Posted on 02/24/2012 1:17:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Jeb Bush isn't sure where he fits in the panoply of Republican Party leaders anymore. During a Q&A session after a speech in Dallas yesterday, the former Florida governor confessed that he doesn’t know what to make of the direction the current GOP candidates have taken Republican rhetoric:
"I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I'm wondering, I don't think I've changed, but it's a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that's kind of where we are" said the former Florida Governor. “I think it changes when we get to the general election. I hope.” …
Maybe Jeb is just perplexed he isn’t Republicans’ first choice for a White Knight to ride in and save the Republican Party at a brokered convention. Or maybe he genuinely thinks negativity has subsumed the positive message Republicans have to offer:
The younger brother of former president George W. Bush also weighed in on the debate Republicans and Democrats are having over the national economy.
“If you want to narrow the income gap, there are two ways to do it. One, you punish people that are successful and try to narrow it that way and that’s the president’s approach. Or you equip people that aspire for a better life to give them the tools and then you don’t try to manage that, you allow them to pursue those dreams as they see fit. That to me is the better approach and it requires a celebration of success.”
Bush both misses and has a point.
First, the point he misses: The current GOP candidates — for all of the flaws they have in their pasts — consistently deliver conservative rhetoric. Their talk is tough on everything from entitlement reform to tax reform to immigration reform. They’re all anchored in the idea that rights are inalienable, unable to be granted nor revoked by government. They primarily respect the moral order, the idea that decisions have consequences and that individuals should have to take responsibility for the decisions they make. In many instances, their tone has been a triumph of conservatism, a signal that the candidates recognize that GOP voters want a conservative nominee. Sometimes, I think we don’t give the candidates enough credit for this truth.
Next, the point he makes: The candidates have frequently proved themselves to be poor politicians, succumbing to the temptations pitched to them by debate moderators and MSM interviewers. Journalists and observers alike are fascinated and interested in the horserace; they want to hear the candidates attack each other and pick apart each other’s past records. The candidates could certainly be better at not taking the bait and at pivoting from pointed-but-irrelevant questions to the broad, positive themes of conservatism.
“He seems to be under the impression that the left wants the same thing we do, just has a different way to get there.
If so, he is dead wrong.”
Ding, ding, ding!
We have a winner!
Okay, but they didn't say the last word about politics either. If the Founders and subsequent generations had followed Rothbard's views, our country -- and our freedoms -- wouldn't have lasted as long as they did.
How sad, Jebbie is unsure still where he stands!
To me “RINO” isn’t valid anymore as a term to use. The whole mainstream Republican Party is what we term RINO. That makes “Republican in name only” = the whole damn Republican Party. I don’t tell anyone I’m a Republican anymore as that is saying I’m a RINO. Just say I’m a Conservative. Anything other than that is a RINO, period.
I agree. I thought G. W. Bush was a good man on a personal level. He had a bit of a conservative streak, and a way of connecting with people. In terms of the growth of government he was a disaster.
Only someone politically illiterate and completely ignorant of history could think Newt was a RINO of any kind, let alone comparable to Taxachusetts multiple-choice Romney or “tax collector for the welfare state” Dole. Newt made his name as a hard-line conservative right-wing rebel fighting against RINOs.
Just because something can be used for evil doesn’t mean it should be destroyed entirely. Then we wouldn’t have guns, knives, airplanes, cars, etc.
Ultimately it’s nice to say we need as little government as possible to prevent anarchy, but it’s just a platitude. Applying that principle in reality requires intense debate about what government should and shouldn’t do. We’re having that debate every day on every issue. For example, would completely legal drugs contribute to anarchy or prevent anarchy? I say they would contribute to anarchy. Libertarians think otherwise.
Bottom line is, unless you’re prepared to say there should be no government whatsoever, then somebody will always be “seizing” government and using it for what they believe will prevent anarchy. You’re adopting a special terminology to define your beliefs, but you haven’t discovered new beliefs, just new terminology.
"Who let those yahoos into the club" is another way of communicating his sentiment.
None of the conservatives in Texas who voted for Bush ever thought of him as one of them. But the other choices were Ann Richards etc. Even Bob Bullock, with whom Bush got along so well, was as liberal as Ralph Yarborough but like the Judge, sane. My estimate is the Bushes were and remain Rockefeller Republicans. New started out that way but found that such Republicans were drifting ever more to the left.
Keep out da Bushes!
“You’re adopting a special terminology to define your beliefs, but you haven’t discovered new beliefs, just new terminology.”
Not at all. For example, we have the following quote from the Father of the Constitution, James Madison:
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
That was from his remarks on the House floor in 1792 during a debate on the Cod Fisheries Bill.
The occasion for this was that Congress wanted to give money to a private party. Who in Congress today would dare to utter these words, except possibly Ron or Rand Paul? I think these words were true then and they are still true. I can read the enumerated and limited powers in the Constitution just as well as anyone else, yet I don’t see any power to pay private parties a single penny.
That is not a platitude by any manner shape or form. If this was the only point I could prevail on, it would cause such a contraction in the size of government that we would not recognize it. And in that fact I rest my case, for all major political parties since the time of Madison have been busy attempting to SEIZE control of the power of government to use for their advantage. And in the process they have changed the meaning of words and the meaning of the limits that the founders and designers of our own government placed upon it, limits that both parties continually erode and nullify if not by stealth then by amendment.
(The next Free Republic fundraiser might be a short essay contest on which Amendment was the most instrumental in redefining the Federal government. I would say the 16th because it totally destroys financial liberty.)
Bingo! Welcome to the club.
I suspect you’ve already... or soon will be attacked by the many socons here for allowing others to live immoral lives.
I got it! You want a fight!
Like Jeb, I was a Conservative too. Now I am ashamed to say it. I am ashamed of my lifelong party locally, statewide and nationally. I think a Constitutionist title and Tea Partier fits me now. Definitely not Libertarian for me.
You know what he did for me and others being cheated by the Insurance companies...I owe him my home and ability to live in it! I keep his personal letters framed and remembered often.
He is personally not like his father and “W”. He is softspoken and easy to talk to. I do not want him to run for anything in the future. If he had wanted to be a Senator he would have been elected. He was Florida’s best Governor in a long time.
You will never make me say anything bad about him! Take the fight elsewhere.
I don’t think that the name Bush will get anyone elected this year. More healing time is needed.
Jeb is an oblivious RINO.
Okay Jeb, you’re supposed to be a Catholic. Were you aware that we looked over the horizon and got the broader perspective that we Catholics, and other people of faith and/or conscience will have to pay for Obamacare abortion? Do you understand the 1st Amendment implications? No one has to *tell* conservatives to have fear.
Just go back to your bubble and take Rove with you.
Thank you. Says it all.
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