New GOP has 'compassion' down, but loses track of conservatism

Union Leader ^ | February 11, 2004 | JAMES P. PINKERTON

[sarcasm]

CONSERVATIVES and other limited-government types are furious at President George W. Bush for his big-spending ways. One group said the Republican-controlled government is dispensing cash like a “drunken sailor.” But in fact, there’s nothing spontaneous or accidental about the spending spree. What we’re seeing is the sober logic of a changing Republican Party, as well as a changing American psyche, post-9/11 — from peacetime consumerism to wartime welfarism.

Those who dislike the trend have been vocal in their opposition. On Jan. 15, six right-leaning groups — including the Club for Growth, the National Taxpayers Union and Citizens Against Government Waste — announced that they had made a “major break” with the Bush White House and the Republican-controlled Congress in response to budgeting that had driven discretionary spending up 27 percent in Bush’s first three years in office. The Cato Institute calculates that Bush has presided over the largest increases in discretionary spending since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s budgets of the late ‘60s. That’s no coincidence. The late ‘60s were another time of escalating wars overseas and escalating government on the home front. History shows that you can’t have one without the other. As the American radical Randolph Bourne lamented during World War I, surveying a similar time of explosive government growth, “War is the health of the state.” When Bush took office, the Education Department’s budget was $35.7 billion; next fiscal year, if he has his way, it will total $64.3 billion — an 80 percent increase. But the biggest-ticket item is the new prescription drug benefit for seniors. When the President signed the bill into law on Dec. 8, he projected its cost to be $400 billion over 10 years; now that projection has been upped to $540 billion.

While war is the ultimate big-government program, just about everything else can be folded rhetorically into the “war effort” — wars on poverty, cancer, drug abuse and so on. In fact, that’s what has happened in the past few years: All of Washington has gone to war.

In the fiscal pell-mell of wartime Washington, anything goes. The Bush administration proposes, for instance, to increase spending on the National Endowment for the Arts by 15 percent. Way back in the 1980s, Reagan targeted the NEA for “zeroing out,” yet it survived. Today, if a Republican-run federal government feels the need to increase spending on the NEA, then it’s simply not serious about controlling spending at all.

No wonder the deficit is so huge. It’s $521 billion this year, a number that even the deficits-don’t-matter Bush people deem to be too high. So, after three years of fiscal inebriation, they claim to have gone on the wagon; the ‘05 budget envisions domestic discretionary spending rising by only 0.5 percent, and it calls for the abolition of 65 federal programs, saving $4.9 billion.

But veteran budget watchers know this cynical game. Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, labels assumptions about controlling such discretionary spending as “illusory.” Put simply, in an election year, Congress isn’t likely to agree even to small cuts in transportation spending, let alone a whopping 8.9 percent cut in environmental spending.

In 1962, Barry Goldwater warned, “If you cherish your freedom, don’t leave it all up to big government.” Two years later, the GOP nominated him for President. And Gerald R. Ford famously said, “A government big enough to give you everything that you want is big enough to take it all away.” That is, a rich, strong state has a way of both impoverishing and debilitating its citizens.

But this philosophical commitment to self-reliance and limited government has not survived into the era of “compassionate conservatism.” In the past decade, both parties have discovered that big government can be popular with the middle class — if those big-government bucks are spent on the middle class.

For now, the Republicans have the upper hand. They’ve long had the edge on tough-talking flag-waving, yet they were vulnerable to looking hardhearted and uncaring. Under Bush they’ve solved that problem, because they are now willing to spend like Democrats. The result: a right-wing big government, heavy on nationalism, with a touch of militarism. And it seems to be working. Today, it looks as if tomorrow belongs to the Big Government GOP, the party of both warfare and welfare.

[There's millions of'em]

I just don't understand all this concern about coversation.

[alloysteel]

Doesn't matter what the Republicans do now. They have lost Bill O'Reilly. Why, the Republicans, and especially Bush, would lie to justify their glorification of war. O'Reilly is shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, that Bush would have lied about WMD to the American people.

O'Reilly seems to be of the opinion that the Bush Administration was just doing all this run-up and invasion only for the oil. And now, Jim Pinkerton has accused the Republicans of surrendering their principles, like conservative fiscal policy, for the "warm fuzzies" of extending Big Government.

Consider the alternatives. John Forbes Kerry as President, and the House and Senate restored to the Democrats. Total reversal of fortunes in the Middle East, and reinvasion by al-Qaeda. Where's the love?

[Tamzee]

On Jan. 15, six right-leaning groups — including the Club for Growth, the National Taxpayers Union and Citizens Against Government Waste — announced that they had made a “major break” with the Bush White House and the Republican-controlled Congress in response to budgeting

Dang... the fall on your sword strategy... pretty lousy year for that, isn't it? Not only are they begging for a President Kerry in the White House, but after 4 or 8 years of him we'll be completely under the thumb of the U.N.

That same U.N. that feels it has a right to micromanage our resources, taxes, economy, human rights issues, social issues, criminal justice system...

Gee., once Kerry is done then we'll never have to worry about conservatism getting the shaft again... we'll all be outlawed.

[drlevy88]

Kerry is weak enough that the election could actually go to a third, conservative party.

[Tamzee]

Ahhhh, here it is.... We'll just start posting this a lot now so it won't be such a shock when we see it flying at White House instead of "Old Glory".

[Tamzee]

Utterly foolish... Kerry is already polling at approximately the same as Bush. The left does NOT care who they elect, they'll vote for anyone who isn't a right-winger. We can shave off some of the votes, but never enough to shoot for a third party candidate.

It's Bush in '04 and folks better get their heads on straight or we'll be saluting Chirac.

[drlevy88]

Well then, Bush had better embrace the "far right" tightly enough that we don't see a conservative spoiler. Darwin is alive and well in politics.

[Tamzee]

It's Not the Budget, Stupid (Civilization in the Balance)

Adam's Web ^ | 02/09/2004 | Adam Graham


I am among the many Conservatives who don’t like the big spending of our current president. I will vote for him and urge others to and here’s why: the budget is not the most important issue in this election.

The budget can be cut easily and taxes can be reformed within a very short time. Numerous governors have proved how little it takes to accomplish real government reform. However, as the Psalmist wrote, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

What is at stake in the November election is not the Budget Deficit, which regardless of who wins this November will continue to be obscenely high, but rather our very culture. The Barbarians are at the gates in the form of radical Islamic terrorists and inside the gates in form of tyrannical judicial activists. John Kerry is on the side of the barbarians, George Bush is on the side of America. I’ll vote for George Bush.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court’s decision to force Gay Marriage on Massachusetts and soon on the rest of the country cuts at the fundamental definition of marriage and family in our society. We’re crossing the Rubicon. If they succeed, we will no longer be slouching towards Gomorrah as Robert Bork wrote a few years back, we will be Gomorrah.

An immoral and corrupt people cannot preserve liberty. The question is not whether we will have $250 budget deficit in a few years or a $400 billion deficit, but whether we will lose the blessing of liberty forever. These are the stakes.



(snipped)

It’s not noble or patriotic, nor anything but unproductive to stay home or vote for some third party when the election of a Democratic candidate could very well mean the end of our liberty. I urge everyone who loves this country and it’s constitution to vote for President Bush, so that we can by the Grace of God, preserve our culture while we work for the election of a more Conservative President in 2008.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1075576/posts?page=1

[Tamzee]

Well then, Bush had better embrace the "far right" tightly enough that we don't see a conservative spoiler. Darwin is alive and well in politics

Yes, Darwin is exactly the word for it... we'd earn ourselves the Darwin Award for causing our own extinction if we handle this critical time in our history badly.

Perhaps the "far right" should realize that America is slipping away from us and now is the time for us to band together on the right as a solid coalition to drag it back...

[KantianBurke]

"When Bush took office, the Education Department’s budget was $35.7 billion; next fiscal year, if he has his way, it will total $64.3 billion — an 80 percent increase."

It seemed like only yesterday the GOP, thanks to Newt and the Contract with America, wanted to abolish that monstrosity. Sad sad sad. :<

[ovrtaxt]

I completely agree with your views, perhaps even more strongly. But Bush has been so effective at protecting us from the Islamofascists, that we may have forgotten.... Just stop for a minute and remember.

I HATE his domestic agenda, but these fanatics are still out there in vast numbers. Probably many of them are here via Mexico and Canada. We need to keep Bush and win this war, as he is our best realistic hope. We can elect a conservative later.

[drlevy88]

If we blow ourselves to bits from inside with liberal foolishness disguised as conservatism... what's worse, the devil appearing as the devil, or the devil appearing as an angel of light?

[ovrtaxt]

You're preaching to the choir. Check my posting history. ;^)

In the final analysis, our enemies foreign are more dangerous than our enemies domestic, IMO. I will, regrettably, be voting for Bush, even though I think he's profoundly misguided.

But a lot can happen between now and the election. My focus right now is an attempt to drag his policies right. The WH knows the base is really PO'd. They may listen to us yet.

[drlevy88]

The only leverage is the vote.

[yoswif]

According to the GAO, balancing the federal budget by 2040 will require cutting spending by half or increasing taxes by double their current level. If "conservative" candidates for federal office are unwilling to even discuss out of control spending policies, that leaves tax increases as the only option. If you don't want spending cut in half, you must, by default, want taxes doubled.

[tahiti]

"It seemed like only yesterday the GOP, thanks to Newt and the Contract with America, wanted to abolish that monstrosity. Sad sad sad."

You are exactly correct.

I was explaining that exact point to my wife. I reminded her about how we cheered with victory when the Republicans gained the majority in the House in 1994.

But sadly, all of the power hungry RINO's deserted Newt during the government shutdown battle with Clinton, when the rubber had to meet the road.

It has been the Republican's who have deserted me. They asked for my vote to win the majority in the federal government with the promises of a limted, constituttional government, which included the elimination of the Dept of Education, I gave it to them, then they stuck me with the same old socialist, big government crap.

[Uncle Jaque]

In replying to a simple request about a local political event recently, this sort of "exploded" out of my collective political angst:


**** "Conservatives: Who Needs 'Em???" ****

The Correspondent remarked:

"I'd rather have a primary." (Than a Republican County-Wide Caucus):

To which "Uncle Jaque" Replied:

---

I hear you!

And since I've been summarily cashiered out as an Officer of the now apparently defunct (or at least dormant) Republican Town Committee for being embarrassingly conservative and overtly, unabashedly pro-Life (not at all popular positions, it seems, even in Pubbie political circles down this way) I guess that I am now free to share my allegedly controversial and politically abominable sentiments.

Last year, Ed Gillespie, Chair of the RNC, allegedly told the Manchester Union Leader of NH in an interview that the days of the "Regan GOP" were forever over, and conservatism looked back upon with a modicum of embarrassment.
The GOP is now to be considered to be a more "progressive" Party, and if "conservatives" don't like it, then who are we going to vote for; a Democrat? (Ha-ha-ha...)

Although Gillespie later denied and tried to cover up his remarks after a barrage of public Conservative outrage, the context of his subsequent political behavior and that of Carl Rove and the RNC strongly indicate that the Union Leader was telling the truth and Gillespie is a weasel.

Well, it seems that Chairman Eddie, Senior Political Advisor Carl Rove, and W-43 just don't learn a lot from History.

For it seems that in 1989, Lee Atwater, then Chairman of the Republican National Committee under President G.H.W. Bush (41) responded to conservative indignation at what we considered to be betrayals and sell-outs to the Dems with:

"Where are they (Conservative Republicans) going to go?" (Hahahahah....)

Well; in 1992 he found out, didn't he?

Remember???

These elite, arrogant Party muckettymucks up in the National Committee just don't get it, do they?

Despite the President's stellar and commendable performance in the arena of National Security overseas, tax relief, and a Partial-birth infanticide restriction, (we'll see just how far that makes it down the Street before getting summarily mowed down in cold fetal blood) his Domestic agenda has left a lot of Conservative / Constitutionalists out in the ideological cold.

While resisting terrorism abroad, our borders are still essentially wide open to illegal immigrants, drug criminals, and international terrorists alike.
Efforts to tighten them up since that day of infamy on 9/11/01 strike me as being a whole lot more symbolic than substantive, frankly.

Why is that, do we suppose?

With this Administration's recent capitulation and appeasments to Mexican President Fox in this so-called "Immigration Reform" amnesty scheme, it seems to me that even more incentive is provided for all of the aforementioned - and then some - to come swarming across our borders in increasing hordes, continuing to subvert our American economy, culture, and security.


"Rights"?; What "Rights"???

Signing the McCain/Feingold "Campaign Finance Reform" Bill to placate and appease his liberal and "moderate" RINO ("Republican In Name Only") friends, the President has participated in the blatant evisceration of the First Amendment in the U.S. Bill of Rights.

How long will it be before he follows suit with the Second Amendment - after which all the rest will be essentially moot - remains to be seen.

But the so-called "Assault Weapon" ban is coming up for renewal soon, and I'm afraid that Mr. Bush will be all too willing to accommodate the liberal Citizen-to-Subject conversion crowd that wants not only to perpetuate this idiotic, totally ineffectual (at reducing crime, anyway) mockery of a law, but expand it considerably in order to provide criminal thugs and goons with the tactical advantages over their intended victims they need in order to coerce us into demanding more "protection" from our Government.

And in most, if not all societies where this social pacification "experiment" has been imposed, this "protection" seems to be rather selectively provided.
Political dissidents, adherents to any "religion" which the State does not approve of (read; "control") or other Subjects who somehow get out of line find themselves being robbed, pillaged, plundered, beaten, raped, kidnapped and tortured with a lot more frequency than their more compliant neighbors.

After a while, sometimes the thugs abusing them wear uniforms and/or have badges of State authority; sometimes they don't. It becomes a rather trivial technicality, usually.

But if you are going to enslave somebody, it sometimes helps to have uniforms, badges...
and oh yes;
guns.

Then, if said dissidents and nonconformists don't take the hint and shut up and/or renounce their Faith, or have the audacity to complain about slavery's galling chains, they find their Families and themselves being murdered a lot.

As a matter of general convenience, the State may need to just exterminate whole classes of them.

Sometimes, such enlightened States have to build big incinerators in order to cremate all of those nasty, decomposing corpses that keep piling up.

I'll bet they still have the blueprints somewhere.

Happened not less than 60 years ago. Still happens on a somewhat smaller scale in some parts - most notably Africa.
There they don't bother with the industrial - sized crematoriums; They just pitch 'em in the river and let the alligators & crocodiles do the rest.

And just what is a properly and politically- correctly "pacified" population going to do about it, eh?

"Hahahahah...." chortle the ghosts of Caesar, and Attilla, and Hitler, and Stalin, and Mao, and Mugabe whatzisname... (now where have we heard THAT contemptuous laugh before?)

Did anyone happen to hear a recently de-throned Fornicator-In-Chief "Slick Willie" Clinton grudgingly admit after the 2000 Election that the NRA (National Rifle Association)had perhaps been most responsible for his puppet-pal AlGore's narrow margin of defeat?
(Conservatives like to run "Al Gore's name together into one 'word' like that; it's intentional! I'm not sure but what Rush Limbaugh started doing it back in 2K)

Boy; wasn't that a landslide victory for Bush/Cheney, by the way!!??

(Oh!; Wait!...?)

And now "W" has made a sweetheart deal with Monster.com, the Owner of which - Andrew McKelvey - is heavily funding organizations devoted to the total disarmament of all law-abiding, working class American Citizens - thus rendering us helpless "Subjects" before the subsequent tyranny which always, historically, follows such social "progressive pacification".

When the NRA tried to nix Monster's monopoly of Federal Personnel management (through a contract with the OPM) with a Senate amendment, the White House Intervened to save it.

What's going on, here, folks?

As an NRA Member as well as a Republican of many years, I'm feeling a little betrayed, here. Does anyone else out there get that sense, too?


Education... or indoctrination?

It has long been a concern of the American Conservatives that the Government and union controlled Public School system (from Kindergarten to Graduate School) has for about the past 2 or 3 Generations seems to have been more concerned with the ideological indoctrination of American Youth than their intellectual ability to compete in a global economy.

The perpetuation of a cycle of ignorance, moral decadence, and dependency on Government seems to have been maintained most successfully, it would appear, among urban minority groups in large part by the Government public socialist indoctrination cabal (AKA "Public Schools").

This success might be most prominently evidenced by the voting history among certain said racial minority groups, which at last check was running some 93% in favor of Democrats, the primary advocates and supporters (as well as beneficiaries) of the Government and Union's monopoly over the minds and opinions America's impressionable young.

The only Children to escape this monopolistic indoctrination system, it appears, are mainly those of parents who can afford to pay both confiscatory taxes as well as tuition to Private Schools, or sacrifice the potential wages of at least one Parent in order to Home-School.

The latter option is becoming increasingly popular, by the way; especially among Families of Faith, in response to their perceived incompetence of the public educational cabal as well as it's systematic repression of - particularly - the Christian Faith.

And Home-Schoolers and the organizations that advocate for them, seem to have to wage an unceasing battle against liberal Beauraucrats, lawyers, and powerful Labor groups seeking to outlaw the practice and force (at gunpoint, if need be) these children back into the government indoctrination centers.

By the way; how many of the Winners of Scholastic contests such as Spelling and Geography "Bees" over the past 2 or 3 years have been Home-Schooled, vs. those who are enrolled in a "public" school system? And how might their SAT scores compare?

A perusal of such statistics, I opine, will quickly reveal why free-market educational competition is something which the wielders of power (and beneficiaries of public largesse and political favor) within the Public "Education" system simply cannot tolerate.

And just how many of our illustrious elite "serving" their Home-State's Constituency down in Washington DC let their own Children attend "Public" schools, pray tell?

Yet our President essentially let Senator Ted Kennedy write the latest "Education Bill" on his shirt-tail after handing him the Presidential pen.
This is the Law which claims to hold schools and Teachers "accountable"... but to who?

As far as I can tell, and according to some Teachers I know, this "No Child Left Behind" mantra has only complicated the task of Teachers and Administrators and forced Students to conform to a rigid system with little or no regard for individual learning styles, while enhancing their academic performance not one blooming whit.
If test scores are too low, they just seem to dumb down the tests so that even really stupid kids can pass them, and "Viola!"; Look; they all passed!; Can we have our funding now?.

When one public school fails to educate a student (much less fails to protect them from being savagely raped or beaten if they attempt to use a rest room while a drug or prostitution deal is being transacted within) they might be... bussed to...
ANOTHER GOVERNMENT PUBLIC Indoctrination center!
In which Teachers or "Administrators", once tenured, can NEVER be removed, regardless of how ignorant or incompetent they might be themselves.
Just as it has been for lo these many years now.

Now that's real "accountability", isn't it?

Right...

Although C's were "thrown a bone" by mention somewhere in there that private or "Faith-Based" educational alternatives might come into play should the national economy collapse entirely and the Government be overthrown by Space Aliens or some such contingency, I seriously doubt that as much as one American student or Parent will ever be actually availed of any such "choice".

"Choice" in Education to those unable to fund it out of their own resources is still very un-PC to even mention, it seems. Republican magnates seem to hold as much contempt for the very idea of "Vouchers" as do Democrat / Socialists.


"Choice"? What "Choice"???

So; let's see here; "Choice" in American society applies exclusively to abortion; nothing else.

Right?

Americans are obviously too stupid to make any other responsible choices, so our Government must make them FOR us...

So;

Does a Woman have a choice to wear a seat belt or not while driving?

Can she place her child in the front seat with her and disable the air bag so that it won't blow the baby's head out the window if it deploys?

In most politically enlightened communities, can she choose to refuse to be raped, beaten, robbed and/or murdered by having the means at her disposal to at least have a sporting chance of defending herself against her (probably male) attacker?

Can she legally flush the toilet using more than the Federally approved volume of water?

Does she get to choose where her children go for their education (if she's of restricted financial means - we've already gone over that...)?

But she does have her "rights"...

Right?


Republican Senate "Majority"??? What "Majority"???

Not many C's were impressed as the Republican "Majority" compliantly capitulated to the Democrat's perversion of the Constitution and Rules of the Senate (threatening to filibuster anything they do not approve of) and cowered without hardly a whimper of protest back into an artificial and Constitutionally questionable Minority status.

Now the precedent has been set; Democrats only have to occupy 51 seats in the Senate to control it, while Republicans are forever more going to need at least 67 or so.
Perhaps more, as we have several "RINO" Senators (including two from our own beloved Maine) who are just as apt to vote with the Socialist Dems as they are with "Moderate" Pubbies. And they have a seat for life if they want it; so it may take an 80% majority of Old Fashioned, common-sense, fiscally responsible, limited-Government, Constitution-respecting Republicans in the Senate in order to really have a working "Majority".

No doubt a few Dems consider that a decent start, while the rest of them probably demand that if only one Democrat is elected to the US Senate, they must dominate and control it entirely.

I know a couple of "RINOs" who would probably agree that such an arrangement would be "only fair".

So any Judicial Nominee not solidly in the pocket or under the control of the socialist left didn't stand - or I should say doesn't stand - a chance, while liberal, activist Judges across the Country continue to dictate their undemocratic and arbitrary "Laws" on our American Society and institutions without the least bit of input from or accountability to the American People.

President Bush managed to work up the gumption to make ONE whole Recess Judicial appointment, despite a critical shortage of Federal Judges.
Of course, the Dems were "outraged".

Whoopee!

Has anyone checked this guys' record to see if there is any discernible difference between him and the black-robed elite who have decided that while including "under God" in the pledge of allegiance or mentioning Christmas in school is a gross violation of "Law", while sodomy and homosexual "marriage" is a Constitutionally guaranteed "Right"?

There may in fact be some... but I have yet to see it.

And whatever happened to President Bush's Tort Reform that was such a hit when he was the Governor of Texas? You know, the effort to return this Country to being a Nation under the rule of LAW, instead of being a realm under the rule of LAWYERS????

Are those crickets I hear out yonder in the bog?

...Or the Pharisee's silver coins being counted into someone's' little black bag?

We rather expected our Constitution to be defiled and desecrated by the Clinton Syndicate; but not by the Bush Administration, when it was entrusted to them.

In the last Republican Presidential Primary, I voted for a Candidate I knew never stood the proverbial snowball's chance in hell of getting elected - but who had what I still consider to be the moral integrity to possibly lead a Nation back to it's senses.
And that was Dr. Allan KEYES.

Of course, the political powers-that-be have seen to it that he is not apt to ever be elected to the post of Municipal Dog-Catcher, much less anything of significance in this Country.
He is much to "Religious" (being a Catholic Christian) you know, and suffers from the politically fatal flaw of believing that an unborn human fetus is actually a "Human Being".

Imagine that!

So go right ahead and ignore History, Mr. Gillespie.

Don't you know that "Conservatism" is a sure path to utter political defeat in this Country, Mr. Rove? Of course you do!

Never mind that old "Regan" dinosaur... he was a fluke.

OK; two flukes.

Two flukes in a row...

But he's about 97% dead now, and who remembers HIM, anyway?

Obviously, you guys don't... or refuse to.

Just keep on celebrating diversity, show those nice Democrats, undocumented Guests and socialists that Republicans aren't really all that mean and nasty after all.

Keep that Republican "Big Tent" wide open to whoever wants to pile on board and take the Party over, while us close-minded "Conservative" reprobates are finding out (by being shown) just where the back door of this "tent" is located.

Keep swerving to the left in hopes to win over more liberals, dependent professional welfare recipients, and undocumented aliens, while showering contempt on the NRA, the Constitutionalists and Freedom-Loving Americans who managed to elect you (barely) in 2K, Mr. Bush.

Bread and circuses; that's what the masses want, by golly!

So go right out and let 'em have it - even if you have to bankrupt the American public treasury and leave our Children up to their eyeballs in debt for the next few Generations.
Maybe that'll make the rabble and the sheeple love you enough to vote for you - providing they can sober up or take leave of the TV long enough to vote at all.

Sure, fellas; that's the way to win elections!

Just like it did for George Herbert Walker Bush back in 1992.

Right???

But as for your formerly loyal, enthusiastic and motivated Reganesque "Base"... a lot of us just might go hunting on Election day....

While we still can.

So in the end, a New-Age "progressive", licentious, diverse, ignorant, politically corrected and increasingly dependent America will probably get the leadership it deserves, in the main.

And that may well turn out to be Komrade Kerry.


Ronaldus Magnus; En Requium Pacem...

It is probably just as well that former President Ronald Regan's brain has deteriorated to the point that he is currently in a vegetative, if not comatose state.

Otherwise, all of this would probably break his great and noble old heart.

May he rest in Peace.


"W '04" ...?

Perhaps.

What are our options?

"Uncle Jaque" - South-Central ME

[KDD]

Amen.