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Q: How does the Republican Party's philosophy guide you, Mr. Faircloth?
Sean FairclothI love true Republican values.
What are those? Freedom, capitalism, free markets. I’m suspicious of bureaucracy and Big Brother.
A corporation owns your personal records and buying history—then sells it to someone who calls you at supper? That’s Big Brother. An insurance company tricks consumers into thinking they’re covered, then rejects their claim? That’s Big Brother.
Capitalist Adam Smith espoused freethinking consumers amid many entrepreneurs competing in any industry. Ford Corporation bureaucrats snagging huge bonuses after record losses and layoffs? Not entrepreneurial.
Consider the real values of founding Republicans. Abe Lincoln, our first Republican president, refused to join or attend any church, doubted Christ’s divinity, and wrote positively of agnosticism. Imagine Abe running for the Republican nomination today.
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Republican Teddy Roosevelt wrote—in the 1800s!—that a bride should not be required to take her husband’s name.
Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the White House. (Eisenhower invited racist Governor Faubus to the White House while shunning Dr. King.)
Roosevelt was the first president to articulate that civil liberties were under threat by something often more powerful than government: corporations. Referring to Enron-style robber barons, he said, “I view the wealthy criminal class as the most dangerous of all classes.” Teddy said government is “duty-bound to control [corporations] wherever the need of such control is shown,” and declared that “property rights are secondary to human rights.”
Teddy Roosevelt shared Lincoln’s view that taxes should come mostly from the “wealthy few” not the “many poor.” He advocated a graduated income tax, the marginal rate increasing significantly with one’s wealth, AND an inheritance tax—unlike President Bush.
Roosevelt knew “local control” often meant injustice. He pushed through the unprecedented Food and Drug Act because big corporations sold garbage to consumers as food. He believed a child in Tallahassee deserved to be just as healthy as a child in Tacoma.
Teddy Roosevelt was the first world leader to submit a dispute involving his own country to the Court of International Justice. He advocated a world organization to limit war.
Teddy Roosevelt was a force. When some nut shot him, the bullet entered Teddy’s chest, slowed by the text of the speech in his vest. A bullet a quarter inch from his heart, Roosevelt completed his speech, calling for the right of unions to organize—then called on labor not to discriminate based on race.
I miss politicians like this! JFK and Teddy Roosevelt didn’t need to prove they were men by sending others to die. They advocated powerfully for peace.
Roosevelt said that the 1912 election was “to decide whether the Republicans will be, as in Lincoln’s day, the party of the plain people . . . or whether it will be the party of privilege and special interest, the heir to those who were Lincoln’s most bitter opponents.”
Democrats, under FDR, Truman, and the Kennedys, took up Teddy’s banner, saving capitalism from corporate cronyism. Do Democrats today have the boldness to—once again—live up to those Republican ideals forsaken by the Republican Party?
I hope so. I believe in the values of the founding Republicans and I know Democrats are the best hope to fulfill those ideals.
Rep. Sean Faircloth is Majority Whip of the Maine House. You can email him at sfaircloth@gwi.net.
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Q: In what way does Democratic Party ideology guide you, Mr. Fish?
Scott K FishNone. If I thought Bangor Metro editor Tori Britton would let me get away with a one word column this month I’d submit the word “none” and be done with it. “None” is the most direct way I can answer the topic question. But, I’ve witnessed Ms. Britton’s humor threshold. So I’ll add details.
Let’s define our terms. Discussing Democrat principles is discussing Democrat basic truths. Not the Democrat principles of FDR, Harry Truman, or JFK, but modern Democrat principles of President Bill Clinton, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and, yes, Maine Democrat legislators.
Come on, folks! I can’t even use President Clinton and the word “truths” in the same sentence without getting hives.
Let’s compare yesterday’s Democrat, Pres. Harry “Give ‘Em Hell” Truman, ending WWII with today’s Democrat, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, ending the War on Terror in Iraq.
Vice President Truman was thrown into the presidency when President Franklin Roosevelt died in office April 12, 1945. It was up to Truman to end WWII with unconditional surrender of our enemies (Germany and Japan), total victory for the U.S. and our allies. Japan sucker-punched us at Pearl Harbor (December 12, 1941), killing 2,348 Americans. Germany surrendered May 8, 1945. Not so, Japan.
President Truman gave Japan chances to surrender unconditionally. Japan said no. Truman dropped one atom bomb on Hiroshima. Japan refused to surrender. Truman dropped a second atom bomb on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered unconditionally.
Yesterday’s Democrat Truman writes in his memoirs, “The final decision…to use the atomic bomb was up to me. I…never had any doubt that it should be used.”
Senator Harry Reid’s Pearl Harbor is September 11, 2001, when Islamic terrorists, after years of attacking Americans abroad, attacked the U.S., killing 2,981 people.
Reid voted to send U.S. troops, our sons/daughters, to Iraq. Now he’s leading Congressional Democrats in screwing around with money our troops need to complete their mission. Reid is saying no money unless President Bush agrees to an arbitrary date certain for U.S. troop surrender. Reid also insists on $100 billion of pure political pork Democrats attached to the defense spending bill.
Then on April 19, 2007, Reid, speaking to an audience at the National Press Club about the War on Terror he voted to send U.S. troops to fight, said, “I believe...this war is lost.”
Which Harry are you just wild about? Truman or Reid? Yesterday’s Democrat or today’s?
Let me say something else as direct as I can. Harry Reid makes me sick. Literally. And he embodies today’s Democrat principles. I lived through this during Vietnam—this defeatism in Washington with our nation at war. It’s a national disgrace and Democrats are pursuing it purely for their selfish political gain. Let’s call it for what it is.
Along with defeatism, I’ll be dipped if I know one modern Democrat principle that doesn’t crush the human spirit or kill dreams. Now you know why I wanted a one word column: “None.”
Scott K Fish is a political analyst, writer, and owner/editor of www.asmainegoes.com, a conservative political forum that has been keeping Mainers talking since 1998.
