I agree with much of what you're saying - I just don't think we're going to get where we want to go with the rhetoric some of these people are using. I'm not so sure about that. It is exactly that tactic that the left uses. 10 years ago, nobody really gave gay marriage much thought. Now that the cause has gone militant it got everybody's attention and gay marriage is pretty much a reality in the very foreseeable future.
That started under Bush and has continued for 5+ years. Jorj - I truly believe we had to do it in 2008. I think if we knew how close to financial collapse we really were when Lehman went down we'd be horrified. TARP is just one of many examples. But what is important to understand is that the bailout didn't remove the risk of a financial collapse, it just delayed it and it will make the eventual recovery that much more difficult. The reason to oppose government involvement in the vast majority of our affairs, and especially economic affairs, is not arbitrary. The reason to avoid it is that, in the long run, it not only doesn't work, it makes the problems worse. Like most things in nature, our economy is cyclical. There should be no expectation that it will move up in a straight line. There should be an expectation that, as the population grows and each individual person creates wealth, our economy will generally grow as well. But it will do it in a series of advances and pullbacks. Bear markets fix the excesses of the bull markets. They have a purpose. And when we try to negate them with artificial government influences, it causes the cycles to get exaggerated. The amplitudes get greater (bigger highs, but lower lows) and the recoveries get drawn out over a longer period.
Would the financial collapse have been painful? of course. But we are going to have to deal with it someday.
Outside of the fact that it is immoral to forcefully take the wealth of one person or a group of people to solve another person or group's problems, the real reason to avoid government solutions is that they don't work. Government solutions don't work against drugs, poverty, education, teen pregnancy....or the economy. And in every example where government has strayed beyond the protection of the natural rights of individuals and resolution of conflicts between individuals and groups and national defense, it can be shown that the problems that the government was trying to solve, became worse.
Personal view - we (the Republicans) had a free pass in 2001 to respond in whatever way we wanted because the war was on terror. The response was WAY too measured imo. It should have been swift and UFB'ly devastating. We should have vaporized major cities in the middle east - we missed our chance. We probably could have gotten away with it. I don't think it would have solved any problems, other than the thirst for revenge. Whatever our response, the idea that we try to spin it as bringing democracy to these countries and that we are doing them a favor, is absurd. If they act like enemies, treat them like enemies. That includes almost all middle east countries and especially Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. I prefer forced economic and cultural isolation to bombing, but that's why they have chocolate and vanilla.
I would contend that at times it has. The economy of the 80's and 90's were because of the Reagan/Bush policies. Whats happened in the past 5 years has set us back 30. What happened in 2001 was a catastrophe - way more than I thought it would be. We're living through an engineered depression. We need a leader with vision that can instill hope - like Reagan did. I really believed Romney had the qualities to do just that.. That's true. But Reagan/Bush did something different than other republicans. He believed in laissez faire economics. He believed in tax cuts. He believed in getting the hell out of the way. But what is more important is that we are talking about much more than just the president. The vast majority of the big government activities are initiated and facilitated by congress. And where we may find reasons to justify the republican spending, there has never really been a meaningful decline in spending regardless of who has the power in the white house or congress, just a shift in where the money goes.
I'm hoping that we're where the democrats were in 1988....waiting for the rebirth of our party. Who would have ever thought (in '88) that Bill Clinton would become President in '92? We need someone to step forward and take the lead. We need to sell hope to the American people I think that republicans need to sell reality. But it has to be a reality that has a foundation in truth and principles. And we can't do that until we know why we hold the positions that we have and we truly have to believe in them. If you understand that a corporate bailout in the auto industry may have an immediate desired effect, but the longer term effects will be overwhelmingly negative, so we shouldn't do it, then you can't turn around and justify a bailout in the finance industry. The same principles apply regardless of industry.
We need to show that the hope and change that the democrats are selling are worse than meth and crack. And it is a good analogy, they get more rich and more powerful every time they sell something to the poor, minorities or otherwise disenfranchised population. And the promises of a quick fix can be shown to never materialize. And instead, the people who bought what the democrats sold are corrupted and they rot inside. It's time that we started identifying the true causal relationship between democrat programs and the perpetuation of poverty, segregation, racism, crime, unemployment, drugs and other self destructive behaviors.
right now, republicans can't sell conservatism because they don't know, in their heart, what true conservatism is. Most have an inkling of the ideas behind it, but most don't know it cold. We can't sell it because we don't truly know what we are selling. And in the meantime, the republicans let the liberals define them by forcing an artificial extreme position.
I actually have a whole bunch more to say on the topic, but the fact is, the republican problem has nothing to do with their message, the delivery of the message or anything else in their control The republican problem...or more accurately, the "conservative problem" is that we are not mature enough as a culture, to truly want and demand freedom and liberty along with the responsibilities that are required to maintain freedom and liberty. A teenager will demand his freedom and stomp his feet when he doesn't get to do whatever he wants. But the fact is, the vast majority of teenagers want freedom that is housed, fed and funded by mom and dad. They want the freedom without the responsibility of earning it. That's where we are as a culture. We are teenagers who talk about freedom and liberty, but the reality is that the human organism is scared shitless of having to go out and take full responsibility for their survival until the day they die.
No amount of logic will shatter that wall of fear that most people have about their long term survival without a safety net. Our job as parents is going to be how to raise our children to prosper in a world of parasites, while not becoming a parasite themselves. |
