Where the Tea Partiers Should Go From Here (by Karl Rove in the WSJ)

Wall Street Journal ^ | Apr. 1, 2010 | Karl Rove

[SmartInsight]

Democrats are attacking the tea party movement because it is a new force that's bringing millions of here-to-fore unengaged Democrats, independents and Republicans into the political arena. If there's something a ruling party doesn't like, it's a new political player converting spectators into participants.

To maintain their influence, tea partiers will have to maintain their current energy and concern over health care and federal spending.

But tea partiers will have to do more than surf discontent with the Obama administration's policies. They will also have to coalesce around a positive agenda.

The unhinged quality of the White House and the DNC attacks show that they understand how much the tea party movement can affect this year's elections. Now is the time for the movement to ensure its energy - and influence - stay high.

[stephenjohnbanker]

We didn’t have a communist dictator in the White House back then. No comparison. We either purge the RINOS, or we are done for. That simple.

[nonliberal]

Landslide Karl needs to STFU. He and Shrub set the conservative movement back 30 years.

[rdb3]

You're right, but may as well shut it down.

[EternalVigilance]

George Washington, from his Farewell Address to the nation, and to posterity:

[A] solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel...

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

[snip]

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

[snip]

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.

[snip]

[myself6]

"...the person who's with us 75-80% of the time is an ally, not an enemy. "

NOT when he is shooting at you the other 20% of the time...

Stop making excuses for socialists within the GOP.

F the Rinos, and F anyone who makes excuses for them. They are the poison that destroyed the only "force" capable of peacefully beating back the marxists while they were gathering strength within the democrat party. They are the vile saboteurs and they are most assuredly the enemy.

Civility was the ultimate casualty of their poison. Once it is FULLY understood that we will NOT submit to the tyranny of socialism you can begin to get an idea of exactly what the rinos cost this nation and its people.

WE WILL NOT SUBMIT!

This doesn't mean that we will strike out violently, but it does mean that we will NOT remain a part of this tyranny. The very last (potentially) peaceful option left to us is secession. I say potentially because if it were left up to us the tyrannical marxists would leave well enough alone and let us go. No one here is stupid... Not one of us believes that will be the case. We have ALL been witness to the atrocities of nations guided by the same principles our is now guided by. We know their can be no peace, the opportunity for that was assassinated by the "moderates" we allowed within our ranks and then into leadership positions. There will be war, and only one thing is certain... We WILL win or we WILL be slaves.

Thank your F'ing Rinos for this, their treachery made this ALL possible...

[onevoter]

biggredd1 says “screw rove. Show the proof that the usurper was born in U.S. Until you do, shut the freak up!”

Just joined in December 2009 - maybe coming in from Democratic Underground. If you can’t stay on subject go back to your Dem sites. No one here falls for all that - it is only a Dem tactic to make Republicans sound unhinged.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Then the solution for Tea Party people is... What, exactly? Not work to reform the GOP, but create their own party?

[TigersEye]

I’ll second that.

[TigersEye]

those were all conservative actions...try me.

Up is down, black is white. Socialism is freedom. Save it, fruitcake.

[TigersEye]

Reagan was right - the person who's with us 75-80% of the time is an ally, not an enemy.

Holding to those percentages most of the GOP is self-excluded.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

OK, let’s play devil’s advocate. Let’s toss the GOP, get rid of them. Conservatives create their own party. And the party platform is...

What?

I’ve asked this dozens of times over the last 12 months and gotten nothing.

I get generalities like “we need to scale back Government”. OK, is that absolute scaling, relative to the size of the GDP, relative to the tax base, what? No answer.

“We need to get back to the Constitution”; OK, where are we going wrong? “Personal liberties!” Like? Silence.

“We need an anti-abortion mandate!” You do know that prior to Roe-v-Wade that abortion was LEGAL at the Federal level, it was a State issue, and that two States had legal abortions. It was already legally allowed. Do you want to make it a Federal issue? Doesn’t that expand Federal power over the States that we’re trying to eliminate? Silence.

So, come out with it: what would be the platform? Let’s see one put together with firm foundations, solid planks.

[Oceander]

Reagan was right - the person who's with us 75-80% of the time is an ally, not an enemy.

Not if they sell us out on crucial principles during the 20-25% of the time when they're not with us. Do not forget, Judas was with Jesus most of the time, right up until that little incident where he gave the Pharisees a little bit of information on Jesus' whereabouts for thirty pieces of silver - after all, a guy's gotta feed and clothe the kids, doesn't he?

Sen. L. Graham may be "with us" most of the time, but as he's about to sell us down the river on some misguided attempt to be "bipartisan" with the fascists, I mean democrats, on cap-and-trade legislation that makes utterly no sense - other than as a rank ideological gesture - now that climategate and real science and real scientists have demonstrated the falsity of the supposed "science" on which cap-n-trade is based, Sen. Graham cannot truly be called an "ally" simply because he's "with us" most of the time. Which is a shame, really, because when he does manage to man up and overcome the addictive liberal side of his personality, he can be quite good at putting stupid liberals in their place, as the epic beat-down he put on Holder over the asinine decision to try terrorists the same way we try jaywalkers demonstrated.

Missing in the citations to Reagans' remarks regarding compromise is any reference to the fact that one must know precisely what one's principles are, and which can, and which cannot, be compromised or "bent" without simply turning one into a political Judas. In addition, since the Reagan years are missing from the chart regarding federal deficits, let us not forget that, despite his strength and adherence to conservative principles, Reagan was still not able to "bend" the federal spending curve down for good, and the Congress was, in fact, able to continue to spend without sufficient discipline even on his watch.

Now, mind you, we were at the same time engaged in an existential cold war with the Soviet Union at the time, and it was nothing more nor less than Reagan's adherence to conservative principle, and his ability to discern what could be compromised on without compromising your entire claim to being a conservative, that enabled him to defeat the Soviet Union without firing a single shot, so it is understandable that some domestic matters would have been left to fester longer than they should have, for the sake of cajoling enough liberals/democrats to stick with us in our fight against the liberals'/democrats' own natural affection for the communists. Nonetheless, we must not forget, as we look back on the greatness that was Ronald Reagan that he was human, too, after all, and that notwithstanding his principles and his ability to make constructive compromises, he left a lot of work unfinished, and we are only now beginning to see the true cost of having left that work undone - of having allowed liberals to continue undermining the foundations of this nation on domestic issues.

And so, the criticism regarding a too-simple-minded hero worship of Reagan cuts both ways, because while it is true that Reagan was not an ideological purist when it came to enacting strict far-right conservative ideas, it is also true that in many respects he codddled liberal democrats too long and too often for the sake of achieving that 75 or 80%, and that we must be as rigorous in scouring Reagan's legacy for clues and pointers to what mistakes should not be repeated as we are in scouring his legacy for clues and pointers to what we should be repeating.

All that being said, we still have a Herculean task ahead of us in mucking out the liberal excrement now befouling Congress, and our pole-star should still be Reagan.

[AuntB]

“Reagan was right - the person who’s with us 75-80% of the time is an ally, not an enemy.”

75 to 80% I can live with. In the case of John McCain, he doesn’t come close to that.

Reagan also said:

“We don’t intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all.”” — President Ronald Reagan “

[EternalVigilance]

Here's an explicit answer to what the platform should look like.

And you're mistaken about abortion and state power.

The right to life is God-given and therefore unalienable. Every government, every state, every level and branch of governance, has an imperative constitutional duty to protect innocent human life. According to the founders of this free republic we call America it's their primary raison d'être.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..."

And, particularly, the Fourteenth Amendment spells out the explicit requirement, which isn't in any way optional, that the States protect innocent human life and provide for the equal protection of the laws FOR ALL PERSONS.

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

[snowrip]

Personally, I am not a supporter of a third-party candidate... yet. The GOP has an established donor base (which needs to be rebuilt), an established message, an established physical infrastructure.... many things which make it far stronger than a third-party option.

However, the RINOs in the GOP have not had “75-80%” in common with the conservative voter as of late; if they have, they sure as hell haven’t been voting that way. Yes, I am angry with the GOP, but that anger is focused solely on the McCain-Graham-Snowe lunatics who are willing to kill America slowly in order to win more votes. We need leaders, not politicians, and right now the GOP is flush with backroom dealing, majority-ignoring idiot politicians. America first, party second. We will be stronger as a country once these fools are booted along with the democrat traitors they seek to emulate.

Democrats were able to spend because republicans broke their Conract With America and tried to become the “We-Can-Give-Stuff-Away-Too!” party. We held ALL THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT, and what did we do? Republicans spent like drunken sailors and shrank from every conflict while they let the democrat party define every issue. The votors didn’t have a damn thing to do with that.

[mamelukesabre]

Start by freezing all federal budgets. No increases, no automatic cost of living increases. The freeze is to be permanent. each department will have to figure out on it’s own how to stay under budget, if not, people start getting fired and someone new will figure it out.

Then at a later date you can sit down and cherry pick certain things to eliminate entirely.

[mkjessup]

Then the solution for Tea Party people is... What, exactly? Not work to reform the GOP, but create their own party?

I never said that. The Tea Party movement is unlikely to make any real substantial progress unless it begins to literally take over the GOP, purge the go-along-to-get-along bunch, establish solid conservative-libertarian standards (which was endorsed by no less than Reagan himself), and campaign on a platform of REDUCED government both in size and power, INCREASED autonomy for each individual State, and the Individual as a person, fiscal RESTRAINT, i.e., the elimination of ALL foreign aid except in the case of urgent humanitarian emergency assistance, the expulsion of the U.N. from U.S. soil, and withdrawal from that nest of vipers and RE-assertion of our national sovereignty with a strict sealing of our borders to prevent illegal entry under any circumstances.

Naturally the idea of a third party, the 'Tea Party' is appealing but the last time any third party actually obtained substantial electoral success was with Governor George Wallace on the American Independent ticket in 1968.

If the Republican Party can be reconstructed as a true conservative political organization, there is hope. The time for compromise, 'bipartisanship', 'go-along-to-get-along' and playing 'Let's Make A Deal' with the 'Rat thugs across the aisle is (or should be) OVER.

In the original American revolution, only approximately one third of the population chose to actually rebel, the other two thirds were indifferent or loyalists.

This next political revolution should expect no less, and no more. But it will be enough.

[appeal2]

Under Reagan not one government agency was eliminated. Government spending continued to increase at a somewhat slower rate, but it didn’t go down. While “progress” was made, nothing was done to reverse the leviathan state. In addition, while tax rates went down, real taxes went up. I am not putting down Reagan, he was by far the greatest post-war president. However, it didn’t reverse the process of ever-expanding government and diminishing personal liberty.

Bush was nothing more than a big government, country club republican. He paved the way for Obama’s socialism. Make no mistake about. Until the party realizes that it has been as responsible for this mess as the dems, there will be no progress. When I hear Corker and Cornyn speak out against repeal of Obamacare, I know that the party in its present form is not our savior. The fact is that the economy is way too far gone for an incremental solution. Massive cut backs in the size of government and the number of blood sucking employees is the only thing that can possibly stop the rapid decline we are faced with.

[madmominct]

But what about the RINOs - who claim to be Republicans but in truth are no different than the Democrats? Blatant trespasses of the Constitution, such as this healthcare monstrosity, require Republicans who STAND for something - who have the guts to stand up for basic conservative principles, not those like Lindsay Graham, who go along to get along....that will only get us more compromises and more such statist monstrosities. At some point you must stand up against the underlying problem - that these people are ignoring the Constitution - that you cannot compromise with that - you have to draw a line.

[Texas Fossil]

I agree with you that we should work within the Republican Party, but any Congressman or Senator who voted/will vote for Cap & Trade or this Plelosi Deathcare MUST be removed. Regardless of the party. They are Traitors.

That does not mean that I support “eating our own”, but it means that a Traitor is a Traitor regardless of the label they wear.

I have been an active Republican all my life. I was at one point Republican County Chairman in a county in NM. Battle scars from this process never truly go away, but I am always a defender of liberty, freedom and the Constitution.