“Grow Up Conservatives!”
This clip has a classic statement from Senator Barry Goldwater at the 1960 Republican Convention, which I think may be food for thought for all the conservatives of a general libertarian-pragmatic bent who may be unhappy with the drift of the Republican Party.
And check out this post at Security and Liberty.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I think libertarian-conservatives will recover, but not after a lot of damage has been done, whether it’s the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, the Employee Free Choice Act, tax cuts for those who pay no income taxes, nationalization of heath care, unilateral withdrawal of the military, and appeasing demands by foreign dictators to speak with them unconditionally. Not to mention ACORN ballot-stuffing and trashing the little remaining normative sense of what constitutes a legitimate campaign contribution.
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It’s going to be an ugly 100 days and an ugly 4 years–possibly longer if Obama’s changes prove more structural. Hopefully Boehner in the Senate can hold the line…
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I will do my part, though.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Sorry, I don’t care how evil socialism is, I’ll never support fascism just because it’s an alternative. Goldwater was well before my time, and until this clip I knew him by his reputation as a man of principle, which I now know to be undeserved. I always thought growing up meant finding your principles, not abandoning them.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
1960 to 1980. Twenty years. That sounds about right. Maybe a little less if the Ds are as bad as I fear, and given the existing infrastructure on the right, and modern technology. The main thing though is that "Bill Ayers has won", by taking over the educational establishment, the left has indoctrinated two generations of Americans. In addition, the Ds seem very committed to getting a majority of Americans dependent on the government for the necessities of life. Then they can constantly promise more at the expense of … somebody. Bill Clinton wanted to do that. Obama-Reid-Pelosi may succeed.
Long term, it looks bad. But, it looked bad in 1960, too. No excuse to give up.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Grow up, conservatives. People no longer think of "liberal" as a dirty word. The New Deal helped to create a middle class in this country, and government intervention brought us things like workplace safety, wage and hour laws, consumer product safety regulation, environmental protection, etc. The agenda of Obama and the Democrats is what you have heard, not what you paranoidly fear. The People don’t want smaller government; deal with it.
October 25th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Mithras,
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If you were truly confident that was the case, you wouldn’t be commenting so irritably.
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What the public wants is a free lunch. Big government entitlements and low taxes, benefits for themselves that somebody else pays for and complete freedom of action when they want to make some coin while demanding loudly that the government regulate their neighbor’s lifestyle, be it sex, drugs of choice, mode of religious expression, contraceptive use, self-defense rights, free speech, choice of automobile, school or whatever. When government becomes overly expensive or intrusive, pro-libertarian ( small "L") arguments gain political traction with the public. It’s up to the more libertarian conservatives to build a political network to be ready to take advantage of such moments when the pendulum swings back. But first they need to rebuild their power within the GOP.
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The New Deal did not "create the middle class", it ameliorated the worst effects of the Depression and kept capitalism on life support until WWII pulled us out of it and:
a) fortuitously left the US as the only major power with a wholly intact, state of the art, industrial base and an enormous amount of pent-up forced savings during the war.
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b) A diplomatic position to organize Bretton Woods, the IMF, World Bank and dismantle protectionist regimes
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Where the government helped create the middle class most was with the GI BIll, the home mortgage interest deduction, investments in basic science, sustained Federal purchasing of heavy industry products ( military spending) and Federal funding of higher education. While the GI Bill was FDR’s work, even he did not consider it to be part of the New Deal. In any event, the American economy that fit New Deal solutions no longer exists. The factories that made Studebakers are not coming back .
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New policies, Left or Right, need to be crafted to fit the globalized economy as it actually exists, not how ppl might wish it was or used to be in the 1980’s or 1950’s. Neither Obama’s 40 to 60 year old policy ideas nor McCain’s 20 – 30 year old ones are optimized to the times.
October 25th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
The time has indeed come for a "New Right" in America. The core of this new right needs to be intellectualism and anti-political correctness. In fact, if America is to survive, political correctness needs to be fought at every turn.
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While we still need to show tolerance towards the religious right, they need to be replaced by a new base that is capable of comprehending science and empiricalism. Science needs to be thought of as a national security issue. We need leaders who are capable of breaking down empirical thought to the masses. James Dobson needs to be replaced by Charles Murray.
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While free markets should never be abandoned, the right needs to face the fact that issues like poverty need to be addressed. There are obviously people in America who are incapable of "pulling themselves up by the bootstraps." The new right needs to present better ideas to address the underclass and not NO ideas. This obsession with abortion, needs to be replaced with an obsession about freedom of association. Opposition to "gay rights" needs to be replaced with opposition to affirmative action and racial preferences. The science centric approach, will help merge issues like global warming and immigration together.
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The key to getting this new right off the ground of course, is leadership. Gone must be the days of 80 year old men leading the party. The new right needs youth, diversity, and most importantly; people who are willing to stand up to the oppressors who use political correctness as a weapon. Anyone who doubts that political correctness is a weapon, needs to ask themselves how Bill Clinton of all people, could be called "racist" during the Democrat primary?
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An Obama Presidency is a golden opportunity for the rise of the new right. While Obama tries to push Fabian socialism through the backdoor, free thinking individuals need to be developing the ideological base for the new right. The Internet will be the optimal place to do so. Don’t be surprised however, if the left and the old right attempt to shut down the Internet (along with free speech in general) as the new right starts gaining legitimacy. We’re not talking about "influencing" the current right, we’re talking replacing it.
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I must stress that our main weapon will be empiricalism. We must make our positions and arguments so obviously right, that no-one will be able to deny them. As long as nature, science, and truth are our cornerstones, we can’t fail.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
My hope is that something better comes out of the reassessment of what the Republican party stands for.
More generally, I’d love to get past this whole "left-right"/"conservative-liberal" nonsense. It’s not the only dimension on which people can disagree. Often, it’s a distraction. Unfortunately, it has been built into the system along with the institutionalized two-party system. We are past due for a major party realignment, but if voluntary migration to a practical alternative (and no, the Libertarians and/or Greens, etc., aren’t practical alternatives today) is not an option, it means there’s going to be some knock-down political infighting for the souls of each of the institutionalized parties. The Obama campaign has been, in part, the start of that for the Democrats. The Republicans need an Obama–a well-organized outsider with mass appeal who can reframe core principles while making (or least appearing to make) a clean break with the failures of the past.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
"The Obama campaign has been, in part, the start of that for the Democrats. The Republicans need an Obama–a well-organized outsider with mass appeal who can reframe core principles while making (or least appearing to make) a clean break with the failures of the past. "
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Obama has taken the same exact policies, but put a smiley-face sticker on them.
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He has only gotten away with it due to a compliant media.
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The Democrats have managed to stay consistent through thick and thin, while tinkering with the packaging. Obama is the world’s greatest cereal box for the same old crunchy flakes.
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We shall see how popular he is when the sticker is peeled off and it is the same old snake oil we have seen over and over again. Maybe it will taste better this time around.
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The GOP, however, does need to reconfigure itself. Under Bush and the congressional Republicans, the party has abandoned most of what it supposedly stood for. Time for a major rethink.
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