Posted on 02/17/2011 5:29:26 AM PST by scottfactor
How’s it worked for you so far? Every year America is a more lefty nation. God forbid SoCons light’n up a bit and work with ECons that have been the last few years doing all the populist work.
Very well then, I'll take my contributions and my votes someplace else.
Great article that makes a great point. Conservatives are their own worst enemy. They cannot agree on any one candidate or any set of values. I am personally pessimistic about any chance of conservatives getting back into political control. They all will shoot themselvs in the foot.
Now there are two things we agree on.
Generally, I agree. But it’s a tall order and will be more difficult than when Reagan accomplished uniting all factions of the Republican Party and taking some Dems with him - given what has transpired in the last 20 or so years.
That is, corporate America no longer puts America/amercians first. The elites who govern have opened the door to millions and millions of immigrants - both legal and illegal permanently changing the face of the electorate in favor of the left. They are not required to assimilate and, in fact, are encouraged not to do so and retain their previous culture.
We need one like Reagan with that leadership and communication gift able to conquor a condescending media. So far, I don’t see a person like this on our conservative horizon...
The links I included in my column didn’t make it to this post, but here’s Mr. Gaffney’s piece, which is linked in my article: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18644.xml
That's not what he said, but I don't guess you've read his column yet.
The national defense conservatives (NEOCONS) can get us into all kinds of misadventures, with enormous price tags, and dubious purpose, but that's ok. We just have to do the best we can.
The one group that NEVER gets its way is the fiscal cons. Makes sense. Gubmint loves spending money. So they buy off the socons with morality talk, they buy off the neocons with interventionism, and the fiscal cons? They get told that as a percentage of GDP, the deficit really isn't that bad.
....or you could tell yourself “is it really so bad being in the tent with Mr. Gaffney and people who believe in God”?
After all, the alternative could be more of Imam Obama, he has a soft spot for Allah.
You can see this both ways.
Nope. People who believe in God are happy to have the votes of people who don’t. Its called natural law, the belief that even atheists and agnostics, if they are rational, and most are, must acknowledge the real boundaries of the universe as God created it. As long as we can agree on those boundaries, we are happy to work together to set public policy, because conservative public policy is, if nothing else, based on recognizing the hard limits of reality.
However, as a rule, those who believe in God also tend strongly to believe in sanctity in general, and therefore sanctity of life, and therefore inalienable human rights, out of which all major facets of conservative political thought flow, whether fiscal, social, or international relationships are involved. If an atheist prefers to use Rand or some other mechanism to arrive at those values, so be it. We see it as natural law at work and are happy to have the help.
Only we do see it as an irrational leap on the part of the atheist, for whom logically Nietzsche must be closer to the gospel than Jesus. That’s where most hardened leftists are, and that’s why we are naturally reluctant to formally welcome that belief into the “tent.” IMHO.
The Tea Party should use it’s grass roots strength to it’s advantage buy focusing it’s energy on what it does best:
Local-State Elections.
1) Retake the US senate and shoot for a sixty plus GOP advantage with DeMint as leader. This guy is born to be a Senate Majority leader.
2) Hold congress while weeding out more RINO’s
3) Strengthen gains many of the GOP dominated state assemblies. The little reported fact was just how HUGE the GOP majority has become in many states Ex Texas, Alabama.
4) Not to be pessimistic but Obama has a billion dollar war-chest and the media in his back pocket. That along with a GOP that will most likely nominate Huckabee or Romney type candidate, will keep many of the base at home. Obama will be difficult to beat.
JMO..
Good, glad to hear it.
“So if I don’t believe in God, Mr. Gaffney wants me out of the tent.”
If you feel that way you certainly are on the wrong website.
We “SoCons” are not being bought off and will not be bought off with “morality talk,” as long as babies are still dying and good people are being forced to accommodate perversity. The fact is, economic “freedom” is useless if your result is China, capitalism without freedom of conscience or freedom of worship as integration points; you still end up with a slave state. I know of no “SoCons” who actually *want* their children enslaved by debt. I didn’t vote for Bush because I thought he was or wasn’t frugal, but because he looked likely to add conservative voices to the Supreme Court, which he did. Frugality was not on my radar at that time. Now it is.
BTW, “SoCons”, “FiCons”, and “NeoCons” are largely constructs of division useful to the left, not to conservatives. They condition the user to think in terms of what makes us different, rather than what makes us alike. There is a common nexus that drives all genuinely conservative views, and we need to be dynamic in our thinking, not accepting the static little linguistic boxes the left has created for us, to control us. Life and family, fiscal responsibility, and international survival are *all* nonnegotiable, as all derive from a common root, our belief in the transcendent worth and dignity of every human life, which gives birth to the entire family of human rights, the right to breath, the right to earn, the right to seek safety, the right to live according to one’s conscience before God, and more. That’s where we will find the energy to unite against our common foe, and we should not allow ourselves to be defrauded into division over it.
Precisely.
I have no problem with people who believe in God. And I'm of the opinion that over the last two hundred years or so, nations which are majority Christian or Jewish do far better by freedom than those which are not. You are welcome to review my posting history to verify that I'm not a militant, pull-down-the-Christmas-tree atheist.
Where I draw the line is with those who suggest that because I am not a believer I cannot be a conservative, and especially with those who say that my non belief is parasitic upon a Christian polity or harmful to America. After all, what does one do with a parasite other than exterminate it?
If you don't support our founding principles (spelled out in the Declaration of Independence), get out.
There is only one way to have unalienable rights (aka the SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS). Government's only legitimate function is to "guard them". The Constitution was put in place to do just that - it is a meaningless document otherwise.
Undermining the Foundation of Our Unalienable Rights
Scipio: 'The most earth shaking event in secular world history was the creation of the United States of America. It was quite literally “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Nothing like it had ever come about. From the start she presented to the world a frightening thing, the possibility that the citizens of a nation might actually control the levers of power in a state. If she succeeded she would become a “dangerous nation” and a threat to tyranny around the world. Thus the hatred that European nations had for the new nation. None of them even believed that the US could possibly survive. It was a good thing for them that she did.
'The United States did indeed become a dangerous nationdangerous to tyrants, that is. Here is a list of nations freed by herand some of these were freed more than once: France, Germany, Norway, Finland, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Algeria, Morocco, Romania, Kosovo, Panama, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Denmark, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Montenegro, New Guinea, Indonesia, Thailand, Greece, Tunisia, Ukraine, Albania, Hungary, Belgium, Austria, Libya, Korea, Japan, Italy.
'As a comparison, take a look at some of the players upon the stage of the world who are in the news today -- China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela. How many nations have they freed? None. And why should they free any nations? They are not in the business of freedom. They are in the business of slavery.'
Bottom line -- there are really only two kinds of countries in the world: those whose asses we saved, and those whose asses we kicked. And two kinds of people: those who know it, and those who deny it for whatever crazy reason.
Saving the World, One Assoul at a Time
"...America's founders knew that man only derived his value by virtue of his relationship to the Absolute. This is a fine example of how metaphysics -- the eternal science -- is enfolded in religion. For to see -- and it is a seeing, not a mere "knowing" -- that men are endowed by their Creator with life and liberty is to affirm that life and liberty have an absolute and infinite value. They are "unalienable." Anything short of this makes our rights quite alienable indeed, meaning, among other things, that we can surrender them to liberals for cash and other valuable prizes. ..."
Dull minds make for good slaves; and a moral vacuum needs to be filled. bttt
A complete misread of the entire point. This article responds to the Grover Norquist's of the world that want 'SoCons' out of the tent (or at least to shut up). Not happening. The Reagan Coalition, the three-legged stool of authentic conservatism, is the only winning strategy to beat 0bama. Like it or not, we need each other.
The idea that SoCons aren't also rock-ribbed FiCons is rubbish. The 'social justice' Christians (think Rick Warren) are libs, not conservative.
The libs can support each other's vices ..... why can't we support each other's virtues in the same way?!
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