Kakki wrote:
> I may be deluded but it has always been my understanding that a true
> Republican, one who sticks to the original idealogy, is someone who
> staunchly believes in individual rights to live your life the way you
> choose. I think the original Republicans were more like the Libertarians of
> today.
That is true, but such ideology lent itself to the "perversion" you
describe because the "individuals" who possessed liberty were in theory
abstract but in reality very specific--male property-owners. A lot of
recent (past 20 years) feminist, queer, and other political thought
rightly points out, IMO, that "abstract individuals" are never abstract;
they have differential levels of power and resources that greatly impact
their ability to exercise liberty they supposedly possess. The myth of
the abstract individual hides these differences under an ideology of
"equality" and "freedom" that bears little resemblance to reality.
Such ideology allows space for the Religious Right, for example, to wed
their regulation of certain moral decisions to Republican (both little and
big R) thought in that certain moral behavior becomes the prerequisite for
citizenship, in a very real sense, which in turn entitles one to the
protections of liberty. Yesterday it was property-owners; today it's
heterosexuals. In structure, it's not all that different.
Both the Democratic and Republican party have roots in the abstract
individual model of liberty, and that is in part why the U.S. has had such
a hard time correcting group power imbalances, both legally and
politically.
--Michael
NP: PJ Harvey, _Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea_ another
MASTERFUL album from this legend-to-be
