Professor Clyde Wilson's Definition of "A Republican"

A South Carolinian for whom we have great admiration is Clyde N. Wilson. He is a contributing editor to Chronicles, a retired professor of history at the University of South Carolina, an author of many great books, including Carolina Cavalier: The Life and Mind of James Johnston Pettigrew and Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture, and the editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun.

Today Professor Wilson published in Chronicles his definition of a Republican. It is a painfully true definition of too many Republicans, particularly many Wilson has probably encountered in the South Carolina General Assembly, as well as in the previous national administration. However, we think there is growing resistance among Republicans and independents to just such "Republicans." Indeed, Professor Wilson's definition will be useful to us in weeding out precisely those Rockefeller-Whitman-Romney-Leatherman Republicans we will always and everywhere oppose.

A Republican Is Someone Who Thinks . . .

By Clyde N. Wilson

*That unemployment compensation for laid-off workers is socialism and multibillion-dollar bailouts for banking and stock swindlers is capitalism.

*That killing women and children with high explosives in remote corners of the earth is defending “our way of life.”

*That the purpose of education is to train good workers.

*That immigration is good because it supplies good cheap workers.

*That Earl Warren, Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, and Mitt Romney are great American statesmen.

*That the main reason not to train women for combat is that it is inefficient.

*That the 10th Amendment means that the federal government should tell the States what to do rather than do it itself.

*That criticism of Lincoln is near treason.

*That the President is “Commander-in-Chief” of the country, especially when he is a Republican.

*That freedom is protected by undeclared wars and military tribunals.

*That “right to life” is a good campaign gimmick, but not to be taken seriously.

*That any campaign promise or slogan should gull the saps who are not in the know but is not to be taken seriously.

*That the way to beat the Democrats is to take up whatever they propose and promise to do it better.