Wednesday, March 23, 2005

The Splintering of the Right

Process Conservatives

It amazes me how quickly the Republican party violated their own traditional platform of state's rights in order to promote the right to life. This case is about quality of life and no matter what the radical conservatives claim, they are playing political football with a woman's life. More than that, the Republicans have also derailed any agenda to push a gay marrage ban and their own anti-abortion plans. By forcefully stepping into a state's rights issue the Republicans jettisoned a fundamental tenet of their party. Additionally, the previous platform that advocated smaller, less intrusive government, as well as the belief that people know best how to live their lives, is no longer viable. What I find amusing, if one can be amused in this grotesque charade, is that by departing from the Lockean idea that the individual knows best how to live their life, the Republicans has attachted themselves to the Rousseauean idea that the government has a right to dictate how one should live. That very same idea was later taken up by such illustrious figures as Marx, Lenin, Mao and Stalin, not to mention Hitler and Mussolini. So either the Republicans have decided their party will now become a socialist party or they have indeed turned toward a fascist-style of government.