Party politics: A Kansas view
Douglas B. McGaw and Craig A. French
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
POLITICIANS of all stripes — good and bad, altruistic and venial, smart and stupid — can be found in both major parties. But of late there seems to be an increasing imbalance in that equation, an imbalance that does not present the GOP in a favorable light.
It has been said that the main difference between the parties is that one holds people above property and the other holds property above people. After boiling down the platforms of each party, that is a fairly accurate representation. One problem with giving precedence to property, as the Republicans tend to do, is that vested financial and corporate interests tend to overshadow the needs of people, especially the lower and middle classes. Another problem is the tendency to ignore or disparage people who are “Not Our Kind.”
We don’t even need to focus on the innumerable failures, immorality and excesses at the national level. We need only look at our own state.
EDUCATION: For seven years, a court case filed by several local school boards asked that adequate funding be made available and that it be distributed more equitably. Finally, the state Supreme Court got the case and demanded just that from the Legislature.
The problem was that the Legislature refused to follow constitutional mandates as well as its own criteria. In the process, Republican efforts at obfuscation and derailment of court rulings were used openly and with candor. Judges were called “activists.” Demands were made to reduce the power of the courts. Many Republicans have demanded the politicization of the courts by making appointments subject to the will of the Legislature. This would damage the independence of the judiciary, making them subservient to the legislature; what that would do to the balance of powers is obvious.
TAX CUTS: A seemingly universal desire for tax cuts is exploited by many Republican candidates. What we don’t realize and what they don’t tell us is that, when tax cuts are discussed, it almost always means lower income tax rates, offset by other taxes such as sales tax, property tax, gas taxes and use taxes. For example, a sales tax of, say, 6 percent will cost someone who makes $25,000 about 4 percent of his income. A high earner making $150,000 per year and purchasing three times the goods and services would pay about 2 percent.
If we enact real tax cuts, we do so by eliminating or reducing services provided by government. In many cases, such as health care for the needy, those programs either cannot be cut by law or are highly desirable. In those cases, the costs are moved to local entities such as county and city governments, where the types of taxation available are limited to sales and property taxes. The effects are felt most strongly by those on fixed incomes, particularly the elderly or the disabled who are unable to take second or third jobs to make up the difference.
Tax cuts are strongly championed by conservative interests — usually represented in the Republican Party. We voters become enthusiastic about them; dumb us. What is difficult to understand is the naive acceptance by the voters that they are being treated fairly by this process which just reallocates the sources of revenue with the lower earners taking on an increased share of the liability.
Strangely, a progressive tax system was enacted early in the 20th century at the behest of Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican at the time. Why Republicans have repudiated their own best sense is a mystery for our times.
VALUES: Another characterization of many Republican candidates for office is their preoccupation with “values” or “morality” legislation, which they favor. Values and morality are difficult to impossible to legislate for a variety of reasons, the main one being that everyone has his own idea what it even means.
If some behavior or action is offensive to some group, and that group has achieved a level of political power as have the ultra-conservative “Pharisees” in Kansas, the behavior is open to legislative suppression even if it hurts no one. Laws against tattoos would be a case in point. We also have proposals regarding suppression of all but the English language, flag etiquette, restrictions on who can marry whom, or even religious identity. If something does not adversely affect other people, it becomes difficult, even impossible to enforce. When such things happen regularly, freedom is threatened and intellectual growth is stifled. Quality of life is also threatened through the economy because businesses often avoid such places.
One value held in high esteem by all Americans is freedom. While there are differences between us about what that actually means, it is the one value we should pursue with vigor. When someone tells us he is in favor of values, his attitude should be judged upon this one criterion above all others: does what he wants restrict freedom? If so, then what he means by “values” may be valueless.
ECOLOGY: The importance of climate change which will affect all Kansans and change the nature of business here is not even recognized by most people as significant. For example, red winter wheat — which has been our primary agricultural product in the past — is no longer consistently profitable as yields fall due to warmer winters. This should not come as a surprise to us; for more than 30 years, we have observed and watched and studied this trend, but only at a scientific level of awareness. At the political level, both parties have simply denied it is happening with the exception of a few individuals who have been dismissed or shouted down, and voters are unlikely to support those people. Yet, global warming will redefine the demographics and economy of the state within a decade or two. Our government should be working to anticipate changes and assist us in the adaptations necessary for the future.
While these problems become more obvious with every passing year, the Republican leadership in the Legislature has refused even to acknowledge them as a problem government might address. Instead, the legislative agenda is driven by social ideologues preoccupied with tax cuts or social reforms which cannot pass constitutional muster, thus rendering our lawmaking bodies ineffective and even negative as regards quality of life or economic issues. These changes will cause us damage, both socially and economically, but nothing of substance is being done.
IMMIGRATION: A big issue for Republicans in this election year is that of illegal immigration (discounting the fact that all of us except the Native Americans are descended from illegal immigrants.) To try to solve the problem by putting up fences (as the national government is now doing) is an exercise in futility and a huge waste of national resources. It is like trying to stop drug trafficking; you don’t succeed unless you reduce the demand for the product. Most Republicans seem to think that building walls will cut the flow of illegals, but it will only divert the flow until and unless the penalties for hiring them — penalties that are already on the books — are enforced.
The current Republican gubernatorial candidate has attempted to tar the Democratic governor with supporting illegal immigration because she argues for enforcing existing laws against employers who hire illegal immigrants rather than wasting time and money trying to stop the flow by putting our fingers in a crumbling dike that is two states away. He has also painted her as encouraging immigration by allowing for in-state tuition rates for children of the immigrants while “denying” it for children of military personnel. The rates have not been denied for the latter, and in the case of the former, the conditions for such rates are stringent. The arguments made by Republicans in this matter are characteristically simplistic and pander to popular prejudice.
RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM: Over the past few years, the State School Board was co-opted by religious extremists. These people have appointed a state superintendent whose only educational qualification was as a lawyer opposing public education, and have succeeded in making Kansas a national laughingstock by dictating equal time for “intelligent design,” a thinly-veiled cover for a narrow and wholly discredited world view that opposes evolutionary theory. (We may as well teach that the earth is flat because it looks that way in most of Kansas.)
The effects upon public education in the state have been negative from any perspective. Funding has been unsure and inadequate for primary, secondary, and college education. It becomes increasingly clear that the goals of the Republican extremists are not for the welfare of our state but for the promulgation of their own religious ideologies in the laws of our land. In Kansas, we have one party supporting or failing to condemn efforts by the “religious right” to impose a narrow theological view into public education. No credit for guessing which party is at fault here.
Even within the Christian community there is no agreement upon the details. Should the Ten Commandments be considered law? Should their Biblically prescribed punishments be included so that citizens are stoned to death for violating them? Are the Beatitudes more important? Where they conflict, would precedence be given to instructions delivered by Moses, Jesus, or Paul? What of other religions? Would Buddhists, Muslims, animists or Wiccans have a say? Ideally, America is inclusive of all peoples and all of their ideas and beliefs. Allowing one sect to insist upon its ideology exclusive of all others is anti-American as well as self-deluding.
It is ironic that this is an issue for us at all at a time when our soldiers are fighting against those who insist upon theocratic governments in their own countries. When religious law becomes civil law, everyone loses, and the biggest losers are the religionists themselves, who will find that they are not serving God but their own political leadership. They will have become that which they hated.
SUMMARY: The extremes to which the GOP has gone is evidenced by the large number of moderate Republicans who have switched parties. Notable examples are the Democratic candidates for attorney general (formally endorsed by two former Republican attorneys general), and for lieutenant governor (a former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party.) Many of the more moderate Republicans have formed a PAC called KTRM (Kansas Traditional Republican Majority) to support moderate candidates in their party and oppose extremism. The silence of this PAC on the Republican candidates for governor and attorney general speaks volumes.
While most Republicans are good and thoughtful people, their party has abrogated its responsibility and rectitude. If nothing else, Republicans can be faulted for allowing their party to drift so far to the right, so heavily in the direction of theocratic rule, and so deeply into abridgment of freedoms that it cannot claim to represent the best of America.
It appears more and more that to support and vote for some Republican candidates is counter to the common interest. It may even be the unpatriotic thing to do.
The authors once considered themselves Republicans, but no longer. Both are military veterans from the Vietnam era; one a marine, the other served in the Army. One is a combat veteran with a Purple Heart.
bdprotheroe (anonymous) says...
I wish I could have written these points as eloquently as both of you. Bravo!
The statement from your editorial that resonates most, in mind, is the following, "It is ironic that (religious extremism) is an issue for us at all at a time when our soldiers are fighting against those who insist upon theocratic governments in their own countries. When religious law becomes civil law, everyone loses, and the biggest losers are the religionists themselves, who will find that they are not serving God but their own political leadership. They will have become that which they hated."
Thank you for your entry.
Brian Protheroe
San Francisco, CA
October 25, 2006 at 4:49 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )