The Republican Party and Conservative movement have a big problem right now. I think that there are two areas in which they are lacking substantially: Making the common-sense case for conservative values and against socialism to the American voters, and not widening the tent enough to let in all of the disillusioned #Walkaway Democrats. Yes, the left wing and the Democrats are going further and further to the left. But this has an indirect effect on Republicans too, as this leaves a large vacuum in the middle 60% of the electorate, which I believe is sucking the Republicans further left, at least on economic issues. Without a healthy multi-party system, there’s no incentive, and without moderate Democrats, there’s no bulkhead against Republicans voting for higher taxes and more government. After all, “What are you going to do, vote Democrat? I didn’t think so.” Nevertheless, with moderates leaving the Democrat Party in droves, the time has never been better for Libertarians and Republicans to unite, and make the case for their votes. There is, I believe, an ENORMOUS percentage of the electorate who can’t stand the direction the Democrats are going, but aren’t ready to take that step and become Republicans, or label themselves as conservatives. This is a missed opportunity of gigantic proportions for the GOP. They could conceivably get the right-most 70-80% of the voting population on their side, which would basically crush the Democrats for decades, even with their illegal immigrant voter fraud schemes. I could give a long list, but I’ll highlight two areas where I think the GOP might want to at least change its outward image and let these groups know that the water’s warm over here:
1. The War on Drugs: I’m going to lay down a very shocking statement: Favoring the end of the war on drugs, and (at the very least) legalized cannabis not only does not go against conservative principles, but taking it a step farther, I believe that conservatism DEMANDS an end to telling people they’re not allowed to own certain plants. Any constitutional conservative should be in favor of, at least on the Federal level, not only legalizing cannabis, but overturning the Controlled Substances Act in its entirety. Why not? If this sounds shocking, then please inform me where the Constitution gives the Federal government the authority over what people put in their own body. When it comes to drug law reform, the left is right but for the wrong reason. To say the drug laws are “racist” or “too many black and brown people” are being put in jail is not only playing to race division, it misses the larger point. In truth, we can make a CONSERVATIVE justification using just two words… “tenth amendment.” I’m tired of the hypocrisy by many who (rightfully) want freedom to own guns and pray the way they want, and live where they want, but will turn around and play the morality police when it comes to something they don’t like, such as same sex marriage or drug laws. I call it “freedom for me but not for thee.”
2. Religion. Full disclosure: I was raised Jewish but am atheist. That said, I don’t begrudge anyone their religious beliefs. I stand by (at least from a legal standpoint) the Colorado bakers. I even would favor school vouchers used for religious homeschooling, on the premise that if the voucher goes to the school via the parent, the state is not, in fact, funding religious instruction. It’s the parents funding it with THEIR voucher money. However, too many right wing commentators seem to put religion front and center when discussing political policies, which I think scares away moderates. I don’t like the way that “secularism” is thrown around as a pejorative. The words “bringing God back into schools” makes me uneasy because it seems like a vague statement. Bring back God… in what way, exactly? Again, there are plenty of atheists and agnostics, for which libertarian small-government, free-market principles make sense, but they don’t see the Republican Party as welcoming. I do think that there are those on the right who feel that you’re not a “real conservative” if you are non-religious, or socially progressive. I’m not saying that the religious right should compromise their principles. But I don’t think that “belief in God” and “belief in Government” are mutually exclusive. Take the following statement (which I don’t agree with but just making a point). “I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and make sure to praise God every day. I also believe we should give everyone free health care with high taxes on the rich.” Is there really a contradiction there?
I think the right needs a wake up call. This is the 21st century. America is getting more socially progressive and more secular. That’s neither a good nor a bad thing, it’s a fact, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it anyway. The Republican party has a golden opportunity to snatch up the libertarians, moderates, center-lefts, LGBT, and atheist communities who see the extremes the left will go to. Will the party ever display the common sense and competence it needs to do in order to change with the times, which they can do without sacrificing Constitutional conservative principles, can the Libertarian and Republican movements join forces to crush the left forever? Or will they remain in the 20th century and go the way of the Whigs?
9 replies on “Do Conservatives and/or Republicans Need to Widen the Tent?”
I do like your focus on the 10th, and would extend it to the 9th amendment as well. There is the concept of the states as pietri dishes, where some states could legalize drugs as they want and others would not and you would know if something was or was not legal. On the other hand, your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are basic rights, and I don’t know if the Second Amendment’s focus on defense of life and liberty means if you want to get high you have a right to that as well. As the others mentioned, the welfare state and national health care make that my problem if you stay too stoned pursuing happiness to get a job and bake your gourd so much I end up paying for 20 years of nursing home care because you’re indigent.
“I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and make sure to praise God every day. I also believe we should give everyone free health care with high taxes on the rich.”
Regarding your quote, I don’t see how the two have anything to do with each other. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe that He told YOU to go minister to the sick and the imprisoned and the poor, not hand it off to someone else, and even worse yet, take money from someone who earned it so you don’t have to. The Bible talks about government being instituted by God, so we should give it respect but it says the same thing about Parents and admonishes both that if they fail in their duties they will be judged more harshly for having been given more responsibility.
All that aside though, religious or not, we should all recognize and admit to the failings of humans and know that any program will be abused and defrauded and the larger the program the more fraud and abuse. Localize everything as much as possible (as Bill commonly says, returning the power closer to the people) to reduce fraud.
I am also fully in agreement with transferring the educational purchasing power to the parents and going 100% voucher. People can send their kids to government run schools just like some rely on the police but others can spend it on any sort of private school, making up the difference from their own pocket, or as a 529 style and have it qualify for any listed expense toward a home based school. If 5-6 parents want to group together and have one teach their group of kids, that’s ok with me as well. There would just be a state wide competency test that all kids would have to pass at say.. 4th, 8th and 12th grades. On the other hand, it is in the interest of the kids and the parents to have a capable and educated kid able to get and hold a job if the welfare system that enables rampant drug use does not provide the safety hammock it does now and is literally just a net to catch you, release you safely on the ground, and then readied for the next person to fall.
You bring up a fair point about drug use affecting taxpayers through increased medical costs and 100% we need to privatize things so that people who use irresponsibly only hurt themselves. However I would respond by saying, “Where does the slippery slope end?” People ruin their lives through alcoholism, lose jobs and livelihoods through gambling. Should we outlaw liquor? We tried that in the 1920s and the result was the rise of the Mafia. But it would prevent people from driving drunk, getting themselves into a coma and THEN being a burden on the system that way. Aw hell, let’s just outlaw cars. There’s simply no way to wrap the world in bubble wrap. I think that the more we cling to social conservatism, the more we alienate the libertarian crowd, a group that if we joined forces with could crush the left forever. THEN we could end the welfare state and not have to worry about burdens on society.
I think the difference between pot and booze is that in the 1920s booze was legal, people were used to drinking it and businesses were already in place making money from it. That’s harder to shut down than something that isn’t supposed to be used, isn’t commercial and isn’t wide spread.
The slippery slope would be ended when we have a listing of things you can do to yourself that we won’t help with. If you over drink and lose your job, you’ll get welfare for a while but if you’re able to work and not on disability that will run out and then you’ll be a wino on the street. Now, that’s really another argument but if we tell pot smokers that they’ll be in the same place and they make the choice anyway, that’s the end of that slope.
I think that people needing new livers do have to go through a program and dry out before they qualify for a transplant, and usually have other accompanying conditions that also need to be resolved. I would expect pot smokers, opium users and the rest to have similar barriers to treatment, weather privately or on the taxpayer’s dime.
Sounds fine to me. In fact I don’t see why that isn’t in place now.
I am pretty much agnostic on drugs, other than the point made by Michael Cavalier and if they do get legalized what happens when somebody like Andrew Yang whose plan for to give people $1K a month for breathing gets elected. Seems we could usher in some new problems.
I must have missed your point on your comment on the 2 statements, they don’t even seem to be close to me.
“I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and make sure to praise God every day. I also believe we should give everyone free health care with high taxes on the rich.” Is there really a contradiction there?”
To me the statement about believing in Jesus Christ costs me nothing and it does not cost you anything if I believe in Him. We each chose the direction we will follow on this life decision and that is ok. I don’t mind that you are an atheist, presuming you can get past the fact that I am a believer. As far as I am concerned we can share the same supper table. I will pray a prayer of thanks for my provision and I assume you will be respectful as a human for the short time.
The statement about “free Healthcare” paid for by taxes of rich will cost everybody who pays taxes we all know when politicians talk “the rich” they mean every tax payer. Even if it was just the rich, the concept is stealing.
As far as legalizing drugs, I agree with Ann Coulter. Kill the welfare state and then we can talk about it.
I would answer yes to the question “Is there really a contradiction there?” Forcing other people to pay for your healthcare is considered stealing by a great many people, including me. There are so many problems with healthcare, but most of them were caused by the government. See the following link for a proposed fix to healthcare:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231949
A fair reply, and I’m 100% on board with ending the welfare state. But when I hear the arguments against drug legalization, they tend to be something like, “Drugs can ruin lives and cause their users to be a burden on society. They harm communities and families…” I’ll just say this – we’ve heard these arguments before… around 100 years ago, these were mostly the same arguments being used by Prohibitionists. So we banned alcohol for 13 years. How did that turn out? Was society better off? It resulted in increased crime, the rise of the mafia, more government corruption. At a certain point you cannot save society from itself, you end up doing more harm than good.
i concede nothing to the collectivists. As DJT pointed out in the excellent Town Hall meeting last night, if the Reps win the house and senate this coming election the dems will have no choice but to cooperate. They’ll need to start sounding like more reasonable people than the radical commies they sound like now. Perhaps when their elected leaders stop spouting radical rubbish ordinary dems will stop repeating the same crazy stuff. We don’t have to concede a thing
I don’t think I conceded anything to collectivists. My “role play” about the religious person who believes in redistribution was just that, a thought experiment to make a point. If you think I sounded too conciliatory to the left, please point it out. The main point I was trying to make is that I think most Democrat voters ARE more conservative and libertarian than they think. It’s not about changing conservative philosophy, but about improving messaging. We can make the case for small government, against capitalism, low spending, the whole nine yards, and we CAN do it in a way that appeals to moderates and center-lefts. The AOCs are beyond hope but they’re so tiny a percentage that if we can bring the other 75% of Democrats into the fold, the Squad will be too marginalized to do any damage, and then, yes you’re right they’d have to compromise, get voted out, or just be irrelevant.