{"id":197,"date":"2011-08-16T13:23:53","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T17:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=197"},"modified":"2011-08-16T13:23:53","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T17:23:53","slug":"republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html","title":{"rendered":"Republicans and Democrats: Mirror Images"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although I remain something of a talk radio junkie, it has been some time since I recognized that the \u201cconservatism\u201d of the air waves is really nothing of the kind.\u00a0 That is, much to my disappointment, it isn\u2019t \u201cconservatism\u201d that \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio tends to promote but neoconservatism, <\/em>or at least Republican Party politics (which is for all practical purposes the same thing).\u00a0 Still, I continue to listen to talk radio regularly, and just as regularly find it instructive.<\/p>\n

For the latest pearls, I have nationally syndicated host Mike Gallagher to thank.\u00a0 Gallagher expressed incredulity over the response of some \u201con the left\u201d to the recent killing of Navy Seals inAfghanistan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Afghan war, being a decade old, is the longest war thatAmericahas ever waged.\u00a0 In spite of this, our military suffered more casualties in a single day this past weekend than it has suffered on any given day since this war began.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, these facts are being taken by an ever growing number of Americans as further confirmation of their skepticism toward this Middle Eastern adventure.\u00a0 Our mission inAfghanistan, they reason, if it ever had any coherence at all, has lost intelligibility: it is time to either radically revisit our objectives or, at long last, to bring the troops home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gallagher couldn\u2019t disagree more with this stance. This latest \u201ctragedy,\u201d he claimed, only shows that we aren\u2019t combating our enemies intensely enough.\u00a0 Several of his callers concurred with his assessment.\u00a0 The problem, they say, is that our fighting men are constrained.\u00a0 If only we let them do what they are trained to do\u2014destroy the enemy\u2014we will be able to win this thing.<\/p>\n

As anyone who listens to \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio and\/or watches Fox News knows all too well, Gallagher\u2019s position on this issue was anything but atypical: it represents the conventional neoconservative, GOP wisdom.\u00a0 The more thought we pay to it, the more obvious it becomes that in spite of all of the bi-partisan rhetoric about the \u201cfundamental\u201d differences that are supposed to exist between them, the Republican and Democratic parties are remarkably similar.\u00a0 In fact, it isn\u2019t much<\/em> of an exaggeration to conclude that they are mirror images of one another.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is, however, somewhat<\/em> of an exaggeration to judge them as such, for neither party possesses nearly as much animus for the pet policies of the other that common hype would suggest.\u00a0 In short, contrary to what they would have their respective constituents believe, Democrats no more want to \u201cgut\u201d our national defense than Republicans want to eliminate, or even considerably ameliorate, the Welfare State.\u00a0 Still, for present purposes, I will focus primarily on that rhetoric <\/em>of our parties that reflects the differences in emphasis <\/em>between our parties. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Domestically speaking, Republicans claim to oppose \u201cBig Government\u201d on the grounds that it undermines freedom.\u00a0 At the same time, Democrats support their call for an ever expansive government at home precisely because of the greater freedom that it supposedly permits the individual, specifically the individual of \u201cthe middle class.\u201d\u00a0 Of course it is correct that Democrats pay much lip service to the ideal of Equality as well, but it is crucial for the real enemies of the left to recognize that, theoretically at least, there is no more conflict within leftist thought between Equality and Freedom than there is conflict within the rightist\u2019s vision between the two.\u00a0 In principle, at any rate, when domestic policies are at stake, Republicans conceive of freedom and equality in procedural <\/em>or formal <\/em>terms.\u00a0 Conversely, Democrats think of them substantively.\u00a0 <\/em>What this means is that Democrats\u2019 redistributive schemes serve Americans generally inasmuch as they promote Equality while simultaneously promoting Freedom as well, for there is no Freedom as long as people lack sufficient resources to implement their plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republicans scoff at this reasoning\u2014when, that is, the context on which it centers is American society.\u00a0 However, matters are quite otherwise when focus shifts onto non-Western lands, particularly those in theMiddle East.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When this occurs, Republicans actually reason in much the same way as do Democrats when the latter attempts to justify its socialistic economic prescriptions for the homeland.\u00a0 For instance, when President Obama, succinctly summarizing the Democrats\u2019 vision, infamously told \u201cJoe the Plumber\u201d that it was his intention to \u201cspread the wealth around,\u201d Republicans rightly realized that he was not so subtly revealing his plans for confiscating the fruits of the labor of \u201cthe haves\u201d in order to pass them along to \u201cthe have nots.\u201d\u00a0 But the Global Democracy mission upon which Republicans have embarked their country is no less a confiscatory or redistributive scheme than that of which the American Welfare State consists: the blood and treasure of \u201cthe privileged\u201d\u2014i.e. Americans\u2014is radically redistributed to \u201cthe disadvantaged\u201d\u2014\u201coppressed\u201d Muslims inIraq,Afghanistan,Libya, and elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, all of this is done in the name of the Mother of all egalitarian battle cries\u2014\u201cHuman Rights\u201d\u2014and the same substantive conception of Freedom that animates Democrat leftists.\u00a0 If Freedom is \u201cpower,\u201d as John Dewey and legions of other leftists have always insisted, then the fact that it is only through this massive redistribution of resources from Americans to Middle Eastern Muslims that the latter can enjoy the Freedom that Republicans want for them to have proves that it is indeed a substantive condition\u2014not just a system of procedural arrangements\u2014that is in question here.<\/p>\n

So, judging, once more, just from the rhetoric<\/em> (as opposed to the actual practice<\/em>) of the two parties, it seems that for Democrats, the ideals of Freedom and Equality, and the \u201csocial engineering\u201d required for their realization, are moral imperatives in America and the West, but efforts to implement them abroad are morally impermissible by virtue of being \u201cimperialistic.\u201d\u00a0 Conversely, according to Republicans, the left\u2019s substantive notions of Freedom and Equality are a function of socialism and, then, immoral\u2014but only when applied to America; <\/em>when it comes to non-democratic nations, \u201cthe social engineering\u201d that their implementation demands is a moral imperative.<\/p>\n

The Republican and Democratic Parties are indeed mirror images of one another.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick,\u00a0Ph.D.<\/p>\n

originally published in The New America\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although I remain something of a talk radio junkie, it has been some time since I recognized that the \u201cconservatism\u201d of the air waves is really nothing of the kind.\u00a0 That is, much to my disappointment, it isn\u2019t \u201cconservatism\u201d that \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio tends to promote but neoconservatism, or at least Republican Party politics (which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRepublicans and Democrats: Mirror Images<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Republicans and Democrats: Mirror Images\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Although I remain something of a talk radio junkie, it has been some time since I recognized that the \u201cconservatism\u201d of the air waves is really nothing of the kind.\u00a0 That is, much to my disappointment, it isn\u2019t \u201cconservatism\u201d that \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio tends to promote but neoconservatism, or at least Republican Party politics (which…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-16T17:23:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Republicans and Democrats: Mirror Images","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Republicans and Democrats: Mirror Images","og_description":"Although I remain something of a talk radio junkie, it has been some time since I recognized that the \u201cconservatism\u201d of the air waves is really nothing of the kind.\u00a0 That is, much to my disappointment, it isn\u2019t \u201cconservatism\u201d that \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio tends to promote but neoconservatism, or at least Republican Party politics (which…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2011-08-16T17:23:53+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html","name":"Republicans and Democrats: Mirror Images","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-16T17:23:53+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-16T17:23:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/republicans-and-democrats-mirror-images.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Republicans and Democrats: Mirror Images"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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