasnt going to happen.

[sauropod]

Words do not mean what they used to mean, hence rendering your argument moot.

[sauropod]

I believe that to be a facetious argument as you well know. But thanks for the thought. 'Pod

[Sabertooth]

The truth is the GOP is too cowardly to fight, even about core issues, when they face left-wing hate campaigns in the media.

Actually, pining for people who hate us to say nice things about us is our core issue.

[Jeff Head]

Contrast these statements...

The trinity (as it were) of decisions leave those whose top priority has been the preservation of a certain traditional public morality now essentially voiceless in electoral politics. The Republican Party has moved on. - Tod Lindberg, July 1, 2003

...with this statements from an early period.

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798
,br> "A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." - Samuel Adams

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." Patrick Henry

"[I]f we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity." Daniel Webster

The "preservation of a certain traditional public morality" means the preservation of the Republic. It is the very foundation upon which it was built. If people who are making policy are either too blind, or too wrapped up in themselves or their own agendas to realize it, then it is left to us to continue to preserve it. Either way, I trust those men who founded this nation, their intentions, their forsight and their wisdom much more than folks like Tod here.

I can only join in the hope expressed as follows by George Washington...

"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain blessings. Much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to, so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass. The Great Governor of the Universe has led us too long and too far to forsake us in the midst of it. We may, now and then, get bewildered; but I hope and trust that there is good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path. " - George Washington

Jeff

[William McKinley]

Stipulating that 'words do not mean what they used to', it does not follow that this makes my (or Goldwater's) argument moot. The words he used had the meaning I ascribed to them at the time he uttered them, and those meanings were speaking of truths which have been unaltered by time, just as sure as the fact that the meaning of 'well regulated' has changed with the ages does not change the truth that the founding fathers intended the Second Amendment to extend to private ownership of firearms.

[Tallguy]

Just one small problem for the LRP (Liberal Republican Party): Conservatives do not have to turn out to vote.

Which is why the Republicans NEED Hillary Clinton's candidacy in 2008. She is the polarizing figure that will bring Republican voters -- even the disgusted ones -- to the polls. (You gotta figure that GWB has re-election in 2004 just about locked-up.)

[Jeff Head]

Who now will stand up to propose that a future Supreme Court reverse itself and declare that diversity is not a compelling interest of government? No one with serious political ambitions within the GOP.

I'll tell you who, someone who is committed to what is RIGHT more than they are committed to their ploitical career...who, as our founders, trusting in and "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions," go forth and do what is RIGHT by this Republic instead of what you, Mr. Linbberg, term as pragmatic which is just another way of saying, as you do with this quote, what is in their own politically ambitious interests.

Herein you and your ilk reveal yourselves to be the enemy of the people, putting your own ambition above your service to this Republic and what it stands for...of such thinking are traitors and oath breakers made.