Tag Archive for 'gop'

When Extremism Becomes Mainstream

Published by Colin September 8, 2008 in Essays, Religion, Politics and Philosophy. 7 Comments

Would anyone born into an extreme society be aware of the exact nature of that society relative to history? For example, if there was a bubble thrown around Soviet Russia (in many ways there was) - wouldn’t the people of that society view ideas like free-will, free-markets and free-speech as extremes? The norm might be long lines for basic necessities, rampant crime, neighbours, friends and family disappearing and never returning.

In many ways, the centre of mainstream society can be measured by what ideas are considered extreme. We look back in hindsight at societies such as Hitler’s Germany and Soviet Russia as though these movements became mainstream by magic. We ignore the history and conditions which made certain ideas, leaders and philosophies popular. We see images like this and this (warning: graphic) and assume that this guy is soley to blame. We fail to realize that perhaps the most important explanation of these images is this one. We presume that extremism will come into our society announcing itself with nazi flags, poverty or honest people being locked up right away.

So many American Christians are terrified of such boogey men. Take fighting radical Islam - which is often compared in mainline conservatism to a war against “fascism“and Iraq is compared to World War II. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that Islamic Law, radical Islamic repression, widespread Islamic Terrorism and Christian persecution at the hands of Islamic elements in government will never become a reality in the US.

Extremism Doesn’t Look Like Extremism
I suspect that Sinclair Lewis is a little closer to the mark: “when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” This is not a statement to be ignored - it is backed by historical patterns that are repeated over and over again. Extremism rarely comes from outside a society, but it cultivated, embraced and implemented from within. Adolph Hitler wasn’t released on the world until he had secured power in his own society using tradition, religion and philosophy that Germans were familiar with. In other words, we must be more fearful of internal extremism gradually overtaking those historically accepted and mainstream “Americanisms” - the constitution, freedom, Christianity, security, prosperity, capitalism and  “democracy.”

American Extremism will look like patriotism. It will be embraced by the dominant religious elements: Christianity in this case. It will be described as traditional American values such as free-enterprise, democracy and security.

Because extremism moves into the mainstream culture, language and political system - the best measure is historical context. For example, “liberal” is used today as a cuss-word against left-wing democrats. I accepted this as the historical definition until, when I was twenty, I visited a memorial to Meriwether Lewis and was shocked to see Thomas Jefferson use the term to describe Lewis:

Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, … honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth…

I looked into it and found that the mainstream definition is relatively new, and in fact completely the opposite of what it had meant for hundreds of years. If it weren’t for the word “libertarian” - we might not have a word that summarises something close to the definition of liberal.

Case in Point: GOP Primary
But this has happened with so many things. Conservatives in the past eighteen months have been calling Ron Paul a radical and a fringe candidate. And he is - in that his positions aren’t mainstream in the slightest nor are they what is now called “conservative.” There is a radical gulf between Paul’s view and the conservative movement.

But that is what should scare us - and if conservatives would stop marching forward and question their orders for a moment, they might get a glimpse of where they are going. For example, “county first” was plastered all over McCain’s convention - is that phrase responsible? Is it biblical? Is it actually patriotic? Should that be the moral and political priority of conservatives and Christians? If that is an acceptable idea, is a rally worth $16 million in money taken from the country, celebrating one man, in one political faction a genuine articulation of that ideal?

How Extremist Leaders Win the Support of Otherwise Principled Men
What does it mean when those voices calling for objective morality and the rule of law are considered extreme in favour of embracing those solutions with “reasonable,” “common-sense” and short-term sacrifices to solve problems that were first created by such measures? Conservatives don’t like Paul because a purer form of traditionally conservative ideals comes out so different than the practices of what is now called conservatism. Conservatives would rather align themselves with men who share almost none of the deeper convictions, morals and ideals of their own movement, but who will still give lip service and token support to popular conservative causes (abortion, family, military). They will support unprincipled extremists who are promising that they will ignore their nature. This is foolishness - but a familiar path that humanity has taken in placing reckless, unprincipled men in power.
Continue reading ‘When Extremism Becomes Mainstream’

GOP Flip-Flop on Financing

Published by Colin June 23, 2008 in Politics. 24 Comments

One of the major party candidates wants to see the Federal Government spending hundreds of millions of dollars on presidential campaigns. This candidate also wants restrictions on donations, especially from businesses and wealthy people. This includes restrictions on the speech of religious groups as well.

The second major party candidate has decided to save taxpayers millions of dollars, by not taking this money in what is basically welfare for politicians. By this same token, free speech is no longer put into boxes based on timing, nor is money now channelled into rule-laden 527 Groups.

As I am sure the reader knows, the big-government position is being advocated by Republican John McCain, while, ironically, Democrat Barack Obama has forgone spending taxpayer money.

While this is already an almost comical commentary on the lack of distinction between Republicans and Democrats, the Republican National Committee has made themselves look even more foolish by criticizing Obama for his conservative position.

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said the following:

In his decision to break his promise and forgo our nation’s public financing system, Barack Obama failed to demonstrate the kind of principled leadership that Americans are looking for in our next President. Obama’s decision is what we’ve come to expect from a candidate whose rhetoric is nothing like his record, and it undermines his own claims to represent a ‘new’ kind of politics. Clearly, Barack Obama is just another politician who is willing to do whatever benefits his own personal agenda.

While Obama is “flip-flopping” - it is the good kind - moving from a bad policy to a good one. Whereas McCain and the GOP’s steadfast adherence to their own hypocrisy is deplorable. The correct thing to do, is for the GOP to issue an apology for supporting a candidate like John McCain who claims to want to “reduce wasteful government spending” and subsequently supports federally-funded elections and free-speech restrictions.

What I suspect is the biggest problem with Obama’s move is that it is a break from the typical bipartisan agreements that the Dems and GOP have made to keep unfriendly elements (third parties and independents) from using wealth or grassroots support to crash their two party fiesta. That is the reason McCain-Feingold is in place - to enforce the duopoly currently in control of Washington.

Perhaps Obama really does represent change, and maybe his decision will have a positive impact on the future viability of non-traditional candidates. Either way, in this instance, it’s clear that public financing is not a viable program.

The Ron Paul Revolution

Published by Colin April 28, 2008 in Current Events. 36 Comments

Perhaps it is now safe to write another Ron Paul article without the fear of the Ron-bots CTRL-C-ing the latest and greatest reason to vote for their man. Perhaps, also, we will not be bombarded by that tremendous minority of supporters who use Ron Paul as a platform for proclaiming the ridiculous conspiracies regarding 9/11, NWO, freemasonry and space aliens.

This is important because there is a real conspiracy going on against Ron Paul. It shames our country, our system, the republican party and the fickle and imperfect nature of man in general.

The Republican Party (whose very name infers an adherence to representative election and law) has chosen to break it’s own election rules in several conventions so as to prevent Ron Paul’s delegates from going to the national convention.

Unlike how the media portrays elections - relying on popular polls - the actual election of the GOP representatives is by delegates who are elected by party members at conventions. Delegates should reflect the polls, but are under no obligation to do so. So while McCain might poll at 70% on election day in a given state, McCain is actually granted delegates (depending on the state) by some form of convention with official delegates voting.

Nueces County Texas GOP Plug Ears, Shakes Head - “I’m not listening”
For example, let’s look at Nueces County in Texas. On April 20th, the Ron Paul delegates had been elected under the rules of the party and were about be read and confirmed. Instead, the local chairperson of the party decided on her own to appoint different delegates. She read them out loud and the Ron Paul delegates present, on not hearing their names, began to call for a “point of order” as is the correct procedure under the rules. The chairperson ignored them, and “hearing no statutes or amendments” confirmed the unelected delegates.

Audio and explanation here:

Nevada Shutdown
Or what about in Nevada. Ron Paul himself personally appeared at the state delegation. Aside from his tremendous number of supporters there, many were won over by his speech. Almost all 31 delegates for Nevada to the national convention ended up being Ron Paul supporters.

Nevada’s 31 delegates are a drop in the ocean, but for some reason, Mitt Romney felt the need to show up to the convention and call for unification behind McCain. Romney’s speech however, didn’t make a difference. The party leadership saw this along with the fact that Ron Paul’s delegates were going to get elected. They panicked, and shut down the convention.

Why This is Happening
We have heard barely a whisper of Ron Paul in the news since McCain was presumed the winner. And if his name was mentioned, it was a story asking why this crazy old man hadn’t quit yet. I think now we are seeing why.

Ron Paul, and more importantly, Ron Paul’s supporters are the kind of people (regardless if some of them are crazy) who want to show the rest of the country that we are living in a society that breaks it’s own laws. Our government, at all levels, is a corrupt influence on its own citizens - and is setting a dangerous precedent of ignoring ethics and law in order to pursue expediency and short-term benefits.

Education Reform & Republican Presidential Candidates

Published by Sadie January 9, 2008 in Politics. 8 Comments

I am a teacher in the public school system with an M.Ed from the University of Oregon. Over the last several years, I have seriously studied the American educational system and worked in it as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. These are my thoughts on the educational policy statements made by some Republican Candidates for President. I wanted to include all candidates in this article, however after three weeks of researching and writing it, I have decided to publish it as is.

Parents and teachers alike should look closely at candidates statements on educational policy. Many candidates make “feel good” statements offering little or no solution as to how they actually plan to implement their grand ideas for improving the state of public education. Additionally, candidates often have track records in other areas that set a precedent that suggests how they might handle or implement their educational policies. It is also important to remember that most people view education in one of two ways:

Education is the role of the state: the government is ultimately responsible for educating children, and as such is also responsible for the quality and regulation of education across the board: public schools, private schools, home-school laws. Thus, because the state has total authority, secular state values supersede parental values.

Education is the role of parents: a child’s guardians or parents are ultimately responsible for educating children, and as such are also responsible for the quality and regulation of their children’s education regardless of if they attend private, public, or home schools. Thus, because the parents have total authority, parental values supersede secular state values.

Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani claims he wants to reform the public school system by allowing parental choice via vouchers or charter schools (which are publicly funded and thus government controlled schools). These are not subject to the same regulations as other public schools, and there are a number of problems with them. For example, most students are unable to enroll in such a school as there are long waiting lists and the state controls how many charter schools can be created.

  • Real Actions: He recently created an “Educational Advisory Board” to work on school choice, although he claims that parents should be the ones making the choice on how to educate children. Creating an advisory board (such is the function of the Dept. of Education) is relatively harmless, although I fail to see how this board full of government people is a step towards parental choice and control (seems like creating more government bureaucracy to me.)
  • Guiliani has proposed to open schools on weekends for remedial students to catch up. This idea sounds a little backwards, especially considering how poor the schools were to begin with in New York. If the schools were not working for children attending them Monday through Friday, how will sending them for an additional day using the same methods make a difference?
  • He started a Charter Schools Initiative.
  • Guiliani also sought greater power and control over Schools. This means greater government and less local control as the legislation would have given power over to mayors instead of school boards, yikes!
  • Guiliani also created the Bilingual Education Task Force. This move also maintains the idea of reform coming down from the top levels of government, i.e. more centralized government control is the solution to failing schools. However, Giuliani does appear to at least be consistent in his statements.
  • He views education as a “civil rights” issue. This is NCLB language by the way, but, I’ve got to hand it to him on opposing the teachers unions, that takes some guts. In all, Guiliani talks some semi-interesting talk, but his actions or attempted actions don’t always match up in the end.

Mike Huckabee
Huckabee wants to release “Weapons of Mass Instruction” in arts and sciences and believes schools should be judged by “results” (does not say what these results should be based upon, standardized tests or what?). He takes credit for raising test scores as governor and claims to support parental choice, to want more charter schools and wants a “clear distinction” between federal and state roles in NCLB.”States must be allowed to develop their own benchmarks,” according to Huckabee. However, he is either grossly misinformed or he is just repeating republican rhetoric because states currently DO set their own standards under NCLB (that promise won’t be hard to achieve). As such, he supports NCLB as it stands today, which has significantly increased the role of the federal government in regulating and controlling schools - minimizing local control. Ultimately, NCLB will lead to federalized government schools that offer a nationally standard curriculum. Huckabee also claims to strongly support homeschoolers. He recently answered many questions regarding his educational policy. Huckabee does not believe that vouchers are practical and prefers improving public schools instead.

  • Real Actions: Passed the Omnibus Education Act 2003 in Arkansas which allowed the State to consolidate nearly 200 of the state’s 308 school districts as a way to afford a broader curriculum. This legislation effectively replaces local school boards and gives broader authority to the state.
  • Created the Smart Start, Smart Step, and Next Step programs, which put state selected facilitators in schools to help guide the principal and teachers in their professional development. From what I understand, these programs increase state control of teacher development and school wide goals as opposed to a teacher/principal himself choosing how to further their education.
  • He helped revise Arkansas’ public Charter School law in 1999. Charter schools are promoted as school choice, however, they are in fact a “faux choice” because of limited enrollment opportunities as well as the fact that they are public schools and cannot opt out of state control and state laws.
  • He supported the creation of Teacher-of-the-Year legislation which makes the teacher an ex-officio member of the state Board of Education and allows the teacher to travel across the state training others during the school year. Yes, that makes sense, if you have a good teacher, by all means pull them from the classroom to do state sponsored bureaucratic activities.
  • Huckabee raised teacher salaries and public school funds at the expense of taxpayers. Now, that’s nice but it is certainly not small government, nor is it supportive of true school choice as it simply reinforces the government monopoly on education.
  • Based on these kinds of actions, it’s really no surprise that the NEA has endorsed him. I happen to belong to this teacher’s union (as mandated by my state) and I know for a fact that this union believes that education is the role of the state, and is anti-homeschooling, anti-school choice and vouchers.
  • Huckabee signed and allowed Arkansas state legislature to pass new laws that were more restrictive for homeschooling families.
  • Huckabee opposed a legislative proposal by the Murphy Commission (a think-tank he started) to reform the education system and start a voucher system in the state of Arkansas. Huckabee may “believe” that parents should be able to make a choice, however, he certainly does not act on that belief.

Continue reading ‘Education Reform & Republican Presidential Candidates’

The GOP Debate (in short)

Published by Colin June 6, 2007 in Politics and Current Events. 28 Comments

I have very little time to post a lot of verbiage about the debate - so I will just mention a few quick observations.

Tom Tancredo
Tancredo really had a lot going for him going into this debate. While everyone could see he was the most outspoken on immigration - he really seemed to stand for limited government. Last night he had the opportunity to discuss the caveat of the English language. Quite frankly, I was appalled. He refuses to have his website in Spanish, and then, in the most outrageous proposal of the year from any politician thus far, declared that all immigration (both legal and illegal) be stopped:

We talk about all the immigration reform we want, and what it’s got to get down to is this: Are we ready for a timeout? Are we actually ready to say, “Enough is enough”? We have to stop all legal immigration except for the — for people coming into this country as family members, immediate family members, and/or refugees.

Granted, Tancredo also had the best statement in the debate on what Role he would have for George W. Bush if Tancredo was president:

Some time ago, 2003 I think it was, I got a call from Karl Rove who told me that because of my criticism of the president, I should never darken the doorstep of the White House. I have been so disappointed in the president in so many ways… I would have to tell George Bush exactly the same thing Karl Rove told me.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Mike Huckabee
The most memorable moment of the night for Huckabee, was his literal sermon on God. I really couldn’t doubt the man’s sincerity. Very eloquent, specific and unashamed about his views on creation.

Duncan Hunter
I think Hunter’s idea about a border fence are all washed up. I watched a great episode of Penn and Teller BS [WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE] that demonstrated just how weak his fence was (physically and in terms of policy). He hammered on it over and over, making his aluminum fence sound like stone ramparts.

John McCain
As in the last few debates, McCain has had responses more scripted than dialogue from Titanic. I think even God got a little tired of it.

Mitt Romney
Romney got asked directly about his blatantly socialist health care system. He then proceed to write a second book on doublespeak. His system is virtually identical to Hillary’s plan, and identical in principle. Sorry Mr. Romney, but “mandated” and “free market” do not belong in the same sentence.

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