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Thread: Political parties historically and the Constitution

  1. #1

    Political parties historically and the Constitution

    Based on my limited understanding, is this correct?

    Founders give us Declaration of Independence, then Constitution. As implemented originally, this was peak government.

    Hamilton went psycho and broke off, which caused Jefferson to heavily react, thus giving us democrats and republicans. Washington hated this, two parties was never the goal.

    Republicans were the bad party in the beginning, because Hamiltonians destroyed the Constitution. The "Constitutional" party back then was the liberals.

    At some point, democrats become so infected that they totally disregard the Constitution, while Republicans simultaneously revert back to it. This is why we have "Constitutional Conservatives" today.

    So dems hold on to Jefferson, as this legendary democrat, but democrat back then meant libertarian, or constitutional conservative. This is why Rand, Massie, Amash probably accept the term (among others) classical liberal. Because their constitutional-based view of government was the same as Jefferson's.

    If this is fairly accurate, then it shows that democrat and republican mean nothing, they are not based on any principles whatsoever, just power grabs. And this jives with reality today...the racism, warmongering, authoritarianism, hamiltonianism is heavily concentrated on the left. Worse than Democrats' false god Jefferson is Lincoln, who is a false god of not just republicans, but dems too. Lincoln was the worst president ever but just as if not more racist than anyone else. Yet the dems founded the KKK, the north was way worse for slaves than the south. And Republicans passed the civil rights act. So it's not like R vs D is austrian vs keynesian; neither party has core beliefs, such as sound money vs fiat. It's all just flipping whichever way the wind blows. They don't stand for anything.

    The only real parties are Constitution vs anti-Constitution. If you vote anti-constitution, it doesn't matter if you are D or R. You are voting for the same evil.

    Also if the above is accurate, when did the Constitution switch sides to Republican? Goldwater?

    It seem arguable that Hamilton was one of the worst figures in our history, as he was the match that lit the fire that burned the Constitution.



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  3. #2
    The Republican Party didn't exist until the 1840s, and didn't get much traction until the Whig Party collapsed. Neither party has any respect for the Constitution. You could say the real scism is, or should be, Communist Party versus Libertarian Party, but the former is dead and the latter was co-opted. They move us toward communism by increments, because both parties are totalitarian on half the issues.

    Otherwise I agree with everything you said.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You only want the freedoms that will undermine the nation and lead to the destruction of liberty.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by kona View Post
    At some point, democrats become so infected that they totally disregard the Constitution, while Republicans simultaneously revert back to it. This is why we have "Constitutional Conservatives" today.
    In addition to what acptulsa pointed out, this part is also mistaken. The Republican party has not reverted back to the Constitution and any constitutional conservatives who try to infiltrate it inevitably find themselves persona non grata.

    Quote Originally Posted by kona View Post
    It seem arguable that Hamilton was one of the worst figures in our history, as he was the match that lit the fire that burned the Constitution.
    On the contrary, Hamilton essentially wrote the Constitution, as well as the bulk of the Federalist Papers that sold the Constitution to the states and convinced them to ratify it, over the objections of the Antifederalists, who supported more limited government than what Hamilton wanted. Hamiltonians didn't destroy the Constitution, they drew out from it all the Easter eggs Hamilton had tucked away in it from the beginning just for them.

  5. #4
    Now to make some caveats to what I just said.

    While the GOP as a whole is zealously in favor of ever bigger government and ever less freedom, and is fully committed to shaking off whatever constraints the Constitution places on the federal government in any way possible, there has been a stream of "constitutional conservatism" that has found itself more at home in the GOP than in the Democrat Party ever since basically the days of Woodrow Wilson. And over the century that has passed since that time, this wing of the GOP, which has always been in the minority, and faced severe opposition from the establishment (and let's be honest, it's the establishment that defines the party, not the rebels), has had various moments of relative success.

    First go back to the late 1800's. In that era, it was still the Democrats who were by far the more serious pro-freedom, pro-states rights, smaller government party. Their best champion of these values was Grover Cleveland, who was arguably the least bad president the nation has ever had (with the trivial exception of Harrison, who had the advantage dying only one month after taking office and thus being prevented from doing as much damage as is typical of a POTUS). At that time, while marxists were fleeing continental Europe to America, they were finding themselves at home in the party of Lincoln.

    Then the movement known as progressivism began to take hold, and both parties latched on to it. Teddy Roosevelt was a champion of Progressivism. Woodrow Wilson outdid him. And I think that Wilson's winning of the who-can-be-the-most-progressive contest for his Democrat party gave an opportunity to opponents of Progressivism to make their home in the GOP. That's when glimmers of hope for a small-government platform were seen in the administration of Warren Harding. But mind you that this was never acceptable to the party establishment. The entire purpose of a political party is to give more power to its members, not to cast the Ring of Power into the Cracks of Doom.

    So it was only by accident that a serious small-government conservative like Calvin Coolidge ever became president. He was Harding's VP, and was a nod to the small-government contingent of the party, and was never intended by the party leaders to be any more than that. They didn't even want him to be VP. In 1920 the party bosses wanted the progressive Irvine Lenroot to be VP, but delegates at the Convention rebelled against their leaders' wishes there. And then, unfortunately for those party leaders, Harding died in office, and Coolidge ascended to the WH to finish off the year-and-a-half that remained of Harding's term. The establishment tried to stop Coolidge from winning the nomination in 1924, but again lost that battle. And they had the further embarrassment that one of the progressives who ran against him in the party primaries decided to run third party in the national election, diluting the progressive vote and drawing support from the Democrat, resulting in an easy general election win for Coolidge.

    This was the high water mark for "constitutional conservatism" in Republican party history. They would have other candidates who would contend strongly for the party's nomination, and even occasionally win it, but none who would ever make it all the way to the White House. One fence straddler here deserves mention, that being Ronald Reagan. He ran as the carrier of the mantle of libertarian constitutional conservatism in the party. In 1976, this was intolerable to the party bosses, but Reagan ingratiated himself to enough grassroots activists and holdovers from Goldwater with that message that he became unstoppable in 1980, and overwhelmed the opposition the party establishment waged against him. Alas, he turned out not to have a bite that matched his bark while in office though.

    Since then, no constitutional conservative, or even someone who made a reasonable effort to look like one, has come close to winning the Republican nomination. Fast-forward to 2016 when the party nominated by far the most extreme left-wing candidate of its history as its presidential nominee and went on to win the WH with him.

  6. #5
    Thanks guys.

    Yes, when I said the Republicans reverted back to the Constitution, I meant that the constitutionalists found home in the Republican party (such as today with Rand/Massie/Amash). Of course, three or four people out of hundreds does not make a party constitutional.

    So Hamilton was able to sell the Constitution, but did he care about liberty? Or was it the Hamiltonians who distorted his message who are to blame?

  7. #6
    Well, none of us ever met the man. But I've never seen any sign liberty and natural rights were high on his agenda.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You only want the freedoms that will undermine the nation and lead to the destruction of liberty.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by kona View Post
    So Hamilton was able to sell the Constitution, but did he care about liberty?
    No. And that was the point.

    The reason Hamilton wanted to establish a new government under the Constitution was because the federal government that then existed was too small and weak and the people had too much liberty.

  9. #8
    These are easy questions . There are a few Constitutional conservative republicans . The GOP as a whole is a mild socialist party and the democrats are the army of evil and friends of only the most vile satanists . Hamilton care about Liberty , certainly but only his own , not yours .
    Do something Danke



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    These are easy questions . There are a few Constitutional conservative republicans . The GOP as a whole is a mild socialist party and the democrats are the army of evil and friends of only the most vile satanists . Hamilton care about Liberty , certainly but only his own , not yours .
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

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    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
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