Posted on 08/29/2012 11:42:55 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
WASHINGTON -- Now begins the final phase of this cognitive dissonance campaign. America’s 57th presidential election is the first devoted to calling the nation’s bluff. When Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan, Republicans undertook the perilous but commendable project of forcing voters to face that they hold flatly incompatible beliefs.
Twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservative as liberal. Nov. 6 we will know if they mean it. This is the problem for uneasy Republicans. The Democrats’ problem is worse because they are not uneasy about their dissonance, being blissfully unaware of it.
In “Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic,” Jay Cost of The Weekly Standard says the party has succumbed to “clientelism,” the process of purchasing cohorts of voters with federal favors. This has turned the party into the servant of the strong.
Before Franklin Roosevelt, “liberal” described policies emphasizing liberty and individual rights. He pioneered the politics of collective rights — of group entitlements. And his liberalism developed policies not just to buy the allegiance of existing groups but to create groups that would be dependent on government...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
I say George is stating the obvious with words the opposition is not capable of understanding.
Preaching to the choir.
I say keep the elite in the dark.
Why not comment on Will's article? Didn't you open with taking another to task for not doing so? Nobody is holding you back, except yourself. If you think yourself insulted, consider your own lack of doing yourself that which you required of another.
I sure hope not. Speaking to the least common denominator simply lowers the bar.
Rent Seeking has been a classic term as old as the Republic. I refuse to let the ignorant define my language.
If the Dimocraps and Obama's people can't understand it who cares?
Here is the flaw in your argument. Once CA was a Red State, now it is a Blue State. If everyone had your attitude of hopelessness believing there is no point in getting out to vote because "my vote won't matter", nothing would ever change. No State would ever change blue to red or vice versa.
If you and another million or 2 like you have this same hopeless attitude we are allowing the Left to beat us down, giving up because it's seemingly hopeless. This is precisely what they try to do every election because they never win on the issues except by trying to inflame their base to turn out while simultaneously depressing the oppositions will to do the same.
Consider this. Say Ca was won by Obama by 15 points in 2008 (I'm guessing) and people like yourself who want BADLY to get rid of him and are fired up do go to the polls, all of them even though they may think it makes no difference. Maybe you will come up short again but perhaps by just 3-4 points this time. You know how people love to follow trends and this sort of thing would cause people to re examine their views and cause tremendous angst on the Left.
If the Dems ever lost CA they would not win a presidential election, ever. Make it happen by voting and talking to as many people as you can who may believe as you do that it doesn't make any difference. It does make a difference.
I read it. It was good, for him. But, somehow, I think though it is his realization of just how momentous this election in November is. It is the last free election where actual conservatism has a chance to do something to stem the tide of the ever-increasing throngs of “rent-seekers” - the Depression Era equivalent of today’s entitlement leeches.
However, Mr. Will has been a card carrying member of the elitist Washington ‘so-called conservative’ corps for about as long as I can remember. His millieu is professional and social discourse with liberals and that tiny band of token ‘so-called conservatives’ that share the rare air in DC and other liberal environs they frequent.
I think he realizes that the potential exists that he will become irrelevant - unnecessary, because if we lose this election, there is no need for his tokenism.
I, for one, don’t really need to hear or read anything he thinks. He’s as outdated and elitist in his ideas on conservativism as is his classic bow tie.
Frankly, he knows what he’s been these last few years, and coming back into the conservative fold (or appear to), to become relevant again, is his aim. I’ll stick with the conservatives that know the real America - the ones that actually live in it.
I can understand and sympathize with you but think about at least this one thing: Electoral votes will likely go as you say, for your state. However, in recent elections much ado (about nothing) has been made re: popular vote. Whether there is merit to the argument or not is not the question. Liberals and Democrats will always use the Popular vs. Electoral argument, particularly if the two are in opposition. They use the tally to their advantage wherever they can and there is no value in giving them a win in Popular voting, too. So, in my mind, even a sure Electoral loss shouldn't be compounded by 'not voting' by the losing side and driving their Popular vote tally even higher. .
Yes, probably - at least during primaries. But you can tell they are afraid of Ryan, and that is a very good thing.
I think it’s because the broad interpretation of “liberal” has changed from resisting “the Man” to falling into step with him and over the edge of the cliff in a zombie like trance...lol
I keep seeing people saying “this election is the last...” Where are they getting this? IMHO, the election they are referring to was, if anything, 4 years ago. We lost. We ain’t gonna get over it. The assumption that “this is the last” implies that something can be done to fix things. I certainly wish anyone who believes that would lay out their plan. Even Ryan and Romney can’t lay out a plan for a solution that will actually work. Ryan has “a plan” which is more than you can say for most but even that ignores the reality of the present. I keep hearing folks say “if we don’t blah, blah, blah Medicare or Social Security (or the gummint in general) will be broke in some seemingly obscure and only minimally uncomfortable distant date. WE ARE BROKE NOW! Medicare has been in the red since 2009. IIRC, they aren’t even collecting FICA anymore. Am I really the ONLY one paying attention in this country?
I don’t watch television; cannot afford cable any more, and besides, found most selections vapid. Most of my information now comes from the internet. So I read rather than listen and watch, and have trended towards not bothering to read people like George Will.
What he said about the political parties resonated with me. The Democrats have become the party who promises to provide “special” rights to groups like homosexuals, Hispanics, blacks, whoever. Vote for the Democratic Party and we will take care of you. This has included many banksters and particularly the Globalists supporting one world government through the UN.
This is exactly how the government was trending under Richard Nixon until the commies took him out for payback in outing communists in California during the early 1960s.
Reagan turned it back, but the Bush family thrust it forward again.
I want to see Washington changed. When a middle-class businessman goes to Congress, then a few years later returns home a millionaire, something is broken in our Capitol. Romney isn’t going to do it, Boehner supporting him is proof of that.
As for George Will, it matters not who wins this election. There really is no difference between Romney, a self-avowed Progressive and Reagan-hater, and BHO2 who is a communist.
Romney also practices social/crony corporatism. That does not distinguish him from Obama. Will is being blind or being duplicitous. Take your pick.
LOL! I know what you mean.
Pawlenty, Bachman, Santorum, Perry, Gingrich, Cain...
Whaaaa! I thought I read a FR post just yesterday that Hubert Humphrey was accredited with this line of disillusionment with capitalism? Is it just an "Anvil Chorus" of mauls and sickles hammering at us from FDR to Soetero?
LLS
yep, all those pennies were spent long ago, and worthless paper is all thats in the trust fund...no FICA means 100% of those payouts are being made with borrowed money...
like using those citibank checks to pay the minimum on the discover card statement...
maybe the chicoms will offer us a low *introductory* rate on a new line of credit ???
the only *plan* that r&r are pushing...more of the same debt [death] spiral from DC...
Did you read what he said? His position is dems buy votes of the dependent - and to keep those ranks high dems create dependency. Do you disagree with that?
No, I been posting that truth for two years. The fake medicare IOUs allow Republicans to falsely claim that there is no limits on the $$$ the gubment can give those over 55, but the rest of us are out of luck. We will get a free cremation for all those Medicare taxes we paid and are paying now. That is it. But Ryan's mom?? She hit the lottery.
I felt sick when Christie (in his speech) said that Republicans are telling Seniors ‘the truth’. That was the biggest lie of the night. They are telling seniors that Republicans are their Santa.
But you know the ABBO chant : 'You can only beat lies with better sounding lies'
The basis of his argument is this: Paul Ryan is a conservative. By picking Ryan as VP, willard has taken some sort of risk. What that risk is, I have no idea. Anyway, what george wants us to believe is that this somehow gives the whole ticket the Magic, Invincible Cloak of Conservatism. And thus it’s time for the 2/3 of Americans who identify themselves as conservative to put up by voting for willard, or shut up.
Now that’s a fine argument if you accept the premise that the willard/Ryan ticket is actually conservative. Precisely one half is: the part that gets a vote in the senate on the off chance that there is a tie vote. The guy at the top of the ticket is about as conservative as bj clinton.
So what say me? I say that george will is deserving of Gold Star status in the Elite League of romney Apologists.
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