Let's Start A Political Party (What is a sane Republican, these days?)

Great Debates
21

Well, Sam, I’m going to say that this has to be a little more ideologically based than pragmatic. Just a little. So, I want moral justifications, here. Generally, I agree insofar as gun control is concerned. We have more than enough laws. Enforce them.

While a good idea, can we do this in one election cycle? The big issue here is the Highway Funds hammer. And where does it leave off? We don’t want slavery to come back.

We’ve got a mess any way you look at it. The only way out is to keep the economy growing. Trust-busting may be the best way to do a good portion of it. Rationalizing the tax code and social security is a holy terror, but I want someone to look at that and think of what we can do. Eliminating the capital gains tax, reducing the double corporate-personal income tax may actually be good ideas, as well as various ‘prize’ initiatives, but I want to link it to investing in America.

The thing here is that your version and my version are completely different. While I can’t guess what internal security is going to look like, come '08, my goals here are: Spies: Rationalize and reduce. Improve internal communications. Break up monocultures. Increase HumInt. Military: Tougher, smarter, simpler. But also more patient. We have the world’s best military, but I do not like how it was pressed to engage before ready.

This is an American nation. We founded this country in the name of religious freedom, we shall never change. My father still bitches about Under God, truthfully. It just doesn’t sound right to him.

Again, more ‘prizes’. Rebuild NASA.

This is entirely correct.

He doesn’t have to be well known. But the rest is right.
Furthermore, draft a cabinet of real experts. Not just friends, but people who the fields respect. Of course, everyone says they’re doing that.

Hm. Who’dathunk it, I pretty much agree with Sam here.

22

I think you need to be centrist on gun-control – support reasonable regulations, while affirming the right to bear arms.

No one has mentioned abortion – other than by distancing the new party from the Moral Majority. So can we be “status quo” on that one?

Can we be anti-farm subsidies?

What about the environment? I don’t need Kyoto, but I don’t want to drill on the California coast or in ANWAR either.

23

  1. Agree.

  2. Federalism.

I’m not a big federalist, since I think it can swing both ways, but I would not be against federalism on the issues of drugs and gay marriage. That said, I see no reason why we can’t implement federally-recognized civil unions, just from an IRS perspective. Ideological justification is that we are getting the IRS out of the religion business.

3 + 4. Fiscal responsibility.

Well primarily, we need to increase taxes, but if we can reduce spending on government programs that do not provide a good return on investment, go for it. For instance, closing tax loopholes AND government programs that make it easier to outsource would be a taxing and a spending winner and provide a real return to the economy.

  1. Tough on terror, strong on the military. I agree here too: we need to have a strong military and be tough on terror when it is proven a given action will likely result in less terror. However, note that ethnic cleansing is terror, as well.

  2. Reasonableness on religion.

While I’m not against “reasonableness in religion”, I don’t see how our current setup beats down the poor poor religious majority in America by not letting them have access to school facilities. Perhaps this proposed plank should be amended to “Fight to allow religious groups to keep access to school facilities after hours.”

  1. Strong science and research bent. Agree, except perhaps NASA, as sadly, we need to get our fiscal house in order before we spend our money on such things. Instead, relax regulations prohibiting private space exploration. While I, personally, would love to have us exploring space, I think it’s something I can sacrifice in the name of the greater fiscal good. Except maybe a system to better track space objects that might hit us: that has a definite payoff even if it is not for a thousand years.

8 + 9. No comment: I’m not really an internal-politics and strategy kinda guy.

24

I’m all for it, but are we here to decide what the new party’s platform will be, or to discuss exactly how we get this thing off the ground?

If it’s the first, I personally was raised Republican, but my social views have shifted towards the left, so I suppose I am pretty much a libertarian who doesn’t want to join a party full of nutjobs. This may be the party for me.

If it’s the second, then I’m thinking that it’s like making a new religion. Usually a new party/religion is formed when a major dividing issue causes an already established party/religion to split. Creating a new party/religion from scratch is very hard. I’d say it’s harder with a party, since you can still go to heaven with a new religion, but you can’t get anything done with an unestablished political party. Like everyone else, I’ll join the party when it’s large enough to make a difference.

25

Good point. How about we caucus amongst ourselves early and often when the first pre-primary skirmishes start, and make a short list of viable candidates for either major party (or any possibly viable 3rd-party candidates, although the last one to snare an electoral vote was George Wallace in '68) and then see what we can do in our respective states to help them carry some primaries?

i.e., if we aren’t really ready to become a new party, perhaps we can become a faction in the old ones (both of them) and see if and where we can become a faction with traction…

26

The chance of this actually becoming a new political party is… well, it’s not nil. But it’s low. All things considered, I think it’s best to decide what the party’s platform is, first.

I want there to be a standard for those of us who are Republicans but not raving loonies, to stand around.

Farm Subsidies. Well. Generally, I’m against telling people to sit on their asses for money. But this is entrenched enough that screwing with it needs an expert. We got any experts out there? Generally, I’m going to point out that I feel that the small businessman needs to be able to compete against the megamonopoly, and that goes for food as much as it does for the hardware store against Wal-Mart, as much as it does the linux programmer against Bill Gates. I am not against Wal-Mart, but I see the future it leads to, and I’m not all that pleased. Henry Ford led america into a new future by making the workers able to afford what he sold. Wal-Mart is, as I see it, running in the reverse direction.

http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=4324

That’s the Republican Party Oath. I’d quote it, but it’s short, and I don’t want to violate copyright. I think we can all still agree with it.

http://www.gop.com/GOPAgenda/

This is the current agenda. It covers:
Economy
Homeland Security
National Security
Education. (No Child Left Behind. Spit)
Social Security.
Health Care.
Environment.
Energy.

Let’s rebuild each of these. More later.