Posted on 02/07/2008 6:24:32 AM PST by Greg F
Having accepted the concept of the "Big Tent" a long time ago, the GOP can't excommunicate anyone from the party. It was a dumb idea and the GOP has paid the price for it in endless philosophical drift and inept presidential nominees. John McCain differs in degree, not kind, from the last three GOP presidential candidates.
Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., McCain: Where's the substantive difference? They are all intellectually lame Republicans, with little to no interest in conservative political and moral philosophy.
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HUCKABEE, FOR ALL of his glibness, is striking much closer to the bedrock of philosophical conservatism than his critics. If conservatism is not about conserving principles that originate in reality -- a reality that comes from God and is made known to man through his reason -- then what good is it?
A conservatism without the natural law is simply willful liberalism in a more respectable guise, moving more glacially than the left's transparent one, but essentially agreeing that man is the measure of all things and political disputes, no matter how obviously they bear upon the God-given nature of man, are to be resolved by power and man's desires.
Both reason and bitter history should tell conservatives that sawing off the natural law leg of its stool makes the whole thing collapse. Without principles rooted in reality upon which to deliberate about the size of government proper to human beings, economic conservatism evaporates and foreign-policy conservatism turns hubristic.
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(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
It’s tragic the Republicans can’t, don’t or won’t learn from the successes of Reagan.
Thanks.
I’ll say that I do not adopt positions because I am a conservative. I do not accept philosophies because I am a conservative.
I looked at the issues, I looked at the philosophies, I pragmatically, logically, studiously examined the problems we have, the role of government in fixing them, and how best to accomplish whatever it seemed needed to be accomplished.
That inexorably leads a person to the conservative philosophy, because that philosophy, imbedded in the constitution and our history, is hands-down the BEST philosophy to address the problems in the public sphere.
In other words, I am a conservative because it works. If liberalism worked, I’d probably be a liberal. “conservatism” isn’t a religion for me, it’s a label that identifies the philosophy I have chosen for its obvious superiority over all others.
I do think some people cling to philosophy as an ideological thing, but I imagine most people do arrive here because they can see what works.
It’s tragic the Republicans can’t, don’t or won’t learn from the successes of Reagan.
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Most conservative voters are not voracious enough readers to think for themselves. They believe what Sean Hannity or FOX news panels tell them is conservative whether or not it is.
We ended the Reagan revolution when we nominated Bush II. Before that we had a CONSERVATIVE congress . . . remember those days of Newt’s leadership? I don’t know why transformative leaders on the right regularly give up and resign. Nixon, Newt . . . Reagan toughed Iran-Contra out and remained a hero. There is something at play either in the world or the conservative psyche that gives up the fight too quickly. Perhaps it’s a sense of honor, perhaps it’s a blackmail machine on the left.
A conservative in office for the last 8 years would have altered the landscape of our politics for decades and renewed the spirit of Reagan in the party. Now we face a Democrat presidency that can alter the landscape irrevocably. In recession there is no guarantee that the liberal loses popularity (see FDR). Constant action substitutes for success — the appearance of doing something. We need 4 more years of a Republican, if only for the court and to avoid another crushing defeat in Iraq like we suffered in Vietnam. Absent a contested convention we won’t get a conservative so we are in a holding action against a left transformation of the political landscape.
Thanks for the post.
Without God, this country will fail, just as Israel has in the past eons.
We have a chance, to correct their mistakes, or to follow the same path.
Pragmatism has its place. I believe that what works aligns with the ultimate truth . . . that is why it works. You can get there backwards (and I did as well earlier in my life) by being pragmatic, but there you are relying on your own analysis using the facts provided to you by others. Your analysis or the facts can go wrong, while a commitment to natural law principles such as property rights, equality under the law, the right of a people to participate in electing their government, freedom of speech and religion and the like provide a firm foundation for political thought. If you abandon them you can end up “pragmatically” imposing things like limits on freedom of political speech as McCain did (and which Bush didn’t veto). I can see the pragmatic thinking of McCain on this . . . but he was dead wrong because he ignored the basic natural law principle of free speech which was at stake. It is a travesty that the court let it stand . . .
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear
I’ve got a big black iron elephant in the living room.
McCain needs to wake up and smell the "VILE"!!!
"Bipartisanship" Is A Dirty Word; and RUSH: "We want to defeat them"
3 justices nominated by Obama (the most leftwing Senator in the counry last year), with likely service by those three justices of 40 years given modern medical care, is not a way to save the nation.
Spot on!
It is the most basic of philosiphical differences; utopianists against realists; dreamers versus doers.
The problem is, now that the tent is up, where do conservatives go? Is the Republican party, as a vehicle for conservative ideals, no longer viable? Or, can it be retaken?
I don’t believe that it can be, just as the Dems are about to discover if Hillary can pull of the nomination ( as I believe she will ) especially if she wins with super-delegates.
It may be that genuine third parties on both the left and the right are needed right now, I know that they would desperately seem to be needed by conservatives.
BTW anyone else find the term conservative a little lacking? I would consider myself a “paleo-liberal” in the tradition of Jefferson and Madison and the rest of the founders who were all liberals in the truest sense of the word. We should quit letting others dictate the terms of debate and call things what they are.
He’s definitely right about natural law and Huckabee. Obviously the author is a real conservative who likes the real conservative in the race.
This is where you end up when voting for “the lesser of two evils”. Republicans are reaping what they have sewn.
My concern about a third party is that it seems to me that the Reagan coalition is the Conservative coalition. And that coalition IS all within the Republican tent currently. My “solution” is to have economic and national defense conservatives talk to religious conservatives BEFORE lining up behind a candidate in the primaries that may not be acceptable to the social conservatives. It’s more of a nuts and bolts, pre-primary, candidate selection thing that needs to get organized.
Saying it doesn’t matter . . . doesn’t make it not matter!
The difference is that Romney says all the right things. Nominating him and electing him keeps the Conservative Movement moving even if he “stabs us in the back.” Nominating and electing McCain with Conservative help pushes Conservatives into the same sort of closet that blacks are in in the Democrat Party because McCain revels in giving the finger to Conservatives at every opportunity. He evinces strong distaste for conservatives and conservatism, no matter what his voting record might show on balance. Electing McCain ends conservative influence in the Republican Party for a long time.
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