We Blew It

Weekly Standard ^ | 11/9/2008 | P.J. O'Rourke

[Nachum]

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble. The progeny of the Reagan Revolution will live instead in the universe that revolves around Hyde Park.

Mind you, they won't live in Hyde Park. Those leafy precincts will be reserved for the micromanagers and macro-apparatchiks of liberalism--for Secretary of the Department of Peace Bill Ayers and Secretary of the Department of Fairness Bernardine Dohrn. The formerly independent citizens of our previously self-governed nation will live, as I said, around Hyde Park. They will make what homes they can in the physical, ethical, and intellectual slums of the South Side of Chicago.

The South Side of Chicago is what everyplace in America will be once the Democratic administration and filibuster-resistant Democratic Congress have tackled global warming, sustainability, green alternatives to coal

and oil, subprime mortgage foreclosures, consumer protection, business oversight, financial regulation, health care reform, taxes on the "rich," and urban sprawl. The Democrats will have plenty of time to do all this because conservatism, if it is ever reborn, will not come again in the lifetime of anyone old enough to be rounded up by ACORN and shipped to the polling booths.

None of this is the fault of the left. After the events of the 20th century--national socialism, international socialism, inter-species socialism from Earth First--anyone who is still on the left is obviously insane and not responsible for his or her actions. No, we on the right did it. The financial crisis that is hoisting us on our own petard is only the latest (if the last) of the petard hoistings that have issued from the hindquarters of our movement. We've had nearly three decades to educate the electorate about freedom, responsibility, and the evils of collectivism, and we responded by creating a big-city-public-school-system of a learning environment.

Liberalism had been running wild in the nation since the Great Depression. At the end of the Carter administration we had it cornered in one of its dreadful low-income housing projects or smelly public parks or some such place, and we held the Taser gun in our hand, pointed it at the beast's swollen gut, and didn't pull the trigger. Liberalism wasn't zapped and rolled away on a gurney and confined somewhere until it expired from natural causes such as natural law or natural rights.

[DwFry]

“There was no need to piss off the entire black population of America to get Dixie’s electoral votes. And despising cracker trash who have a laundry hamper full of bedsheets with eye-holes cut in them does not make a man a liberal.”

Thanks for your opinion...now please go f*@! yourself

[teletech]

It seems you have me there. I just try to appeal to the better nature of man. I'm wasting my time.

In a perfect world you would be able to "appeal to better nature of man". One of the symptoms of Liberalism Sickness is called gimmeitis! Once infected with gimmeitis, the better nature of man is destroyed.

[Names Ash Housewares]

“We do. It’s called preview.”

Not the same.

Every forum I am on, has an edit function after preview as well. Now fine, have it last for only a few minutes.

Sometime you post a bad link or a picture that won’t work even after preview.

[blackbart.223]

"In a perfect world you would be able to "appeal to better nature of man". One of the symptoms of Liberalism Sickness is called gimmeitis! Once infected with gimmeitis, the better nature of man is destroyed."

On that note I bid you good night. I need some sleep.

[ari-freedom]

yes, happens all the time

[backhoe]

It sure as hell wasn't me. With due respect to PJ.

Exactly right.

I posted this a while back, on our sister site, and I'll be damned if I see anything a staunch conservative, or, Hell, a classic Liberal could disagree with:

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1081009&highlight=#1081009

 

Besides being American, I'm a conservative whose first political campaign was for Barry Goldwater.

Lower taxes.
Fewer regulations.
More freedom.
More responsibility for having that freedom.
Strong military.
Free speech.
Right to keep and bear arms. And the rest of the Bill of Rights, too. Yeah, I'm a Southerner. Don't call me a "Yank." Them's fightin' words down here.
Keep the people free and the country sovereign, and we can get in a pile and argue about abortion, dope, etc., later...
Stay out of my face.

...and always remember to KISS...
( keep it simple, stupid. )

Minor addendum?

1)- The threat to the entire West posed by militant Islam

2)- The threat to our society & sovereignty by uncontrolled illegal immigration

3)- The near-ungovernability of the nation, due to left-wing extremism, and the 90-95% leftward biases of both the news & entertainment industry- AKA, Media Hive.

4)- The rot of popular culture- coarse, crude, and utterly pointless and superficial...

[KansasCanadian]

Conservatism shall return—just look at Canadian politics right now. Conservatism from coast to coast—we just ran an extremely weak presidential nominee this time. And they ran a very attractive one—its an American Idol mentality

[fso301]

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age?

Gone with the Republican leadership hypocrisy revealed during the Clinton impeachment proceedings. I think McCain represented the end of the road of the impeachment compromised Republicans. From now one, new leaders can be raised up.

[TheThinker]

I think McCain typhooned it. He wanted to be so noble but there is no higher nobility than truth. He didn’t want to expose the truth about Obama and get his fingers dirty.

[MARTIAL MONK]

Just cracking wise.

[Just mythoughts]

A liberal never accepts responsibility for their own actions. Too many Republicans fell under the liberal spell of ridicule, they reacted just as ‘hoped’ and now ‘change’ is on its way.

[Billy Bud]

Wow, it must be in our nature to keep falling on our swords no matter what the cost. Yes, we may have had a hand in the demise of conservatism over the last 28 years, but there is plenty of blame to go around.
The last two years there was a Democratic controlled Congress that had there own agenda. We had the ability to fight them, but apparently not the guts. Don’t forget the eight years of the infamous Clinton administration. He tried to push the agenda to the left and that immediately gave us Newt and Company.
Yes, we certainly could have done much better with the opportunities that were given to us, but let’s not totally destroy ourselves by falling on the sword. Rather, let’s take this opportunity to clean house and prioritize what the principles for this party should be as we start the 21st centure.

[edh]

“How will conservatives ever pull the voters away from the liberal feeding trough? Liberalism is a sickness for which there is no known cure.”

Put principles first and advance those to gain power. Tragically, from 2002-2004, we were more concerned about gaining power and disregarding principle.

I can live with a few RINOs, but it went out of control. When the RNC is blowing cash on people like Lincoln Chaffe just for the sake of “defending a seat”, it is time to rethink your strategery and move forward.

We lost power these past four years! Rightfully so? Nope. The number of Republicans in Congress that are fine people far outweigh the “fringe” now. We simply need to rally and charge forward. I think our base goal for 2010 should be +2 in the Senate and +20 in the house.

Moreover, we need to win a few more Governorships. For example, in Pennsylvania see if we can get those like Arlen Specter to step aside for someone like Tom Corbett. Some people have suggested that Santorum run again, but I think he should set up an exploratory committee to see if he could snag the Gov.ship in 2010. If Obama is the lightweight we all expect him to be, this might be feasible.

Also in PA, there are two, possibly three Congressional seats that could be won should the RNC decide to abandon this senseless tactic of “focusing on red states” only.

I tried to support McCain as best I could. I tried to refrain from making any bad comments about him during this election and did my best to get people to support him just for the sake of the country. We lost though & we are going to take some hits since elections have consequences. Our Conservative message works....distorted RINO blather fails. Now that RINO blather has failed, it is time to shift focus back to our Conservative roots and start winning again.

That is basically how we can pull voters away from the liberal feeding trough :-)! God has not abandoned us. We (meaning the RNC) just needed a lesson in “political power management :-)”. God abandoning us would have been seeing 80M people supporting Obama and losing all 57 States ;-)!

[Madame Dufarge]

it’s time to think about life outside of politics as much as humanly possible.

That's just what they want us to do. Politics has been described as "war by other means" and encouraging people to cave now is the worst possible thing to do.

The first War of Independence is full of examples of the personal courage of men who resisted tyranny. Now is not the time to throw our hands in the air and surrender, now is the time to stoke a fire in the belly.

Here's an excerpt from David McCullough's John Adams, recounting the voting by the Continental Congress to declare independence from England's tyranny:

"Though the record of all that happened the following day, Tuesday, July 2, is regrettably sparse, it appears that just as the doors to Congress were about to be closed at the usual hour of nine o'clock, Caesar Rodney, mud-spattered, 'booted and spurred,' made his dramatic entrance. The tall, thin Rodney - the 'oddest-looking man in the world,' Adams once described him - had been made to appear stranger still, and more to be pitied, by a skin cancer on one side of his face that he kept hidden behind a scarf of green silk. But, as Adams had also recognized, Rodney was a man of spirit, of 'fire.' Almost unimaginably, he had ridden eighty miles through the night, changing horses several times, to be there in time to cast his vote."

[teletech]

Put principles first and advance those to gain power. Tragically, from 2002-2004, we were more concerned about gaining power and disregarding principle.

I can't argue with that but don't you see the problem we will be facing? Voters will be so entrenched in liberal gimme politics that when we come along and tell them the party is over, what do you think they will say. We really need to hope the DemocRATS fail in their ability to give everything to everybody. I think there is a good chance that is exactly what will happen.

[Swing_Thought]

PJ's right about most of this. Fortunately, people have short memories, and that's a good thing because people are going to have to forget that is was a republican president who foisted the monstrosity known as the bailout on us, and that it was supported and engineered through congress by republican leadership in both the house and senate.

With the dems in charge and looking to add all sorts of additional spending, there will be ample opportunity for us to make the case that this stuff isn't free. That somebody has to pay. Somehow, we have to find an effective way of making PJ's point that government largess can only be paid for via higher taxes, borrowing or inflation, and that all three are harmful.

Conservatives should never say to voters, "We can lower your taxes." Conservatives should say to voters, "You can raise spending. You, the electorate, can, if you choose, have an infinite number of elaborate and expensive government programs. But we, the government, will have to pay for those programs. We have three ways to pay.

"We can inflate the currency, destroying your ability to plan for the future, wrecking the nation's culture of thrift and common sense, and giving free rein to scallywags to borrow money for worthless scams and pay it back 10 cents on the dollar.

"We can raise taxes. If the taxes are levied across the board, money will be taken from everyone's pocket, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and least advantaged will be harmed the most. If the taxes are levied only on the wealthy, money will be taken from wealthy people's pockets, hampering their capacity to make loans and investments, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and the least advantaged will be harmed the most.

"And we can borrow, building up a massive national debt. This will cause all of the above things to happen plus it will fund Red Chinese nuclear submarines that will be popping up in San Francisco Bay to get some decent Szechwan take-out.

Somehow, we have to pound this point home. And evidently, our republican leaders have to learn it too.

[nathanbedford]

O' Rourke, as ever, is entertaining. He is absolutely right and the principal thrust of his piece: we blew it.

But his piece reflects the split within the conservative movement between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, between paleo-conservative's and neocons, between conservatives and libertarians. O'Rourke is a libertarian. As such he dismisses the deaths of about 40 million babies. As such, he throws up his hands at almost any foreign intervention. As such, he pokes fun at those who would impeach a president who committed perjury, suborned perjury, hid evidence, conspired to do the above, all to fix a court case. In the next breath, O'Rourke deplores cultural breakdown of America.

My point is that conservativism must recover the unity of the three legged stool fashioned by Ronald Reagan: robust defense ; 2) fiscal conservatism; and 3) social conservatism. So long as those conservatives who do not share social conservative values are embarrassed by social conservatives, we have no hope for a comeback.

[bilhosty]

Once upon a time we had our Camelot. It was lead by our own King Arthur. His name wa Ronald Reagan.Just like King Arthur who in a moment of passion concieved Mordred with his sister Morgan, and caused his own undoing. Ronald Reagan brought us George H.W. Bush. Through three termws of the house of Bush they managed to take down Camelot and even lose the country. Yes, W. won Iraq but he lost America. some how it just does not seem like an even trade.

[Salamander]

“By we you mean conservatives then I believe you are incorrect. Not so long ago, 2006 to be exact, on this site many people were telling others to stay home and not vote to teach us a lesson.”

I remember that well.

I disregarded it and voted.

[for all the good that does in MD]

[repubpub]

“I disregarded it and voted.

[for all the good that does in MD]”

I did too, and am in the same boat as you, CA.