Leaving the Party

Nick uses Sensenbrenner’s essay for The Wisconsin Interest to vent a bit on the Republican Party. 

They all start by saying Republicans got their hats handed to them for good reason.  They lament about how “other Republicans” (never themselves) “lost their way”, and how they have to find it again, and return to their roots.  I’m reminded of something I wrote a while back, which compared Republican voters to battered women:

[...]

And here I sit, seeing a lot of Republicans buying it.  They praise these Republicans, and are taking them back already.  Why?  What makes you believe that if given the chance, they won’t do the exact same thing again?  The Republican Party is just as corrupt and abusive as the Democratic Party, and given the chance, will trample on your rights and spend your money like any abusive husband.  It’s time to cut your losses, and move on.  Recycling ideas is not enough.  Brand new people are needed.  A brand new Party is needed.

Conservativism may not be out of gas, but the Republican Party sure is.  You should leave it on the side of the road to rot.

Nick is perpetuating a rather classic misunderstanding of the role of policical parties.  Political parties aren’t corrupt.  The people in them are corrupt.  Which is why his suggestion that the Libertarian Party is somehow immune to this defficiency of human nature is a bit silly. 

Political parties also don’t have philosophies.  They are politicial organizations designed to gain and retain power.  That’s it.  The people within the party determine what policies to enact when those people are in power.  That’s why it is important to not just disengage, take your toys, and go home whenever the political party of your choice advances the wrong ideas or the people within the party are corrupt.  If people abandon their respective parties, then those parties will be controlled by whoever is left in them.  In the political realitites of our times, there are only two viable parties for those who wish to be in power and see their policies enacted, so it is important that good people with good ideas get involved in them.

I, for example, want to see conservative policies enacted.  The Republican Party is my means to that end.  So I will continue to be invloved in the Republican Party because I want to see it support my philosophy instead of Tom Petri’s or Olympia Snow’s.  I won’t get my way all of the time (or even most of the time), but I sure won’t stop trying.  If I withdraw from the party, I am surrendering it to the liberal and the corrupt who want to use the party to gain power and enact policies with which I disagree. 

Some people say they are Conservatives and not Republicans.  As for me… I am both.