A Lefty's Defense of The Republican Party

I really don't like revealing my political ideology. I have aspirations of political reporting, and that requires at the very least an ability to be open-minded and fair. Just because I disagree with you does not mean that I am right and you are wrong. We have elections to determine collective action in the eventuality of disagreement and dissent. But me and my dad, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat do the political back and forth and even though I consider myself generally a lefty I tend to defend the Republican Party.

And all of this leads to me spending quite a bit of brain power trying to reconcile the schisms in my political beliefs. At least right now that is the most interesting thing I have to write about in these post-election doldrums, at least until I figure how to cover the Senatorial and Congressional races coming next year.

If pushed I would say I'm a left leaning libertarian. People should be left alone to do what they will until or unless it hurts other folk.

After a great deal of ponderance my definition of "hurting people" means the infringement on the natural rights of life, limb, property, association, thought and liberty.

Even though I'm a lefty the Republican promises of small government appeal to me, the modern hippie who doesn't trust the man farther than he can throw him. But and this is the kicker I also see the government as the custodian of the rights I just described.

I am an African-American and am keenly aware that the right to property has been used to keep my people in bondage, and arguments of liberty not to associate with my kind were used to deprive children of educational resources to better their odds in a world set against them. The government guaranteed and continues to guarantee my ability to advance my own interests and exercise my will without fear, my right to liberty.

The Republican party has a reputation for being racially insensitive. And honestly it is true, but that insensitivity is not born out of malice, but rather disagreement. For to many, a government, the creator and enforcer of law,  the enforcer of "thou shall" can not bestow or even guarantee liberty. They trust not the government to protect their interests.

And I can't blame them.

This is the same government that declared of my race.

"They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."

Majority U.S. Supreme Court Opinion of Scott v Sandford  

Written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

Despite my reservations of having such a government, that for so long denied my people's rights, hold them in stewardship, I must say that there is many a time when an individual can not defend himself. Times where without a higher authority looking after his interests he would be coerced, robbed, imprisoned, mutilated, or even killed. 

Furthermore in order for such an individual to defend himself and advance his own interests he must have the tools and resources to do so. Knowledge of the law for instance, granted through proper communal education. How can one defend the rights laid forth in the constitution if one does not know of the rights laid forth in the constitution?

I disagree with the Republican Party. But as a whole the party is not evil, or stupid. They just have conviction.

Conviction that any institution as powerful as the United States Government will eventually abuse that power. I fully agree. But that power can also be used as a tool to let those who know not of a world where their determination sets the course of their lives, become the rudder for the fist time.