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the Republican Party or Help! I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up


The Republican party was formed in the 1850s primarily in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 that opened possibility of expanding slavery to new territories. The original founders of the Republican Party were anti-slavery Whigs and Free Soil Democrats based on "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men" ideology and a radical vision of modernization based on higher education, railroads, banking, industry and cities.

 

Republicans argued that free market labor was infinitely superior to slavery.

 

The basic idea of the Republic was a rule by law in which individual liberties could not be taken from a person without due process or regardless of popular whim.

 

Republican foreign policy was almost isolationist. They wanted nothing to do with foreign wars and saw the entanglements of treaties as a threat to peace and prosperity.

 

This was the party of Lincoln. A noble and progressive thing that fueled the fire of American growth and commerce.

 

Abraham_Lincoln.jpg

 

So... If I may be so bold as to ask: What the f**k happened?

 

How did the party of individual liberties become the lap dog of the religious right?

 

How did the party synonymous with isolationism become the party of preemptive and protracted wars?

 

How did the party of progressives that championed education become populated with religious fanatics that believe in creationism?

 

How did the party of fiscal conservatism become the party of record setting deficits?

 

It's a long a circuitous route that milked the Red Scare in the fifties and went south in the sixties to court racists. In the seventies the GOP was tainted by Nixon, Watergate and Vietnam so it reached out to religious leaders and embraced "family values" and Reagen in the eighties.

 

In their whoring for votes, closeted homosexual politicians ran on the fear of AIDS and gay bashing courting the religious right and the votes of a broad coalition of Christian and Mormon denominations nation wide.

 

The failed Bush Administration of 2000-08 (unpopular wars, economic malaise) brought the GOP crashing to earth in one of the most crushing nationwide defeats in modern history.

 

However- the lackluster performance of the Obama Administration and the democratic parties big spending policies, big money backers and elitist leanings have soured quickly.

 

Republicans are set to make a major comeback in the mid-terms and Obama is pushing Bush's unpopularity numbers.

 

The big question is has the GOP learned anything? I'm not sure that they have. Running as the opposition is a hell of a lot easier than actually leading and taking the heat for making decisions.

 

I would suggest that if they really wanted to make an impact, if they really wanted to lead the country forward, the answer in in thier past.

 

The progressive ideas on which the republican party was founded are every bit as alive and vital today as they were in the 1850s. Probably more so. At some point in the past, we quit building America and ever since then we have gotten progressive smaller: smaller as a player on the world stage and smaller as an economy. We have gone from an industrial superpower to a fast-food service economy without enough jobs or economic where with all to drive the federal behemoth of a government that both parties have built.

 

It is time for a radical change in direction that changes our course from just another socialist nanny state to a nation ready to meet the future. Just like the 1850s platform vision of modernization based on higher education, railroads, banking, industry and cities, we need a new agenda for the next century that casts aside the trappings of the old world and its conflicts and leverages the power of our scientific and technological base.

 

America can be that shining city on the hill again but republicans can not do it by pandering to peoples fear and bigotry. Republicans need to rediscover the ideals that they were founded on.

8 Comments


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old bob

Posted

Wow :worship:

James, you should begin a political carrier. your blog is one of the best address I ever heard.

From what I have read in DK stories, you only need a huge amount of money to success and a lot of friends. You have allready the friends. Any chance to find a loan among them ?

Andrew Q Gordon

Posted

James,

 

I remember distinctly when I left the Republican Party - it was the 1992 Presidential Election. I grew up a GOP, my folks were, my family was, it was what we did. Back then the issue wasn't Family Values, it was as you put it focus on the country. Reagan's rise to popularity was based in no small part because he was unapologetic about being an American and made folks feel good about our country.

 

In 1992 - Bush and Quayle began as you pointed the focus on family values. I remember listening to their convention and wondering how there didn't appear to be a place for me in their definition of Family Values. A friend of mine went to the convention and told a newspaper how he booed as loud as he could when they starting bashing gays - overtly or covertly. He left the party soon after as well.

 

Unless and until the GOP moves away from this assault on Social Acceptance, they will continue to bleed voters. All one had to do was look at the GOP convention in Minneapolis in 2008. It looked like a rally at a retirement home. My niece - also raised by a republican family, cast her very first vote for the Democrats, why? Because she was tired of them bashing people like her uncle - me. [she was always near and dear to me but never more than when she told me that.]

 

So yeah WTF happened that the bedroom dominates politics more than issues? IDK. I have no answer.

 

Andy

Mark Arbour

Posted

I know I'm not supposed to be talking to you but....

this was really an excellent post.

Thirdeye

Posted

Parties don't matter anymore. Both really do the same things and screw us equally. Almost all of the things I hated about Bush and the republicans is still going on under Obama and the democrats. All the the things that Fox news cry about now were the things they ignored under Bush, or told us was unamerican to criticize him for. It is ridiculous.

old bob

Posted

Parties don't matter anymore. Both really do the same things and screw us equally. Almost all of the things I hated about Bush and the republicans is still going on under Obama and the democrats....

If I dont make any mistake, american citizen will have to elect their representatives in 3 months. You said you hated the republicans. I you really follow what the democrats do now, it's at least trying to correct the mistakes the republicans made.

We Europe fought hard to get and to keep our democratic rights. IMO, here and anywhere, we have to vote. It's our duty.

I wish you will, even if you dont know yet for which party you will vote.dont spoil your right to vote. It's just my advice.

Thirdeye

Posted

If I dont make any mistake, american citizen will have to elect their representatives in 3 months. You said you hated the republicans. I you really follow what the democrats do now, it's at least trying to correct the mistakes the republicans made.

We Europe fought hard to get and to keep our democratic rights. IMO, here and anywhere, we have to vote. It's our duty.

I wish you will, even if you dont know yet for which party you will vote.dont spoil your right to vote. It's just my advice.

 

 

I didn't say I hate the republicans. I said I hated Bush and what they did under his term. The democrats are not trying to correct the mistakes made under Bush. They are making all the same mistakes. The open government the promised isn't there, they are as secretive as ever. Bush pissed all over a the Constitution and continued to use disasters to expand the power of his office. Obama hasn't shrunk the office any and has also continued to expand it.

 

Voting isn't the simple solution, as most of the candidates are the same. They use stupid social ideals such as abortion which really isn't going to even be won or loss at the federal level, but people will cast their vote simply over some of these issues and ignore everything else about a candidate

JamesSavik

Posted

Voting isn't the simple solution, as most of the candidates are the same. They use stupid social ideals such as abortion which really isn't going to even be won or loss at the federal level, but people will cast their vote simply over some of these issues and ignore everything else about a candidate

 

I agree and know exactly what you are talking about.

 

There is very little difference in the parties and that is the problem.

 

We need to ask them when they run as a republican or a democrat what they really stand for.

 

Those politicians that are looking to buy votes with taxpayer money need to go. We can't afford it and they sit on both sides of the aisle.

  • Like 1
old bob

Posted

We need to ask them when they run as a republican or a democrat what they really stand for.

It's exactly what I would say. Before voting, to make the necessary researches and ask directly all the people who want you to vote for them what they really stand for. It needs time and luck to find the real opportunities to contact them, but it is worth the efforts you need to do.

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