Establishment Republicans found wanting

From a post at RedState.com, September 15th at 2:12AM EDT (link)
"The establishment will bust their buns to leave O’Donnell hanging out to dry because if she wins she weakens their power structure and their argument for fielding ‘middle-of-the-road,’ big government candidates.

But the Republican leadership had better watch out. This is a warning not a threat. The people want a return to Constitutionalism and limited government. If we sense that the Republican Party is thwarting us in our efforts, we WILL bolt.

Our allegiance is to the country, not the party. We’re on the brink of national bankruptcy and the fed’s monetizing of our debt; we’re on the brink of societal chaos, thanks to the Cloward-Piven nutcases currently at the helm — and their Republican enablers.

We need some Pattons, some Churchills, some Reagans and more: we need the truth-talking of a man like Chris Christie — OR WE ARE DOOMED — if it’s not already too late, and like the towers burning, the moment will come when all of a sudden this financially impaired structure we call America will collapse. This is what we face — . This is no time for that idiot Rove to whine because another LIBERAL Republican got his just desserts, for heaven’s sake. Another RINO weasel bit the dust. And all I can say is it took way too long to get rid of him!"

Response to C.Krauthammer's "Kill the Bill"

"Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative."????

Mr. K., your otherwise exceptional article concludes with an assertion that does not hold water, and I must respectfully disagree.

For most of our nation's history people have NOT had health insurance; you know as I do, that it emerged during WW2 when wage caps were imposed on employers. Providing health insurance was a perk to employees that employers embraced to get around the wage caps so they could keep good talent. And of course, the unions got in on it, too, demanding it for their workers.

At any rate, if health insurance is such a moral imperative, why now? Why not, say, in 1880? 1910? 1930?How on earth did Thomas Sowell's parents do without it when confronted with the expenses of his birth? or Bobby Jindal? They've both related how their parents set up payment schedules to pay for the new bundle of joy's coming out party.

No. Mr. K., health insurance is just another liberal/progressive entitlement, where my money is taken from me so that someone else will get what I worked for. Only they call it a right.

The Framers understood our rights as being something that we all can have but not at anyone else's expense. Life, Liberty, the PURSUIT of Happiness -- These rights don't depend on my taking something someone else has earned -- they are God-given.

This new set of rights, the ones FDR spoke of in 1944 in his message to Congress, this set of rights requires the taking from some to give to others whom the government decides should have it.

Is that what you meant by a moral imperative?

Of Carly Fiorina and RINOs in general

darcy 11.23.09 @ 4:18PM (from AmSpec)

Oh, yes, "elections have consequences," Carly. Let me show you how the democrats handle it:

[F]ight aggressively from day one; "Fifty-six million people came out and voted for John Kerry to defeat George Bush. Those 56 million people are counting on those Democrats to get in there and fight for them."

Implement a "stonewall strategy . . . [don't] budge."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144082,00.html

Put out a circular instructing that Bush (or opposition-party president) is not to be permitted ANY successes!!! Like Howard Dean did.

The democrats fight with howitzers and the republicans respond with picnics. That's because they BOTH want the same things: power, prestige, and control -- and they'll take whatever road necessary, assume any posture whatever, to leach the American taxpayer and achieve their goal.

Corrupt, noxious, and pernicious blood-suckers, that's what 90% of politicians are. Carly -- let's not forget -- was a HUGE fan and promoter of John McCain, and both of them, two fat-cat RINOs, seek only to further entrench their power or enhance their resumes at the expense of our pocketbooks and freedoms.

HELL NO. The people erect -- even as I write -- a wall under, over, around, or through which RINOs will no longer pass. Our tolerance has ended; our eyes are open, and our aim is sure. We're huntin' RINOs, and whenever and wherever we sniff them out, we will dispatch them to retirement, where they belong -- at present, through the voting booth.

If that fails, it's time for the tar and feathers and the pillory stocks.

This Sounds Like My Kind of Book

Here is the complete review for We Still Hold These Truths, written by the author himself, Matthew Spalding, for www.powerlineblog.com:


Matthew Spalding Is the constitutional scholar who heads the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He is also the author of the new book We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future, out today. We invited Matt to review the the book's themes for our readers. Matt writes:

America is unique among nations in that universal principles of liberty are the foundation of our system of government and political culture. More than two centuries since the American Revolution, these principles--proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution--still define us as a nation. They inspire us as a people.

Despite constant scorn from academic elites, political leaders and the popular media, most Americans still believe in the principles of the Founders. And they're deeply concerned--witness the town hall meetings and expanding "tea parties"--about turning away from these principles.

They're right to be apprehensive. The path America is following so quickly today will end in our nation becoming a European-style, centralized state. We're increasingly stifled by a highly regulated economy and newly nationalized industries, and we're on the way to socialized health care. We're increasingly ruled by unelected bureaucrats.

In We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future, I explain the core principles of liberty, detail the progressive liberals' assault on those principles and argue that we must defend and recover them in our politics if we are to save our country.

The book is built around 10 foundational principles that created a free, prosperous and just nation unlike any other: liberty and equality, natural rights and the consent of the governed, religious freedom and private property, the rule of law and limited constitutionalism, all culminating in self-government at home and independence in the world. These core principles have long served as the unchanging standards that guide America in changing times.

Nevertheless, these principles came under direct assault at the start of the last century. So-called progressive thinkers sought to re-found America according to ideas alien to those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison.

The "progressives" repudiated the Founders' principles, holding that there are no self-evident truths--in the Declaration of Independence or elsewhere--but only relative values. They contended there are no permanent rights with which man is endowed by his Creator, but only changing rights held at the indulgence of government.

In the progressives' view, we must be governed by a "living" Constitution that endlessly evolves and grows. This view, imported from German and other European philosophers, drove American politics and the rise of big government in the 20th century. Today, it dominates the academy, the media, intellectual elites and significant portions of the leadership in both major political parties.

The Progressive Movement--first under a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt and then a Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson--set forth the political platform for modern liberalism.

"Progress" means fundamentally transforming America with a new form of government that will engineer a "better" society by assuring equal outcomes. It would redistribute wealth through a distant, patronizing welfare state that regulates more and more of the economy, politics and society. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society were grand steps toward achieving the progressive platform.

Though the ideas are over a century old, we are in the beginning of a new and more aggressive move in this direction.

However, we don't need to remake America, or discover new and untested principles. We need a new American revolution. Not an overthrow of the government, or a great social upheaval, but a great renewal of the true roots of American greatness--and a radical reapplication of America's core principles to the great questions of our day.

Do Americans have a fundamental right to government-provided health care? What does it mean to be truly equal before the law? Don't laws promulgated by unelected bureaucrats violate the consent of the governed? Does religious liberty mean the government can impose a secular culture?

Property still is the necessary foundation of free markets and widespread prosperity. The rule of law still means everyone--especially judges--must act within the confines of constitutional government. Self-government requires a radical decentralization of government. It requires a vast expansion of the authority of family, community, schools, churches and the marketplace. Independence means a commitment to national sovereignty and defense. It means renewed confidence in upholding our principles in the world.

These core principles can be the source of a new and unified American conservatism, one that reminds economic conser­vatives that morality and self-reliance are essential to limited govern­ment, reminds cultural conservatives that unlimited government threatens moral self-government, and reminds national-security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to safety at home and prominence in the world.

But this isn't just about new policy prescriptions. In a world of moral confusion, of arbitrary and unlimited government, the American founding is our best access to permanent truths. It's our best ground from which to launch a radical questioning of the whole progressive project.

We must rediscover America's principles as a people, teach them in our schools and give voice to them in our politics and public square. We must recover a popular understanding of constitutional government, and develop leaders who will revere and abide by the Constitution.

Our purpose must be to conserve the principles of liberty and make them the central idea of our politics once again. They must become again, as Jefferson said, "an expression of the American mind."

Matt's Heritage page includes video clips of his appearances on Glenn Beck's FOX News program. His previous books include The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (for which he was executive editor) and A Sacred Union of Citizens.

The Revolt on the Right

darcy 10.24.09 @ 10:17PM

Meanderings:

I've been looking over the posts just now, more carefully than before, and I see a trend emerging; it was there all the time, and if I'd been paying closer attention I would have seen it. The Revolt on the Right is either still half-baked or exists now in varying degrees of urgency.

In the early and mid-1930's, thousands of Jews recognized the handwriting on the wall for what it was: IMMINENT MORTAL DANGER. So they left their "lives" behind, their homes and friends, fled Germany and took refuge in foreign lands. Others -- and the reasons must have been myriad -- stayed behind to face an awful end. Ultimately, I think, those people who stayed couldn't believe man could be so evil.

Conservatives, I think, recognize man's potential for evil, and seek to thwart it. But some who claim the conservative mantel just don't quite get it and so aren't as willing to lose battles so that they can eventually win the war, so to speak.

There really aren't any half-way measures with sell-out politicans. They need to be exposed and sent packing.

And BTW, we already have a "big-tent," but it's not found in the support of groups that strategists identify and target. Our tent is bigger than that; it's where honor, fidelity to principle, truth, and true liberty dwell.

The Line Is Drawn

darcy 10.23.09 @ 12:54PM

RINOs have tuned us out, or in their disdain dropped us a crumb here and there to keep us in line and off their scent: think Roberts and Alito.

Meanwhile, they're making back-room deals based on what's best for them and the name they want to make for themselves, the power they hope to wield, and the warm glow of PC praise for which they yearn.

What about what's best for the country? What about staying true to Founding principles? that Constitution and the Declaration of Independance on which it stands? What about FREEDOM? Not that mealy-mouthed freedom from want and freedom from responsibility -- both the tag-lines of progressivism -- but TRUE FREEDOM TO BE RESPONSIBLE: to be responsible and self-reliant, and each individual to reap the rewards or pay the price for his successes or his failures.

I'm telling you people, this unrelenting drive to emasculate and subjugate our citizens is of the devil. And as long as the Republican party cronies continue to sway in the wind of the current of the times rather than to stand in the ranks of this America's Founding Fathers, then we're doomed.

The line is drawn.

Count conservatives out, RINOS, today we cease to be your enablers.

Appeasers Not-Welcome

darcy 10.24.09 @ 4:36PM

This is no fight, M, but rather exhortation to you and to all of us, really, that we MUST make RINOs understand that they will LOSE when they diss their base.

Think of it this way: These people are very strategic-minded in their approach to campaigning; They go into the game KNOWING that they can discount us and our principles because in the final analysis we will cave when push comes to shove -- if they've fielded an appeaser. Yet it's self-defeating for them because the only way they can win (and remain true to their RINO character) is if they field a pseudo-conservative, ala Bush II.

So, on the one hand they diss us, but on the other hand they recognize they need us -- but only to the extent that they CAN USE US, as when they snuck W in (certainly a decent man, but NOT one committed to limited government).

This is getting long, but bear with me. When RINOs succeed in getting one of their own in the number one spot on the ticket and then conservatives cave and vote for him then we become guilty of making the very same "survival" calculations that we rightly deplore in the decisions made daily by RINOs in gov't.

Look at it another way. If liberals had any doubt that RINOs operated on the basis of exediency and pragmatism, they wouldn't be so confident in hatching their plot to destroy America.

Let us not be to the RINOs what the RINOs are to the progressives.