Self-government vs. Big-government:
The Difference Between Republicans and Democrats
by Sally Reed Impastato, Former Chairman, Republicans Abroad Asia/Pacific

Bill Clinton succesfully blurred the lines between Republican and Democratic ideology for many Americans during both of his presidential campaigns and for a good portion of his presidency. Much of this can be attributed to his poltical reincarnation in 1992 as a “New Democrat.”

President George W. Bush won the 2000 election by successfully staying on message and presenting his ideas in clear and concise language while pointing out the glaring differences not only between Al Gore and himself but also in the underlying philosophy that each embraces so passionately. The thing that will cost Bill Clinton any real legacy, is the very thing that will make President Bush’s administration successful and far-reaching. President Bush’s political ideology is based on rock-solid, conservative principles, not polling numbers and political whim. He both understands and is able to articulate the very real differences between Republican and Democratic philosophies.

For example, Democrats think the main problems in American society are poverty and racism. In fact, as President Bush knows, the real problem is the corrupting power of government—any government. (The true lesson of Filegate, or for that matter Watergate, is not the corruption of a limited number of politicians and bureaucrats but the corruption of unlimited government power.) Our forefathers understood this and attempted to stop it. It is something modern-day Democrats want to ignore. This is the basis of the founding fathers’ and the Republican party’s views. The states by and large had strong social, moral and economic values, which they wanted to protect. What they feared was a national government with enough power to overrule these values. The founders therefore created a governmental system that permitted the states to exercise considerable power, and severely restricted the ability of the federal government to do the same. The founders understood that unlimited central power could destroy pluralism, something that Republicans still understand and Democrats do not.

Republicans are much more willing to trust the market of free ideas to solve our problems than to trust the vagaries of bureaucrats or politicians for solutions. Pluralism demands that different segments of society come up with different solutions to problems. Often Democrats oppose this experimentation because it might be “unfair.” The Democrats would prefer to be unfair to everyone, completely ignoring that the primary goal of any action should be to eliminate a problem, not to come up with a governmental solution that will not offend anyone.

Whether modern day Democrats want to admit it or not, it is the free competition of ideas and American ingenuity that has solved the problems confronting the world—not the millions of pages of government regulations and laws foisted on us by well meaning bureaucrats.

Republicans understand that government creates nothing. It merely allocates or redistributes that which already exists. Our rights are pre-existing and are not created (but protected) by government. As George Washington said, “Government is force.” And, of course, the greatest force in the world is the most powerful government in the world. When the potential for abuse exists (i.e., a strong centralized government), the results are as predictable as the sunrise. Look at the history of oppression in the world, or even in the United States.

In 1942, the same Supreme Court judge that modern-day Democrats view as a great civil libertarian, Justice Hugo Black, ruled it constitutional to place Japanese-Americans into concentration camps, not for any manifest disloyalty, but simply because of their Japanese origin. And do not forget that this internment policy was initiated and implemented under the administration of FDR, the most “caring” and “liberal” president in the Democratic party’s history. Today's Democrats seem to forget that FDR’s internment policies represented the most egregious violation of civil rights since slavery, eighty years earlier.

Republicans are willing to place their faith in individuals, not institutions. As President Bush so clearly articulated on the campaign trail, we have a core belief in individual action and responsibility but also a uniquely American sense of community. In other words, we believe in having control over our own lives and the lives of our children. We believe that self-government is the basic government of human order and that any weakening of or decline of self-government necessarily entails a decline in individual liberty and responsibility. If the life and property of the individual are protected, then the rights of all people are protected —Blacks, Hispanics, women, farmers, factory workers and factory owners. There are two obvious choices for mankind: either we live free with individual liberties or as slaves to big government and its regimentation over our lives. Rarely have these choices been so clearly embodied as they were in candidates Bush and Gore.

The American public, by electing President Bush, chose self-determination and self-government over big-government. It was a wise choice. And now, the supreme challenge facing President Bush and the Republican party in the next four (or hopefully eight) years is not so much to explain what we think as it is to explain how we think.

NOTE: The views put forth in the above article are solely those of Mrs. Impastato and do not necessarily reflect or represent those of the GOP or Republicans Abroad International.