Posted on 02/06/2005 2:09:19 PM PST by Libloather
The Way of the Whigs
Geoff Metcalf
There may be a place for partisanship … but NOT in the middle of a war; NOT in the wake of historic elections of representative government in:
- Afghanistan
- Ukraine
- Iraq
- and even municipal elections in Saudi Arabia
Now is NOT the time to focus on the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ acrimonious petty whizzing match.
Sycophant democrats are still so wrapped around partisanship, they are incapable of recognizing the self-destruction they are fueling.
The river ‘Denial’ runs wide and deep. The ‘leaders’ of the party (Kennedy, Reid, Pelosi, Biden, Kerry et al) are puking rhetoric not only counter to the wants, needs, and desires of their constituents, but also counter to sustaining the political viability of their dysfunctional club.
It is not, and should never be, a question of WHO is right or wrong about anything of significance…but rather WHAT is right or wrong.
The Democrat Party has become a bunch of really smart men and women doing real stupid stuff.
- The stonewalling abuse of process on judicial nominations was a dumb idea. It cost Tom Dashle his leadership position AND his Senate seat…and added seats to the opposition.
- The mean spirited, counter-intuitive assault of Dr. Condalessa Rice’s nomination to be the first black woman Secretary of State was beyond myopic.
- The similarly petty slow down of the Alberto Gonzales nomination to be the first Hispanic Attorney General was dumb.
- The religiosity of their support for abortion and opposition to guns is hurting them.
Aubrey T. DeVera once said, “Prejudice, which sees what it pleases, cannot see what is plain.” So it must be prejudice that is the cancer eating away at the essence of the Democrat Party.
It is said that ‘crazy’ is doing the same thing with the same negative results over and over again anticipating a different outcome. Frankly, it demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to learn form mistakes.
Democrats dream quest to ban guns reportedly cost Al Gore the brass ring (and oval office). Pro-abortion increasingly is becoming so unpopular even Hillary Clinton has smelled the coffee.
The Whig Party was created in 1834 primarily as an opposition party to the policies of President Andrew Jackson. They were the ‘Jackson Bad’ party…kinda like the contemporary Democrats have become the ‘Bush Bad’ crowd.
Eventually they got around to developing an actual platform (protective tariff, creation of new Bank of the U.S., public land use) and elected a President (William Harrison) who only served 31 days before dying of pneumonia. John Tyler succeeded Harrison and then pretty much vetoed most of his own party’s legislation.
The Whigs (like the Democrats of today) suffered a double whammy: internal dissent/disunity; and increasing American prosperity, which made their activist agenda, seem unnecessary. They got hammered in congressional elections and lost control of the House. The parallel to the Democrats is striking.
fractured the Whigs along pro- and anti-slavery lines.Today we see wedge issues which have traditionally been Democrat rallying points (gun control and abortion) creating the same political environment.
- In 1854 the Kansas Nebraska Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas-Nebraska_Act divided the Whigs even further:
- The anti-immigration Know-Nothing Party cut deeply into the Whig vote,
- the newly formed Republiccan Party won support from disaffected Democrats and Whigs.
- In 1856 the remaining Whigs threw their support behind Know-Nothing Party
- In 1860 a few Whig diehards regrouped as the Constitutional Union Party
- ex-Whig Abraham Lincolnm of the Republican Party won, triggering the American Civil War and bringing an end to the Whigs.
Liberal Democrats have become the ‘Bush Bad/Anti-War gang. They preach stale 1960s bromides that ring hollow or are perceived as flat out wrong by the very constituency they are trying to win. Liberal democrats have become the contemporary personification of the Whigs … and like the Whigs are marching to oblivion.
Recycled cyber-flotsam observes:
- It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.
- It took less time to find Saddam's sons in Iraq than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records
There is never a time for more gun control. The Dems are liars, communist and fascist sympathizers and losers.
Not so fast with part A of the above sentence.
I don't think they're smart at all.
1) Their primary "position" on anything is anti-war;
2) They are overwhelmingly centered in New England (CA didn't exist as a state back then);
3) They were the party of 'big government,' and while the Madison/Monroe Republicans were certainly not "small government" (Jefferson introduced the first "internal improvements plan" that cost DOUBLE the entire federal budget---it was killed), they were less oriented toward big-government than the Federalists; and
4) They were the party of elites vs. the common man Republicans.
Contrary to what the author says, the Whigs always did have a program (really just the old Republican internal improvements program) but what killed the Whigs was that a) they refused to take the opposite position than the Dems on slavery (the Dems were for it) and b) they retained the old Federalists' view of elites. Most of this is in the book:
(BTW, PHUSA won the Lysander Spooner Award for February from Laissez Faire books for "literature that advances the cause of liberty."
And those are their good qualities...
What a very odd error for a professional political writer to make! It reveals how little actual reading of the PRINTED WORD people do now, and how much information is taken from sound bites........even considering internet reading.
Of course, Dr. Rice's name is spelled: Condoleezza.
He also has "Republiccan" somewhere in the lower third of the piece. Oh well. Maybe he was hiccupping while writing Republican. :)
I was at a Lincoln Club Dinner last night where our speaker, Kerck Kelsey posited that Isreal Washburn, the a congressman from Maine gathered a group of 30 together the day after the Kansas/Nebraska Act was passed and called for the forming of the Repbulican Party.
Isreal was one of 5 Washburns brothers who helped foster the rise of the party in 5 different states.
Mr. Kelsey recently published a book on Isreal and his contribution to Maine and National politics.
"The Dems are liars, communist and fascist sympathizers and losers."
You're much too kind. Of course, this IS a family site.
love that - gentle way of putting it.
we should tuck this one into "Campaign 08" file. It's a great analogy - and reminds of how brain dead these people are - (first, they caused the fire and then the wouldn't let the fire trucks onto the property until far too late to save anyone - including some 30+ children.
I do not know how Reno can look herself in the mirror -
Actually, wonder if she has a mirror that hasn't cracked just looking at her
does that mean then , by Jeffers leaving the Republican party to the Independent, that the Independent Party was once the Republican party?
;o)
good catch
She's out there again on the "campaign" trail, re-writing her own history so as to clean up her tarnished image and appear to be more humane. It won't work! Being a miserable clintinoid drunk, baby killer and Castro lover is hard to erase even with the best makeup job.
this was an unbelievably accomplished family. They are also responsible for starting many different companies that you would recognize today.
Their homestead - quite a home! barns, two churches - one they started using as a library - one with trompe l'oiel paintings and stained glass windows with fleur de lis motif? (Knights Templar?) and a tiny one room school, all set way off in the country. Today it's a living museum worth the look-see. (spelling= Israel)
(Shhhhhhhh...)
But the Whigs did seem to really care about keeping the country together. Today, we might question whether all the compromises they tried to work out were worthwhile, but they did understand that disunion would bring weakness, and likely civil war, so their exertions were understandable. The Whigs have long been maligned as mere obstructionists, but as Andrew Jackson's reputation has declined, historians have come to rediscover some of the virtues of his opponents.
What killed the Whigs is that they were blindsided by a divisive new issue that made it impossible for them to maintain their coalition. Of course, they knew about slavery, but they had hoped that it wouldn't become the central issue of American politics. When it did, many Northerners identified the Democrats with the expansion of slavery, and sought to create a party that would expose that expansion.
What killed the Federalists forty years earlier is that they just didn't want to compete in democratic politics. They were what they were and couldn't or wouldn't adapt to win over undecided voters -- a noble stand, perhaps, but a foolish one.
David Gelernter has an article on Disraeli in The Weekly Standard. He overdoes his admiration of that 19th century British statesman. But he does make the point that the GOP has aimed at becoming a "national party," like Disraeli's Tories, leaving the Democrats a "philosophical party" of like-minded ideologues. The Federalists were an ideologically-driven "philosophical party" that wouldn't become a truly national one. The tragedy of the Whigs was that they aspired to be a national party, but the country didn't much want them, and eventually, didn't much want to one country any more.
It's certainly premature to talk about the Democrats going the way of the Whigs or the Federalists, though. They're were the Republicans were in 1936 or 1974 or so -- at a crossroads, but not on a sinking ship.
Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."
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