Posted on 12/10/2010 8:55:42 AM PST by Sub-Driver
GOP Young Gun: 'Reagan Revolution' is over By Michael O'Brien - 12/10/10 10:47 AM ET
The "Reagan Revolution" that spurred a GOP renaissance in Washington is dead, one of the party's new faces said Friday.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee and one of the Republican "Young Guns," said that the movement sparked by President Reagan's election in 1980 fizzled out with Democrats' wins in the congressional elections of 2006.
"The Reagan Revolution ended in 2006 when Pelosi took the gavel — definitely in 2008," Ryan said in a video interview with The Wall Street Journal. "So a new era is beginning."
Republicans had long credited the resurgence of the party led by Reagan for their victories in the 1994 congressional elections, in which they won control of the House and Senate, as well as for the victory of George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election.
But Republicans have also sought to recast the party as the GOP of a new generation that has broken from past leaders and learned from its mistakes. That sentiment had in part animated the new crop of "Young Guns" — a trio of Ryan, incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and incoming House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — to promote themselves as new faces of the GOP.
The new Republicans coming to Washington, many of whom hail from a later generation than their predecessors, aren't interested in the kind of "small ball" that dominated political debate in the 1990s, Ryan said.
"No more school uniforms and prescription drugs — it's the big picture," he said. "And that's the kind of healthy conversation we've got to have in this country."
DEADWRONG! It just proves that some posters are idiots. Don't get carried away.
Nazi refers to totalitarian National Socialism, which was coined as fascism.
Conservatism was defined by Russell Kirk as "the negation of the secular ideologies", i.e. all the -isms of the 19th and 20th centuries: naziism, fascism, socialism, communism etc.
Any suggestion that "pure" conservatism equals nazism is an egregious smear and a blatant misread of political history.
Now we have a tax “deal” that is fast becoming TARP2
A false premise based on the acceptance that the right wants to control people. As for people calling themselves things, there is never an explanation for such things. Finally, "peace and love" turning violent is nothing new and is the fundamental element of every utopian state. The Soviets were all about happiness. They just needed to kill the people who didn't accept how that was going to happen.
There is no logical way that extreme libertarianism ends in state control.
Headline gave a different impression than the article...
He said no such thing that I can see from this article as far as "dissing" Reagan or the agenda. He made a comment about how it was killed by 2006 and 2008 elections and now it is time for a new era to begin. Granted, I would have preferred he said something along the lines that it is time to reignite that same agenda and success, but what he did say wasn't "dissing" anything that Reagan did.
LLS
In the interview, Ryan says he is a member of GenX and he believes that this "new crop of people" and "new generation of people" coming to Congress are "firmly committed" to "founding principles" and "core principles".
I'd say Reagan was firmly committed to founding principles and core principles, and did all he could to advance the conservative agenda for the better part of 30 years. In fact, Reagan is still influencing American politics today. OTOH, Paul Ryan has done nothing to advance the conservative agenda. Hopefully that will change soon.
Unlike Boehner's first lieutenant Eric Cantor, I like Paul Ryan, but he should choose his words more wisely.
History just isn't the strong point of the slackers--takes too much attention span.
Are you suggesting that Nazi’s were conservative? How’s that public school education working out for you?
>>”...at some point the extremes on both the left and right bend around and meet at some crazed point. “
That is because the “extremes” are both anarchism, either “socialist” anarchism, or “individual” or “selfish” anarchism. Both of these are imagined to lead, ultimately, to utopia. Inevitably, they do not. Ever. They only lead to an almost identical tyranny.
DG
Bad choice of words. Everything can be taken to excess, but I really meant “extreme right wing” more than “extreme conservatism.”
Well, as I said, extremism and fanaticism defy logic. Point being, it's not an open-and-shut case - there seems to be sensible arguments on both sides of this subject which I consider not very important, but interesting.
The movement of society has been relentlessly left since at least 1900 and the issue of our day is extreme left/socialism/Communism. Conservatives are about getting us back to a Constitutional republic with limited government. Maybe we'll have to fight for it with guns if necessary like our founders fought for freedom.
Maybe the difference on the right between legitimate and extreme (not as the left portrays it but in reality) is illustrated by the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. I think in America, you had "Give me freedom or give me death," but kept on track with restrained Christian values. In France, the revolutionaries were worse than the regime they overcame - there was no restraint and a blood bath followed.
I understand. I was directing that more to the conventional media group-think that being conservative means being a jack-booted brownshirt.
Hey, I like that. Compared to “revolution”, “restoration” is a relatively benign word. However, it encompasses the gamut of a peaceful political solution—i.e. voting the Marxists out at the ballot box—to a forceful revolution. Another component to the word is that it points no fingers that would arouse people’s defensive mechanisms.
I was speaking with my sister the other day. She rejects the Marxist label despite her belief that she has a right to other people’s money and everyone should earn equally. I try to steer clear of politics with her because all she does is parrot demrat talking points. In any case, she bemoaned that America is not what it was. My point is that even some of the demrat “useful idiots” are yearning for at some semblance of a retuen to traditional America. I think “restoration” is a word these folks will not deem offensive.
Where appropriate I will use the term “American Restoration” whenever I speak about taking back America. Maybe you and I, LomanBill, can start a trend.
Wrong! In case you hadn't noticed, Reagan is more popular now than when he left office. He has withstood the test of time. His policies have been proven to have led to prosperity.
The whacko lefties are the only ones "recoiling" from the Reagan Revolution. The Nov. elections were all about getting back to "Government IS the problem"
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