Watching the Republicans try to reinvent themselves (or not), I find myself wondering whether I'm in the wrong party.
Well, not really. But as conservatives try to regain the power and prestige they have squandered, some are starting at the core: their core values, that is. Two comparatively lucid examples:
* Ron Paul's commentary piece,
GOP should ask why U.S. is on the wrong track.
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Mike Huckabee's book tour which is all about getting Republicans back to their core values, whatever those happen to be.
The more I read these lists of core values, though, I find myself wondering whether I might, myself, be a conservative. Is that possible?
On the other hand, margotb822's diary, I am a Liberal because..., took a similar approach to defining what it means to be liberal. Now I'm confused because I agree with many of these too. What to do?
More below the fold.
For example, Ron Paul writes: "Now, in light of the election, many are asking: What is the future of the Republican Party? But that is the wrong question. The proper question should be: Where is our country heading? ... Once it's figured out what is fundamentally wrong with our political and economic system, solutions can be offered. If the Republican Party can grasp hold of the policy changes needed, then the party can be rebuilt."
That makes a dizzying amount of sense to me. Sure -- understand the problems, then formulate solutions to them. "Ready, aim, fire" instead of "ready, fire, aim" or as the last eight years had it, "fire, fire, fire ..."
Paul then presents this list -- presumably the principles behind the policy changes he believes the Republicans ought to support:
• Limited government power
• A balanced budget
• Personal liberty
• Strict adherence to the Constitution
• Sound money
• A strong defense while avoiding all undeclared wars
• No nation-building and no policing the world
Wow -- don't these sound good? Shouldn't government have limited power? Of course. And I'm all for personal liberty. I prefer sound to unsound money. Does this make me a Republican, even in a sort of fringe Ron Paul sense? Without context, it might seem that way.
Take the first one. "Limited government power"? Sure, I want a government limited in its ability to, say, wiretap me without reasonable judicial restraint, or to monitor what library books I read. A conservative is in favor of limited government too, but would give different examples.
It is not the general principles that define "liberal" and "conservative". It is the rubber-meets-the-road questions that result. What should the tax structure be: flat, progressive, regressive? What kind of arms should someone be allowed to buy in Wal-Mart: semiautomatic, automatic, nuclear? When should abortion be legal: never, first trimester, college?
Agreement between liberal and conservative tends to end when we get out of general principles and into specifics. That doesn't stop one side or the other from trying to claim one general principle or another as their special turf. "We're the party of fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets" is usually something a Republican would say, overlooking that the only President to actually balance a federal budget in the past thirty years was a Democrat. You have to go back to Nixon to find a Republican who did it, and he only did it once.
I don't think the Republicans will be able to redefine themselves without resolving their differences on some of these rubber-meets-the-road issues. I think the days are over when they could simply fall back to generalities and avoid raising these questions (as in, "How can we be fiscally responsible and run up half-a-trillion dollar deficits at the same time?") Ron Paul's idea of figuring out what is actually wrong and working out solutions makes a lot of sense for conservatives.
It also makes sense for progressives, too. How do we do that? I don't know. It took me two weeks to get this much written. I'm looking forward to seeing how we do it, though.