stiffy
October 1st, 2009, 7:00 am
The United States has only two political parties that matter. This fact comes with good and bad, and it’s unlikely to change any time soon. The urgency with which Democrats must be defeated cannot wait for an imperfect democratic process to correct itself.
A two-party system means that the two major political parties have many core constituencies. Democrats have environmentalists, blue-collar union members, trial lawyers, peace-niks, and more. Republicans have war hawks, social conservatives, and Ron Paul. Both parties have their share of self-identifying moderates. More and more, these moderates have been flocking away from party registration, but once they’re at the voting booth, they pull the lever for a Republican or Democrat.
When I was about 12, I became intrigued by politics and political labels. I sought out information about political beliefs and what they meant because I wanted to see how my attitude about life fit into politics.
When I read about these strange people known as “libertarians,” I found a perfect fit. The more I learned, the more I liked. When I read about issues from a libertarian perspective, everything fell into place so well.
Since then, I have spent my years learning more. Books, information, life experiences, and discussions with others have done nothing but solidify my beliefs. As time goes on, the prospect of me ever substantively changing my political beliefs seems less and less likely.
Something subtle has changed, though. Many libertarian communities advocate a strong disdain for both major political parties, and to some extent, democracy generally. The Libertarian Party constantly speaks of rampant corruption and a lack of principle in both of the major political parties. Although they are right, I have come a set of realizations which has changed my approach to political activism and politics generally.
There are a number of things about Republicans and contemporary conservatism that I can’t fully reconcile. I despise social conservatism. I hate the fact that a lot of people who call themselves Republicans think that preventing abortions and gay marriages are the most important issues in politics.
Becoming a Republican, as I recently did, was a painful but necessary decision.
With all that Republicans have done in recent history, it is genuinely difficult to associate myself with them. They are the party of the Defense of Marriage Act. They are the party of Focus on the Family. They are the party of the war in Iraq. They are the party of getting tough on drug crimes. Although conventional wisdom maintains that they’re the party of small government, they’ve had an abysmal track record of shrinking government. They expanded Medicare, federal funding of education, and left a deficit so big that the Democrats were practically justified in their most recent federal spending spree.
Even with all of this working against them, Republicans are the last, best hope for liberty.
When the Libertarian Party sacrificed a little bit of principle by nominating former Congressman Bob Barr as their candidate for president in 2008, I applauded the move. I have always believed that the Libertarian Party needs to be more pragmatic to be viable. Although Bob Barr has a heavily tainted past (he authored the Defense of Marriage Act and opposed medical marijuana while in Congress), I was happy that a “real politician” was going to be the standard-bearer for the Libertarian Party.
When Bob got .4% of the popular vote, losing even to Ralph Nader in a year when there was so much enthusiasm for Ron Paul, I decided unequivocally that this Libertarian Party thing just wasn’t going to work out.
It’s not totally the Libertarian Party’s fault. Our democratic process uses individual districts with one winning candidate per district and an electoral college. It’s winner-take-all. Countries that have multi-party systems usually have a different way of electing their legislative body.
For everything that I’ve listed about Republicans that I don’t like, to their credit, they aren’t doing any of that now. Since Barack Obama took office, his party has been setting the agenda and the national dialogue, and elected Republicans and even prominent conservative media personalities have responded in a way that I consistently agree with.
I have abysmally dissatisfied with Democratic rule on capitol hill. In 8 months, they have nationalized banks and car companies. They are working as hard as they can to lay the foundation for socialized health care. They have created more workplace standard laws in a time when litigation is crippling our economy. They passed a bill in the House which would drive up energy costs and hurt anyone who uses anything which requires energy to be made. They have passed a “stimulus” bill amounting to nearly a trillion dollars to keep people working and unemployment has gone up. That’s just from memory. No libertarian would be pleased by any of this.
The Republicans on capitol hill have been very close to uniformly opposed to all of this. This approach has brought about some criticism, giving credence to phrases like “the party of no.” At a time when an agenda as far to the left as the one we’re dealing with now is being forced upon us, the proper response from even a moderate conservative party should be pure obstructionism. Playing a role in putting a stop to Obama’s agenda is the best thing Republicans can do for America. Even if the lie of “they have no ideas” were true, it wouldn’t do them any good to have any ideas since they don’t have the votes or the President to put their ideas into law.
Everything that’s being proposed right now are bad ideas and bad policies that are certainly bad for America. If Democrats get their way with health care, we will have a permanent left-of-center political culture, where all debates about anything take place on their terms and by their rules. Putting a stop to this agenda is of the utmost importance to Republicans, but it is also of the utmost importance to me and a lot of others who would normally be skeptical of aligning themselves with Republicans.
We’ve all heard the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That’s how I made friends with Sean Hannity and started listening to him every day on my way to work.
The news cycle hasn’t allowed for discussions about abortion, gay marriage, the deterioration of the family, drugs or unnecessary wars – the issues that would typically make me want to distance myself from conservatives. Since every day seems to be a discussion about things the Democrats would like to do, I have a new willingness to align myself with the right.
As somebody who just spend four years in college, I can verify with certainty: Democrats and liberalism are extremely popular. Half of that is Barack Obama. He’s cool, he’s hip, and it’s trendy to support him if you’re only passively political. Had Hillary been the Democrats’ presidential candidate, few doubt that liberalism would have made a similar rise in popularity.
There are about 55 million Republicans and 72 million Democrats. Without examining the causes and possible explanations for this slant of the electorate, we can easily conclude that the left would have an easier time getting to and staying in power since they outnumber the right substantially.
More and more, I’ve been thinking of myself as less of libertarian and more of a non-liberal.
Above all else, I am a non-liberal. This means that my first and most pressing priority is putting a stop to the liberal agenda which has set the tone of political conversation since the 2008 elections. This is the agenda which has energized me and all of those people who attended “tea parties.”
Conservatives, neo-conservatives, libertarians, and Americans of all varieties who oppose what’s being done to this country need to unify and put their differences aside – at least temporarily. It’s going to take every last one of us to put a stop to nationalized health care, confiscatory tax rates, and the runaway expansion of government. Unless millions of other Americans put aside their reservations about the Republican party’s behavior in recent history and urgently adopt the desperately needed new classification of non-liberal, it may soon be too late. Under Obama and a compliant Congress, our greatest fear may soon be realized: More people could wind up on the public dole than there are paying the tab.
Polling has repeatedly shown that most Americans hold attitudes in line with the conservative and libertarian message of small government. In spite of this, Republicans are considerably behind in registered voters and have just lost big in the 2008 elections. They will continue to lose unless they change their approach.
Winning elections in the future will require more than unity among non-liberals. Winning will require a smart new approach. We cannot continue to depend on Democratic overreaching and incompetence, although this will certainly work in our favor. We must communicate our message, abandon losing issues, and stick to our principles once we attain power. Conservatives and anyone else of an even mildly small-government mentality needs to unify to put forth a positive and simple message that will resonate with voters. To harness this unity, we must utilize the only mechanism through which Democrats can be stopped: Republicans.
A two-party system means that the two major political parties have many core constituencies. Democrats have environmentalists, blue-collar union members, trial lawyers, peace-niks, and more. Republicans have war hawks, social conservatives, and Ron Paul. Both parties have their share of self-identifying moderates. More and more, these moderates have been flocking away from party registration, but once they’re at the voting booth, they pull the lever for a Republican or Democrat.
When I was about 12, I became intrigued by politics and political labels. I sought out information about political beliefs and what they meant because I wanted to see how my attitude about life fit into politics.
When I read about these strange people known as “libertarians,” I found a perfect fit. The more I learned, the more I liked. When I read about issues from a libertarian perspective, everything fell into place so well.
Since then, I have spent my years learning more. Books, information, life experiences, and discussions with others have done nothing but solidify my beliefs. As time goes on, the prospect of me ever substantively changing my political beliefs seems less and less likely.
Something subtle has changed, though. Many libertarian communities advocate a strong disdain for both major political parties, and to some extent, democracy generally. The Libertarian Party constantly speaks of rampant corruption and a lack of principle in both of the major political parties. Although they are right, I have come a set of realizations which has changed my approach to political activism and politics generally.
There are a number of things about Republicans and contemporary conservatism that I can’t fully reconcile. I despise social conservatism. I hate the fact that a lot of people who call themselves Republicans think that preventing abortions and gay marriages are the most important issues in politics.
Becoming a Republican, as I recently did, was a painful but necessary decision.
With all that Republicans have done in recent history, it is genuinely difficult to associate myself with them. They are the party of the Defense of Marriage Act. They are the party of Focus on the Family. They are the party of the war in Iraq. They are the party of getting tough on drug crimes. Although conventional wisdom maintains that they’re the party of small government, they’ve had an abysmal track record of shrinking government. They expanded Medicare, federal funding of education, and left a deficit so big that the Democrats were practically justified in their most recent federal spending spree.
Even with all of this working against them, Republicans are the last, best hope for liberty.
When the Libertarian Party sacrificed a little bit of principle by nominating former Congressman Bob Barr as their candidate for president in 2008, I applauded the move. I have always believed that the Libertarian Party needs to be more pragmatic to be viable. Although Bob Barr has a heavily tainted past (he authored the Defense of Marriage Act and opposed medical marijuana while in Congress), I was happy that a “real politician” was going to be the standard-bearer for the Libertarian Party.
When Bob got .4% of the popular vote, losing even to Ralph Nader in a year when there was so much enthusiasm for Ron Paul, I decided unequivocally that this Libertarian Party thing just wasn’t going to work out.
It’s not totally the Libertarian Party’s fault. Our democratic process uses individual districts with one winning candidate per district and an electoral college. It’s winner-take-all. Countries that have multi-party systems usually have a different way of electing their legislative body.
For everything that I’ve listed about Republicans that I don’t like, to their credit, they aren’t doing any of that now. Since Barack Obama took office, his party has been setting the agenda and the national dialogue, and elected Republicans and even prominent conservative media personalities have responded in a way that I consistently agree with.
I have abysmally dissatisfied with Democratic rule on capitol hill. In 8 months, they have nationalized banks and car companies. They are working as hard as they can to lay the foundation for socialized health care. They have created more workplace standard laws in a time when litigation is crippling our economy. They passed a bill in the House which would drive up energy costs and hurt anyone who uses anything which requires energy to be made. They have passed a “stimulus” bill amounting to nearly a trillion dollars to keep people working and unemployment has gone up. That’s just from memory. No libertarian would be pleased by any of this.
The Republicans on capitol hill have been very close to uniformly opposed to all of this. This approach has brought about some criticism, giving credence to phrases like “the party of no.” At a time when an agenda as far to the left as the one we’re dealing with now is being forced upon us, the proper response from even a moderate conservative party should be pure obstructionism. Playing a role in putting a stop to Obama’s agenda is the best thing Republicans can do for America. Even if the lie of “they have no ideas” were true, it wouldn’t do them any good to have any ideas since they don’t have the votes or the President to put their ideas into law.
Everything that’s being proposed right now are bad ideas and bad policies that are certainly bad for America. If Democrats get their way with health care, we will have a permanent left-of-center political culture, where all debates about anything take place on their terms and by their rules. Putting a stop to this agenda is of the utmost importance to Republicans, but it is also of the utmost importance to me and a lot of others who would normally be skeptical of aligning themselves with Republicans.
We’ve all heard the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That’s how I made friends with Sean Hannity and started listening to him every day on my way to work.
The news cycle hasn’t allowed for discussions about abortion, gay marriage, the deterioration of the family, drugs or unnecessary wars – the issues that would typically make me want to distance myself from conservatives. Since every day seems to be a discussion about things the Democrats would like to do, I have a new willingness to align myself with the right.
As somebody who just spend four years in college, I can verify with certainty: Democrats and liberalism are extremely popular. Half of that is Barack Obama. He’s cool, he’s hip, and it’s trendy to support him if you’re only passively political. Had Hillary been the Democrats’ presidential candidate, few doubt that liberalism would have made a similar rise in popularity.
There are about 55 million Republicans and 72 million Democrats. Without examining the causes and possible explanations for this slant of the electorate, we can easily conclude that the left would have an easier time getting to and staying in power since they outnumber the right substantially.
More and more, I’ve been thinking of myself as less of libertarian and more of a non-liberal.
Above all else, I am a non-liberal. This means that my first and most pressing priority is putting a stop to the liberal agenda which has set the tone of political conversation since the 2008 elections. This is the agenda which has energized me and all of those people who attended “tea parties.”
Conservatives, neo-conservatives, libertarians, and Americans of all varieties who oppose what’s being done to this country need to unify and put their differences aside – at least temporarily. It’s going to take every last one of us to put a stop to nationalized health care, confiscatory tax rates, and the runaway expansion of government. Unless millions of other Americans put aside their reservations about the Republican party’s behavior in recent history and urgently adopt the desperately needed new classification of non-liberal, it may soon be too late. Under Obama and a compliant Congress, our greatest fear may soon be realized: More people could wind up on the public dole than there are paying the tab.
Polling has repeatedly shown that most Americans hold attitudes in line with the conservative and libertarian message of small government. In spite of this, Republicans are considerably behind in registered voters and have just lost big in the 2008 elections. They will continue to lose unless they change their approach.
Winning elections in the future will require more than unity among non-liberals. Winning will require a smart new approach. We cannot continue to depend on Democratic overreaching and incompetence, although this will certainly work in our favor. We must communicate our message, abandon losing issues, and stick to our principles once we attain power. Conservatives and anyone else of an even mildly small-government mentality needs to unify to put forth a positive and simple message that will resonate with voters. To harness this unity, we must utilize the only mechanism through which Democrats can be stopped: Republicans.