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 ...
Millions of them now work the minimum quarters on the books of their son's/daughter's small businesses to qualify - and then go right back to getting paid under the table when they do qualify. You can see this easily in the waiting rooms of most any SS office.
We owe now what our entire GDP is for a year now (approximately). That's like owing a years salary in credit card debt. Ask Dave Ramsey about that kind of debt and he'll tell you what to do. Stop running trillion dollar deficits, stop fraud and abuse in SSI and SSDI, and cut entitlement programs and the agencies that oversee them and there is a way out of the hole; a hard one, but not impossible. Stop spending money on anything that isn't necessary (the equivalent of 'roof', 'food', and 'utilities').
The problem is principally of removing the leeches from America's teats and making them work. Stop incentivizing their poverty by giving them EITC, etc. Stop allowing immigrants from being a burden on the entitlements in the US.
Also, they still collect FICA it is 4.2% vs the 6.2% they used to. This was Obama’s way of putting money in the pockets of his few voters that still actually work for a paycheck
The column was written to show how smart Will is.
Where is the clear simple discussion of CONSERVATIVE
principles?
NO to DEATH PANELS.
NO to OBAMACARE.
NO to TARP.
NO to TAXES.
NO to CZARS.
NO to NO accountability.
I didn't say I was going to vote for Obama. His tally won't be any higher. But vote however best you can determine, yourself. I'm ok with that.
Whatever. I was talking about THIS election, not some past, or some future.
The GOP has lost my support (generally). No more walking precincts talking to people door-to-door, for me.
They despise the Tea Party for fear it will upset their apple cart. They join with the worst of the Democrats in that.
I wonder how many GOP operatives there are around this place...every election cycle we see new sign ups telling us all about it.
Sorry charlie, I'm not going to dance to the tune of "fear". The sales pitch is falling flat this time around.
Do you have a family/ How about grand kids? Do you ever consider THEM and what they will face down the road or is it always about you?
How about this? Romney sucks, OK? He was my f’n last choice and I'm sorry he even ran but he is ALL which is standing between us and what may be an irreversible disaster. You think not? Fine then you take the chance with the future of your entire family. Personally I am old enough and mature enough to accept a Primary candidate defeat and move on to the NEXT best thing to do which is stop the shi*thead in the WH at any cost.
It's about PRIORITIES, not you.
If Romney loses (which is quite possible) don't blame me, for there is no way my own vote can translate into electoral college vote in this election [as I have explained]. Blame the GOP, and Romney, but blame them perhaps, only after blaming the Democrat leaning populace primarily. I am none of those people, nor am I responsible for what they do.
But I see things are getting all geared up to blame myself, and those like me if Mitt fails to get elected. How can that sort of blame-game thing help in the long run?
beenaround Since Jul 17, 2012.
Vote for Willard if you wish. But don't come around here browbeating those whom don't care to. Unless that sort of thing is like, your job or something...
>>>”Nov. 6 we will know if they mean it.”
This article reminded me of Eric Fromm’s “Escape From Freedom.”
The problem is, conservatives are holding a pair of 2’s.
Bump.
Great piece and necessary reading.
“It’s about PRIORITIES, not you.”
How ‘bout this for a priority? Only supporting people who are actual conservatives. Because they’re the only people who you can count on to do conservative things. So sorry that willard isn’t one.
And while we’re at it, the fear mongering is getting really old. What’s the next evil that will befall us if we don’t jump on the willard wagon RFN? Plagues of boils? Mayan apocalypse? The heartbreak of psoriasis? Give it a rest. The histrionics aren’t winning you any converts at this point.
Ryan is a token conservative. The convention is designed to “keep” the conservative vote.
Its just SHAM-WOW.
Romney will never follow a generally conservative policy nor will he undo the damage Obama has done to our nation and diminish the role of government interference in the lives of free Americans.
Eff the GOP. Its dead and dying.It does not represent the People, and in truth is seeking to marginalize conservative Tea Party people, while spouting conservative platitudes at the convention.
I will not vote for any RINO, certainly not for Romney. I will vote only Tea Party where they are offered as candidates.
George sWill needs to be a baseball commissioner. No, conservatives are NOT bluffing, and it scares the hell out of Romney, who did not even invite Sarah Palin to speak? Eff him.Romney is going down.
We will elect a full slate of Tea Party cadidates in 2016 after Obama finishes ruining America just like Romney intends to do as a RINO.
Conservatives will take back this country one seat at a time in the Senate and the House.The presidency is lost to us for now and the next 4 years.
Today’s Democratic Party does not understand what one of its saints understood — that big government is generally a patron of the privileged, a partner of rent-seekers.
For all of the pretensions that big government, especially the Democrat form of it, is on the side of the "little guy" no such thing has ever really developed, nor is it easy to understand why anyone thinking of government on that scale could ever believe that it could.
As Cost rightly says, “With the exception of the tea party, there is no real faction out there making the Jacksonian case for an end to special privilege.”
True enough, but there I would couch the explanation in terms slightly different from Will's: the Tea Parties are an expression of the only extant populist movement in the exact sense of the word; what has been portrayed as populist movements in the movements for racial, sexual, and other class entitlements are nothing of the sort. These are top-down organizations led by the same elite cadre that populates high office under the Democrats (and not just under the Democrats, but that is another conversation) - it is simply a ruling class wearing another mask. No wonder the Jesse Jacksons, the Gloria Steinems, the union leaders interface so smoothly with high office in the current administration - they're all the same people. And the movements they lead, far from being populist, are in fact merely the Establishment under another guise.
That explains the horror and disdain with which Tea Party enthusiasms are regarded by these and by those other members of the ruling class that happen to have found a home in the broadcast and print media. Will knows this perfetly well. He is, however, a member in good standing of this same class and frankly, his living and his social status depend on it. We should probably be grateful for these glimpses of sanity, these moments of clarity on his part.
The ONLY policy statement Romney can make is “I am not Obama”. On just about every other issue Mitt's track record is the same as Obama.
That is the better choice?
Vote for who you want, as you want. But don't expect people to buy into the “MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER!” propaganda every time.
The GOP has little desire to control government taxes and spending, it benefits them and their controllers so much.
There won’t be free elections in 2016 should Mr. Obama win this November. Enjoy the gruel.
Romney is playing chicken with the GOP base. He should be fighting Obama, but I guess he knows what he’s doing.
There won’t be free elections in 2016 should Mr. Obama win this November.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mr. Obama will most assuredly win, he has the election national fraud machine greased and ready to role.There will be no free election in 2012, let alone 2016. The GOP is just not up for the battle, they think its business as usual and this present election is the same as it always have been, when in fact it is not.The GOP is not equipped to be able to deal with natinal socialism, they have nominated and usurped a field of candidates whose heads are in the sand and there bare asses stuck high into the air as targets.Tea Partiers everywhere are laughing themslelves silly at the GOP convention charade in Florida, that is now pretending to represent the very conservative people they have outed.
And we have the entire GOP with its head in the sand and bare ass stuck up in the air, spouting conservative platitudes from a WHACKO convention just to get us to vote for a RINO one more time? Its laughable, and they will not allow Sarah Palin to address the convention even once? That is a sure sign the GOP is dead.Its a goner whose time has come, there is no defining difference between the GOP and the Democrat party.
The Civil Disobedience of Conservatives everywhere is about to shock an ungrateful nation.
Nicely elaborated ad hominem, but you're wrong on both counts. (Read the article.)
Will first advertises Jay Cost as being an intelligent man with something to say, and then tells us what Cost said. Then Will mentions in passing that the Tea Party people, unassisted by anyone but the great writers and speakers of the past (Ronald Reagan and Aristotle are both cited and quoted), have arrived at the correct conclusion that FDR's "coalition" politics is a come-on for the greedy, the needy, the self-important and the sharp-elbowed, and is a Very Bad Thing.
Will's attitude is as you say it is, but his article said a couple of things that are helpful, while staying within his limit of column-inches.
Because guys like Rove and the "professional ruling class" and their client "political professionals" deal off the bottom of the deck to get their way.
The Roves et al. have made it crystal-clear this cycle that the only place left in Republican politics for the People is to cheer on cue and vote for their stiff.
Not going to do it. Sorry, Karl, you fat little doughfaced sh*t. Lecturing us while b**wing the Loggies? I don't think so.
Sounds like a damned good priority to me. Where's Sarah? Off in Arizona with Romney's knitting needles and Swiss knives stuck in her back?
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