Is it time for liberty to shine in the GOP?
By Aaron - April 23, 2009 at 1:05 PM
Filed under GOP Party , GOP Platform , Issues , National Debt , RLC News , Social issues , Special Interest , Taxes
Filed under GOP Party , GOP Platform , Issues , National Debt , RLC News , Social issues , Special Interest , Taxes
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com posted earlier in the week at his blog, asking “Are Republicans Going Galt?”
Pointing to the Tea Party’s origin within the libertarian movement, Silver questions whether the Republican Party is tilting in the libertarian direction in wake of their solid defeats in 2006 and 2008.
The objective evidence Mr. Silver presents includes:
• A recent Gallup survey suggests that 80 percent of Republicans believe that Big Government is a bigger threat than big business, versus just 10 percent who think the opposite. He says “it has now become almost a definitional issue for Republicans.”
• “The Republican alternative budget could be considered a somewhat radical experiment in libertarianism”; and
• Republican insiders are increasingly uncertain about whether gay marriage, which was such an important issue for the party over 2000-2004, is any longer a winning issue at all for them.
Comparing Big Government to big business doesn’t really tell us what we need to know, unfortunately. Big business may be one of the entities competing with limited government that Republicans “sell their souls to” — however, there are a plethora of other entities that Republicans have chosen before smaller government, including puppet politicians, special interest groups, neo-conservatives, pork projects, and religion, to name just a few.
The idea that the Republican alternative budget is radical in any way is foreign to me. It is a far better budget than any one that Republicans proposed under the Bush Administration (no surprise there), and this budget would ultimately reduce the size of government if adopted. However, it is not even close to “a radical experiment in libertarianism”.
Speaking to Mr. Silver’s final point: I’m no Republican insider, but I never believed gay marriage was an important issue for the GOP. Ditto on abortion.
In 2004, for example, the RLC issued a press release against the Federal Marriage Amendment. My recent post at this blog, “Are Republicans Shifting on Gay Marriage and the War on Drugs?“, indicates that at least some Republican legislators — most of whom were already in the moderate wing of the party — have had the courage to support equal rights for gays.
To this point, I count just two libertarian-leaning legislators (both from New Hampshire) who had the courage to take a principled stance of supporting marriage equality for gays and lesbians. If Republicans are going to stand up for equal rights in the near future (and why shouldn’t we?), it will have to be libertarian-leaning Republicans who lead on the issue.
As evangelical social conservative commentator Cal Thomas wrote recently, “The battle over same-sex marriage is on the way to being lost [for social conservatives]. For conservatives who still have faith in the political system to reverse the momentum, you are — to recall Harold Hill [in The Music Man] — ‘closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge’.”
In summary, I think the Republican Party is shifting, but it is not proven with the evidence provided by Nate Silver. Instead, I measure it by how fast the RLC is growing (at a very rapid pace — we can barely keep up!), the enthusiasm of the Ron Paul movement, and the anger in the faces of those who attended the Tea Party protests last Wednesday.
The battle for liberty has just begun. Brace yourself.
On April 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Dave, thanks for your comment on my blog. I don’t know where I have been, but I had not heard of your group. I will certainly sign up, and promote you.
~Becky
On May 2nd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Aaron,
I certainly hope that the conscience of libertarian Republicans is not to support so-called “equal rights” for homosexuals. There is no such thing. Since when is a set of “rights” characterized by risky and unnatural sexual behavior, which is the only thing that distinguishes homosexuals from other people?
This is far different than civil rights for racial minorities, who are different only in the color of their skis, something over which they have no control.
We may as well grant special privileges to pedophiles, which I believe a “hate crimes” bill the House is seeking to do.
I think the RLC has a terrific opportunity to grow within the GOP. But if it becomes associated with “championing” a twisted version of constitutional rights, mainstream GOP members will abandon the RLC in droves.
On May 2nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
On the whole gay marriage thing. I think the RLC is a “natural rights” organization, and generally not comprised of what we call “legal positivists.” Legal positivists believe that rights or vindication of rights should ultimately be granted and thus legitimized by the state.
“Natural rights” theorists know that rights do not come from the state but rather God, or at least rights are intrinsic to our humanity. What this means is that civil society is much bigger than the state so fundamental (and thus natural) rights do not come from the state.
Although Michael Badnarik was probably the biggest reason that I left the Libertarian Party in 2004, he did have one good point. When George Washington got “married” to Martha, there was merely a religious ceremony (solemnization) and no sanction by the state was needed. Today, we need a license from government for several of our natural rights: possessing a gun, getting married, or even building a home(permitting process).
Pushing for a state sanctioned form of gay marriage or civil union is not the way to go about this. Until the courts establish that being gay deserves the same suspect class protection that being black accords, there is no equal protection under the ederal constitution. However, to be intellectually honest, this would entail a radical change back where we get rid of any government recognition or licensing of marriage. This of course won’t happen because we’ve interwoven marriage as a special status far too much with our internal revenue code (thanks 16th Amendment!).
However, this also means that many social conservatives should also avoid “championing a twisted version of constitutional rights.” Many social conservatives believe that mere prefatory language in the U.S. Constitution referring to the protection of “life” should entail amending the Constitution to ban all abortions even if this flies in the face of the 10th Amendment and the federal government was originally granted no police powers. These people also should be stopped, and their “hero” Ronald Reagan (who signed the first therapeutic abortion law as California Governor) would agree. Roe v. Wade is a twisted decision because before it, no “fundamental right” under the federal constitution required anything less than strict scrutiny protection. But if Roe is overturned, the feds should stay the hell out of other states who choose to sanction abortions just like they should allow states to grow marijuana.
I know I’ll get some guy who’ll argue that states rights ended with the civil war and abortion is akin or worse to slavery. But frankly you won’t convince me regardless.
Likewise, the “Defense of Marriage Act” in the late 1990s was stupid. Many social conservatives argue: “without DOMA, we’ll be forced to recognize some gay lifestyle from Vermont, and this offends OUR rights.” Please! No state under current conflict of laws precent, would ever be forced to recognize homosexual marriages from another state. That is the status of Adam and Steve from Massachusetts will get no recognition in Michigan and rightfully so. But, if Adam and Steve file for divorce in Massachusetts family court, and Adam tries to collect alimony from Steve (who now lives in Michigan), Michigan should/must be forced to recognize binding money judgements from other states. Marriage in the eyes of government is nothing more than mere contract and it should be treated as such. Sure, even a cold-hearted bastard like myself recognize that marriage means more than this. But it means more in the eyes of the church and civil society, which exists independent of the state. So if any church decides to recognize gay marriage, I don’t want to hear any of you social conservatives cry about it, and feel the need to use government to legislate morality in an effort to get rid of gay marriage.
On May 2nd, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Jim,
I don’t see equal rights as a “twisted version of rights.”
Additionally, the RLC is not trying to attract “mainstream GOP members”, but constitutionalists and libertarians.
The RLC is not promoting hate crimes legislation and never has. The comment about pedophiles is very misguided, and, in my view, off topic.
Aaron
On May 5th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I agree with some of what Dan said. For the record, I do not support any abortion amendment to the Constitution.
I do believe so-called gay rights are a perversion and have nothing to do with equal rights. If gays were a protected class, which is what they want to be, they would only be distinguished as such by ONE characteristic: their unnatural sexual behaviors.
Aaron, are you saying that the basis for a so-called grant of “rights” be based on someone’s unnatural sexual behavior? That’s why I compared gays to pedophiles. Sodomy is rather, uh, unnatural and is risky from the standpoint of contracting disease. This should not be the basis of “rights.” Rights are God-given and inherent in the free will of man, but there is a moral dimension to rights. Behavior condemned for millennia by more than one faith hardly qualifies as the basis for a new set of “rights.” It crosses the moral line and should not be considered in the same class as the rights of property, free speech, right to peaceably assemble, freedom of religion, etc.
As far as constitutionalists go, no one who is a constitutionalist in the true sense would agree that homosexual acts should be elevated to the level of fundamental rights.
And check the House bill being debated. It is my understanding that pedophiles were included in the bill. I’m not sure why.
Jim