The Principle Conundrum

Back in 1994, I left the GOP; I was angry that they’d caved in to Clinton on the 1994 Crime Bill.  I joined the Libertarian Party.

I came back to the GOP in 1998.  It wasn’t that I didn’t agree with the Libertarians, at least in the broad outlines.  It was that the Libertarians had no chance of ever governing anything – and no idea how to effect any governance even if they did  manage to win an election.

Rock-ribbed principle is a great thing; it drives movements that move mountains.  But once that movement gets into office, those same people have to work with other people who believe very different things.

And it’s there that the hard part begins; upholding one’s princples, and meeting people who also got elected to office, to uphold very different prinicples, halfway to do the job of running a government.

The problem is, there is no way for anyone to remain absolutely pure to principle, if by that you mean “never play ball, on any level, with the opposition”.

It’s how you get all the influence of a Libertarian Party.

Gary Gross writes over at True North:

Apparently, some TEA Party organizations are slamming people like Col. Alan West for being RINOs. That’s led to Col. West defending himself on Laura Ingraham’s show this morning. Bully for him and bully for Ms. Laura for her steadfast support for Col. West. Here’s the tape of their conversation:

Go ahead and listen.

And remember – if you win you have to govern.  If you can’t govern, you won’t win again.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to ditch your principles to govern; it does mean you should bargain them at the highest price possible.

10 thoughts on “The Principle Conundrum

  1. The Tea Party needs some clear-thinking leadership or it will become a reactionary herd. Allen West is not the problem. It’s the SPENDING.

    I looked at Boehner’s sell point presentation and it has stink all over it. “Special commissions” will decide on cuts.

    “Special commissions” = partisan hacks schooled in fantasy accounting.
    The bill gives Professor O’Barry instant borrowing hikes in exchange for cuts to be named later.

    BTW: Egan-Jones has already downgraded the United States of America’s full faith and credit.

    Let me repeat: Allen West is not the problem. It’s the SPENDING.

  2. I have a bigger problem with the gov’t ruling (and not congress, but a regulatory agency) that it is illegal to purchase insurance that doesn’t offer free birth control.

  3. Total victory was not going to happen with Republican control of only one of the branches of government (and not even having control over all the Republicans). It was a beautiful fight, however, that hopefully signals a monumental shift to come. It certainly added some skid marks to the silky pants of our politcal “betters”. I think the conservatives wrested far more away from the progressives of both parties than the left expected or were willing to give.

    To criticize the conservatives for the final compromise is like condemning the Americans for finally retreatnig from Bunker (and Breed’s) Hill. Of course, if the colonists had merely retired to Sam Adams’ and lifted a few pints to celebrate their moral victory and never fought again it would be a different story. After years of skirmishing we finally had a set-piece battle against a strongly fortified enemy and the war is not over. Biden and others want to call the conservatives “terrorists”; we of course reply, “No, they’re freedom fighters.”

  4. I understand the need to compromise. I could live with incrementalism, gradually weaning the country off the public teat. But this deal doesn’t do that. This deal lets the spending go on in exchange for the promise of a committee to recommend future cuts. Was “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” really the best deal we could get? I fear we sold our principles too cheaply.

  5. nate;

    Yes, we have seen this scam before from the DemonRATs and the senior (and some might say senile) members of the GOP still continue to fall for it. They need to learn to insist on the Dims delivering first! They will never deliver their side, unless they get their asses handed to them in 2012. We can only hope now!

  6. The one big positive that has come out of this is that the arguement about spending is changing.

    This Bill has done very little if anything to reduce our debt or future deficts.

    But, through this process more people actually heard the unapologetic conservative viewpoint. Maybe for the very first time. In order to win long term we need to convince indies, libs, and even libertarians that we have the right message. We can’t convince them of that message if we are just a watered down version of Dems.

  7. changing the meme is huge as jpmn just stated above. When I read the posts of all my “tea-party” friends who are Ronulams I cringe. They’d rather have us default than pass a debt ceiling hike. And I tried that argument of saying perfect is the enemy of good enough and I was verbally bitch slapped by them.

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