My political evolution
As a youth in South Africa in the Sixties, I was an anti-apartheid Liberal. When the Liberal Party was banned in 1964 under the Suppression of Communism Act because most of its leaders were avowed Marxists, I joined the Progressive Party.
The Liberal Party believed in one man one vote. Most white South African were terrified that Africans outnumbered them six to one and would turn the country into a communist hell-hole. The Progressives believed in a "qualified franchise" meaning that anyone, regardless of color, could vote but only if you had a high schooleducation or owned some property. It seemed like a good compromise to me.
When I lived in England, the socialists were in government. I couldn't stand them as they were so pessimistic and negative but the Tories seemed worse with their class snobbishnes.
When I came to the USA, Carter was President and he seemed just as bad as the British socialists; just as pessimistic and negative. I still thought of myself as a liberal but could not stand the Democrats so I called myself libertarian and still am to an extent but most of the libertarians that I met were kooky and I did not like them.
Then Reagan got in and cured the USA of it's liberal malaise. When I became a citizen on February the 4th 1987, I was given a form letter from Ronald Reagan. The next day I registered Republican. I'm a Republican only because of Reagan.
Also I'm a Republican mostly because of the grass-roots Republicans not the party. I like other business people like me and I just can't stand lefties and hippies and gays eventhough I was a commie hippie fag in the 60s. I just don't like or trust them.
When idealists squeal that the GOP is not like it used to be, that's sort of true. It's certainly not like the GOP under Reagan but Reagan was an anomaly - even he described himself as a libertarian. The GOP was always statist and always for coercive government.
You can't get much more coercive and statist than waging Civil War. There were over 14,000 arbitrary arrests from the beginning of the war until its conclusion -- and this amounts to a total of 1 in every 1,500 Americans. And Lincoln was not at all apologetic about this policy.
I can't remember where I read this yesterday but it is interesting.
The Lincoln Administration and Arbitrary Arrests: A Reconsideration
Mark E. Neely, Jr.
Neely says:
"[Lincoln] did not apologize. In his public letter of June 12, 1863, to Erastus Corning and others, Lincoln said with characteristic toughness: "... the time [is] not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many."
He argued that the Confederate States, when they seceded, had been counting on being able to keep "on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, supplyers, and aiders and abettors of their cause" under "cover of 'Liberty of speech' 'Liberty of the press' and 'Habeas corpus.'" Nicolay and Hay, who were not given to overstatement, noted that "few of the President's state papers ... produced a stronger impression upon the public mind than this." Little wonder. Elsewhere in the letter, the president used even stronger language, saying that he could never "appreciate the danger ... that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the rebellion, lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, trail by jury, and Habeas Corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future ... any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness, as to persist in feeding upon them through the remainder of his healthful life."
There is no perfect government. As Thomas Paine said: "Government is a necessary evil."
And the only purpose of government, as John Locke said, "...is to protect private property."
The GOP is for me the lesser of two evils and I prefer to work inside it to keep it to it's ideals but no government should ever be trusted completely.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
I just don't expect perfection from human beings or their institutions. That's why I'm not a big "L" Libertarian. And the Democratic Party disgusts me because they are dishonest about being socialists - well, they're just plain dishonest.
The Liberal Party believed in one man one vote. Most white South African were terrified that Africans outnumbered them six to one and would turn the country into a communist hell-hole. The Progressives believed in a "qualified franchise" meaning that anyone, regardless of color, could vote but only if you had a high schooleducation or owned some property. It seemed like a good compromise to me.
When I lived in England, the socialists were in government. I couldn't stand them as they were so pessimistic and negative but the Tories seemed worse with their class snobbishnes.
When I came to the USA, Carter was President and he seemed just as bad as the British socialists; just as pessimistic and negative. I still thought of myself as a liberal but could not stand the Democrats so I called myself libertarian and still am to an extent but most of the libertarians that I met were kooky and I did not like them.
Then Reagan got in and cured the USA of it's liberal malaise. When I became a citizen on February the 4th 1987, I was given a form letter from Ronald Reagan. The next day I registered Republican. I'm a Republican only because of Reagan.
Also I'm a Republican mostly because of the grass-roots Republicans not the party. I like other business people like me and I just can't stand lefties and hippies and gays eventhough I was a commie hippie fag in the 60s. I just don't like or trust them.
When idealists squeal that the GOP is not like it used to be, that's sort of true. It's certainly not like the GOP under Reagan but Reagan was an anomaly - even he described himself as a libertarian. The GOP was always statist and always for coercive government.
You can't get much more coercive and statist than waging Civil War. There were over 14,000 arbitrary arrests from the beginning of the war until its conclusion -- and this amounts to a total of 1 in every 1,500 Americans. And Lincoln was not at all apologetic about this policy.
I can't remember where I read this yesterday but it is interesting.
The Lincoln Administration and Arbitrary Arrests: A Reconsideration
Mark E. Neely, Jr.
Neely says:
"[Lincoln] did not apologize. In his public letter of June 12, 1863, to Erastus Corning and others, Lincoln said with characteristic toughness: "... the time [is] not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many."
He argued that the Confederate States, when they seceded, had been counting on being able to keep "on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, supplyers, and aiders and abettors of their cause" under "cover of 'Liberty of speech' 'Liberty of the press' and 'Habeas corpus.'" Nicolay and Hay, who were not given to overstatement, noted that "few of the President's state papers ... produced a stronger impression upon the public mind than this." Little wonder. Elsewhere in the letter, the president used even stronger language, saying that he could never "appreciate the danger ... that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the rebellion, lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, trail by jury, and Habeas Corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future ... any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness, as to persist in feeding upon them through the remainder of his healthful life."
There is no perfect government. As Thomas Paine said: "Government is a necessary evil."
And the only purpose of government, as John Locke said, "...is to protect private property."
The GOP is for me the lesser of two evils and I prefer to work inside it to keep it to it's ideals but no government should ever be trusted completely.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
I just don't expect perfection from human beings or their institutions. That's why I'm not a big "L" Libertarian. And the Democratic Party disgusts me because they are dishonest about being socialists - well, they're just plain dishonest.
posted by Joubert at 2:11 PM
The Alliance
<< Home