Well, we have another issue on which we can flame each other.
These views are all IMHO.
The Republican party was founded in the 1850s NOT as some Libertarian
thing. Never was. Never was.
It was founded to assert federal soverignity over the states and to free
the slaves. As Paul rightly noted, Lincoln would rather go to war than
to allow the Union to break up. To back up Paul and me on this, I
suggest reading Lincoln's Second Ignuagural Address.
The Republican Party continued to assert federal soverignity over the
states through its Reconstruction policies in the rest of that post
Civil War period. The Republicans also had a strong emphasis on free
trade and unfettered capitalism.
Thus under the Republicans we got the first anti-trust legislation (did
cause problems with the unfettered capitalists but it was justified as
making the playing field level for capitalism), the first national parks
(T. Roosevelt was big on federal conservation, taking state land and
making it for all the people), and Prohibition (which was a new role for
the feds over the states and was repealed in a Democratic era in the US
voting, between Al Smith and FDR, both "wets").
The Democrats continued as anti-free trade and asserting state rights
through the end of the 1800s and into the 1900s.
This is simplistic, but this is just a sketch.
With the Depression (and because of the prior 40-50 years wave of
immigrants) the parties began to can positons. FDR's policies extended
federal control over areas previously thought to be under state control,
and thus the controvesery over Supreme Court decisions, "packing" the
Supreme Court, and other such things of that era.
It was in this time that the African American vote went from Republican
(party of Lincoln) to Democratic (FDR caring for the poor while Hoover
didn't).
Through the 50s, traditional Republican beliefs still pushed for federal
soverignity over state issues; hence Eisenhower sent federal troops to
Little Rock, Arkansas on school desegregation. Consider the Republicans
of that era: Rockefeller, Scranton, Dirksen, etc. The southern
Democrats were the staunch state rights persons (ie George Wallace,
Lester Maddox, etc.) Fulbright in Arkansas and Gore, Sr. in Tennesee
were the beginnings of the first possible non-state rights firsters in
the south - they were partial but not total.
The big shift was in the 60s. Kennedy was elected from big cities,
which meant African American votes in big numbers, and now the Democrats
had a core constinuency that favored civil rights and could not be
ignored. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to over-ride a
Democratic governor standing in the school house door. The Civil Rights
Bill of 1964 was passed with many Republican votes (and major Democratic
push from the White House) while southern Democrats said it over-rode
states rights.
Then in 1964 the Democratic National Convention scutinized who exactly
the delegates were from Mississippi and elsewhere and Nixon began to
figure out the "Southern stategy."
By 1968, Wallace was running as an Independent, Nixon was getting white
Southern votes...
... and Goldwater in 1964 caused a seismic shift in the Republican party
with his conservative agenda that took 16 years to take hold. So in
1973 when Roe v Wade was decided, the one state with the most pro-choice
law was New York under the traditional East Coast Republican
Rockefeller; by 1980 the Republican platform was opposed to Roe v Wade
as Reagan completed what Goldwater began.
But then Goldwater was never totally happy with the Moral Majority side
of the Reagan Republicans, especially with gays in the military and as I
recall, abortion. Goldwater would be the closest thing the Republicans
have had to a Libertarian, but that is not historic Republican
philosophy and it sure hasn't been their philosophy ever (nor has it
been, might I add, Democratic philosophy). That is why the Libertarians
have always opposed both parties.
And the Democratic Party was now, under Jimmy Carter, totally separated
from its States Rights poisition of the past. Then Clinton took of free
trade as a Democratic issue and the parties are so far apart from where
they began... but that is life; things change. All of the above is how
Strom Thurmond went from a Democrat to a third party States Rights party
to a Republican.
To assert that the Republicans were originally some sort of Libertarian
thing is wrong, as to assert the the Democrats were always for civil
rights. And frankly the Republicans are still way weak on libertarian
issues as are the Democrats, and if you doubt me on that, spend time
with a Libertarian.
What is hypocritical now is for G W Bush, who has picked up the
Goldwater/Reagan understanding of the 10th Amendment (under which one
would base states rights claims) as part of the "original construction"
of the US Constitution as dominent over the 14th (through which expanded
federal role in the national life is justified) to file suit to block
the Florida recount.
IF Bush actually believed in the 10th Amendment and wanted conservative
justices who will stop the expansion of the federal role in national
life, then he is a flaming two-faced hypocrite to file a suit in federal
court to block a state, or even more, counities within a state, from
doing re-counts. The mechanics of voting has always been a state issue,
not a federal issue. This is an extraordinary and historic invitation
for the invasion of federal power into what the states' historical
jurisdiction has been. Federal voting jurisdiction was been to protect
civil rights.
So far, Florida seems to be handling this itself, as did New Mexico
which seems to have done its counting and gone from Gore to Bush while
Oregon has gone from Bush to Gore. Bush's federal law suit is abhorent
from a strict construction point of view and shows he has no principles
IMHO other than power, taking it away from Clinton and Gore, both of
whom he despises.
There is NO consitutional right to know the results of the election
now. The constitution provides that states elect electors to vote in
December, results to be revealed in January to the new Congress, I think
January 3rd but it could be January 4th. Then and only then under the
Constitution do we have a president elected, and we have a right to
know who it is.
All this mocking of dumb Florida voters, it is far more dumb for
Republicans to forget that under the US Constitution the state has a
right to count its own votes absent civil rights claims, and the
national election results are not known until the Electoral College
releases its vote in January.
To assert that Bush has to have a transition period is all nice but is
not constitutional. The US Constitution provides the transition period
to be from January 3rd or 4th to January 20th at 12 noon.
What imflames me as a US citizen and as a partisan Democrat is that Bush
claims to want strict constructionalist judges and constitutional
interpretattions and then wants to intrude in new federal ways into what
is the states areas when it might suit him. Bush is no Goldwater.
Goldwater had principles and lived by them. Expansion of federal power
into a county's recount of its vote would cause Goldwater to castigate
Bush as the worst type of liberal. And hypocrite.
The rush to judgment of the Florida election results by Bush's campaign
tells me that their polling is telling them who won in Florida and that
is why they are trying to cut off the recounts. For Bush it is about
power, reclaiming power, the Restoration, not about the US
Constitution. The federal government has no role in this unless there
are civil rights claims. If Florida wants to recount its votes from now
until whatever day in December that the Electoral College meets, that is
its right. We may not know who wins the election untiil January. If
not president is elected by that process, the 20th Amendment provides
for what we do next: election by Congress. That, my friends, is what
the US Constitution provides.
And what I find sadly ironic (other than Bush's federal law suit - isn't
he against frivilous suits and technicalities? isn't he against the
federal government usurping local and state control under the 10th
Amendment?) is that the Republicans gave us endless investiagations of
one Arkansas land deal that never revealed a criminal act but plunged
this nation through endless drama with all of its Whitewater offshoots.
Now the Republicans don't want a state to count its own votes in its own
way and have started a new wave of litigation that may lead God knows
where.
And before I get blasted by any Republicans as being a Democrat
concerned with the 10th Amendment, let me tell you what is on my
bedstand and has been for 25 or more years: my Bible and my copy of the
US Constitution. (I have added Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplint o that
pile and other things change through the years but it is always the
Bible and the US Constitution.
Everyone else: do you know where your copy of the Constitution is?
For me: I may be all wrong in everything that I have said, but I sure as
hell try to be objective and separate my partisanship from other views.
I am a partisan Democrat and I think Gore will win and I want him to,
but this election will happen or not happen on a state by state basis,
and not by Bush's lawsuit which brings a very new federal intrusion into
a state matter. And if I am wrong, if I am totally off base, I am still
a long time admirer of Lincoln and what he stood for: the preservation
of the US Constitution and the Union. And if I am wrong, I am wrong, I
err in my thinking and understanding, not in my dedication to the
Constitution and my county. God shed its grace on us all to avoid more
division.
(the Rev) Vince
PS I apologise for the spelling errors but my spell check is broken.
Interesting that the last time a son of a former President was elected
president, the Adams Family, the son was elected after losing the
popular vote, much controversy and a final decision made in the US
House, and was so unpopular that he was swept out after four years,
ushering in a Democratic era of Jackson and Van Buren, and the Adams'
party, the Federalists, never elected a president again and became
extinct.
And I am shedding a tear for Leah Rabin.
