GOOD REPUBLICANS WON’T DO
Walter D. (Donnie) Kennedy

With the announcement of every new Republican contender for the G.O.P. nomination for president, I get assured by another flat-head conservative,

“Now surely you see him as a good Republican.” 

Thus with the announcement of Mike Huckabee’s candidacy for the Republican nomination, I was assaulted with the assurance that here is a good Republican.   I am sure that yes indeed, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is a good Republican—but that is the problem and not the answer for Southerners who have witnessed the loss of respect for Southern heritage, an increase in the size and scope of government and an ever increasing tax bite from Mr. Lincoln’s IRS.  Its time for Southerners to accept the fact that:

“good Republicans are not good enough.” 

Since the 1964 campaign of Barry Goldwater, it has been the South that has given the Republican Party its largest block of voters.  Regardless of how one looks at the political landscape in the United States during the past forty-three years, it has been the South that has given the G.O.P. its White House victories and its majority status in Congress.  Remove the South from the Republican Party and the G.O.P. becomes America’s hopeless minority party. 

But how has the good Republican Party treated Southerners in the past forty-three years?

During the past forty-three years, five Republicans have held the office of President of the United States.  Yet, during that time Southerners have watched as their children were used as sociological guinea pigs as one Federal Court after the other bused their children into unwholesome environments; Southerners have watched as Federal government sanctioned discrimination against White people under the guise of “affirmative action” has replaced State sponsored discrimination against Black people under segregation; Southerners have watched as the moral underpinnings of their culture, Christianity, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments, have been routinely purged from their communities while pornography and sodomy are given official protection; and during this time Southerners have had to stand by and tolerate the murder of millions of unborn children under the guise of “freedom of choice” (something that they were not allowed to exercise in their children’s education).  All of the aforementioned evils were done during the watch of many good Republicans.  God save the South from forty-three more years of such good friends!

During his second bid for the White House in 1968, Richard Nixon guaranteed Civil Rights leaders of his intent not to abandon such highly disruptive Civil Rights crusades as forced busing and reverse discrimination by assuring them to “Watch what I do, not what I say.”  Under Nixon forced busing became a national (although it was the South which carried the burden of forced busing) education priority.  After Nixon’s election and in the subsequent administration of every other Republican president, Arthur Fletcher, the father of affirmative action, held high positions in each Republican administration.  Each Republican President after Nixon depended more and more upon the vote of Southern conservatives for their election.  Yet, while the South got a lot of rhetoric, it was the NAACP and other advocates of big government that were being anointed with power and position within each G.O.P. administration—one more example of why “good Republicans won’t do.” 

How many times have we heard a fellow Southern Christian bemoan the loss of traditional moral values in America.  Most Southerners were disgusted by the sight of Federal Marshals forcefully removing a copy of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court Building.  But who was President when this happened—Bill Clinton?  No, it was a good Republican, George Bush.  If Mr. Bush was desirous of assisting and preserving traditional moral values in America, why did he not order those Federal marshals to stay out of the business of the sovereign State of Alabama?  Remember, the same Bush who acquiesced in the removal of the Ten Commandments in Alabama is the same Bush who as governor of Texas had a Confederate memorial plaque removed from the Texas Supreme Court Building.  There is a pattern here!  From Nixon to Bush II each Republican president has assisted in the growth of big government while giving lip service to State’s Rights and the Constitution (Watch what I do, not what I say).  These good Republicans have been very good at saying what Southern conservatives want to hear but have been totally lacking in resolving the problems faced by the South and America.  This lack of respect for traditional values of morality and Constitutional government is displayed not only by the elected “good” Republicans but also their appointed department heads.  Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been quoted as saying that the Constitution is “an outdated document.” These people are not defenders of Constitutional liberty.

Many Southern activists bemoan the lack of respect given to Southern heritage, that is, Confederate flags, monuments, and leaders.  While this is surely the case, one must remember that our Confederate forefathers did not go to war for a flag, monument, or particular leader.  They fought for State’s Rights, that is, the right to govern themselves, the right to live as free men in a free society, in a nutshell; they fought for liberty.  Liberty therefore is our greatest heritage as Southerners.  We must remember that all other forms of Southern heritage pale to insignificance when compared to our heritage of liberty.  Our job is to undo that which has made the malignant growth of government not only possible but also inevitable—the loss of real State’s Rights, that is, the ability of  “we the people of the sovereign States” to enforce the limits of the Constitution upon the Federal government. The reason the Ten Commandments were removed from the Alabama Supreme Court Building is the same reason that the State of Alabama cannot prevent the murder of the unborn child in Alabama—the lack of real State’s Rights.  The Federal government will soon be enforcing the “rights” of sodomites upon the people of the South because “we the people of (the once) sovereign States” no longer have the right to govern ourselves as a free people—State’s Rights are dead. 

Yes, let us acknowledge the fact, real State’s Rights died at Appomattox.  Until a Republican candidate comes along who will admit the fact that Lincoln’s Party killed State’s Rights and therefore the Constitution, we will forever be subject to a tyrannical and ever-increasing big government. 

As Ron Kennedy so well demonstrated in his book Reclaiming Liberty, for the past 75 years the Republican Party has been just as responsible for the growth of government as the Democrats.  Every socialist scheme of Roosevelt, Johnson, and Carter has been protected and enlarged by Republicans.  Is it any wonder that both political parties today view the South, the last advocate of State’s Rights, as their enemy?  To add insult to injury every four years the Republican Party sends its anointed candidates to Dixie to convince Southerners that they are good Republicans and therefore, once again, Southerners need to vote for the Party of Lincoln. 

As long as Southerners tolerate being treated as a political whore to be used once every four years by the “official” Republican Party, we can never expect principles that we love to be respected by members of the officially sanctioned Republican Party.  The National Republican Party will respect the South only when the South forces Republicans to respect us.  Another good Republican, even if he is from the South, will not force a change in the Republican Party and ultimately America—we must have one of our own, one who will unequivocally proclaim that in 1861 the South fought for State’s Rights and Lincoln’s Party destroyed true American republicanism.  As a Jeffersonian Republican our candidate will help awaken within the hearts and minds of our fellow Southerners a love and respect for our heritage of liberty that has for the past fifty years been under unrelenting attack.  By contending for the Republican nomination for president in all Southern States, our candidate can reawaken Southerners to a love and respect for our heritage that will become a stepping stone to the liberty and freedom not known since 1776—a time when Americans believed in the right of self-government, not big government. 

Imagine the dilemma and consternation within the Party of Lincoln when our Southern delegates to the Republican Convention demand an apology from the Republicans for their unconstitutional war of aggression against the South!  How will they respond when we demand a plank in the Republican Party platform that recognizes the real State’s Rights of nullification and secession!  And if they turn our Jeffersonian Republicans down, what will they do when we take the South out of Mr. Lincoln’s Party and support a third party in the general election (remember, without the South the Party of Lincoln is forever a minority party)? 

As long as we Southerners allow the National Republican Party to use us, much like a pimp uses his whores, we will be condemned to living with less freedom and more government; we will be destined to having sodomites held up before our children as heroes while men such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are given the bums rush; and, we will continue to have good Republicans elected like Nixon and Bush.  The question before us now as never before since Appomattox is simply this, “Are we willing to do those things necessary for Reclaiming Liberty?”