Preserving the Union

When I was a child, I sometimes thought how difficult it must be to be president of the United States and to be a Christian. The Cold War was going strong, and the threat of nuclear war loomed. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. deterred each other with their buildup of nuclear weapons and their expressed willingness to use them if it became necessary, God forbid. Nuclear war would have meant millions of deaths, perhaps the end of civilization.

That never happened, although the weapons are still with us. And we have had countless other wars. Civilian casualties have happened, sometimes deliberately and sometimes out of carelessness. In World War Ii the Allies deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese and German civilians in order to end the war. A terrible question as to whether it was worth it or was it necessary.

Our Civil War resulted in the death of around 750,000 soldiers, two-thirds from disease. How many civilians died I do not know. On the Union side, the war was fought primarily to save the Union, but after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, the end of slavery also became more prominent. Lincoln presided over the war and in the end emerged victorious, and with the victory America entered into a Second Revolution, where slavery was abolished throughout the country, equal rights were ensured to all regardless of race, and the federal government kept troops in the former Confederacy in order to ensure these protections.

Unfortunately, Lincoln did not live to see these changes. Even worse, these rights were erased with the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1877 and Supreme Court decisions that eviscerated the Reconstruction amendments and related legislation. It took much struggle over the next 100 years to restore these rights.

What is a RINO?

The term RINO is often used by some conservative Republicans to describe those who do not sufficiently adhere to what they believe are the ideological principles of the Republican party. It is an acronym for Republican In Name Only.

But the Republican party has moved further and further to the right in recent years, becoming less hospitable for moderates and liberals, even mainstream conservatives such as Bob Dole. I remember when there were many moderate and liberal Republicans in the leadership of the party. When I lived in Oregon in the 1970s, my two senators were Mark Hatfield, a leading opponent of the Vietnam war, and Bob Packwood, who was strong on women's rights (although he was later accused of sexually harassing his female employees). Both may have been more conservative on domestic economic issues, but there was room in the party for different views. Tom McCall was governor, and strong on protecting the environment. Now such politicians would all be "RINOs".

As the two parties have become increasingly polarized, there is less room for independent thought, for basing one's views and actions not on an ideological agenda, but on what works best for the country. Congress has become a circus. Using the term RINO reinforces ideological purging in the GOP.

Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens as leader of the Republican Congress Reconstruction policy became a symbol to many for what was perceived to be a harsh policy toward the South. As white people in the north and south reconciled to some degree, and as the issue of equal rights for black Americans receded from the vision of both political parties, Stevens was viewed as a harsh and vindictive politician. In truth, he was a man ahead of his time. He saw the issue of slavery and racial subjugation far more clearly than did Lincoln. He should be honored by Republicans today.

The party of civil rights

As an undergraduate majoring in history, I wrote my senior thesis on the Reconstruction period. The so-called radical Republicans pushed through the first legislation to grant equal rights to black Americans. Unfortunately the experiment lasted just over a decade, finally ending in 1877 when Rutherford Hayes agreed to withdraw federal troops from the south in order to get enough electoral votes to win. Over the next century black people experienced racism throughout the country but especially in the south, with Jim Crow laws enforced by the law and by the Klan. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with important Supreme Court decisions, finally restored these rights. By this time, the issue of civil rights was no longer an issue that divided parties, but an issue that divided liberals from conservatives and north from south. Some conservatives of today ignore how both parties have changed and pretend that the Republican party has been the party of civil rights and the Democratic party the party of slavery and segregation. Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and William Buckley all opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But I am here to help restore the GOP to its former glory, as an Old Fashioned Republican.