Thursday - September 06, 2007
Why the Republicans Fail
Conservatives wonder why the Republican party is
failing. The reasons are clear. Corruption stands out as a prominent part of
their failure, but that corruption is but a symptom of the real cause. It is
the rise of conservatism that is strangling the republican
party.
Republicans have a long history
of conservatism and dedication to increasing the power of central government.
This is their legacy from the Whig Party. The Whigs were dedicated to using
government money to create ambitious projects that almost all failed. The Erie
Canal was almost the only project that didn't end in utter failure, and its
"success" is marginal. Disgust with waste caused most states to amend their
constitutions to specifically prohibit such projects and the Whigs to collapse.
The Republicans were the renamed Whigs and continued their preoccupation with
strong governmental power, accelerated by the centralization of power into
federal hands.
I'm no scholar in recent
history, but it seems to me that Goldwater was responsible for bringing a new
element to the republicans, a classical liberalism wrested away from the
Democrat party while they raced headlong into extreme socialism. Reagan finally
succeeded in winning with Goldwater ideologies, but since the end of Reagan's
administration the Republican party has vacillated from the two polar opposites
of traditional republicanism/conservativism to classical
liberalism/libertarianism and now has nearly completely rejected its winning
ways.
While the Democrat party descends
into lunacy, the Republican party resorts to conservativism.
When have Republicans won? Mostly with Reagan
and Gingrich. The wins from G.H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush were pale reflections
from those ideological victories and both times they resulted in a diminution of
Republican power.
So what is are the
philosophical differences between the Goldwater/Reagan and Bush/Bush/McCain
republicans? Easy.
Small government
vs. massive government
Distrust of government
vs. adulation of government
Reagan
taught that government is not "here to help." The Bushes teach a government
that saves us through
compassion.
Reagan taught that we
should trust but verify. The Bushes teach that we should blindly trust
government.
Conservatives have a
strange fascination with government agents. Rogue border patrol agents that
shoot a non-violent man in the back, violating all laws regarding their use of
force are held up as martyrs. Essentially anyone in uniform is lauded as
heroic. Reagan republicans were horrified at Waco. Conservatives were
righteous about FBI snipers killing a woman holding a child in her
arms.
This is why the Republicans are
flailing, and failing. They've abandoned the philosophy that gains them the
voters that value traditional distrust of government and replaced it with a
philosophy that is enamored with government. They'll continue to lose until
they switch back.
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