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Counterpoint:
Republicans Are as Antigovernment as They Can Be
James Hall - From the Left
Sartre has clearly hoisted the Republicans on their own petard. The party of "less government" pushes programs that
actually increase the federal government's control and involvement in a number of areas. Look at the Bush plan for HMO reform,
which would destroy a number of better state regulatory laws already in place. Look at the Bush initiative in public education
which insists that states adopt high-stakes testing without giving them the money to do it. Or examine his efforts to inject
the federal government into private religious charities. Or his promise (as yet unfulfilled) to provide a prescription drug
benefit to Medicare. If this is less government, then I'm a huge fan of Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms. Not!
The Republican
Party's ship of state plainly flies false colors. But as I've said before, it's largely because the American people are satisfied
with the status quo. Since the 1960s, Republicans have butted heads with reality. It fought with the Democrats time after
time on Social Security only to learn that most American voters want a social safety net. It opposed Head Start and CHIPS
to help poor children succeed in school and get healthcare only to appear mean-spirited. It fought against affirmative action
programs only to see them succeed in righting two centuries of wrongs imposed by slavery and segregation. It opposed immigration
and tried to deny benefits to migrant laborers laboring in the American workforce for pennies.
After making one boneheaded
move after another, the Republicans in the Bush administration seem to have learned a few lessons. They now talk about supporting
Social Security and boosting Medicare with a prescription drug plan. They argue before the Supreme Court in favor of affirmative
action and against racial profiling. They support a national education policy, a national energy policy, even a national powergrid
that can only be created by creating a national right of imminent domain, confiscating the necessary land from property owners.
They propose efforts to support Mexican migrant workers and grant them work permits.
The Bush Republicans would revamp
our national defense as well. No Democrat would or could have made the steep cuts in the military proposed by President Bush's
defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. More than a decade after the Cold War ended, Secretary Rumsfeld would finally take the
military off of Cold War footing and start to dismantle obsolete Cold War weapons systems, creating a smaller, lighter, more
responsive military.
It's clear from all of these policies that the Republican Party is no longer the party of states'
rights or smaller government. Republican legislators are linked into the Congressional gravy train and this Republican president
lacks the ideological rigor to insist on the libertarian principles of individual liberty, local government, and smaller government.
One can't blame this entirely on Bush. Ronald Reagan, when he was president, articulated these principles but actually grew
the size of government during his tenor. If St. Ronald could do this, then why not his successors in the eastern establishment-linked
Bush family?
It should be clear to anyone with a libertarian bent that the Republicans are a poisoned well for their
principles. Republicans, despite their rhetoric, have bought into Democratic ideas of big government and a social safety net.
They are as antigovernment as they can be with today's electorate, which isn't very antigovernment at all.
James
Hall, From the Left
Final Word:
My conservative colleague, with his typical love of hyperbole, likens his opponents to sheep. Does that mean he and his are
wolves? If so, they resemble that endangered species in more ways that one. Their day is done, and there is little left for
them but to slink back to the deserted places and contemplate their glorious past and mangy current existence.
Sartre
rightfully believes that Americans don't want cradle to the grave government. But most Americans see more of a role for government
in their lives than he is comfortable with. In the greatest tradition of the New Deal, they believe that representative government
is there to succor the poor and offer hope to the downtrodden. That government plays a role in keeping the marketplace competitive,
products safe, and the economy active and strong. That government deters crime and war, provides a linking infrastructure
in highways, rail lines, and airports, and safeguards the vanishing wilderness for future generations. Representative government
funds the research that provides medical cures, improved industrial and agricultural processes, energy efficiency, and explores
earth and space, advancing science, health, and America's prestige and legacy as the greatest nation on Earth.
Americans
will fight bureaucracy, waste, and the concentration of unaccountable power, as well they should. But asking this nation to
return to a simpler time of weaker, restricted, less-effective government simply won't work. The Democrats long knew this,
and Republicans have learned it. Sartre and his friends can raise their voices in protest and hurl all the disdainful insults
they wish, but their cries are like the faraway baying of wolves, growing weaker and more distant each year.
James
Hall, From the Left
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Point:
What is a Republican?
Perception is real to most of the public, while authenticity of deeds is often shaded with
spin and misdirection. Images are projected and distorted as the battle to present your views, and paint those of your opponent,
are waged. The war to win the minds and souls of the People, is more like selling soap in the mass media, than a lesson in
high discourse. Actions are the test of identity, while rhetoric is the medium for distortion.
Republicans have principles
and consistency in beliefs, so we are told. Therefore, we should list their ideological similarities.
1) A central belief
that government needs to be limited in order to be legitimate.
2) Social services are meant to be temporary, and individual
responsibility the norm.
3) Government is best that governs least, and should reflect local administration.
4) Taxes
should be low, less progressive and confiscatory, to fund a smaller government.
5) Military Defense and International
Diplomacy are meant to safeguard America.
6) Environmental protection is achievable without the destruction of business
and jobs.
7) Quotas and preferences cause discrimination and never improvement in race relations.
8) Public policy
requires willing support from the public and individual consent to work.
9) Free Enterprise creates wealth, with few government
regulations and interference.
10) People are Equal under the Law, but government cannot guarantee equivalent results.
Next we must contrast reality from the tenets of Republican Ideology.
1) The only limitation on central government
has been inconsequential. Republicans abandon every effort to abolish Federal Departments, repeal expansive laws, hold dishonest
bureaucrats accountable, return the powers of the States, and reduce the overall size of government.
2) Continual funding
supports Socialist legislation, bureaucratic reach enlarges, new areas of social programs are expanded and individuals are
further burdened to pay for those who are unwilling to support themselves. Additional dependency upon Government is increased,
while self sufficiency is penalized.
3) Expansion and growth of Central authority is continual, incumbency becomes more
entrenched and Washington DC more isolated from the heartland. Local jurisdictions are extorted to comply or lose funding
and appeals for regional independence is ignored.
4) Taxes still rise as a percentage of income, codes become more ambiguous
and repressive, the burden on the middle class increases and the rich demonized. Obligation for Federal liabilities only increase
and new programs continue to be added.
5) America's interest is compromised as troops project Internationalism throughout
the world, as our own borders are invaded by alien elements. Foreign nations resent US intervention as Imperialism under the
guise of Peace Keeping, while the Nation becomes the target of terrorism. 6) Exposure of radical Greens is avoided, while
constructive efficiencies in sensible protections are dismissed. Regional interests are sacrificed for uniform policy standards
that benefit few communities, but enrich special interests; at the cost of jobs and ways of traditional life.
7) Fear
of being accused a Racist, intimidates and eliminates the courage to defend the natural right of free association. Individual
LIBERTY is betrayed for a delusive excuse to force intermingling or become the target of negative press.
8) Law and Order
is preached, while dissent is punished. Protection of the law is applied selectively; rarely for the underclass, seldom for
the middle class, frequently for the elite's and always for the political class of both parties.
9) Free Enterprise is diminished with NAFTA, IMF and World Bank endorsement. The Corporate/State
develop approved monopolies, at the expense of privately owned enterprises. Opportunities to possess individual businesses
are forsaken for labor as the 'hired hand' of large organizations.
10) Efforts to apply social justice for all is infrequent,
while support for ineffectual public programs are defended, that benefit constantly the government officials. Attempts for
real solutions are viewed as threats to the system and loss of partisan power and influence.
Republicans are spineless
champions of the status quo and are unable to rule as a majority Party. Their message is substantially correct, but their
performance is wholly inadequate. Guts to confront the forces of collectivism are lacking. Willingness to expose the socialists,
as the true enemy of America, is absent. And integrity to live by the Ideology that is spoken, is non existent. Personal comfort
and longevity in power and continued DC influence after leaving office, is more important than restoration of the Republic.
The culture of professional career politicians foster acceptance of a creeping expansion of central government as
a necessary actuality of elite rule. Leadership to reverse this unbroken reality has personal costs attached to waging this
fight. Republicans lack the character to destroy the welfare State. Those among their ranks that seek a rebirth for America
are isolated and purged from the Party. Timidity is the badge of the GOP. And confrontation with the traitors of the 'loyal
opposition' is substituted for bipartisan cooperation.
The Republican has become a Quisling to the Nation and an ally
of the Democrat. They are the Trojan horse of the Republic and a collaborator with the turncoats. The line that separates
the two, is so narrow now, and continually lessens in difference, that soon it will disappear altogether. The explanation
for the arrival of the 'New World Order' is obvious. Few in power are against its emergence, and even less are willing to
risk standing in its way. Republicans bed down with Judas, while telling us they dined at the Last Supper. They prefer the
thirty pieces of silver than the pang of sacrifice that comes from political warfare. We are now all ONE, ruled by the same
puissance culture of Mattoids . . .
James Hall aka SARTRE
Rebuttal:
Once again, for all the world to see, the comrade of confusion is left in the fog of babble. Observations that conclude that
"the American people are satisfied with the status quo", is a pretense to justify even more coercive government.
Sheep are not the pride of the animal world in aptitude, nor are their mortal counterparts. The sad fact that Socialism is
now the banter of both major parties, is not an epilogue to relish. But the inference that most Americans desire cradle to
grave government is expressly false.
What the uncertain public illustrates is a voracity to vote their perceived
interest, at the expense of the Nation. The fact that they are seldom given any real choice is undeniable. But the urge to
consider only themselves is at the core of voting patterns. For all the espousal for helping the less fortunate, the reality
is added regimentation when begging at the table of the State. All of this insincerity of deeds is justified by 'good intentions',
while protecting one's own benefits as the prime objective.
Conversation with dependents of government gratuity is
like showing pornography to a pederast, they keep asking, where are the boys ? ? ? Condemning Republicans for succumbing,
while not perfecting, FDR Socialism; is the sign of an unbalanced mind. But that is the exact condition that proponents of
the nanny state find themselves arguing. Republicans deserve disdain for NOT waging total war against the tyrants that continue
to vote for bigger and better free lunches. Make no mistake, neither party defends the principles of the Republic. But if
one is weak and lacking in the courage for open combat, than you need to work for the RepubCAN'TS, and experience the hypocrisy
for yourself.
James Hall - 'The Right'
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