This is the all-defining statement of the discussion. Politicians will always go where the votes are. It makes no sense to rant against politicians who are simply trying to get elected -- because there is no point at all in being a politician if you are going to lose every election. You will just lead a wasted life (! that's meant to be a touch of humor, there).
The big point, that everyone ignores in their drive to "recruit" to third parties, or in their drive to "reform the G.O.P. from the inside" is that both efforts are pointless. Maybe 5% of the electorate (tops, absolute tops) is interested in limited, smaller government as defined by "libertarians" or "Constitutionalists". Why create or reform a party so that you lose every election from now until doomsday by huge margins?
As our society gets more and more urban -- and as people get packed closer and closer together (geographically), the desire for big government that inserts itself into the personal lives of the voter's neighbors is going to get greater and greater. As we live closer and closer together (physically), the desire for a big government to control your nasty neighbors (who do things you disapprove of) and take care of the human refuse squatting under your bridges and living in your urban dumpsters gets greater and greater. Extremely busy people living in urban settings want someone to call to take care of their nasty problems, because they don't have the time or means to.
That's why so many cities vote overwhelmingly socialist. And that's where most people live nowadays. Limited, small government works wonders in rural or low population settings, where life is a bit slower and time not quite so crunched -- and where the people are less stark-raving-mad. But that's not how the great majority of voters live anymore. And that's why the great majority doesn't go for limited government any longer.
The Purse-Seine
Robinson Jeffers
Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark
of the moon; daylight or moonlight
They could not tell where to spread the net,
unable to see the phosphorescence of the
shoals of fish.
They work northward from Monterey, coasting
Santa Cruz; off New Year's Point or off
Pigeon Point
The look-out man will see some lakes of milk-color
light on the sea's night-purple; he points,
and the helmsman
Turns the dark prow, the motorboat circles the
gleaming shoal and drifts out her seine-net.
They close the circle
And purse the bottom of the net, then with great
labor haul it in.
I cannot tell you
How beautiful the scene is, and a little terrible,
then, when the crowded fish
Know they are caught, and wildly beat from one wall
to the other of their closing destiny the
phosphorescent
Water to a pool of flame, each beautiful slender body
sheeted with flame, like a live rocket
A comet's tail wake of clear yellow flame; while outside
the narrowing
Floats and cordage of the net great sea-lions come up
to watch, sighing in the dark; the vast walls
of night
Stand erect to the stars.
Lately I was looking from a night mountain-top
On a wide city, the colored splendor, galaxies of light:
how could I help but recall the seine-net
Gathering the luminous fish? I cannot tell you how
beautiful the city appeared, and a little terrible.
I thought, We have geared the machines and locked all together
into inter-dependence; we have built the great cities; now
There is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable
of free survival, insulated
From the strong earth, each person in himself helpless, on all
dependent. The circle is closed, and the net
Is being hauled in. They hardly feel the cords drawing, yet
they shine already. The inevitable mass-disasters
Will not come in our time nor in our children's, but we
and our children
Must watch the net draw narrower, government take all
powers--or revolution, and the new government
Take more than all, add to kept bodies kept souls--or anarchy,
the mass-disasters.
These things are Progress;
Do you marvel our verse is troubled or frowning, while it keeps
its reason? Or it lets go, lets the mood flow
In the manner of the recent young men into mere hysteria,
splintered gleams, crackled laughter. But they are
quite wrong.
There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew
that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
Great post Scott, sad that it was ignored by all but a few.
Bush isn't the most conservative choice. But he's the most conservative choice that is actually ELECTABLE. And whose fault is that? It's not the fault of the politicians. It's the fault of the electorate.
A lot of Freepers really seem to overestimate their fellow Americans. They spend hours in this online echo chamber and they truly believe that most people share these opinions.
Don't attack Bush, he's the symptom, not the cause. Have to change the hearts and minds of the people.