Posted on 10/11/2006 5:48:57 AM PDT by Small-L
With 9/11, George W. Bush was reborn (again). Until then, his presidency had been undistinguished and his poll numbers low. He had also made one particularly ominous decision. In August 2001, using an executive order, Bush blocked federal support for stem-cell research. In substance that was bad enough—like many people I oppose disease and early death—but equally disturbing was the mindset. Bush summed it up in 2004, when he described stem-cell research as a project “to destroy life to save life.”
Wait a minute. Here Bush was using the same word, “life,” to describe not only a minute clump of cells known as a blastocyst but also an actual human being. In this flagrant disconnect between words and actuality were the early indications of a profoundly ideological mindset.
Edmund Burke was the original enemy of ideology. In the slogans of the French philosophes, Burke saw something new and alarming in politics, and he struggled for language to describe it, writing of “abstract theory” and “metaphysical dogma.” Burke was seeking a way to describe a belief system impervious to fact or experience, and he brought to bear a permanently valid analysis of human behavior and the role of social institutions. William F. Buckley once summed up Burke’s outlook when he called conservatism the “politics of reality.”
But that was then. Today, the standard-bearer of “conservatism” in the United States is George W. Bush, a man who has taken the positions of an unshakable ideologue: on supply-side economics, on privatization, on Social Security, on the Terri Schiavo case, and, most disastrously, on Iraq. Never before has a United States president consistently adhered to beliefs so disconnected from actuality.
Bush’s party has followed him on this course. It has approved Bush’s prescription-drug plan, an incomprehensible and ruinously expensive piece of legislation. It has steadfastly backed the war in Iraq, even though the notion of nation-building was once anathema to the GOP. And it has helped run up federal indebtedness to unprecedented heights, leaving China to finance the debt.
Perhaps most damaging to the ideal of conservatism has been the influence of religious ideology. During the fight over whether to remove the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who had been in a vegetal state for 15 years, politicians began to say strange and feverish things. “She talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort,” Majority whip Tom DeLay said of a woman for whom cognition of any kind was impossible. (Oxygen deprivation had liquefied her cerebral cortex.) Senate Majority leader Bill Frist examined Schiavo on videotape and deemed her “clearly responsive.” As Schiavo’s case fought its way through the courts, Republicans savaged judges for consistently sanctioning the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube. “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,” threatened DeLay.
That members of the judiciary were being chastised for responding to the law as written rather than looking, presumably, to some sort of divine guidance was hardly surprising. In 2002, Bush himself had said, “We need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God.” In this chilling use of the word “God,” the president made his views on the rule of law all too clear. The conservative writer Andrew Sullivan has aptly coined the term “Christianism” to refer to this merger of religiosity and politics.
As Bush’s ideology leads from one disaster to another, one might ask: How far can it go? It has already brought us to Baghdad, an adventure so hopeless that Buckley recently mused, “If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced, it would be expected that he would retire or resign.” The more we learn about what happened behind the scenes in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, the more apparent it becomes that evidence was twisted to fit preconceived notions. Those who produced evidence undermining the case for war were ignored or even punished. It was zealotry at its most calamitous.
On the subject of democratizing Iraq and the Middle East, Bush has voiced some of the most extraordinarily ideological statements ever made by a sitting president. “Human cultures can be vastly different,” Bush told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute in February 2003, shortly before the invasion of Iraq. “Yet the human heart desires the same good things, everywhere on earth…For these fundamental reasons, freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror.”
Happy thoughts, breathtakingly false. If this amounts to a worldview, it’s certainly not that of Burke. Indeed, Bush would probably be more at home among the revolutionary French, provided his taxes remained low, than among Burke’s Rockingham Whigs. (Burke would of course deny Bush admission to the Whigs in the first place, as Bush would be seen as an ideological comrade of the philosophes —if a singularly unreflective one.) It’s no surprise that longtime conservatives such as Francis Fukuyama, George F. Will, and William F. Buckley have all distanced themselves from Bush’s brand of adventurism.
The United States has seen political swings and produced its share of extremists, but its political character, whether liberals or conservatives have been in charge, has always remained fundamentally Burkean. The Constitution itself is a Burkean document, one that slows down decisions to allow for “deliberate sense” and checks and balances. President Bush has nearly upended that tradition, abandoning traditional realism in favor of a warped and incoherent brand of idealism. (No wonder Bush supporter Fred Barnes has praised him as a radical.) At this dangerous point in history, we must depend on the decisions of an astonishingly feckless chief executive: an empty vessel filled with equal parts Rove and Rousseau.
Successful government by either Democrats or Republicans has always been, above all, realistic. FDR, Eisenhower, and Reagan were all reelected by landslides and rank as great presidents who responded to the world as it is, not the world as they would have it. But ideological government deserves rejection, whatever its party affiliation. This November, the Republicans stand to face a tsunami of rejection. They’ve earned it.
Meanwhile, as we wait out our time with this president, we can look forward to the latest in a stream of rhetoric that increasingly makes Woodrow Wilson look like Machiavelli. “One, I believe there’s an Almighty,” Bush declared this April, “and secondly I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live to be free. I believe liberty is universal.”
Well, it is certainly taking a long time for the plans of the Almighty to show results in the actual world. As I write this, sectarian violence in Iraq is escalating. I’d call my skepticism “conservative,” but Bushism has poisoned the very word.
More importantly, it seems you admit that FEDERAL laws against murder ARE NECESSARY, due to some territories not being part of any single state. But where in the constitution does it say that the Fed can make anti-murder laws?
Also, I'm still looking for an answer - Federal law against third trimester partial birth abortions, constitutional or not? Also, yo
I've been accused of both, and so have you. The truth is that I care about our country and I'm going to keep fighting in any way I can (call it foolish if you want) to restore our party to the principles that we campaigned on for years.
As far as Katrina/Rita response, we did a horrid job and took the blame for it because the Democrats were willing to blame it on us. My understanding of the Constitution doesn't say anything about federal aid or federal response to localized natural disasters. Did the federal government rebuild Chicago after the fire? No the president went on record as saying that the federal government had no role in rebuilding the city. How about the hurricane in Galveston? Same response. So how come it is now the Republicans responsibility to feed and house the refugees? Why is it the federal government's responsibility to buy trailers, water, ice, food, and rebuild New Orleans? Call me cruel and inhuman if you want, but I opened my home to a refugee family, fed them, gave them clothes from my closet, and my car to drive. Did you?
As always, small minds resort to name calling when their arguement runs out.
From my post #33: Unlike many here, I don't only publish articles that I agree with. Your point is well made. Actually I agree with Bush's decision not to fund stem cell research, but for an entirely different reason... It's no business of the federal government to be funding medical research of any kind (or education for that matter).
A couple of simple questions - if a blastocyst isn't human, then what is it? And if it isn't alive, then what is it? And if it is considered outside the legitimate purview of limited government to protect human life, then what remains inside that purview?
NO, but it is certainly within the constitutions of some (most, all?) of the states.
Bill, I believe that it outside the purview of the FEDERAL government. See post #33.
I saw that - I wanted clarification. You honestly believe that the protection of human life is outside the purview of the Constitution of the United States? That is a position with which I simply cannot agree.
Believe what you will, but rest assured that you and I will be voting alike.
On the subject of the RX drug plan, please show me in the Constitution where it says that the Federal government should be paying for drugs for seniors. The Republican Medicare drug plan is simply a gift to the drug industry and their lobbyists. Virtually every drug company already had a plan paid out of their own pockets to provide necessary drugs to the needy (not just seniors). Now you and I are paying for those drugs for virtually all seniors, not just those in need. Call it successful if you want, but when the actual bill is totalled in ten years, tell me if it was worth it. By then you'll be buying my drugs for me.
Yes, why otherwise is murder, rape, and other violent crime not a Federal crime? (except as noted on certain installations, and to certain federal employees)
No person shall be...... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
So you're telling me you think this DOESN'T COVER a child still in the womb? Even one in the late third trimester?More specifically, you're telling me that a woman can get a partial birth abortion 2 weeks before her delivery date, and the US COogress CANNOT pass a law against this (again, see amendment 5 above)?
Also, you still haven't reconciled the problem with your argument that YOU raised. One mailman (or other federal employee) kills another mailman (or other fed employee) inside a post office, or other area not governed by state law. Do you think it is unconstitutional for Congress to outlaw this murder?
If by actions, you mean how I vote, you must be peaking over the wall of the voting booth?
If you mean by my lifestyle, look at the campaign signs in my front yard.
If you mean by the articles I post, then I suggest that you consider how FR would look if we only posted articles that were favorable to the RP (a mirror of DU). I consider that the FReepers here are thinking people with whom we can engage in rational converstation about the benefits and well as the problems within our party. For myself, if we're not willing to address our failings, then FR is nothing more that a bunch of cheerleaders.
Now I need to get back to work and make some money to pay for the Viagra for some poor misfortunate retired millionaire.
Mailmen are a special case (because the postal union pushed for the special case), but Post Offices are generally part of the state in which they are located, and if a murder occurs between civilians (not mailmen), it is tried in State court. On the other hand, certain (not all) military installations are not considered part of the state, and that's why the military and federal law has jurisdiction within the military installation. An interesting crime occured near here several years ago where the perpetrator fired a gun at a passing car outside a military post, missed, and the bullet went through the militay post fence and hit a child living on the base. Because the shooter was outside the military installation when he committed the crime, it was tried in the local State court.
Regarding the 5th Ammendment, skipping words tends to change it's meaning (like the Libs do to the 2nd Amendment). The fifth was written to protect the rights of criminal defendents, let's not change it's meaning:
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."
Yes, I'm angry. Yes, I was opposed to Bush in the primaries.
Yes, I voted for him twice.
Yes, I appreciated and like the list of accomplishments you posted.
Yes, I think the Medicare Drug Entitlement is unconstitutional (as well as the rest of Medicare and SS), and is the product of a buyoff between the drug company lobbyists and the RNC.
Yes, I'm willing to look at the facts that demonstrate otherwise--please post them. For example, if the drug companies were lobbying against the Medicare Drug bill, I might believe that they weren't the beneficiary, unfortunately, they were 110% behind it.
I'll give you another example. Why was the RP so anxious to pass a bill outlawing Internet gambling? Was it because the Republican base was clamboring for a law? Or was it because the Las Vega/Biloxi/Atlantic City gaming industry was lobbying for it? And oh by the way, I wonder if the gaming industry contributes to the RNC.
Also, while your anecdote may be interesting (to you), you're still evading the issue. Clearly in this country there are instances where a person could be murdered and this crime not be covered by state law. According to you, this crime could not be prosecuted, because any federal law against murder is unconstitutional, yes?
I see, so to be a good Republican in the big tent, we should all sit down, shut up, and say "Yes Massa'" to the people on the stage. Forgive me, but if that's what we mean by the big tent, maybe we shouldn't be reelected next month.
"Gee After being mostly out of power for 70 years, the Republicans finally got control of 2/3s of the Government in 2003. Now, less then 4 years later EVERYTHING is not perfect. Whaa! Conservatives should take their ball and go home because the political glass is only 70% full. That will punish those bad old Republicans for not doing ONLY what WE want the second WE want it done." This article is just the usaual collection Know Nothing slogans drawn together by the politically ignorant to ratioalize their knee jerk Bush hate. IN life all things require compromise. Real Conservatives want to move the ball down the field. Pseudo Conservatives want only 100% of ONLY their views. That sort of 100%ersim results in total political irrelevance. The Freepers Fringers do ONE thing only with this continual Whining, help Democrats.
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