Posted on 01/26/2004 11:36:44 AM PST by yatros from flatwater
George Delano Bush
Posted: January 26, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Vox Day
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
George Bush met with some skeptical listeners in his recent State of the Union address, but he truly convinced me of something. He convinced me that the Republican Party, as the party of small government, is dead. Oh, I understand very well that in terms of electoral votes, the Republicans have seldom had a future that looked more immediately promising, but the party is nevertheless a soulless zombie of an institution.
Or rather, make that a vampire. For the Bush administration is sucking the lifeblood out of the United States with every raising of the federal debt roof, with every new federal entitlement, with every new Clintonian promise to end someone's pain somewhere, somehow. Consider the following federal spending increases:
This is not even Clinton-lite, this is simply armed left-liberalism. Note that the increase in domestic departments dwarfs the increase in defense spending during a time of war. This is astounding!
Now, the president's defenders argue that President Bush has no choice, that the exigencies of the War on Terror require that he accommodate his Democratic opposition in order to free his hand for his duties as commander-in-chief. But this is precisely backward! Wars do not prevent chief executives from driving the domestic agenda – in fact, history supports the opposite premise.
Did FDR refrain from his radical program of nationalization once the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in order to accommodate his conservative opposition? On the contrary, he put the pedal to the metal and increased government spending to the greatest share of the economy it has yet known. From this, I conclude that President Bush is doing exactly what he intended from the start, but he is using the war as an excuse to placate his hoodwinked conservative allies instead of using it as a political weapon to bludgeon his enemies on the radical left.
But if the Republican Party is dead, where can those who believe in republicanism, small government, individual freedom and the Constitution go? Right now, there are two places: the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. Either, in my opinion, are vastly preferable to the empty charade of the GOP.
Ultimately, both parties must eventually merge into one Freedom Party, which will certainly require some level of initially uneasy assimilation. Some libertarians will need to accept that abortion is a violation of the unborn child's unalienable right to life, while conservatives will need to recognize that drugs are not an appropriate target of federal warfare. Christians will have to understand that using the state to enforce traditional morality will always backfire in the end, and everyone will have to wake up to the fact that government largesse is nothing more than poisoned bait.
George Bush has not destroyed the Republican Party by himself, he is merely the culmination of 24 years of false promises. Actions speak much louder than words, though, and his resemble none of his predecessors so much as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, expanding central government and eradicating individual liberties during a time of war. He could have been George Jefferson Bush, or even George Reagan Bush, instead, he chose to become George Delano.
As the November elections approach, there are those who will say that one must simply accept the inevitable and vote for the lesser of two evils. To them, I will only say that regardless of whether it is big or small, supporting evil is anathema to any man who seeks the good, the right and the true. Three political generations of Republican promises of future virtue to follow the whoring of Republican principles should be enough for any honest conservative to abjure the party once and for all. I did so 12 years ago – I have never regretted it for a moment.
It is painful to admit that one has been betrayed. It is even more painful to see the rock roll down the hill, and know that one must begin pushing it back up again. But every journey begins with a first step, and sometimes wisdom requires embracing what the world believes to be folly.
Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and the Southern Baptist Convention, and has been down with Madden since 1992. His weekly column is syndicated nationally by Universal Press Syndicate. Visit his web log, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and responses to reader email.
I can respect that. I hope he starts steering back to the right, and soon. If he continues down this conservative-alienating course, I'm afraid we'll simply get even more in term two. Hopefully not.
But there is an indisputable fact. The chances of getting conservative appointments from a liberal Democrat are nil. The chances of getting conservative appointees from a Republican, of any stripe, are much better. I personally believe that Bush may be at his conservative best if/when given the opportunity to reshape the SCOTUS. I really do.
No argument from me on that one.
I'm just disappointed that our patriotic and compassionate president is not also a conservative. He could have used the power of the veto and gotten even more respect from me.
If you could see how the government can enforce basic laws that protect individual rights, public health and the basic functioning of the marketplace without codifying a particular group's morality then you wouldn't have made that false dichotomy.
There is no such thing as a moral vacuum.
When society abandons morality, then yes there is. American society has not yet abandoned morality.
Either the government will embrace a morality with its foundations in Christian ethical thought, or it will find something else.
And if the government gets big enough that it must look for a philosophy to rationalize itself then that is the fault of the people, not the government. The people are to blame for the size of the government and its role in society.
Besides that, I have no idea how Christians empowered the government to "kick hippy a$$."
Sure you do, it's called the War on Drugs. The WoD has done more than any other government program to give the government arbitrary power to use deadly force and seize property. Drug use is not particularly moral, but neither are the government powers needed to enforce it. The War on Drugs was started because of a social conservative revulsion to 60s and 70s drug use. It was the battle of the church ladies against the long haired hippies. In the end, everyone in America is worse off.
The circumstances of our founders' times are not so different from todays' that we need big government. Government closer to the size of the early 19th century in America than what we have today would work better. All we need are police that can tackle violent and white collar crime, courts, military and intelligence agencies that can protect us by taking the fight overseas. We don't need welfare, Socialist Security, Title 9, etc. We don't need 2 tons of pro-union and corporate regulation.
90% of what the government does is a waste of tax payers' money. You're worried that not having "traditional values" (whoever thoses are) shoved down every citizen's throat will lead to chaos and rampant crime? Get rid of the gun laws. As Robert Heinlein quipped, "an armed society is a polite society."
Bush has allowed spending to spiral out of control, created many new programs which cost tens of billions of dollars, tried to get amnesty for illegal aliens, refused to secure our borders, added over 80,000 additional federal employees in a recession economy, allowed over $400B in subsidies from tax payers' money to go to farmers, given over $400 in free pills to people who never paid a dime to support that benefit and doesn't even have the balls to confront the people who financed 9-11, the Saudis. He did kinda support the 2nd amendment and got us out of the ICC so he did some good. I'm sorry, but a conservative saying what you said about Bush is like a badly abused woman arguing she should stay with her abusive husband because he's occassionally great in bed.
Perhaps we have a difference in definitions here. I refer to morality in a neutral sense - it can either be wrong or right. By the definition I meant to use, a serial killer has a moral code - it's just an astonishingly bad one.
Therefore government must embrace someone's morality - it cannot and will never be neutral. In human affairs there is no such thing. Every decision government makes is a decision of morals or values, because every dollar spent represents a value held higher than something that received no money.
If you could see how the government can enforce basic laws that protect individual rights, public health and the basic functioning of the marketplace without codifying a particular group's morality...
I disagree profoundly. Whether a government seeks to protect rights or violate them, they are adhering to a particular groups morality. Its just a fact. It may not be the one we prefer, but they do adhere to one regardless.
Sure you do, it's called the War on Drugs.
I honestly hadn't thought of it in that context. I have no problem with enforcing law against drug possession, so that is probably why.
Enjoy your chains. May your jailor in the Republicrat's coming Union of Socialist American States have the courtesy to measure your wrists before assigning you a pair.
When club owners lose their property and go to prison because some dumbass pops X at their friday dance night I take exception to that. The DEA and the laws it enforces are a greater threat to America than the drug dealers. The drug dealers wouldn't exist if there was a tightly controlled, legal means for people to use drugs. We don't need any more laws to protect us from violent drug users. We just need to free up the 2nd amendment and let anyone who's turned 18 carry a concealed weapon without a license in public.
Our founders left us a perfectly viable framework within which we can be free and not have to enforce morality through the state. There are always two things that are said about proposals to solve violent crime that don't revolve around mercy or compassion: they are logical and barbaric. To many it is barbaric to let law abiding citizens gun down with an automatic rifle a violent drug addict who breaks into their house. The same is said about a proposal to let someone who's just been robbed shoot the perp in the back as they walk away. But in the end, the opposition is not civilized, merely weak and pathetic.
Natural selection has a funny habit of generally working pretty well. I prefer to free up self-defense rights and the 2nd amendment as an alternative to imposing stricter penalties. The more violent offenders of all stripes who are shot dead by average citizens, in the long run the less crime most areas will have. That is why drug legalization can work and not cause a moral downward spiral. Besides, you'd have to be on crack to think that the average citizen has a hankering to be on it....
More like they died vindicated knowing that the visionless, spineless, unprincipled multitudes who empowered the ruling elite got the neo-communist police state they deserved. Seig Heil Republicrats and Demopublicans.
Simple rule of thumb: Never take seriously anyone who states their membership in Mensa to promote themselves. If you feel like you need to mention it, you are too desparate.
The satisfaction of knowing that I vote my conscience and vote for the candidate I feel is the very best on the ballot for the country. I will probably actually vote for Bush because he undid Clinton's signing of the ICC treaty. I will agree that, barring him establishing some lite Union of Amerikan Socialist Republics, that Bush can be forgiven since he undid that legal monstrosity. I would like to see Clinton executed rather violently a la Benito Mussolini for signing that treaty. By doing that he betrayed not just us, but all of humanity.
I also happen to have seen that liberty historically comes full circle. We're going through one of the $hitty periods, but one day it'll come full circle again. When it does we'll be technologically advanced enough to break the cycle. (btw I thought'd it be amusingly ironic to respond seriously to a sarcastic post).
Again, the government enforces morality every single day. We have laws against murder and rape. We have laws against slavery. Through our representatives, we have made a moral decision that these things are wrong. Not every country agrees. We have chosen a clear ethical path.
It is not a question about whether or not to enforce morality. It is a question of which morality we will enforce.
Then what you must do is establish a secular moral code that complements most groups' religious moral codes that the majority can agree on. A simple secular moral code which covers the basic then through constitutional mechanisms you bluntly prohibit under all circumstances expansion of government power outside of those areas.
What you would do is this. Get all of the mainstream groups together. Murder? We all feel it is wrong, thus it is banned for religious and secular reasons. Then on more complex issues like marriage, since many groups cannot agree, you agree to take marriage outside of the perview of the state and let each religion and secular group conduct its own rites so long as they only involve freely consenting adults. Thus Christians can refuse to allow homosexuals a Christian marriage, but a secular group can honor homosexual marriage. In the eyes of the state, marriage is a title like Mr. or Ms./Mrs., not a legal institution.
The government is almost never the solution or a proper tool for a social problem. The government always reflects the society it governs. It is really not possible for a government to be more moral than the people it governs. Once the people are no longer moral, then neither will the state and all laws regarding morality will be paying only lip service to morality.
I'm not sure that is possible. A quick look at the ethical foundations of Christian, Islamic and Hindu countries reveal some pretty stark differences. Christianity stands at odds with just about every other religious code on earth in our belief that man is created in the image of God, and human rights ultimately come from Him. Besides, there is no such thing as a "secular moral code." The root of all morality is religious, stemming either from a religious faith or a lack thereof.
Murder? We all feel it is wrong, thus it is banned for religious and secular reasons.
No, sizable sections of Islam have no objection to the murder of infidels.
Then on more complex issues like marriage, since many groups cannot agree, you agree to take marriage outside of the perview of the state and let each religion and secular group conduct its own rites so long as they only involve freely consenting adults.
Many Christians (like me) would find that rather difficult to swallow, because the government would in essence be saying that marriage means whatever man wants it to mean, after centuries of recognizing marriage as between a man and a woman only. Since government is an institution ordained by God, radically going against God in this matter would have very serious reprecussions indeed.
You failed to mention perhaps the most important issue - abortion. A Christian (and possibly a Muslim) would insist that elective abortion not be allowed. The secular humanist would insist that it be allowed, if they are consistent with their moral presuppositions, because a ban on abortion represents in their mind a possible limit on their sexual behavior.
The government always reflects the society it governs. It is really not possible for a government to be more moral than the people it governs.
I agree completely. That's why secular humanism must not be allowed to take more control than it already has. Truly, the battle is being waged in the heart of every man, far before it reaches the ballot box. Politics is important, but really the personal religious beliefs of every man (which government rightly has nothing to do with) is vastly more important.
Yes. The nationals just gave me the budget to ensure he is on the ballot in my state, and I am confident they are doing the same across America.
The leading candidate right now is this fellow....
http://www.peroutka2004.com/home.html
Thanks for the good news about ballot access.
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