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June 04, 2004

Things That Would Get Me Thrown Out Of A GOP Meeting

I've joked in the past that I have beliefs that'd get me drummed out of any party caucus.

And by any, I mean "Republican, too".

Let me explain.

With the DFL, it's obvious - I share virtually none of the Minnesota Democrat Farmer Labor Party's beliefs; the mainstream DFL, especially in the non-Eastside Saint Paul faction, is imperious, elitist, arrogant, authoritarian; it sacramentalizes infanticide, institutionalizes welfare, lionizes dependence, demonizes dissent, and disarms victims of the criminals on whom they go relentlessly soft. I'd get run out of a DFL caucus in my part of town on a rail.

The Greens? Ironically, I probably would last longer, there. They have a few planks about participatory democracy that make sense - largely because they'd fit nicely into a grassroots-level libertarian-slanted Republican caucus.

The Libertarians? Their dogma on defense is utterly nonsensical. As in, "Makes no sense whatsoever". It was the straw that broke my back as a big-L Libertarian, long before 9/11 - and in this post 9/11 world, it's by far the biggest straw there is.

But the GOP?

Yeah. There are a few. Even as the state party has slowly and laboriously swung to the right - and started actually acting like Republicans rather than neutered pseudo-Democrats like Arne Carlson, there are some things, locally and nationally, that just don't sit right in Republican dogma:

  • Mass Transit - Yeah, goverment-controlled mass transit is usually a license to boondoggle. But there was a time when mass transit supported itself, and did an admirable job of containing sprawl. Whoah, there - before you jump to any conclusions, I have nothing against "sprawl", in and of itself. People should be able to live where they want. But the simple fact is, our society subsidizes the suburbs and exurbs with a panoply of hidden costs; roads, sewers, newer and bigger and more spread-out school districts, and more roads. Here's what I'm saying: if future suburban and exurban development had to pay its own way entirely, without subsidy from everyone else, it would probably resort to some sort of mass transit (road, rail or otherwise) out of pure market imperative - put quite simply, it costs less to build a mile of track than to build a mile of road (all things, including the purchase of right of way, being equal).
  • Roads Uber Alles - The Dick Day transportation know-nothings have done us all a gaping disservice with their monomaniacal myopia for roads. Fact is, you can not build your way out of congestion; the more roads you build, the farther the congestion spreads, unless you build roads at a density and pace that we can neither afford nor live with. Eventually, local government will be essentially a road maintenance (and school funding) body.
  • Casinos - Keep the casinos in the hands of the Native Americans; for all the left's nattering about affirmative action, it occurs to me that giving a class of people a monopoly on some thoroughly discretionary activity is the sort of thing that might actually help rather than hurt its recipients; maybe decriminalizing drugs and giving a monopoly to the descendants of slaves would end the need for government-run affirmative action and shut the proponents of "reparations" up for good. At any rate - keep our government out of the gambling business; in fact, abolish the lottery, which costs the state more money than it brings in. Privatize it, perhaps - and make it sink or swim on its own; but the government doesn't belong in the gambling business any more than it belongs in prostitution.
  • All Burbs, All the Time - Hey! You! Yeah, Minnesota GOP, I'm talking to you! Yeah, the second and third-ring suburbs are the party's big growth area; does that mean you have to completely abandon the inner city to the DFL? Criminy, there are people up the wazoo in these cities that should be voting Republican, but don't know it yet:
    • Asians - with their predilection for small business, why do we cede them to the bad guys?
    • Hispanics - Latinos are heavily Catholic. Catholics, especially Latino Catholics, are very socially conservative. Why hand them over to the party that sacramentalizes infanticide without a fight? And the Latinos that are here legally, and have worked hard - sometimes for generations - to make it in the US? Why not drive a wedge between them and the party that espouses uncontrolled illegal immigration - thus devaluing their own franchise?
    • Afro-Americans - Yes, I mean it. The most Democrat segment out there, but they also among the most passionate advocates for change in the educational system. Why leave them to the party of the institutionalized status quo without a peep? (UPDATE: Unbeknownst to me as I wrote this, Joe Carter noted the same thing, and more)
  • "Accountability" in Schools - It's more accurate to call it "teaching to the test", the way it's currently practiced. It turns education into an endless exercise in bureaucratic enablement, and strays even farther from the goal of creating good citizens than even the Profiles in Learning did. Big words? I mean it.
Still and all, I'm staying with the GOP. I'm just saying.

Posted by Mitch at June 4, 2004 11:24 AM
Comments

Mitch:

I'm almost right there with you, attitudinally. Funny thing - on the way back to the office from lunch (about the time you appear to have posted this) it occurred to me to do something similar. I decided not to, and now will have to wait a while to change my mind, just to avoid appearing to be a mooch to that 0.00000001% of the population that reads both your site and mine.

However, I'm curious what the heck you're talking about in the "Casinos" section - I hear you loud and clear that the government should not be in gambling. Donald Sensing has a real burr in his butt about lotteries, and is 100% on target.

But in what circumstances does it make sense to legalize drugs -AND- grant a monopoly on them to any special interest group? Some of the outcomes from doing so are admirable (shutting up the silly argument about reparations, as an example). But, while legalizing drugs is an action I could probably support, even at the risk of incorrectly being labeled a pinko lefty, I can't quite make the leap to creating a new class of rent collectors.

I'm just saying.

Posted by: Patton at June 4, 2004 04:45 PM

Mitch,

Maybe this will help.

http://daveblackonline.com/republicans_anonymous.htm

It did me.

Posted by: Xenophon at June 4, 2004 06:30 PM

Mitch,

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, you're not leaving the GOP, the GOP is leaving you. Your beliefs are essentially what the party still plays lip service to. Sadly, that's all it does.

Posted by: James Ph. at June 4, 2004 06:42 PM
hi