Merrimack County Republican Committee – My ‘discussion’ Part 4: “The Philosophies” - Granite Grok

Merrimack County Republican Committee – My ‘discussion’ Part 4: “The Philosophies”

Reminder: “So, I help to elect Democrats, eh?” (thank you, Mark Sanborn).  To recap:

WHY IS THE GOP / NH GOP IN TROUBLE?

Let’s get to the Nitty Gritty of this “discussion”: There is a tremendous split in the Republican Party – and especially in the NH GOP. And for three extremely binary reason – each this or that and never the twain they’ll meet.

1. Don’t Talk About it

2. Two Types of Republicans

So I rolled into those ‘two” philosophies:

3. Two sets of Political Philosophy (or Three – the clueless)

Why?  The core problem.  We’re about to go deep here.

What are the philosophies of each of those two groups?

There are two countervaling philosophies at play here, at the voting level and at the basic philosophy level and with neither, there is no coming together – they are orthagonal in nature and there is no “uniting” at all:

To the first, voting level – a split in attitude of High vs Low (like churches): 

  • Seek out the writings of Angelo Codevilla of B.U. – “The Ruling Class“. There is a chasm between “leaders” and the base (“the Country Class”). It is best typified by reviewing the voting record this last session of the NH House leadership team voted mostly sideways to that of the ordinary Republican members.
  • I care not a WHIT for Reagan’s 11th Commandment – it has been too bastardized in condoning and hide “bad behavior” that it is worthless.  Object lesson: Alida Milham, who ran as both a Republican and Democrat for the House for years.  Based on ratings, there were Democrats that voted more in line, and more often, with OUR platform than she did.  Then she outright endorsed two Democrats in this last general election.  Then, someone in Belknap County nominated her to be a State Committee member – and Alan Glassman, BC Chair and Area Vice-Chair, said – “OK”, not a word sideways to that (until I confronted this whole sorry event).

4. Missing Vocabulary

Thus, two words are missing from our current political vocabulary: Accountability and Discipline.  They are prereqs for this formula that seems to get ignored: Consistency builds Trust which (all other things being equal) yields Votes. Apparently, the Republican Party has conveniently forgotten these as much as Obama has basic economics in a Free Western society. Both lead to #FAIL.5. The Two Core Philosophies

To the second – we see two absolutely opposing governing philosophies in the Republican Party – and there is no “alignment” or reconciliation between them.

  1. One means the absolute domination of the Individual by the State
  2. The other puts the State into a subservient role to that of the Individual and voluntary associations between them call Civil Society.

The first is a foreign philosophy born of Von Bismark of Prussia as he was conquering the other Germanic states.  Trying to outwit the growing socialist movement at the time, he came up with the “brilliant” idea of taking his subjects money and then bribing them for their acquiescence in return for “stuff from the state“. From that grew the Frankfurt School’s ideology that maintains “The proper role of Government is to take care of you, cradle to grave”.  It is this “State of Positive Rights” that Progressives push – that the State MUST do things to alleviate any wrongs and problems and served as the basis of FDR’s Second Bill of Rights.

The second is the American philosophy of our Framers – a limited Government that “instituted to protect our Liberties and Freedom” and restricted, in philosophy after much studying of history and philosophy.  Radically different from anything at the time, it demanded recognition that the Individual be over the Government.  In this, Civil Society was expected to solve the problems of the day via voluntary interactions between Individuals, via family, friends, community, and free markets and not by government.  Thus, Liberty and Freedom would be protected, as only the force of Government had the power to do otherwise.

These are incompatible and irreconcilable.

The first is the realm of the Democrat Party now, and having been taken over by the New Left (re: hard left socialists and, in some cases, outright communists) and we can see that it has crowded out most of what Civil Society use to do and be (and continues that march).

The second is what the Republican Party used to stand for, but as Codevilla and the TEA Party type folks point out, many Republicans have become apostate from that original intent and have joined forces with those that push more and more government FORWARD! in unknowingly (to be kind) fall into the Progressive camp taking up the rubric of “positive rights” by insisting “Government must do more – people are hurting and need help”.

And yes, Medicaid expansion into NH is a PERFECT example of this – who needs the charity of Civil Society when Government can push it out of the way? Who needs to get their hands “dirty” when some faceless bureaucrat will do it for us – after all, it only takes more money from taxpayers to make it happen!  “Outsourcing your responsibility to us”, say the Progressives (Freedom from Responsibility – as long as you allow us to Rule you).

Getting down to the basic philosophical foundation, it is merely another Progressive furtherance of the meme that:

“Ordinary people cannot, or cannot be trusted, to do the right things by their fellow citizens”

Democrat NH State Rep. Leigh Webb: “The role of government is to legislate behavior

Democrat NH State Rep. Kris Roberts: “Government has to protect us from our own stupidity.

Democrat NH State Senator Kathy Sgambati:  “Everybody in the chamber respects personal freedoms and individual rights,” said Sen. Kathleen Sgambati, a Tilton Democrat. “but we’re also trying to ensure that all citizens in the state have the protection they need. It’s unclear to me how you can possibly have all the benefits of coverage without everyone being under the tent.”

without everyone being under the tent” – Progressives require “all in” – there is no opt-out, no freedom of choice.  You must be lock stepped with everyone else.  At least Webb and Roberts are completely honest how they view their subjects – Sgambati can’t even do that as she makes it clear that “respects personal freedoms and individual rights” until that bumps up against the Collective – for “the Common Good”.  Progressives all.

And yes, these same foreign strain lives on in the Republican Party – just look at the Main Street Republican group that Charlie Bass’s Dad founded (and which he himself was the Chair for a while).

Is this the Republican Party you want, that shows that it cannot and will not trust the Individual? That the Republican Party, regardless of its philosophy of “Limited Government” is simply lying to the voters? Saying one thing but acting like the Democrats?

Republicans do have a Big Tent – but it cannot be that expansive to hold both Philosophies at the same time and say “We are united!”  Again: These are incompatible and irreconcilable views of Civil Society, the Proper Role of Government, and our fellow Citizens.  To have both under a single roof, to tolerate both, tells the public that the Republicans have no core beliefs that can be trusted as one will trump the other at some given time at worst and constantly in tension at best. Which is to be believe?

The one that DEMANDS the elevation of the Individual (the Platform) over Government or the one that reduces the Republicans in merely being the Jr. Partners of the Democrats in the headlong FORWARD! to a Socialist State?

In closing, let me state the obvious question from the Liberty & Freedom side of the equation:

WHY should I, as a TEA Party Constitution abiding Republican,  support those Republicans that continue to castigate us for simply insisting that Republicans actually talk, act, and voting the philosophy of the Party?  WHY should I continue to support Republicans that actually talk, act, and vote against the core philosophy of Republicanism?

Better yet:

Why should you?

And for the record,  to those that say we should only be engrossed is fiscal issues and leave the social issues alone:  so why should we cede the social issues to the Progressives?  Look at our budgets –  they are sky high and the reasons are not for the limited functions that government was to carry out but to service the social issues that the Progressives have successfully moved from the Civil Society realm that the Framers envisioned being the strength of America into the Government realm – and moving our participation from the voluntary and local to the coerced and faceless.

Postscript:

Medicaid expansion IS a social issue – so why aren’t we ALL fighting it as the fiscal issue it truly is?  Why aren’t we fighting that helping our fellow citizen is an indvidual choice (except here in NH where every town is mandated to have a welfare office) from a charitable spirit? Why do we allow Progressives to force that to be outsourced – and then tell us we hate people and puppies simply because we think individual have that responsibility? 

Last thought: There is no such thing as “free money” as it is merely tax monies taken from others  to “give” to us – why do Republican  politicians continue to further this lie that it is ‘free”?  And with all things, there will be an accounting – especially when the “free money” is coming from a completely bankrupt Federal Government that is already $17 Trillion in debt?  What is free about that?

This, I believe it to be clear that it is not just “uniting” as it is not clear, or perhaps possible, with the above items I have enumerated.  The Republican Party cannot maintain two opposing views such as the above and survive.

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