Principles of the GOP of Oregon

I have been trying to think what it means to be a member of the Republican Party and what the common principles that unite us are. I tried to stay away from specific ideas that tend to split people in the party and chose to focus on the more general principles.

 

My hope is to bring the different groups of the party together so that we can, to borrow a phrase, ‘make Oregon great again.’ I also hope this gets people thinking and commenting so that these principles can come into clearer focus.

Individual Liberty and Rights

I believe that both parties are concerned with rights but have a major difference between the two. The Democrat Party is after groups rights and the Republican Party is after universal rights of the individual.

Groups rights seek to elevate a certain group. The Democrats see this as elevating people to the same level but what they miss is that by elevating one group you inherently place it above people of another group. You will also split groups so many times that you’ll eventually end up with individuals. You can see this in the ever increasing acronym for the LGBTQ (LGBTQAAI+) ‘community.’

Universal rights of the individual on the other hand apply evenly to everyone regardless of things like gender, skin color, or economic status. They include all US citizens regardless if they were born here or immigrated here legally.

These rights include things like freedom of speech, the right to bear arms and religious freedom and are outlined in the United States Bill of Rights and the constitution. They are in place to ensure that everyone can enjoy the maximum amount of freedom possible and remain part of civilized society.

Personal Responsibility

This means more than just pull yourself up by your boot straps. It means that if you want freedom than you need to take care of yourself. You need to feed yourself and provide shelter for yourself.

It also means that if you see a problem you deal with that problem yourself. Do not expect the government or someone else to come along and do it for you, but take it that responsibility yourself.

You also need to take care of your family. If you are a husband, you take care of your wife, and a wife takes care of her husband, in whatever way works for your relationship. You also take care of your kids and teach them the basic values that you believe are the best.

It means you take responsibility to care for your parents when they get old. You help out the community where you can. Cook meals for a neighbor who lost his job, donate hand me down clothes from your kids to your coworker who is a single mom.

Personal Responsibility also means you own your actions. If you got fired because you told the boss off or did not show up to work on time you need to accept that you lost your job through your own actions. It is realizing that your actions do have consequences, even ones you cannot see and that you take responsibility for those actions.

Two Pillars of the GOP

I see these two ideas as the ideals of the Republican Party. You can take these ideas to specific topics and come up with different opinions but we can all agree that universal rights of the individual and personal responsibility are ideals which we strive for.

If you look at a specific topic such as the right to bear arms you can argue for no background checks from the position of individual liberty, but you can also argue for background checks from the position of personal responsibility.

The liberty side believes that everyone has the right to protect themselves but I also think that most people would agree that we all need to be responsible to ensure that criminals are not given free license to buy whatever they want.

A background check is like a personal responsibility check. If you have proven to be irresponsible in the past than you cannot be trusted with the responsibility of a gun.

With these two wide pillars it is easy to see why people within the party split on so many topics. Yet if we all can agree on these two points we should be able to come together and advance ideas and candidates who also believe in these two ideals, even if we disagree on how they should be carried out in government.

Do you agree that these are two of the major pillars of the party? Why or why not? Feel free to comment below and let’s get this conversation going so we can get to the work of making Oregon great again.