Comments on: The Republican Future – Three Choices

By: dendup

dendup — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:33:13 +0000

Sinz, you make my point for me. That gov’t creates a mechanism for corporate coercive power, doesn’t negate that power. As you infer, I do believe there are other mechanisms as well. The market des not always thwart the development of monopolies. Some may argue that truly free markets inevitably end in monopolies. In any case, truly free markets are possible only in our imaginations. Tax codes and legislation favoring one industry, or one economic sector are inevitable under both parties. (I do favor a political landscape with more than 2 parties, but for that to occur here we would need to, among other things, eliminate or radically change the Electoral College- but I digress) However, I hope my main point, that Reps need to clearly and affirmatively articulate the relationship of economic liberty to the specific problems we face comes through. As to Kelo, many liberals were troubled by this as well.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:29:31 +0000

dendup: One other way that corporations can acquire coercive power has come from the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Kelo vs. City of New London (2005) that takings of private property for any “rational relation to a legitimate government purpose” was legal. Hitherto, the Government could take your property (say your house) only for so-called “public use,” like building a superhighway. But in this case, the Supreme Court ruled that if even a private economic project benefits the community or the state economically, it qualifies as a “public use.” That means that if Wal-Mart wants to build a store where your house currently stands, all they have to do is show the town council that their store will benefit the community–bring in jobs, anchor a shopping mall, etc. And presto! Here come the bulldozers to bulldoze your house and put up a Wal-Mart in its place. We conservatives regarded this decision by the Supreme Court as a violation of the right to own private property. Since that ruling, some states have passed laws forbidding the taking of private property for allegedly economically beneficial private uses.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:21:41 +0000

dendup: I tried to make that point elsewhere, but let me make it again. Corporations have no coercive power on their own; any coercion comes from their ability to influence governments. No Wal-Mart greeter can drag you in off the street; if you don’t want to shop there, Wal-Mart can’t force you to. Now, we conservatives have always believed that the free market should pick winners and losers. But what some conservatives, like Phil Gramm, did was to work with industry lobbyists to craft special legislation aimed at giving special favors to those industries. That’s not allowing the market to pick winners and losers; the winners are being picked by Congressmen, probably in exchange for campaign funds. Gramm co-sponsored the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, whose main purpose was to give Enron a shot in the arm. Without that special legislation, SEC oversight would have shown how risky it was to base a giant energy-services company on speculation in commodity futures. In my view, any pro-market efforts by conservative legislators must be across-the-board efforts (like Reagan’s original tax cuts in 1981); then the free market can decide who wins and who loses. Never again should Republican legislators huddle with industry lobbyists to craft special legislation aimed at paying off those industries for campaign funds.

By: dendup

dendup — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:25:34 +0000

Good discussion. I hope no one minds if I restate some of these points in somewhat different lanuage. The strength of conservatism has been its articulation of individual liberty as deriving pricipally from economic liberty. The challenge for this view has always been to apply it successfully to non-agrarian settings. Social conservatism as gov’t policy has been one tactic, but it has come to define the right’s view of individual liberty while it in fact increases the power of gov’t. Cutting taxes has been another tactic, but over the course sound bite repetition, it devolved into a non-affirming negation. It requires a robust and ongoing articulation of econmic liberty. In my (liberal) view that should take into account not only the coercive power of gov’t, but of corporations as well.

By: Chekote

Chekote — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:48:29 +0000

sinz. 100% correct. It is one thing for the GOP to stand up for preserving traditional American values, however people like Dobson have an activist agenda designed to use the power of the federal government to impose their values on the country. They are basically a theocratic group.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:16:57 +0000

Robert Graves: It would take far too long for me to respond to each of your points. Do your own homework. Check out Mike Huckabee’s own campaign ads last year, which touted him as a “CHRISTIAN LEADER” (their words, not mine). Learn why James Dobson said last year, that it would be better for his Focus on the Family organization if the Democrats won the White House. Read the part of the GOP platform that says that the GOP stands for extending protections of the Fourteenth Amendment to the unborn (which would make every woman who has an abortion, guilty of violating the U.S. Constitution, and perhaps subject to trial in a Federal court). That stuff has got to go. Period. The evangelical social conservatives have long since gone beyond just opposing an intrusive liberal government. With things like the Human Life Amendment, they would extend their power over every American home.

By: dragonlady

dragonlady — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:41:15 +0000

Good article–we definitely should be identifying key groups the GOP can add to its base. Sinz and Fitz, you both have good points. The GOP really needs to gain its credibility back on the economy. I would also add that the upper middle class and younger people care more about international issues these days so we should rethink our foreign policy tone; talking to leaders of “evil” regimes is not appeasement, but it all depends on the context (Reagan talked to Gorbachev, FDR to Stalin, etc). We should go back to Teddy Roosevelt’s speak softly but carry a big stick mantra. I don’t think the GOP should change the substance of its social issues (culture of life, pro-family), but tone down the preaching by developing non-theological approaches to appeal to Americans who may not be evangelicals, but lean traditionalist. Also, they should not be used as a limitus test.

By: Robert Graves

Robert Graves — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:32:37 +0000

Sinz54, what is an “evangelical social conservative”? Define the term. Name three “evangelical social conservatives”. Define the “GOP’s platform”, item by item. Which of all the items were dictated by the ESC’s?

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:03:12 +0000

Fitz: While much is said about how the evangelical social conservatives cannot continue to dictate the GOP’s platform, it’s equally true that the “Wall Street conservatives,” let by such as Larry Kudlow and the Wall Street Journal, cannot continue to dictate the GOP’s platform either. One reason why the GOP has been so incoherent on economic issues in the last couple of years, is that they’re still trying to do good things for Kudlow’s “investor class.” Moving the center of gravity of the GOP away from Wall Street to Main Street may be an even bigger pill to swallow than moving the GOP away from the evangelicals–it’s been Wall Street, the oil industry, and the agribusiness industry that have generously funded GOP political campaigns. For the GOP to compensate for this loss, they will need to build up a huge Internet-based grass-roots funding and campaign organization comparable to Obama’s. Obama showed how to use the Internet to raise tens of millions of dollars in cash, dwarfing the GOP’s traditional funding advantage. Having such a giant campaign infrastructure working for the GOP, would reduce GOP dependence on both the evangelicals and on the giant Wall Street corporations.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:52:57 +0000

mpolito claims: “Socially liberal economically conservative voters are very hard to find.” Not true. Try visiting upper New York State, or New Hampshire, or the outer suburbs of Boston, or many of the California suburbs, or the Research Triangle of North Carolina. The continuing national popularity of Schwarzenegger and Giuliani suggests that there are a lot of such voters out there. In fact, gun rights–a major social conservative issue–is still quite popular, even in in seemingly socially liberal regions outside the cities. The social issues that are such a turnoff for large parts of the country all have one thing in common: They all have to do with SEX, in one way or another: Abortion, birth control, abstinence, homosexuality, etc. If the GOP would stop talking about any issues related to human sexuality, they would appeal to a lot more people–especially to younger people. It’s when they appear to be moral scolds on sex-related issues that they lose much of the electorate.