Posted on 12/02/2013 1:30:23 PM PST by xzins
Mitch McConnell Caricature Shoots Gadsden Flag The Senate’s Republican Minority Leader has now made it official – he’s declaring war on conservatives.
McConnell’s latest attack on conservatives came in an interview with The Washington Examiner, which ran last Friday. In it McConnell claimed the he is a “conservative” and went on to offer this interesting take on the present situation in Washington:
“What they do [the Senate Conservatives Fund] is mislead their donors into believing the reason that we can’t get as good an outcome as we’d like to get is not because of a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president, but because Republicans are insufficiently committed to the cause — which is utter nonsense.”
There are many points worth criticizing in McConnell’s interview with The Washington Examiner, but here we will focus on just these two: McConnell’s claim that he is a conservative and his declaration of war against conservatives.
Senator McConnell seems to think that movement conservatism is some kind of smorgasbord from which he can pick and choose ideas and policies and that merely by bellying-up to the smorgasbord occasionally he can claim to be “a conservative.”
Our perspective is quite different. As we see it, conservatism is a wholly formed world view, and that while organizations and individual conservatives in the movement may argue passionately for their favorite solutions to the various public policy challenges before Congress, they are all coming at the problem from this same world view.
And this world view is that the federal government should stay within the strict bounds the Constitution placed on it to protect the God-given liberty and rights of the individual citizen against the encroachments of foreign invaders, other citizens and the state itself.
To us, Senator McConnell getting a big fat earmark for a dam in Kentucky tucked into in the bill that funded ObamaCare, instead of holding fast and fighting ObamaCare, does not seem to fit into that conservative world view. Nor do McConnell’s long list of other big government votes and policy prescriptions.
There’s an old saying to the effect that “he who strikes the second blow starts the fight.” And for over 100 years progressive Republicans have been at war with the conservative grassroots of the Republican Party – except they conveniently forgot to tell us the war was going on.
We kept working every election trusting that if we elected establishment Republicans the growth of government and the erosion of freedom would stop – it didn’t. Indeed, when George W. Bush was in the White House and establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell held sway on Capitol Hill it accelerated.
Since grassroots conservatives have figured out that there is and has been a war going on, and they have started to fight back – and win – establishment Republicans are not only outraged, they are scared they are going to lose their power.
Mitch McConnell’s popularity has been sinking like a stone now that Kentucky’s grassroots limited government constitutional conservatives have begun to differentiate between establishment Republicans and actual “conservatives.”
Should Senator McConnell survive the Republican primary to face Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, the polls show he’s in for the fight of his life. Mitch McConnell is in trouble not because he has been “too conservative,” but because voters don’t see the difference between a big government pork barreling Republican and a big government pork barreling Democrat.
To read David
The Libertarians generally argue that if governments kept their nose out of places they didn't belong, their stances on many issues wouldn't matter. If, for example, parents could without government involvement readily send their children to whatever schools best reflected their values, the question of what values should be taught in school would be removed from the political arena. Philosophically, the argument is generally reasonable, though in some cases I don't think it holds (for example, libertarians claim that unwanted immigration wouldn't be a problem were it not for government handout programs which shouldn't exist in the first place; I would posit that while such programs may cause immigration to be a bigger problem than it would be otherwise, they are not the *only* problem, and the need for border security would exist even without them).
Unfortunately, many Libertarians seem to think that if the behavior forbidden by law X wouldn't be a problem were it not for Y, and if Y should be eliminated, then the fact that Y should be eliminated means X should be considered unnecessary, even while Y--and its associated problems--continue to exist. While I used to consider myself Libertarian, the way in which they prioritize their efforts seems inconsistent with what they claim to be their most important stated goals.
Still, your reference to "law and order" is interesting. I would posit that true conservatives should be pro-law-and-order, but should recognize that policies which would undermine the Constitution--even when put forth by so-called "law-and-order" politicians--promote neither law nor order. Things like asset forfeiture might have been intended to improve police effectiveness in the fight against crime, but encourage police to prioritize their resources according to the value of assets that could be seized from a suspect, rather than the extent to which the suspect endangers the public. That's not to suggest that cops simply ignore criminals who don't have any assets that are worth seizing, but policies that create incentives for government officials to do the wrong thing are dangerous. Even if they don't immediately cause officials to start doing the wrong thing, they'll often start officials down a slippery slope which in many cases could and should have been avoided entirely.
Have you told the people of KY this: probably news to them?
I definitely intend to boycott the U.S. Senate race in TX in November 2014, but not the governor’s race even though Greg Abbott is running thus far an abysmal campaign.
I don’t know.. I’d rather do battle with someone trying to shoot me in the face than someone I thought was on my side who stabs me in the back.
I am pretty sure the house was under rat control at the time.
wait.
never mind.
It is being funded by a pub house.
He probably is.
But, unfortunately, Bevin probably won't be the one to benefit from it.
McConnell's declaration of war vs conservatives could well lose him enough votes to make the Democrat a winner in the general.
That may be true of the worst Republican who would be worthy of the name, but RINOs who run as Republicans are far more damaging than Democrats. The difference is not merely one of degree--a squishy Republican may be politically unable to openly support conservative policies, but be happy if other politicians are able to push them. By contrast, a RINO, recognizing that his ability to "work with" Democrats will only be useful as long as the Democrats and their policies remain politically viable, will do all he can to ensure nothing undermines that viability. If the implementation of a conservative policy and its success would make the public see the moral bankruptcy of those who had opposed it, RINOs will do everything possible to prevent such a policy from seeing the light of day.
A RINO may not overtly declare himself do be the enemy of conservatives, but that doesn't imply that he has any real value as an ally. RINOs are good at offering support in cases where none is needed, but that doesn't mean they'll have any value in cases that matter.
Ultimately, it is going to be necessary to challenge the notion that a presidential appointee's declaration (approved by 51 Senators) that something is Constitutional magically makes it so. If something is unconstitutional, the Court is duty-bound to declare it so. The Court's failure to do so would not make the action legitimate, but merely demonstrate judges' willingness to behave illegitimately. Such a challenge will be much easier if the "balancing vote" is cast by someone who has been consistently condemned by Republicans as having zero interest for the rule of law.
The worst Republicans are indistinguishable from Democrats
“...Let him dare to switch parties and join all his new friends...”
Worked well for the late Senator from PA - Arlin Spect(at)or. McConnell is a political doofus.
“...and vote for the winner of the primaries in the gen election.”
I hear you, ...but many Rinos not only leave the herd, but actively work against the party nominee. Not sure if you were around in ‘80 when Reagan was despised by RINOs,...
bitchy mitchy go bye-bye
Remember, it was Mitch McConnell who said repealing Obamacare is an “impossible dream.”
I can’t imagine what real patriots would have done to this traitor 200+ years ago.
I remember well the RINO's war against Reagan, but he won thus all of us won..even Tip, George HW, and the boys.
But I still stand beside my statement about the difference between bad R's and "good" D's....
Just take the AFA, for example...not ONE R...good, or bad..voted for this thing, and the "best" D..Joe Manchin voted for it...
Take out the RINO's in the primaries if you can...We are stuck, are we not, with who put themselves out there to run.
DO NOT STAY HOME OR VOTE DEM FOR ANY REASON...(unless R's begin infiltrating the D party)
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