Good catch from Squid, who — in reacting to Mitt Romney’s latest attempt to sound the conservative clarion call, this time with respect to a repeal of ObamaCare — notes the following, pulled from Romney’s op-ed:
My program begins by taking seriously the words of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In line with the intentions of our Founding Fathers, I favor giving each of the 50 states the resources and the responsibility to craft the health care solutions that suit their citizens best.
Romney thinks that the 10th Amendment means gigantic block grants to the states, who can craft socialized medicine in their own unique ways. Not getting Washington out of the business entirely. Not letting people keep their resources in the first place, avoiding any reliance on Romney’s good graces to grant them the resources they need. Not rolling back the massive market distortions already wrought by the bankrupt MediCrap programs.
This, in Romney’s own words, is what he thinks when he says he wants to take the 10th Amendment seriously. And you wonder why people like me mistrust him?
[…]
Let’s look at that again: “I favor giving each of the 50 states the resources and the responsibility…”
A candidate with a true understanding of the Constitution would never say such a thing. The resources and responsibilities already reside with the states and the people; they are not Romney’s to give!
This is a fundamental error. It doesn’t get any more basic than this! It goes to the heart of who Romney is, and what he perceives is the function of government and his role at the top of it. Forget any quibbling over details — I will not vote for such a man. He believes that the fruit of my labors is his to take, and that I should be thankful when he ‘grants’ some of it back to me. Because of his deep and abiding respect for the Bill of Rights.
This is, it seems to me, precisely on point. One of my constant criticisms of Romney has been that his attempts to speak in a conservative language are never quite believable. Like Arnold Friend in the Joyce Carol Oates short story, “Where are you going, where have you been,” there’s something just off about the ingratiating scripting. And it in those moments when we recognize that something is just not right that we catch a glipse of who and what Romney truly believes.
Similarly, it seems quite clear now that Romney’s advisers and policy men, who are responsible for helping shape Romney’s evolving position on health care and the nature of the relationship between the government and the citizen (as well as between the federal government and the states), are every bit as confused about what conservatism is as is the candidate himself.
Take a look at another phenomenon made visible during the campaign: Santorum has grown into himself as the campaign has worn on, finding himself by necessity a free man who must be dependent on his core and must therefore make that core plain. Romney, by contrast, sinks ever further into his enslavement to a fantastic public relations sculpted non-entity, ever guarded, ever incapable of telling himself to himself, beyond his “I am a shell”, never mind exposing himself to the electorate.
A Republican litmus test harms our party says the headline.
Fine, you have no party, say I.
Thought you might appreciate that one, boss.
Believing in things is harmful when it comes to winning elections.
FALL IN LINE!
I can’t believe sdferr’s linked article begins with the following: “Across the ideological spectrum, Republicans believe that the strength of America lies in a free people whose strong values are productively engaged in a healthy private sector, not under a heavy and domineering federal government. We believe in limited government to keep this a land of unlimited opportunity.”
“Across the ideological spectrum,” guys? Does that spectrum include the Republicans who brought us Medicare Part D, or played along with the Stimulus and TARP? The gang that brought us wonderful small-government movements like “compassionate conservatism?” You can tell that the column is written by professional pols, because they come out of the gate with blatant lies, and build the rest of their so-called ‘argument’ on top of those lies.
They give the game away at the end: “One need go no further than to note that primary challenges were mounted against two of our most distinguished and dedicated Senate icons, Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar, with claims that even these solid conservatives were not pure enough.”
Nothing a Senator hates worse than having to defend his position. All you Tea Party bastards oughtta just shut the hell up already.
Making sure the Republican candidates actually support at least some of the Republican party platform is divisive and harms Republican candidates.
Incorrect. It is a fundamental intention. “Conservatives” must stop ascribing to incompetence what is the product of corruption.
In other words R-moneyites are wrong. Mitt aims to alter the trajectory of statism a smidge, thereby making him…a statist. That trajectory doesn’t need an alternation, it needs a reversal.
Is there any evidence — including in the statement above from the man’s very lips — that R-money plans to reform progressive statism back into original liberalism?
And the stakes? Charles K. on the incredible stakes.
The R-moneyites are dead wrong.
Lugar, being challenged. How dare we!
One more thought. I’m known around here for banging the drum about the fiat dollar, prime enabler of the inversion of economic principles — built on its fundamental inversion of reason and logic — that fits so very perfectly with the spend-yourself-rich bullshit that is American socialism of the “Keynesian” stripe.
The dollar is faulty because it’s an exponentially-failing unit of manufactured, central, collective debt and not a store of free individual wealth. I.e., it is poison to classical liberalism and with it, this country.
Currently global economies are under tremendous hardship for a number of reasons, most notably that like they, the US has leveraged itself and the planet’s waning reserve currency so severely on some quarter quadrillion in debts and “unpaid obligations” (forget that foolish $16T figure) that they can never be paid.
This it owes to the very institution of debt since 1919, let by the inherent monetary fraud of its central printing house.
So why is inflation so modest? Because under Obama and following a century of creeping statist collectivism the economy is at a standstill.
So what happens when President Romney swears in to make his feint back to market fundamentals? Purses relax and the mother of all inflation goes crazy. The crushing inflation held in check today by, quite literally, this global depression we’re in.
Any move Romney makes toward conservatism of an even figurative kind ushers in a gout of inflation that will doom the sorry tool in the media, the polls, and the Party that so foolishly installed him as the not-Obama.
And yet the Romneyites carry on, righteously.
Money isn’t the only fundamentally unstable, inverted reality we live in. In a place and time that elects presidents by the price of a gallon of gas, this is national insanity.
To put it more simply, a lot of things are utterly inverted right now. The left has a hammerlock on them that’s motivated by the influence and power lusts of simple moral corruption.
They’re dealing in an intellectual super-Keynesianism. They’re manufacturing their own reality so as to own that reality and so naturally minds like this see any assault on that property and status as stripping the very planet of air.
As JG has been reinforcing for a decade and as great thinkers have been saying for centuries, the lie of it all is halfway around the world while truth is lacing its shoes. Into this Mitt Romney is at best a sacrificial lamb and at worst, the guy telling us he’ll distribute federal dividends out of the exploding coffers of debt differently.
He’s mouthing what politicians without consciences or principles always mouth just to be elected. We got ourselves into a Ponzi scheme on a whole lotta levels and it’s becoming clear that Romney hasn’t a single clue what to do about it. If he even cares.
“Intellectual super-Keynesianism.” May I borrow that, jh?
Am I alone in thinking that all of the acute critical scrutiny we apply to Obama will be branded as unserious and counterproductive when we apply it equally to a President Romney?
/rhetorical question
Where has Stanley Kurtz’s research been taken seriously? Surely not in the Romney camp. They’d hardly attribute high value to similar examinations of their own man if they can’t see fit to attribute such value to examinations of their opponent.
Stanley, by the way, is working on another book on Obama, due in August.
BTW, can we dispense with another annoying meme… that We Must End This Process So Romney Can Concentrate On Attacking Obama?
Nothing is stopping Mitt now from doing that. In fact, were he a leader and confident, he could say next to nothing about his opponents in the nomination and only discuss Obama’s failures. His
bootlickerssurrogates could do the same.But then, how would the plebs learn fealty to The New One?
link
Heh
Pruf that Santorum is too conservative!
He leads Romney 50-23 with ‘very conservative’ voters, 44-22 with Tea Partiers, and 51-23 with Evangelicals.
Look, big tent and all, but seriously… we can’t let those people in here.
And let them track their family values all over the berber and spill their
tradional valueshate on the sofa? Perish the thought!Romney still holds a commanding lead in all the states that will go for Obama. Let’s not forget that.
oh my the romney peeps are appalled
Controversial new Santorum ad: “Welcome to Obamaville”
“Welcome to Obamaville”? That’s definitely not helpful….
Whoa, they got the scientology tree in there.
so the sweater vest took it to baracky and the mittbotts are appalled. good to know. hi johnnie mac and steve shm!t and nicole/fox news
An effective anti-Obama ad from Santorum is a crime against His Electable Etch-A-Sketchness!