The Death Of The Republican Party

The Republicans have no one to blame for their losses but themselves. Even Sarah Palin, much derided as a political neophyte, knows this. Such was Republican incompetence that Mr. Obama even won the group he demonized the most, the wealthy.

The reason for this is simple. Instead of standing for something, the Republicans came to define themselves as opposed to things. This applies to issues across the board.

Let us first define what the Republican party is alleged to stand for. They are supposed to be the traditional conservative/classical liberal party. That philosophy can be summed up very simply: Government should only protect us from those things that we cannot stop from directly hurting us. That is, government should protect us from invasion, violent crime and fraud, as well as doing a small handful of other regulatory things. Now, let us examine what a platform based on these beliefs would look like:

Essentially the first item of business would be to reduce Pentagon spending. This is the single largest expense on the government budget, and has no justification under conservative philosophy. Though it is euphemistically labeled "defense", it is nothing of the sort. The overriding mission is to accomplish and maintain invasions. The US military is in roughly 130 countries. To have a military in another country, regardless of their consent, is maintaining an invasion. It is not defense. To the contrary, it is our presence in other countries that brings attacks on us, more often than not. The defense of the country lies with the National Guard, and perhaps a small nuclear deterrent. There is no need for standing invasion fleets, which is what we have now. Wars not involving the defense of the nation are luxuries, and should not be be paid for by the public.

The massive law enforcement/domestic intelligence octopus is also completely against conservative ideology. The only federal law enforcement needed is a small agency handling interstate affairs. The absurd war on our own citizens masquerading as the War On Drugs and gun control are fundamentally liberal policies. Liberal ideology is that the government should save you from yourself. Conservative ideology is that you should be responsible for yourself. The War On Drugs is a liberal war on liberty that no real Conservative can support. As far as the ridiculous spying on our own citizens, once we stop making enemies overseas, a lot of the justification for that goes right out the window. Even if it didn't, it is an unconstitutional infringement of liberty.

Next up is the red tape wrapped welfare state apparatus. There is no need for the Federal government to be issuing standards for education. Again, you are responsible for yourself, not the government. The same goes for welfare type programs. That is the mandate of private charities, not the government. The same goes for the ridiculous corporate welfare. If you can't run a business profitably, that's your responsibility, not the government's (noticing a pattern?).

Now that we've streamlined government down to reasonable, constitutional level, we can start ramping down taxes, while using the surplus to pay off the national debt. Then we have an efficient government which does it's small part, and leaves the rest up to you.

Now, the above platform might be a little too radical for mainstream politics. The point is, however, that the Republicans, rather than standing for some version of the above, settled for being Democrats lite. Indeed, the only part of the party which stood for something like the above was the Paulites, who were also the only energized part of the party. The next question is, how did this happen.

The short version is this: After the Great Depression, the Republicans allowed the Democrats to bully them away from their beliefs. Having become afraid to stand up for what they believed in, they took the course of many who, not having anything to believe in, content themselves with opposing those who did believe in something. They found liberalism and Communism, and made these their focuses ever since. Along the way, they added other to their negative coalition, and made concessions to get votes from them, selling their soul along the way.

One of the most distasteful additions was the so-called Religious Right, which really isn't Right at all, but a bunch of liberals with different beliefs. That's right. As much as the "Religious Right" whines about liberals, the differences are only superficial. What they agree on is that the government should save people from themselves. They only thing they disagree on is what to save people from.

There is nothing conservative about repression and censorship. Both are intrusions by the government into private life. Things such as the War On Drugs, government repression, censoring art in any form, and forcing their beliefs on others are anathema to true conservatives. Yet they are the cornerstone of the "Religious Right".

If the Republicans are going to regain power, they need to stand for something more than a watered down version of the Democrats. Both President Bushes were as guilty as anyone, including Mr. McCain, of this. Indeed, there are precious few actually conservative Republicans left. Unless they take charge, the republicans may well go the way of the Whigs.