The Party Exists Because of the Principles, Not the Other Way Around - Granite Grok

The Party Exists Because of the Principles, Not the Other Way Around

Free association in any group is based on the presumption that those who choose to join will promote the groups “charter.’  They will support its mission.  That those charged with leading that mission will develop and deploy strategies to advance those shared goals.

The current leadership of the GOP and the NHGOP has a platform that espouses principles.   But instead of using them to stand up for property rights, rule of law, self-responsibility, and local control, they use them like a siren calling ships that then crash upon their rocky shores.  They are hoping that once trapped there, they will simply play along.  Those that do not or who are upset over the deception are scolded, derided, even bullied for expecting the party to stand up for the principles in its own platform.

This has gone on for so long that ships are now veering away, warned by the sight of flotsam, waved off by those who are unwilling to play along and are paddling away from this shore.

But there are some who have staked out their own ground, based on the principles and the platform, and are fighting to save the party from itself.  They are conservatives, pro-liberty groups, Tea Party patriots.  These are People who see limited government, local control, free markets, state sovereignty, personal freedom, rule of law, and property rights as keys to equal opportunity and prosperity, not as tag lines to run under a beauty shot of a candidate who has no intention of making any serious defense of these ideas once elected.

It is not the Conservatives or the Tea Party or the Libertarians that are killing the GOP.  It is Republicans who have gone native on the spoils of big government, bribing state parties with centrally-planned purse strings no different than those the Feds use to strangle states into compliance.

The power brokers define what the principles are, and what they mean, a floating crap-shoot directed more by what is politically fashionable than a set of fixed principles required to defend free-markets or local control.  It is more about being in the spotlight than what is good for the country.  They are populists breaking left at the slightest breeze, willing to ignore the big picture for a chance to be in any picture.

Those who refuse to buy in are savaged in press and in private, left for the wolves of the left and its media allies.  No one within the government class of the GOP dare defend them or their principles, even when they are the same principles outlined in the GOP Party platforms.

Perhaps the GOP is nothing more now than “Book Club.”  There’s a book someplace, but those who show up are really just there for the wine and gossip.   Reading the book is optional.   But they know that.

I think people have figured out that the GOP is no longer about the principles in the platform.  It is about being everything to everybody in hopes of getting more votes than the other side.   Wouldn’t it be easier to be the party that tries to stop government from trying to define everything for everybody?

Question.

Did I call your house this morning and tell you where to set your thermostat or how big your home should be?  Did I insist on how you heat your home or what kind of electricity you should use?  Did I tell you what you could and could not have for breakfast?  What you should and should not drink or what you could or should have for lunch (or dinner)?  How much water you should drink, or the vegetables you should have each day?  How you should get to work, what you should drive, or where you ought to live?  Did I tell you who your neighbors should be or make you pay to have the kind of neighbors I expect you to have?  Did I tell you what you can own or not, what you can or cannot do with your property?  Did I tell you that you cannot defend yourself without fear of prosecution?  Did I tell you what your kids could eat, where they could play, or how?    Did I insist on how they were to be educated, with what and where?  Did I force you to pay for other peoples lifestyle choices or make you feel guilty if you objected?  Did I expect you to pay for productive people to stay home?  Did I do things that made more people unproductive and then scold you for having the good ambition and good fortune to be successful regardless of what I did, regardless of whether you were more or less successful than I?  Did I force you to buy something or threaten to fine you if you didn’t?   Did I use power to manipulate the market to make your food, fuel, or other goods cost more than they should or badger you into living your life the way I thought you should, even though I did not limit myself to those same expectations?

I didn’t do any of those things because it is none of my damn business.  Democrats, on the other hand, do these things to you as a matter of policy.

There used to be a party that stood up to those Democrats.  Now, the majority of them are just lining up to host “Book Club.”

 

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