Rockefeller Republicans

(snip)...To the Republican establishment, tea party people are field hands. Their labors are to be recognized and rewarded, but they are to stay off the porch and not presume to sit at the master's table.

Power trumps principle in the minds of all professional politicians.

‘Are these Republican scribes and senators not the same folks who went all-out for NAFTA and GATT and the WTO and MFN and PNTR for China, those brilliant trade deals that gave us $5 trillion in trade deficits, wiped out 6 million manufacturing jobs and 50,000 factories in one decade, and put us into permanent debt to China?

Are these not some of the same folks who backed the Bush-McCain amnesty and did nothing for 20 years, as millions of illegals invaded America? Now that all America is on fire, they too want to “build the dang fence.” ‘

It is hard to understand what happened last week
unless one follows the dots.
….. The origin of the BACKSTABBER WING OF THE GOP is
Mitt Romney, who appears to be behind the Toyko ROVE attacks on winning candidate O’Donnell.

“Rove is pushing Romney so aggressively some folks are beginning to wonder what's going on,” grumbled one veteran Republican strategist.”

“Rove has made no secret of his support for Romney as McCain’s VP. ”

"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers…
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide…
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
"Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."

The Palmetto Scoop reported:
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.

"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

Poor sport spoiler Romney doing what he does best:

Novak: "Fred Thompson drop-out rumors traced to Romney campaign"

Said Novak: "The rumors were traced in part to Mitt Romney's campaign,
trying to stir up strife between McCain and Thompson."

"Despite outspending his rivals by huge margins throughout the primaries,
(Mitt Romney, Carpetbagger UT,CA,MA,NH,Mexico) lost Iowa, South Carolina, Florida and California.
The only primaries he won were in Michigan, where Dad was governor; LDS states;
and a few states on Super Tuesday in which his California-obsessed rivals
couldn't spare the cash to advertise.
Only John Connolly in 1968 had a worse cash-to-delegates ratio.
And John McCain rightly did not like Romney's tactics during the primaries.
(W)hen (Romney's early leads) started slipping away, he resorted to unfair,
distorted, scorched-earth negative ads, betting that his opponents couldn't
afford to spend enough for the truth to catch up to his charges."
[Romney: A Mistake for McCain, 7/23/2008, Dick Morris]

The Establishment leaders in both Parties simply cannot understand that technology may have outstripped their ability to censor the Founders' ideas of liberty from the public discourse. This is baffling and troublesome to them.

Over the past few years, particularly since 2008, the Internet has made it possible for ordinary citizens to read the documents of their freedom in the quiet of their homes, to read all of the writings of Washington, Jefferson, the Adamses, Madison, and all the other intellectual giants of 1776 and 1787, and the populace is informed, knowledgeable and seeing through the would-be tyrants who wish to control them.

While speaking of Caesar, Jefferson said: "But steeped in corruption, vice and venality, as the whole nation was,... what could even Cicero, Cato, Brutus have done, had it been referred to them to establish a good government for their country?... No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and their people were so demoralized and depraved as to be incapable of exercising a wholesome control. Their reformation then was to be taken up ab incunabulis. Their minds were to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and deterred from those of vice by the dread of punishments proportioned, indeed, but irremissible; in all cases, to follow truth as the only safe guide, and to eschew error, which bewilders us in one false consequence after another in endless succession. These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order and good government. But this would have been an operation of a generation or two at least, within which period would have succeeded many Neros and Commoduses, who would have quashed the whole process. I confess, then, I can neither see what Cicero, Cato and Brutus, united and uncontrolled could have devised to lead their people into good government, nor how this enigma can be solved." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:233

"An enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion... will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government." --Thomas Jefferson to Chevalier de Ouis, 1814. ME 14:130

"An enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion... will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government." --Thomas Jefferson to Chevalier de Ouis, 1814. ME 14:130

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789.

"Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, the people, if well informed, may be relied on to set them to rights.", --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789.

From James Madison:

"Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant – they have been cheated; asleep – they have been surprised; divided – the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson?... The people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it."

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."

Excellent point. Excellent post. Awesome quotes.

Buchanan's points are also well made, and I find myself widely in agreement with him.

There are still many legitimate differences in Conservative views on different issues: for instance Buchanan's bluntly mercantilist economics vs. the free trade orthodoxy of the Wall Street Journal crowd.

The interesting thing about the Tea Party is that it is agnostic on the wedge issues, but still has a center. That's driving the establicons crazy cause they can't triangulate and subvert it like they have most other things.

Thank you for your response to my post.

My contention is that if current Tea Partiers, or any other truly conservative spokesman for that matter, will use the Founders' own words (especially Jefferson) as they attempt to debate or explain their ideas, the Establishment Progressives of both Parties will have no coherent response.

The "self-evident" truths, as articulated by the Founders, are so simple and powerful that they trump the prevailing wisdom of those who discuss issues, but never have studied not debated the underlying principles of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

The ideas essential to liberty are enduring and timeless. The counterfeit ideas of Mao, Marx and Lenin, as espoused and practiced by the Progressives, are counterfeit and easily exposed.

America's first 200 years stands as a testament to the former. All the other nations who have tried the counterfeit ideas have failed. Enough said!