Let’s establish in advance; I’m a conservative. The state of the Republican Party today – spending enough to make the party of Tip O’Neal think they can ding us on fiscal responsibility, defending earmarks – bothers me. It bothered me in 2000, when we few, we very few, we Forbes supporters ran up against the Dubya juggernaut.
The only thing that bothers me more is the notion on the part of some conservatives that if “we” lose this election, it’ll be a good thing in the long run,
Ken Taylor at Red State tackles this lunacy:
Many Conservatives believe that allowing Democrats in the White House with a Democrat Congress will be such a disaster that the President will be a lame duck after only two years and the GOP under Conservative leadership will become the Majority in 2010 with a Conservative President to follow in 2012.
Look – I was one of the first, I think, to compare Obama with Jimmy Carter, and we all know how that turned out.
But one is a fool to put ones faith in parallels. An Obama Presidency along with a Reid/Pelosi Congress would be a disaster, to be sure – but big government is addictive, and the addicts’ votes count just as much as ours do. It took four years to expel Jimmy Carter – but the Carter years weren’t a self-contained event with an beginning, middle and end, independent of other context, Carter was in fact the last symptom of the disease of the New Deal/Fair Deal/Big Deal – forty years where government so ingrained itself into American culture that Republicans basically differed from Democrats only in cosmetics (and, to be fair, Demcrats were largely responsible and capable at defense, the Constitution and foreign policy, until 1972), a conversion so complete that it left classical conservatism so far in the wilderness it took a Ronald Reagan to move it back to center stage.
There are no Reagans in the wings. And the symptoms of that age live on; America’s cities still mainline huge government and untrammeled spending; the farm belt is structurally addicted to government intervention.
With a Democrat President like Hillary or Obama and a Congress giving them their entire Socialist agenda, the damage that it will cause in even two years may not be able to be reversed. How many government programs once legislated and funded have ever dropped of the books ? NONE. Two years of total Democrat Socialist control will add massive programs and taxes that will be near impossible to reverse even with a Conservative President and Congress.
And, almost worse than the programs themselves, the addiction that they cause.
I’m afraid that conservatives who think the nation can try a four-year experiment with aversion therapy are, ironically, way too optimistic.
Hey, if you’re going to lose anyway, why sell out your (twisted) principles? You don’t really want to vote for John McCain – the Democrats’ favorite Republican – now, do you? Stay home. Better yet, vote for Bob Barr. He’s a real wacko. You guys are sure to love him.
In any case, you know Minnesota is sure to go for Obama. And he’ll provide an object lesson in why Democrat/commie/wimp/socialist government is a failure. Why resist? Save up your energy for the next election when you have a real conservative to vote for. Heck, an Obama presidency might even be enough to trigger the Rapture and all you conservatives will be sucked up into Heaven to live with Jesus!
MItch fretted: “I’m afraid that conservatives who think the nation can try a four-year experiment with aversion therapy are, ironically, way too optimistic.”
Afraid your conservative “ideas” don’t work, eh?
Yes, even a Pelosi-Obama disaster doesn’t mean people will then vote R. One thing they will do is give all kinds of free stuff to their groups, who will then still vote for them. See teamsters as an example.
Judges, judges, judges. We are still suffering with Nixon and Carter judges. In two or for years, then can get a lot of judges into federal postions.
Well, the experiment where the GOP was in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House didn’t last too long, did it?
But really, how much more damage could anyone do than what’s been done the last few years? Instead of tackling Social Security, the GOP passed a massive increase in entitlement spending. Then there’s the expansion of the federal role in education. Don’t forget the creation of a largely redundant new federal agency, Homeland Security.
It’s been quite the party.
Afraid your conservative “ideas” don’t work, eh?
No. Merely sure that liberal “ones” won’t.
In addition to judges, I am fearful of a whole new spate of laws passed, ESPECIALLY if the tics get a filibuster proof majority.
They’ll be scrambling over each other to see who can get the most restrictive gun control laws passed.
Hello Fairness Doctrine pt2.
The giveaways and subsidies showered about will make the last 8 years of Republican spending seem like last month’s meeting of the Taxpayers’ League of MN.
You’ll get to enjoy months of waiting on miles long lists for oppressively rationed government run (and run badly) health care
Not to mention setting the SCOTUS back for another 40 years.
But I repeat myself.
Afraid your conservative “ideas” don’t work, eh?
Actually, we’re still waiting for them to be tried. Reagan was saddled with a Democrat Congress. Clinton used Executive Orders to circumvent Congress. Neither Bush has been much of a conservative.
It would be nice to give conservative “ideas” a try.
(I’m with you on the Rapture suggestion, Clownie. I’ve no doubt President Antichrist will find a spot for you in the administration. Perhaps in the Department of Tortured Logic.)
So, the pol who gave us the “gang of fourteen” is going to go against a (likely) liberal, democrat congress & send them judges who are more conservative than he is?
McCain is more like Johnson than Reagan.
It bothered me in 2000, when we few, we very few, we Forbes supporters ran up against the Dubya juggernaut.
And yet, when I confronted you re: Dubya and his corruption and cravenness, you denied it, repeatedly.
Also, Mitch, while you wax nostalgic about Carter, and the HUGE impact he had, let’s remember he was President for FOUR years, not eight, and contested with Congress. He was President just after the Oil Embargo and end of the Vietnam war. Nearly ALL of the economic challenges he faced, he neither started nor had much control over. Yet, he appointed Volker, who strangled off inflation – an act for which your hero, Ronnie, gave Volker full credit. In short, your hand-wringing over Obama, is as self-deluded as your blame for Carter. Put another way, you gave Reagan credit for the growth experienced during Clinton, by the measue you use, Carter deserves the credit for the growth during the early 80’s – credit based though it was. While I know you DON’T agree with that, the point is that if you don’t hold Reagan accountable for the morasse he inherited in 1981, which in turn was inherited by Carter, then you don’t get to hold Carter accountable either. Your ministrations not withstanding, Carter really had few impacts on the economy outside of Volker, and exagerating his impact so as to ignore and absolve Nixon, or the war, or simply OPEC (and god know’s why you’d want to absolve OPEC). Instead, even though seemingly you’re more interested in making political points by using Carter as a punching bag improperly, what you might want to do is to rationally approach Obama’s pending/potential Presidency with a fresh face – and I think you’re alluding to do doing so at least in part – Obama, totally unlike McCain (or Clinton), is actually looking to find a solution between personal responsibility and compassion, between left and right. The polarization which you love so much (and perhaps which is why you fear Obama so much), is what he abhores. To solve our problems, it will require sacrifices by all, and especially, but not only, those who have benefited almost without cost during the past 20 plus years. That said, it will also take the middle class sacrificing to some degree now, to help ensure prosperity for their posterity. Obama sees the need for those hard choices. McCain, unlike his past conduct, seems to be drinking the kool-aid of do nothing, of perpetuating the continuation of greater productivity, with prosperity landing in the hands of a very very very few. I once admired McCain, I do not any longer. You once abhored him, and now that he’s your presumptive nominee, you admire him, almost in direct conflict with the idea of fiscal and personal responsibility.
Good point, Terry. Hard to see how you wingnuts can hold up your heads if you help make John McCain president.
Holy Hannah, Peev. And you were making so much progress with the “short and to the point” thing, too. Good Lord, what happened?
I might try to provide some answers – I could say “conclusive rebuttals” and “debunquements with extreme prejudice”, but why? – later. But I have to confess, Peev, that the idea of having to first diagram that whole mess before attempting a coherent answer is…daunting?
But only after hours. Right Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley…?
Mitch observed: “Republicans basically differed from Democrats only in cosmetics”
peevish:
Paragraphs are not a new fangled invention that will fade in time, nor are they just for the top of a post. Organize your thoughts, then write. Or continue to be ignored.
angryclown:
Still, we could have had Gore, Kerry, Clinton, or Obama for president. Those are some pretty lame options. They make Bush and McCain look good in comparison, and by comparison make them both look conservative. Unfortunately, the only look conservative when you compare them to ultra liberals.
Can someone please put together a Cliff’s Notes of peevish’s posts?? I’m not gonna subject myself to whatever that was.
And Mitch, I’ve found that a stiff shot of whiskey and a encouraging thought get me through the day. That thought is that if there is anything the Carter administration taught us, it’s that this country is strong enough to survive a truly awful president.
That applies to the candidates of both parties at this point I’m afraid.