Barking RINO, essay 7 "A Party of (Better) Ideas"

Barking RINO                                                                        Essay 7

A Party of Ideas

"In his book ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ author Stephen Covey suggested that readers “sharpen the saw” by investing time in reflection and spiritual growth. Borrowing from Covey’s idea, successful political parties operate on ideas which ideally lead to campaign victory. In the highly contentious landscape that political society operates in today, seemingly ideas that stray too far from the norm are castigated by being branded as insufficiently conservative. Those who advocate a different line of thinking are labeled RINO’s. 

What seems to be rising to the surface is that if the singular objective of our party is to win elections…and if long term success of the party is based upon having better ideas… and if you agree it is difficult to propose ideas that include self-reliance, discipline and something other than the cynical tactic of using governmental benefits, then perhaps we, as a party, should examine more closely the ideas that we support with the objective of leading to better governance. Ideas should be vetted based upon quality and outcome rather than mere dogma. Over-reaching ideals at the cost of pragmatic governance can lead to impractical laws void of real world application and therefore potentially divisive with a significant cost at the polls.

At this juncture I do not want to propose any new ideas. I do want to suggest that we examine on the process of vetting ideas.

Start with the basic question; “What are the ideas that we as a party agree upon?” As with any group or association, fundamentally we will not agree on what these are. But there should be over-lapping agreements and a consensus of ideological direction but, I suggest, if one agrees with everyone and at all times – then what one stands for is fluid and insufficiently defined.

The proposal is not that we all agree. The proposal is that we look for the over-lapping ideals with the full recognition that healthy, thinking people disagree on some things and agree on others.  Identify the cohesive ideas that bring us together, recognize the direction and then embrace new ideas and approaches which pragmatically fulfill this agenda.

Within the sphere of political philosophy, “truth” can withstand all challenges. In other words, ideas that have been tempered by rigorous debate will eliminate bad ideas, incorporate better ideas and unify the constituency by hearing all the voices wanting to be heard. As the demographic sands shift, openness to new ideas and new voices will create a flexibility that replaces the brittleness that has led to Election Day losses.

Valid ideas do not have to be protected; certainly political opponents are going to attack our ideas – we should beat them to it. Ideas that have not been vetted are weaker ideas, or at least untested, than ideas that have been honed in the fires of respectful debate.

To say this differently, by respectfully challenging the ideas that have defined our party; today as well as in the past (and they differ sharply), we sharpen our saw with better ideas that are not so easily dismissed by the moderate middle (which all elections are incumbent to attract.) Ergo, the validity of someone’s political thought is not in their label or in their immediate agreement but in their willingness to respectfully challenge ideas yet abide by the post-debate results. 

The process of vetting ideas means ending the self-defeating paradigm of “RINO.” As engaged members whose commonality is better liberal governance (in the Lockean sense), disciplined values and self-reliance, we should engage in tactful and critical examinations of our ideas: this means debate and, once the vote has been cast, unity rather than the current castigation. Public debate based upon mutual respect engages a wider scope of participants creating a chorus of opinions which meld into better ideas that lead to victory at the polls. And if we are not together with the intent of winning elections – then we need to answer an even more basic question, “Why does this party exist if we are not interested in winning elections by offering better ideas which lead to better governance?”