O. C. Register editorial writer Steven Greenhut is headed for the Republican National Convention – and on the way out of town he has nailed the Republican Party with an editorial about the utter failure of today’s GOP to embrace liberty. Here are a few excerpts from Greenhut’s editorial, which is one for the ages:
My main question already has been answered in the negative. Do Republicans still care about liberty?They talk a lot about Ronald Reagan, who reshaped the country’s political debate by talking eloquently about limited government and freedom. But Republicans have become Reagan idolators. They throw around his name, but they have mostly abandoned his principles and positive disposition. They are stuck in the past and seem unable to recast a freedom agenda that can resonate with the voting public today. McCain may be the odds-on favorite to win now, but if he does it will be by default rather than by appealing to the freedom-loving ideals of this nation.
Look at the ghouls who will get center stage at the GOP convention. Tuesday night features Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and presidential candidate who is the living embodiment of this quotation he made in 1994 (well before 9/11): “Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”
Another prominent speaker Tuesday is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a tax-raising Baptist minister who told voters that it was their Christian duty to battle climate change. “Republicans need to be Republicans,” he said. “The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it’s this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it’s a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says ‘look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don’t get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and health care, so be it.'”
Get it: It’s heartless and soulless to cut back government spending. Nancy Pelosi couldn’t make the case for big government any better!
There aren’t any pro-liberty Republicans slated to speak any night. Of course, Dubya, whose promotion of war, massive expansions of federal spending and attacks on civil liberties epitomizes the current state of the GOP, will play a key role, as will “Republican In Name Only” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Going through the convention schedule, I found nothing to offer solace. I did find a convention theme of national service. As McCain, who models himself after Progressive President Teddy Roosevelt (the first major U.S. politician to call for socialized health care), explained in a convention press statement, “My friends, each and every one of us has a duty to serve a cause greater than our own self-interest.” How this differs from Democratic Party calls for national service is anyone’s guess.
The founders didn’t argue that Americans have a “duty” to serve the government or even their neighbors. It’s the government that has the duty – to protect our liberties and stay out of our lives. Free people are welcome to devote their lives to serve their fellow man, but they also are perfectly welcome to serve their own self-interest, as long as they don’t directly harm anyone else. McCain’s rhetoric sounds strikingly familiar to the rhetoric of service embodied by every authoritarian regime. While the GOP convention press room had nothing to say about liberty, it did have a lot to say about “giving back” to the community and participating in an Earth Day program along the Mississippi River. Ugh!
Who can blame the liberty-minded for seeking friendlier locales, such as the Libertarian Party? Yet, typical of what I hear, Republican activist Matt Cunningham, editor of O.C.’s Red County blog, recently took shots at the LP and argued that, instead of helping its candidates, who sometimes “tip races in favor of Democratic candidates,” serious libertarians “ought to leave en masse and register as Republicans, and bring their energy for limited government to bear on pushing the GOP back onto its philosophical moorings.”
But how could any libertarian feel at home in a party that is so bad on government growth, international meddling, civil liberties and personal freedom? A libertarian joining the modern GOP is like a country music enthusiast joining a punk-rock club. They both, arguably, make music, but there isn’t much in common beyond that.
Fortunately, I found one pro-liberty event during the convention week. GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul will be leading a Campaign for Liberty event, which bills itself this way: “Our speakers will clearly articulate the need to reduce the size of government, maximize freedom and return to the Constitution. We will call upon the Republican Party to come home to its historic values and show them the path back to electoral success.” Ironically, it won’t take place as part of the GOP convention, but will be held independently at the Target Center in the neighboring city of Minneapolis. Apparently, St. Paul isn’t a big enough for both Republicans andbelievers in liberty.
We’ve all heard that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting the result to change. Libertarians have traditionally aligned themselves with Republicans and thought that Democrats are bleeding-heart tax-and-spend big-government politicians. Yawn.
Republicans pay lip service to liberty. Yawn and duh. I guess it’s good that you can actually say what some of us have been saying for 8 years but dude, where have you been?
Now that Republicans have taken big government to whole new levels of idiocy, Libertarians think they are trapped between Republicans and Democrats. Think again. You are missing an opportunity to join those of us with whom you agree if you’d only allow yourself to consider it.
Libertarians and many “independents” now seem to have the same strategy that hippies protesting in the 60s had. Back then they thought that just making a lot of noise and getting press was enough to convince people of the rightness of their views.
They acted as if the self-evidence rightness of a position would be enough. They acted as if the logic of their position was enough.
We have a two-party system of elections. Deal with it. Make the changes you want within that. Railing against both parties is simply mental masturbation and may feel good but it doesn’t accomplish much except helping to keep the walls separating us resistant to the forces who are trying to bring them down.
Libertarians and many Republicans are just shouting in the winds of a tornado and wondering why no one hears them. The only real way to make the changes you desire is to recognize who your friends and enemies are. Aligning with Republicans has been shown to be a complete and total failure. Maybe you should try something different.
Reacting to the world of old party politics will blind you to discovering who you can count on to help. Continuing to align with Republicans will ensure more of the same – big-government spending. Pleasing big-business is much more expensive than pleasing the middle class. Splitting from Republicans while still seeing Democrats as enemy results in the dilution of the forces of change.
You may THINK in your mind that Democrats are also for big-government but that’s an assumption based on another time and based on stagnant thinking and mindsets.
Right now WE all have a responsibility of citizenship to do something and get involved and find ways to make changes. That change right now is represented most clearly by Obama. If not Obama himself then by the people who support the movement he has created.
I spent the week in Denver at the convention and I know that if you allowed yourself to open up a little you’d find more allies than you ever imagined in the Democratic Party.
Republicans have made a severe mess of so much and have been proven extremely resistant to change by severely limiting who can run as a Republican. This ensures that those who want to vote for Republicans are limited in their choices.
Democrats place no such restriction and while Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do want to hold on to their power, the Democratic party at least allows people like me to run without an extreme party-loyalty vetting process.
At the national level look at John Tester and Jim Webb if you want proof of that. These guys can’t in anyway be called bleeding-heart tax and spend Democrats.
I challenge everyone to look deeper than preconceived notions of what it means to be Republican or Democrat and instead look for ways to actually make changes and come together to solve problems rather than talk about how bad things are.
The responsibility we have now is to stop the bleeding created by big-spending big-government Republicans. There is a huge movement of people who now are Democrats who are for responsible government as opposed to a nanny government. You exclude them at the peril of our country and our form of government.
Thomas Jefferson said that the primary purpose of government is to curb the excesses of monied interests. It is the people whose only interest is money and power who are governing us now and that leads to less and less freedom for you and me and all who want to just be left alone to pursue and lead our lives as we choose. Real choice allows for both – leading it for others and for one’s self as long as it’s not at the expense of others.
I am your ally and I’d bet that you don’t even recognize it because you think because I’m a Democrat I fit into your idea of what that means. You’d be wrong.
From here you could argue with me that Democrats are all wet. You could erect an army of straw men to show me that I’m wrong and still fight me as an enemy Democrat. You’d be fighting the wrong person.
I’m not interesting in fighting you and other Libertarians and Republicans. I’m interested in making the changes that we all know need to be made. I’d much rather do that than get involved in a small skirmish on Orange Juice while our form of government is threatened.
Ron,
I hear you, but the Dems in Sacramento have driven California to near-bankruptcy. And in Santa Ana our blue Council has delivered a $28 million deficit. So profligate spending isn’t necessarily only a red problem…
Thanks Art. Let’s join together to make the changes we need to make. That’s my point at the national level. There are lots of Democrats who think like I do and want to get out of politics as usual.
I’ve been to state Democratic conventions and I’m abhorred at what I see sometimes and I don’t like it. But, I can’t be a Republican sometimes and Democrat other times. If it were politically possible in California I’d run as an independent and the American Independent Party doesn’t count. Because it’s not possible and we’ve got to start somewhere. It’s only Democrats who offer me the path.
I have to admit that since I ran for Congress I’m more focused on national politics. I think that’s where the divisiveness started. The Project For A New American Century and all that came with it have driven the politics into gutter team sports instead of a tool for citizen representation.
I recognize that my views are seen as naive by some and these people think that politics has to be dirty. But if the Obama campaign has taught me anything it’s that millions of citizens are tired of it.
People who see Obama’s supporters as an extension of him are missing a very big part of the picture. I don’t know if he means it but when Obama says this election is not about him there are many of us who know that. He’s just the vehicle we are all riding.
We may be disappointed in Obama in the end it doesn’t matter. Republicans at the national level using the divide-and-conquer strategy leave us no choice but to work within the system if we want to bring us all together in our common goals.
America in the past has been united. Conservatives and Liberals mostly got along and fought it out using rules everyone agreed on and everyone wanted what they thought was best for America. That has changed and like drugs in baseball and cycling the bad behavior has driven out the good behavior.
Before my run I voted but left governing to others. Not anymore. I’m tired of it and both parties need to recognize what’s happening.
I challenge anyone and everyone to get involved with the goal of making government work for us instead of the other way around.
One of the pundits at the DNC uttered ‘Bush’ and ‘Reagan’ in the same breath the other day…
I laughed so hysterically that I forgot whom the blowhard was that said it! When I remember, I’ll be sure to rip him a new one in a post.
SMS
Unity in Diversity! The one thing you can say is that the Democratic Tent is as big as it needs to be. Maybe a Libertarian influence is just what we need to build beyond our last “neo-liberal” elimination of the welfare state under Clinton. You see we are not concerned with the size of government we’re more into getting stuff done that needs doing. There are a lot of personal freedom issues we are together with you on too.
So as they tell us in Ireland when we visit: “Welcome Home!”