Posted on 12/03/2012 5:34:08 PM PST by grey_whiskers
On Saturday, I touched on some of the sources of Mitt Romney's failure on 6 November, noting his almost willful alienation of Hispanic voters and his incompetence in executing a get-out-the-vote effort, but emphasizing, above all else, his decision -- most evident in his contentless acceptance speech at the Republican convention -- to eschew an appeal to first principles, to treat Barack Obama as a decent fellow with decent principles who is merely out of his depth, and to present himself to the voters as a more competent manager.
Of necessity, in that post, I ignored aspects of the situation unfavorable to Mitt Romney's candidacy that were completely beyond the Republican nominee's control. One of the reasons that Romney was unable, despite my hopes, to do in 2012 what Reagan did in 1980 is that, in the intervening 32 years a great many of the American citizens who voted for Ronald Reagan had died and been replaced by Americans educated and morally formed in a very different fashion.
(Excerpt) Read more at ricochet.com ...
That's an ORDER.
Cheers!
Read the whole bloody thing.
That’s an ORDER.
Cheers!
Very true. People who really want fiscal conservatism will have to also accept social conservatism. You cannot have the first without the second.
My big fear with libertarians is that they are simply Liberals -- they want the socially Liberal policies first and foremost, and if they end up not getting fiscal conservatism [shrug] its no big deal to them.
On Monday morning everybody’s talking about the “incompetence” of the coach on Sunday. Where were you in October, September? The “incompetent” campaign lasted long enough to give you plenty of opportunities to point out this “incompetence”. Who’s incompetent now?
Yes. What I’ve been saying here for years. Social conservatives need to understand the market and libertarian principles. Charity involves people helping other people, it does not involve letting the government take over, because they will inevitably use human “welfare” as a means of collecting votes, and even of encouraging stupid immoral behavior, which will result in more voters trapped on their political plantation.
And libertarians need to understand the necessity of moral rules and behavior. Without religion to impart morality and encourage solid families and communities, society breaks down into chaos. One cannot say too often that there is a necessary choice: there must be either freely chosen self-discipline, or discipline imposed arbitrarily by the state—which will devolve into the Gestapo.
That’s the basic principle. Also obvious in the past several elections that the leftist press does its best to split the conservative opposition and set them against each other. Libertarians seem especially subject to this maneuver. We had enough votes to win every election since the time of Reagan, but we didn’t—because the libertarians, the financial conservatives, and the social conservatives just couldn’t agree to work together.
Now, I’m not sure. I think we still have enough conservatives to win if only they would get their heads out of the sand and join forces—but the battlefield is getting tougher and tougher. And the Democrats have continually beefed up their ability to cheat at the polls and use crazy, crooked judges to bend the law.
On August 7 Romney indicated that he would support an “audit the Fed” plank in the GOP platform.
The election was essentially over at that point. The entire machine will never allow this to happen, and thus the stars aligned to end Romney. And so it was, and it was not even close.
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The Deepest Source of Our Troubles
[Haven’t read it, yet. Would it help to look in the mirror?]
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(Nite, all.)
Bump for later review.
The ruling class decided that Zero would get his 2 (Or 3 or more) terms before 2008. That’s why McCain scuppered the election and Romney did too. They never intended to win and did everything possible to avoid it.
Mom used to say “You can’t legislate morality”. I agree.
Laws are about legislating morality, whether in the tax code, or murder, a society figures out what they consider moral, and then make it law.
Thanks for the ping and post.
From the article:
“The deepest source of our present discontents is the sexual revolution. Our abandonment of chastity as a norm has had dire political consequences.”
Michael Savage said so as well.
Working like a dog for Romney.
Where were you in January, February when I repeatedly said what would happen if the GOP was stupid enough to nominate Obama's dream opponent, the one man who was capable of losing this election AND losing seats in the Senate?
Conserve America Party File.
Good article. I agree with the author.
Yep, everyone's vote is equal, the more social liberal we become, the larger and more powerful that government becomes, and the larger that voting bloc becomes.
Social liberals don't vote for the greater good, for a distant future that won't happen until they are dead, they vote for what they can take, today, now, and the more broken and weak they become, then the greater their wants, and greed.
Shameless vanity PLUG:
Igg, Ogg, and Uggs: A Caveman's Introduction to Entitlements, or, The Tragedy of The Commoners
(Vanity) Demographics Are Not Destiny, or, It's Just How We Roll
(Vanity) Demographics Are Not Destiny, Part II: The Wages of Sin is Debt, or, The Horny of Plenty
Cheers!
There are many reasons why Mitt Romney lost in 2012. Some, as I suggested in an earlier post, were his fault. Some of them were not. One of the latter is that the demographic deck was stacked against him in a fashion that it was not stacked against Ronald Reagan in 2008. If we do not find a way to reverse the sexual revolution, we are doomed. The future of liberty is contingent on the success of the social conservatives. The libertinism that some libertarians ostentatiously embrace provides the growth in the administrative entitlements state with its impetus. If to be a libertarian is to favor political liberty, then libertarians must embrace social conservatism. If to be a libertarian is to embrace sex, drugs, and rock and roll, then libertarians are the proponents -- whether witting or not -- of the soft despotism that threatens to engulf us.
I don't think it's so soft, and it will get harder.
Given Rahe's central contention, that was an...interesting choice of words.
Cheers!
And did Mom punish you if you lied, stole, or (God forbid), diddled your sister? If so, she was “legisltating morality”.
Sorry to be crude, but the mindless slogan “you can’t legislate morality” is meaningless Beavis and Butthead drivel. You can’t force bad men to be good via laws, but you can punish bad actions (aka “immoral actions”) and make such acts socially unacceptable and thereby curbed.
As a father of someone I knew said “locks keep honest men honest”.
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