[nucklepunche]

I have decided as of late that I must come to an official admission: I hate the US Republican Party. I spend a lot of my time on this forum talking about the Republican Party, probably more than the Democrats, and constantly bashing them. Even so I am generally right of center in my opinions. So why do I spend so much time bashing Republicans, with such harshness, even though I completely reject modern American left-liberalism.

The reason is because I already know where I disagree with the Democrats and the left.

I realize that there are many issues where I simply will never come to common ground with the left. I will never think elective abortion as a matter of "choice" is perfectly okay. I will never accept that we should allow completely unchecked third world immigration because it makes liberals feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I will never accept the idea that we can completely upturn the bedrocks of traditional society like religion and family without any ill consequences. I will never accept that corrupt labor unions and government bureaucrats ought to dominate economic life. I will never accept political correctness. In other words there are just too many gaps to bridge.

However I can respectfully disagree with these people, even hoping they and their plans for America are defeated. I don't hate the Democratic Party as an institution, I want it to fail because I do not agree with its politics, but I don't have a genuine emotional hatred for the institution. I'm probably not going to vote for their candidates anyway. I hope they lose, but I sort of feel emotionally neutral about them.

The reason I hate the Republican Party and have an infatuation with bashing it constantly is because the Republican Party has ruined an intellectual tradition that I love. Oh how I would love to call myself a "conservative" but unfortunately I cannot in today's climate because people who are not really conservatives have added too much baggage to the name. I don't want people on the left to misconstrue what I believe nor do I want the faux conservatives dominating the GOP today to think I am their allies.

No I do not hate every Republican voter or politician, I merely hate the institution the GOP has become and many of the intellectual voices that dominate it.

First of all conservatism is not an ideology, it is a predisposition. It is a way of seeing the world that views all radical projects with suspicion as it is rooted in a fundamental skepticism of human nature, which in itself is somewhat rooted in a Christian worldview. Thus the true conservative abhors socialism as it seeks to allow man to plan from the ground up, but it also abhors radical economic libertarianism as it is the opposite side of the coin, it proposes that the rapine of businessmen unchecked will somehow lead to a more decent society. Instead the true conservative is all about the checks and balances of society. They see civic institutions like church and family as being part of this, not to mention business, and yes, even government.

It is the conservatism of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, William F Buckley, Michael Oakeshott and others. It is today held up by a handful of enigmatic intellectuals like Rod Dreher and Ross Douthat. These intellectuals reject the hardened egalitarianism and moral relativism of the left while at the same time rejecting extreme economic libertarian utopianism. However I dare not call myself "conservative" due to those who have scuttled the name.

Today's "conservatives" are a strange hybrid of economic libertarians and theocratic nationalistic populists, neither of which have anything to do with conservatism. Economic libertarians were the "liberals" of the 19th century and opposed by true conservatives like Benjamin Disraeli. Meanwhile theocratic nationalistic populists like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin represent crude, baseless movements of pure emotion. In truth they are a merely more moderate version of radical nationalistic movements in Europe. No they are not Nazis, far from it, however there is some overlap with them and the crude nationalistic populism that the young Hitler was infatuated with and later developed into a more heinous and destructive ideology. In truth there have always been such people in the world.

So here we have the GOP, a modern alliance of latter day Ebenezer Scrooges and Archie Bunkers, as opposed to a staid force rooted in conservative philosophy and tradition.

I believe the Republican Party has done far more damage to conservatism than it has helped. Only a bold reformist conservative movement can save conservatism, perhaps it has a future in a future incarnation of the GOP down the road, but today's GOP, meaning the GOP as it is constituted today, has no place for such enlightened thought. It is for this reason I hope it fails miserably, because I believe only in its destruction can true conservatism emerge to pick up the pieces. Only when America repudiates Tea Party ideology completely will they wake up and realize they have a problem.

We need a conservative movement that appeals to the concerns of the broader working class electorate, one that speaks to rising health care and college tuition costs and not just to concerns of the upper class about taxes.

We need a conservative movement that can speak to the issue of family breakdown in society without focusing on straw men like gays.

We need a conservative movement that recognizes the timeless value of tradition and culture, as opposed to the crass flag waving and Bible thumping of populist degenerates.

This is what we need but unfortunately I don't think it can be built until the current conservative movement is shuffled out of office.

[Rainbow Crow]

It's silly of you to give up on a word like conservatism I think. Now you can't call yourself anything? It sounds like you are making things difficult for yourself.

I also don't think it is fair to bash Bible-thumpers. The Bible is the origin of traditional values in the west, after all. Expecting conservatives to avoid thumping their Bibles seems a strange position to take if you agree with traditional values and aren't interested in populism.

[Rei Murasame]

That whole post looks pretty confusing to me, Nucklepunche. It's like you agree with what they are saying, but you don't like how they are saying it?

[oscar]

Nucklepunche is right, the combination of "economic libertarians" and "theocratic nationalistic populists " are giving true conservatives a bad name. The GOP has been hijacked by the "non-RINOs" to create a new "Faux-conservative" party masquerading as the old GOP. The new GOP and it's unwillingness to compromise with that other party to actually govern is one reason why the American public has such dismal view of Congress (and with good reason). (The other being the US government has been bought lock, stock, and barrel by corporate and bank interests at all branches of government but that's another topic).

[nucklepunche]

I also don't think it is fair to bash Bible-thumpers. The Bible is the origin of traditional values in the west, after all. Expecting conservatives to avoid thumping their Bibles seems a strange position to take if you agree with traditional values and aren't interested in populism.

I am not referring to those who root their beliefs in an intellectual Christianity. There are plenty of thinkers both Catholic and Protestant who see the roots of western civilization in Christianity. What I am critical of is the dumbed-down Christianity of the evangelical megachurch set that has become an apparatus of the Republican Party in much of the south and midwest. I call them "Bible thumpers" because they are rooted in pure emotion as opposed to reason.

There is a difference between the staid Catholicism of William F. Buckley and the movie Jesus Camp I think (if you've seen it, it's a documentary about the types of people I speak of). In the end though I don't think religion must be a requirement for conservatism, I merely think that atheistic conservatives ought to appreciate that religion is the glue that often holds society together. But you can't deny that people of the Palin-Bachmann brand who are focused on making inflammatory statements (and the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell before them) are a liability to conservatism.

That whole post looks pretty confusing to me, Nucklepunche. It's like you agree with what they are saying, but you don't like how they are saying it?

I agree with what they are saying on some issues but not what they are saying 100%.

To me it seems they are too hung up on absolute economic libertarianism. To me the true conservative recognizes government does have a role to play in regulating business and providing programs for the common good. Where we differ with the left is that it is more out of a sense of noblesse oblige as opposed to a desire to level the classes.

In other words I believe as part of the social contract the wealthy owe some things back to the rest of us, however I'm comfortable with the fact that there will always be class stratification to some extent. It doesn't bother me that a wealthy person might get his own private doctor for instance, while the rest of us do not. Something like this might genuinely bug somebody on the left. However it does bother me that he is getting a private doctor while somebody might not even have medical insurance. My problem with the modern American right is they don't seem to be worried about this, they are more worried that the wealthy man might have to pay 2% more in taxes to provide the poor with health insurance.

Finally they don't seem to offer any constructive proposals for anything other than "cut taxes" and "stop Obama." For instance they say repeal Obamacare but where is the replacement? A good example is something like Singapore has with mandatory health savings accounts and private catastrophic coverage. This is a sensible conservative policy, but many conservatives in the USA would oppose it because it involves something mandatory even though it would lead to a less socialized medical system than we even have currently. The point is they dig their ideological blinders in so far on some issues they can't make progress to a world they would enjoy more if it means they get 80% of what they want versus 100%.

[oppose_obama]

Cutting taxes and stopping obama's policies is a good thing. Would you prefer the party in opposition buy everything the party in power is selling?

[nucklepunche]

I agree with a flatter simpler tax system, however we shouldn't act like we should oppose all government regulation because we have some pipe dream of an ultra-libertarian future.

Singapore style health care should be put in place but many Republicans would resist it as being RINOcare and socialism-lite even though it is entirely private and would eliminate Medicare and Medicaid altogether, why? Simply because it would mandate health savings accounts and have some regulations. I'm sure this would happen, otherwise John Boehner and Mitch McConnell would be up there giving speeches about how we should put a program similar to this in place once we repeal Obamacare.

This is a perfect example of a conservative common sense policy that a lot of Tea Partiers would oppose since it includes a mandate which the evil Obama also is in favor of.

Yes we need to reduce taxes, particularly the corporate income tax which is the highest in the world, but we need to use creative policymaking as a method to get there. My problem with the GOP is specifically with the type of people summed up by your username, "Oppose Obama." I'm sick and tired of Republicans acting like the whole purpose is to defeat Democrats and stop Obama's policies instead of coming up with real ideas of their own to compete against the left.

This is why I hate the Republican Party.

1) Using the name of conservatism to cater to ideologues and special interests.

2) Focusing entirely on opposition to a lame duck president as opposed to coming up with policy alternatives.

3) Refusal to move out of the Reagan era narrative wherein high taxes and inflation were our nation's biggest problems. Today the problems are high unemployment, high health care costs, stagnant wages for all but the rich. These call for a different political focus. Reagan was necessary but the problems of his time were not the problems of our time.

[emmitt]

I suppose it might be advisable to take a closer look at communitarianism and specifically at responsive/centrist communitarianism. Proponents of communitarianism generally try to fuse a more conservative stance on social issues (Philosophically, they stress the embeddedness of the individual within a cohesive group and a matrix of relationships or social networks. Ideologically, they stress the socio-political significance of religion.) with a "common sense approach" (i.e. center-left approach) when it comes to economics.

There is obviously some diversity within the commmunitarian movement since it consists of both democratic and more paternalistic currents. This might confuse things a bit but the movement is still one of the more interesting ideological developments which have come into being. (The reason for this diversity is probably the confused use of the term. It's sometimes (mis)used as a descriptive term.)

Btw, (right-wing) communitarianism is sometimes said to be the main ideology of Singapore.

[U184]

Why spend the time, energy and passion on hate?

Have you looked into other parties, or have you the desire to help reform existing parties?

Also, have you looked into Blue Dog Democrats?

[nucklepunche]

As much as I wish a third party were viable I doubt this will happen under the American system, which I think is constitutionally biased toward creating a two party system. The goal must be to pump up organizations like Blue Dog Democrats and the Republican Main Street Partnership.

[emmitt]

The Blue Dog Democrats are actually just a manifestation of communitarian thought even though they might not explicitly define temselves as representatives of communitarianism.
The problem with communitarianism primarily lies in its lack of popular appeal due to its strange relationship with political liberalism.
It's basically the same with neo-republicanism. They're all academic creations which have almost no real supporters in real life. It's also unclear if there's truly a difference between neo-republicans and ordinary liberals within the Democratic party.

[nucklepunche]

emmitt brings up an unfortunate truth. The talk of "sane sensible conservatism" is confined to Ross Douthat and other New York Times "token conservatives" as well as The American Conservative magazine and a handful of other talking heads. I see some limited support of it in places like this where political junkies obsessed by the minutia of political philosophy gather. But for all our hand wringing we see no support for it on the ground.

In the end the average Tea Partier is fundamentally pedestrian, and Rush Limbaugh is as close to a political philosopher as they will ever get. They have almost certainly never heard of Oakeshott, probably not Burke, and there's a good chance even William F. Buckley would be too arcane for them. They are libertarian nationalist populists, and if they met real conservatism face to face they would probably be against it.

The truth is true conservatism has always fundamentally rejected populism and thus will have little chance of generating mass appeal in a nation like the USA which has this obsession with populism and a sense that politicians need to act stupid and down to earth. There may be some support for it in British conservative ranks buy once again the British are not as fanatically populist as Americans are.

It all goes back to Andrew Jackson and how he was labelled a buffoon and his behavior warranted such a label, but he was elected anyway. Once Jackson came along the old refined vision the Founders had was supplanted by western backwoods populism.

There's that old American political joke about Abe Lincoln being born in a log cabin that he built with his own hands. This is a nation which once had a political party called the Know-Nothings, for goodness sake.

There's an ebb and flow. At times populist buffoonery has sent us veering over the edge. I'd suggest the civil war could have been avoided had cooler heads prevailed. There was a period from World War 2 to the early 90s where there was a semblance of consensus driven politics. Things were not perfect, and I do not hold it up as a mythical era it is often remembered as. You still had the Dixiecrats, which were today's equivalent of the Tea Party, trying to throw monkey wrenches into things. However you saw members of both parties from across the political spectrum in positions of power negotiating. There were plenty of liberals and conservatives and moderates in both parties. I hope to bring something like that era back.

Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong country. I feel like in some ways I emphasize fundamental American virtues, I have that classic American optimism that maybe, somehow things may turn around. However I feel sometimes I'm too cold and pragmatic to live in a country like this. I feel like American culture doesn't value pragmatism and statistical based reasoning as much as it should. A lot of people in this country seem to have a pride in "thinking with their gut" and tend to reject reason as something for eggheads.

[Istanbuller]

That whole post looks pretty confusing to me, Nucklepunche. It's like you agree with what they are saying, but you don't like how they are saying it?

It is classic

I am sure he is gonna be a Republican just like RC did several months ago. They don't want to be sided with immigrants, religion haters, Blacks and other minority groups anymore after realizing that they actually want to stand for white America

[Rich]

I'd suggest the civil war could have been avoided had cooler heads prevailed.

Which civil war? The one that started in 1775? Surely the building of a powerful Conservative movement in America requires recognising what a terrible mistake the American founders made. Hanoverian Britain had its faults and grievous ones at that, but it was not North Korea. There was no reason that Americans could not have gained political representation. At the very least Anglo America could have become a truly great independent country encompassing Canada the British West Indies and no doubt much of North Mexico and the rest of the West Indies. Quite possibly the Anglo sphere could have led the world into a golden age of peace, liberty and prosperity.

The American founders were the very antithesis of Conservatives. In fact they bare a startling resemblance to the leftie American haters of today, even down to the idealisation of Islam.

[Melab]

The conservatism of today certainly is not the conservatism of Barry Goldwater. Sad.

[keso]

I think you raise a lot of points. I'd like to consider myself a conservative for many similar reasons, but I just can't.

I realize that there are many issues where I simply will never come to common ground with the left. I will never think elective abortion as a matter of "choice" is perfectly okay.

Here's one way that I disagree with you. You seem to think that "abortion" as a matter of "choice" is just as simple as putting the word "abortion" in quotation marks. Do you really think that it's just a simple choice?

This distinction aside, and I disagree with a few other points you make, but you make some absolutely fantastic points.

Today's "conservatives" are a strange hybrid of economic libertarians and theocratic nationalistic populists, neither of which have anything to do with conservatism. Economic libertarians were the "liberals" of the 19th century and opposed by true conservatives like Benjamin Disraeli. Meanwhile theocratic nationalistic populists like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin represent crude, baseless movements of pure emotion. In truth they are a merely more moderate version of radical nationalistic movements in Europe. No they are not Nazis, far from it, however there is some overlap with them and the crude nationalistic populism that the young Hitler was infatuated with and later developed into a more heinous and destructive ideology. In truth there have always been such people in the world.

In short, it seems that you don't like the, "God Bless America, God Damn Everyone Else," mentality that became so popular in the 2001-2003 times. I'd have to say that I agree with you.

So here we have the GOP, a modern alliance of latter day Ebenezer Scrooges and Archie Bunkers, as opposed to a staid force rooted in conservative philosophy and tradition.

I agree, 100%

What gets me is this...And it's not an insult to you, but I don't see how I can agree with you on these points, but yet disagree with you on so many other points, especially in the beginning of your post, which I didn't include. A few of them seem to be what I would call misrepresentations of the current, "liberal," stance, especiallly on abortion.

I'm just thinking out loud.

Thank you for your post, I enjoy reading posts that conservatives make, with which I agree.

[Rich]

The conservatism of today certainly is not the conservatism of Barry Goldwater. Sad.

In part that's because of the demise of the Soviet Union.

[Commonsensus]

Here's one way that I disagree with you. You seem to think that "abortion" as a matter of "choice" is just as simple as putting the word "abortion" in quotation marks. Do you really think that it's just a simple choice?

This distinction aside, and I disagree with a few other points you make, but you make some absolutely fantastic points.

I believe this would be a good starting point for another thread, but I will go ahead with it here.

My understanding of Roe v Wade, the decision that ultimately allows for abortion, is that the ruling actually is the arbiter of the idea that a woman should be able to make decisions concerning her own body, as that is the extension of free will and freedom, and ultimately a right backed up by the Constitution. Abortion could also be a property issue which is so eminently important to Libertarians which is also guaranteed in the Constitution. Conservatives preach of freedom, and yet they balk at the issuance of it when it conflicts with their own set of morals. The whole abortion issues creates a merry-go-round of competing morals, but they choose to side with tradition rather than reason through it.

I mean this to offend no one, I simply site this as an example of what I believe nucklepunche means when he says "the Republican Party has ruined an intellectual tradition that I love." I get his point. The Republican party advocates tradition over simplification and progress. You can't have cake if your not at the party.

I also agree with much of what nucklepunche has said, but I disagree with a lot as well. In lieu of his excellent post, I will forgo those as they are trifles, or simply not worthy of messing up what I believe to be an excellent topic. I believe that the whole institution that is the United States government suffers from what he has described, as well as a large percent of the population. In the words of one of my favorite characters - Lynn Belvedere - "If a lot more people just sat around and thought, the world would not be in the stinking mess that it is...."

[Drlee]

The reason I hate the Republican Party and have an infatuation with bashing it constantly is because the Republican Party has ruined an intellectual tradition that I love. Oh how I would love to call myself a "conservative" but unfortunately I cannot in today's climate because people who are not really conservatives have added too much baggage to the name. I don't want people on the left to misconstrue what I believe nor do I want the faux conservatives dominating the GOP today to think I am their allies.

I am a member of your club. I am what you hate too. A lifelong republican. Only dogged belief that there will come a day when I can watch the tea party and so-called libertarians loading their pickups and going home to their trailers keeps me a member of the party.

I cut my teeth on Goldwater. He was my neighbor in a time when Arizona politics was electing someone you know. "God and Man at Yale" which Buckley openly acknowledged later had some serious flaws nevertheless instructed my early political beliefs. I supported Nixon. (Who by the way supported universal health care and sent legislation to congress to attempt to pass it.)

The behavior of the modern republican party is outrageous and very near treason. The politics of obstructionism, open racism and misogyny coupled with a let-them-eat-cake attitude toward their own members is disgusting. This band of republicans in the congress voting 40 times to repeal the PPACA and knowing each and every time that they were accomplishing nothing should be impeached for violating their oaths of office.

The Republicans are poisoning our well. They are a party totally devoted to the wealthy white elites. (All of which some might say I am by the way.) The thing that has me flummoxed is the number of poor and middle class members the party has. Distracted by the two worlds-greatest-who-gives-a-fucks, abortion and homosexuality these drones are ignoring the fact that it is not homosexuals who are doing them in the ass.

One can almost excuse the so-called libertarians and Tea Party folks as just being not very smart people who don't know how to express their frustration and are looking for scapegoats. But as a Christian I have no patience for the Christians who, ignoring the most Christian of all responsibilities to feed the poor, heal the sick and comfort the afflicted, and in the name of Christ and the flag, drive their brothers into penury, sickness and despair.

The Republican party is broke. I am sure it is a great place to get rich. But I would not want to be the leadership knocking on the pearly gates. I think they will have some tall explaining to do.

[nucklepunche]

The problem is the GOP is writing its own suicide note. They think the issue is to go as hardcore for the economic right as possible, when they forget that a lot of the social conservatives are economically hard pressed working class voters. They will never reach out to Hispanics if they don't refocus their economic message, and many poor whites may eventually abandon them in future generations as religiosity has less of a hold, I'm not saying they will side with a Democratic Party that often thumbs their nose at them as "dumb rednecks," instead people of the hard pressed white working class will most likely stop voting altogether. As much as we joke about the Tea Party loading up into pickup trucks and going to their trailers, most true rednecks I know don't generally vote or get involved in politics. The Tea Party is actually a mostly upper-middle class middle aged movement of people who aren't necessarily rich but comfortable, and in tough times the barely comfortable are worried they might have to share with the class immediately below them. As a general rule it seems as if the upper middle class and "small rich" tend to be the most Republican, whereas the mega-rich actually tend to be more mixed, since at that point a lot of them have so much money taxes become a drop in the bucket.