Posted on 02/20/2014 9:33:21 AM PST by Kaslin
People interested in liberty – be they conservative, libertarian, Republican, Tea Partiers or whatever – need to pull their heads out of where they currently are and let the sun once again shine on them before it’s too late.
The electorate is ripe for the picking and freedom is on the cusp of a comeback. But it just as easily could be lost for good if its supporters don’t reconcile, wise up and act like adults.
Progressive Democrats have a plan, as they always do. They want to expand government power and dependence. Government never has been bigger nor had so many Americans dependent on it to some degree or other. Liberty is losing, even though it is supported by a majority of Americans, because non-progressives too often act like teenagers throwing a temper tantrum rather than adults with an objective.
Progressives want a complete government takeover of health care. They have fought for it for decades. They had the chance to get it in 2009-10, but passed. They didn’t have a change of heart and suddenly decide not to inflict their failed Utopian Hell on the country. They knew it would be rejected, so, rather than push for a full takeover, they smartly settled for more incrementalism, and Obamacare was born.
Obamacare is a disaster, but it was designed to be. No one who voted for it saw it as the finish line. It’s a rest stop on the way to single-payer. Progressives are willing to accept half-measures that inch them toward their goals, then wait patiently for the next opportunity to push ahead. On the right, there’s none of that.
Impatience is understandable, but it’s also stupid and counterproductive.
The political right excels of late at petty infighting. Depending on who you talk to and what their personal issue is, non-progressives are a jumbled mess of pet issues, personal crusades and unhelpful grandstanding. The only thing missing is the only thing that matters – clearly articulated goals and a plan to achieve them.
There’s a lot of pie-in-the-sky talk about how to score a touchdown, but those plans generally require every play to be a 99-yard pass. That isn’t going to happen. Touchdowns aren’t scored on every play, even by the best teams. Getting to the end zone requires time and a series of plays – some short, some long – that together, over time, gets you to where you want to be.
Rather than work together on issues they agree on, set an agenda, establish common messages and outreach to the majority of Americans who agree but aren’t paying attention, the right’s factions fight over which issue is “most important” and how everyone who doesn’t agree is the problem in Washington. Meanwhile, all of their goals are becoming more difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. But they’re righteous, damn it, and that inflated sense of moral superiority and the money that blindly flows behind it sustains them. It’s a ship of captains arguing over the position of the stars while the boat sinks under their feet.
Progressives, on the other hand, get strategy. They win by playing the long con. They don’t spend time or resources arguing over who or what is “pure” enough. They ask: Does this advance the ball toward the goal line?
When was the last time you heard of a progressive group attacking a progressive politician? Has the Center for American Progress attacked Media Matters for anything? Vice-versa? Has any Senate Democrat attacked Harry Reid for ceding the advice-and-consent role of the Senate to the President? Of course not. Even vulnerable Senate Democrats who are facing near-impossible re-elections because they voted for Obamacare are muted in their criticisms. They’re for a progressive agenda, they see the long game and put their objectives before themselves.
On the other hand, we on the right see only tomorrow, if not just later tonight. They don’t recognize that an all-or-nothing attitude usually gets you nothing.
Why can’t they unify around a few big-picture goals to articulate and educate the public on and leave the disagreements for later? Because there’s no money, no power, no glory in that. The problem with being a movement based on the idea of rugged individualism is it’s made up of a bunch of rugged individuals…and their egos.
Progressives are winning – not because they have better ideas or the majority on their side. They’re winning because they will do anything – even lie, cheat and violate the Constitution – to obtain their goals. They put aside petty differences for the big picture.
Most Americans are uninformed, distracted and disinterested. That makes them prime picking for progressives who never let the facts stand in the way of their agenda, and who co-opt the language of liberty to fool them. Why not use it? No one else is.
Pro-liberty politicians are too interested in preaching to the choir to bother refuting progressives. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., gets this. He has spoken at Howard University, among other places, and he deserves credit. Steve Pearce, the New Mexico congressman, is no softie on immigration. But his majority-Hispanic district loves him because he takes the time to show up and be part of their community. This ought not be newsworthy.
Preaching to the choir drowns out reality. It engenders cheers from the fans and boos from the detractors. But it does not reach the great middle – the voters who decide elections. They encounter these questions only through the media, movies and pop culture. And it’s not the liberty message they hear from those sources. It’s those terms turned on their ear with a “dependence is good” mindset piled on top.
Pro-liberty politicians, pundits and activist groups need to learn to put aside their differences, at least for a while, forego the “Hail Mary” bomb and gain some yards. If they do, America will look a lot different. If they don’t, it’ll look a lot like now. Like it or not, you can’t change reality until you accept what it is.
I hate articles that don’t get to the point in 5 paragraphs.
You are 100% over the target!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do not think this article is saying, vote for those with R by their name no matter what.
It’s saying, hang together with big goals, and get to achieve them by little goals that slowly bring you forward. Like a good football game, sometimes you make the first down and sometimes you don’t.
A purist coach would only use the 99 yard pass every time. It is wise, especially knowing how the progressives abuse their media and lie consistently, to hang together on small, doable goals and inch closer to a free republic.
“Sadly, IMO, blame for the demise of the Republic should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the GOP. Not stopping evil when they have the power to do so. Unwilling to sacrifice *anything* for genuine principles.”
Yup. Dems are what they are. Evil. The GOP has had the responsibility to check that evil. Instead, they chose to be “lesser evil” with plenty of help from the voters.
Well look at the result of their lesser evil. Look at the world we now live in where the compromising reaching across the aisle capitulation gave the Dems everything they wanted.
And still there are Freepers saying we should keep it up?
Isn’t it funny that every time we start to gain traction, the voices of compromise appear on FR to disrupt us? Isn’t it funny that they powder over the past and suggest we repeat the mistakes that got us here?
Boy, one might thing we are as infiltrated as the GOP itself...
A won war means lots of cohesive strategically won small battles. We need to plan our small victories toward a Free Republic.
BUMP that!
I believe we'll be seeing more RINO supporters coming out of the woodwork writing similar pieces now that Dr. Sowell has spoken out. Dr. Sowell made it clear in his second piece that the GOP-e are not without fault but that will probably be forgotten by those jumping on the bandwagon.
If you play by the Rules, and the other guy doesn’t, you aren’t going to win.
I’ve thought for awhile that a simple direct slogan would work.
Show modern Detroit, people waiting in line for food, etc. with commentary concerning the growing welfare state and decreasing individual freedoms. End with a simple short question question.
“Wouldn’t you rather be free?”
If every one of us contributed a little, we could afford a brilliant TV AD like this. SHAKE PEOPLE UP WHILE THEY WATCH TV. let them taste a little truth. Too bad we don’t have any leaders who will get this done.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki might say otherwise. Sometimes a nuke ends a war without all the BS of small battles.
Good, YOU go ahead and sell your soul to the devil to win the game. Leave me out.
More outreach crap. The idea that Rep politicians deserve credit because they talk to minorities is nonsense. Minorities vote more than two to one for the Dems because it is in their vested interest to do so. They disproportionately use Big Government. They want more government and more services, i.e., free stuff. The message of limited government and lower taxes don't resonate with them. They also support minority business set asides and affirmative action to give them special preferences and rights over the ever dwindling non-Hispanic white majority. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under will be minorities as classified by the USG and by 2043 half of the country will be minorities.
Yes, this is a war, and lots of RINO's don't understand that. The ease which the right is divided is his main point, there ARE purists (way too many on FR) that do us no good, and we will have to figure out how to unite to rid ourselves of this stain of an administration and defeat the plans of the democrats.
We will never win with 2% of the vote, we will never win if we can't convince a majority our ideas are worthy of acting upon. If we don't start winning we WILL lose this war.
Go sit in a corner until all the hard work is done. Keep your teeth together.
Should we “hang together” in the gop/e’s support of the irs crushing the TEA Party... or hang together in support of the gop leadership trashing Conservatives and our candidates and using tactics that they REFUSE to use against obama and the rats? Should we hang together with the gop/e refusing to establish a Select Committee with real power to investigate Benghazi or all of the obama illegalities he is forcing upon America with illegal EO’s? Should we hang together with the gop/e embracing corporatists through the chamber of crony commerce?
Well said by you both.
I feel cheated. I which master Derek had just put this sentence first. Then I wouldn't have had to read the rest of his pragmatic appeasing screed.
Thanks for posting that. If there is anywhere it is needed, it is on forums like FR. Both the extreme right and left are so drunk on their purity they often lose sight of the big picture, and find themselves complaining until the next election cycle about how dumb,stupid, etc “their” loser is.
The good news is that FR is not going to affect who wins or loses, but you have to be concerned about the mental health of some of those who would substitute their narrow views for the common good.
Romney proved in the end he wasn't viable. To the contrary, he basically took Obamacare off the table as a campaign issue and attacked Republicans in the primary far harder than he attacked Obama in the general.
Try selling that nonsense somewhere else.
Well that was the biggest steaming pile of bullshit I've read today. You want to know what you would have today with mister "viable candidate" in the white house? There would have been another semiautomatic ban, only with no grandfathering or sunset, amnesty and a $10,000.00 fine for not buying health insurance. All done with a boner house, a McConnell senate and all the democrat votes they would hqve needed. I'll brook no talking down to from people too stupid to have looked at romney's words and deeds, something we call a record.
Some here wait with baited breath for guys like Rand Paul to slip into typical libertarianism so they can come running with proof that he betrays conservatism. I don’t agree with the whole libertarian package but he’s only one of many who we can work with. There is no single savior among the men in DC, its going to take many men with a range of opinions.
Look at the men who founded our nation. They were hardly unified as if of one mind. Franklin was a regular old 1700s moonbat. Jefferson was more of a libertarian of his day and Washington was a conservative with everything in between represented. They fought like cats and dogs but agreed on a general direction.
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