John Kapeleris- Election Eve Thoughts

Why I am a Republican

“From this day to the ending of the world” – from Henry V

I am grateful for the outpouring of open political discourse spawned by Susie’s political post. As Os Guinness states in The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It, there is a desperate need today for open and civil public discourse. I have always said that God and politics must be spoken of in polite company. If not, the dialogue becomes detached (and therefore meaningless sophistry) or a shouting match. Meaningful public discourse is important to free and open societies like our own and like free and open societies civil discourse can be upset so easily and is fragile.

The Fundamentals

1. Latter Day Saint political philosophy infers that man is inherently good as opposed to the Augustinian notion that the Fall left man inherently evil. Man’s inherent nature was agreed upon in ancient times by diverse thinkers. Aristotle and Confucius would have seen eye to eye on the topic as stated in the first lines of both The Politics and The 300 Character Classic. It was not until St. Augustine that the idea of man’s nature as sinful became dominant in Western Civilization.

2. Reason and revelation are opposed to each other and will not agree in absolute. Modern Science has not solved the debate and cannot do so. It is a conflict form the beginning and can be found in Genesis. When Adam chose not to partake of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, he did so because God had made it taboo. Eve made her decision using reason. She chose by using the following logical syllogism:

A. God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply.

B. All mortals can be fruitful and multiply which option is open to us through partaking of the fruit.

C. Therefore, I must partake of the fruit (be cast out of the Garden and made mortal) in order to be fruitful and multiply.

We live under the consequences of a decision made through reason rather than revelation.

3. According to Aristotle there are two reasons why mankind has organized itself into families. The first is to perpetuate the species which we have in common with most other animals. The second is to attain happiness which only man aspires to attain.

4. America is a secular nation but not an atheist state. As an offshoot of Western civilization America inherited the Greco-Roman-Christian-Judeo heritage. We can see this clearly in our art and customs. For example I cite the Vitruvian architecture of civic buildings, especially Washington DC. Also, both the Supreme Court and the Congress begin their days officially with a prayer and that prayer is said in the House under the gaze from a bust of Moses. But our brand of secularism is invoked by the experience of the Apostle Paul who was put do death for his conscience. If the US did not allow for freedom of conscience there would have been no restoration of the Gospel (see D&C 134).

5. One of the first people to discuss stability in a state very seriously was Aristotle. To Aristotle there were three forms of governments: rule by the one, many and all. Each has a good shade and a bad shade (ie. Monarchy, Aristocracy, Democracy versus Tyranny, Oligarchy, Mobocracy). The best form of government to Aristotle was the righteous monarch. However, this form is not the most sustainable because it can only last for a generation or two before it degenerates into tyranny or some other lesser form. Therefore, the second best government would be a mix of all three. Polybius saw this in the Roman Republic and in Book IV of his History he shows that the monarchical element was in the consulship, the aristocratic element in the Senate, and the democratic element in the people’s power to vote in certain circumstances. His writings influenced later thinkers such as Montesquieu (the most quoted political philosopher at the Constitutional convention) and after making his own assessment of the Roman experience solidified the idea of checks and balances for a modern state.

These writings are the canon of classical republicanism. When describing the out come of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said that they had developed a Republic but then warned the people that it was “a Republic, if you can keep it.” It makes me shudder every time people describe America as a Democracy. Democracy is too chaotic and does not last long. Real classicists know that Sparta lasted centuries and the Athenian Democracy lasted only several years. But America definitely has Democratic elements. A republic will not seem stable because power is shared and usually not shared nicely. This is why the Chinese reject the Western push toward a more open society of power sharing and free thought because the West, seemingly to them, does not have its own house in order.

The Issues

I am a Republican of Aristotlean persuasion. I am a registered Republican but I must stay true to broader principles even when the broader Republican Party leaves them behind. The only people who stand for anything Republican any more are politicians like Ron Paul who warn us that our Republic teeters on the verge of Tyranny caused by an over emasculated President and a Congress that has ceded power to him. President Bush has taken the Imperial Presidency (as coined by Arthur Schlessinger) to a new height in the GWOT, a ruse to perpetual war. When there is constant war the President may demand extraordinary measures to be taken such as the suspension of Habeas Corpus. The Constitution hangs by a thread and the people who can reign in the executive are Harry Reid and other good Senators and Congressmen. But the people of America expect the President to solve all their problems. Like the Christmas song “O little Town of Bethlehem”, on election night too many Americans think that all their, “hopes and fears from all the years are met in” the President-elect. Why does he have such great power? The Constitution does not give him so much. The first Article of the Constitution is about the Congress because that was intended to be the most important branch of our government. The American people place too little thought in what Congress does and too much in what the President says.

When I was a teenager I remember very well the Republican Revolution in Congress with Dick Army and Newt Gingrich. They were Constitutional heroes who had a plan. They were organized as a Congress should be and were able to stand up to the President and even shut down the Federal government for a time to show the President that they would not be bullied. As time went on they got lazy and greedy. They failed to police up after their own and the American people finally realized it and voted them out. But there are good Republicans who will stay because of their merit

Nearly the same time as the Republican Revolution there was another Legislature in California that had a history of gridlock. That is why California has had the longest history of allowing the people to make laws directly. As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out in The Future of Freedom the California Legislature has given up on its Constitutional responsibility and deferred to the people too many times with propositions. This has proven unwieldy. The Republicans in Sacramento care more for posturing than for doing their job. Here is an example:

There was a city councilman from Fresno, named Brian Setencich, who was a moderate republican. I admired him greatly for his character, affability and intelligence. He was so popular he ran for the State Assembly. He won and did a good job. The Democrats had a weak majority and could not hold onto the Speakership. So they turned to Brian Setencich. He was elected speaker but it did not last long for the Republicans judged him not orthodox enough. In their eyes he had betrayed the Republicans. In reality they were selfish and petty. They were the minority and they had one of their own as speaker. Rather than working together for the people of California they chose to crucify him. About one month before the Primary the Republicans found Robert Prenter who launched a terrible attack campaign against Setencich, invoking the name of God in every speech. He one the Primary and served one term in the Assembly before the seat was lost to a Democrat. It has been that way ever since. This incident was such a waste of political talent. I don’t see how anyone can vote strictly upon party lines.

Indeed the current controversy over marriage is spawned by this over-democratization of the Constitution. Are Constitutions really the place to be defining marriage? While we are at it, why not describe how a successful marriage should work. After all it is in the interest of the state to have happily married couples. Proposition 8 seems out of order. We should not allow homosexuals to adopt if it is still social deviance to be one. Perhaps our global civilization has Hellenized as Victor Davis Hanson has purported in The Other Greeks. This would mean that what was previously considered deviant behavior is now accepted in our beyond-cosmopolitan culture. While homosexuality is debated as to whether it is a choice or not I would like to ban something that is purely a choice: divorce. Tearing asunder a family at will is legally permissible under current law. It ought to be allowed only in circumstances of adultery (which is still an offence on many law books) or abuse (physical or emotional). Why don’t the republicans in Congress push for that if they are truly family friendly?

Abortion may seem to some like a clear cut issue. Either you are pro-life or pro- choice. But each side is divided. There are two far extremes that are framing the debate. On the far right you have the One Hundred-Percenters who believe that abortion should be banned in all cases. At the other extreme you have people who want abortion on demand. Neither of these sides represent the majority. What you really have are moderates on the right who believe that it should not be allowed except in cases of rape, incest and life (or health) of the mother (President Bush and the LDS) and on the left there are people who believe that abortion must be protected so that it is a safe procedure for those rare occasions when it becomes necessary (Clinton & Obama). The Constitution Party, which is more conservative than the Republican Party, nearly imploded several years ago over abortion. Several of the State affiliated parties broke off over the exceptions for abortion. I really don’t believe the Republicans have done anything to turn back the Roe v. Wade decision. They talk about it but it is nearly a non-issue and should not be discussed at election time because it is a waste. Yes, it is a terrible thing to have an abortion, but more conservative justices will do nothing to overturn it. Every soldier and public official who swears to defend the Constitution defends Roe v. Wade whether they like it or not because that is a decision that was derived through our Constitutional process.

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Here are my thoughts. Let us keep alive the tradition of our ancestors by discussing that which is important to us in a civilized and intelligent manner.