Troubles in the House of Liberalism
Col Mike Walker, USMC (ret)
This court ruling below is informative for the GOP.
The GOP contains a number of uncompromising factions that leads not to just disunity but too often disfunction. That raises a number of questions:
(1) Does the GOP want to go down the Democratic Party road of near lock step discipline among its members in the House and Senate?
(2) Does the GOP want to go back to the old smoke-filled back room methods for picking its presidential candidates? Had that been the case, the GOP establishment could have avoided a Trump nomination. Does the GOP want to adopt the Democratic Party model discussed in the article?
(3) How does all this bode for the preservation of free speech and democracy in America?
If the two political parties are willing to (a) suppress or nullify fair and open public debate, (b) create elites to manipulate the system to determine who can or cannot run for president or other senior office, (c) demand those chosen and elected to adhere to absolute loyalty to the party -- not the people they represent, and (d) declare the opposition party members as "enemies of the state" either directly or indirectly then how can democracy survive?
If the two key political parties are run like ideological dictatorships then how can our form of government not devolve into a one-party ideological dictatorship?
How can we not get to the point where only what is good for "the party" can be deemed good for the country and its people?
The dangers we are facing are far greater than a balanced budget or the deficit or the size or role of government. We are nearing an existential crossroad.
It is no exaggeration that we as a people are more divided today then at any point is several generations and the fate of the Union may soon hang in the balance.
Today, meeting the challenges facing the GOP are critical to the ongoing success of our nation. As the original members of Congress once concluded: We can hang together or we can hang separately.
The GOP must reject the road the Democratic Party is on and it must find a way to be a party of many competing -- even opposing -- voices that nonetheless can find a reasoned, moderate, and most of all common voice to govern.
It the GOP fails to meet either of those two challenges then we as a nation are in grave trouble.
