“None of the above”
The National Journal reports on a survey which claims that voters are deeply disappointed with everyone in Washington, both Republican and Democrat. To a disturbing extent the voters see politicians as two sides of the same dirty coin.
Across a wide array of measures, Americans are now as dissatisfied with Congress as they were immediately before the 2006 and 2010 electoral landslides that ousted the majority party in one or both chambers, according to a year-end United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll.
One year after Republicans made the largest gains in a midterm House election since 1938, the survey finds Americans still restless, dissatisfied, and profoundly pessimistic about Washington’s capacity to make progress on the major problems facing the country.
In the survey, independent voters—whose shifts in allegiance helped trigger both the big Democratic gains of 2006 and last year’s Republican revival—display little faith in either party, and register a strong initial inclination to vote against their own incumbent member of Congress. Not only a solid majority of independents, but also a surprisingly large share of Republican and Democratic partisans, say they are reluctant to give either party control of both chambers, preferring instead a divided government where both can “act as a check on each other.”
All of this points toward more volatility ahead after three consecutive elections in which control of at least 20 House seats has changed hands between the parties—the first time that many seats have shifted that often since the immediate aftermath of World War II.
The interesting question is whether the question is changing from “which party are you voting for?” to “are you in favor of continued rule from Washington”. The system is going through a crisis of legitimacy, as expressed in the loss of confidence in the financial system which is mirrored to some extent, by a similar lack of confidence in the political system. In that case the question shifts away from ‘what policy to adopt?’ to ‘who decides?’.
Both parties in congress are even more unpopular than the President, but that is not saying much at a time when the President himself is deeply unpopular. The Investor’s Business Daily notes that President Obama has implicitly blamed even Bill Clinton for the mountain of problems he is facing. From there is is but a short step to concluding that it is the system which is failing.
One of the consequences of this lack of contrast between the two political brands is that people may become indifferent as to which brand prevails. PJ Tatler says this creates a real possibility that President Obama will be re-elected in 2012, not because they think he will change things for the better but because the public may now be convinced that it doesn’t matter who’s in power and so avoid the trouble of trying to change what can’t be changed.
Now that they’ve shot down Cain, it’s time for the insiders and their media lackeys to turn their attention on Gingrich, until it’s over for the Anyone-But-Romney camp. Then begins the long, slow march to Obama 2. … It’s already begun. Peggy Noonan recently wrote that Gingrich is “disturbing” and “ethically dubious,” and that those who know him “are mostly not for him.” …
GOP insiders want Romney, because he best represents business as usual. They offer us a “better” candidate than Obama, but not the best, because the best would support smaller government, which is anathema to the money and power brokers of both major parties. …
Romney won’t win because he’s Obama’s Mini-Me. … Real Clear Politics shows a long-term trend of voters disapproving of this Congress and favoring Democrats returning to power.
That sets up the return of Obama in 2012, not as the Candidate of Hope, but as the Candidate of Resignation and Despair. Will it happen? Open thread.
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Ed Morrisey had a good post on this topic, I think yesterday, and made what I thought was a good point. Everyone says they dislike Congress, but if you look at incumbency, it is obvious that who voters hate are representatives from everywhere else except their own districts.
that’s why the dems and obama are playing with fire, they are radicalizing everyone here. who ultimately steps forward to claim the “mantle” can not be predicted, but you can be sure they will be nasty.
The best is the enemy of the good. The “plague on both your houses” impulse just gives us Obama again.
Government spending makes the average citizen poorer. What? That’s some nonsense from a right wing, Republican think-tank funded by greedy Wall Street, right?
Nope. And this is what makes this information so relevant and so important today when Americans will be making critical decisions about the role of government in their lives. The study is from the European Central Bank: ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND GOVERNMENT SIZE. Working Paper No. 1399, November, 2011. http://www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1399.pdf
Here is the summary conclusion:
1.) There is a significant negative effect of the size of government on economic growth;
2.) Government consumption is consistently detrimental to output growth irrespective of the country sample considered (OECD, emerging and developing countries).
We The People have it right. These bastards are making us all poorer.
I have a friend. He considers himself well informed. Lives near a major college campus, reads New York Times on the weekend, watches the Sunday shows over breakfast.
On my last visit, the subject of the deficit super duper committee came up. He began lamenting the solution was so simple – raise taxes on the rich, and cut spending. I pointed out “You realize spending doesn’t go down a bit in this situation, it’s only a promise that some future Congress might hold a vote on potentially reducing the increase in spending. But the tax rate increases would be immediate.”
He looked at me like I was from Mars. 15 minutes of explaining baseline budgeting later, his head looked ready to burst. “You mean all these spending cuts aren’t actually cutting anything?” ‘Zactly, I replied.
One down, 150+ million to go.
3) except in this case there is no “good”. if it takes a 2nd obama term to kill off the gop then so be it. the blame lies on the gop. they had their chance — many many times – and they blew it.
The Republican Party right now reminds me of the Dallas Cowboys — they have enough talent to win against anybody, but always find a way to choke/blow a big lead in the 4th quarter. Lots of flashy offense, but no D. By D I mean defense of the Constitution or truly limited government. There’s plenty of ways to attack the Dems with Fast and Furious and Depression 2.0. But not so many ways to defend their own tarnished brand.
I’ve said before that I think Newt’s attraction is that he is a seriously bright narcissist. People see that in him and recognize that it can be a feature in a leader faced with a problem that is unsolvable by normal means. Cutting the federal govt by 30% in a short time, while absolutely necessary, cant be done with Congress structured to mollify an array of special interests (old people, poor people, farmers, greens, teachers, a variety of industries, diseases, claimants and retired whatevers, not to mention widows and orphans and the homeless disabled veterans). The next President will have to have absolute confidence in himself and a hide like a rhinoceros. A flak jacket would help.
While I hope Newt can make a difference, I’m not very optimistic. I realize Leo’s right and we need wholesale change in how we as a voting bloc behave, right now, but again, I’m not optimistic. It would thrill me to find that Newt’s just like the Honey Badger, a real badass who just doesn’t give a f*ck.
Ron Paul may not be the cure for all that ails us, but his surging support is certaintly a symptom of the Establishment’s inability to shove another RINO down the throats of Republican primary voters. Expect total panic after Ron Paul wins Iowa with us hearing he’s a Russian agent simply because he’s been on RT so much, a Communist America hater, who will gut our military…and all that just on Fox News, don’t even want to know what the GE in-kind White House contribution channel will say! Probably that Ron Paul will leave everyone starving to death digging through garbage cans fending for themselves in a Depression.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/disenchantment-idiocy-surges-ron-paul-support-soars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JXCDjFYqFQ
Jerry Doyle explains why Ron is surging — fear that it’s all gonna collapse soon
The important thing is that the legitimacy of the very system is in peril. The Constitution made very few promises to the people. And absolutely none as to what the government was to do (other than national defense) for the comfort of its citizens. But the promises that were made were promises that could, and were intended, to be kept.
But that is all gone with the wind. Promises have been made that cannot be kept, and they are deemed to be more important than the original promises which were mostly based on what the government wouldn’t do. But then again, the more modern promises of food stamps and subsidized housing cannot be made in earnest without breaking the original ones of old.
Perhaps our national motto should be “Give me liberty or buy me off.’
That sets up the return of Obama in 2012, not as the Candidate of Hope, but as the Candidate of Resignation and Despair. Will it happen? Open thread.
Well, let’s ask Karl Rino Rove which he’d rather have, Gingrich or Luap.
Just noodling here, but say Obambus was re-erected, and Bernanke, after all is said and done, either succumbed to despair and hit the destruct button, or just dropped the soap accidentally (block those metaphors!).
Interesting times, hey. Maybe we should all join the Taliban, if they at least offer stability. Judging from the poll numbers in Iowa, maybe a Taliban candidate could win the Republican primary, as long as he’s clean and articulate. And in the general, he could out-Hussein Hussein. Professor Rove, what do you say to that?
until a new political party arises, the current system will continue to careen towards implosion. L3′s plans may work, but I just don’t think there are as many voters who are reachable, as he thinks. the damage to critical thinking is deep and long. when you hear people say the most incredible things (911 was an inside job) and they really really believe it — well, that person is unreachable. when you hear leftists spout their fantastic notions — they really really believe them. arguing with these types of people is just like arguing with a zombie, because they *are* zombies.
a new political party will not attract zombies, so at least you will have an accurate gauge of how many reachable people are left in the world.
i give obama a better than 50% chance of re-election, with the current slate of competitors. much better than 50%. universal suffrage was the killing blow, it turns out.
“The important thing is that the legitimacy of the very system is in peril”
And has been for quite a while.
While L3′s efforts are laudable, I fear it is to little, to late.
What is needed is a third party BUT NOT RIGHT NOW.
Start with the Congress critters from ’10 and try to add to them in ’12. Build a base for a Presidential run in 2020. That will give us 8 years to work on putting new party members into the State houses and working the primaries to get New Party candidates on the ballot. ALL ballots are controlled by the State Legislatures, which is why Obama will lose.
If all goes as planned, 107 EV’s will be out of reach for Obama because he failed to meet State requirements for being on the ballot. That means instead of winning 270 out of 538 EV’s, he will need to win 270 out of 431 EV’s. A much higher bar.
Or to put it another way, the (R)’s only need to win 163 EV’s to end the misery.
The pundits will freak out when July gets here and they find out Obama won’t be on the ballot in 20% of the states. Much brew-ha-ha but it’s perfectly legal.
Conservatives have more then one arrow for their bow.
The system has been gamed to pieces. It is time to do a rewrite of the Constitution. With modern communications, it will be a true democratic event. The elites will claim it can’t be done but what they mean is it can’t be done without them controlling the process.
They are wrong.
It is importAnt
Who we choose as leaders is importAnt. The drones (read States, people bottom up) are THE key. Obama is a pheromone; nothing else makes sense. How many will resist the lure?
(Does anyone know how I can subscribe to the (Pajama) Daily Digest so to stay up to date with the latest PJ Media stuff?)
I wrote a post which disappeared in the PJM cloud
Here is a comment from the internet which encapsulates part of what I was thinking:
California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democratic Left enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public employee unions. The unemployment rate is 12%.
California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, has added so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call it “Medi-Cal.” Our K-12 schools have more administrators than teachers, and smaller classes but lower test scores and higher dropout rates with twice the per-student budget of 15 years ago.
Obama is virulent LEFT and probably virulent Socialist or worse.
I have been in despair since November 2008. Even a Republican win in 2012 may too late to turn the tide.
Ron Paul is an Austrian economist and he gets it right on economic principles but Austrian Economics was never intended to be directly translated into government policy like Keynesian or heavily modeled neo-classical economics.
Ron Paul raises the right domestic issues and speaks plainly on economics but he is more of an ideologue than Obama and would be even more disastrous on foreign policy.
5. 2009Refugee — During the debt ceiling debate Obama smirked that unless he got his way, Social Security checks might not go out. I told my very smart wife — a graduate of two of America’s Ivy League universities — that he was admitting all the Social Security money collected over the last 50 years had been spent. She starred at me, stunned, and said, “That’s impossible.” We followed up by researching the subject together. Now she loathes all the bastards as much as I do.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/headline/trump-fires-self/
speaks for itself
or doesn’t, as the case may be
–
pb @ 18: Ron Paul is an Austrian economist…
Oddly enough we have a Ron Paul in American politics, too. Do you think they are related?
“I have been in despair since November 2008.”
Who ever would have thought that the Europen Central Bank would publish a report that says that government spending kills economic growth? Especially now when EU governments are desperate for more spending as a cure for their over-spending.
Secular trends develop slowly. There is at least reason to believe that big government, big-spending ideas are being proven as false economy and getting rejected by the man on the street. Who knows what calamity will occur between now and the next Enlightenment, but it will occur – somewhere.
I think part of the problem is that many independent voters still cling to a view of government that the left accepts but many conservatives reject – that the primary function of government is not to defend individual rights but to solve social problems. When they see the government at least nominally trying but clearly failing to solve problems, they do not ask whether this is something the government should even be trying to fix, whether the government is making things worse. Instead, they say that political disagreement and posturing is the reason for the failure for government to work. Thus the desire for putting partisanship aside.
But this means that the struggle for the swing voter is always played on the left’s turf. Occasionally – 1980, maybe – things get so bad that a critical mass demands at least some dialing back of the size of the state. But not usually, and the more tasks once done by the little platoons are annexed by the Washington political/rent-seeking complex, the more distantly the possibility of this belief prevailing recedes.
It is the last and greatest liberal lie that the two parties are the same. The Democrats – who have truly become a wicked and monstrous Party – have nothing good to offer. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Their last and most diabolical ploy is to convince America that the Republicans are the same as hideous and rotten to the core as they are!
The fact that they can do so with such relative ease is solely because they have spent decades corrupting the educational system such that many Americans are incapable of making distinctions. We suffer from the “everything is the same thing” intellectual disease.
Everything is not the same thing.
Stage 4 cancer – the best description of any Democrat and the Dem Party as a whole (the members being the malignant cells and the Party being the condition) – is an illness. So is the Flu. They are not the same illness.
The Democrats have OWS. Republican have the Tea Party. They are the same thing like the two sides in the Cold War were the same sides. Not.
Vote Republican. It is a simple choice of survival of America or not. Anyone who criticizes Dems and Rs equally is effectively Democrat and destroying America.
The trouble is whatever outrageous foreign policy quote Peter Boston could come up with attributed to Ron Paul I could do one better for Newt from Alvin & Heidi Toffler’s creeptastic pre-Singularity futurist/globalist book. At any rate, it seems many BCers are resigned to Obama finding a way by hook or crook to scratch out another term. The alternative is many people around him including Holder being fired, disgraced and most likely prosecuted if Paul gets elected.
23) thanks for proving my point.
name one substantive issue the gop has fought for and won?
public schools?
size of government?
personal liberty?
anything? bueller?
Amen cjm.
Interesting paper from Science News
Why Do People Defend Unjust, Inept, and Corrupt Systems?
Why do we stick up for a system or institution we live in — a government, company, or marriage — even when anyone else can see it is failing miserably?
Why do we resist change even when the system is corrupt or unjust?
A new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, illuminates the conditions under which we’re motivated to defend the status quo
– a process called “system justification.”
Reviewing laboratory and cross-national studies, the paper illuminates four situations that foster system justification:
system threat,
system dependence,
system inescapability, and
low personal control.
In times of crisis, say the authors, we want to believe the system works.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111212153157.htm
@25 I shall say thanks for proving my point.
I could list dozens. Even the ones you mentioned. You’re incapable of marking the differences.
I guess not even the bottom line will convince you. For people like you, the average 5+ unemployment under Bush, and basically years of boom growth economically, are the same as the years since Obama, Pelosi and Reid have run the show.
A person like you is brainwashed and hopeless. You are, effectively, a Democrat, not matter what conceit you flatter yourself with. We ended up where we are precisely because there are too may of you and not enough sensibly sane and intelligent people who know that 5 and 9 are not the same number, even though they are both greater than zero.
Cjm, you underestimate the nature and tenacity of the adversary. Despair is a clever trick, meant to distract you from hope, faith, and the ultimate way out.
The writing is on the wall. We are to be humbled. When that happens, the solution will present itself.
Wait, Vic. The “reason” we justify sticking with corrupt systems is something, a mysterious, newly discovered force, known as “system justification”???
Seems to me the authors should have abandoned their silly system, rather than attempting system justification.
Psychologists are such idiots.
28) you say you could list dozens, but fail to list even one. i think that says it all.
no, i am not brainwashed, nor a democrat. it is hard to try and figure out what you are trying to say as your grammar is quite poor.
and i don’t feel despair as i am doing ok personally. hmmm, i do despair of the gop ever being anything but “judy” to the dems “punch”
There must be something in the air tonight.
Karl Denninger has the following post up: The ONLY Political Question Before You
Mike, I invite you to go over to Andrew Klavan’s blog on PJM and look for his post on the very subject you are espousing. It is a short video by the Manhattan institute: Wall Street on Trial
This is what you don’t understand and quite frankly choose to not understand. In my opinion you see the world as stuck on stupid and choose to try and place yourself on the “winning team”. No matter that the game is rigged and you will be fleeced along with the others who choose to play. I would wager that you play Lotto and even scratch tickets…
Guys like Mike are part and parcel of what ails America.
There are people like Glenn Beck and Joe Scarborough who are saying that if Gingrich wins, they will/would vote for a 3rd-party Ron Paul. They have more than a few followers who say they will do likewise.
You people are idiots- to the point that you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Just as Perot siphoned off votes from Bush I in ’92 and guaranteed Clinton’s election, so would such a strategy guarantee Obama’s reelection. To put it plainly, a vote for anyone other than the Republican nominee, whoever he/she is, is a vote for Obama.
Don’t like Gingrich? Vote for Ron Paul. Get Obama again.
Don’t like Romney? Vote for Bob Barr. Get Obama again.
Don’t like Rick Perry? Vote for Yaron Brooke as a write-in candidate. Get Obama again.
Do you get it yet?
I’m not interested in any nonsense about “Oh, this is a long term strategy to make the Republicans adhere to their principles”, or (even dumber) “There’s no difference between Romney or Gingrich and Obama”, either. I don’t care who gets the Republican nod: Gingrich, Romney, Giuliani, or even Olympia Snowe, for crying out loud, they’ll *still* be more conservative than Obama.
A third party won’t… WON’T win. Period. End of discussion. Not recognizing this fact and wasting a vote on a third party, because the Repub nominee “isn’t conservative enough”, gets us 4 more years of Obama.
“The system has been gamed to pieces. It is time to do a rewrite of the Constitution. With modern communications, it will be a true democratic event. The elites will claim it can’t be done but what they mean is it can’t be done without them controlling the process.
They are wrong.”
Yes they are wrong, But the main problem is that they would rather have the whole edifice destruct if they cannot control it. The elites are, in their own minds, the Golden Ones. I hate to violate Godwin’s Law, but I fear the current political elites do share the mindset of Adolph Hitler: If the people aren’t capable of completing my vision, they are unworthy to exist.
The elites in turn seem incapable of contemplating the notion that the peasantry may at one point decide that they, like rats, will be deemed to be unworthy of existence. But maybe that’s the essential difference between aristocrats and peasants. Aristocrats notions are set in stone. The peasant has to conform to the grim god of reality.
Panday:
The trouble with your analysis is that neither Romney nor Gingrich will beat Obama. Both are deeply flawed and have absolutely zero appeal to vast swathes of the electorate (left, right, and center).
Vote for Romney? Get Obama again.
Vote for Gingrich? Get Obama again.
So where does that leave us?
Mike M. @23 and 28,
Anyone who criticizes Dems and Rs equally is effectively Democrat and destroying America.
Wow. That’s pretty strong.
So, lemme get this straight: from 2001-2003, Republicans controlled the House and White House. From 2003-2007, they controlled the House, Senate, and White House. During this time, we saw an acceleration of the housing bubble due to expansion of credit, easing underwriting standards, and a variety of other government actions. We saw an expansion of federal power over education with the No Child Left Behind Act. We saw an increase in “expenditures in the tax code,” Washington-speak for tax breaks for special interests. We saw an increase in the national debt from $5.8T to 9.0T. We saw a 50% increase in federal spending. We saw a brand-new entitlement, Medicare Part D, which added $10-15T to the nation’s unfunded liabilities.
And so on. Those are ones just off the top of my head. Others can add to the list as they see fit.
I understand that you see the fight as Republicans vs. Democrats. That is a powerful paradigm, one that is sustained by the press, political parties, incumbents, universities, and many others. If you want to label people like me as “Democrats” simply because we point out that both parties have been profligate, power-hungry, and presumptuous, I guess that’s your prerogative.
But it is not unreasonable for people (like me) who believe that the core problem is not solved by putting Republicans back in power without a way to hold them accountable. They have not shown the ability or willingness to take the necessary actions to shrink the size and scale of the federal Leviathan. Once they have the ring of power, they become corrupted by it, no matter what they may say while still powerless.
That’s the nature of power. Our Founding Fathers understood that, which is why they built a series of checks and balances which have been systematically weakened over the past 100 years. States are now dominated by Washington DC; judges run roughshod over the Constitution to impose policy; Congress lies dormant or abdicates its authority to the Executive; the Executive wires around Constitutional rights for political expediency.
None of this is to disparage the motivations of individual politicians. In my experience, they are generally good people trying to do make the right decision. The root problem is that they are making decisions they should not be making. And that does apply to both Republicans and Democrats.
The point here is that neither party is reliable in the face of the temptations of such tremendous power. If I put a safe in your house with $1 billion, how long would it be before you hired a safecracker? You might resist for a while, but the temptation is too great to expect people, in general, to resist. The federal government spends that much money every 2.5 hours. Is it reasonable to expect that Republicans and Democrats would behave that much differently?
The other paradigm, the one I personally subscribe to, is that the battle is not R vs. D, but the Ruling Elite vs. the Citizenry. We will always have a political elite; there is nothing wrong with that. Elites should emerge in any free society, and there are 536 elected officials in Washington DC who are, without question, political elites.
But when the political elites metastasize into a Ruling Elite, when they go from discharging their responsibilities under the Constitution to doing whatever they want – then they’ve changed from representatives to rulers and must be held accountable.
And that’s what’s broken today – the accountability system. More than 80% of incumbents are in safe districts. The renomination rate is 99%. The average incumbent margin of victory in general elections is 26%, in primaries it’s 66% (and 62% run unopposed). From 2002-2008, more incumbents died in office (13) than were beaten in a primary election (12). The system has evolved into an incumbent protection scheme, disenfranchising the people and breaking the transmission belt between the citizenry and their representatives. And, crucially, Republicans and Democrats have both participated in the stifling of competitive elections. (Remember McCain-Feingold?)
So, if your argument is that the Republicans, without the discipline of competitive elections, can be trusted to do the right thing, I’m afraid that you’ll have to do better than simply lumping people into categories. History is not on your side, I’m afraid, so the presumption of Republican virtue is really just another form of hope and change.
You’re right, 5 is better than 9. But if they’re the number of major organs to which your metastatic cancer has spread, it’s really a distinction without a difference.
Finally, I will happily make a similar argument against the Democrats. But, I suspect, no evidence is needed to convince you of their desire for power and money.
All the same, I appreciate the interaction, and wish you all the best.
Cheers,
L3
rickl
The trouble with your analysis is that neither Romney nor Gingrich will beat Obama
That’s quite a premature assumption.
In any event, they are currently the only two with any chance of beating him at all. Distrust of big government is at an all time high right now( http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/12/poll-democrats-drive-increasing-fear-of-big-government/ ). If unemployment and the economy stay the same, the chance is even greater… unless myopic fools siphon away conservative votes by tilting at windmills and voting 3rd party.
cjm–Defense, scaling back welfare (1994), balancing budget–not completely successful, but steps in the right direction (1994). Admittedly, there are not a lot off the top of my head, especially given the snout-in-trough-like behavior endemic to prolonged abuses of power. However, I believe the 2010 election stopped many bad things in their tracks. I think L3′s concept of working at the primary level has already born fruit. I sense a much more conservative tone and tenor to the Republican make-up of the house, largely as a result of Tea Party involvement. I further believe the only practical way to reverse the most egregious excesses of the Obama administration, is to widen the Republican majority in the house and establish a Republican majority in the senate. I would offer the caveat that the Tea Party should continue to demand commitments to conservative governing principles in candidates. To believe that both choices are equally bad, in my world, would leave no other option than despair.
In the matter of the Republican primary, I find each candidate to be deeply flawed. However, I also find in each candidate many qualities which I admire and would like to see at work in the White House. (Yes, up to and including Romney)The only candidate who would reflect my agenda and concerns exactly would be me. Unfortunately, my polling numbers are not that good–my exploratory committee has advised me to forgo the race for now.
I’m being serious when I say I can find reasons (more for some candidates than others) to enthusiastically endorse anyone on the Republican platform as opposed to the current occupant of the White House.
Maybe, like the friend of Gracie Law, I’m just monumentally naive.
Anyone remember or know what the book was on Reagan winning at this stage of the game in ’79? Levin was talking last week about how the call in the MSM was a dead heat a month before the landslide.
w&f @ 39: Maybe, like the friend of Gracie Law, I’m just monumentally naive.
BTiLC reference, omg!
r @ 36:
Vote for Romney? Get Obama again.
Vote for Gingrich? Get Obama again.
So where does that leave us?
Vote for Gingrich, of course, move to a blue state and stock up on survival goods. But let’s give Gingrich a chance. He needs to get out ahead of the game, start building a shadow administration now, starting with VP … who could be Romney, if Romney will watch his mouth, and agree to the deal, and also take a little direction. None of which, I admit, seems likely.
Gingrich needs to frame the issues, engage the MSM, square the circle, build strong bodies twelve ways, act younger than his age, and get the RINOs on his side. All you can do is try.
My Congresscritter is Bob Turner, who replaced Anthony Weiner. BTW has anybody seen Anthony and Rahm Emanuel in the same room together? How many people with that level of charm and modesty can be in government? Anyhow yesterday I received my first mailbox stuffer from Turner. It is titled “Protecting the benefits that New York seniors have earned.” It boasts of the 3.6% Social Security COLA and includes this gem highlighted,
I am no supporter of Ron Paul and fear that the Donks are working behind the scenes to weaken the GOP by pushing unelectable extremists. If the supposedly conservative mainstream members of the party, like Turner, refuse to advance sane reforms and engage the mendacity of the Donks in the minds of the public then they are conceding the battle and the war.
L3,
From 2000 to 2003 George Bush allowed Ted Kennedy to set his domestic policy. At first he thought that he was buying domestic tranquility that would over time build a conservative GOP vision of America. Later he thought that he was buying support for the war. He was wrong on both counts but it is that simple. We are still better off with Rs than Ds in charge.
W: “The National Journal reports on a survey which claims that voters are deeply disappointed with everyone in Washington, both Republican and Democrat. To a disturbing extent the voters see politicians as two sides of the same dirty coin.”
I believe Crony Capitalists (the Fascist Left) are in cahoots with Federal legislators and regulators (the Marxist Left). The former are legally enabled – via favorable government regulation – to create forced (unjust) economic inequality (superiority), while the latter are legally enabled to collectivize property from the laboring middle class “in order to make things equal.” Of course forced “economic equality” doesn’t apply to the not-to-be-equalized Marxist equalizers – who are also legally enabled to create forced (unjust) economic inequality (superiority) for themselves – alongside their Fascist friends. Both the Fascists and the Marxists are enemies of Free Enterprise – and they play golf together at the same country clubs.
In terms of the relationship between government and the individual, a rational “Left – Right” metaphor can be constructed based on who possesses property, and therefore who possesses power. When government takes possession of the individual’s property the government is powerful and the individual is weak – when individuals keep the fruit of their own labor individuals are powerful and government is weak. Thus, Left means government power over the individual via confiscation or control of the individual’s property; and Right means individual empowerment via individual possession and control of his/her own property. Total government power is far Left (either Marxist or Fascist), while no government (anarchy) is far Right. The American Revolution is Center-Right where government is limited by its mission to secure the equal rights of all individuals to their life, liberty and fruit of labor in pursuit of happiness — where individuals are empowered — but not to the point of anarchy. The American Revolution means limited government and rightful liberty.
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” Thomas Jefferson
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/law508/JeffersonRights.htm
This video explains the true Left-Right metaphor which rightfully outlines the relationship between government (a small group of other people after all) and the individual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7M-7LkvcVw
BFtP, What is the difference between sinking slowly or sinking quickly? Either way you drown.
Just like L3 said above, it comes down to ruling or serving the public. At this point both parties are fighting to gain control of the old ladies purse. One of them is a thug and the other is a con man. Either way the old lady is going to end up destitute.
Rape, slow or fast is still rape.
Cheer up. The polls don’t tell you anything. The voters will be voting against Obama and not for someone. That’s the Chicago way. We know they are all corrupt and they know it too. But if you really screw up you’re out. That’s how Jane Byrne won and that’s how Obama will lose.
Blast from the Past @43,
At first he thought that he was buying domestic tranquility that would over time build a conservative GOP vision of America. Later he thought that he was buying support for the war.
You may well be right. But these examples illustrate the danger.
The “compassionate conservative” approach was to grow the state, but in ways that were conservative vs. liberal. So federal funding of faith-based organizations, or setting national standards for education that are enforced by the federal government, or passing steel tariffs to win support in West Virginia are all OK because they help secure a “permanent Republican majority,” after which Republicans can really do what needs to be done.
IOW, I’ll live within my means starting tomorrow. Tonight, it’s steak and lobster and a magnum of ’61 Chateau Lafite Rothschild.
This is the temptation to which all politicians will succumb once the power of the federal government has grown too large, as it has in our day. The entrenched interests in Congress – especially in the House – have far too much to lose by shrinking the state. But growing the state to appease those interests only makes the problem more intractable, so attempts to fix the problem from within are doomed to failure.
Only when long-term incumbents can be held accountable – that is, lose their re-election bid based upon their actual performance, not what they tell us they do – can the system move toward a sustainable equilibrium. There is a persistent disconnect between what the people want and what the politicians do. Who ever ran promising to spend $1.00 for every $0.60 of taxes? Or to force you to purchase health insurance? Or to bail out TBTF banks while crushing community banks under a mountain of regulation? The American people are opposed to these things, and yet they’ve been done.
Why? Because the decision on the re-election is made in the primary, when few people vote and they are usually unopposed. And if they do draw a challenger, the incumbents have a message monopoly, so voters are only told of the “good” things the incumbent has done, and no one tells the voters about the “bad” stuff.
Attempts at term limits were the first effort to bring outside discipline to this process; the SCOTUS rejection of limits in 1995 brought that movement to an end.
What we’re working on, the Primary Pledge Campaign, is the next phase of the citizens’ movement to bring accountability back to the political system. In just over 3 weeks, we’ve already gotten almost 50,000 pledges, almost all of them in districts where incumbents of both parties will face legitimate challengers. That’s a lot of people who will now vote in primaries, most of whom never have.
If we had 20 years to turn things around, we might be able to focus on a single party in the normal way and get ‘er done. But the reality is that we are quickly running out of time. The system encourages profligacy, and we’re chewing up our savings at a frightening clip. We only have about $5.5T in savings in the banking system, we’re monetizing $1.4T annual deficits, and even in the face of this crisis, Congress was not able to cut $1.2T out of $44T of planned expenditures over the next decade.
Based on what I’m seeing around the country, it can be done. The people are on the move. They’re seeing how the power structure in Washington DC can be broken, after which many more things are possible. How it will turn out is unknowable. There are risks, to be sure.
But results from the alternative – doing more of the same – will be truly awful. So we have a duty to try.
Cheers,
L3
the dems are definitely worse than the gop, which paradoxically indicts the gop even more for not fighting them tooth and nail.
GOP == gutless old pharts
when your best arguments are c 1994 (the newt era, coincidentally?) and are weak at that (cutting welfare was bipartisan, and entitlements were left untouched) — you are, to quote jackson brown, running on empty.
i am the founding member of the American Stoic Party
As far as “it doesn’t matter who’s in power,” I came to that conclusion when I was 14. It’s political correctness this one’s a racist and that one is incapable of racism and the whole con game of the successful loser and the losing success and suing burning coffee cups. It’s bizarro world and who’s in charge of the asylum makes scant difference. It’s an inhabitant; that’s all you need to know.
As an interested observer who doesn’t like seeing the U.S. in its current domestic political bind I have three thoughts.
1) The U.S system will only function properly with two political parties. Starting a third party is a non-starter.
2) Neither the Democratic nor the Republican Parties are immortal; before the Republican Party the Whigs were the opposition to the Democrats. The Republican Party replaced the Whigs and it is perfectly possible to replace the Republican Party.
3) Replacing the Republican Party would give power to the Democrats for a significant period during the birth and infancy of a new party that had replaced the Republicans. If the Republicans were to be replaced, first the party would have to expire like the Whigs did.
Whether the Republicans should be reformed or replaced is none of my business. I do think it is the business of American conservatives to do one or the other.
Universal suffrage inevitably leads to the democratic despotism that de Tocqueville warned of, which “reduces daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice; it restricts the activity of free will within a narrower range and gradually removes autonomy itself from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all this, inclining them to tolerate all these things and often even to see them as a blessing. They derive consolation from being supervised by thinking that they have chosen their supervisors.”
“The trouble with your analysis is that neither Romney nor Gingrich will beat Obama. Both are deeply flawed and have absolutely zero appeal to vast swathes of the electorate (left, right, and center).
Vote for Romney? Get Obama again.
Vote for Gingrich? Get Obama again.” EXACTLY. Any Republican who votes for those guys because he thinks they have a better shot of beating Obama will wake up after Election Day wondering how the hell Obama got reelected since he didn’t know anyone who voted for Obama ala Manhattan liberals in 1972. Go L3.
I am left wondering why Obama is even running for reelection. His job performance is such a disaster that he wouldn’t dare run on his record. Profound oratory – this one trick pony’s only trick – has lost all of its magic. Obama doesn’t even seem to be enjoying his work. So why is everyone commenting on this thread convinced that BO will be reelected? Andrew Krause is right. The novelty is long gone and Obama has nothing to show for his time in office. It doesn’t matter what the polls say, voters will be cheerfully lining up put this stiff out of his misery. In this political environment, even Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachmann could win in a landslide.
52) fail! why are only 3rd raters running for the gop then?
cjm@53 – “why are only 3rd raters running for the gop then?”
Most persons would not subject themselves to the indecency heaped upon an office seeker. This assumes of course that a good candidate knows shame intimately.
23. Mike M.
Mike, you are getting lost in the weeds. You may be a (R) but I’m a conservative. Your (R) (D) labels mean nought to me. I look at results.
Bush II was 8 years of shoveling taxpayers dollars to his cronies. Then Obama comes along and borrows the shovel for his cronies.
When the election of the President determines little more then which pigs get front row at the trough, the system is broke.
Obama WILL NOT win re-election. If you think he will, show me the EV’s. A RINO like Mitt just means 4 more years of Obama-lite. The main difference is a new set of cronies.
When you put party before country, you are being hustled.
I have a theory concerning elections. I have heard it said that the American voting population is registered as roughly 30% Democrat, 40% Republican, and 30% Independent. Thus, the voting population looks like a normal curve, with a skew to the Right. A winning campaign must, therefore, maintain its base, but, appeal to the largest portion of independents as possible, so as to gain the largest percentage of the voting population as one can. It seems reasonable then that we are told that a successful campaign must be a moderate one, for any overly conservative, or liberal, campaign would drive away those independents.
However, I also have heard that only a bit over 50% of the population votes in Presidential elections, let alone, the lesser ones. Furthermore, I’ve heard that Independents aren’t really independent, and, realistically, will usually vote for one party or the other, no matter what. Finally, in private conversation with friends, I have heard several times a variation on the following, “I didn’t mind McCain, but, I just couldn’t stand Palin.” When pressed, they have difficulty believing that Palin helped the McCain campaign. Furthermore, they tend to agree that they really wouldn’t have voted for McCain anyway, not unless Obama did something crazy.
What these facts lead me to believe is that the voting population is not a normal curve, but, rather, a bimodal curve, with two peaks, one on the right, and one on the left. The winner of the election, is not, therefore, the candidate that gets the largest portion of the population by width, that is, the broadest swath of the political spectrum that the candidate can muster. Instead, the winner must heighten their own peak by drawing those who may not have voted for them at all. Such a candidate would not run a moderate campaign, but, would instead, try to run a campaign that best reflected the values of that candidate’s party.
I believe that recent history has proven this to be true. Liberal Obama vs moderate McCain. Moderate Kerry vs Bush in the middle of the war. Moderate Gore vs moderate Bush was pretty much a wash. It may not be the only metric for who will win or lose, but it does seem an important one. That being said, I see no one in the current primaries that are capable of this in 2012.
Lieberman was a one-off. This is starting to look like some real Israeli pushback against the Demintern, or at least using Russia as a point to poke Hillary and twist the Obama Administration’s tail a bit:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150543?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#.TuhP4rIz2bJ
Arutz Sheva: Clinton admits to meddling in Russian vote
If we see a Lieberman presser in Moscow with Lavrov saying it’s not in Israel’s or anyone else’s interest to see an extremist government seize power after Assad’s gone, then you know the Israelis are not quite on board with this regime change r’ us agenda along the Golan Heights. I suspect the deployment of U.S. troops to Jordan that ZeroHedge is reporting is an Obama Admin way of trying to reassure Israel that they won’t get the Muslim Brotherhood lobbing rockets at the Golani Brigade every damn day after Assad’s gone.
So it would seem some in Israel realize McCain/Graham and the other hardcore spokesmen for the Demintern are not really their best friends (picked up this link BTW, from Stanislav Mishin’s ultra-nationalist Russian Mat Rodina blog). But alas, this Administration looks at Israel like a player looks at his home squeeze arrogantly thinking she has no where else to go. Except the honey’s finally had enough of her man’s cheating and lies and already has her eye on a new lover if not a lasting partner.
Given the million Russian speakers in Israel, some of this was inevitable, at least on the economic if not military side. But this Administration and even the arrogance of many neocons who claim to be Israel’s biggest supporters has driven Jerusalem to take steps to demonstrate its independence.
Interesting that this thread seems to have brought out a gaggle of people telling us to lie back and think of England for the GOP. Because otherwise, we might be treated to all kinds of degrading deprivations at the hands of the Democrats.
I have great respect for LL3′s work (who is heroically trying to shake the pillars of Heaven), but I’m of the opinion that the system is too far gone to be saved in its current instantiation. I’m convinced we’re boned no matter who is elected POTUS (and to Congress) next year. And when I say the system is too far gone, I don’t mean that our system of government couldn’t be reformed. It just will not be reformed, until perhaps after the function call to the great destructor that we all fear. The cause (not exactly the root cause, but the primary driver) of this phenomena was warned about 50 years ago: the Long March through the media and the “educational” system.
It worked. And easily a strong plurality, if not a majority of the people have been completely coded using its template. Nearly all of the rest have at least had fragments of the code embedded in their own systems. Myself included, as a public school survivor. I try to remember to check my premises when noodling over the problems which we face, and I’m quite disturbed to see that I still can subconsciously fall back on the collectivist trojan horse code very easily. The malicious code has metastasized in the institutions which shape the very thoughts of Americans: mass media and the educational guild. I don’t believe that any serious measure of reform will ever take place under our currently constituted system of governance, because people quite literally cannot accept the reality of the necessary actions due to their programming.
Without dealing with the underlying method of dissemination of this collectivist virus, we’ll never make any significant advances in the correct direction. Let’s face it, those who love liberty are not going to walk back the long march through the institutions. As far as I can see, the only way out is to reboot and jump out of the system completely. Unfortunately, that’s almost certain to be a painful and bloody experience.
I guess the trick is to make it as bloodless as possible and seize the opportunity to take advantage of the discontinuity. So that’s what I think about when lying in bed at night and unable to turn off my brain. Not how to reform the current system, but how to seize upon the next great turning. The thing is, I really don’t know what we should do. Is there anyone out there on our side even seriously wargaming this? I guarantee you that the enemy is already far ahead in this area.
What the Republicans need is someone who can connect with voters with words. A Bill Buckley for the Twenty First Century. Who can stand athwart the spending habits of Obama and the Dems and yell, “STOP!”
Someone who might say “Former chief of staff to Jon Corzine, Lisa Jackson, continued her crusade to impose burdensome EPA regulations on an unsuspecting public today. Corzine, the Bernie Madoff wannabe so much in the news lately, was the Chairman of MF Global and still doesn’t know where the $1.2B in customer funds has gone.”
I’ve got another idea for a new job for Putin. He should offer his services to NBC TV. He could become their Jim McKay for the Sochi Games when he is not doing political commentary on MSNBC! If he started showing up, he might turn Rachel Maddow into a lipstick lesbian, which would provoke a hissy fit from Mika, whose dad would become last century’s news. They’d have a comedy soap hour that would put Desperate Housewives to shame.
CAT FIGHT!! That ought to bring in the ratings.
BTW When does the John Edwards trial begin? We need someone new now that Blago is bound for Club Fed.
“Planet Rielle?”
Joe Biden continued his campaign to speak truth to power today, repeating his assertion that Jon Corzine was always the smartest man in any room he entered. Biden added, “You know that is true because we always excluded the Republicans by packing the room with journalists”.
good luck getting through to mike, his mind is as closed as our borders are open. despite all evidence to the contrary, he still believes in the great R in the sky.
Kudos to the posters describing the Gramscian Termite Effect. It’s the “Budweiser” effect writ to politics.
Before Prohibition, American light lager (Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Coors, etc.) was a beer style that only captured about 5% of the domestic beer market. For various reasons easily researched, by 1950 it was 80% and has hovered a few points north and south of that number since. Most beer drinkers assume that light lager is the ur-brew and is the way beer has always tasted and never question otherwise. Same with America and liberty and politics since that time.
To the posters who claim not a dime of difference, your arguments resonate anywhere from slightly to strongly in the economic realm. In terms of court appointees and foreign policy, you’re just plain wrong. Romney, for his numerous faults, will never, ever appoint a Sotomayor. That’s reason enough to NOT stay home, and to vote for him over Obama.
blah blah blah
look up the term “judas goat” sometime…then have a t-shirt made with that phrase on it.
to #56: The bifurcation of the American electorate you note is the heart of Karl Rove’s brilliant 2004 strategy to reject the traditional political campaign of winning the ‘true-believers’ at the party’s primary and then swing to the middle in order to win re-election. Rove re-wrote the book on how to get re-elected: Simply identify your base, and then energize them to show up on Election Day, ignoring the middle of the electorate because the middle is going to divide fairly equally anyway between the bifurcated “peaks” of the two bases.
From Rove’s astounding success, it appears the middle is crucial to win the initial victory to become President, but the base is crucial for the re-election.
However, what if the bi-furcation you observe is not shaped as two peaks? What if the bifurcation is actually shaped like a ‘head-and-shoulders’ pattern in stock prices, where the middle is actually the largest segment and the two bases as shoulders are smaller than the head? In such a scenario—which we believe accurately describes the steady rise of the country’s now largest political grouping, the independents—Rove’s strategy fails at re-electing an incumbent.
Mr. Obama’s re-election effort in 2012 may well be the last of the traditional type: energize the base, but swing to the middle. Rove’s opposite strategic success is likely never to be duplicated. Both methods of re-election become moot if the middle in American politics has evolved over the past twenty years to become the largest single political grouping. Both established parties currently divide the middle under their “big tent” concepts, but that strategy cannot possibly continue if a viable, centrist third party emerges in our national politics.
So, is the middle in American politics bifurcated into two peaks, as you suggest, or is it actually grown into the dominant grouping of two middles: the center-Left joining with the center-Right, abandoning the big-tent myths of the D’s and R’s? If we are monists, we ‘see’ two equal-sized peaks. If we are pluralists, we will ‘see’ a large bifurcated middle consisting of two halves having more in common with each other than with their respective ‘base’ extremes.
By our analysis of the past twelve year trends, the middle is bi-furcated. But it is not separated between two opposing halves. Instead, the middle is now bifurcated but conjoined, much like the one human brain is two halves conjoined. So, if a new third party carefully crafts a political party which is pluralist, then watch the Nash duopoly crumble into permanent minority (or oblivion), struck dumb by the impossibility of the rise of the angry bifurcated middle.
We are ripe for the Führer Principal. Obama was elected on this principal and now the electorate is unhappy with him and casting about for a new Führer.
Everybody says they want the two parties to “compromise.”
But compromise is what got us where we are today – in a huge unsolvable mess according to those who “compromise.”
To the Left, compromise is like Hitler compromising on Czechlovokia.
I voted for Romney last time in the primaries. But Romney, as competent as he is, will give us more compromise.
We need a radical – a Cain, or even a Gringrich, or even a Ron Paul to get the job done.
@L3: That’s Obama’s very speech. It’s a lie when he tells it and its a lie when you repeat it.
It ignores any real good during the Bush years. It says that the 5% unemployment we had and the booming economy we had and the greater freedom we had wasn’t really thee. yes, it was. it is simply a lie to argue otherwise.
Then it says that all the predictable harm that Obama and Co have done – the unreal suffering they have put every American but the elite Dems supporters through was the only thing that really happened during the Bush years! That the problems weere back then! and not really now.
That is two things: 1) a grotesque and gargantuan lie. You are repeating it. 2) A display of cowardice that is more stunning than the lie. Obama and the Dems are malicious children. Anyone who says even the slightest good thing about them is a predator and parasite like they are. Anyone who defends them by “blaming Bush” is on the lowest level of the pond where scum comes from.
64/DuoFreedomist – From Rove’s astounding success,
With respect, “Rove’s brilliant 2004 strategy” and “Rove’s outstanding success” was nothing of the sort. He (and Bush) almost blew the election against John Kerry but lucked-up and were saved by the courage and principled efforts of the Swiftboat Vets. (They barely squeaked by in 2000 as well.)
Rove’s vaunted political genius is largely a myth. He has the requisite poll-reading number-crunching skills of any political campaign management hack, but his utter disconnect from or lack of possession/understanding of the ideals and principles which inspire and motivate people more than negate that. His career and reputation owes more to just being lucky than to his supposed incredible political skills.
Fox News report http://tinyurl.com/7cnz53c
Panetta Says Drone Campaign Over Iran Will Continue
“President Obama said on Monday he would not comment on the situation beyond saying the U.S. has asked to Iranians to give it back. “We we will see how the Iranians respond,” he said.”
Where are the Three Valkyries!!!!
Why aren’t we before an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council demanding the return of our drone? Why isn’t Susan Rice pounding her Manolo Blahnik’s on the desk?
Doesn’t anybody remember Viktor Belenko and his MIG-25? What a bunch of wussies run this administration!
As mentioned above by several posters, the “independent” voters are the key.
The independent vote is what put Obama in office and it’s the independents who are going to kick him out in 2012. I don’t care how many “peaks” there might be.
That being said, Obama is going to his best to strike fear into the hearts of the American electorate. It’ll be fire and brimstone, defamation and dirty tricks galore.
And a whole lotta lying (but what else is new?).
It’ll be ugly. Real ugly. It’ll be one of the ugliest campaigns going. With the MSM enfilading for all they’re worth.
But know that a lot of Dem congressional candidates are going to go out of their way NOT to appear with Obama and will NOT seek his backing.
And a lot of registered Democrats are going to leave that Presidential ballot unchecked. Nope, not even a hanging chad.
File under: FWIW
We have destroyed the industrial base. Playing with tax rates isn’t going to fix it. Facing up to the Sierra club is required. Liberating a wave of hedge fund managers to resort the bits of pie isnt going to help us.
Is there anyone out there on our side even seriously wargaming this?
Dear Dworkin,
The Right cannot seriously wargame anything in our day and age, because it is intellectually bankrupt. I know that this statement will likely be met with many boos and catcalls, especially on a forum such as this one — I know this because not many years ago I would have been among those issuing the boos and catcalls. However, it now apears clear to me that conservatism in America is hopelessly confused and shallow. A muddled comprehension of Austrian economics and a sepia-toned nostalgia for the US Constitution do not add up to a strategy or a vision; and furthermore, they block any objective appraisal of reality from seeping in to where it is needed. What does the Right really want, and what is possible given the world we actually live in? Any political platform has to begin by addressing questions like these, otherwise it is nothing but a collection of catchwords. The Right has catchwords aplenty, but the substance behind them is conspicuously absent, as we can see by examining one of its most persistent demands.
Liberty. The Right is always calling for more liberty — a word which in their vocabulary seems to be used as an intransitive verb. For it appears to designate some form of activity, but the object of that verb, the from what or for what to which the liberty pertains, is frequently left unspecified. We have to probe deeper into the system before we get acquainted with the precious object of liberty, but then the answer raises more problems than it solves.
The Left offers plenty of liberty of its own, mind you. A good Leftist leaves himself free for any sort of sexual experience or expression. He is free to abort unwanted babies or to “death panel” unwanted old people. He is sweepingly unconcerned with any kind of history or tradition. Leftist protesters are free from the rule of law, just as Leftist artists are free from the canons of taste and Leftist intellectuals from the demands of reason. The Leftist religion, too, is quite untroubled by the meddlesome interference of God. O what blessed liberty exists on the Left!
I take it this is not the kind of liberty the Right is talking about, for no self-respecting conservative ought to desire any of that horse manure. In the realms of law and morality at least, even for the freedom-loving Right, permissible modes of behavior must be retricted to what is truly praiseworthy. And that sounds more in keeping with conservatism, does it not? After all, aren’t conservatives supposed by the people of virtue, the people of law and order, of uprightness in behavior and clarity in thought? So it seems, or so the Rightists themselves will continuously tell us. But virtue is always the narrowest of paths, the straightest of ways, of all walks of life the most difficult, most demanding, most rigorously circumscribed, the least tolerant of error or deviation, and the one having the least in common with what is ordinarily meant by ‘liberty.’
So if we agree that liberty is too dangerous to be apllied willy-nilly to the really important stuff, then perhaps it pertains only to the non-essentials of expressivity, those little quirks of personality which color life through and through with the beauty of all that is individual and accidental. If this were so, then we ought to reserve our severest unbrage for things like Homeowner Associations, company dress policies, and the mass marketing of standardized merchandise. There are people in the world — some of them ostensibly intellectual; the names Naomi Wolfe and James Howard Kunstler spring to mind — who do in fact rail against such things. None of them whom I know of are particularly eager to self-identify as card-carrying members of the Right. In fact, they accuse the Right of being the very enforcers of this stifling uniformity, an army of squares occupying a hive-like Levittown Leviathan which receives its marching orders from Joel Osteen, Rush Limbaugh, and the Wednesday Walmart mailer. I am no great fan of suburbia myself, nor of mainstream conservatives; however, I do not blend the two of them together into one homogenized effluent to be quickly flushed down the drain. The Left, by way of the SWPL crowd, is just as susceptible to the charge of being suburbia’s overlord as the Right is, and therefore I do not think the accusation is fair. I do find it ironic, though, that suburbia has become something so universally despised that both Left and Right are disposed to join each other in a rousing chorus of “I am not Spartacus” whenever the suject is brought up, and yet everybody still wants to live there. This tells me that the prejudice against suburbia is essentially a creature of the Left. It is the corollary of Affirmative Action, multiculturalism, and political correctness: If non-whites and ethnic ghettoes are to be made “cool,” then whites and their habitations must be made “un-cool.” Exhorting others to “express their individuality” (by which the exhorters principally mean “reject civil society”) has by now become the standard method of baptizing new generations of young people into the Leftist program. When the Right takes up the banner of individuality, it accomplishes little more than shooting itself in the foot. What we see here is a classic example of the Left up to its old tricks, i.e. winning support for its loathsome agenda through the techniques of social psychology (rebranding the Revolution as fashionable and cool), while the Right is engaged in its perpetual and pathetic display of running after the bandwagon with its stupid propeller-hat on, crying “Me too! Me too! Me Too!”
Therefore, it is very counterpruductive for the Right to conceive of its ideal of liberty in terms of “freedom of expression.” The Left will always outplay us if we try that tactic. Another instance of the same problem can be seen in the recent GOP debates. Mitt Romney accusses Newt Gingrich of being a career politician, and Newt responds to him by saying “You would have been a career politician too Mitt, only you lost.” In both their quips there is the implicit assumption that career politicians are horrible, deplorable creatures. A clearer example of the Right’s intellectual bankruptcy could not be asked for. Politics is a high and noble calling, and being a career politician is nothing to apologize about if you’ve performed your job well. Yet there is something in contemporary conservatism which rejects the very notion of politics out of hand. The Right is chasing the concomitants of coolness like a wannabe. “I’m an outsider, I’m an individualist,” is the shibboleth that plays to the Republican base. I have never understood why political naivete is supposed to be a qualification for political office, any more than I understand why, in order to serve on a jury, you must sufficiently demonstrate to both attorneys and the judge thay you know little about law and absolutely nothing about the facts of the case.
In any event, we can always look to what successful conservatives have actually done as a good guide for what they ought to do, using the anectdotes of history as an heuristic for political calculation. And nowhere does it appear that freedom of expression was ever very high on the conservatives’ to-do list. We do not find the God-fearing peasants of Vandee standing up for their self-evidently true and manifest right to paint their houses hot pink if they damn well pleased, nor did they take up arms against the evil tyranny that declared “Vee vill have no pastic flamingos in zee yard.”
So what meaning remains to be attributed to the Right’s precious liberty? The final non-negotiable at last appears: it is economic liberty, the liberty of money-making. Here we run into what is perhaps the greatest thicket of misperceptions and outright lies that has ever grown up among the dwellings of men. Economic theory is a vast topic and is much too cumbersome to address in a mere blog comment, but we can say a word or two about mainstream conservatives’ current understanding of the concept, and how unhelpful it is.
When today’s typical conservative says he wants more economic liberty, what does he actually mean? He can already purchase everything he will ever need and most of what he will ever want. He is free to start a business, to own real estate, to buy shares in joint-stock companies, to own commodities and derivatives, to borrow from banks, to have a revolving line of credit issued in his name, and to finance his consumption through any number of venues. He can run up huge, unpayable bills and never fear the debtors’ prison, for today we handle such situations through the bankruptcy courts. Whatever else he means, he certainly cannot say that his field of economic activity is restricted.
Ah, but there is too much regulation, he says. “It’s no longer profitable to start a business. There are taxes, fees, licenses, codes, bureaucratic red tape; there are stipulations attached to who you can hire, and how much you have to pay them, and whether or not you can fire them; certain potentially lucrative areas are simply declared off limits; special interests and big corporations have politicians in their back pockets; there is a political spoils system which seems to reward everyone except the white middle class; and furthermore, I have to pay for the existence of the social strictures which do me no good, and actively seek to undermine me.”
My friend, I am entirely sympathetic to your plight. However, I need you to realize that most of what you’re talking about has nothing to do with economic liberty per se. You seem to be asserting that you are a member of an oppressed class. If that is true, then you must go in search of your freedom through the crucible of naked power politics — there you will find your answer. Seek it in nationalism, class interest, race interest (words currently anathema on the Right), but do not expect it to come as a handout from your oppressors. And as for the rest of it, remember that the producer’s lot in life is always to be fending off the swarms of flies and jackals who seek to help themselves to the fruits of your labor. Hesiod’s Works and Days is in part a lament on this very problem, and things haven’t really changed that much in 2700 years.
If you are to find any sort of justification in the struggle, if you are to believe that all the sacrifice and anxiety are still worth it at the end of the day, then you must insist upon a very different kind of “liberty.” The freedom that you seek, freedom in the only meaningful sense of the word, is the freedom to rout your enemies, to beat back the attempts that are being made on your livelihood and dignity. For that to happen, you have to be in charge, you have to be the man “who decides.” And to be in charge means that you must seize the scepter of power.
So as for wargaming (if you’ll pardon the long explanatory matter), I would say this. It is time to prepare for a new nationalism. It is time to hold up the white middle class, and those capable of sharing its worldview, as the natural heirs to a world empire. The first practical step to be taken in this direction will be closing the southern border. This will naturally involve a redefinition of American citizenship. Needless to say, birthright citizenship must be ended and the “rule of blood” set up as the new standard. Blood-citizens of America will have access to social welfare systems and the legal redress of grievances; others not. The next step will be to eradicate political correctness from workplace ethics and educational standards. It is easier than it sounds; the right president could do this with the stroke of a pen, simply by refusing to enforce Affirmative Action protocols. The third step will be to replace the US Constitution and our current system of a government of divided powers, with an Emperor and a Diet. Perhaps the governors of the 50 states could serve as the 50 Imperial Electors, but it is not important to worry about the form right now. The essential thing is to re-conceive of what American power is all about. The role of the US Government in the 21st century is not to defend the “Rights of Man” or other such ideological nonsense, but to defend civilization against third-world barbarism and anarchy. This ought to be obvious by now, but the libertarian dreams of the Right prevent most of them from making the connection. All powers not essential to the fundamental military role of the Imperial government will be devolved to the state and local level. The Right will end up getting everything it wants anyway, so it really has nothing to complain about. But the Right will have to accept the fact that imperium is the only practical means of securing what it wants — a concept hitherto foreign to its entire way of thinking.
As others have noted, the hate everyone’s representative except your own viewpoint has been around for a while. Incumbents tend to get re-elected because they do appeal to local interests and needs while also having the means to protect their positions through access to money, media and often gerrymandering to keep their core voting blocs intact.
I think the numbers around voter party ID show a considerable swing toward Repubicans, a swing that has strengthened since the 2010 elections. That doesn’t mean that voters think that Republicans can or will solve ALL of the problems, just that they think they are less of the problem than the Democrats.
Similarly, the type of election we are having for the Republican Primary shows me that Republican voters are looking for a guy who can go to war with the Democrats and the media this time around. If it was business as usual, maybe Pawlenty is still in the race. Instead, Gingrich is at the top of the polls. Why? He can go out and battle the media on their turf and doesn’t have to carefully script a written message when they challenge him. This election is going to be a war of attrition (a “Verdun” of elections, in some ways), and a get along candidate won’t be able to match the fury that will be coming from the left.
Romney and even Perry also have advantages in that kind of battle. In the end, though, this election has to sweep both houses of congress with the right candidates in order for any change to happen. I’ve likened the Republican presidential race as the “Trent Dilfer” of politics situation. If we take care of business in the House, Senate and state level elections, any of the Republican Presidents will work out fine, IMO.
“His career and reputation owes more to just being lucky than to his supposed incredible political skills.”
Truth, although in fairness it must be pointed out that Karl worked for his luck and was alert enough to take advantage of it.
Mike M., you still don’t get it. Yes, Unemployment was 5% on the average during the Bush II years. That doesn’t excuse the fact that the only people making money were Bush cronies.
The working stiff had a job that barely let ends meet. You must be a Bush crony.
As far as the underlying problem of America, it is too much spending! Everything else is secondary. That spending accelerated under BushII as he poured taxpayer dollars into the tough for his cronies. Obama just doubled down. Quintupled might be more accurate. Both parties have the spending disease. That is what makes them the same.
If the establishment were to get their spending habit under control, then the minor differences you seem fascinated with might matter.
You are looking at identical twins, one parts his hair on the left, the other on the right. You are claiming they are different. I’m saying they both need a haircut.
How about a Trump/Palin ticket in 2012? A “Renew America” party?
The duo’d break the Left’s neck-hold on media and hollywood by drawing eyeballs hungry for new, upstart idea-merchants, make problems for the Obama/Clinton ticket’s transnational socialist agenda by striking at their foreign aid subsidies to our overseas antagonists, and they’d attract centrist Americans of all stripes into a broader-based “don’t tread on me” coalition.
Cool thing is, even if they don’t win, their combined efforts on the national stage will swing the national debate back to America’s core interests, individual autonomy and our nation’s constitution. They’d sure stir things up a bit.
“sepia-toned nostalgia for the US Constitution do not add up to a strategy or a vision”
Matt, that sentence shows you are still channeling Clinton or maybe;
“I address myself to the Communists, to those Communists who were prompted to join the Party by the progressive ideas of mankind and socialism, and not by selfish personal interests – let us represent our pure and just ideas by pure and just means.”
Janos Kadar
The Constitution is both a vision and a strategic framework. If Bush had told the UN and Department of State to pound sand and installed the US Constitution in IRAQ, Iraq would be a much better place today and would not be facing civil war.
The only people offended by the Constitution are those who resent it’s check on their grab for power.
The Conservative movement ( NOT the republican party) Has purpose, direction, goals and a plan. You just are not aware of them. That is because you are not a conservative. If you were, we wouldn’t be having this dialogue.
As far as the Republican Party, you are essentially correct. That is a good thing. The incompetance of the RNC will allow the formation of a viable 3rd party. Starting with the Tea Party Cacaus, we can expand our Congressional presence until there are enough votes to play off the (D)’s against the (R)’s. If done right a solid voting block will crate room for a Presidential campaign.
Third party attempts have fallen short because they were ego driven efforts to produce a “king”. POTUS is limited in power. He can do nothing without Congress.
So any serious 3rd party MUST start with Congress. The nucleus is there right now.
Stoichen,
You are talking utter nonsense. I mean really. Every one I know was making money. Every one in America was making money. There were jobs every where. We got Iphones in every pocket. We got so much it was impossible to use all we had. Maybe things were too good.
This revisionist history is beyond wrong – it is devious. It’s sole intention is an argument to re-elect the tyrant Democrats. It’s second intention is to provide an excuse for the most irresponsible and ungrateful people in THE HISTORY OF AMERICA – being anyone who voted for a Democrat from 2006 on, and especially for all the Obama voters. Voting for Obama was almost criminal. Voting for him again would be an unforgivable act against Americans.
That’s all we really need to know. You want more of this??? Vote Dem. You want something decent? Vote for Bristol Palin over Obama. Anyone would be better than him.
Mike M. @67,
I won’t address your accusations that I’m a liar, a coward, and pond scum. The folks here at the Belmont Club can decide on their own whether they find those accusations credible.
Your argument appears to be that if I am critical of the Republican Party or President Bush, I am therefore a supporter of the Democratic Party and President Obama. Again, to anyone who has been at the BC for any length of time will tell you, I am highly critical of both Democrats and the President. Also, I’ve never said President Bush didn’t do good things; he did.
You see the fight as between good Republicans and evil Democrats over whose policies will be enacted. I see the fight as between the citizens and all of their elected representatives over who is sovereign. These are two very different viewpoints, so it’s not surprising that our approaches are different.
Of course, it’s possible that one (or both) of us are wrong. But your professed position is very difficult to sustain. We’ve been on a 100 year path toward a centralized statism that is anathema to the American people. The last 40 years has seen an acceleration of that trend. Both Republicans and Democrats are responsible, and must be held accountable. You may not like to hear that, but facts are facts.
So, we will have to agree to disagree. But I do wish you well, and hope you’ll have a very Merry Christmas season.
Cheers,
L3
That’s not my argument at all. That’s more of the same pretend argument.
Whatever the people here at Belmont Club say about you is not my concern. A lie is a lie no matter what they think.
Let’s review: The “argument” (it’s actually a fallacy – tu quuque, look it up) is that both “Bush/Republicans/Politicians/WallStreetFatCats and Bankers” and Democrats are the same; that there is really no difference from one to the other, that voting Dem and voting R are basically the same horrible thing.
That’s a lie. Period. I don’t care who says it or where they say it. It’s a lie.
It would only not be a lie if the person who said it was stupid enough not to know, and not to know how stupid and gullible they were., in which case they should be quiet before they spout the bs they are fed by the likes of the people who perpetuate that lie.
75. steveaz
Can’t agree with a Trump/Palin ticket. Palin didn’t get into the race this year and it was probably a good move. She could have been a candidate to help bring us back to constitutional conservatism, and probably the only one who really believes that is the right answer in her heart.
I don’t believe that Trump really believes those things. Really, there is a lot in his past to indicate that crony capitalism is a bit too ingrained in the guy.
But, I think the people we have in the race can run and win and provided we do our job in the rest of the races they’ll be fine as President. We can’t afford split government this time around. Tea party candidates have to become the dominant center of the Republican party and have to control the House, Senate and a sufficient number of state governments.
I’m afraid the writing is on the wall. Anyone who advocates leaving the GOP so another 4 years of Obama will create a Phoenix like new party to usher us into the new golden age is out of their mind. We will be done as a world power if Obama remains as Commander in Chief, instead of making even a mildly sane attempt at staving off financial ruin, he’ll redouble his efforts to drive the car off the cliff. A couple of Supreme Court nominees will crush the first and second amendments among other radical notions. This election is the last shot for the United States. The Republicans could run Elmer Fudd and it would be a better option than this fool. I’d like Palin and Allen West, but that ain’t happening.
The House Committee on Oversight under Chairman Issa just completed a hearing regarding the actions of the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the letter his 4 co-comissioners wrote to the President’s chief of staff William Daley.
As a public service, I present some useful links.
http://tinyurl.com/7dewvzt
http://tinyurl.com/7xo7ke8
http://tinyurl.com/7l9d95g
http://tinyurl.com/6ogf8rg
Greg “Chicken Little” Jaczko got an earful!!!
Mike M. @79,
You illustrate perfectly the reason political discussions are so unappealing to many people. Why the uncivil tone? It’s unnecessary to make your point.
You raise a straw man (for the record, I’ve never claimed Republicans and Democrats are the “same” or that there’s “really no difference one to the other” – there are very big differences on a number of issues, like abortion and international relations, which are important), tear it down by calling it a “lie” (which it might be if I’d actually ever said it), and then flame off by accusing anyone who doesn’t agree with you as being a liar or stupid (adding these to the previous accusation of cowardice, which is pretty rich coming from a guy posting under a pseudonym aimed at a guy who posts under his real name). This is “pounding the table,” not “pounding the facts.”
I agree with you that the two parties are not the same. My argument is that they’re both driving us off a cliff, one at 60mph and the other at 100mph. And they’re in a race, they like driving their cool car, and they’re focusing on each other rather than the oncoming disaster.
The crisis we face is a concentration of power in Washington DC. The driver of that concentration of power is incumbent control of Congressional elections. Incumbents of both parties work to protect themselves and their fellow members against real electoral competition, and that is a perversion of our democratic republic. It’s not a position that either claims total equivalence between the parties or total purity of either. It’s based upon facts. Republicans protect their incumbents just as aggressively as Democrats. Inconvenient, perhaps, but true.
One final thought for your consideration. You are a Republican. You want Republicans to be given power. To do that, you will need allies. Your approach to winning allies – attacking them vs. their actual arguments – is likely to be counterproductive, so you’re actually undermining your own objective. FWIW.
Anyway, all the best.
Cheers,
L3
PS – it’s spelled tu quoque
63 cjm
Said the arrogant fool would see all of his neighbors lose their business and homes and churches and become impoverished and fall into ruin in order to score some ideological points and say ” I told you so”.
I’m quite familiar with the phrase “judas goat”, boy, and I don’t need patronizing and condescension from your imaginary superior intellect to understand it’s meaning. The phrase is infinitely more applicable to those who would simply not show up and allow O’s reelection, with the concomitant two more SCOTUS nominations and complete destruction of the US and in all likelihood the West should that occur. The camps that would follow, with your friends and family crowded in and tortured and killed, qualify perfectly as the slaughterhouses implied by “judas goat”.
Matt-
It is fairly clear at this point that you have no idea of how businesses run or how the wealth necessary to run a society is generated, at least not from personal experience, or how regulatory overreach has a powerful negative multiplier effect on the economic health of nations That’s fine as far as it goes, most people don’t, more so most people your age. Suffice it to say that your contempt for those
of us who work and produce and are entrepreneurs exactly matches that of the left, whatever (highly) laudable ideas or notions you have about social and moral conservatism.
Empires only work for the connected, which it is clear you imagine yourself to be one of in that future timeline. My Catholicism would make me connected, too. I’m not sure I could enjoy it or sleep at night knowing that even someone as minimally different from me as an Episcopalian would be subject to persecution and second class status. You seem to set up a false choice between having some type of Christian love and tolerance (not the current leftist perversion of the word but the true Christian meaning based upon humility and an understanding of orginal sin) and having to have to wipe out and disenfranchise everyone with who you have the slightest disagreement. I’m guessing Jesus would have had trouble with that sort of thing.
Tell me, what happens to Jews and Amish and Buddhists and animists in your empire? Death, or dimmi status?
To all:
This business of waiting for it all to collapse, waiting for another term for O to really “fire up” an ideologically pure conservatism, etc., would have resonated much more in another age. On a visceral level I also feel the appeal. But they are literally deadly notions now. Why? Simple answer. Technology. Look at recent threads about drones. Look at surveillance technology. if the left gets a true stranglehold on the nuclear arsenals of the West it either ends with all of us dead or with a boot smashing into the face of humanity forever. Trangbang has the truth of it. The technology to create a thousand year Reich really does now exist. If we have to back away slowly rather than quickly, it’s still better than just handing over the reins to the Prairie Fire types by not showing up to vote. And that really, truly is what we are facing. Fantasies about being the one to survive the Mad Max era are just that, fantasies. You won’t.
So I’m guessing we’ve given up on the 4-post rule, right? I figured exemptions might be granted for involved discussions between very well-informed individuals with a lot of specialized knowledge. I didn’t expect to see it abandoned for the benefit of people with lots of slanderous accusations to throw around – repeatedly calling a person a “liar” is pretty much an attempt to terminate discussion, not advance it, which is why we don’t allow it in Parliamentary debate.
pb@18: “Ron Paul raises the right domestic issues and speaks plainly on economics but he is more of an ideologue than Obama and would be even more disastrous on foreign policy.”
I’m not so sure he’d be a disaster in foreign policy. We have what, 150 or 200 foreign military bases? Why? Seems like we could cut that number to a half or a quarter of what it is and still have plenty to supply fighting forces pretty much anywhere.
We could probably use a little less foreign intervention and a little more introspection (“isolationism” to those who disdain the idea of leaving others alone). That won’t happen with a traditional Repub in the oval office, and to judge by the vicious actions of Obama a Dem isn’t any better.
I think we should support our traditional allies (basically the anglosphere plus Israel, Poland and a couple select others) and otherwise just focus on our financial/fiscall mess until we have it sorted out and are on a sustainable trajectory. Until then, we really have no business telling other countries how to run their affairs…or am I missing something? I know if I was a Euro I’d resent Obama (a man whose budget was shot down 97-0 in the branch of congress controlled by his own party) telling me I was spending too much (even if it was true).
I’m slowly coming around to the Ron Paul brigades. He can’t possibly be worse than any of the other candidates (R or D), can he?
That said, if it’s not Paul then it’s gotta be Gingrich if only for the entertainment value. The guy has big brass ones and skin of kevlar. He’d make things….INTERESTING. And the Russians, Chinese and others would at least respect him. I see no signs of international respect just lately.
the reading skills of some here are to be pitied. maybe i missed the post where someone was advocating the total collapse of society, so that a new order may arise — but to my knowledge no one here has said anything remotely like that. what has been said, by myself and others, is that the GOP is not going to be the vehicle for preventing any collapse that may be on the way. my guess is we have a couple of very angry individuals here, that are desperately looking for something to hang onto, as a way of assuaging their fears for the future. good luck with that.
that they can not see how perfectly they prove the points i have been making, about the lack of truly free thinking individuals there are in our society, is almost enough to make me laugh at the whole sad spectacle. almost. just keep them away from my brain, they have that hungry zombie look in their eyes.
Mike M,
I regret that I have to ban you from the comments.
abell @ 56: “Instead, the winner must heighten their own peak by drawing those who may not have voted for them at all.”
Close! Look at the number of actual votes cast for presidential candidates since Watergate. The votes for the D have grown steadily from election to election at about the rate of population growth. The votes for the R have fluctuated wildly. The LameStream Media hide this by talking about percentages and “swings” and Soccer Moms and NASCAR Dads. But the figures suggest something else.
Presidential elections are decided by the Contingent Voters — who vote for the R, or Perot, or don’t vote at all. When Perot ran the second time, the number of people who voted for him dropped from approx 20 million to 10 million. But the 10 million who did not vote for Perot the second time did not vote for Bob Dole instead — they simply did not vote for any presidential candidate.
The key to presidential elections is whether the Rs nominate somone who can appeal to the Contingent Voters. The Contingent Voters are not moderates; they never vote for the D, nor will they vote for a Big Government insider R.
Based on the above, Romney would lose a General Election. Newt is questionable. Sarah Palin or Cain would be shoo-ins. Which is why the D media destroyed them.
Side comment: a hat tip to L3 @83 – the man has class. L3 for President?
Matt @ 72 confuses the “Right” of our Founding Fathers (same as the Tea Party “Right”) with the totalitarian Fascist “Right” of Europe – he advocates an authoritarian or totalitarian “Right” which is no different from the Euro-Fascist Left. Matt believes in a perverted definition of Liberty where some men may do as they please with other men via the power of tyrannical government: “The freedom that you seek, freedom in the only meaningful sense of the word, is the freedom to rout your enemies…”
Benito Mussolini agreed with Matt.
“And if liberty is to be attributable of the real man and not of the scarecrow invented by the individualistic Liberalism, then Fascism is for liberty. It is the only kind of liberty that is serious – the liberty of the State.” Benito Mussolini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini
Abraham Lincoln said otherwise.
“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” Abraham Lincoln
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1067
Liberty as defined by our Founding Fathers was not the same as “Liberty” defined by European Socialist Philosophers, Dictators and Matt.
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” Thomas Jefferson
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/law508/JeffersonRights.htm
Liberty is not wrongful freedom to “rout your enemies” via the power of unjust or tyrannical law as claimed by Matt and Mussolini; liberty is domination of government by the equal rights of individuals as stated by Thomas Jefferson. Wrongful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will with no limits, or within limits drawn around us by the unequal (inferior) rights of others who need to be “routed.” Tyranny (from the point of view of the tyrant) is unobstructed action according to the tyrant’s will with no limits, or within limits drawn around the tyrant by the unequal (inferior) rights of others; i.e.: the tyrant possesses wrongful liberty to “rout” his domestic enemies. Tyranny (from the point of view of a serf) is obstructed action according to someone else’s will (the tyrant’s will) within limits drawn around us by the unequal (superior) rights of others (superior rights of the tyrant and his favorites).
Envision 1,000 people moving about three-dimensionally in the Superdome – each person naturally different from every other – each a unique individual – yet each naturally surrounded by an equally protective bubble – each individual equally protected in their life and labored-for property. Under equal rights each individual possesses maximum freedom of activity – each individual has maximum human liberty – maximum “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” As soon as any group of individuals unjustly possess superior rights they become surrounded by larger protective bubbles which, out of geometric necessity, unjustly reduces in like measure the freedom of activity – the liberty – of everyone else. Imagine a King or Prince, or the Marxist Pigs of Animal Farm, or Matt and the Fascist Left – those surrounded by bubbles tens or hundreds or thousands of times larger than that of everyone else – the rest of us restricted within limits drawn around us by the superior rights of others.
By re-defining the Fascist Left as Right, and by re-defining tyranny as Liberty, Matt, like Mussolini, is an advocate of tyranny in the guise of Liberty.
duplicate post, self delted by re-editing
Dworkin@58: “I guess the trick is to make it as bloodless as possible and seize the opportunity to take advantage of the discontinuity. So that’s what I think about when lying in bed at night and unable to turn off my brain. Not how to reform the current system, but how to seize upon the next great turning. The thing is, I really don’t know what we should do. Is there anyone out there on our side even seriously wargaming this? I guarantee you that the enemy is already far ahead in this area.”
I agree as far as making things as bloodless as possible, and I’ve felt the despair you’re trying to deal with. I disagree that “the enemy” is so far ahead in wargaming the endgame.
The problem is that “the enemy” has insinuated itself so completely into the mainstream that they’ve successfully sidelined the people who have wargamed this thing to death and know what to do. Do not hope for “the system” to be able to deal with what is to come. For a realistic take on finance, see about 2/3 of the posts on zerohedge. For an entertaining take on what you yourself can do, read all the fiction produced by Jerry D. Young (google him). It is a sad commentary on our society that people who prepare by buying silver/gold, stash multiple years worth of food and fuel and other consumables, and otherwise have their heads out of the sand are denigrated sneeringly as “survivalists” and “racists” and other misleading and derogatory terms.
I’m not nearly so prepared as I would like to be…an extended period of unemployment last year made that very difficult, and I still have a house I can’t unload. But once that house sells (hopefully this next spring) I’m going into all-out survival mode. Because I fear that either the electorate is going to suicidally re-elect the teleprompter-in-chief or they will elect a Republican that will tell us wonderful things during the campaign and then be no different than O while in office. MAYBE Ron Paul would rein in the spending…but only maybe. The rest are suspect at best.
Matt@72. Excellent post but I suspect it is over the heads of those still clinging to the Proposition Nation and Homo Economicus.
Storm-Rider: Benito Mussolini agreed with Matt…Abraham Lincoln said otherwise.
Lincoln routed those he considered to be the enemy. He did not do it with nice words.
Lincoln routed the enemies of human liberty (slave-owners), but Matt advocates Fascism which it’s self is the enemy of human liberty. Matt bears no resemblance to Abraham Lincoln. You can read more about Matt’s favorable opinion regarding the so-called “divine right of kings” which is a form of Fascism – government control of the economy – read his comments in the link below.
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/12/02/the-most-important-phrase-of-the-20th-century/
I’m all for routing our Marxist enemies of liberty (enemies of man’s equal rights), but not via an establishment of Fascism. Matt would rout the Marxist Left via the power of a “new nationalism;” he would rout the Marxist Left with a Fascist Left.
Matt @ 72: “It is time to prepare for a new nationalism. It is time to hold up the white middle class, and those capable of sharing its worldview, as the natural heirs to a world empire.”
Oh yeah, We need a real conservative, one who won’t give it all away in a compromise. Right, that’s a joke, but it’s on us, the private sector working taxpayer. So much effort wasted.
I will tell you what, like the rest of the private sector workers I talk to on a daily basis, I’ll help fix the system, I’ll contribute 5 gallons of gas and my Zippo lighter to the cause.
All these types that have made a career of “gaming” the Government System whether inside or out, must be real worried right now. They should be.
The Moon is at 80% and waning. The crazy should be less excitable. Now my disagreements with the Secessionists and Isolationists and 3rd Party advocates are a matter of record here. Even where I might agree with a point in a debate that does not mean that I agree with either the conclusion or the method employed. This is a club, wretchard‘s club and we are his guests. We should wipe our feet and act accordingly. Maybe we should get a line of polo shirts and hats going? Sounds like money Richard.
Blast@96
Agreed on this being a club and keeping the standards of civility high. I should also clarify that my “isolationist” streak is mostly limited to military involvement. I’m all for economic and diplomatic engagement with anybody who wants to do business. But I think military engagement should be limited to those who have attacked us. And in those cases, I’m in favor of utterly destroying the enemy in as short a time as possible, and then withdrawing immediately forthwith.
With all due respect, as interesting as the discussions about the difference between bifurcated peaks and head and shoulders patterns are [and they are, really as an analysis of political trends. No sarc intended]; they do not describe the campaign situation and strategy we are facing at this very moment. By the way, I agree with #68 Tharkun in reference to Karl Rove’s supposed genius.
It is not a matter of “securing the base in the primaries, then the middle in the general”, nor of “reaching out to the center throughout”. We are in a situation where the Institutional Republican Party is actively making war on its own base in the name of preserving its power within the party, at the expense of the general election. And they consider that trade off to be worthwhile.
Regardless of arguments about the degree of how conservative the Republican base is; one has to acknowledge that they are far more conservative than independents. Further, if you are going to have a campaign, it is the conservative base that will furnish both the funds and the manpower. The Republican party cannot win without their enthusiastic support. Tepid support gives us things like the Dole and McCain debacles. With the support of the conservative base, we get elections like 2010.
Yet, despite this and perhaps because of 2010 which threatens to break a lot of highly placed rice bowls; the Institutional Republican Party is determined that Mitt Romney; who cannot get above 25% support in the Republican Party, who has never, ever in his life actually stood and fought for a conservative cause, whose internet record is full of video-ed statements openly proclaiming that he is NOT a conservative but actually a Progressive Moderate, and who is an establishment professional politician [just not a very good one, winning only one election to office in the last two decades despite constantly being a candidate] in a time when the TEA Party is the only thing keeping the Republican Party’s heart beating, is absolutely going to be the candidate to take on Obama, the media, their street thugs, and their vote fraud. It is telling that what we are hearing from the Democrats is praise for Romney and Huntsman. What we are hearing from the Institutional Republicans is nothing but attacks on “anybody but Romney”. They are doing the Democrats’ work for them. And they are leaving attacks on Obama out of the picture deliberately to concentrate on their own base.
This is a model that has not been tried before. I do not think it is a formula for success, at least for success on terms that the country needs to survive. It may be successful temporarily for the Institutionals, under the Cthulu Principle that useful toadies get eaten last.
The Institutionals know, or at least should know by now, that collaboration with the enemy hurts them. Contributions through the party mechanisms are plummeting. Getting volunteers is getting to be dicey.
Here in my county [traditionally a very Republican county], finding volunteers to staff the Republican HQ is problematical. We have a number of small town parades through the year. There are separate TEA Party and Republican Party entries. We average maybe 40 people with the TEA Party float, including riders, color guard, walkers, and motorcycle escorts [Sons of Liberty Riders]. The Republican Party float is lucky to get a half dozen people sitting on hay bales on a small flatbed trailer being pulled by a pickup.
Our color guard is an advance group with Gadsden flags, First Navy Jack, and Washington Cruisers [Liberty Tree]. There is a LARGE US colors on the float behind us. When we approach people stand for our color guard, remove their hats and cheer. The Republican Party float gets at best polite applause.
With the mood of the base like this, micturating on them throughout the primary is going to be counterproductive for any electoral victory.
Forcing the nomination of Romney is electoral suicide in the general election, and the Institutionals know it. And they willingly accept it as the price of maintaining business as usual.
There are not going to be enough of the base that is going to rally to a Romney candidacy to defeat the threats, bribery, vote fraud, and blatant cheating. That is just fact. You are going to lose a significant number at a time when you are going to need all hands on deck; and even then it would be a near run thing. Being “more moderate than thou” has NEVER worked as a campaign strategy. Romney is a squish in the primary and will run to the Left in the general.
If the Institutional Republican Party is intent on committing suicide, it does mean that the presidential election is lost along with many down ticket races. Nothing that the base can do will prevent it. And as many have said, this is the last chance, the very last chance to Restore America electorally and hope to avoid passing through a very non-electoral fire.
And if that is the situation, it is not unreasonable to be considering what different political alignments will survive the fire and hopefully aid in the rebuilding.
#62 no mo uro
In terms of court appointees and foreign policy, you’re just plain wrong. Romney, for his numerous faults, will never, ever appoint a Sotomayor.
In all seriousness, with no snark at all, can you point to one example anywhere in his political life where he has actually stood up to the Left and said “NO”? Because on foreign policy and courts, he will be under constant fire from the Enemy to do things the way that they want. His history is to go with that and ignore his own side. Absent any history otherwise, I and others have to assume that the very best we could hope for in court appointments would be a succession of Souters, with an occasional Sotomayor. He does not have enough credibility in his political history to take his actions on faith.
Conservatives at this point are not looking for or expecting either purity or some magical candidate. What we are looking for is someone who is at least going to actively try to work for our side. Promises that this time he really is a conservative [in defiance of his entire life history] and the support of the Vichy Republicans just ain’t gonna cut it.
In 2008, he was a desperate, last ditch alternative to McCain. This is a measure of how disgusted people were with “reach across the aisle, blame Republicans first” McCain, who considered becoming Kerry’s VP candidate being forced on us by the same people who are now pushing Romney. It does not mean that there was any great love or admiration for Romney. And even with that boost, as the anti-McCain, he had several of his important body parts handed to him, gift wrapped.
I seriously have been asking on a number of forums:
1) can anyone name an instance where Romney stood and fought for a conservative cause, being willing to be defeated if necessary, because it was the right thing to do?
2) can anyone name an issue where Romney’s first instinct was not to give the Left most of what they want as a starting position?
3) can anyone name an issue where he has not in the end capitulated to the Left?
I have yet to get an answer. If he wants to get the support of the base, he has to give them something to work with.
Subotai Bahadur
People like Peggy Noonan, as well as Anne Althouse, Chris Buckley, David Brooks, Megan McCardle, etc., drive me to distraction with their buyer’s remorse. They played significant roles in helping to carry Obama into office. Who gives a flying rat’s ass what Noonan or the others think now?
As for Noonan’s remarks about Gingrich: where the Hell was she when similar remarks about Obama might have helped prevent his election? I’ll take the “disturbing” Gingrich over the current president any day. I’ll even take Romney, frankly.
As for all these people being “disgusted:” Puh-leeze. I know the political landscape is dismal and shabby, but now is not the time for all this pessimistic kvetching. That can all be done full-bore AFTER Obama is defeated. And the business about “voters” or survey respondents prefering a divided Congress? “NOT NOW you idiots.” They can complain all they want about an all-Republican Congress and GOP president some years down the road after said GOP has restored the economy — a fairly easy task if they let the energy sector loose. This is no time to luxuriate in either alternative scenarios or propping up the dismal status quo. You heard me right: I do not agree with the simplistic notion that a resounding GOP victory is still “business as usual.” That’s crap. There are enoguh differences in the GOP approach, warts, RINOs and all, to affect the following in a big way: the economy, the composion of the court, and our place in the world. We can indulge in nuance and the need for bigger changes after the GOP has righted the ship as best they can with whatever flawed capacities they have.
As was stated up thread. The choice of POTUS is for all intents and purposes a diversion to the real need. That need was eloquently expressed by L3 and is a serious proposal which has the best interests of ALL Americans interred within it.
The real chance we have is on the local and state level (you know the level that no one cares about) yet we continue to play the game as the house wants us to. Stop and divorce yourself from the game. Concentrate on the small elections. Expand upon the education of your neighbors. You know them and they know you. Have a polite conversation, no need to upset anyone. Provide them with information and generally they will make the connections.
As for waiting for the collapse, well we as the little people may not have any say at this point. But if it does go wobbly and you aren’t prepared then shame on you my friend. Be ready to help, educate and lead if you have the skill to do so.
As a side note I am sorry MikeM. could not be mature about his position or open to the idea that he may actually be wrong. Hopefully once he calms down he will question himself and seek the answers he so desperately needs.
GOD bless all of you and have a wonderful holiday no matter your creed or religion. Be good to your children and teach them well, for they will pick the location of your golden years.
Wow! I just got away from yelling at the TV set and came here to mellow out. Been a long time since I’ve seen such ungentlemanly passion (good on you L3; you’re a rock of discipline) and true anger about “stuff.” Still, as usual, some awfully good arguments and counters. I sometimes wonder…isn’t that what Obama wants to hear is happening on discussion boards? Some of you who disparage Glenn Beck ought to actually listen to him sometime. He’s got most of the way this is evolving in his books that were written 2+ years ago. Yeah, but he cries too much and he ain’t Christian, ya know? But, even Nicodemus listened to Jesus.
Good move on Mike, Wretch, he made me realize what a piker I am at the raw snarl.
I agree with what many say about wanting to get to the Mad Max stage as somewhat suicidal. My sense however, is that we may not have a choice on Mad Max. This Max will come looking for us.