Because the drooling morons who make up the sadly naive base of the party simply can’t understand the 3-D chess the GOP braintrust is playing. Which is why this whole representative government think is really turning out to be quite the hassle — and why lawmakers seem content to subcontract out much of what now comes to have the force of government-centric law to the bureaucratic 4th branch, essentially a shift in lawmaking power away from the Congress and to the Executive Branch, which they too, they surmise, will one day control and use to their principled advantage.

— Which, from what I can gather, amounts to cuts to the rate of spending increases, tax cuts for corporate entities, a continuation of regulatory policy that brings added revenue into the federal coffers, and bringing in cheap labor for their cronies to exploit by way of “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Clearly, a winning strategy. If your goal is to maintain your hold on power and your position of influence, which exists whether or not you are in or out of the majority.

But hey, we’re suckers. And we really should just shut up and elect more Republicans if we want to see change. Like, say, Medicare expansion. Or McCain-Feingold. Or bank and auto company bailouts.

NetRightDaily:

Recent proposals coming from the House GOP leadership on how to address Obamacare reminded me of a sleazy — and illegal — trick that some unscrupulous hunters use. You see, deer love salt. They crave it so much that they will go to it even when their other senses are trying to warn them of danger.

Called “salt licks,” they are used as bait, knowing the deer will lose their perspective and rush to the salt so the hunter can gun them down.

The “salt lick” set out by the Republican establishment is the whispered promise that if conservatives will just allow the funding bill — the continuing resolution — to pass with Obamacare funding in it, they will somehow link “changes” to the hated socialized medicine law to the debt-ceiling increase that will be brought up before the end of the year.

And, just like the deer, if conservatives go for this ruse, they will be politically gunned down by those in their party who have no intention of doing anything serious to stop Obamacare.

The issue is one of leverage. By attacking Obamacare funding in the CR, the House will be funding everything else in the government, everything except Obamacare. Every day Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama refuse to go along, it will become more evident that any negative consequences happen because Reid and Obama want it that way.

Let the House pass a new CR every day, add money saved by not funding Obamacare to programs the Democrats are shedding crocodile tears about. They can have more for their wasteful and ineffective programs like Head Start but only if they accept the verdict of the American people and defund Obamacare. They can get a few more dollars for any of their welfare giveaways. They just can’t have Obamacare.

All leverage in this instance is with the House Republican majority, they are acting responsibly and it would be the Democrats who would be the obstructionists. The “salt lick” approach is the exact opposite.

Does anyone believe the powers-that-be would ever allow a debt ceiling increase to be blocked for any reason? Does anyone seriously think for one second the threat of default and the subsequent “downgrading” by the ratings agencies would not swat away any demand for changes to Obamacare? Of course not.

If the House conservatives fall for the con game of the debt-ceiling ploy, they will be just like the deer at the salt lick — exposed with no place to go and dead in the sights of their opponents’ most lethal weapons.

The GOP establishment has, so far, treated conservatives — both inside and out of Congress — with barely disguised contempt. Their fear of being blamed for a government shutdown reveals their total lack of conviction and confidence in their position.

[…]

What they really are afraid of is not being acceptable to the D.C. insider crowd. What is best for the country or what the American people want are so secondary to their thinking as to not even make it on the radar. It is just more important to be “in D.C.” and part of the toxic, vapid social circles than it is to do the right thing.

There is a reason the Founders gave the House of Representatives the ultimate power of the purse; to serve as a check on an out-of-control executive. We have such an executive today. Will the House leadership step up to their constitutional responsibility and defund Obamacare; or will they lead their majority to an unnecessary and tragic slaughter?

I know others far more prominent now than I have begun making the very arguments we here find old hat: the fact is, the GOP Establishment is for big government statism, is for the opportunity to themselves one day run centralized health care, is for a top-down authoritarian approach to government that diminishes the power of the states of the individual voter in direct proportion to the increase in their own power and influence.

This has been evident to those who aren’t rah-rah boosters living off of GOP-funded advertising for quite some time. And while we were initially and forcefully dismissed as dangerous kooks and character assassins against strong conservative voices, the fact is, it is to our point of view that the collective right-side zeitgeist is moving — creating a panic in the power elite of the one-party system that manifests itself as GOP attacks not on Democrats but on constitutional conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals.

Many of those now championing the position we here have held for years were among those who earlier worked to demonize the very people who alerted them to what was happening, taught them how to see it, and eventually forced them to accept their earlier blindness.

So have at it. It’s about time.

But some fucking flowers or chocolates would be nice. Assholes.