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How the GOP Got Here: A Symposium (Mark Steyn)
NRO ^ | 11/5/2008 | Mark Steyn and others

Posted on 11/05/2008 12:08:54 PM PST by mojito

I congratulate Senator Obama on a remarkable and decisive victory. It was in many ways the final battle in a war the Republican Party didn’t even bother fighting — the “long march through the institutions.” While the Senator certainly enjoyed the patronage of the Chicago machine, he is not primarily a political figure: Whether “educators” like William Ayers or therapeutic pop-culture types like Oprah, his closest associations are beyond the world of electoral politics. He emerged rather from all the cultural turf the GOP largely abandoned during its 30-year winning streak at the ballot box, and his victory demonstrates the folly of assuming that folks will continue to pull the lever for guys with an R after their name every other November even as all the other institutions in society become de facto liberal one-party states.

Bill Bennett asked me on the air the other day why voters were so hot for this hope’n’change mush, and I suggested that it’s the dominant vernacular of the age. Go into almost any American grade-school and stroll the corridors: you’ll find the walls lined with Sharpie-bright supersized touchy-feely abstractions: “RESPECT,” “DREAM,” “TOGETHER,” “DIVERSITY.” By contrast, Mister Maverick talked of “reaching across the aisle” and ending “earmarks,” which may sound heroic in Washington but ring shriveled and reductive to anyone who’s not obsessed with legislative process. This dead language embodied the narrow sliver of turf on which he was fighting, while Obama was bestriding the broader cultural space. Republicans need to start their own long march back through all the institutions they ceded. Otherwise, the default mode of this society will be liberal, and what’s left of the Republican party will be reduced (as in other parts of the west) to begging the electorate for the occasional opportunity to prove it can run the liberal state just as well as liberals can.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: gop; marksteyn; obama
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To: mick
Yes, this in the end will be the way it goes. We just cannot afford the commitments that have been made, the money does not exist. So politicians will keep kicking the can down the road, but in the end we are bankrupt.

Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare .... the liabilities are in the 10s of trillions. Socialism just does not work.

The question is not can we survive or make it through. The question is when we go bankrupt how do we restructure? I agree, this is just a bump in the road on the way to the reckoning. Those that best prepare are the ones who will best deal with its challenges.

schu

61 posted on 11/05/2008 2:44:28 PM PST by schu
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To: FlipWilson
3) The media had power over the Republicans and McCain and us because the Republicans and McCain and us GAVE them the power by listening to them in the first place. We all fail to treat the media for exactly what it is, an extension of the democrat party, no more, no less. So how about this, we all tune them out and get on the Internet and find out what is going on for ourselves. There are a ton of good organizations out there like freerepublic.com. . ..well, at least until our Dear Leader shuts them down with the so called “Fairness Doctrine.”

The alternative media is our stomping ground but most Americans still get their news from the MSM. They never hear what we hear and what we know. We are preaching to the choir. Short of finding a conservative George Soros money bag that could by a national media outlet and changing the news venue to a conservative forum, there is little we can do. Even Fox sold out. The only thing that may be plausible would be an expressed boycott of the advertisers of the MSM news programs. There are a lot and they cover a lot of products we purchase necessary to daily living. But, in these times, it may not take a lot to persuade or have negative impact. The little advertised Christian boycott of Ford for advertising in Gay magazines is estimated to have cost Ford billions in lost potential revenue. It seems about our only recourse to possibly steer and control events.

62 posted on 11/05/2008 2:45:53 PM PST by Tucson
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To: Fishrrman

John

I’ve read that Europe lost more than half it’s population to the Black Death. If our system( economic, financial, electrical,etc. ) collapses, from whatever cause or causes, and can no longer deliver the necessities of life don’t you think mass death is possible ?

I am talking about possible serious disruption of the transportation system and water delivery system...how long do you think the huddled masses in the cities could last if services and food delivery stopped. Not to mention panic and disease. It has happened all throughout history when a syatem for the delivery of food and supplies breaks down. In civilized places like 1920’s Germany it happened because farmers refused to bring in food because the
money was worthless. And the Army couldn’t force them in because they were not getting paid either.

All I am saying is our socialistic system is doomed,just like communism was in Russia. And asking the question..”What happens then”?


63 posted on 11/05/2008 2:46:37 PM PST by mick
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To: austingirl

always looking at the bright side, huh Girl :)


64 posted on 11/05/2008 2:51:59 PM PST by mick
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To: arthurus

That’s no reason to cede your children to them. Raise them and educate them covertly, or move to friendly territory where the edu-goons won’t dare go. And states still technically have jurisdiction, don’t they? I know they guard their power quite jealously.


65 posted on 11/05/2008 2:52:35 PM PST by coydog (Keep Canada green - paint a Liberal!)
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To: y6162

After I posted, I thought perhaps you were being ironical, ha ha.


66 posted on 11/05/2008 3:09:00 PM PST by happygrl (karma's going to be a B**** 0bama)
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To: livius
After the late 60s and early 70s, when they were never punished for their crimes, they went underground and simply burrowed from within. In the meantime, the GOP and, in fact, conservatives in general, kept on blithely thinking that this was all a sort of reasonable contest between reasonable differences. It wasn't. Marxism had hollowed out all of our institutions and taken them over, and the Marxists had gotten either their direct representatives (Barry and friends) or their dupes (Pelosi and friends) into power.

Bump!

67 posted on 11/05/2008 3:41:19 PM PST by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: mojito; All

How the GOP got here? Spell it B-U-S-H and C-H-E-N-E-Y.


68 posted on 11/05/2008 3:53:26 PM PST by attiladhun2 (Obama is the anti-Reagan, instead of opposing the world's tyrants, he wants to embrace them)
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To: NormsRevenge
Mao and Joe would be proud

Not to mention a little scumbag in Hyde Park by the name of William Ayers.
69 posted on 11/05/2008 3:55:11 PM PST by attiladhun2 (Obama is the anti-Reagan, instead of opposing the world's tyrants, he wants to embrace them)
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To: FlipWilson
8) Entangling us in foreign wars is a bad idea if you are not prepared to fight the enemy on all fronts. . . .that means the democrats (the media included) because they will side with the foreign enemy every time.

The Bush administration never understood where the center of gravity is in asymmetrical warfare. It is not where the bombs are dropping nor where the bullets are flying--it is in the media and the political opposition. In other words, it is on the evening news and in the halls of Parliament or Congress. Kenneth Timmerman brings out this failure of the Bush administration brilliantly in Shadow Warriors.
70 posted on 11/05/2008 4:07:51 PM PST by attiladhun2 (Obama is the anti-Reagan, instead of opposing the world's tyrants, he wants to embrace them)
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To: chimera

Someone needs to write a manifesto on conservative activism ala Saul Aulinsky. I say use the tactics of the radical left against them, since they are now truly the Establishment.


71 posted on 11/05/2008 4:16:28 PM PST by attiladhun2 (Obama is the anti-Reagan, instead of opposing the world's tyrants, he wants to embrace them)
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To: FlipWilson

That was quite well said. You should have a blog.


72 posted on 11/05/2008 4:28:58 PM PST by Red Boots
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To: mick

An EMP device(s) launched by either Russia or Iran (or a timed launch by both nations), would bring about the scenario you have described. I have no doubt that either of these nations are pursuing such a weapon. In the meantime, we will have a president who wants to gut our military.


73 posted on 11/05/2008 4:31:56 PM PST by attiladhun2 (Obama is the anti-Reagan, instead of opposing the world's tyrants, he wants to embrace them)
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To: aquila48

Communism ping.

That just made my week worse.

Thanks /s


74 posted on 11/05/2008 4:56:46 PM PST by NathanR ( Drill here. Drill now. Pay less.)
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To: what's up

Since most of that was framed as part of the problem. Yes.


75 posted on 11/05/2008 5:02:16 PM PST by NathanR ( Drill here. Drill now. Pay less.)
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To: itsahoot

It was my point: if they can govern, I would let them do it, however, the problem is that they cannot.


76 posted on 11/05/2008 6:04:45 PM PST by alex
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To: attiladhun2

You are possibly right about Russia pursuing an EMP device. I believe Stratfor may have discussed this.

Incidently, your discussion of Islam on your profile page was very informative. I can’t tell you how much I have learned from reading Freeper profile pages. It is one of the true golden resources of Free Republic. And one unselfishly provided to all of us by people like you. Thank you.


77 posted on 11/05/2008 6:20:17 PM PST by mick
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To: what's up

Quote: “Do you really think extending the Bush tax cuts, proposing a 10% reduction in corporate taxes, capital gains tax decrease, decrease in Gov’t spending across the board and a $5,000 health care tax credit are nothing?
Weird thinking.”

Weird, huh? You mean the same tax cut he voted against in the first place? That came back to haunt him. If he had stood for the tax cut in the first place, don’t you think that it would have gone better for him. Nah, so much better to switch back and forth, that is standing for something. Anyway, the most important economic issue to take a stand on in this election was the Bailout. Need I say more.


78 posted on 11/05/2008 7:08:57 PM PST by FlipWilson
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To: Mustangman

Quote: “the ‘94 congress lacked confidence in its own political movement. Down deep, it didn’t believe in making government smaller”

No, they got intimidated by a media that they allowed to have power over them. Remember the Time magazine cover “The Gingrinch Who Stole Christmas?” The MSM needed to be ignored and the Republicans needed to realize that no matter what it did there would be no pleasing the MSM branch of the democrat party. They had finally gotten a majority and were terrified of losing it. Then they evolved into a game of spreading the favors to stay in power. That is a game the dems can play forever to stay in power but one that does NOT work for the Republicans.


79 posted on 11/05/2008 7:20:18 PM PST by FlipWilson
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To: aquila48

One of the biggest areas we surrendered was the Foundations, which were taken over by libs, so that huge sums given out in ways most of the founders would have barfed over.


80 posted on 11/05/2008 7:26:58 PM PST by expatpat
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