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Washington Down, King Up--GOP Out
Center for American Unity ^ | 1/22/01 | Paul Craig Roberts

Posted on 01/24/2002 12:50:37 PM PST by traditionalist

By Paul Craig Roberts

Pledging to win a larger share of Hispanic and black votes, The Republican National Committee completed its winter meeting. This fateful decision could mean either the end of class and race political war in the U.S. or the demise of the Republican Party.

The outcome depends on how Republicans approach the task. The GOP can base its appeal to minorities on assimilation to American culture, on the promise of an opportunity society based in low taxes and decreased regulation, on respect for parental authority and a reduction in government intrusion in family affairs, and on respect for individual achievement and self-reliance.

If Hispanics and blacks desire a free and independent life, they will respond positively to the offer.

The alternative approach is to compete with Democrats in offering income support programs and race-based preferences.

The first approach would not only rally the demoralized Republican constituency, but also provide a test whether immigrants are committed to American principles or to income redistribution. The personal income tax burden rests on 32 million taxpayers (primarily white males), who deserve to know whether they have a future different from tax slavery.

The alternative approach--pandering, preferences, and handouts--will destroy the Republican Party.

Many of the Republican Party’s natural constituents are disgusted and alienated by the party’s wobbly principles and refuse to vote. Experts have pointed out that had Bush received 2 or 3 percent more votes from the white population, he would have swamped Al Gore in the electoral college. If Bush competes for minorities on the Democrats’ terms, he will lose more white votes than he will gain minority votes.

Moreover, whatever handouts the Republicans offer, the Democrats will offer more. Two political parties competing to redistribute income and expand minority privileges would spell the swift end of the U.S.

Most immigrants to the U.S. are poor and uneducated. They are tax-users. Sensing the white guilt that weakens resistance to income redistribution, organizations that speak for immigrants lobby for more benefits. Large and concentrated immigrant populations, combined with the emphasis on multiculturalism, make assimilation difficult.

Fearing that a principled approach to minorities will fail, GOP pandering has already begun. Witness President Bush’s plan to legalize millions of illegal Mexican immigrants and to provide food stamps for legal aliens.

Democrats will outbid him. Republican voters will desert the GOP.

Millions of Americans believe that their culture is being overrun from abroad and overturned from within, and that they are forced to pay for their corresponding loss of community and sense of self with their own tax dollars.

Black and white New York City councilmen are taking down portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Malcolm X is taking their place. There is no longer a George Washington Day; but there is a Martin Luther King Day.

Announcing a MLK, Jr., portrait that will hang prominently in the White House, President Bush accepted the replacement of our Founding Fathers with new heroes: “Some figures in history, renowned in their day, grow smaller with the passing of time. The man [MLK, Jr.] from Atlanta, Georgia, only grows larger with the years. America is a better place because he was here, and we will honor his name forever.”

Many Republicans will see in these words the Republican Party’s acquiescence to racial preferences and unequal rights for whites. The war against terrorism and the illusion that the country has pulled together have led Republicans to conclude that they can broaden their political base by betraying the people who vote for them.

When the Democrats tried this, they lost the “solid South.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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To: poet
The republicans are morons and whores just like the democrats. Neither party has any priciples.

Actually, some republicans do. Unfortunately, they have been defecated upon and run out of Washington.

21 posted on 01/24/2002 9:06:58 PM PST by oldvike
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To: traditionalist
When Republicans play by the Democrats rules and start offering up socialism in hopes of winning votes they are guaranteed to lose.

Democrats are more than willing to steal more from productive people to fund their pinko agenda.

When the issue becomes "Who will offer the biggest gov't check" Democrats will always win.

What the Republicans are doing now in refusing to fight Democrats tooth and nail over their "tax 'n control" agenda is suicide.

To heck with compassionate conservatism! There exists no victory in being a watered-down version of your enemy, is there? Am I missing something?

I cringe when I now hear people talk about "freedom" in the US. Yeah, we're free to work half of every year to pay our taxes, fees, surcharges--protection money to leftist thugs!

What freedom is there really when you can't keep most of what you work your butt off for? How many of you have spouses lucky enough to stay at home at properly raise your children? How many of you stress about making ends meet? Having some left over to save? Look at how many people are stressed, unhappy nowadays. More people are on anti-depressant medication than ever.

Notice how you spend some time every day answering our bloated governments call. Your nothing short of a slave. The serfs and slaves of old kept more of what they earned than you do!

But there's a Republican in office so we can all take a deep breathe and relax right? NO! The Bush administration increased federal spending by 5%. Government has grown under Bush after just one year.

Your Republican leadership is doing basically nothing to hand our lives back to us.

<img src="http://www.etsel.com/DemRepSoc.gif

22 posted on 01/24/2002 9:30:19 PM PST by Boucheau
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To: traditionalist
oops...


23 posted on 01/24/2002 9:31:07 PM PST by Boucheau
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To: Boucheau
That's what I say. BTTT.
24 posted on 01/24/2002 9:34:29 PM PST by WRhine
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To: oldvike
Hey, kwitcherbitchin'...comrade W is just making sure that comrade Hillary doesn't lead us into communism first...he will do it faster than her...
25 posted on 01/24/2002 9:45:58 PM PST by unamused
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To: poet
As time goes by, it's difficult to come to any other conclusion.
26 posted on 01/24/2002 9:58:20 PM PST by DoughtyOne
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To: Boucheau;Regulator;DoughtyOne;Barnacle;Joe Hadenuf
What freedom is there really when you can't keep most of what you work your butt off for? How many of you have spouses lucky enough to stay at home at properly raise your children? How many of you stress about making ends meet? Having some left over to save? Look at how many people are stressed, unhappy nowadays. More people are on anti-depressant medication than ever.

This is an accurate picture of life in America today. The public memory is beginning to fade from a time when a guy with a half-way decent job could support a wife and 3 kids and still be able to afford a house and car. That was when America was truly at her greatest heights. Today we have the specter of both parents working full time with any kids being shooed off into a day care center to just barely keep up with the standard of living their parents had and most can't even keep up. They just have fewer kids and take on more debt. This is what socialism was wrought. And the GOP, instead of fighting the democrats every inch of the way, have been busy splitting the difference with the democrat’s new and expanded social programs. All the meanwhile both parties were allowing a new class of welfare seekers to pour into the country by the many millions to keep the productive citizens of America on the treadmill forever. On that the GOP is and was REALLY STUPID. At least the democrats got a new political base out of their treason. It is really disgusting what our 2 parties have done to this country.

27 posted on 01/24/2002 10:22:45 PM PST by WRhine
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To: WRhine
It's amazing what people will endure. The American individual was not born to serve his neighbor, or a government.

I found the recent flag-waiving bittersweet. At first I thought it was refreshing to witness some patriotism. Then, though I love my flag and the ideas that made my country great, I found myself getting annoyed by it. All I saw were patriotic bromides. Sheep, only half-conscious.

The left is winning. Half of your productive life will be sacrificed for "the common good." Your children are next in line at this alter.

How much more will Americans stand. How much more will a people spoiled with freedom sacrifice for the illusion of security?

Government is inherently evil. Whenever men have great power over men you will find corruption, stagnation, and injustice. Do you suppose the Founding Fathers thought differently?

So just sit by while your political "leaders" deliver your livelihood and your life into the power of an omnipotent government--it's "for your own good." Pick your slogan by which your rulers delude you--the enslaved subject.

Join in the chant. Submit I to thou. Sacrifice for the "common good." Sacrifice is a virtue.

Observe that any social movement which begins by "redistributing" income, ends up distributing sacrifices.

If a man proposes to redistribute wealth, he means that the wealth is his to distribute. If he proposes it in the name of government, then the wealth belongs to the government; if in the name of society, then it belongs to society. No one, did or could define a difference between this proposal and the basic principle of communism.

They're rounding up the chattel--busily creating one neck for one leash.

28 posted on 01/24/2002 11:28:01 PM PST by Boucheau
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To: oldvike
The problem is the "seniority" system. Power is put into the hands of a few people who have the ability to be re-elected. The solution? Term limits (I know, I'll put my tin foil hat on). And you are correct, good men and women leave the sewer and we are left with the garabage pit of human thought as exenplified by dashole and kennedy and their ilk.
29 posted on 01/24/2002 11:39:14 PM PST by poet
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To: poet
You won't hear me complain about term limits. They put Willie Brown on the street here in CA and caused him to be thrust upon the deserving scum of San Francisco, who are now beginning to see close up what his policies can do to civil life, rather than him being able to hide in Sacramento. They may have their downside, but it's been refreshing to see leftist diehards get bounced after 2 terms because it didn't matter who they extorted for re-election money after their time was up.
30 posted on 01/25/2002 7:40:17 AM PST by Regulator
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To: Boucheau
Government is inherently evil. Whenever men have great power over men you will find corruption, stagnation, and injustice. Do you suppose the Founding Fathers thought differently?

No, the Founding Fathers understood that as a government grows larger relative to the people that corruption is a natural outgrowth. And there is that tendency for those consumed by power to work their way into governments. As things are today the Founding Fathers, if alive, would be aghast at how our government as departed from the constitution and limited government framework that they hammered out three centuries ago.

31 posted on 01/25/2002 9:38:19 AM PST by WRhine
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To: WRhine
BTTT
32 posted on 01/25/2002 11:36:34 AM PST by Barnacle
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Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: LincolnDefender
Ever heard of Yalta?
34 posted on 01/26/2002 9:56:49 AM PST by Regulator
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Comment #35 Removed by Moderator

To: LincolnDefender
I'm sorry. I went on statements people in my family made. See, my grandfather was the Acting United States Consul to Czechoslovakia in 1940-41, and had been the Vice-Consul there from 1934 to 1940. My mother was essentially raised in Prague, when it was still the Czechoslovak Republic. My mother was evacuted along with my Grandmother because of the Von Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which of course legitimized the annexation of the Sudetenland and the division of Poland. Our family holds rather strong ties to that area. My Grandfather was heavily involved in both anti-Nazi and Anti-Communist activities of the US government at that time, until Mr. Hitler ordered him out of town, and the Luftwaffe flew him to Sweden. It was during this time that he encountered Communist agitators who were looking to revolt, but who would soon be used in the anti-Nazi campaigns. It was also at this time that he became close to Jan Masaryk, who would later play an important role in post-war Czechoslovakia.

After the war, he was sent back to Northern Europe as commander of the DP camps, under UN auspices. Once again he involved himself in aiding Masaryk against the Soviet agitators. Remember that Czechoslovakia was nominally still a Republic at this time. However, because of Yalta, the Czech Republic types were snubbed by the State Department and left to fend for themselves. The only support to be gotten was simply to get people out. Masaryk was pushed out the window, he didn't jump, and the fall of the Czech Republic was assured, as the rest of Eastern Europe. They let it happen because it was policy, and to be honest with you, my Grandfather said it was FDR's policy, because he wanted to show Stalin that "we mean't him no harm". It was appeasement of a different sort.

You can say the Red Army had overrun Eastern Europe and the deed was already done. But the intentional revocation of support for Czechoslovakia, The Baltics, and Hungary tell a different story. They were intentionally left in thrall to the Communists because of balance of power calculations and Communist influence within both Cordell Hull's and Dean Atcheson's State Departments, with the acquiescence of FDR and Truman.

I grew up with a man who was there for the whole thing. Everyone in my family always called it a sellout. You can show me all the links and documents you'd like, but I'm afraid I'm a little firm on this. Roosevelt was after a balanced world in the aftermath and I don't think he thought Communism was all that bad. He got his balanced world, but at a 50 year cost of freedom for the people involved.

36 posted on 01/26/2002 1:34:22 PM PST by Regulator
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Comment #37 Removed by Moderator

To: DoughtyOne
Announcing a MLK, Jr., portrait that will hang prominently in the White House, President Bush accepted the replacement of our Founding Fathers with new heroes: “Some figures in history, renowned in their day, grow smaller with the passing of time.

The man [MLK, Jr.] from Atlanta, Georgia, only grows larger with the years.

America is a better place because he was here, and we will honor his name forever.”

UGH, who will be next, Pancho Villa, Santa Anna, "Slow Poke" Rodriguez or maybe even "Speedy" Gonzalez?

The last "president" was bought and sold many times, I haven't been watching too closely, whose for sale next and for what price?

38 posted on 01/26/2002 2:13:33 PM PST by VOYAGER
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To: Regulator
I think that you and I basically agree. I'd just say that I have no objection to honoring Rev. King as long as it comes at no cost to the deserved reverence for our nations Founders. You are right that we all should work to oppose the efforts of those who are trying to "deconstruct" their greatness.
39 posted on 01/27/2002 12:39:20 PM PST by AZPubbie
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To: AZPubbie
Yup, and I think all reasonable people can agree to that. B.T.W., I'm originally from Tucson and I remember all the crap about this 14 years ago with Evan Mecham. It's crazy, the melee's that go on over this symbology. Salomon Baldenegro, full time agitator in Tucson, is trying to get a Cesar Chavez day in AZ. Barf. We've got one here in CA, and it's nothing but a propaganda event, where Chavez is depicted as Gandhi. Christ, the guy was a union organizer whose union isn't even a force anymore (even the illegals hate the UFW).

Who Cares? In the history of the world, he's only going to be a minor footnote. Washington and Jefferson, Madison and Franklin - they will still be known in 500 years, or 1000. They may go down as noble failures - the US will certainly not be in existence then - but I think they will still be known, and known in a positive light.

40 posted on 01/27/2002 1:04:14 PM PST by Regulator
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