What do Republicans Stand For?

Disclaimer – what follows is not an attempt to explain the philosophical or “deeply reasoned” roots of what many republicans believe, much less what conservatives believe.  Rather, it is an attempt, by a (usually) Republican, to explain what many Republicans pretty much believe at a gut level.  As the semester goes on, I will give out more detailed policy positions, reasoned arguments, etc.  But most voters are not political junkies -- most voters vote at the gut level. So this is my attempt to get across to you the attitudes of many Republicans, rather than just their thoughts.

Life:

- The most important thing in the world is common sense.  Many people don’t have any.  Especially politicians and judges.

- Character is important.  Virtues count for more than values.  IQ, wealth, social standing, ethnic background, etc. are all less important than maturity.  So grow up, already.

- Complicated choices are not the same as hard ones.

- If you should do something but don't want to, it is a hard choice, not a complicated one. If you are at a strip club and your wife is at home, sick, with the kids, you need to make a hard choice, not a complicated one.

- If you are trying to decide if your retirment plan would benefit more from putting $20,000 into a 20 year defered IRA, or purchasing a variable rate annuity with an early payout clause, it is a complicated decision. Not a hard one. Unless your neighbor is trying to sell his 18 foot fishing boat with the new outboard motor, and all the fishing gear and water skis thrown in. Then it is a complicated and a hard choice.

- Incentives matter. Always.

- People are often foolish and bad.  Government is usually worse.

- The most important law is the law of unintended consequences.

- The “facts of life” are conservative.  Deal with it.

Politics:

- There are two political parties in America.  The stupid party, and the evil party.  We belong to the stupid party.

- Normal people belong to the Republican Party.  Other people belong to the other party.

- There are more normal people than you think.  You just can’t tell, because normal people don’t go to the park to wave signs, they don’t chain themselves to trees to save birds, and they don’t lie down in the middle of the road during rush hour traffic to bring attention to whatever it is that people who do that are protesting.  Normal people are not on TV.  Normal people have jobs.

- The reason God created Mexico is to remind normal people that the American political system could be worse, and that America is pretty great, all things considered. People who are not normal get it backwards, and think that America is not that great, but would be if it's government acted more like the Mexican one. Actually, God created a lot of Mexicos to make it very clear, but people who are not normal still get it mixed up.

- The rules government creates only apply to normal people.  If you are normal, you need three forms of I.D. and a credit check to get a variance or permission from the housing association, county zoning commision, the state and the EPA, to obtain an environmental impact statement on the effects that cutting your lawn will have on the freckled leaping lizard-toad.  If you are a 14 year old non-English speaking Mexican transexual with wet hair AND NO IDENTIFICATION AT ALL who wants to vote in the presidential elections, why here is your ballot Sir/Ma'am, right this way….. 

- Normal people pay taxes. They pay them when they earn money, when they save money, and when they spend money. Normal people even pay taxes when they die. But after they die, they don't pay taxes any more, so they are not normal any more, which is why they start voting for the other party. Go figure.

Government:

- The government does not work well, it never has, and it never will.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.

- If government had its way, everything in life that was not prohibited would be mandatory.  And anything that wasn’t mandatory would be prohibited. And yes I repeated myself, but if government allowed me to say something, it would make me do it, twice.

- The problem with government is government, not the politicians in it.  Although they don’t help the situation.

- Government is like a drunk elephant.  It can be very powerful and strong, or it can be asleep.  It can occasionally do good, often bad, usually incompetent.  It is always clumsy.

Oh, and it can roll over and crush you, because it is mad, sleeping, or just drunk.  That’s just what elephants (and governments) do.

- Government means corruption.  More government means more corruption.

- Do-gooder busybodies are pests.  In church, they are annoying.  In government, they are public menaces.

- Normal people are not against all Government.  We believe in some government work: the roads, police, fire departments, things like that.

- Fire departments are staffed by big men in boots who kick down doors and rescue people from burning houses: we call these people firemen.  Post-feminist english-lit majors with an advanced degree in intercultural sensitivity training, who get hired by fire departments to follow firemen around to interview the people who they saved to see if their feelings were hurt by the big-booted thugs who just kicked in the door and do these poor tragedy survivors want to sue, are not firemen.  They should not work in fire departments. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

- It is not necessary for the government to pass a law keeping post-feminist english-lit majors with advanced degrees in intercultural sensitivity training from working. The market will handle that. It is only necessary that government not try to make them firemen.

Society and Culture:

- America is a pretty good place to live, all things considered.  It is a good place to live in spite of Washington, not because of it.

- The basic unit of society is the family.  Normal people live in families.  When normal people talk about families, everybody knows what they mean.  When people who are not normal talk about families, nobody knows what they mean.

- When the air conditioner and radio in your car break, you now have what is called a broken car. It is still better than walking, but it is not better than a normal car, it is worse. If dad runs away and joins the circus to follow his dream of being the worlds first acrobat with a beer gut, you now have what is called a broken family. It is better than no family, but it is not better than a normal family, it is worse. They are called broken families for a reason.  You may have to deal with them, but you should never strive for them. People who are not normal don't seem to understand this.

- American culture is pretty wonderful.  It is something normal people do at home.

- The rules government creates only apply to normal people.  The rules of life still apply to everybody.  Just because the government does not apply its rules to you, doesn’t mean you can do it forever without paying the price.  Brittany Spears, I am talking about you.

- Nobody on TV is normal.  But eventually, life catches up.  Dan Rather, I am talking about you.

- Nobody in Hollywood is normal either.  Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for governor as a normal person, and won.  The most normal person in Hollywood is a futuristic robotic killing machine with a German accent.  Think about it.

- Nobody who does Pop music is normal.  Did I mention Ms. Spears yet?

- People who think they are living in Amerika are not normal. The problem is not that they are dyslexic, or that the spell check on their computer doesn't work. The problem goes deeper than that.

Foreign Affairs:

- America has problems.  The rest of the world has more of them.  Washington can’t fix the problems in America.  It certainly can’t fix the world’s problems.  But sometimes, it can kill them.

- It is nice to have allies.  That is why so many countries are nice to us when they need an ally.  What would be really nice, is if America had allies when we needed them.

- Some people like to say America created all the problems in the world.  Americans who say this are not normal, and should get real jobs.  Foreign people who say this usually do so at the U.N., because it is easier to come to NY and live well while blaming the U.S. for everything, than it would be to go home and fix the problems that they created themselves.

- The best air force in the world is the U.S. Air Force.  The second best one is the U.S. Navy.  The best army is the U.S. Army, and the second best is the U.S. Marine Corps.  Normal people understand this, and think it is good, and thank the people who make it so.  And to the Navy and Marines, I mean no disrespect, and I am sure you see the point I am making. And thank you all for your service to the country.

Economics

- Income is not distributed.  It is earned.  Government does not understand that, but then again most government workers don’t work.

- The government has to pay for things, just like everybody else.  They do it by taxing normal people.  Republicans are normal people.

- Would you rather eat at a local restaurant, or a government run cafeteria?  Why?

- Pick a subject you know a great deal about (typically, your job).  Do the government regulations that apply to it make any sense?  Why do you think they do on everything else?

- When the government protects the rights of workers, are they protecting the rights of hardworking people, or of lazy people?

- The best way to limit government is to starve it.  God put Republican politicians on this earth to lower taxes.  They usually don’t, but we should always remind them to.

- If you think that politicians in Washington know more about how to fix your bathroom than your plumber, then you should get a new plumber.  This applies to doctors, accountants, mechanics, electricians…  well, just about everything.

Government and ….

Health Care

- If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until the government is giving it away for free. (HT P.J. O'Roarke)

- American health care is bad, I guess, because everybody tells me it is.  My health care is pretty good.  If I get sick, I am not going to go to Cuba, because that would be stupid.

- Most of the problems with health care exist because there are massive disincentives built into the system.  These stupid disincentives were put in by Washington.  Why do we believe that the next set of rules Washington creates will be less stupid?

- If two wrongs don’t make a right, does that mean two stupids don’t make a smart?  Think about this, as Washington debates fixing health care.

Poverty reduction

- The working poor deserve our support.  Nobody objects to programs that help them.

- People who will not work don’t deserve our support.  If you pay them to not work, they will continue to not work.  Sometimes, a little hunger can go a long way.

- Nobody is hungry because they can’t work, and the government doesn’t provide enough support.  Some people are hungry because they have a $200 a day crack cocaine habit.  These are not the same thing. (HT John Derbyshire)

- There are many people who have bad, unrewarding jobs.  The solution to this is not a Washington jobs program, the solution to this is fewer post–modernist women’s studies programs that create people who have no job skills.

Crime

- Some people are bad.  We send them to prison as a punishment.  Prison is not comfortable, nice, or pleasant.  It is not supposed to be.  The Marriott is pleasant, but it is a hotel.  Prison is not a hotel.

- Rehabilitation is a good idea, but we don’t know how to do it.  We do know how to lock up people who keep committing crimes.  Nobody was ever robbed by a career criminal who was in a prison cell.  Many people have been robbed by “reformed” criminals who were let out of their cell.

- Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.  Outlawing guns means only outlaws will have guns. (HT: The NRA)

- Police are not the bad guys.  Usually.  Lawyers are the bad guys.  Always.

- Crime is committed by individuals.  Not society.  If society told you to jump off a bridge, would you?  Same difference.

- Some people commit crimes that are so bad, that they should be executed.  Nobody was ever killed because some judge freed a drug crazed axe-murderer from his coffin.  Vampire movies don’t count because they are not real.

Immigration

- If America (Amerika?) is so bad, how come everybody is sneaking in?

- If my neighbor complains that I am locking the doors on my house, does that make me more or less likely to think he is sneaking into my house and drinking my beer?  If Mexico thinks it is bad for the U.S. to build a wall on the border, am I more or less likely to think they all want to sneak in?  And why do I care about what either of these sneaky people think, anyway?

- At one time in the past, normal Americans all came from a bad place called “the rest of the world”.  They came here to become something better, called Americans.  If you want to come here to become an American, we can talk about it, but let’s do it in English.

- Hablo Espagnol?  Me neither.  That does not make me a racist.  It makes me an American.  And if God wanted me to put an upside-down question mark at the end of the first sentence, he would have put one on my keyboard.

- Multi-culturalism is good, especially when linked to the related concept of multi-countryism.  You know, France = French culture, China = Chinese culture, America = American culture.  See where this is going?

Race Relations, Identity Politics, etc.

- Racism is bad.  Racists are bad.  There are no differences between whites, blacks, eskimos, elves, or anybody else.  Now that I said it, can I get back to watching the basketball game?

- Sexism is bad.  Sexists are bad.  Women can do everything men can do, and are just like them in all ways.  Now that I said it, can I get back to watching the basketball game, dear?

- Heterosexuality is not better than anything else. Homosexuality is just as good, or maybe even better. There, I said it, but if you pre-empt my basketball game for figure skating, you have gone too far.

- When Martin Luther King said that we should all live in a color-blind society, he was onto something.  It is unfortunate that people who are not normal have forgotten this.

Abortion

- Abortion kills babies.  It is not complicated.

- Maybe sometimes we should kill these babies.  Like if they are deformed, or the mother’s health is threatened, or the baby’s father is the mother’s drunk step-dad rapist, or the mother is a 14-year old runaway.  Or maybe, because the mother just doesn’t feel like having a baby. These are hard choices.  But they are not complicated ones.  It is still killing a baby.

- The courts will lock up a pregnant women who is using crack cocaine, because she is hurting her baby.  They will let her go if she has an abortion and kills the baby.  The courts are confused.

Courts and the Legal System

- Kill all the lawyers

- See the above

- Judges are not lawyers, but they used to be.

- Society would be much safer if judges had to rent their basements out to all the people they are releasing from jail.

- The constitution of Massachusetts does not require that Massachusetts allow Sam and John to get married.  The Massachusetts Supreme Court should stop pretending it does.  It doesn’t.

- The other reason God put Republican politicians on this planet was to make sure that normal people with common sense become judges.  Massachusetts, please take note.

  The Environment

- Normal people don’t want to live in a polluted neighborhood.  For some reason, people who are not normal can’t seem to understand that.

- Normal people accept that most things in life generate some garbage.  People who are not normal can’t seem to understand that.

- Normal people don’t get upset every time a polar bear falls through the ice, because polar bears can swim.  See, we watch the discovery channel too.

- Normal people think we should build roads because they help us get to places we need to go, and if that hurts some weird beetle, that is acceptable.  The world has a lot of beetles.  In fact, it probably has too many of them.

- Normal people think that the beetle killing road was put there to drive cars on, because that is how normal people get themselves and their kids from place to place.  People who are not normal can ride bikes, because they don’t have kids.

- Global warming is about there being too much hot air.  Normal people think that hot air is caused mostly by that big yellow thing in sky, that you can only see during the day.  And Washington. (HT: James Lileks)

Last Modified; January 20, 2008