Posted by
flagwaver on Thursday, November 02, 2006 9:31:14 AM
In the spirit of calling a spade, let me disabuse some of my fellow conservatives of their view of the GOP as the "conservative" party. The GOP is not now, and never has been the "conservative" party, it has just been more conservative than its counterpart over the years. There are many that don't see it that way, and many others that have never thought of things that way; for all of you, take a walk with me and I'll explain what I'm saying to you.
The Republican Party, from its very inception was not a conservative party. The modern GOP dates from the antebellum period, around 1850, and was decidedly "liberal" in its aims, the main aim being the abolition of slavery. There was nothing conservative about attempting to root out an established system of human degradation, and the very foundation of half the nation's economy. Nope, my friends, that was a radical position to take!
The Reconstruction Era saw the GOP further involved in the radical movement to ensure the rights of the newly freed Blacks in the country that was exemplified with the first Civil Rights Act in the nation's history and the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Those could in no way be called conservative actions, could they?
But enough of the history lesson, what I am mainly focused on is the GOP of the modern era and it's policies and positions. While we conservatives would all like to think that the GOP is the conservative party, it really isn't that at all.
You see, the whole 'big tent' approach precludes the GOP from being a truly conservative party. There are all sorts of people that are under the tent; you have social conservatives, social liberals, moderates, RINOs, all manner of people and ideas are included. There are certain common threads that most have with each other, lower taxes and smaller government chief among them. But the while these are GOP staples, they do not apply to everyone in the Party and not all of our politicians hold these views.
Look back at our recent GOP Presidents. Dating from Teddy Roosevelt, there is hardly a true conservative among them, with Ronald Reagan being the most visible of the lot. I mean, were Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or either of the Bush Presidents honestly true conservatives? Nixon gave us OSHA, Ford continued Nixon's country clubber policies, H.W. Bush raised our taxes, and G.W. Bush has been trying to redefine conservatism to include open borders advocacy.
The thing we have to realize is that the GOP has no real love for its conservative members; if it were possible for them to be rid of us and still win elections, they would toss us overboard to the sharks in a heartbeat. The GOP has always had a country club, blueblooded feel to it and still does. Even some of the people that conservatives look to for guidance and laud as fathers of the movement have a barely disguised disdain for the uncultured masses in the grassroots conservative movement. Not to get anyone too hot under the collar, but just look at what people like William Buckley, and media mavens like George Will have to say about the so-called Christian Right; they don't really have a lot of use for those of us that are not part of their old boys clubs.
Now I am not saying that we should abandon the GOP, because we really have nowhere else to go. What I am saying is that we had best get it through our heads that if we want to make the GOP a conservative party, we had better be prepared to fight to make it so. We will have to convince or conquer the voices in the GOP that stress that "moderation" is the key to success, we will have to stand firm against the incursion of liberal Republicans in the Party that would sell us out all day every day, and twice on Sunday, for a positive mention in the New York Times (John McCain take a bow...and pet your lapdog Lindsey while you're at it!)
Because in all honesty, when you look at the things the GOP has done in the past, the way it has governed, and the Presidents it has elected (with Reagan being an exception) the conservatives in the Party are the true RINOs. If we want the appellation to truly fit the McCains, Grahams, and Snowes of the world we are going to have to rise up and take control of the party.
Then, and only then, will the GOP really become the "Conservative Party"!