I basically like Beck because he is a palatable libertarian rather than immured in some hard right wing philosophy.
I have been rather beaten up here because of my opposition to George Bush and his penchant for Rumsfeld's limited war strategy in Iraq.
A Vietnam Vet, I believe in overwhelming force in every consideration of meeting the enemy...a "git thar furstest with the mostest" strategy in beating down foes instead of pussyfooting around them.
The eventual Petraeus surge that put down the insurgents should have been initiated two and a half years prior than it was instead of after "we tuk a thumpin'" in the 2006 mid-term debacle and I'll never for give Bush for his conduct of fighting Operation Iraqi Freedom with a powderpuff rather than a sledgehammer or his "Read My Lips" old man for stopping the first (Operation Desert Storm) drive to Baghdad when American power could have been demonstrated forcefully and fully and perhaps would have meant that 9-11 would have been too deemed too costly for Bin Laden to even try.
Interesting, I describe myself as a foaming at the mouth, flopping on the floor conservative with pesky libertarian tendencies.
I recognize Beck to be a libertarian but I do not understand why he has a reflexive need to equate the truly egregious anti- libertarian policies of the Democrat party with the relatively venal declensions of the Republicans. It strikes me as relativism in reverse which leads to a feeling of secret and smug wisdom for damning both houses.
Anticipating the electoral disaster we were facing last November, I began a series of posts trying to feel a way toward reconciliation between social conservatives and libertarian conservatives or fiscal conservatives.
The problem with the Iraq was that it introduced a third splintering tendency, the neocons. I know libertarians who have walked away from the Republican Party because of the neocons. Now we see the neocons, like Frum, walking away from the social conservatives.
It would take another Ronald Reagan or, as fate would have it, a Barack Obama to restore the party's unity.
