By James Wilson
The
failure of Republicans to replace John Boehner with a principled Speaker is the
last straw for me. Voters gave the GOP a
ringing mandate to roll back the program of the Obama Administration. The House had only to fund government through
February – with whatever the Administration wanted – so Congress could begin
its real work when the new majorities are installed. The President and Senate could accept, bury,
or veto what the House enacted in December.
Nobody smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time could argue
the House was shutting down government.
Yet Speaker Boehner funded everything – including dictatorial and
blatantly unconstitutional executive decrees – with his so-called CRomnibus
Bill. But my issue is not with Boehner;
it is with the members who did not remove him.
More
than half a million letters were delivered to Congress demanding new
leadership. Thousands of phone calls –
some member offices received a thousand alone – demanding members do what they
were elected to do, what they had promised to do. Yet only twenty-five of two hundred forty-six
paid the slightest attention to their constituents.
We
all know the script. “No one else was officially
running,” – not true. “Observing party
discipline is the only way to get things done in Washington,” – has anyone read
up recently on the Constitutional Convention or the Congress that set the
slaves free by amending the Constitution?
“If I buck the leader he might retaliate and I will become marginalized
and ineffective,” – which Boehner has already done; does it occur to anyone
that what you do with this kind of tyrannical leader is to stick together and
remove him?
This
month the putative front runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Jeb
Bush, announces he is okay with re-defining marriage since it is now “the law
of the land.” Bush is – of course – the
current darling of the Republican establishment and I can promise readers any
candidate who wishes to enjoy establishmentarian goodwill is going to have to
accept as law what is anything but settled.
By the Bush logic freeing the slaves was nothing but a rebellious
mistake; from 1857 forward the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court
supposedly made slavery settled law for all time. Give me a break!
Republicans
have put up weak presidential candidates the past eight years – and in the
eight years of the Clinton regime. Bush
One could not keep a tax pledge; Dole was – what? McCain gave us the McCain-Feingold assault on
the 1st Amendment and Romney was a decent man who could not separate
himself from the bankers; their errand boy actually endorsed carpetbagger Neil
Kashkari for governor of California. Speaking of governor candidates – in this
century the Republicans gave us Schwarzenegger, Whitman, and the
carpetbagger. The best of that bunch was
the Governator, so wimpy the nurses’ union beat him bloody and lacking the
courage to defend his own laws.
This is how the
game is played, according to some of the pros; you have to go along to get
along, and they are correct. But the
game is sick, dysfunctional, and just plain wrong. What is needed is not renewed understanding
of how things are done, but new things to be done – a new game. That is what Lincoln gave us; he called it
the Republican Party.
The GOP showed
plenty of corruption following Lincoln’s death.
But Lincoln did inspire a vision of freedom and re-engagement of the
American Dream for all. Teddy Roosevelt
called for and led a renewal of that vision.
Ronald Reagan did the same. Even
in the heart of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society – when they were corporately
depressed – it was Republicans who gave Martin Luther King the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But at this point the fix has been in too long. When Abraham Lincoln and his friends
determined the Whigs were beyond resurrection they formed a new party. It is time lovers of our nation and her
unique place in the world did the same.
Lincoln’s party
lost their first elections; third parties always do. But they hung in there until their gifts and
God’s grace brought them 1860. Only a
man of Lincoln’s stature and charisma could hold them together during our
bloodiest conflict. Lincoln was God’s
gift, not our achievement. The
leadership molding the new political community will come from the same source. Our contribution will be courage,
faithfulness, and humility.
Jesus wept over
Jerusalem just days before His sacrificial death. He sobbed at how He and His Father longed to
take the people into their arms and they would not have it. Then He died and rose for us; he gave us a
new world. Jesus formed no political
party. But His model is sound for any
human enterprise. We need to look upon
the horror we have created, express our despair, and move on. We need to die to agenda, expectation, and
prerogative. We will then be free to
seek new life amongst the roots of what was once great and can be again.
Should Republican
leadership prove – not promise – commitment to integrity I’ll gladly change my
tune. Meanwhile I will follow my Lord
Jesus and Abraham Lincoln.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living
As Ambassadors of Relationships and The
Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by
e-mailing him at
praynorthstate@charter.net
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