Oakland County Michigan Republicans Make Unity Pitch. If Only The National Republican Party Felt The Same! Mississippi Proves They Don't!

The Case and Rationale for Republican Unity

The Premise: From this point forward, let’s endeavor to focus upon, not the transient issues over which we disagree, but rather the many magnificent ideals that we share.

What separates us conservatives from our opponents on the Left is that we are not ideological.  To be ideological is to be dogmatic.  And to be dogmatic is to fundamentally reject the ethos of conservatism: reverence for the organic quality of human society.  Thus, we recognize that as times change, so too must we change.  This, the Founding Fathers, adherents to classical liberalism and admirers of Adam Smith and John Locke, clearly grasped.  With conservative influence already on the wane after six years of the Obama presidency, the last thing we can afford is to stand on the sidelines, arms-folded in disapproval, demanding of our party and our elected officials a trait foreign to governance: ideological purity.

Ideological purity may have a place in the Ivory Tower of academia, insulated from the consequences of the real world.  Governance, however, necessitates negotiation, concession, and compromise.  The Founding Fathers made their awareness of this inevitability apparent in the creation of a federal system.  Various levels of representation allow the opportunity for legislation to represent local constituencies.  Of course, at the state and national levels, elected officials are required to serve broader and, therefore, more diverse constituencies.

The Republican Party is a big tent, representing roughly half the population of a country of more than three-hundred million people.  If we mandate an unwavering loyalty to the strictest notion of certain concepts, we will assign ourselves to irrelevance.  True, Barry Goldwater famously declared that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”  But he also lost a landslide election that burdened America with the Johnson presidency, whose epic legislative catastrophes produced, in large part, our current calamities.  The GOP was defeated in the past two presidential elections, which were, by many measures, attainable.  And unfortunately, we seem likely to repeat the experience of the Democratic Party from the late-1960s through the 1980s, forgetting that the American people are obstinately middle-minded.  The New Left’s failure vividly demonstrates that to lead is to listen.

It is for this reason that we encourage Tea Party members and libertarians to understand the seminal consequences of their influence.  Our goal as a political party is to maintain influence to achieve our conservative goals.  But we cannot do that by hacking ourselves to pieces in primaries by insisting that our platform and candidates stringently obey one variation of the conservative tradition.  Further, to completely abstain from the process by refusing to participate in elections emboldens the very forces trying to destroy our great county.  And the awareness that one may never take a seat at the table is not deemed noble; it outwardly suggests a take my football home approach when all our society and Nation's  future is at stack

Republicans are not opposed to government when it works efficiently and effectively and serves a meaningful purpose.  It is critical to note that Thomas Paine in Common Sense described government as neither “pure evil” nor the “embodiment of evil,” but merely “a necessary evil.”

For Republicans to have any hope of defeating the leftward trends of our nation  we will need unity.  Tea Party members, libertarians, and other constituents of the Right may disagree about different approaches to public policy, but we remain united in our confidence in the truth of the classical virtues that inspired our Founding Fathers: prudence, industry, frugality, moderation, limited government,  self-sufficiency  and self-restraint. A belief that property rights and freedom are closely linked. From Russell Kirk: "A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence".   

 Clear-minded individuals easily comprehend that those virtues, although flickering in the winds of our progressive era, are still exemplified by the Republican Party agenda.  The Democratic Party, on the other hand, regards them as antiquated.  In fact, it actively seeks to extinguish them by promoting change for change’s sake, incentivizing dependency, and advocating collective equality rather than individual merit.

Libertarianism, today proudly upheld by many in the Tea Party movement, has played an indispensible role in the conservative movement over the past several decades.  Above all, it has drawn attention to the key tenet of our nation, limited government, by compelling the American people to meticulously study our founding documents.  Alas, we may soon find our founding documents—and our republic as a whole—cast upon the ash heap of history if we don’t swiftly and sincerely reconcile differences. 

                                                 Again In Conclusion

From this point forward,  we sincerely pray and hope for the sake of Oakland County , Michigan and our Nation,  to focus upon, not the transient issues over which we disagree, but rather the many magnificent ideals that we share.

Committee For Unity

Oakland County Republican Party

Jim Thienel, Chair

Pam Williams, Vice Chair