A recent post got me thinking about whether the Republican party is any closer to the Objectivist viewpoint that the Democratic party. Here is the post:
Consider a three-pronged attack:
Flood the culture with Ayn Rand’s books.
Quietly take over the universities.
Infiltrate the Republican Party while we’re at it.
:yarr:
Why not try to infiltrate the Democratic party?
I will vote for Bush over Kerry; but I would vote for Kerry over Alan Keyes. By this, I mean to illusrate that the core/“extreme” of either party is equally undesirable. Each party consists of certain hard-core idealogues, and then a whole range of folks who are willing to compromise on their core position to some extent.
I see no evidence that the Republican party’s compromisers (a.k.a. “moderates”) are better than the compromisers of the Democrats. Does anyone here see any evidence that “infiltrating” one party would be better than infiltrating the other. (Not that I think either would be practical.)
That is an option, but it seems as if all the most rational Democrats are quitting the party and becoming Republicans or, like Ed Koch, Zell Miller, and others, supporting Republicans.
I favor Republicans because they acknowledge the power of principles in knowledge and in ethics. If all they pay is lip service to the idea and deny it reverence, that is still much better than the Democrats.
Unfortunately, the Republicans’ principles happen to be mostly wrong. Even more unfortunately, the Democrats’ principles happen to be doing whatever comes to mind and results in keeping political power.