Posted on 10/20/2005 9:56:38 PM PDT by quidnunc
The bile accumulating on the right toward the White House has reached China Syndrome proportions and is starting to melt through the floor.
Suddenly, conservatives are starting to question whether George W. Bush is even a one of them at all. One of my heroes, Robert Bork, recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "George W. Bush has not governed as a conservative. This George Bush, like his father, is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values." Conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett opines: "The truth that is now dawning on many movement conservatives is that George W. Bush is not one of them and never has been." Even at National Review Online where I hang my hat most of the time several of our contributors have echoed these concerns.
I think this goes too far. Two factors contribute to this misdiagnosis: confusion and disappointment.
Let's start with confusion. Contrary to most stereotypes, conservatism is a much less dogmatic ideology than modern liberalism. The reason liberals don't seem dogmatic and conservatives do is that liberals have settled their dogma, so it has become invisible to them. No liberal disputes in a serious philosophical way that the government should do good things where it can and when it can. Their debates aren't about ideology, they're about tactics. Indeed, the chief disagreement between leftists and liberals over the role of the state is almost entirely pragmatic. Moderate liberals think it's not practical either economically or politically to push for a dramatic expansion of the role of the state. Leftists think it would be a good idea politically and, despite all the evidence to the contrary, think it would work economically.
Within conservatism, however, there are enormous philosophical arguments about the proper role of the state. This debate isn't merely between libertarians and social conservatives. It's also between conservatives who are "anti-left" versus those who are "anti-state." Neoconservatives, for example, are famously comfortable with an energetic, interventionist government as long as that government isn't run by secular, atheistic radicals and socialists (I exaggerate a little for the sake of clarity).
-snip-
Does Bork believe the Second Amendment protects an INDIVIDUAL right, or doesn't he?
I agree. Rove must be in trouble but under the circumstances, why? Who didn't know that Valerie Plame wasn't a CIA operative, in her own neighborhood? It was common knowledge. Even obstruction.. obstruction of common knowledge? Reality check.
Chin up Jim! :-)
I don't think it's as bad as all that.
We're changing the face of the world in the middle east. This thing is going to work, and the ripples will flow out for decades.
Page 166: ``the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that there is no individual right to own a firearm. The Second Amendment was designed to allow states to defend themselves against a possibly tyrannical national government. Now that the federal government has stealth bombers and nuclear weapons, it is hard to imagine what people would need to keep in the garage to serve that purpose.''
So which is it?
Sigh.
I just don't know what to think.
We won't know, until we know. I have to wonder though, how much of this garbage is Senators trying to get their way when the President is down.
That garbage today in the Senate was a disgrace.
I'm out of here for the weekend, so maybe it will all look completely wonderful when I get back.
Thanks for the reply.
(Clicks Ruby Red Slippers)
"Republican", "conservative", "the right".. are more and more nebulous terms.. Worse most republicans are clueless to this or in denial..
Big giverment republicans seem to be democrats with family values.. there is a difference between them and that seems to wholly it.. Glad there are none of them folks on free republic.. Else the sound of boot licking would be unbearable..
(shineing fingernails)... (putting on ear muffs)
You're right. I am displeased with the Congress, all the way around. It's as if we are nearly expecting to be displeased with the Democrats there (aren't we always, is my point, and for very good reasons), but with the Republicans in office, I approach them with hopes and expectations and am always, always denigrated and let down by their failed responses.
Our Republican Senators, particularly. Same with the State GOP in CA...the Party is not user friendly, does not seem to even care for voters, beyond asking for money and votes. And yet I vote for them but they do not represent that they even respect that I do.
My voting preferences as of today can be defined as "anyone but the Democrat." It's a sad statement about the GOPers in office.
Something about having a rifle tells me that it can make all the difference in (my) world.
Jonah may have had it right when he referred to the anti-left versus the anti-state "conservatives." We may be seeing under the radar just that type of fight occuring in the White House.
"George Bush, like his father, is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values."
Well, there is the War on Terror thing, but you are right. If we are judging him on being a Conservative, he barely passes muster. However, if we are comparing him to Algore and John sKerry, he stands head and shoulders above those two.
I'm too young to remember Bork nomination battle. Yet, from what I read, he wasn't really helping himself during the nomination either, which made people easily put a negative image on him.
"So which is it?"
The fact that he's a gun grabber is not correct, as debunked in a previous post.
What he thinks of the how the the RKBA should be defended, either from a policy standpoint, or from a 2nd amendment standpoint, is kind of moot. Especially since he's not the one up for the current supreme court seat. That would be our mystery appointment, harriet miers.
I notice you don't do any real defending of her positions - just a lot of attacking those people who question her nomination.
BTW, isn't it about time for you to say how we're all attacking harriet miers and then throw out some personal attacks of your own?
I agree. Something is going on in the WH. Perhaps Rove's legal problems. Maybe Andy Card is calling more shots. It appears that Cheney is not a happy camper. The Miers nomination has merely exposed the latent discontent.
The thing that has me confused and disappointed with President Bush is he wasn't afraid to take on Bin Laden and Saddam, but then won't fight for the Supreme Court and keeping our borders secure.
The American Spectator is reporting that the White House had to make a deal on stem-cell legislation in order to keep Specter from sinking the Miers nomination.
It looks like some unintended consequences of the opposition to Miers.
Yes, makes a great deal of sense. Unfortunately for Bork, his inability to withhold the emotional tags to the issue ("it's frivolous") and not speak fluidly as to his intellectual reasoning about it, cost us an otherwise outstanding S.C. judge. I'd have liked to have seen him on the Court, otherwise, but the emotionalism worries me. Then again, Renquist wasn't a non-emotional person, nor Ginsberg for that matter.
He believes individuals have a right to keep and bear arms (and explicitly opposes gun control) but believes that policy reasons rather than constitutional doctrine provide the right. It's right there in the book---you're quoting a footnote out of context. The claim that Bork is "for" gun control, or a "gun grabber," is a *LIE*, and you know it.
"Chin up Jim! :-)
I don't think it's as bad as all that......This thing is going to work, and the ripples will flow out for decades."
I agree. This too shall pass.
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