A Republican Liberal Manifesto

Since the initial foundation of the American system of government, there have been two threads of political thought running through nearly everything. They can even be seen today in the modern Democratic and Republican parties. These two traditions go by names that at first will seem familiar, but in fact carry meanings alien to current understanding.

The one is a word practically without set meaning: Liberal. What a liberal is ends up being a question entirely dependent on who you ask. If you ask a pundit like Glenn Beck he'll tell you that a liberal is a pussy-footed, socialist, nanny-stater who has the destruction of everything good about America at heart. If you ask a columnist like Paul Krugman, he'll tell you that a liberal is anyone who cares about the people of America, someone who wants to use government to positively effect the lives of all American citizens (but especially the disadvantaged). For some people it just means the Democrats.

The other word has a rather more definite meaning to most people today: Republican. A Republican, to the modern conception, is anyone registered with or otherwise affiliated with one of the Republican state parties or the Republican national party. Quite simple. Some people will broaden the definition a bit, including anyone who holds 'conservative' views, defined entirely in opposition to 'liberal' ones. But neither of these words is attached to the old definition, to the meaning that I'll be using for each.

Back in the day, when the country was first founded, a liberal was someone whose chief political aim was the reduction of the size and scope of the state to the smallest level necessary for the proper running of the country and the maximization of personal liberty. The people who drafted the Constitution did so with explicitly liberal intentions: They wanted to create a government which was entirely restrained from acting unless a series of difficult hurdles was overcome. They believed this was necessary because otherwise the government would begin infringing on people's liberties. Today we'd call some of them libertarians, some conservatives.

Likewise, a republican was a person broadly dedicated to something called 'non-domination' in society. To a republican, no one man should have great power over another. Equality of authority is a definitively republican ideal. This sort of egalitarianism can (somewhat ironically) be found everywhere in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It's said he was brought up being told by his mother that, though he was wealthier than many others, he was fundamentally no better than any others. This sentiment was borne out in his greatest work: the Declaration of Independence, when he states that, "All Men are Created Equal". Mostly we'd call them progressives or liberals today.

Today you can see this ideological conflict within and between the two major political parties. Right now, the Democrats are dominated by a 'progressive' sort of republicanism, always quick to come to the defense of the common man against the rich fat cats on Wall Street and the major corporations throughout the country. Likewise, until recently the Republicans were run by a degenerate sort of liberal, leading to the deregulation and tax cutting craze they've been on for thirty years. The two parties have, for the most part, been treading one way or another between liberalism and republicanism since their respective creations. However, it hasn't always been so clear cut which party was the liberal party and which was the republican party. At the beginning of the 20th century, we had a series of progressive republican presidents from both parties: First Teddy Roosevelt of the Republicans, then Woodrow Wilson from the Democrats, Herbert Hoover from the Republicans, Franklin Roosevelt from the Democrats.

The real story of the two parties is an increasing ideological separation. Whereas in the past you might have been just as likely to find a liberal amongst Democrats as you would amongst Republicans, nowadays the two parties are starting to contrast more and more strongly. This has to do with the use of the party machines as ideological platforms by a few of the more famous modern presidents, namely Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but also several others over the past seven decades. As the conflicts have become more and more bitter, sometimes it feels as if the only thing keeping the country together is an almost instinctual tendency to moderation amongst the actual American voters. We dislike and distrust any one person trying to push us too far in any one direction. Extremism in America is a dead ticket, politically.

But it wasn't always like this. Once, in the early days of the Republic, there was no contest between liberals and republicans. The Democratic Republican party of Thomas Jefferson saw no contradiction in using the methods of liberalism to achieve the aims of republicans. Abraham Lincoln is also a prime example of these two ideologies being seamlessly joined in one man. What these two presidents were, and what many others like them believed, was in something called republican liberalism, and that's what this manifesto is about.

Republican liberalism is a political ideology which looks to two ideals: Liberty and Equality. In a republican liberal framework, the best way of achieving one is to ensure the other, whereas today we find many on all sides of the political spectrum ready to sacrifice one to heighten the other. A republican liberal politician would fight to avoid granting special favors or privileges, such as the catering to special interests which dominates Washington politics these days. A republican liberal is just as opposed to the government support of large corporations which abuse and under-pay their workers as he is to government intervention in order to stifle industrial creativity. Most importantly, a republican liberal believes in the ability, right, and duty of each individual to maintain their own life and well-being, whether that be done on a personal basis or in collusion with others in a voluntary collectivity.

The aim of republican liberalism is unity where now there is now fragmentation. It seeks a balance between freedom in one's property and the aim of equality of opportunity. Imagine a world where the state stays out of people's lives except when they want and need it there. A world where the long-term pilfering of the livelihood of every American through inflation and deficit spending is non-existent but also where social programs don't find themselves eternally under funded. In so many words, republican liberalism is about have a just, well run government that does not use the various classes, sub-cultures, and sub-groups in society as pawns in electoral games.

It's hard to imagine anyone but the most devoted anarchist believing no government at all to be necessary.. The debate, in reality, is to what extent is government necessary? Do we want it removing all risk from our lives? Do we want it mediating every exchange of value we engage in? Are these things even possible? To most people, the answer to these questions is obvious: Of course not. But the people who offer an alternative to these nanny state measures often don't provide quality statesmen, or even very good bureaucrats. No matter who has been in charge, the public debt has grown enormously. Now that the Republicans have had 8 years to spend outrageous amounts of our money, the Democrats are relishing their chance at a turn. The principles of republican liberty offer a way out.

Tomorrow may contain a better world, but only if we're willing to build it.