Republicans: Reclaim Your Party!
[posted 2004.03.13]
 

As you may have noticed on my Kucinich page, I've spent much of my adult life espousing Republican beliefs. I voted for George W. Bush and celebrated his victory in 2000. I enjoyed watching liberal elitists squirm over seeing the country run by a Texas conservative.

But now, as I watch the erosion of civil liberties, the subordination of individual rights to corporate power, and the surge in superficial Christian rhetoric on gay marriage and abortion, I am squirming right along with the liberals. I see the Republican Party moving away from what I thought were its core principles. Among the examples that raise my hackles:

• The Republicans get the NRA to side with them by, for example, promising to let the assault-weapons ban die, ostensibly because citizens need firearms to protect themselves against an oppressive government. But then the Republicans (and a fair number of fraidy-cat Democrats) pass the PATRIOT Act and empower law enforcement to rummage through our medical records, our library and bookstore transactions, and our personal property without warrant or even notification. The Republicans empower the Justice Department to take away attorney-client privilege and various due process protections. The NRA should be up in arms (sorry!) about the PATRIOT Act, but I haven't heard word one from them. The Republicans blithely engage in the blatant contradiction of fighting for our right to buy guns anonymously from itinerant dealers at gun shows while giving John Ashcroft authority to review every book we check out at the public library. While I appreciate the Republican's apparent affirmation of the idea that the pen is mightier than the sword, I reject the double tyranny the Republicans are foisting upon us: they give us a Hobbesian Leviathan that can snoop on and detain us with little legal restriction even while preserving a Hobbesian state of nature in our neighborhoods, where we must live in the midst of heavily armed individuals.

• Republicans treat corporations with more esteem than individuals. Tax breaks disproportionately favor the big corporations. Sure, corporations generate more income and thus will benefit more from any fair scheme of tax breaks. And sure, Democrats are as susceptible to lobbying from corporate fat cats as Republicans (just review John Kerry's campaign contributions and his favorable positions toward various corporate interests). But Republicans should rail against corporate welfare as passionately as they rail against individual welfare. If single mothers can be required to get a job and get themselves off welfare within a certain amount of time, multi-billion-dollar corporations should not expect to receive checks from the government every time the economy dips.

• After what I thought was a promising start in avoiding the extreme positions of the Christian right, George W. Bush is now making hay of the gay-marriage issue. He is actually calling for a defacement (er, amendment) of the Constitution to effectively outlaw gay marriage. Gay marriage will not result in the unraveling of America's moral fiber any more than millennia of gay relations have destroyed Western (or Eastern) civilization. Bush is harping on the issue not because morals or national security or jobs are at stake but simply because he has to make sure the church crowd sticks with him in a close election. My fear is that the Republican Party and the corporate powers who throw their lot in with him are more than happy to use religious issues like opposition to gay marriage to serve as cover for irresponsible fiscal policies. Instead, the Republican Party ought to stand for protecting the Constitution (which currently and rightly makes no mention of marriage as a state institution) and the separation of church and state by advocating a complete withdrawal of government sanction for any sort of marriage. Marriage is a fundamentally religious institution: if people want to get married, they should not have to get a marriage license from the state to legitimize their union. Ending all government involvement in marriage would increase individual freedom. Homosexuals would have freedom to get married in whatever church or other institution is willing to give them their blessing. Religious individuals with sincere philosophical opposition to homosexual unions would not have to be party to their city or state sanctioning unions to which they are morally opposed. And no one would have to get a permission slip from the government to publicly and permanently commit to a soulmate.

Why the Republican Party has drifted so far from the principles of individual liberty, I can't fully explain. But I refuse to let them have my vote when they refuse to adhere to those principles. In 2004, I withheld my vote from Bush and gave it to Nader. Just as true progressives should not be afraid to threaten the corporatist Democrats with directing their votes to alternatives like the Greens, true conservatives (classical and even religious) can hold the Republicans' feet to the fire by threatening to vote for true conservative alternatives like the Libertarians. Conservative government is supposed to give Americans as much freedom from government as possible, not impose on our entire society the theocracy of James Dobson or the monopoly/monopsony of Wal-Mart.

So come on, conservatives! Don't let the Republicans take your vote for granted, especially in the swing states (wherever those turn out to be). Call your candidates and your campaign offices (heck, even call the Libertarians and the other third parties in your area) and let them know that the Republicans won't stand for your principles -- the very principles the Republicans pontificate about at Lincoln Day dinners -- you'll take your principles and your vote elsewhere.

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