The Real Republicans: The Case for Moderates, Liberals, and Pragmatic Conservatives in Our Party part 6

Part Six in a series by Guest Contributor Martin Rybicki who blogs at the Progressive Republican.

“We were at absolute peace, and there was no nation in the world with whom a war cloud threatened, no nation in the world whom we had wronged, or from whom we had anything to fear.” -Teddy Roosevelt

History can be a stubborn fact for those who seek to ignore it and what better way than to pretend that the grand history of the GOP did not start in the 1850’s, that Lincoln was not the first Republican president, and that it was not a party of progress, than to just say that the roots of the party started with the past Reagan Revolution and maybe with Barry Goldwater. It would be good for those who seek to return the party to ideas that have nothing in common with Republicanism but who realize that they may not have as strong a platform to voice their desires otherwise and therefore any attempts to discredit the actual past history of the party is in their view necessary.

As I have put forth, the party’s history and its core principles and ideas on how to best protect them is not what the far-right wished it to be and only what they wanted it to be which in turn led to what we have today for the GOP. As we reformers seek to bring the party back to its former glory, it is important to put forth some of the ideas being put forth by many of what this should and should not be about. We must see if these ideas can fit the basic and original republican ideals of progress and societal advancement.

First of all it goes without saying that this party is not and never was a party for theocracy as this nation is not and never was from the beginning a theocratic nation and it never should be. This is not a problem at all for those who understand this and realize that while they have their own personal faith it was never meant to be the law of the land for people of other faiths to follow. Numerous members of the centrist republican movement are people who attend services of some religion or another, but understand and celebrate this diverse society that we live in and share. The Republican Party in fact should welcome the people of all faiths based on the belief for cultural inclusion and understanding of the backgrounds of all Americans; people who while following their own faith will acknowledge and respect the personal beliefs of religion of others around them. Christians, Muslims and Jews, and any and all other faiths or those without faith should be welcome into our party.

But those who do not tolerate the religious beliefs or no belief of others and who thrive on dualistic mindsets that would pit one faith against another and even await, gleefully at times, a violent apocalypse between religion and cultures and as a result support and give power to warmongering neo-conservative ideas and who hope to establish a strict religious nation devoted to a narrow set of beliefs despite the fact that not all Americans follow each others specific belief, need not pretend to be Republican

Social conservatism has been the call to arms for these theological conservative or theo-cons. It should be stated that this does not mean that on social issues this party must be absolutely liberal. Issues such as abortion are still subject to and absolutely need real philosophical debate even within our own party, but any reasonable debate and argument has been abandoned by the religious right in favor of a simple and baseless theocratic statement against all abortion. The question of where life and the rights to life begin is never addressed by social conservatives using reasons that go beyond religious dogma, again ignoring the diversity of faith in our society as well as the separation of church and state. Or if they are, usually it’s based on pseudo-scientific premises made by conservative think-tanks. The issue of social issues such as abortion and the future of our party is addressed in another paper of mine and will show how while theo-cons have taken the debate away, there is still a wide range of views that a social liberal, social libertarian and social moderate , the latter who does not wholeheartedly accept the pro-choice position but neither sees the pro-life movement’s attitude towards the issue as correct, can agree upon. It also addresses the acknowledgement that the socially moderate, when abortion is the issue, is indeed a large chunk of the nation and must give us as a centrist party reason to debate how best to shape a message to reflect this.

Republicanism is not a rejection of the intellectuals of our society in favor of thoughtless tub-thumping. It is inherently not a party that should defend pseudo-scientific creationism over actual science. It is not a party for theocracy and a party to push the evangelical Religious Right agenda onto a nation that is composed of many different kinds of believers, and non-believers alike. While there is place for many ideas, there are some that are ultimately in complete rejection of the party’s firm stance on progress. When it comes to issues such as science in classrooms, it is easy to see where a stance agreed by all except the Religious Right can and should be made. There is nothing wrong if someone personally believes the world was created in seven days, but those who wish to have all students taught these stories as if they were actually backed in any real amount by actual science, need not pretend to be anything else other than a theocrat and certainly not a republican. The Religious Right’s hold on the GOP in their pursuit to replace science with anything else but, must be brought to an end. Other views of social issues separate from the Religious Right, what they are and how they can or cannot fit within a future party must also be reviewed and understood or more to the point, the differences and similarities of social libertarianism and social liberalism.

Libertarianism, contrary to what many might automatically think, does not have social liberalism within it. Social libertarians are, in their anti-government tradition, best described as militantly passive on social issues. They are not socially liberal; they are socially libertarian, their own clear category. They do not care how other people live their lives, but certainly don’t believe in government being active to protect those that may be at danger. A true libertarian on social issues such as race, for example, will not care about their neighbors, whether they are black or white, gay or straight, likes tacos over hamburgers. They are, in their purest form, not bigots and without hate for those around them as long as it is not harmful to others.

Unfortunately, they will not care to the extent that they won’t want laws and especially national laws that would in fact serve to protect their neighbors from racial or any other hate based crime from others and punish those who do commit hate crimes. A perfect example of this would be Barry Goldwater, leader of the libertarian conservative movement, and his rejection of the civil rights act of 1964 that served to end racial segregation in schools and public places, all because it was a use of the federal government. While other issues today predominate the political airways, it is necessary that while our party should not seek to have a social litmus test and not focus on social issues as it has over the years, whether it is from a conservative or liberal viewpoint, we must be prepared to take a stand for justice if another major case for civil rights were to ever be brought forth nationwide. Instead of rejecting the civil rights act simply because it was government legislation, our party should have, and many moderate and liberal republicans did, support this important milestone in racial desegregation. In rejecting it, the changing libertarian-conservative controlled GOP would lose out urban voters and the non-white voter, losing the credibility it had with black Americans especially after the conservative backed southern strategy. Today, race is still an issue and a reformed GOP has an opportunity to make a name of itself for fair justice in the line of Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal. Justice served fairly and appropriately to whatever race or ethnicity is involved.

This is not to say that there is no place for issues deemed libertarian, just that the basic principle of libertarianism itself is not compatible with the party. Issues such as dealing with what some consider excessively strict and detrimental drug laws and the questions that surround its effectiveness and the libertarian ideas for this are welcome for discussion. But again the attitude towards this issue must be within the progressive mindset, not the libertarian mindset. Again, the libertarian will be against the drug laws merely because it is a government crackdown on what they believe to be their freedom to use drugs. The progressive on the other hand, will reform or completely rewrite their stance on the drug laws if they are deemed to be a failure in moving society forward.

If the drug laws implemented years ago had been obviously effective in lowering the drug rate and the crime and poverty that comes with it, then the progressive answer would to keep them. If it is seen that the laws cause more harm than good, a revision of how to solve the issues of drugs in our society would be in place, but always to see how to move the nation forward with the problem of dangerous drugs and its effect on our society especially with the youth. The libertarian would reject the stance on drugs whether they worked or failed. In any way, one can see this new debate over active liberalism or militantly passive libertarianism and how this shows that there is an overall tantamount agreement among those of my generation with their differing views than those of previous generations that this party will fail unless it sheds the socially conservative theo-con image and elements and that maybe those that are socially liberal and socially libertarian can come together to do just that.

While honest passivity on social issues is welcome, there may be times in which decisive action and stands must be taken to ensure rights. Thus when the time to take a stand comes, social liberalism must be our route instead of the passive social libertarianism. Unfortunately, we can’t go back in time and work to stop the takeover of the GOP by conservatives/libertarians who would vote against Civil Rights. A libertarian conservative stance, by the way, that was happily adopted by the southern Dixie conservatives to keep their segregated way of life intact. Times have changed since then and in general today socially libertarian and socially liberal viewpoints could fit within a centrist party with differences between the two being something to debate about with the motion to reject antiquated bigotry and hate being the basis for both sides. I do believe that both passive and active can agree that this debate is healthy, necessary and could bring these two social stances together to start to tackle issues such as gay rights and abortion and use reasoned and logical arguments to solve these seemingly age old political questions. In doing this the yoke of social conservatism that is strongly rooted in a narrow minded religiosity represented by the theo-cons must be and very well can be, thrown off.

It is not a party that should continue its current foreign policy of militarism and arrogance at all times with any and all nations. While this party cannot be the party of passiveness in the face of imminent danger, it must re-embrace diplomacy as past Republican presidents, moderate, liberal and conservative alike have done, and see the use of military force as truly the last resort. Neo-cons have stated that they believe this, but it is obvious to most outside their circle that they are far too eager to commit lives for any geopolitical problem that comes up and sees any attempt to settle situations through mature diplomatic means as weakness.

Our foreign policy must seek to emulate achievements that of past Republican presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt who earned a Nobel peace prize for his foreign policy accomplishments, Eisenhower who was able to stabilize and end the Korean War in our favor by accomplishing the original goals of South Korean freedom, Ronald Reagan who while pushing for the collapse of the soviet union also met, smiled, shook hands and talked with its leader while working smartly to the right moves behind the scenes that would set up the stage for soviet collapse, and George H.W. Bush who unlike his son was quite adept at forging coalitions if the need for military force arose and having clear outlines and goals as in The Gulf War. Diplomacy was key in his administration as the Soviet Union began a steady collapse that could have led to a dangerous situation for many nations. Due to H.W’s embrace and experience with the art of international politics, he was able contribute an important variable that led to a relatively peaceful and controlled soviet collapse. Teddy Roosevelt, who famously made the remark “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick”, would be ashamed at the neo-con belief that more closely resembles “speak stupidly and hit everyone with sticks”.

Above all, this party should not embrace what is the original far-right, the original extremism before they sought to redraw the political map into a diamond so as to escape the neo-cons and social cons that they have been partnered with for many years in order to bring about their ideas. This party is not a libertarian party nor is it a home for the basic libertarian principle that is anti-government which has little to nothing in common with Republicanism.

Libertarian conservatism was the beginning of the end of true effective Republicanism as the anti-government forces held sway of the party, led first by Goldwater and continued on by others, their embrace of trickle-down economics and massive tax cuts that when applied merely gave an illusion of prosperity due to the already rich, being benefited even more by the hard earned taxpayers, going out and spending their way to new levels. This of course at the expense of the rest of us, who see the reality of these tax cuts that became the basic principle of the far-right, as nothing more than creating more class division.

They talk of going back to conservative principle, the basics of course, but this conservative root being libertarian conservatism is nothing more than the same anti-government rhetoric that the party has been promoting. Libertarians speak as if they are somehow in the minority, left out from the rest with ignored ideas but this is not the case. Their basic principle is constantly seen in every aspect of conservative policy, whether it be the debt inducing Bush tax cuts which could only be accepted by those with a libertarian mindset that does not care about what happens to government and does not see it as a necessary tool of the people and running it into the ground, the use of unregulated privatized mercenary forces in Iraq by the neo-cons, and the socially conservative Theo-cons who gave the hands-off libertarians power and backing throughout many years by way of Fusion conservatism.

The failure of government was not only a failure by neo-cons, theo-cons, but also most importantly by a hard-line libertarian conservative attitude towards government permitting an utter failure in necessary regulations and oversight of industries and markets as well as abandoning the conservatism that existed before Goldwater and his new creed of extreme conservatism. Going on this realization, the “compassionate conservative” that many on the right say was merely straying from true conservatism was, for much of the administration, more closely aligned with actual conservatism itself than with true principled center and liberal republicanism and proves why conservatives are trying to distance themselves from Bush. If George W. Bush is linked, and despite their efforts he is, to and seen as close to hard-line conservatism as possible, then it the conservative train of thought as it exists today may never be politically viable again.

While there is a point made by those who say that Bush throughout his term strayed from conservative principle by not vetoing the conservative held congress’s excesses, it nevertheless showed that at the core of his and his cabinets view of the role of government for much of those eight years was merely a anti-government hand’s off approach made obvious by Bush’s massive tax cuts in keeping with the conservative thought born in the Goldwater days, expounded by Reagan and his “Reaganomics” and later becoming unquestioned dogma for conservatives even if it was proven to lead to massive debt. A dogma that the far-right has kept with such an unreasonable irrational militancy in the face of truth: that trickle-down tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy does not work.

It was an administration that at its core believed in standing for corporate America instead of with the people and believed that government should not regulate and check these industries as well as failing to effectively structure national services such as FEMA instead, as with the SEC, filling its ranks with those who had little knowledge on how to run it. It was in its basic philosophy for much of those years an administration whose ineptitude at running government was born out of the conservatism that began to take shape in the 1960’s and whose about course with government intervention at the end of its eight year term was, similar to Herbert Hoover’s response to economic disaster, too little too late and shoddily done. It was a conservatism that rejected the center-right and embraced basic far-right libertarian philosophies on how to run government, or more accurately, how to run it into the ground.

This is why it has been absolutely necessary to go over what the Republican Party once was and what it can become. It was not a party of made up of social traditionalists seeking to just “conserve” and keep the status quo of the old established order be it the slaveholding south or the increasingly powerful corporations of the early 20^th century. It was the first truly progressive party, and it must seek to become once again, a progressive party. There will be those who will not like this, who seek to continue the old ways of outdated hard-line conservative political thinking, but those days while not completely gone yet, are nearing their end. In regaining its original progressive roots and in refuting the conservative economic message of out of control consumerism coupled with deregulated industry and a disregard for the viability of our own government, we can once again become the party of ideas that it once was. We can provide the alternative vision on how to run government instead of simply being, ironically given the Republican Party’s progressive roots and history, the alternative that seeks to hobble and diminish the only institution in our nation that was actually set up from the very beginning to defend and uphold the rights of the people.