Posted by
Matthew Cole on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 12:26:10 AM
It's been a while since my last post. I intend to start a discussion on the philosphy governing the Republican Party. I was originally going to replace "Republican" with "conservative", but then I remembered that the Republican Party is no longer conservative. There once was a time when this party was a party of distinguished intellectuals, such as Barry Goldwater and Robert Taft. Even as late as the 1980s, there were real conservative intellectuals such as Thomas Sowell who held great sway with the party. Even Reagan made some sense in his moments of sanity. These kind of people used to be welcome in the party, and the ideology of the Republican Party was the counterweight to the populism of the left. This was back in the day when the book "Conscience of a Conservative" used to be influential. The ideas of small government and fiscal responsibility were once taken seriously.
Now the party has taken a radically different turn. The Republican Party now actively encourages anti-intellectualism. Higher education is looked upon with disdain. The ideas that once used to define the party are now rejected by it. A party that used to encourage individualism and self-reliance now encourages a statist jingoism. The party has been hijacked by the evangelical Israel lobby, big business, and neo-con warhawks. The person I blame most for this is George W. Bush, since he deceived the American people into thinking that he was a conservative, only to betray us after getting elected. A McCain presidency will only worsen this condition. As much as the idea of an Obama presidency scares me, I cannot bring myself to support McCain. The lesser of two evils is still evil. The few conservatives left may be tempted to vote for McCain in order to keep a Democrat out of office, but I hope that they will decide to just stay home or to vote third-party (Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party for example). Is it better for the party to win an election if it means that they lose the principles that used to define them?