Common Sense Political Thought

Both parties are rather big tents and the clowns and animal acts keep coming and going.

Republicans were once isolationists and protectionists and the Democrat base in the South was segregationist. In Maryland, the GOP was long the ‘Black Party’.

Conservative Democrats forced FDR to dump the radical Wallace.

Times have changed.

The Dems lost the Solid South as they became radicalized but they have a base in urban Thugocrats and Welfare Rats. Trendy Obama has appealed to the Soylent Green crowd.

Unions see their strength in the ‘public sector’ as the industrial base declines and skilled workers see little use for unions that are often an adjunct of organized crime.

Theodore Roosevelt could be quirky but he set a new course in foreign policy. Our previous engagements beyond our borders were limited to two threats: one against the Euro-meddling in Mexico with Emperor Max the First and Last and earlier the threat of war with Great Britain over Venezuela. We did have a Monroe Doctrine but this was enforced by a foreign navy of a land with common interests.

Old TR saw a benefit in a Big Stick and we got the Great White Fleet. TR stuck his nose in the Russo-Japanese War (he tilted towards Japan) and won a Nobel Peace Prize. Then came Wilson with his goofy ideas about diplomacy based on good will rather than force and the willingness to use it. TR had proper contempt for diplomacy that was based on treaties and disarmament. The Republicans who followed Wilson meant well and went along with the disarmament lobby and reduced the US to a third-rate military power that was treated with contempt by future aggressors. Republicans were the party of isolationism and disarmament and eventually eschewed basic aspects of intelligence gathering on high moral principle.

The Great Depression made the nation hungry for panaceas and the snake oil faucet was turned on fully. Bigger and more intrusive bureaucracy would solve the problems of the world. There were evildoers outside of our borders and three would take millions of innocent lives. The fascists were not that involved in subversion in our country but the Soviets were active. The New Deal was infiltrated with moles whose point of entry was often through an agency as innocuous as the Department of Agriculture. There was a purge of radical NYC lawyers who ignorance of farming approached the ludicrous level but many got into critical posts in Treasury and State.

Franklin Roosevelt shared the international outlook of his late cousin and maneuvered public opinion away from isolationism. After the Pearl Harbor attack, the only person to vote against a Declaration of War was a Republican. The death of FDR may have saved the world from a very bad peace and Truman reversed course. Republicans began to abandon their hidebound isolationism and there was a bipartisan support for the Marshall Plan, NATO, and intervention in the civil war in Greece.

The Democrats had been in power for decades and there were the usual problems. There were scandals involving corruption and subversion. Internal security programs instituted under Truman began to root out traitors and spies. Some of those accused were in high places and had influential friends. Senator McCarthy was more of a self-promoter than an effective crusader and his numerical claims regarding the number of Communists (or sympathizers) at the State Department varied from day to day. Yet there were spies and traitors. Truman got a lot of bad press for Korea and the (proper) dismissal of General MacArthur.

Eisenhower was not identified with either party but was sought by both. He easily defeated his pure Democrat rival in both elections. Ike was the candidate of the Country Club/Board Room set and was a bit of a caretaker. He kept bureaucratic growth under control but could not see fit to make any real change. He did not inspire the party and his name is seldom invoked with the admiration given to Ronald Reagan. He was a cult of personality president who was not burdened by ego.

JFK appealed to many national security voters who viewed Ike as being a disappointment as a Cold Warrior. Nixon was seen as one who would maintain the status quo. The false issue of a ‘missile gap’ worked in Kennedy’s favor as did his concern over Cuba becoming a Soviet base. Kennedy closed the gap enough so that a bit of vote fraud in a few states gave him the Presidency.

Kennedy cut marginal tax rates but admitted that the ‘missile gap’ did not exist. His choice of a closet socialist as Secretary of Defense was a disaster. The bureaucracy grew by orders of magnitude and began a remote micromismangagement of a war in Southeast Asia. The attempted liberation of Cuba was a disaster. The assassination of Kennedy allowed reality to be obscured by the twice-removed myth of Camelot.

There was a revolution in the GOP as a new breed that had both Libertarian and Conservative roots coalesced around Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. He relished a campaign against JFK but saw his hopes dashed at Dallas. With the corrupt and unscrupulous LBJ as an opponent and the martyrdom of Kennedy in the Democrat arsenal, Goldwater knew he had no chance. But he sought the nomination against the candidate of the Eastern Establishment. Nelson Rockefeller was an ideological pygmy who believed that he could buy any office that he sought. The spirited souls of the Goldwater movement were more effective than any Rockefeller hirelings (including Powers models). Many ‘Establishment’ Republicans helped LBJ get elected by a landslide victory. The brightest spot in the 1964 campaign was a memorable speech by Ronald Reagan.

LBJ launched the ruinous ‘Great Society’ and used a report named for a crooked Illinois governor as the basis for this folly. He also retained the old SecDef. Johnson soon saw his popularity decline and realized that he was politically doomed. A lifetime in politics had made him a very wealthy man so retirement was not that bitter. Nixon cashed in a briefcase full of political IOUs that were gathered from attendance at hundreds of GOP fundraisers and got the nomination and presidency.

The 1972 race was a runaway victory for Nixon, given the takeover of the Democrat convention by certifiable radicals. The folly of Watergate (that was likely more about the sexual insecurity of a White House aide than political reality) doomed Nixon and allowed the Establishment to get their man Gerald Ford into office with Rockefeller as VP.

A Liberal with a southern accent narrowly defeated Ford and showed the harm he could do in four years. All economic indices went the wrong way and a disaster in the Middle East was assured by the abandonment of the Shah.

Then we got Reagan. Marginal tax rates were cut and prosperity returned. The containment begun under Truman was accelerated and the Third World War ended with the disintegration of a truly evil empire. Political realities did not allow Reagan to achieve a full spectrum of reform but he achieved the top priority. His VP was identified with the Establishment but time in Texas had seemingly improved him. He stood up to Saddam and seemed to achieve new heights in popularity. Regrettably, efforts to curry favor with enemies made him alienate much of his base and elect the charming Bill Clinton.

The Republican Establishment foisted a legacy onto the ticket in the form of Bob Dole, a man who cut his political eye teeth opposing JFK’s marginal tax rate cuts.

George W.Bush seemed more of a Texan than his father and held the largely ceremonial office of Governor. He did some good and no harm, unlike his predecessor.

Big Labor has seen its strength concentrated in the public sector as our industrial base declines.

So what are the issues that should define the parties?

What about the Constitution?

The First Amendment: Democrats have encouraged the new censorship of political correctness and wish to muzzle dissent with a re-imposition of the ‘fairness doctrine’. Republicans tend to be on the other side.

The Second Amendment: Most (elected) Democrats support incremental victim disarmament through ‘common sense’ firearms laws that only (the less bright) law abiding citizens will obey. They do cater to their criminal base. Some RINOs go along with this.

The Fifth Amendment: The limitations on ‘taking’ of private property was shredded by the Kelo decision that was possible only by the lock-step mindset of Democrat-appointed judges.

There is the hot-button issue of abortion. There are hard-liners at both ends of the spectrum on this. Treating a late-term abortion as a secular sacrament is a bit extreme. Abortions will always be with us but treating such acts as being trivial can have a negative effect on society as a whole and a secular evaluation of the issue might prove interesting.

Economics: Somewhere in Hell Henry A. Wallace must be smiling as we race to dive into the cesspool of socialism. A pampered generation that has lived off of parents believe that Government is a cornucopia of free stuff that is theirs for the asking. They have never learned of the harm done to nations by collectivism but have been indoctrinated to belief that the proper worship of The Chosen One will assure that the lion will lie down with the lamb and that the Moon Pie in the Sky will be delicious, nutritious, and free.

The RINO mentality is one of selling out incrementally on all of the above and enjoying the perquisites of some elected office for life. To Hell with the future, with Liberty, and with Western Civilization,

The Cult of the RINO would ‘purify’ the GOP by expelling all who would express some loyalty to principle.

The fate of the Whig Party should send a message, but a self-imposed ignorance of history may be blissful in some quarters.