Well, yes, if you believe Time’s Michael Grunwald:
The party’s ideas — about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else — are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it’s not a majority agenda. The party’s new, Hooverish focus on austerity on the brink of another depression does not seem to fit the national mood, and it’s shamelessly hypocritical, given the party’s recent history of massive deficit spending on pork, war and prescription drugs in good times, not to mention its continuing support for deficit-exploding tax cuts in bad times.
Because that single paragraph is so densely packed with wrong — from the idea that Bush was a “conservative” to the notion that waterboarding, to conservatives, is a thrill rather than a necessary evil — I won’t bother deconstructing it. After all, Grunwald undoubtedly knows that his thesis is balderdash. So the question is, why write this kind of intellectually dishonest pablum? What’s its rhetorical purpose?
And the answer is that it reinforces a manufactured narrative that the progressives are hoping to push as consensus opinion; it enables the Big Lie about “what Americans want” (gay marriage? according to what polls? higher taxes? terrorists treated as criminal defendants in a courtroom?); and — and here’s where it’s supposed to really work, as a piece of propaganda — it serves notice to the leadership in the GOP that, should they not move the party more toward what leftists are out to portray as “centrist,” the party is doomed to fail.
As you all know, I find this idea ridiculous: classical liberalism has been all but abandoned by the GOP, who ran a statist centrist whose “maverick” reputation is directly tied to his willingness to abandon conservative principles. Bush’s presidency was a success in that it kept Americans safe and beat back a dangerous enemy — not because he was a “conservative” or classical liberal.
So why is Grunwald at pains to pretend that it has been conservatism that was defeated?
Simple: it is a fear of classical liberal ideals and how they track with our founding principles; and that’s because these ideals, confidently expressed, are the biggest danger to progressivism’s expansion and consolidation of power. Thus, it has become the place of media apparatchiks to try to shame people away from conservative ideals (by appeals to popularity), and to frighten the GOP’s “pragmatists” into accepting the newly calibrated political spectrum such that the “right,” from a policy standpoint, is at best impotent, and at worst, actively backing left-center policy.
Better still, in order for the GOP establishment to ever see power again, the implied argument goes (and a crucial part of the argument is the unspoken allegiance of the media to progressive activism), they must control their party’s “extremists” — who have helpfully been defined by official Obamatons as those who believe in federalism, individual freedom, low taxes, fiscal responsibility (actual), and the Constitution as it was written, not as it can be remade through the linguistic robbery of clever judges.
And our pragmatists have taken the bait.
Me, I’m not determined to wield power, so I don’t much care what the GOP does. Either it’ll drift back toward conservatism and classical liberalism, or it will, in my estimation, become nothing more than the right side of the left.
Which, if I wanted that, I could just read Meghan McCain’s jottings every day, then spend my evenings beating myself over the head with a pewter elephant figurine.
So I’m willing to stick to my principles and see where that takes me. And the GOP can call me when it erects a big tent with a solid foundation, not one planted on the sands of “pragmatism.”
Hoover? Hoover?!
If Republicans and conservatism are dead, why do leftist liberals keep talking about the demise of the GOP?
Pewter elephant figurine. McCain. Pewter elephant figurine. Graham. Pewter elephant figurine. Huckabee.
There something here, but I think I’m concussed.
I suppose I’m not supposed to understand that the present Democrat majority consists of fellows like Jim Webb, John Tester, Bob Casey . . . and now, Arlen Spector?
Fuck, they can’t even throw bones to the gun grabbers anymore.
Fuck Michael Grunwald and the brillo pad hair he rode in on.
Bingo sir!
[had a few extra minutes to do some browsing]
Of course, maybe the dear fellow meant Barack Hussein Hoover.
Well said. It’s Big Lie Time!
well the moderate republicans are proggs ask powell and arlen
president hoover is going to get a big time smack down soon
I feel like I ought to say something here. But it’s already been said.
Redundancy sucks, but not as much as dirty socialism. How about that?
If Republicans and conservatism are dead, why do leftist liberals keep talking about the demise of the GOP?
I figure they can’t really enjoy this unless they pretend that it is a once and for all kind of thing.
They really need to have their fun, because Brackabama just pretty much re-cemented the perception that Democrats are genetically weak on defense. The whole caterpillar in a box thing will look pretty fucking trivial if and when there’s another smoking pile of dead Americans. I think that has a whole lot to do with it – they won because of Bush stink and “throw the bums out” and a year long national race guilt trip – but they’d rather pretend that it was their awful ideas that won the day, when they know deep down that their bullshit will be found out pretty soon.
from the idea that Bush was a “conservativeâ€
He was… until he became unpopular and led to GOP losses, then nearly overnight, he suddenly wasn’t REALLY a conservative at all. Funny, how no one complained that he wasn’t persuing “conservative” principles until the economic implosion. Now, suddenly – “it was all HIS doing… NOTHING to do with us!”
president hussein could probably do this in his native kenya but we ain’t that stupid yet
Yeah, the right doesn’t need to gain control of the so called extremists, they need to get control over their own fucking marketing.
Leigh Scott at Big Hollywood has an awesome piece up about this very thing. The PW crowd pleaser has to be this;
but the whole thing is great. Read it all, as they say.
Be sure to view the trailer for “the Shining”, it really drives home the point.
f**k you harriet meirers , medicaid part b and comprehensive immigration pal.
Oops, forgot the link.
Crap, link!
Meghan McCain wears big tents. To dinner.
Oh, this notion is getting such a flogging in the usual places. Greenwald, for one. See, Limbaugh mentioned in passing, once, that Reagan would approve of something or other than Bush was doing (no details given; I’m guessing it was GWOT), plus Bush got lots of support for some of his activities (generally unspecified; I’m going to make a stretch and guess: GWOT), plus Novak said once that Bush might be even more conservative than Reagan. Which just means Novak is an idiot, not that the consensus was that Bush was very conservative.
Other than on the left, I mean.
At least no one you know, huh?
So what part of the wilderness do you despise the most? The artctic blast of revisionist fury, or the soggy gasp of irrelevance?
I’d like to see a nice long list of Bush’s “conservative” bone fides. I would.
The best part is watching you work overtime to pay for your cigs, cynn,
So far. It’s early yet.
I remember fighting Bush on steel, farm subsidies, not blasting race-based affirmative action enough, Schiavo, McCain-Feingold non-veto, immigration, Harriet Miers, etc, etc… But he was a stalwart in the GWOT, as was Lieberman, so I have respect for them both. And in Bush’s case, he refused to cave to constant political pressure to walk back the spread of freedom that he clearly believed in.
So, like, there’s that.
He’s a freakin’ hero, in my book. I just wish he was a classical liberal hero.
Hmmm, Time also published this:
Oddly enough, it sounds eerily like David Brooks or Chris Buckley describing Obama.
Obama only got 52% of the vote, during a change cycle, after a woefully unpopular Republican president, with an ongoing unpopular war, after several years of Republican scandals (harped upon endlessly by the media, naturally), during a recession popularly perceived as Bush’s fault, with the media endlessly and shamelessly cheerleading for him for the duration of the campaign.
The takeaway: this is still a center-right country. If it weren’t, in light of all of the above, Obama should have gotten about 65 – 70% of the popular vote.
dude what about global warming or whatever you proggs are pushing these days.
bennito hussein obama: italian and muslim fascism together how multicultural
“waterboarding, to conservatives, is a thrill rather than a necessary evil”
As opposed to the vanity evil of “club gitmo” t-shirts.
I believe ‘Il Douche’ is apropos.
It is why they, the left, are still so angry. Their whole scheme for power is built on the shifting sands of their lies. Sisyphus has it easy compared to the edifice they must continually rebuild.
It is also why they constantly come here, and anywhere conservatives meet to talk, and offer up their advise on how we can do better, be better, win elections. We just have to be more like them. Because they are perfect…liars.
“…given the party’s recent history of massive deficit spending on pork, war and prescription drugs in good times…”
Wait a minute, did a lefty hack just admit that the economy wasn’t “all sucky, all the time” for the last eight years? I mean, not that he’s wrong on the pork and the prescription drug stuff, but his masters can’t pleased about that.
The sanctimony of the hysterical “vanity evil” crowd is kind of perplexing. They’re completely willing to drop the e bomb on conservatives, but Islamists, well, there’s some sort of rapidly rotating neutron star of denial at the core of progressive thinking that I maybe is the dynamo of their will to power. Or something.
“classical liberalism has been all but abandoned by the GOP”
Can you tell us about the time that it was embraced by the GOP? Hoover? Not Ike, Not Nixon, Ford? Or Reagan. That was it, right? That’s ‘classical liberal’ as far as the GOP goes? Or maybe you’re thinking more like Newt’s Congress?
** maybe think** that is. Yes. Hungarian-muppet douche also works.
Yeah meya, we already know of your inability to grasp irony, no need to remind us.
“Because that single paragraph is so densely packed with wrong”
This is why I love Protein Wisdom so much. It’s a blog densely packed with RIGHT and does its deconstruction of leftie ‘pablum’ with Steynian wit.
“find this idea ridiculous: classical liberalism has been all but abandoned by the GOP”
‘has’ should be ‘had’. The error made by the Republicans was both serious and fundamental, but was/is not permanent. After all, the door you have left open:
“And the GOP can call me when it erects a big tent with a solid foundation, not one planted on the sands of “pragmatism.—
… is one that at least some elements in the Republican Party are ready to walk through. The long pole in the tent of the future Republican party will be a freedom-focussed small-Govt conservatism.
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2009/05/howl-of-rinos-and-rebuilding-gop.html
“Big tents need strong poles … the organizing principle must be freedom” – Sen DeMint
The point of TIME and the constant harping of the left on Rush Limbaugh is the divide-and-conquer strategy: Divide the right from the center, and more importantly, DIVIDE THE GOP LEADERS FROM THE ONE WAY OUT OF THE POLITICAL WILDERNESS. The media want to turn an election where Obama won preaching about the need to worry about deficits and a promise to give 95% of Americans a tax cut into a political system where actual tax and spending reduction is not on the table. Hmmm, and they used to be the GOP’s best issues. Hmmmm. Moving to the center wont only by philosophically damaging to America’s body politic, by denying real choice to voters – it will be political suicide for the GOP.
If the GOP cant figure out from the 750,000 Tea Partyiers rallying for getting govt off our backs that freedom-focussed small govt conservatism is the way to go, they’ll go the way of the Whigs … literally:
http://www.modernwhig.org/index.html#about
Meya what kind of pills do you take?
Oh, that was @29.
Rush said it brilliantly today. The right doesn’t need to move to the center to win elections, we need the leadership to move the center to the right.
Actually, I believe what was said up thread about the country being mostly center right already to be true. The problem (as we all know), is populism, and allowing the narrative to be controlled by the left.
Pragmatism is just another way of saying you have no skin in the game.
When lefties went to bed and dreamed with nightsweats of BushitlerDarthcheneyRethugrove monsters coming to steal away their freedoms, little did they realize that Bush, Cheney, Rove et al were much more focused on events overseas, being more concerned with protecting their sorry little worthless candy asses at home than trying to steal away their freedoms. Then, first chance they get, lefties fall all over themselves to give away exactly what they were so worried about losing.
Serves ‘em right I think. If only we weren’t in the same boat as they are…
There are so many Republicans what should be dead or retired. Chuck Grassley and Orrin and Meghan’s coward daddy and that homo nobody … damn what’s his name? That guy what tried to mug the insurance executives for some fascist media justice … crap … oh. Eric Cantor. Sick fuck. Also Mitch McConnell just cause I’m sick of looking at his feckless dumb face. Lamar Alexander. Get a life you wanker. Georgie Voinovich. I don’t care if he’s retiring he should be retiring with someone’s boot up his poncey ass. Kay Bailey. What a freak show. A monstrosity of woman. Speaking of. The useless dykey stroke-addled bitches from Maine. What don’t they deserve? You tell me. Gay-mo Tancredo. Oh. And also any pansy that doesn’t have the goddamn sense not to deny that the theory of evolution has an elegant and powerfully explicative framework. Lindsey. LindseyLindseyLindsey. I know I say things are gay a lot to where I might could sound homophobic and even though I do really kind of have a theory that there’s never been a young Mormon boy born what Orrin Hatch hasn’t dreamt of putting it to it’s Lindsey what is the only for real homo I ever rag on and I guess I’ll just have to beg your indulgence.
Elected Rs need to ask themselves very seriously if they’re part of the solution or if they’re part of the problem. No. Scratch that. They need to ask me.
“I’d like to see a nice long list of Bush’s “conservative†bone fides. I would.”
It’s not long but it doesnt need to be : 9/11.
He won over the conservatives with his serious response to 9/11.
George W Bush makes it into the ranks of good-to-great President just on the ballsy double-down on Iraq with the Surge when-the-rest-of-DC-gave-up-on-Iraq. … including the ugly stuff Obama is now trying to tie around his neck. File under category of “NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.”
As for the rest of it … we considered it small potatoes ‘for the duration’ …
“I remember fighting Bush on steel, farm subsidies, not blasting race-based affirmative action enough, Schiavo, McCain-Feingold non-veto, immigration, Harriet Miers, etc, etc… But he was a stalwart in the GWOT, as was Lieberman, so I have respect for them both. And in Bush’s case, he refused to cave to constant political pressure to walk back the spread of freedom that he clearly believed in.”
Dittos.
We were fated to see homarriages in our lifetimes. To me, personally, it’s an affront because I’ve been str8 married for 24 years now, the underlying purpose of said marriage was to raise a kid. Why can’t they, them, different from me because they want to marry a mirror image of themselves, use a term that means the same, legally, but doesn’t degrade my lifetime investment, my marriage? Equal Partnership or something. Whatever. Sheesh.
serr8d, they can claim they are married all they want, they may even get the claim officially sanctioned. It will forever mean something different however, just as if the state passed a law saying death will now be classified as sleep.
Fool themselves all they want, they still aren’t going to be the same in the morning.
it’s an affront
I don’t get that. Gay marriage is a very small thing I think. Shockingly picayune really. It’s mostly an institution embraced by low self-esteem gays and NPR propagandists from what I can tell. For sure it doesn’t freight all that meaning what you impute to it, Mr. serr8d. That’s like trying to do a master’s thesis in the format of a Bazooka Joe comic I think. It’s a lot more dismissible than you give it credit for which kind of ironically actually lends it a bit more substance than it deserves I think.
Strawberries are good this time of year.
oh. lee was more concisey than me.
That slogan worked on you, meya. Or you wouldn’t have gone to such pains to prove it.
happy. I think you’re wrong. I think it is a Trojan Horse issue that is intended to lead to a deconstruction of the bourgeois idea of “family” through the legal loopholes it will open up, and through the analogues it will empower.
I don’t care what same sex couples do so long as they don’t presume to recast the notion of marriage into something it has never been.
Alas, we’ve been programmed to “celebrate the differences” to the point where we have no ability to see past the bromides to the intent hiding behind them.
There’s a strong argument for conservative resistance to foreign entanglements, Travis, especially with Barky the Nationalist himself all into Afghanistan, as if to prove he can so do stuff just to suit his constituency, even if they ginned it up out of Bush-spite prior to 2008.
That said, I’d agree that creating a sticky terrorist black hole over there beats having one over here. Bush was no conservative where it counted, which is fiscally and monetarily, and was no classical liberal anyplace. Grocery-stand journalist Grunwald is playing himself some word games.
I think it’s a Trojan Horse issue that is intended to lead to a deconstruction of Christianity, the evil that stands in the way of leftist Utopia, but, like, semantics dude.
I think it is a Trojan Horse issue that is intended to lead to a deconstruction of the bourgeois idea of “family†through the legal loopholes it will open up, and through the analogues it will empower.
I think they want you to think that. I can’t see how that doesn’t flatter their efforts.
You know who is really homophobic, ‘feets? The Commander in Chief.
Couldn’t agree more, lee. Progressivism is the new religion of State and its clown princes hate the Bill of Rights.
typical black person what is uncomfortable with teh gays I think, B Moe. Maybe if they watched more cable?
Well, thinking more on it I guess for real we’ll just have to see how the gay marriage dominoes fall and I’m kind of curious to see to be honest. I have my money on anticlimactic though. I think I’m for sure a lot right about who embraces it though.
Yeah, it wasn’t just unfortunate coincidence that Ms. California got the gay marriage question.
Homarriage Wedding Chapel advertising… “Since the parts do fit, you can marry it!”
If Republicans and conservatism are dead, why do leftist liberals keep talking about the demise of the GOP?
Emmanuel Goldstein
Snowball
Leviticus 16
All I know is, if gay marriage becomes law, the country gots lots of apologizing to do to Mormons and that whole polygamy thing.
As opposed to the vanity evil of “club gitmo” t-shirts.
Sweetheart, those t-shirts were printed for the express purpose of making fun of YOU, not of celebrating waterboarding or actual torture.
But I guess one gets by the narcissists every so often. Here it really WAS all about them and they totally missed it.
the country gots lots of apologizing to do to Mormons and that whole polygamy thing.
I’ll be over here holding my breath if you need me.
Sweetheart, those t-shirts were printed for the express purpose of making fun of YOU
Right. Funny how that went right over her head… one might almost think that she is stupid and humorless.
“The long pole in the tent of the future Republican party will be a freedom-focussed small-Govt conservatism.”
What’s PW coming to when this doesn’t elicit some illicit response?
I’m thinking El Jefe has all the pole they need.
Goddamn, but you guys are on fire tonight.
When lefties went to bed and dreamed with nightsweats of BushitlerDarthcheneyRethugrove monsters coming to steal away their freedoms,
Serr8d, the funny thing is that every moonbat leftard knew, with complete unspoken certainty behind all the cognitive dissonance, that Bush would do precisely nothing to interfere with their freedoms. But publish a cartoon of Mohammed, and the MSM dives into a foxhole like hound after a rabbit.
Comment by Jeff G. on 5/7 @ 10:11 pm #
happy. I think you’re wrong. I think it is a Trojan Horse issue that is intended to lead to a deconstruction of the bourgeois idea of “family†through the legal loopholes it will open up, and through the analogues it will empower.
I guarantee you that in the next five to ten years we will see a movement, led by outraged, indignant advocates of equality, to legitimize consensual sex between minors, man-boy love, polyamory, or non-parturition incest. These behaviors will be, as is homosexuality, distinctly in the minority… certainly more so than homosexuality. But as Jeff says, the purpose, conscious or not, will not be to spread “tolerance,” but will be to delegitimize the traditional family.
The State is the true mother. Fucker.
Re: #60
When you are terse, you are very, very terse.
And very, very good too.
geoffb: How do you like being part of the official Untermenschen?
I understand that the your victim creds eventually go through the roof, but only if you don’t survive the purges.
non-parturition incest
?
“non-parturition incest”
Imagine the tearful story of two brothers, prohibited from finding the joys and beneficent boons of matrimony, merely because they are blood relatives. They will not reproduce, so the common dismissal of inbreeding cannot apply to their situation, being misunderstood souls in a sea of intolerance.
I threw this in because I have personally heard a rather absurd rejoinder to the redefinition of marriage more than once. It goes as follows.
–Let me marry someone of the same sex.
–Okay. So, can I marry my brother, if I agree?
–No, that’s disgusting. And irrelevant.
–But he is just another human being. And the same sex as I am. Why object?
–He’s your brother, for Gaia’s sake.
–So what?
–Incest! It’s disgusting.
–You sound rather intolerant of others’ feelings.
–Well, incest produces genetic defects.
–Only in a tiny proportion, and in any case we let people with genetic dispositions to illness reproduce right now, even if they aren’t blood relatives.
–That’s irrelevant.
–Why?
–You’re just changing the subject.
–No, you want to redefine marriage from one male, one female, not close blood relatives, to two people of any sort, but not blood relatives. Why do you choose those particular criteria? Why not two sisters?
–You’re being intellectually dishonest.
–Why?
–You’re homophobic.
–You’re… sounding hydrophobic, if I say so myself.
And so forth.
[…] Jeff. Except that I believe it’s “if.” Not “when.” Share and Enjoy: These […]
I love this man.
Being a Conservative, or Classical Liberal, or what have you, I was actually against the Iraq invasion; thought the evidence was flimsy. Being a former Marine I was against the invasion because I don’t believe another cross damn American should ever die for another nation’s freedom. Let them do it on their own if they care about it so much.
When 2004 came along I was begging for the Dems to nominate someone that I could stomach to vote for, but they didn’t, so I ended up voting for Georgie as the lesser of two weevils. It hurt.
So, anytime anyone opens their pie-hole and claims that Georgie was a Conservative immediately marks them, in my mind, as an idiot or a partisan hack, which is really the same thing. The GOP left me in the early nineties and I don’t see them coming back any time soon. So, what’s a Conservative to do? Tune in, turn on and drop out, I suppose.
rs, man-boy love, polyamory, or non-parturition incest. These behaviors will be, as is homosexuality, distinctly in the minority… certainly more so than homosexuality. But as Jeff says, the purpose, conscious or not, will not be to spread “tolerance,†but will be to delegitimize the traditional family.
I believe many, if not most, thoughtful opponents of gay marriage fear the landslide of crap that will come with it. I worry about the coming indoctrination. Elementary kids will have to be exposed to the legitimate choice that is gay marriage, so I can only image how their books and stories will change.
Holy moly, I think VDH has been reading Jeff G:
Why Did Republicans Lose Their Appeal?
Right. The part where you think people laughing at you is some sort of nefarious conspiracy. But sometimes pointing and laughing is just pointing and laughing, your vanity notwithstanding.
Heard on the radio this morning- now Obama wants us to pay unemployment to people going to school. Unemployment shouldnt be a “safety net” it should be a “stepping stone”.
So now I’m going to pay for idiots to go to school when they lose their jobs, then they’ll fail out, and go right back to whatever loser job they c ouldn’t keep in the first place.
I’m moving if this keeps up. Somewhere tropical, that is not run by a socialist hungarian muppet.
Meya is incapable of “getting” the club gitmo thing.
(Humorless)
Are these folks going to a trade school? Or, are they taking courses on gender studies and Creative writing 101?
“I could just read Meghan McCain’s jottings every day, then spend my evenings beating myself over the head with a pewter elephant figurine.”
Those do sound causally related, to me.
I used to think y’all were too hard on meya – but the last few days…. I may have to rethink this.
Zoooooooom!
Gay marriage is also an avenue to Title VII claims. Whether they like it or not, homosexuals are not a protective class but they think they are. I did employment litigation and every third claim was a homosexual who claimed they were fired because they were gay (not because they stole money from the safe or slapped a customer or called their boss a “fucking queer hater”- all 3 of those are true stories).
*Are these folks going to a trade school?*
God only knows. BUt some people just can’t do school. But paying people unemployment to go to school – that’s not a system that could be abused by the lazier populace.
Obama is making me wish for the return of Carter.
Meya is so fucking stupid. Every time some dumb cunt like her gets her pussy in a wad over the Club Gitmo shirts the Ditto Heads have a great big laugh and her response is to keep running around screaming ‘Oh the Vanity!’
In the words of the Great Fat Phil, ‘How’s that working out for ya?’
Because that single paragraph is so densely packed with wrong — from the idea that Bush was a “conservative†to the notion that waterboarding, to conservatives, is a thrill rather than a necessary evil — that I won’t bother deconstructing it.
I’m gonna steal (a version of) that line. What are the royalty fees?
See also this douchenozzle, ostensibly a Republican, as he mourns the tragic loss of Arlen Specter:
As I said in the comments there, that might just be the dumbest line I’ve ever read.
Pablo, I don’t think I can handle any more douchenozzleness this morning.
Just as an aside: Chris Christie in the New Jersey Gov. race, as of April 22, was ahead 45% to 38% of John Corzine among likely voters. Corzine’s disapproval rating stands at 54%, up from 50% in March.
Here’s the tag: Christie’s campaign slogan is ” Chris Christie. Conservative Leadership.”
See how that works?
Pablo, you missed the absolute joke in that quote: “A party whose domestic policy consists of setting Americans against each other”.
Er, hello?! For as long as I can remember, the primary means for Democrats to campaign has been to declare that Republicans hate whatever group the Donks are pandering to.
I fixed that for the good professor.
Hopefully, someday soon, someone will explain to me how a “moderate Republican” who confesses to supporting “limited government” and “lower taxes” is still able to hold up a hand and ask us all to wait and see on the greatest redistribution of income and the largest increase in government since the great depression. Then follow that up with moaning about how the party is “too conservative.”
I’m not holding my breath.
Argh! HTML failure! Cross out
setting Americans against each otherIt would be if it was actually about me.
Everything is about you, SFAG.
Your personal feelings are what count. Contracts? The rule of law? Free speech? Honest elections? All of those go right under the bus if they conflict with meya’s whims.
Outstanding work as usual, Jeff.
I get the whole Bush was a conservative schtick too from dems. I just laugh and ask them to prove it and they go straight to social issues, of which I could not give two shits about. Funny thing is, that personally, I guess I would be a social conservative, but not politcally. This goes with Jeff’s recurring theme of the personal being the political for progs/dems. They cannot separate. I can. I think that’s the whole gist of classical liberalism, too.
I’d also like to second JHoward’s comment at #51. I wasn’t a proponent of escalation in Iraq due to conservative principles. The escalation in Iraq was not a conservative move in any way, shape or form. However, saying that, I can also realize that quite possibly it may have turned out to be a good move. The jury, for me anyhow, is still out on that.
Oh, btw, I’m glad to see people are picking up on the humorless, witless, complete lack of personality that is the comprises the twit, meya. He/she delivers absolutely nothing. I expect stupidity, but abject dullness, too? Come on.
Been there before. Then for awhile it became possible to not have to think in terms like that, call it “the best of times”. Now the same folks that provided my previous opportunity to be untermenschen are doing it again. My love of the Left knows no bounds because it is, for me, a completely unknown thing.
…spend my evenings beating myself over the head with a pewter elephant figurine.
Hey, nobody likes a copy-cat, pal.
<i Gay-mo Tancredo.
happyfeet: He certainly doesn’t fit in with the rest of the RINO Republicans you list. Then again, if you don’t get that “comprehensive immigration reform” was and is a farce, I don’t know what to tell you.
Matt, you’ve pretty much nailed down my objections. I don’t care if the civil code allows any combination of lubricated (or not) body parts. The part that bothers me is that it will immediately become a hate crime to believe anything is wrong with any of it, and say so.
JHoward, Obstreperous Infidel: The best place for a war is on the other fellow’s real estate is a good conservative principle, though it may not fall under the heading of “classical liberal.”
Regards,
Ric
When the Democrats lost to Bush twice, we had hysterical magazine cover-stories pleading for an answer to “HOW CAN THE DEMOCRATS WIN NEXT TIME??!!” When the Republicans lose, not one such article. Instead, triumphant, anti-historical fluff pieces on how conservatism is passe and uncool and dead. Your unbiased media at work.
Tancredo is not a well-rounded person. He has curious fixations on little brown men I think. I am a lot pro border fence cause it’s just smart. But if I were born in Mexico I’d be your neighbor asap cause I wouldn’t wallow in some third world country when a few miles away is for real opportunity and a chance for a not-squalid third world nasty Mexican existence for me and my children who I putatively love well yeah if you love them so much you need to get them out of this god-forsaken corrupt third world shithole don’t you think? Plus Mexicans are nice and they have good values mostly and my life has always been better a cause of the Mexican people. Also they are a lot entrepreneurial. More entrepreneurial than the surfeit of dirty socialist white trash what we have kicking around California anyway. White people ain’t near the prize they’re made out to be. I learned that when I moved to California whereas in Texas that wasn’t an obvious observation.
Ric, I understand that and would agree if this were a war against nation states. As great as greasing Saddam was, nation building was the reason we escalated in Iraq. I don’t think nation building is a conservative principle. It’s definitely not a classical liberal one.
happyfeet: If you are pro border wall, then don’t buy into the Left’s demonizations and the Bushyrovie delusions and the Wall Street Journal greedheaded desire for cheaper gardeners and maids. All of whom were behind the smearing of Tancredo.
TWhatever good may be said about Mexican immigration, we have a large underclass here in this country, many of whom are Mexican American for that matter. If we want to reduce poverty, I have a real simple solution: stop importing it.
Moreover, the more movements along the lines of MEChA and the Brown Berets emerge, the less desirable Mexican immigration becomes, simple as that. Increasing the potential pool of recruits for 5th columns is just NOT smart.
[…] (h/t Silver Whistle) Posted by Jeff G. @ 11:16 am | Trackback SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Serendipity!”, url: “https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=14848” }); […]
I don’t think so at all. I think the nation building part was secondary to serving our security interests. That the two overlapped was nice.
I’m just not a wagon-circler. I’m not totally unappreciative of the efforts of others though.
I still think white peoples are more potentially fifth columny than immigrants cause a lot of them were educated in American schools and colleges and consume a lot of American media.
Tancredo being from my home state, I can honestly say he’s gotten something of a bum steer from the media, the left, and other certain other pragmatic conservatives who’ve adopted the leftist angle of calling those who disagree with their pragmatism “extremists,” “racists,” and “haters”.
I’ve never heard Tancredo say anything racist or extremist. Mostly, he’s spoken his mind.
I don’t always agree with him, of course. But, well, there you have it. One guy’s opinion.
#104 OI: The only difference between the Iraq Adventure and Clinton’s “surgical strike” doctrine is one of scale. Surgical strikes work, but only if they’re big enough, and only if you don’t piss away the advantage afterward.
And the Leftoids are precisely correct in the basic argument. There are, in fact, underlying causes; they just aren’t the touchyfeely or Marxoid economic and class considerations usually offered under that head. The reason for going into Iraq was to offer the Middle East an alternative to the Saddam-style hamfisted dictator other than the Islamic Brotherhood and its descendants al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hizb’Allah, et al; the rest of it was just advertising slogans. The target was Iraq because it was at least plausible that something vaguely similar to a liberal, democratic society was possible there because of its history — the ideal country to invade for the didactic purpose envisioned would have been Egypt, but we didn’t have any excuses there.
The Brits, French, and Germans did us (or themselves!) no favors whatever when they set up the presently-existing system, and it will go down eventually, because the populations are getting restive. Now that you and the Democrats have conspired to totally discredit the notion of establishing liberal democracies — which would in every case require removal of the dictators by force of arms — the replacement is going to be nasty.
Regards,
Ric
Tancredo is a Tancredo-centric media whore what had and maybe still has a mind to ride immigration anxiety into the White House. Cheesy and typical and the very second that our dirty socialist hungarian muppet piece of shit president took his oath Tancredo became wholly irrelevant with his rinky-dink immigration issue while George Soros’s butt boy began the process of replicating a third world economy and polity right here at home.
It’s very very easy not to like any of them a damn bit I think.
Also I’m 71% less congenial since I quit smoking.
White people ain’t near the prize they’re made out to be. I learned that when I moved to California whereas in Texas that wasn’t an obvious observation.
Stay away from Hollywood.
Also I’m 71% less congenial since I quit smoking.
It gets better. 18 months for me.
yay! You’re my hero. You and chantix.
“Now that you and the Democrats have conspired to totally discredit the notion of establishing liberal democracies — which would in every case require removal of the dictators by force of arms — the replacement is going to be nasty.”
I have conspired with the left to discredit the notion of establishing liberal democracies? I just think I disagree with nation building which is what you just described. I say think, because I’m not absolutely wedded to the idea. I’ve never been shown, from a classical liberal POV, that spending both human life and money to change a regime in another country is warranted. There may be justification for it, but I haven’t seen it. And I agree completely about Saddam and the potential he had in working with Al Queda and other enemies of the United States.
I’ll be joining you, hf, as soon as the supply I laid in ahead of the tax increase runs out.
Yup — in part by dismissing it as “nation building” in the first place, but even more by defining the only possible method as indefensible.
The Mubaraks and Assads are not going to go away on their own, no matter how many sweeties you offer them to do so. If they go at all it will be by bloody violence, and if nobody else does it the Islamists eventually will. If you think you’re going to like the result, I think you’re foolish.
Sorry to bust your bubble.
Regards,
Ric
No bubble being burst here, Ric. Again, I’m not sure your point. “but even more by defining the only possible method as indefensible.” How did I do this again? Are you saying what we did in regards to Iraq wa not nation building? Or it was? I said, I’m not sure how I feel about it, but as of right now I didn’t care for it as it kind of fails the “is this a classical liberal strategy or not” test. I could be 100% wrong about this and if somebody could show me how I’m wrong about this as opposed to lecturing me about things they “think” I know, that would be great. I’m open.
BTW, I wouldn’t offer them any sweeties in the first place for just the reason you mention. It won’t work. My ONLY personal dilemma is, “is pre-emptive regime change, which means war, a good idea or not?” I’m fleshing that out.
So, you’re thinking engaging Germany after Pearl Harbor was not a Classically liberal move?
Apples and oranges Lee and you know this. Unless you’re saying that Iraq had the same potential for trouble as Nazi Germany? And btw, from a classicaly liberal POV, it my have not been a good idea. I’m not some dovish, afraid of my shadow multi-culti progressive ankle biter, nor am I a naive Lew Rockwell isolationist libertarian. I simply stated that I wasn’t for escalation in Iraq. I may be completely wrong about that. I have been pleasantly surprised at how well Iraq is going btw, and will gladly say I was wrong, but for me the jury is still out. Iraq can still slide black into a Islamist hellhole or not.
Jeff, I’m glad to see somebody else say it. Bush is a hero. A flawed man and hero all rolled up into one. These slimey little cocksuckers who were no doubt hiding in their closests for three months after 9/11 deserve nothing but penis’s up their asses for their mendaciousness. Unless they like penis’ up their asses, then well, then, something else. Like a oak limb. Unless they like oak limbs. Then maybe an oak bough. Fuck I don’t know, but I hate weak pussies, who scream attack the men who save them. After they’ve been saved.
Thhink I’ll get me one of them club gitmo t shirts in an extra, extra, large.
My partner in my game last night started singing dancing in the dark. I went off on him. He said “But it’s the Boss man”. Now besides the fact that if THAT’s the Boss song you’re gonna sing, well how pussy is that, but I pointed out that after 30 however mother fucking years, that shit for brain self proclaimed communist/hero to the working man, STILL doesn’t pay those fuckers in his band a percentage, that they’re STILL hired stiffs, like my partner will always be, and well, I’m the goddamned crew chief and there will be no singing of any fake working man hero bullshit. I offered to go out and get a Pogues CD, but he didn’t know who they were, so I said fuck you. He’s a helluva plate umpire though, I gotta give him that.
FDR as a classical liberal? Hmmmm…..
I’ve quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms2.blogspot.com/2009/05/re-is-gop-going-extinct-and-if-so-is.html
[…] *Is the GOP going extinct?  And if so, is conservatism to blame?  By Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom. […]
[…] *Is the GOP going extinct? And if so, is conservatism to blame? By Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom. […]