Why was the Republican Party so awesome in 1860?
Posted by hank, Wed Jan 09 18:47:00 UTC 2008
I was reading the Republican Party platform of 1860 today, which is about 1.5 pages, very broadly worded, and actually has good general platform aims. It was an interesting contrast to the 2004 platform, which is very specific and verbose and specific about every possible issue, 92 pages, and full of praise for George W. Bush. The old platform is much less superficial - it actually lays down the underlying principles that the party aims to achieve, some of which have been ignored by later platforms, the following being particularly powerful:
That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
So, why has the party changed so much? Maybe the 2008 platform should be minimal, only stating the underlying principles behind the individual policies in the 2004 platform. Any intelligent person should be able to conclude from the minimal set of principles what the party’s policy would be on a particular issue. The 1860 platform seemed to recognize this.
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March 11, 2008 @ 04:31 AM
transparency of the kind you describe is only good if you benefit from the general public being aware of your true goals. I think the kind of simplicity and transparency you describe could be written down in simple to understand general guiding principles. However, the blatant display of those true principles would very much alarm the general public, and therefore we have the 92 pages of verbiage designed to camouflage those true guiding ideals.
March 11, 2008 @ 07:45 AM
gabe: Ha! Very true. Perhaps it also has to do with the fact that there is no set of guiding principles anymore, and each issue is evaluated subjectively based on the opinions of those who are extreme in the party, with the rest following suit to some degree depending on how devoted they are to to party. It’s all a big football game.