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“This is not a hard call.”

Really? So, when we get Santorum as the nominee, another very weak conservative from a blue state, just because ‘he’s due, and he paid his dues’, what will you say then?

Seriously, this party isn’t a conservative one. I think maybe somebody on the right has done the math, shown it to the right-wing pundits and all of the pols, and said,

“Look we’ve PASSED the tipping point - even the guys who are for limited government are taking government checks. What’s worse, the boomers, even the conservatives, are going to rethink their positions once they retire and start paying their own medical expenses. People are going out to dinner on their 65th birthday, not because they are 65, but because they finally qualify for Medicare. Like it or not, we are all now socialists, and we need to move our people in that direction. That’s the way it is.”

It’s the only thing that explains Drudge, Coulter, Noonan, and the rest of them, especially Romney. He’s an expert in the medical entitlement area. Romeny said he’d repeal Obamacare, but he’s never disavowed Masscare either. There’s a reason for that, and it isn’t all ideology. I think he thinks that the political forces within insurance, tort, pharma, and unions are so strong that the only thing that can break it is government. It’s the only way to put a fiscal lid on it. I think that’s the way he sees it.

Which leads me to this point - maybe its time for something else? Frankly, and I live on the West Coast, maybe its time to cut them loose and say, “The midwest isn’t going to bail you out. Good luck. Form your own union, print your own money, discharge your debts, and start over. We’re not going to do that over here in North Dakota.”

If you doubt this ISN’T already happening behind closed doors in DC, you can read Michael Lewis’ new book Boomerang. It talks about how the third world reacted and got caught up in the mess in 2008.

He talks specifically about Iceland, Greece, Spain, and Ireland, but then he comes back home, and talks about California, and then Vallejo and San Diego.

It is already untenable, what we are doing, and the middle states who haven’t completely screwed themselves and took steps to make sure they didn’t are NOT going to bail out NY, CA, FL and others.

Two reasons for this - there is no bailing them out.

First, It’s not possible. There isn’t enough money to honor the pensions, contracts, benefits, and infrastructure committments without bankrupting the other states too.

Second, The states in the black are ready to violate federal law to do it now. “What if we didn’t comply?” is what some of these governors are saying to the feds and to the governors of the states deep in the red.

It means those states are going to have to default. They made their own bed anyway, since they were taking their own bonds to market as any sovereign state would anyway. The governors in the other states are, rightly, saying, “Hey, at least it will be a clean default, and it wont’ spread to us.”

The case of Ireland is especially relevant, and he goes into detail about it in the book. The mules really aren’t all tied together. DC can default, and so can the idiot states, and it can leave the rest of the states to decide what they want to do.

We’ve been talking about this election in terms of ‘conservatism’. I think the GOP-E has convinced itself that they really need a Wall Street banker to figure it out this go around, because the math is so far beyond ugly, that it’s going to take a hedge-fund manager to get it done. Their logic may be faulty, but times are desparate.

That’s the only way that I can rectify in my head the massive difference between where demonstrably conservative commentators have been for decades, and where they are today. Frankly, they may think that they are handcuffed, because the situation really is so bad that talking about it could crash the market, but to not talk about it really exposes the fact that Romney is, for all intents and purposes, a Social Democrat.

Someone on this thread used Churchill’s quote about Dishonor and War.

At the gubernatorial level, its become much simpler - ‘Why should we bail you out when you show no resolve in getting your act together?’ Bailouts are going to lead to civil war, no matter how you slice it - the end is the same. The haves resent the profligate have-nots, and when both states are broke, you end up at war anyway. Why not just agree up front not to bail them out and keep one state afloat instead? The debtor states people will still hate their neighbors, but the responsible state will at least be viable.

This VERY SAME THING is happening right now in Greece. The Greeks believe, and I get this information from people on the street in Greece, that the Germans contrived the crisis with the help of the US and the Brits in order to conquer Greece without firing a shot. This isn’t a fringe belief.

Germany has asked Greece to puts its assets up for sale - islands, landmarks, resources - in order for Germany to buy more Greek bonds. It’s a reasonable request if you are German, but to the Greeks it looks like conquest by financial means. Never mind that the Greeks figured out a way to pay their public employees for 14 months for 12 months of work. The facts are irrelevant now.

So, WHEN California defaults, who here doesn’t believe this will be the very same debate? Why would any state agree to help bail out California when it won’t stop spending?

Thee is an excellent reason why the Feds turned oil, coal, and strategic metals lands into either national parks or federal property - collateral. It’s the only reason I can see as to why anyone would pay such low prices for US government bonds - we have enough physical real assets to make good on it.

I’ve tried to get my head around the ‘why’. Why send the white smoke up the chimney on Romney before there’s even a primary?

Anyway, ‘party solidarity’ isn’t a reason to back Romney. I can’t think of a less conservative idea than making myself hostage to a candidate I know to be destructive to conservative ideals because I’m afraid Obama will wreck the country.

My question: How do we know it isn’t already so wrecked financially that we can no longer be a union of 50 states - some of which are financially insolvent, and some who can’t, even if they wanted to, help the others?

The Russians are convinced this is going to happen to us, primarily because it happened to them in very much the same way. What they went through was very liberating, because the US bailed them out, gave them a strategic breather on defense, and allowed them to cut loose all of the dead weight. What they have now works fine - their budget is balanced and they have as much geopolitical influence as they did when they had the entire planned economy on their back.

We aren’t bombing Syria because Russia moved their own troops in to guarantee an act of war with Russia should any of those troops die. We aren’t bombing Iran because they share a border with the Russians, and unless they green light it, Iran is going to get the bomb. The only reason why Israel hasn’t acted is because the Saudis are smart enough to realize that if Iran attacks Israel and wins, the Saudis are next. It’s ironic that Israel is influencing the US through the Saudis, but that’s what’s happening.

That’s how bad it has become.

A long rant, but the bottom line is that the rationale for voting for Romney doesn’t hold water - if we don’t we get Obama, the end of the Republic will happen.

Fiscally, if we are there already, then it makes even less sense to vote for Romney, since Obama’s just finishing the job. Let the last thing people remember about the US was, “The black fella was the guy who went down with the ship. People felt so good about themselves electing that guy, but in the end, the US was toast in 2004. It just hadn’t happened yet.”

What I’m seeing in America is so similar to what we all saw happen in Russia with Gorbachev. Gorbachev moved to the center just before it all caved in because it was going to cave in no matter what he did. Reagan guaranteed that with SDI, because Herb Meyer and others had done the math and knew the Russians were COMPLETELY committed to their military policies and COMPLETELY inable to sustain it financially.

We are COMPLETELY committed to our entitlement programs and COMPLETELY inable to sustain it financially. Europe is worse off than we are, and they have already suffered the default of one of their states. Spain’s next, Ireland, Portugal, and then PERHAPS France. Germany can’t pull them all out of the mud.

And so, unless someone can show me the financial way out of this mess, I saw let Obama wear it. If the US is already done, why hang the blame on Conservatives?

It means that Romney has an opening here. If he can demonstrate a way out and sell it to us, he deserves to win, and I’ll vote for him.

Failing that, why do it if neither guy can fix it? What’s the difference if both guys can’t do it?