Posted on 01/17/2012 1:43:53 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
There’s been a lot of talk, maybe too much talk, about the struggle between the GOP “Establishment” and “Outsiders,” sometimes – but sometimes not – meaning the Tea Party, however defined. There are many fault lines, wheels within wheels, that divide different groups on the Right, but it’s time to clarify the core issue that has people of perfectly conservative temperament and ideology scratching their heads at their own constituents. After all, we’re conservatives: establishments are a good idea, a necessary intersection of tradition and meritocracy, giving undue weight to neither and co-opting dangerous ideas about revolution and radical change. What’s so bad about that?
The answer is a simple one: it’s almost entirely about spending. The current trajectory of American government spending is one in which spending by government in general, and by the federal government in particular, just keeps on growing as a share of the economy, further and further crowding out the space occupied by free private citizens and businesses in the private sector. Worse, much of this happens automatically, without the consent of the governed in any but the most perfunctory way: discretionary spending is designed to grow because budgets are set by using the prior year’s spending as a baseline, and entitlement and public employee benefit spending – which consume a far larger share of spending – grows by itself in the absence of any affirmative legislation to stop it. The federal government has not passed a budget in nearly 1,000 days (President Obama’s State of the Union speech will mark the 1000th), yet spending has continued to grow, and will continue to grow as far as the eye can see – a dramatic change in our country taking place on auto-pilot – unless dramatic action is taken in response to stop it. Jack’s magic beans have nothing on public spending.
And the growth of spending bleeds over into every other issue. Federal spending comes with strings attached, and those strings reduce the independence of the states and burrow the arms of the federal octopus ever further into the area of social policy. Institutions like churches, schools, and hospitals become hooked on federal money, and have to dance the federal tune. Spending gets earmarked and targeted to favored people, businesses and groups, making society less equal and government less ethical. Spending distorts energy markets, housing markets, and markets for higher education, creating bubbles and inefficiency. And that’s before we even get to the metastatic growth of federal regulation. And eventually, runaway domestic spending saps our ability to adequately fund our national defense.
There is general philosophical agreement among both Republicans and conservatives about all of this. Where the fault line lies is in exactly how far we are willing to go to do something about it. Many people who got into politics as good conservatives, and still think themselves good conservatives constrained by the limits of practical possibility, are at a loss when it comes to meaningful ways to tame Leviathan. For reasons, some good (the need to use political power to protect national security, preserve control of the courts and restrain regulatory overreach), some less so, they have thrown in the towel on the central issue of the day. That is who we speak of as the “Establishment.” Others – not always with a sense of proportion or possibility, but driven by the urgency of the cause – seek dramatic confrontations to prevent the menace of excessive spending from passing the tipping point where we can no longer save room for the private sector. They are the Outsiders, the ones challenging the system and its fundamental assumptions. The analogy of a Tea Party is an apt one: the Founding Fathers had much in common with the Tories of their day, but disagreed on a fundamental question, not of principle, but of practical politics: whether revolution was needed to protect their traditional rights as Englishmen from being eradicated by the growing encroachments of the British Crown. As it was then, the gulf between the two is the defining issue of today’s Republican Party and conservative movement.
In short, the real “Establishment” and “Outsider,” “anti-Establishment” or “Tea Party” factions are not about who is conservative or moderate, or who is inside or outside the Beltway or public office, or who has fancy degrees or a large readership/listenership or attends the right cocktail parties or churches, or even necessarily who has or has not supported various candidates. The term “Establishment” is used and abused in those contexts, but invariably describes only a division of passing significance. The real battle between the Establishment and the Outsiders is between those who urge significant changes in our spending patterns as a necessity to preserve the America we have known, and those who are unwilling to take that step. It is, in short, between those who are, and those who are not, willing to take action in the belief that the currently established structure of how public money is spent is unsustainable and must be fixed while it still can if we are not to lose by encroachments the all the other things Republicans and conservatives stand for.
The Background ................... CONTINUED
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Seems obvious to me that it means anyone who doesn’t agree with you. (not you in particular)
I read the article and my definition of “Establishment” is different from the definition in the article. Likely, there are several variations but I consider myself as “outside of the GOP establishment”.
The author uses this phraseology, Republicans and conservatives twice in the portion I read. Therefore he, and many others self included, have know for a long time the term RINO is really incorrect.
The Republican Establishment for quite some time now have been CINO's - Conservatives In Name Only! And, unfortunately, they have carried a great number of their rank and file with them!
The boots of Obama and his commissars are on the neck of our freedoms. We are fast approaching, if we are not there already, the point where the best road to personal prosperity will run through employment by the government.
While there are many thoughtful people on Red State, the author is missing the point; the author is pointing at a symptom, albeit a huge one - spending, that is only one symptom of a deeper cause, and the root of the deeper division between “the establishment” and the GOP Conservative grass roots; and that is a disconnect between Conservatives and “the establishment” over not so much the “size” of government spending, but the “size” of the role of government itself.
“Spending” could not be the issue it is, if the Constitutional mandates defining the limited role of the Federal government were upheld.
The true “Conservative” task is NOT AS MUCH about reigning in the “size” or the “cost” of the tasks the government undertakes. It is about reigning in the breadth, the depth, the reach and and the role that government tasks can take on in the first place.
The author on Red State ought to know the centrality of this problem - limited government, more than mere lmited spending, and has done a disservice to the Red State readers by ignoring it and focusing on one mere symptom - spending.
What you say is true but plenty of blame lies with the voters themselves. Few voters appear to have the ethical courage to ask the tough questions of their own chosen candidates.
Agree. One hundred years years of Leftism has rotted our public education and other primary institutions to the point we are so debauched as to be only fit for despotic government.
I think we should all vote as if we had an appointment with God the next morning.
Thanks for this thread.
This is a thoughtful article. It is one that sets aside labels, and focuses on our core beliefs, at least on the topic of money.
I found this quote to be a good summary of the article: “It is, in short, between those who are, and those who are not, willing to take action in the belief that the currently established structure of how public money is spent is unsustainable and must be fixed while it still can if we are not to lose by encroachments the all the other things Republicans and conservatives stand for.”
BTW, the author had the good sense to end his article with it.
Such BullShit.
Read that above sentence, and see if any sane American can defend it.
Plain insanity.
WTF???
The 'establishment' is, in a nutshell, the entrenched elected members of the federal and state legislatures, and the huge unelected staff of all of these elected office-holding individuals - divided, of course, by political party. Add to that every County and small-town elected member of both political parties - and their staff.
We're not talking about a few people here, that all want to keep their well-paid jobs, and will do or say just about anything to keep them. Counting is difficult, but a ballpark number for just the Republican 'establishment' alone runs over a million.
Opposing this enormous 'establishment' are 'the people' - 90% of which pay almost no attention to what goes on in politics, except for a few minutes just prior to election day, when they look for a voter guide from their union, their friends or their ill-informed neighbor.
Here is the problem. There are no rino, cino, dino, whatever. There are communists, apparatchicks and constitutionalists. The apparatchicks are the establishment and depending who owns the senate is the direction the establishment takes.
We constitutionalists are fighting to give the country back to the people. The NE media elites job is to not let that happen. Their biggest fear is we prevail.
However like everything commy, this to will fail. We need to keep up the pressure and win every battle.
I agree with your distinction, but these 2 size in dollars, and size in scope are very correlated. I would not go as far as say that the author is missing the point.
I would argue that there is a 3rd option: To be as bold as one can be when possible, when not possible, playing defense, slowing down the march of the opponent. Meaning, going with the establishment, until the next opportunity persents itself.
I agree with the author that in current race, the 2 Texans (Perry, Paul) are the most committed to not only slow down, but to slash government down to a fraction of its size. (But they have other "issues")
As far as the 3 others (Santorum, Gingrich, Romney), they are not all that different. I really don't get the "stop Romney", pro Gingrich, and pro Santorum factions and excitement on FR.
But when available money in your hand shrinks, as in families, the money goes toward necessities.
What happened in 2010 then?
I am appalled by party politics buoying Romney while torpedoing others to sink them and cut conservatives from the field.
So I would say I’m not Establishment -— that I do not “like” the powers that be who are trying so hard to put Romney (them) into power.
I know there are a lot of “me” out there. Remember the 2010 elections?
But where are the tea party people today?
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