The Brute-Force Left

nationalreview.com ^ | 2/8/15 | Kevin D. Williamson

[cotton1706]

There has been a great deal of overblown talk about the alleged “libertarian moment” that the United States is experiencing just about now, and there is a reason that the Right, broadly speaking, has taken an intellectual turn in the libertarian direction. The first and most important is the ascendance of Barack Obama, whose vision of effectively unlimited government gives conservatives the willies. But there are deeper reasons, too: The Right believes, not without some reason, that the main reason we ended up with a disastrous Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate government — the brief years of which imposed damage that will take much longer to undo — had to do with the foreign policy of George W. Bush and the fiscal incontinence of congressional Republicans during the Bush years. While the Obama administration has not yet produced a superior foreign-policy operating model, the Bush approach is not really looking any better in retrospect, at least in the sense that it would be difficult to say with a straight face that Iraq, Afghanistan, or the broader Middle East look today like more tractable problems than they did in 2001, or like they might become more tractable. as being as urgent an issue as abortion.

snip

All of those are relevant, but consider one further, broader dynamic at work: The Right is finally coming around to the understanding that what mainly distinguishes it from the Left is not its general preference for muscular foreign policy, its not always convincing defense of the Judeo-Christian tradition, or even its relatively faithful reading of the Constitution, as important as those things are. Rather, the fight between Right and Left is about coercion.

[Arm_Bears]

By trying to remain “Presidential” and above the fray, George W. Bush allowed the Left to control the narrative for much of his presidency. Current Republican “leaders” in Congress are following his example.

Unless, and until, the GOP starts pushing back, we’re in for more of what we have now.

[armydawg505]

So long as the national Republicans are tone deaf to their voters, this problem will continue. Voters have no reason to elect Republicans who act like Democrats, they just go ahead and vote for the Democrats.

[cuban leaf]

The only thing Bush did that I really approved of was invade Iraq. And my motives were that I thought he would make it a “permanent US presence” like we put in Germany after WWII. And it would make, for decades, a killing field for any muslims mad at the “great satan” and they could sacrifice their life for allah against our troops there rather than in american shopping malls.

Obama kinda messed that up. And here we are.

[cdcdawg]

Absolutely correct. Bush allowed himself to be savaged, following the sage advice of Karl Rove and his own instincts. Even so, things didn’t really go to hell until he abandoned his base via immigration and Harriet Miers for the SC. Then his base abandoned him. The reason Bush and the current Congressional leadership don’t fight harder for our values is because they don’t share them, once those values have served the purpose of getting them elected.

[cdcdawg]

“And it would make, for decades, a killing field for any muslims mad at the “great satan” and they could sacrifice their life for allah against our troops there rather than in american shopping malls.”

I think that is the REAL reason it was done, and it was pretty effective for that purpose. I’ve explained it that way to a few “moderate” and “independent” types. They always say that it makes sense, but “that’s not what I was sold”. Maybe they weren’t ready for the truth, but Bush could have done a better job of defending it.

[tanknetter]

By trying to remain “Presidential” and above the fray, George W. Bush allowed the Left to control the narrative for much of his presidency. Current Republican “leaders” in Congress are following his example.

Correct.

Stan Greenberg (Clinton's pollster, husband of Rep. Rosa DeLauro) did a study several years back showing that the Tea Party Movement had started out with very much a small government/fiscal Conservative core of supports (which could be seen as more Libertarian-leaning than Social Conservatives), but that Social Conservatives had flocked to it because it was the one thing seen as putting up a real fight in the early days of the Obama Administration.

The same thing is driving a lot of the support right now for Scott Walker (who I like, but am still non-committal about supporting at the moment), who took on the Left (repeatedly) and won (repeatedly).

[cuban leaf]

Bush frustrated me whenever he pandered to the “moderate muslim” meme. He was trying to be political but it was very frustrating.

There were moderate Nazis too.

[Beagle8U]

“the Bush approach is not really looking any better in retrospect, at least in the sense that it would be difficult to say with a straight face that Iraq, Afghanistan, or the broader Middle East look today like more tractable problems than they did in 2001, or like they might become more tractable. as being as urgent an issue as abortion.”

This moron is blaming Bush for the result of over 6 years of O’bastard’s foreign policy! Jan 2009 the area was fairly stable, and all our allies around the world didn’t hate us.

We were trusted by our friends and feared by our enemies.

Libtardian BS doesn’t work as foreign policy!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

bureaucracies do not have the collective cognitive firepower to replace markets, or even to intelligently guide them. From the Soviet five-year plans to Obamacare, all central-planning exercises begin in hubris and end in chaos.

. . . But once you’ve accepted real limits on what planning can do — on what government can do — then you have at some level essentially surrendered to conservatism.

And that means that somebody, somewhere, must be a racist.

[ansel12]

I agree, the civilized world had to make a deep penetration into the Arab would and maintain a long term presence there to change it, and bring it into the 20th century at least.

The problem with America today is that we cannot have a long term strategy, or maintain a plan, we are already too diverse to have a national will.

[Baron 2A]

The only thing Bush did that I really approved of was invade Iraq. And my motives were that I thought he would make it a “permanent US presence” like we put in Germany after WWII. And it would make, for decades, a killing field for any muslims mad at the “great satan” and they could sacrifice their life for allah against our troops there rather than in american shopping malls.

Obama kinda messed that up. And here we are.

As important as fighting them there and not here we had Iran as the meat in a coalition sandwich with allies in both Irag and Afghanistan. Now look at it. Disaster everywhere and an Iranian pandering administration!