Sean Hannity is Wrong on National Defense

Sean Hannity is wrong in his assertions that the Republican Party needs to be the party of strong national defense. His naïve assertion on this matter is both harmful to the Republican Party and harmful to our nation at large.

What American needs is a new generation of political leaders dedicated to preserving freedom and restoring Constitutional balances.

I think it more likely that such leaders will emerge in the Republican Party than Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party works by taking whatever issue polls well then making this issue appear foundational to the nation giving little thought about how the issue fits in with the system at large. Notice how a Democratic controlled Controlled Congress just past a massive health care bill with little thought given to the fact that states currently regulate health care.

Our founders disliked the system where all power was held by a monarchy. So they created a Constitution that assigned different tasks to different groups in a multidimensional structure.

The hope of the founders was that authority on decisions that affect every day life (like health care) would lie with the states, local government, private business or the people.

To preserve this system of distributed power, we need people at all levels of government dedicated to preserving this balanced framework.

The Federal Government was intended to handle an enumerated set of duties that required national unity. These duties included the ability to negotiate treatise and fight wars.

As you see, our Constitutional structure has the vast majority of people focused on the important job of living life. Only a few statesmen would be involved in making decisions about national defense.

Sean Hannity's notion that strong national defense should be the driving platform of the Republican Party is wrong in three way: The first is that the vast majority of political seats in this country have absolutely nothing to do with national defense. For example, since a governmor can't negotiate international treatise or start wars, it is absurd for a candidate to run on a platform of national defense. The governor should run on the governor's job. The national defense platform detracts from these roles.

Secondly, Hannity's open effort to drive doves from Republican ranks weakens the intelleuctual make up of the Republican Party. Hannity's concerted effort to drive doves from Republican rank not only strengthens the opposition, it has the terrible effect of polarizing the nation on the topic of national defense.

Finally one must consider that the need for national security ebbs and flows with changes in international conditions. Hannity's naïve stab at making strong national defense a platform position of the Republican Party puts the party and the country out of sync with the rest of the world.

This dysfunctional system has our nation responding to international threats based on who is in power and not on the nature of the threats themselves. More Iraqis died when Clinton turned his back on the brutal oppression of Saddam Hussein, than during Bush's war.

Our leaders in Congress need to have a robust decision making process that allows them to match our national defense effort to security threats and not domestic politics.

Having a large political party with the platform of strong national security creates a systemic imbalance. We end up with a dysfunctional national defense effort that fluctuates between excessive and insufficient attentional to international threats.

A healthy Republican Party would be dedicated to the Constitutional order. This Constitutional order demands well balanced statesmen to negotiate treatise and provide for national defense. A balanced statesman understands both the hawk and dove positions.

It appears that this Sean Hannity character on Fox News has never learned the difference between a Republic and Democracy. A Democracy would have us go to war based on a direct vote of the people (influenced by partisan rabble rousers).

What is killing this nation is that people like Sean Hannity will take their pet issues and try to make the pet issue a platform of a partisan group.

While this type of politics is okay on domestic issues, on the international front it creates a dynamic where we will be divided and conquered.

Our nation is greatly harmed by Sean Hannity and the Code Pink types who aim to make national defense a deeply divisive partisan issue.

The Republican Party would be wise to rebuke Hannity and to welcome both doves and hawks with the real focus on cultivating statesmanship and restoring Constitutional order.