Republican Weakness

Acquiescence in the pinch

Republican Weakness

Father of American environmentalism revealed

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The first profound liberalism in my world occurred in the final decade of the last century.

            California was home and our world was a collage of grape harvesters, starch iodine tests, Hughes 500, percent brix, Bezzarides, and ‘Al the Wop’s’. It was best described as the fast lane on Highway 99.

            I had taken up working out before dawn with a friend for life. Our regimen grew to include another church brother and a liberal. The normal banter of politics, sports trivia, and family discussion matters was suddenly buffeted by an ill wind. Things that were once said without condemnation were confronted by missiles of condescension and poison. The liberal’s point of view and mine were like vessels of fire and ice.

            One of the early eruptions came to a head when I was informed the existence of the Republican Party was simply to serve as safeguard bounds keepers for the democratic agenda. The relationship was shattered.

            That bitter taste expanded when our parent company sold our farming operation to a Left Coast family. Our world changed from an ownership hierarchy that allowed nothing to do with government handouts to a new brand of political nut crunching that served as a core support mechanism for then Democratic California Governor, Grey Davis.

            Checks that once went to paying fertilizer bills were too often rerouted into Sacramento campaign coffers.

            The approach was as different as night and day. It went from honoring individual achievement to calling in chips to shoot a political arrow through every obstacle.

            I didn’t like the feel of it at all, and … it didn’t work.

            Republican weakness

            The resentment mounting toward Republicans should not surprise anybody. Republicans are tough as long as they deal with like minded folks who generally concur that problems are best corrected by individual and or independent initiatives. The best example is talk radio.

            Liberals fail on talk radio because liberalism cannot exist in singulation. In fact, liberalism cannot exist unattached. It is predicated on numbers and causes which are the very factors that perpetuate social programs. It is, therefore, a contradiction to believe societal ills can be solved by group action.

Social problem solving is going to offend someone and liberals can’t exist by offending some group that delivers empathy, mob votes, and critical mass. They not only agree with the perceived cause they are empowered by its perpetuation.

We are learning, however, that Republicans are long time facilitators of those very political sinkholes whose expansion is destroying us. A track record exists. It exists on the basis of who signed the laws that empower the liberal environmental mobs today.

That accelerated over 100 years ago when Theodore Roosevelt and then Woody Wilson were at the helm, but we should jump forward to the time of modern Camelot. That, of course, was the time of John Kennedy.

Kennedy didn’t do much largely because of his shortened tenure, but he set a grand stage. For example, there is reason to believe that his successor, Lyndon Johnson, worked his whole presidency trying to fill the void left by king of Camelot. Johnson just didn’t have the star power.

In place of not being able to woo the nation with sheer good looks and words, Johnson sought to endear himself by saving the America’s great outdoors. It was not a natural inclination, but Lyndon started the modern environmental movement.

Johnson signed the first Clean Air Act in 1963.

He signed the Wilderness Act in 1964.

He signed the National Historical Preservation Act in 1966.

Viet Nam, ill health, and a lingering disappointment that he was never going to be America’s idol resulted in his decision to step aside in 1968. The stage was set for the true father of American environmentalism, Richard Nixon.

It had been Nixon who was beaten by Kennedy in 1960. It was also Nixon who demonstrated the curious Republican propensity of seeking acceptance through grand acquiescence. Was Nixon’s support for the environmental laws a function of his tendencies or was it similar to Johnson’s congenital jealousy of the hero worship Kennedy enjoyed?

None other than Nixon said, “I think 1970 will be known as the year of the beginning of which really began to move on the problems of clean air and clean water and open spaces for the future generations of Americans.”

He signed the National Environmental Policy Act the same year.

Nixon signed a strengthened Clean Air Act the same year.

He signed the Clean Water Act in 1972.

Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in 1973.

From a historical perspective, it can be interpreted that it wasn’t just the national mood that prompted this enabling legislation that has placed America in jeopardy. It was the Republican guilt complex that seems to formulate grandiose ideas of problem solving from the depths of unfulfilled adoration.

It was Republican Gerald Ford who signed the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act in 1976 that effectively bypassed the need for a constitutional amendment and altered the federal management of public lands from a matter of disposal to a matter of retention. Some now say that FLPMA is the most destructive legislation ever imposed on western states.

The peanut farmer just wished for environmental stardom. Jimmy Carter signed only a strengthened version of yet another iteration of the Clean Air Act in 1977.

Not to be out done, President H.W. Bush signed the synthesized steroid version of the Clean Air Act in 1990.

Collectively, the Republican record is a continuum of compromised attempts to fix a perceived problem. Their Democratic adversaries continue a parallel course of trying to perpetuate a perceived ill. The tools the liberals use most effectively are the very tools signed into law and conceptualized by Republican predecessors.

The fare is paid by us … the taxpayers … the once near sovereign Americans who long for leadership that acknowledges none of this was envisioned by the Founders and Framers.

            The reality tightrope

            We have a president who doesn’t believe in us or our foundational principles. We have a congress that has done nothing to counter our headlong plunge toward economic oblivion.

            The suggestion made herein that liberals can’t exist without a mob is highlighting a growing realization. Conservatives can’t seem to exist beyond the individual. They can’t maintain their values in the face of the mob when they are placed in major leadership roles with one exception.

            Ronald Reagan maintained and extended his core beliefs in the face of national and international crises debate. In every example since Camelot, the other political office holders have failed on the grander scale. It was only Reagan, once a strong Democrat, who was able to strengthen our nation through his commitment to conservative ideals.

            There is a lesson there, but before that investigation, we must seek a future candidate who understands not his personal version of the Constitution, but … the version that was envisioned without agenda forces attached.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “It troubles me greatly conservatives misread the maps during battle. At least liberals demonstrate they are loyal to manifesto debauchery.”