Posted on 02/09/2014 12:27:24 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win,” said Chinese general Sun Tzu in his famous "The Art of War." According to General Tzu’s insight, conservatives are turning themselves into “defeated warriors.”
Prior to Barack Obama’s election as president in 2008, the United States was engaged in two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. Their purpose was to seek-out and destroy enemies of the United States. But since Obama’s election, and re-election in 2012, conservative media and politicians have chosen the strategy of defining every issue as a war rather than engaging with their political opposition.
During Obama’s first term, conservatives wrongly believed that by accusing the president of creating constant wars, they would convince voters not to re-elect him. In 2010, for instance, Townhall, a conservative opinion website, published an article “Obama’s Race War.” It said, “The next race war will come not from racist whites, but from racist blacks and Hispanics who feel empowered to act on their racism by an administration that excuses all minority misbehavior.”
As the election came closer, conservatives amped-up their war rhetoric. In May of 2012, a caller told conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Limbaugh was losing the anti-gay marriage debate. Rather than engage with the caller on the merit of the issue, Limbaugh immediately declared war. He went on to accuse Obama of leading a War on Traditional Marriage, a War on Stay-at-Home Working Mothers and a War on the Catholic Church.
In September of 2012, conservative radio host Michael Savage accused Obama of waging a War on the Middle Class. “From the day Obama became President, he has attacked the middle class. It is the middle class he has hammered,” he said. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, meanwhile, told voters in a commercial, “As president, I’ll end Obama’s War on Religion and I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.”
Perry dropped out of the race shortly thereafter. Obama was re-elected to a second term. Unfortunately, conservatives learned nothing from their loss.
In 2013, Republican Rep. Andy Bar accused President Obama of a War on Coal because the congressman opposed the EPA’s proposed regulations on greenhouse gasses. Then Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, "The Obama administration appears to be sending signals that its latest regulation is just the beginning in a new, expanded front in its war on coal.”
By continuing to employ a war-first strategy, Republicans continue to lose: A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll revealed that only 25 percent of Americans approve of Republicans in Congress; 71 percent disapprove. Democrats and the president score much higher. The poll further reveals a reason for the Republicans’ abysmal numbers: Tea party Republicans are viewed as “contributing to the unpopular partisan conflict in Washington rather than remedying it.”
Perhaps the most damaging of these wars is the Republicans’ War on Republicans. The root of this Republican civil war is the tea party’s core belief that compromise is capitulation, heresy and betrayal. As a result, according to Salon.com, “Seven of the 12 GOP senators up for reelection in 2014 are facing primary opponents, which is a record number of challenges. The far right also plans to target 25 House races, highlighting the deep divisions within the Republican Party.”
This war mentality literally shut down our government at the end of last year and it continues to thwart needed federal action on such important matters as immigration reform, infrastructure investment, education and job creation. The list goes on.
Not only is this behavior preventing essential federal legislation, it is drowning-out the voice of the majority. For example, eight in 10 Americans were opposed to the government shutdown, yet Republican congressmen disregarded their voices.
In the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., massacre of 20 children and six adults, almost nine out of 10 Americans favored immediate gun control legislation. The federal government enacted nothing. Nothing.
This War on Compromise is a break from American political history. The art of government, in fact, has traditionally been looked upon as the art of compromise.
In 1964, Democratic Sen. -- and about-to-be Vice President -- Hubert Humphrey publicly expressed his gratitude for Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen’s help in passing the Civil Rights Act, stating on "Meet the Press," “He is a man who thinks of his country before he thinks of his party.” Almost 20 years later, in 1983, Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democrats in Congress forged a compromise that saved Social Security.
As a Democrat, I miss having the Republican Party as a source of ideas for advancing our nation’s interests and solving our nation’s problems. I miss having a creative and positive negotiating partner.
Some Republicans are finally realizing that this war mentality is a losing strategy that could cost them in the 2014 elections, and prevent them from winning the White House in 2016 and beyond. A call for change recently came from an unlikely source: Glenn Beck.
Beck and Fox News parted ways in 2011. The prevailing theory for this divorce is that Beck’s opinions were too extreme, even for Fox. Astonishingly, Beck recently reappeared on Fox News and said, "I remember it [Fox] as an awful lot of fun and that I made an awful lot of mistakes, and I wish I could go back and be more uniting in my language ... I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart."
Amen.
We must come together. We must end the war rhetoric. Sun Tzu warned, “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.”
Tell that to The Little Sisters of The Poor.
Wow. Just wow. This is the first and only mention of these conflicts in the article. I guess Afghanistan and Iraq just vanished from the earth when Obama ascended to the Presidency. They are only a memory. What would Sun Tzu say?
This is the one that allegedly had an affair with Jesse Jackson Senior, right?
She is also one of the dullest knives in a drawer full of plastic tableware.
The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life or death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. …. . . for starters.
Who started this, “War on Women” crap? Wasn’t Republicans.
The 2012 election was won, for the left, because they successfully B.S.ed the country with their "War on Women" rhetoric.
Tamara Holder is a liberal. Period. She’s better than most but too often doesn’t make any sense.
With about 60,000 gun control laws of some type already on the books, does anyone think that another one would have prevented the Sandy Hook massacre? Doubt it, because they would look at the wrong cause, the gun, instead of the person (you can’t do that, thanks to the ACLU and some wacked out psychiatrists).
Obama declared war on America long before he got elected to the U.S. Senate so why should his policies once in office, change? A marxist is a marxist. Period.
The problem with the GOP leadership versus the Tea Party is that the establishment Republicans are led by a leader known as General Custer, while the Tea Party is led by Ethan Allen, Marion the Swamp Fox, John Paul Jones, and others, while awaiting their George Washington and Lafayette to appear.
You know how that ended (or don’t they teach that in history classes anymore)?
Mao fought a very prolonged and bloody war against the Nationalists, and won. Surprise, surprise. Sun-Tzu missed it by a thousand years or so.
Ho Chi Minh and his successors fought a lot of prolonged wars, and won. It was in all the papers, even the liberal ones. Guess Sun Tzu didn’t get home delivery.
Only the French don’t fight prolonged wars, at least in Europe.
Al Qaeda is now in the “long war” mode and will never get out of it. While Sun Tzu was correct on many aspects of warfare in his time, he could never have imagined what it would be like in the 21st Century.
I would like nothing better than to bleed the Democrats for years, but we haven’t got that much time today. In the 2014 elections, we knock the crap out of the Dems in the Senate. In 2016, we take back the White House, and on January 21, 2017, we indict, try, convict and jail for life, on charges of treason (high crimes and misdemeanors), Obama, Holder, Perez, Yabadabado (the Mumia defender), Axelrod, Emanuel, Pfoufle, Dunn, Sunstein, Sebelius, Carney, Rice, Hillary, and Kerry, for a start.
We put Napolitano in the happy house because she is so stupid that she had no idea what she was doing.
I’m in this fight for the long haul. Been fighting the reds since the mid-60’s and have no intention of stopping now despite Bonehead Boehner and his merry band of fools, the marxist minions of the White House and Congress, and our incompetent military PCed leaders.
Their day will come.
If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s bidding.How many generals has the USA had with such an outlook?
Fixed it for you.
“As a Democrat, I miss having the Republican Party as a source of ideas for advancing our nation’s interests and solving our nation’s problems. I miss having a creative and positive negotiating partner.”
So says the Party that rammed through Obamacare and continues to shut out the Republican voice.
The 2012 election was won, for the left, because they successfully B.S.ed the country with their "War on Women" rhetoric.
We lost the election when the Bushies put in winner take all primaries that made it more likely that a squishy moderate (e.g., McCain and Romney) would win while conservative candidates bled each other dry. Once Romney was nominated, we further lost when a huge block of conservatives stayed home, rather than vote for a squish (and in some cases, vote for a Mormom).
Clinton and Obama have these reputations for being great campaigners and candidates when in reality, we put up weak candidates. Bob Dole? Seriously?
Until conservatives figure out how to win in the back rooms of the party, the GOP will remain the stupid party.
“We lost the election when the Bushies put in winner take all primaries that made it more likely that a squishy moderate (e.g., McCain and Romney) would win while conservative candidates bled each other dry.”
You are badly misinformed.
McCain won in 2008 because he was next. He was next by campaigning and doing well against Bush in 2000. McCain won New Hampshire in 2000 and almost won South Carolina too.
So what happens ? People remember McCain from him living in Iowa, NH and SC and in 2008, they vote for him again.
So what happens in 2012 ? In 2008, people remember Romney living in Iowa, NH and SC. What happens in 2012 ? All those personal appearances pay off and they vote for him again and he ties for 1st in Iowa and wins NH and comes in 2nd in SC all because he built up a lead over everyone else who did not run in 2008.
These guys are all decent men and the more individual contact you have, the more people will like you.
If you ran in 2000, you had a huge advantage in 2008 and if you ran in 2008, you have a huge advantage in 2012.
And if you run in 2012, you will have a huge advantage in 2016.
So which establishment Republican is “next” in your mind? That is the worst way to pick a candidate.
Here’s an idea. How about nominating an articulate conservative who can win the general election?
>> The One’s War...
Aph-ganny-stan and his foolish ruse of engagement...
God Bless the Country’s troops... Release them from the idiotic RoE!
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