To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a "big tent" party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party -- the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats -- must be freedom. The federal government is too big, takes too much of our money, and makes too many of our decisions. If Republicans can't agree on that, elections are the least of our problems.
[...]
Freedom will mean different things to different Republicans, but it can tether a diverse coalition to inalienable principles. Republicans can welcome a vigorous debate about legalized abortion or same-sex marriage; but we should be able to agree that social policies should be set through a democratic process, not by unelected judges. Our party benefits from national-security debates; but Republicans can start from the premise that the U.S. is an exceptional nation and force for good in history. We can argue about how to rein in the federal Leviathan; but we should agree that centralized government infringes on individual liberty and that problems are best solved by the people or the government closest to them.
Moderate and liberal Republicans who think a South Carolina conservative like me has too much influence are right! I don't want to make decisions for them. That's why I'm working to reduce Washington's grip on our lives and devolve power to the states, communities and individuals, so that Northeastern Republicans, Western Republicans, Southern Republicans, and Midwestern Republicans can define their own brands of Republicanism. It's the Democrats who want to impose a rigid, uniform agenda on all Americans. Freedom Republicanism is about choice -- in education, health care, energy and more. It's OK if those choices look different in South Carolina, Maine and California.
Do you even think he realizes how "government makes too many of our decisions" and "social policies should be set through a democratic process" are the complete, utter, opposites of each other? It ain't unelected judges who brought us Social Security, Medicare, and the various other "tax and spend" policies DeMint decries. We got those through the democratic process.
Meanwhile, if DeMint is serious about this devolving/small-government ideology, then I look forward to his votes to reverse DOMA and the federal partial birth abortion ban. Except -- I keep forgetting! Being a "small government" Republican is a sacred, inalienable principle that "government can only intervene in the areas I care about."
Hear, hear.
ReplyDeleteCome on, Dave. The positions that (1) the government makes too many of our decisions (2) when the government does make decisions, it should make them through elected representatives rather judges are entirely consistent.
ReplyDeleteThinking the government is too big does not commit you to anarcho-capitalism.
-Grant
sigh, give me an edit button and let me take out the last sentence.
ReplyDeletepoint is that restricting the legislature a little bit and judges a lot of bit isn't inconsistent. you're assuming that a certain number of decisions have to be made by the government. but their whole point is that they want to reduce the number of decisions that the government makes--"government" including the all three branches.
-Grant
sigh, give me an edit button and let me take out the last sentence.
ReplyDeletepoint is that restricting the legislature a little bit and judges a lot of bit isn't inconsistent. you're assuming that a certain number of decisions have to be made by the government. but their whole point is that they want to reduce the number of decisions that the government (especially federal government)makes. Presumably, all three branches should be making fewer decisions and leaving them to states, cities, communities, and individuals.
-Grant
oh man give me a delete button, too. i don't even know how that happened.
ReplyDelete-Grant
I'm sorry for taking "organizing principle" to actually mean something. The problem is DeMint's argument collapses into utter gibberish when applied against the Republican policy agenda. Some areas the GOP wants smaller government (taxes, regulation). Some areas the GOP wants bigger government (morals legislation, defense, ability to detain and torture beyond the scope of the law). There is essentially no correlation between either of these stances and a purported GOP desire for less judicial intervention: Compare GOP reactions to judicial legalization of gay marriage (so anti-small government, anti-judicial policymaking) with the GOP critique of Kelo (pro-small government, but also pro-judicial policymaking).
ReplyDeleteWhat's missing is that principle thing-y. All we're left with is that the GOP and the Dems have different areas where they like government and different areas where they don't. That strong pole looks like a mighty slender reed.
OK, right. The criticism that the GOP is failing to live up to its own "small government" mission statement has been made by commentators on both sides of the aisle, and I agree with it.
ReplyDeleteThat's way different from the criticism that those two statements are contradictory. They're not. Instead, they're part of the same small-government vision. It's just a vision that isn't being carried out.
It seemed to me when I read the article that DeMint wants the party to reorganize around the guiding principle of small government. He seems to think that the party has lost sight of this principle. He's calling for a "recommitment," implying that commitment has been lost. Although I don't know if DeMint has an accurate grasp on history or not, it seems that HE thinks that the GOP has lost sight of its principles too. Hence the principle map on to GOP policy choices. A call for recommitment only makes sense if the party has failed to abide by the principle.
Also note that small government doesn't mean no government. They can still support some policies that other people don't without violating their mission statement, so long as they advocate sufficient cuts in other areas. This is the difference between a guiding principle and a bright line rule.
I don't know anything about this DeMint character. Maybe his own policies fail to match up to his article. In fact, I kind of expect that they do. That fact would be irrelevant to my point, or even DeMint's point. I'm just dropping a line to defend a view that I feel you dismissed way too facilely. Because getting reading done for class is not even on my priority list anymore.
-Grant
It's not like Republicans are generally small government, but occasionally succumb to big gov temptations in a moment of weakness. You could make that argument about pork, maybe, but that's hardly the only sin. Massive expansions of government are a critical part of their overall agenda (including DeMint's). The GOP coalition of 2002-04 was built around gigantic expansions in the government's national security powers. The Southern wing that's come to dominate the party takes as its first priority government intervention into moral affairs -- that's issue #1 for them.
ReplyDeleteTo say the GOP is failing to live up to a small government mission is laughably generous. It's never been the GOP's mission at all. From start to finish, small government has been a rhetorical cudgel, nothing more. There is no there there.
"They can still support some policies that other people don't without violating their mission statement, so long as they advocate sufficient cuts in other areas."
ReplyDeleteI think Grant may be missing the fact that government's reach is not measured solely in the money it expends, judging by his idea that Republicans are maintaining a small government so long as they only add one program where they cut another. This is a highly budgetary way of looking at government that ignores all the ways in which government can be "big" without having lots of employees or a huge budget.
For example, the Mass. Bay Colony government was minimal in number of personnel and size of budget relative to the wealth of the colony, but had what we'd now consider a tyrannical level of control over citizens' daily lives, such as capital punishment for non-Christians and blasphemers. Is that a limited government?