The Second GOP

I like this piece at the NYT overall. It does a good job of finding some of the problems with the GOP and its attempt to change.

At heart, I’m fairly conservative, though I think the liberal views on many social freedoms and rights are important. Civil rights and tolerance are critical to us advancing as a society and becoming stronger, IMHO. However I also think less centralization, less government programs and overreach are equally important.

What I wish is more people would embrace libertarianism, but I think libertarianism also has to change and become a little more practical. The idea of almost removing government doesn’t work, especially with our investments in Social Security and Healthcare. Those, IMHO, are important as are some protections for unemployment.

The GOP party lost me in the 90s. It struggled with George HW Bush’s presidency and then seemed to go completely crazy. George W Bush was marginal in terms of conservative values, IMHO, but he also was a weak president. The idea that we want to return to these fundamentalist evangelical, intolerant ideas is ludicrous. That makes me think of Louis C. K. As he says, it’s great to be white.