Posted on 11/05/2005 3:00:48 PM PST by RWR8189
If a person needs the government to "promote their interests" in terms of more government mandates and spending they GET NO RESPECT from this white collar man.
Ditto that.
This article is WAY off. Wanna make sure the GOP remains in power, AND returns to it's conservative roots?
The party platform needs to resemble Ronald Reagan's as much as possible. We need some Reaganite conservatives for the '08 Presidential campaign and for House and Senate seats in "up for grabs" races.
Why? Because-Ronald W. Reagan was able to unite the fiscal conservatives, the neo-cons, paleocons, and social conservatives. He was fiscally conservative, strong on defense, and socially conservative enough to appeal to the Christian Right without being such a "hard-liner" as to upset the more libertarian wing of the party.
BRING BACK REAGAN-STYLE CONSERVATISM TO THE GOP!
Yeah it really helps the Conservative Agenda when Pundits that are supposedly on the "Conservative" side just mindlessly regurgitate the DNC spin lies instead of challengeing the lies. Just another Kristol psuedo-Conservative hit piece. Maybe if the "Conservative pundits" quit spending all their time carrying the Dems water for them, we would get more things done in Congress
Yeah, they should just shut up and work with the GOP and REALLY get things done.
When they outsourced the factory/manufacturing jobs, the factory worker told his son that the future lied in high tech, and go to college and study computers. Fifteen years later, the son's job is being outsourced to China and India. So what should the son tell his own son to do? Compete with the illegal aliens for the jobs left over? The GOP's answer is TS, get three low paying jobs. The Dems say sorry about that go to college and retrain even if you are 50 years old, and by the way don't blame the illegal immigrants you racist xenophobe. Illegal immigration and economic nationalism is not being addressed by the two major parties at their own peril. Yes the Conservative Party of NJ is small right now, but they are the only ones addressing the problems.
"At this point, it's obvious to all but the most delusional that President Bush's Social Security gambit has failed. Having grasped the third rail with his bare hands, Bush deserves our admiration. But he seriously misjudged the public mood."
So what?
It isn't the Republicans' job to bend to the public-at-large's will. The public must choose between two party alternatives. If that means they choose the Dems, so be it.
This whole Weekly Standard article reeks of a quasi-populist messasge. It says little about citizens maintaining a republic, just what the government can do to "ease" burdens on consumers.
If it is true that real conservatives are but a bloc within the Republican party, and not it's majority, I take confort in this: the most radical leftist Americans comprise about a third of the Democrat party, which they steer, and this party gets about 1/3 of the vote each national election guaranteed. Republicans can count on about a third of the overall population voting for them every 4 years, too. If you need about 1/9th of the overall population to be the leader of the leading party, a super-majority is not required. Just a strong willed activist base, and hard ball politics against the others in your party.
"Fifteen years later, the son's job is being outsourced to China and India."
What job is that? The tech support people who make $10/hr?
That's what I understand "high tech" outsourcing to mean. And those jobs aren't the backbone of the nation.
Nor can any activist (either left wing or right wing) put a stop to it, unless the cable lines connecting the continents along the bottom of the oceans are cut.
"Illegal immigration and economic nationalism is not being addressed"
How can a conservative movement whose goal is to bring federalism back from exile work to promote nationalism? What's the point?
"Critics will carp that such a party would be trying to be too many things to too many people. But there's a term for a party that attempts this feat and succeeds: a majority party."
And the Soviets were the majority party in Russia for a lifetime. What good did *that* do for anyone?
Majoritism isn't the point. Enacting an agenda is. And the Progressives have been supremely successful at that for over a hundred years. Majoritism will only propagate the progressive movement, rather than letting *their* system fall.
Excellent points. It is amazing cry by pseudo-conservatives for direct government intervention/control of the economy as well as social/moral oversight with a peak in the bedroom to boot. Putting the government in charge of the economy and morality; well is socialism and we now that has faired.
It works like this, American computer worker wants starting salary of $ 60,000. Computer company brings in H-1B worker who would be willing to work for $ 45,000. American worker wants the job, company suggest offering a starting salary of $ 40,000 to send the H-1B worker home. When practice becomes widespread, $ 40,000 is now norm starting salary, except the company will get a H-1B worker willing to work for $ 30,000. If American worker does not want to be replaced, company suggests that US worker accept a salary of $ 25,000 or be replaced. Maybe you should start talking to high tech workers and find out what has been happening to them. If there is no future in high tech, manufacturing and service jobs, is the only lucrative job left drug dealer?
"It works like this, American computer worker wants starting salary of $ 60,000."
How about this: We get the federal goverment to *force* the private sector to pay computer programmers/workers $60,000 a year.
Oh wait, isn't that statism? And doesn't statism drive down everyones' standard of living?
"If there is no future in high tech, manufacturing and service jobs, is the only lucrative job left drug dealer?"
Populist hyperbole. Not truth.
So if the new global economy allows corporations to push salaries downward, what is your solution?
The same as it's been for a long time: allow the corporations to go bankrupt. Do not prop them up with government dollars in any way.
In that way, they remain competitive with smaller businesses, and cannot establish monopolies. The job market will then be moved to it's fair and natural point.
As far as competition from abroad, the issue of trade and lack of market place access has caused wars in the past. Holing up is not the solution. But pressing foreign governments, perhaps at the points of guns, to not create unfair advantages for corporations in their countries, will perhaps not allow thse corporations to "game" the system.
By the way, didn't you notice that the guy who wrote this Sam's Club article is essentially a leftist?
Reihan Salam wrote a similar online article earlier this year, titled "The Crisis of 'Sam's Club Republicans.'" There was a FR thread on that too. Someone dug up that Salam was with the progressive magazine The New Republic at one point.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318675/posts?page=9#9
"He is a former reporter-researcher at The New Republic."
The New Republic was established about 90 years ago, with the mission of undoing the system of limited government.
I find it hard to believe that a fellow such as yourself who believes we are going in the wrong direction regarding trade and "globalisation" would be turning to one of those dreaded Weekly Standard neocons. I thought your guys didn't like them?
The way I look at it however, is that the author has chosen to leave his home party/movement. There are two kinds of people in that situation: converts and refugees. He's one of the latter. He hasn't really changed his worldview, to that of goverment intervention in the economy over the long haul is a net negative. Salam comes across as pretty much a pro-taxer kind of guy. In his own backhanded way, he concedes that entitlement reform might really be needed to salvage the economy, but believes his new Party should not bother with that political fight.
In other words, he's a guy who hasn't figured out that it was his way of trying to do things that made the Democrats such a lousy political party, and thinks things can be made right by doing the same things, but with the opposition party, and only minor twists or tweaks.
Salam's neo-populist article also betrays what quasi-leftists think conservatives are: right wing populists. In the view of these guys, we are not being serious if we call for a return to Originalism and the constitution in exile. That all we want is just "spoils" for our side.
So you think the job market for most American workers is wonderful. You need to talk to the workers who have been around a bit. My father in the 1950's thru the 1970's worked in a printing factory as a foreman and my mother stayed home. He made enough money to put four kids thru state college. Can you or an average family of four today with one working capable of doing this? You can if you alone can make $ 300K or more a year. The high taxes of the Dems killed that golden age, and the GOP embracing free market globalism is killing prospects of high wages and job security. Both parties is destroying the middle class.
Wow.
If this is what passes for ideas for the future over at The Weekly Standard, I'll keep looking to National Review as the "house organ" of conservative thought.
Wage subsidies? Paying people to stay home and take care of the kids? A federal income tax AND a federal sales tax? Universal mandatory health insurance? I could go on.
These aren't "conservative" policy prescriptions by any stretch of the imagination. This read like a Hilary! 2008 campaign platform. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a "moderate" (i.e. not crazy) democrat embrace many of these concepts. But a conservative republican?
Look, I'm all in favor of a "big tent" party, but this kind of thinking needs to be countered. Forcefully. I totally understand that, with the Democrat party imploding and becoming the home of batshit crazy anti-American leftards, many of the moderate Democrats are going to start migrating over to the GOP. We'll take the votes. But that doesn't mean we have to accept their liberal policy prescriptions.
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