Futuristic Liberal Conservatism?

If you can explain that one, I’d be much obliged. Still, I suppose it’s good that the GNP has cloistered itself somewhere to discuss its fuure. Maybe the politicos can feel each other for signs of a spine.

From this report, it doesn’t seem to rise above the level of squabbling about cosmetic changes (another name change? puhleeeeaze), which is a lot like the Dems’ sudden and clumsy attempts to pander to religious voters ever since their three-point loss here (leaving them adrift between the dynamism of Harry Reid and the centrist appeal of Howard Dean).

Nobody wins control of a nation’s agenda without presenting one of his own. Nobody wins more than a few isolated elections by reacting to an opponent’s agenda–even its excesses–or by espousing a watered-down version of what the other party espouses. Like the Dems, the GNP needs to articulate a vision of what it stands for, not merely what it stands against, or what it would do just like the other party, only more slowly. In short, the GNP needs to tell the Korean people that it believes in something that will improve their lives and help them realize at least some of the things for which they dream most ardently, such as:

1. We stand for the protection and expansion of human rights–including the protection of free speech both here and in North Korea.
2. We stand for unification by supporting the North Korean people who aspire to regain their natural rights. We will achieve unification while avoiding war because a strong nation that believes in itself is a nation that no wise foe dares attack.
3. We stand for rebuilding the national defenses that have deterred war and kept us safe for fifty years; we stand for being able to defend our nation independently of any foreign ground combat forces in five years, by which time those forces will have left Korea.
4. We pledge to expel from our party any member found to have violated laws and rules against corruption, illegal campaigning, or illegal fund-raising, regardless of the office the members holds–and we will begin enforcing that pledge immediately, not after the next election.
5. We stand for reforming our judicial system so that it is fair to all who come before it. Korean citizens deserve competent legal representation, a fair hearing of the evidence, and protection against unreliable or false evidence.
6. We stand for restoring our universities as wellsprings of innovation and learning, not of drinking and demonstrating.
7. We stand for reviving Korea’s economy to one where young graduates of high schools and universities look forward to earning a lifetime of decent wages and benefits earned in safe workplaces.
8. We stand for a Korea that preserves our traditions, our strong families, and a culture that has allowed us to survive and prosper through occupation, war, and poverty to become one of the world’s wealthiest nations. We believe that it is possible to retain what is best about our own culture without shutting out a world in which we can and must compete successfully.

That one’s on the house. Really, it was nothing at all.

Of course, with the watery human pickings in the GNP’s ranks today (among whom I’d count Ms. Park Gye-Heun herself) it will never extend beyond the realm of fantasy. How unfortunate.