The Real Revolution Has Begun

American Thinker ^ | February 21, 2011 | J. Robert Smith

[neverdem]

How delicious is irony, how fickle fate? 

Just a little more than two years ago, liberals were ecstatic about Barack Obama's election and Democrats' control of Congress.  Liberal pundits were all atwitter about the brand new Democratic Era that voters had ushered in.  America would finally become what America should have been years ago: a European-style social democracy. 

Boy, did Democrats misread their mandate!  With very little hindsight needed, it's apparent to all but ideologically-blinkered liberals that the Democrats' gross overreach isn't what voters wanted or expected.  Voters wanted a redo of the Clinton years.  Instead, in the person of Barack Obama, voters got an amalgam of FDR and LBJ with a dash of Neville Chamberlin thrown in. 

But here's the real kicker.  Two years of Obama-Reid-Pelosi overreach and excesses may have been the table-setter for the real revolution now unfolding.  Voters and taxpayers first needed to see the irresponsibility and recklessness of unalloyed liberalism to appreciate that conservative government is far superior.  Thank you, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

Of course, the real revolution began last year with the 2010 midterm elections.  Yes, the GOP made the largest gains in U.S. House seats since 1948.  But the underappreciated story is that the GOP racked up huge gains in state legislative contests, and further down ballot, Republicans swept plenty of local offices.  State legislatures control congressional redistricting.  Republicans now dominate enough key statehouses to lock-in GOP congressional electoral advantages for a decade.      

Had voters limited their ballots to throwing out the rascals in Congress, a fair argument could be made that 2010 was just a protest vote -- an attempt by voters to shake up the Democrats.  But when voters drill down to change party control of legislatures, city halls, and county commissions, you can bet that they're thoroughly repudiating the party in power.  The 2010 repudiation of Democrats was a clear expression of what voters did and didn't want from government.

Move now to the present time.  Republicans are on the march in Congress.  Late last week, House Republicans passed a budget bill containing $61 billion in cuts.  It's not the $100 billion that conservatives aimed for, but it's substantial and can be considered a down payment.  The House Republican proposal now goes to the Senate.  The budget process wrangling is just in its first phase.  Moving forward, the GOP will have multiple opportunities to push more cuts. 

And look what else House Republicans are doing.  They're using the budget process to hamstring Obamacare by denying it funding.  Shutting down and then nixing ObamaCare would be an historic victory in the fight to end liberalism's nearly hundred-year dominance; it would be one of those critical turning points in history -- like Vicksburg and Gettysburg -- a momentum shifter that leads to other key victories, such as entitlements reform.

Also, Indiana Republican Mike Pence offered and passed an amendment cutting funding for the odious abortion mill called Planned Parenthood.  Another amendment, offered by Oregon Republican Greg Walden, that passed, chokes off funds for the Federal Communications Commission's net-neutrality gambit.  Net -neutrality would concentrate more power in the FCC's hands and stymie free speech across the internet.  Net-neutrality could well have been made in China. 

Of course, the revolution just beginning isn't confined to the Halls of Congress.  Chris Christie, New Jersey's intrepid Republican governor, fired the first shots last year in the burgeoning struggle to bring sanity back to state affairs.  Christie's efforts aren't limited to balancing state budgets and reining in taxes, important as those things are.  Christie is working to limit government and expand the playing field for the private sector.  As we're seeing, government without proper limits is a ruinous beast.  California is a prime example.     

Now newly elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is making headlines because he dares to say that his state is broke and that the public employees' gravy train needs to end.  Governor Walker wants to end collective bargaining for public employees, excepting police and firefighters, on the simple, common sense premise that employees shouldn't be negotiating the hours they work, among other things. 

In Ohio, Governor John Kasich is gearing up to slash budgets, rollback taxes, cut regulations, and confront the Buckeye State's public employee unions.  There'll be fireworks aplenty in Columbus. 

Thomas Jefferson is being proven right again.  The states are the laboratories of democracy.  Christie, Kasich, and Walker are seeking to demonstrate that limited, financially responsible government is best for economic and societal health.  If successful -- and we should all have high confidence that these governors will succeed -- the lessons will not be lost on voters and politicians in other states.  Revolutions are like that; it takes just a few courageous leaders to embolden others and for revolutions to spread.

A marvelous, if unintended, consequence of this burgeoning conservative revolution is what it's doing to liberalism.  The budding conservative revolution is starting to place strains on liberalism; beginning to make liberals and their allies fight defensive battles in multiple -- and multiplying -- places.  Call this a modified Cloward-Piven -- or Cloward-Piven turned on its masters. 

Challenging liberal governance, and pressing limited government reforms, will help bring down liberalism across the nation.  And that should be an indisputable aim of the new conservative revolution.  Liberalism became a pox on the nation years ago.  Marginalizing liberalism would be an incomparable service to generations to come -- and to those kids being lied to now by too many Wisconsin teachers. 

"Change We Can Believe In."  Mr. Obama's slogan always had a nice ring to it, but it was misapplied and a little ahead of its time.  With the conservative revolution, change we can really believe in has arrived.  How's that for rich irony?

[truthguy]

I hope J. Robert Smith is right. I feel better after reading this but I'm not as optimistic. I have infinite faith in the stupidity of the American Voter/Public.

I come from the school of Mencken:

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people

I think the original quote had taste instead of intelligence but I took the liberty of substituting the word.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The stupidity of the GOP is much more to be feared than the stupidity of the average American. There have been too many instances of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as though actually slaying a rampaging dragon, now pulled down to the ground, would be bad form for a knight.

Still, the Tea Parties have brought the GOP enough freshmen (OK, freshpeople) to hamper business-as-usual, at least for a while.

[spokeshave]

Welcome to the paradigm shift party pal.

The budding conservative revolution is starting to place strains on liberalism; beginning to make liberals and their allies fight defensive battles in multiple -- and multiplying -- places. Call this a modified Cloward-Piven -- or Cloward-Piven turned on its masters.

Shardenfreudenstrategery.

= Shardenfreuden + Strategery.

[ModelBreaker]

The author misses the forest for the trees. This is not about whether people who put R’s in front of their name “control” congress because Zero misread the mandate. They didn’t misread anything. They knew they were going to have the power to do anything to America they wanted for two years. And so they did.

It is about the fact that, by “misreading” their mandate, the left has moved this nation’s governance so far to the left, we are going to spend the next 20 years feeling like tough conservatives each time we take little tiny chips out of the monolith they have built and accomplish, maybe, 1/4 the job of taking it down in total.

It doesn’t matter if the public disapproves of liberals by 10% more than they did 2 years ago. The political part is over. The damage will now be done over and over by unelected bureaucrats for decades who, enabled by this most radical congress, are really more in charge of the minutia of our lives that ever before.

[screaminsunshine]

The only help we are going to get will come from the state. Washington DC is beyond repair.

[Rocky]

We should not be proud about cutting

$60 billion

out of the budget when the shortfall this year is going to be

$1600 billion

($1.6 trillion).

[Joe Boucher]

Come primary time it will be a blood bath for RINO’s who will continue to go down to REAL conservatives then Liberal and DemocRATs will have their seats taken away too.

[HiTech RedNeck]

One would have thought that the Democrats would have produced something more orderly than the super-duper-boondoggle we all know and loathe as Obamacare. This was like trying to write a functional, 10,000 line Fortran program for the ultimate killer application, in one sitting. If the legalities or politics won’t kill this piece of Shiite, the impracticalities and sheer impossibilities will.

No, the adults are beginning to drive the bus again. The old liberal bureaucrats will be hounded out.

[Kenny Bunk]

OK EVERYBODY!

Let's all sing "Happy Days Are Here Again." And what is this Smith joker smoking?

The GOP? Don't make me ROTFLMAO, No Program, No Plan, No Leaders, No Guts, No Clue. Boehner Babies.

[Tigerized]

No, the “voters” don’t want another Clintonian rerun.

We want a return of Reaganomics, and his philosophy of government being the problem, not the solution.

The only silver lining to having Skippy in the WH is his undeniably horrible performance as POTUS, which even the hard left has been noticing lately. Kind of like trying to ignore that smelly offal that clings to the bottom of your shoe...

[RipSawyer]

I am dismayed and disgusted by the fact that a political party would write 2000 pages and try to present it as worthwhile legislation and much of the public would hail it as a great accomplishment without the legislators who passed it, let alone the voters who applauded it, having any idea what was really contained in all those pages.

For future reference, Americans, any new bill of legislation that cannot be clearly stated in three pages is not worth consideration and should be automatically condemned to the circular file. Anything longer than 100 pages is guaranteed to be a disaster in the making. Any speaker of the house who says the bill must be passed before you can find out what is in it should be committed to an insane asylum and if ever released should be immediately charged with subversive activities.

Or, in the language considered standard English among most of my childhood companions, “Them people musta been a bucha idjits to thank they wuz gonna git anythang good outen sumpin’ they ain’t ebem had time tuh read.”

[RipSawyer]

We might like a return to the economic performance of the Clinton era, which even though not as great as some claim, was far and away better than today. On the other hand, those of us with some connection to reality know that Slick Willy had little or nothing to do with economic gains and were it not for the fact that Hillary was stymied in trying to pass the early version of Obamacare the economy would have failed totally under Clinton. Only in America does a Democrat president receive praise and honor for the accomplishments of Republicans while the failings of a Democrat president are blamed on the Republican who preceded him in office.

[DeaconRed]

Bring it ON.
I am ready!

[sergeantdave]

“But the underappreciated story is that the GOP racked up huge gains in state legislative contests, and further down ballot...”

This was monumental. Conservatives now completely control 26 states. More than 700 patriots were elected to state legislators.

Now we’re seeing them set a thousand brushfires that the criminal fascist syndicate in Washington has neither the manpower nor resources to extinguish. These actions will exhaust the enemy and set them up for complete defeat later.

Everyone can join the battle by cleaning out your county board and village council of leftists. Learn your state’s open meetings laws. With that knowledge you can fine and throw local elected leftists in jail.

Elect a constitutional sheriff in your county. Form up a 2,000 man auxiliary deputy force for “emergencies.”

[RoadTest]

If we had the media on our side we could demolish the entire Liberal superstructure.

[erkyl]

Only in America does a Democrat president receive praise and honor for the accomplishments of Republicans while the failings of a Democrat president are blamed on the Republican who preceded him in office.

The cyclical nature of our elections as well as the behemoth economy that takes so long to get moving are the reasons for this painful and unfortunate loop we find ourselves in. The media is no help of course, but the reality is Clinton's booming economy was a direct result of Reagan's trickle down economics finally reaching all the way down to the average American household. It takes years for economic policies to work their way through our gigantic economy to mainstream America. And by the time they do, usually political parties have changed hands, because Americans have proven themselves fickle.

Prosperity isn't enough. Now we have to help all the 'down-trodden and poor', so we elect liberals to feel better about our prosperity, and they proceed to enact policies that slow down and hamper the economy...years later, when a Republican is back in office. The behemoth turns around and the economic woes are back and prosperity is gone. Obviously all the fault of the Republican in office---not the shenanigans of the previous liberal administration.

Case in point, our economic melt-down started with Clinton's policies to make buying homes easier for the poor. Who got the blame? Poor George.

Now, if the economy begins to recover at all over the next several years due to Republican intervention, Obama will get the credit and perhaps get re-elected. Then, in 2016, when his health care and other socialistic policies are wreaking havoc on our economy, guess who will be elected? Another Republican who will be blamed for the mess and on and on it goes until we're finished.

Chief responsibility for this is the stupid press who can't bother to explain the situation to the stupid Americans, mostly because the cycle currently plays out to the advantage of their preferred political side. And education, where schools are indoctrinating, not teaching.

God save our Republic.