Political Hay
Reagan and Us: The Conservative Fight Ahead
The coming liberal failure: times always change, principles endure forever.
The story, as I once read it, goes like this.
January 20, 1961.
A car rolls along an Illinois highway, the radio tuned to the
inaugural of John F. Kennedy and the start of the Kennedy-Johnson
years. A mesmerized, adoring media has the full glare of its
attention focused on the return of Democrats to power after an
eight-year absence from the White House.
In the front passenger seat of the car, working quietly, sits a
man scribbling intently on a speech he will be delivering shortly
to a small group of listeners. There will be no national
spotlight focusing on what the man has to say this day. There
will be no cheering thousands, much less millions to hear his
words. Yet the man concentrates on his speech anyway, honing and
honing again the thoughts he has been shaping now for almost a
decade. Shaping, sharpening, thinking them through to match them
with the reality of what he has learned in his life, a life that
itself began on a distant, wintry Illinois morning.
His thoughts as he has lately been expressing them, he knows,
have made him unpopular in certain quarters. Unlike the accolades
for the new president, the man has been the target of a
dismissive yet barely restrained anger. He was, it was sneered,
strident. Divisive. A voice, said union leaders of this man who
was himself a union leader, of right-wing extremism. Those were
the more polite criticisms in what was becoming a rising chorus
of name calling that, to the extent anyone was paying attention,
was long on volume and short on truth.
Later that year, in St. Paul, Minnesota, to ride in the Winter
Carnival parade and speak at a high school assembly of a few
hundred kids a resolution would be passed by the local teachers
union. Educators! They would demand he not be allowed to speak
because he was, they said, a “controversial personality.” He
would speak anyway, a teacher quietly coming up to him to
apologize and admitting that although afraid to admit it to his
peers, the teacher agreed with what he had to say.
Still later this year the man would receive a phone call he would
never forget. It was a strange call. For years the man had dealt
directly with the people who sponsored his speaking engagements
along with the weekly television show, a show of theatrical
dramas, the man hosted on Sunday nights on one of America’s three
television networks. Yet this time he found himself speaking
instead to an executive from an advertising agency. The ad
executive was making an odd inquiry. He wanted to know if the man
would be willing to continue his speaking tours but limit his
subject to commercial pitches for the products of his sponsors.
Would he be willing to stop making talks with titles like
“Encroaching Government Controls”? The man said, well, no. He
was, as ever, unfailingly polite, but he could not agree to stop
talking about these issues. Twenty-four hours later, the man’s
show was canceled.
Abruptly, Ronald Reagan, the host of General Electric Theater,
was out of a job.
SOMETIMES I WONDER if there will ever be a real appreciation of
Ronald Reagan’s sheer courage as he pursued the hard reality of
advocating conservative principles. There were, that winter of
1961, no talk radio hosts to defend him or give him a platform
for his views. There was no one who understood as he did, who
could take the time to educate on the principles at stake, much
less defend him as he lost his job for speaking so publicly of
his beliefs. There were no think tanks to back him up or provide
him with the material he used to present challenging specifics on
taxes or jobs or national security or schools or health. There
was most certainly no television network that would even consider
giving his views a fair shake or even dare to acknowledge there
was even a serious “other side” to the issues of the day.
There was, in short, no one out there but Reagan himself and a
small handful of others who were willing to make the case for
conservatism, popularity be damned, whenever and wherever they
could make it. Goldwater had his Senate seat, Buckley his
magazine, Regnery his book publishing company, but it was a
pretty thin crowd. And with liberals riding herd with control of
the White House as well as Congress, there was, as he found out
with his dismissal from his job, an understandable wariness of
the new people in power.
As the returns from the 2008 election finally pour in tonight,
Ronald Reagan’s lonely car ride across the Illinois prairie in
the winter of 1961 is something conservatives need to remember.
Whatever happens this election night it will be necessary for
conservatives not just to continue Reagan’s journey but to
understand the principles he spoke about are in fact timeless.
Were they Reagan’s principles? Yes. Hard won and hard learned
they were, too. What gets lost all too frequently in our
political dialogue is that Reagan’s principles were in fact
conservative principles. They were around long before Reagan
himself, if not articulated as well or as thoroughly.
The Opposition — what has become modern liberalism — cannot
permanently succeed. Will not succeed. Ever. Why? Because
conservatism is to the political world what gravity is to the
physical world. It is timeless, constantly at work, manifesting
itself always in visible realities. (Why do you think Rush is a
more valuable media property than Dan Rather?) Were he here today
Reagan would instantly understand the political shell game that
is once again in progress. You can just see him listening with
that patient smile as the 2008 Obama model of liberalism insists
that various social miseries have emerged because of the actions
of evil oil companies or a bad president or some other collection
of men and women somewhere. You can just see the slight shaking
of his head, the twinkle in his eyes as he hears an insistence
that if only good and really smart people (like, well, liberals)
were in charge, all would be right with the world. Remembering
that House Speaker Tip O’Neill used to insist to him that people
who made $50,000 were rich and should have their taxes raised, he
would know what’s afoot as the 2008 liberals drop the definition
of who is rich from $250,000 to $200,000 to $150,000 to $120,000.
Then he would say with a friendly smile: “Well, there you go
again.”
IN THE BATTLE BETWEEN collectivism and individual liberty, Reagan
taught that individual liberty will always — always — win. It
is a victory that, yes, may come slowly. But triumph it will in
the end. This is why there is no Berlin Wall or Soviet Union to
debate in 2008. Keep your eye on the ball.
American political life is understandably viewed by many in the
four-year bites of presidential terms. Yet Reagan knew that
history is a river not a block of ice frozen in time. Economics
and national security were at issue when the Constitution was
written in 1787 — and they remain an issue today. The
difference, of course, is that 200-plus years of American history
(actually, much more than that of world history) is supposed to
teach to even the dull-minded, not to mention those who style
themselves as The Smart People, what works and what decidedly
does not.
One may wish to take a giant leap and fly straight to the moon
unaided, but since Newton understood the significance of a
falling apple an understanding of gravity has taken hold with
most humans. To quote Milton Friedman citing F.A. Hayek, “the
validity of Hayek’s central insight — that coordination of men’s
activities through central direction and through voluntary
cooperation are roads going in very different directions…central
direction to poverty for the ordinary man, voluntary cooperation
a road to plenty” is what can surely be termed the reality of
political gravity.
Yet in spite of the astounding reality of progress inherent with
conservatism, the so-called “smart people” — liberal
intellectuals and politicians aplenty — keep returning to the
idea that gravity (the success of free enterprise, competition,
private property, limited government and, in national security,
what Reagan called “peace through strength”) simply does not
exist. Marching backwards they always believe they are looking
forward. Like Charlie Brown, they believe that THIS time Lucy
will let them actually kick the football.
What this says as Americans go to vote this day is something
Ronald Reagan had come to understand to his core: the battle for
freedom, as his friend Friedman also said, must be won over and
over again. For Reagan, fearlessly clear of thought and eye, that
battle was being fought whether he was speeding unnoticed across
the American heartland in January of 1961 or being sworn in as
president himself twenty years to the day in 1981.
SO NOW IS IT with conservatives today. Ronald Reagan is enshrined
in history. But conservative principles are alive and well. If
there is to be an Obama presidency by the end of this night it
will be our turn to fight the latest chapter in the ongoing
battle for freedom. Will it be easy? Of course not. The spirit of
bullying intolerance that cost Ronald Reagan his job in 1961 is
at large yet again, this time threatening to shut down talk radio
or throwing reporters off of Obama’s plane or using government to
investigate Joe the Plumber. There are new generations who have
been conned into believing that there is no such thing as
political gravity. That if only the right people are in charge of
the newest and best notions of central planning and appeasement
all will be well. Some hear the name “Reagan” and make no
connection between his career’s worth of teachings and the
results produced by the Barney Frank’s of the world, the
disasters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They genuinely do not
understand that having the government take from Peter to
subsidize Paul — all in the name of spreading the wealth and
ending poverty and being fair — produces at its end nothing more
than a vast jungle of special interest groups, fat-cat lobbyists,
welfare and, yes, poverty and lost homes. Worse still, some
conservatives have simply fled the field of battle
altogether.
We begin again. Watching, if the polls are correct, for an
Obama-era to lift off with the same moral superiority of that
January day in 1961, yet inescapably headed down the same path
that always ends in some version of the same way: with a
government run economy in ruins and some national security
nightmare stalking us all.
And if the polls are wrong? If we awake on Wednesday to
President-elect McCain? It will still be time for conservatives
to re-ground the Republican Party in First Principles.
Conservatism is not in trouble — the Republican Party is. Too
many of its leaders at the ballot box or in its conservative
journals have lost sight of the blindingly obvious: Ronald Reagan
was not just a winning personality whose time has come and gone.
He was in fact the living embodiment of a set of timeless
principles that are not only the gravity of this political world
we live in but its oxygen as well.
To borrow his once famous query: If not now, when? If not us,
who?
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (58) | Leave a comment
Related Articles
More Articles by Jeffrey Lord
More Articles From Political Hay
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/11/04/reagan-and-the-us-the-conserva
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Mark Tapscott | 11.4.08 @ 6:23AM
Amen.
Anthony| 11.4.08 @ 7:48AM
If anything is true this long election season, we've learned that conservativism lives in people and places heretofore unnoticed. From Gov. Palin, who has acquited herself most graciously and skillfully, as demonstrated by the hatred of the left and the media towards her, to Joe the Plumber, conservativism lives. Yes, win or lose today, the Republican Party needs a major over haul. We need more Palins and Joe the Plumbers and less Peggy Noonans and Chris Buckleys. If McCain falls short today, it will have demonstrated once and for all that being a moderate is a political myth perpertrated to insure conservatives loose. McCain will have been abandoned by those same moderates for a hare core leftist, along with his "admirers" in the MSM and the Republican elites, Powell, et al. This election season has shown remarkable leaps of faith and sanity from people who we expect to know better. General Powell will have supported a man with sympathies to an man, Bill Ayers, who blew up the general's former place of work, the Pentagon. yet the reality of this appears to be lost on Powell. The MSM will be cheerleaders for the "Fairness Doctrine" that will silence their collegues in the media, albeit the conservative ones that are kicking their leftists friends in the ass. And the moderates,well, they will simply sit back and watch and say all this was inevitable. Yes, the laws of nature are unalterable, and the Obama experiment will produce a Reagan response the likes America hasn't seen since 1776.
Anthony| 11.4.08 @ 8:23AM
P.S. Perhaps some of the leftists that have suddenly appeared on the TAS web site to engage us conservatives in discussion can tell us exactly what the purpose of Obama's National Civilian Security Force will be? Especially since he wants to fund it at a par with our military. How many people can you sign up for $60B and what will all those people be doing? Obama hasn't told us. Hmmm. perhaps I've already answered my own question. Well, I'm off to do my small bit for McCain/Palin.
Becky| 11.4.08 @ 9:34AM
Thank you for this. I needed it today.
Doctor Right| 11.4.08 @ 9:50AM
So glad you're here, "Obama Rules".
In a few years, you'll get out of high school, and try to find a job. Unfortunately, you'll find that in "Obama's America", jobs will be scarce. Perhaps you can join his "Civilian Security Force".
In any event, don't despair. A Conservative tidal wave is coming that will make the 80's look positively Liberal. Unfortunately for us Conservatives, the country will need to endure 4 years of runaway Liberalism before this happens. No worries - some of history's greatest moments happen after tragedy.
By that time, you will probably have taken down you "Obama" signs. Also not surprising...Very few in Germany were willing to admit they supported the Nazis in the 1930's...
John M| 11.4.08 @ 9:57AM
Exactly right! The Republican party may be in trouble, but conservatism is not, because the ideals of conservatism are universal and timeless. The Democrat party has evolved into the party of the far left and thus only speaks for the collective. What Obama euphemistically refers to as "the rights of government to act on your behalf" too often winds up pitting one interest group against another . No one stands up to promote the rights and freedom of the individual over the collective other than conservatives, and conservatism acts as the natural buffer against the excesses of collectivism. The Republicans become irrelevant as a party when they only offer up "socialism lite", and continue to nominate pseudo-conservative advocates of bigger government, which all of our presidential nominees have been, ever since Reagan. When so many prominent "conservatives" have defected to the far left to support Obama, one wonders if many Republicans were ever philosophically conservative in the first place.
Geoff| 11.4.08 @ 11:04AM
Hey, OR. I support Bush ... and when Iran's nuclear potential hits the fan, I can't wait for the libs to a) have put is in poor geopolitical position by removing our troops, or b) have to admit Bush was right to get us to Iraq and keep us there ... no matter how it had to be done.
Howard| 11.4.08 @ 11:06AM
Good points. Once the Republicans got fat. lazy, and stupid, that opened the way for the liberals to make their case. Bush never saw a spending bill he was against. Conservatives never felt right about protecting Constitutional Principles. We never put pressure on Mainstream Media to hire conservatives, Rush & Fox are not enough. It will be only a matter of time before fools like Dirty Harry Reid, & Armani Nancy Pelosi overreach. However, two problems, foreign crises, and liberal Supreme Court appointees inventing new "rights", and of course making business pay for it. Ayn Rand had it right with Atlas Shrugged. Stop producing for parasites. Let Barney Frank get off his fat butt and produce food or goods. Let's see what happens when the producers strike.
ruth| 11.4.08 @ 11:08AM
OR, good luck with that. It won't be that easy; have you forgotten the 2nd amendment? We haven't.
Bob| 11.4.08 @ 11:21AM
Hey O.R.- What do you cal 550 tons of Yellowcake Uranium found in Iraq? Party favors? I know what I call it- after refinement, over 200 nuclear warheads. So don't try plying that "no WMDs" BS on me.
ruth| 11.4.08 @ 11:46AM
OR, thanks but no thanks for the dubious honor.
ruth| 11.4.08 @ 11:54AM
OR is riding high this morning (prematurely); but if his liberals win this election his high won't last. They'll screw things up, they always do. I just hope that the 'international crisis within our first six months' promised by Biden is not too destructive. God help us.
Geoff| 11.4.08 @ 12:10PM
Great point, Ruth. It's win-win for us. Barring a McCain come-from-behind win, Obama either goes centrist and helps fix this bipartisan economic mess and doesn't eff up our military positioning overseas, or he (likely) goes so weak-kneed at the Marxian altar that the self-defeating, namby-pamby types who fawned over him will once again be swept to the side. How sad a state of affairs we've let this country get to. You take the whole of the Obama Army ... can you imagine if they'd hit the shores of Plymouth? Actually, they probably wouldn't have ever set sail ... they'd be perfectly content to revert to a feudal system that "takes care of them."
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 1:06PM
Obama Rules,
Your browser seems to be stuck on this page. Also you have a bit of a kool-aid mustache, might want to wipe that off.
Can you tell us what the latest top rate is for these great tax cuts?? $250k?? $200k?? $150k?? $120k??
At this rate it'll be $35k by the time Obambi takes office.
Will I get a big tax cut when my job at the coal plant is cut?
Roscoe Mendago| 11.4.08 @ 1:24PM
When I finally regain my sight, someone enters the room wearing a surgical mask. Others enter, I'm deemed not contagious, they remove their masks and they're all monsters! Is this just my own nightmare or is it shared? Maybe it's just a Twilight Zone episode or an truly existential moment coming towards me, can ya dig-it. Hopefully we can all get through this coming sea of horse flop that we are going to have to navigate, all the while being told it's the change we've been waiting for. Barack Obama and the smartest-man-in-the -world, Joe Biden, may win this thing but they will do nothing but reinforce my opinion of them and their warmed-over Marxist philosophy. Four years and out.
Doctor Right| 11.4.08 @ 1:34PM
I was right to vote for Bush in 2000.
I was right to vote for Bush in 2004.
Bush has done an excellent job as our President, and history will judge him kindly. He kept us safe, and free to spew our diatribes on the internet. I'm perfectly proud to say I voted for him, just like I was proud to cast my first vote for THE GREAT Ronald Reagan in 1984 (But that was before your time, so you're forgiven for not undersatnding Ronaldus Magnus).
Meanwhile, your candidate has done...what?? He's never accomplished anything. His college and post-graduate education were the gift of governemnt largesse. Oh, I forgot...He was a "community organizer"...Wow...How impressive.
Doctor Right| 11.4.08 @ 1:37PM
Hey, "Obama Rules"...
Assuming that you actually have any marketable job skills (highly doubtful), you might not be aware of this simple fact:
Wealthy people create jobs, and employ lots of other folks...Meanwhile, "the poor" never give anyone a job.
So keep dreaming those "Obama dreams" about that "middle-class tax cut" that B. Hussein Obama wants to give you...'Cause there won't be many jobs left, so you might need the hand-out.
DG| 11.4.08 @ 1:44PM
This would be more persuasive if the level of subsidization wasn't so monstrous on both sides of the aisle. Yes subsidizing ethanol is bad. So is subsidizing corn and oil. And letting private parties reap the profits of strip mining and polution while forcing tax payers to pick up the tab for cleaning up.
The republicans had a huge amount of political control for the last eight years and most don't want to accept the fact that it was botched. In the conservative pages everything from energy to terrorists is Clinton's fault, and from housing collapses to stock crashes is because of Obama. Yes, Bush is patheticly ineffectual but he has been at the helm for a long time so "the buck stops there." If the off shore oil ban was a big deal the executive order would have been removed years ago not monthes. If the breeder reactor ban is a problem it isn't Carter's fault anymore it's Bush, Clinton, and Reagan's fault.
I'll likely pull the lever for McCain, despite his unfirtunate VP choice, and hope that he is still Maverick enough to buck the republican culture. But if Obama wins I'll just have to hope that he is willing to embrace some of the better ideas of the opposition, instead of using his well eraned "political capital" to give them a justifiably giant FU.
Doctor Right| 11.4.08 @ 1:45PM
How cute...The non-response response...
McCain is NOT Bush...McCain IS Bush...whatever! Who cares? Only the idiots (present company included) who think Bush was a bad President...And who obviously haven't been paying attention to the amount of times that McCain has openly opposed Bush policies since 2000.
What you fail to understand is that most Conservatives (ie, the REAL Americans) don't really like McCain...We're not so much voting for him as we are voting AGAINST the fraud that is Obama. Obama is the emptiest suit ever nominated for President by ANY party. But you love him, because he's about "Change", an amorphous, meaningless expression that appeals to immature, unsophisticated, semi-literate voters...like...Well, you know, right?
Roscoe Mendago| 11.4.08 @ 1:58PM
Barack Obama is a complete, total, CHARLATAN, a freaking fraud! I hate to see him elected, just to reinforce my fears that he is wrong for this country. It seems to me there is a group of thought that believes there is some form of retribution that's needed, and Barack is just the one to administer it. We will all suffer.
Ryan| 11.4.08 @ 2:02PM
Obama may win tonight, but if he governs the way he has lead us to believe he will just be another single term liberal failure like Jimmy Carter was. He is running on a platform of raising taxes, creating unemployment, keeping capital away from business so they won't grow, and simply creating poverty. He just isn't smart enough to know it. And if anybody tells me he is going to cut taxes for 95% of the country, please call me when he extends the tax cuts of 2003, if not look out for a huge tax increase on everyone. He has already said he will let them expire. The left is in for a rude awakening with this guy, let's just hope the grownups don't allow him to go too far and damage this country beyond repair. I've already moved my money to somewhere beyond his reach, and I am not the only one. oh, and let him try and take my guns. This marxist will be a shiny reminder to our children of the failures of socialism.
Bevan| 11.4.08 @ 2:03PM
Oh the naivte of Obama Rules. If Bush lied about Iraq, then so did Biden, Kerry, Kennedy, Bubba , Hillary, etc. Do you really think a product of the Chicago political machine, which is what Obama is, will clean up corruption in Washington? I got beach front property in Las Vegas to sell you.
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 2:08PM
OR,
No, was not me. But I'll take your question as a non-answer to my question about the plunging bar for tax cuts?
Bevan| 11.4.08 @ 2:11PM
The Arizona political machine... BWAHAHAHA
Garbage Palin..Typical liberal coward...start with the name calling when you're losing an argument
I thought you were naive, but I guess you're just plain stupid. You wouldn't make a polyp on McCain's colon
Doctor Right| 11.4.08 @ 2:21PM
To: OBAMA RULES:
"Doctor Right! Hah! You're seriously suggesting that Doctor Right! Hah! You're seriously suggesting that the average Obama voter is more "immature, unsophisticated, semi-literate" than the average McCain voter? Hahahaha! That's why Mike over there works at a COAL PLANT!
? Hahahaha! That's why Mike over there works at a COAL PLANT!"
Actually, that's EXACTLY what I'm saying. And let's not mince words...I'm NOT "suggesting" it. I'm saying it OUTRIGHT. Here, I'll quote it for you, if that will make you feel better:
"The average Obama voter is more 'immature, unsophisticated, semi-literate' than the average McCain voter"
As far as Mike who, according to you, "works in a coal plant"...Well, only one of us assumes that that makes Mike dumb, and it's not me. Just goes to show that a Lib's true-colors ALWAYS come out in a debate (and I use that word generously). Libs like to pretend that they support the middle-class, but the truth is that they actually have nothing but contempt for the middle class and middle class values, as evidenced by B. Hussein Obama's infamous quote about "Bitter Americans who cling to guns, religion, and racism"...
If Obama wins, he wins...That's life. We can't win them all. But at least we don't have to lie to get elected. Libs are forced into one contortion after another to get people to vote for them. If Libs actually ran on what thet REALLY believe (infanticide, anti-religion, high-taxes, anti-Americanism) they'd lose EVERY time.
Payback's a b****, O.R....and if Obama wins, and governs like the leftists he is, it'll come faster than you think.
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 2:35PM
OR,
What I 'got to show' for McCain? How about tax cuts for everyone. Obambi is raising taxes on the 'evil' wealthy. My question still stands, what will the rate for be when Obambi takes office?
What have you done in 8 years? If you are looking to the government to make your life better, mark my words, you will always be disappointed. I'm doing better then I was 8 years ago, and I have my hard work to thank for it.
It's obvious you are advocating socialism, and that's ok. Most reasonable people reject socialism.
Tom Paine| 11.4.08 @ 2:44PM
Mr Lord,
I can't see anything wrong with admiring President Reagan. I don't agree with his politics myself, but I do acknowledge that he was a great leader and that he taught this country how to be proud of itself again after the failure in Vietnam, the political corruption surrounding Watergate, and the perceived weakness of the Carter administration.
Just remember, we suffered a terrible economic recession after the massive expenditures on Vietnam, and we will suffer one now after pouring a trillion and a half into foreign quarrels. There's no such thing as a free war.
I think you'd have to agree that Reagan was such a great leader because he thought the best of people. His great friend in Washington was the ultimate Democratic insider, Tip O'Neil, whom Reagan never would have called a communist or a terrorist sympathizer.
A man with a big heart and a spirit like Reagan's doesn't come along every election cycle. I think setting aside politics it's Obama and not McCain (and certainly not Palin) that has the chance to be a great leader like Reagan was. I know that's a blasphemy around here, but it's what I believe.
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 2:46PM
OR,
I don't expect Obambi to take my guns away all at once. But rather gradually, one piece at a time.
Read this letter from Richard Person of the Illinois State Rifle Association.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY;=/www/story/10-15-2008/0004904149&EDATE;
Doctor Right| 11.4.08 @ 2:47PM
To: "Obama Rules"
"Oh, smart Republicans, will anyone please, PLEASE answer this question: Bush has given tax cuts to the rich for EIGHT YEARS. How has this helped our economy and/or job creation?"
This post demonstrates ignorance on so many levels that it's positively staggering. It's also exemplary of why our public schools (led by Libs) no longer teach simple economics - clearly, they don't want anyone to understand how the economy works.
In any event, "Obama Rules", your post is ripe with error:
1. Bush did not grant tax cuts to "the Rich". He granted them to everyone. If you didn't get one, you probably don't pay taxes. And if you don't pay taxes, but you get a "tax cut", that's actually called "welfare". Get it?
2. Assuming the tax cut was for "the Rich"...Good! Rich people, by definition, have lots of money! When they get to keep more of it, they invest it, they spend it, and they create wealth for others. For example, the company I work for (I do this thing called "a job"...Maybe you've heard of it?) is run and owned by Rich people who employ hundreds of other people, and enable us to own house, cars, etc. Get it??
3. When you punish the wage-earners in society, the ripple effect punishes those at ALL ends of the economic spectrum. For example, Obama's stated plan to "destroy" the coal industry will harm ALL industries that rely on electricity to achieve their manufacturing goals...And by proxy, cause many in "the middle class" (you know, those people that the Democrats pretend to represent) to lose their jobs.
So...We've now learned how cutting taxes for "the Rich" creates jobs, and puts money in other people's pockets...
...So if you're against cutting taxes for "the Rich", then by definition, you're against the middle class, and for a bad economy! Bush is for both, and that's why his tax cuts avoided a lng recession in 2001, and kept the economy roaring until this year, when the sub-prime mortgage crisis (created and nurtured by Democrats) caused a recession.
Since you're SO smart, can you tell us, with examples, exactly how RAISING taxes will create jobs??? Hmmmmmmm?????
C'mon, boy genius...We're waiting! Demonstrate your command of economics.
Oh...BTW...the average Republican voter is more educated and earns more $$ than the average Democrat voter...That's a FACT. Look it up.
Roscoe Mendago| 11.4.08 @ 2:48PM
Answer this----Has anything of value come out of Chicago, think. Ok, the Obama Rules Group think their main man is going to "change" things, OH YEA!!! He's going to change things all right, remember that popular song, "Where Have All The Jobs Gone", sing it loud. I do believe Barack Obama is no better than a street corner pimp selling his jive, pimp'n hoes and sell'n clothes.
Ryan| 11.4.08 @ 2:48PM
Obama Rules you don't seem to understand freedom or economics. Taking from one to give to another creates poverty and destroys freedom. That guy who has worked hard to earn $2 million a year is going to layoff all of you parasites that are trying to steal his money, he has to cut costs (which is what a tax is) or raise prices (because these costs are passed onto the consumer) to stay competitive or he will go out of business, which obviously creates more unemployment. You think that $500 welfare check Obama has promised to give you is going to go very far when you don't have a job? Taking money from the most productive in our society doesn't work, it has been tried and has never worked. Why do you think it will work this time? And what happens when you figure out he lied to you and raises taxes on everyone by letting the 2003 tax cut expire? All this before he even tries to implement free healthcare, kill the 401k system, and be exposed as an idiot by some foreign enemy. This was a beautiful article - conservatism is the gravity of politics, it always works and liberalism has always failed no matter where each is tried. Good luck if this is what you want.
Tom Paine| 11.4.08 @ 2:49PM
Be it known --
I'm your true liberal around here. But I do NOT at all subscribe to much of what "Obama rules" writes and I definitely, DEFINITELY disapprove of his claim above that McCain is any kind of traitor to his country. That is stupid and absurd.
Obama Rules -- you should cut that stuff out. Argue ideas and policies, not personalities and symbols. Everytime, no exceptions.
Tom Chance| 11.4.08 @ 2:50PM
Do all of the people putting their views under the heading of "Obama Rules" realize how scary that is?
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 3:00PM
OR,
When did I equate socialism to spending money on the country's infrastructure?
Since you cannot answer the question about the lowering income rates for tax cuts, I'll answer it for you. The rate will continue to drop, everyone's taxes will eventually go under Obambi, and we'll get some lame excuse to go with it. Do you remember Clinton promising not to raise our taxes? And then shortly after taking office claiming that he 'worked as hard as I ever had' but had to raise taxes, correction retroactive tax increase!
If you want to focus on the economy, care to discuss the resistance by the democrats to regulate Freddie and Fannie? One of the prime reasons we are in the mess we are in.
Again, you have some kool-aid on your lips, might want to wipe that off.
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 3:10PM
OR,
When did I equate socialism to spending money on the country's infrastructure?
Since you cannot answer the question about the lowering income rates for tax cuts, I'll answer it for you. The rate will continue to drop, everyone's taxes will eventually go under Obambi, and we'll get some lame excuse to go with it. Do you remember Clinton promising not to raise our taxes? And then shortly after taking office claiming that he 'worked as hard as I ever had' but had to raise taxes, correction retroactive tax increase!
If you want to focus on the economy, care to discuss the resistance by the democrats to regulate Freddie and Fannie? One of the prime reasons we are in the mess we are in.
Again, you have some kool-aid on your lips, might want to wipe that off.
Jim| 11.4.08 @ 3:10PM
"while John McCain's would give a larger percentage of the cuts to the wealthiest Americans."
And there is a problem with this??
If I pay less by becoming wealthy, that is one hell of an incentive to get off my ass and go to work. I beleive the "other" tax plan would be the antithesies of this? Must say I really admire those Fortune 500 guy's.
How many jobs have you created lately OR. LOL
Liberal| 11.4.08 @ 3:34PM
It is amazing how all y'all have been duped into fighting for the multi-millionaires on the basis of the totally discredited trickle down economics theory that it is good for business.
And since when are Republicans blue-collar plumbers anyway? Why does Joe the plumber care about taxes since he doesn’t pay them anyway?
Talk about sheeple, the Repubs don’t use the brains they were born with, they let the party leaders scare them into believing they are somehow a part of the Republican elitist right .. That will be the day, lol.
From where I sit, the CEO’s continue to lay off people and line their own pockets … so much for the theory that they give a crap about jobs or their employees and that somehow allowing them to keep more money will be good for the masses … they stuff as much as they can in their own pockets and don’t really give a rat’s ass about how many people they lay off, or how many jobs they move to Asia. I should know, I used to be part of that rat race, and now I am my own boss and nobody will ever fire me, lay me off, or even give me a pay cut. I probably pay more in taxes than most of you make, and I am totally at ease with Obama’s plans, even if it costs me more.
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 4:00PM
OR,
The point still remains. You didn't even attempt to answer the question about Obambi's tax plan. The number has dropped. The excuses will come, and our taxes will go up.
Liberal,
If Obambi's tax plans cost you more, would that not mean a pay cut for you??
Since you probably pay more taxes than most of us. Does that mean
A) you are more patriotic than most of us?
B) we are supposed to be envious?
C) we will all get bigger tax cuts thanks to you?
Mike| 11.4.08 @ 4:02PM
Jim,
Don't work so hard. Liberal is going to pay more taxes for us to ensure we all get big tax cuts!!
I'm going to call my boss and ask for a pay cut right now!
Jeffrey Lord| 11.4.08 @ 4:03PM
Tom P....
The point here is that principles count...they mean something. After centuries we should understand. If you refuse to drill for oil you put your future in the hands of others who will in fact hold you hostage as they raise the price. If you raise taxes...and when RR came into office the highest tax rate was 70% or so...you will pay the economic price. Obama does not get this...why should he...he has never, and I don't mean this disparagingly, created a single job in his life...he has never run a business. Community organizers make their bread by getting people to beg from the government....It has never worked and it will not work now. But we can be nice about it here because like Reagan we like people!
Robert| 11.4.08 @ 4:16PM
Thx J Lord. I am convinced there will always be a significant portion of the voting public who vote with their emotions (If it feels good - it must be right). Frankly, there's not much. if anything, we can do for them.
It is we who hold dear the reality of gravity who must be reminded to keep the eye on the ball. Their shell game never changes, they just assume our focus will be lost.
ruth| 11.4.08 @ 4:45PM
OR: Contrary to what the haters on the left think, we conservatives don't wish harm on any US citizens, blue or red. George Bush has protected all of us since the tragedy of September 11, and look at the gratitude he's received from the likes of you. Ingrates all. We'll just see if your messiah can keep you safe like President Bush has. Thank you, Mr. President, for your courage and steadfast resolve since 9/11. Your heroism will never be forgotten.
Patriot| 11.4.08 @ 5:01PM
Hey, all you fools voting for Obama! I just wanted you to know that if your Manchurian candidate wins, the first thing to happen to a good many of you is that you'll be fired.
No kidding! Of course, the actual words we use will be different: you'll be downsized, or rightsized, or a participant in the great RIF (Reduction In Force) or involuntarily separated from the payroll; whatever. In any case, it means hit the road, Jack.
See, a great many business owners, great and small, have been looking forward in dread, and they know that if Obama and his treasonous pals succeed in their evil plans to tax us all to death, they aren't going to be able to afford to employ lazy thieving commie traitors like you. I got an anonymous mass-mailing passed on to me just yesterday from such a fellow, who calculated he was going to have to fire at least six of his employees (for starters), which was awfully sad for him because his employees were like family to him. On whom should the hatchet fall? Hmmm...
Well, eight of the employees, he noted, had quite visible Obama stickers on their cars. There's probably some law about his not being allowed to fire them just for that, but the fact is it'd be hard to prove anything in court if any of them were stupid enough to try suing him. In any case, I'll bet he'd have no trouble whatsoever building up a long paper trail detailing their laziness, failure to meet company objectives, and general incompetence if he ever should have to go to court, knowing what slackers you leftards are in addition to all your other less-than-endearing qualities.
There's never so perfect a time for cleaning out the deadwood as when the economy goes to hell, as it will under your messiah's big plans, so kiss your jobs goodbye, suckers! Come 2009, we're gonna party like it's 1929, especially in the stock market. Remember, as The Onion's version of FDR says, you "have nothing to fear but a crippling decade-long Depression." Ha ha ha ha ha!
Steve A.| 11.4.08 @ 5:09PM
I smell a Troll. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, yawn, yawn, are you still talking OR? When you come up with something other than recycled Leftist snipets, let me know. I'm going back to sleep.....
Patriot| 11.4.08 @ 5:21PM
P.S. I think the best part about all this chuckling for the gallows is that McCain is indeed no prize for economic conservatives, so even if your Manchurian candidate loses, the economy's still going down a well and you're all still fired! Oh, how you'll be begging God to bring back Bush when you see the perfect storm headed your way, "...and YHWH will not answer you in that day." (1 Samuel 8:18) Ha ha ha ha ha!
Incidentally, all you racist black people out there voting for your fellow racist Obama just for being black, everything he does will be as huge a stain on your grievance groups' records as Clinton's was on the feminists' (not to mention on Monica's blue dress.) Better hope you can get around the burning ordinances in your urban hellholes somehow, because you're gonna have an awful lot of incriminating memorabilia to incinerate when we're arresting his followers for treason! Ha ha ha ha ha!
ruth| 11.4.08 @ 5:51PM
I wish people would stop posting such mean remarks. Remember that day, September 11, 2001? I remember Americans running wildly through the streets of New York, I saw others jumping to their deaths to escape the hell-fire their offices had become. I also remember the extraordinary courage of the NYFD and the ordinary Americans who brought down flight 93. Does anyone else remember? I'd much rather focus on our commonality as a people and the decency that we showed that terrible day, than the nastiness I read and hear so frequently.
Tom Paine| 11.4.08 @ 6:34PM
Mr Lord,
I respect your views. One quick question, however:
Did Ronald Reagan every create a job as a business man?
As far as I understand his biography, he was an actor. Then he worked as a kind of union organizer (sounds a bit like -- no, it can't be -- but yes, community organizer). Then he was a governor. Then he ran for president once and lost, and again and won.
Did I miss where he opened up a chain of stores or something?
My point is this -- and God bless us, it goes back to Tolstoy, like everything.
The times make the man. Roosevelt, Lincoln, and to a certain extent Reagan became great presidents because of the great events they faced. This doesn't take away anything from them. But you can't have a great president under ordinary circumstances.
Obama, should he win tonight, faces great challenges -- and it is the unique genius of the American people and our democracy to find the right man for the job. I fervently believe Obama's up to it. In a million years I wouldn't expect you or most people here to approve of his specific political positions, but I bet you'll be surprised by his conservative temperament and resolve.
Thom| 11.4.08 @ 7:18PM
Mr. Lord,
I agree that Conservative principles are timeless but their practical application requires, no demands an informed electorate that is also willing to make the right choices regarding hard work, sacrifice and respect for individual rights and property. That is not what we have today with 80% of the media being Democrats and the Public School system producing uneducated morons at $100,000.00 a copy for twelve years of wasted effort that provides free day care, welfare distribution and indoctrination into the free ride that is Marx’s theory. Even with his ideas failing everywhere it has been tried on catastrophic terms in many cases it is still viewed as the choice of billions because it panders to the lowest common denominator in humanity and is the easier path to what many think is prosperity at someone else’s expense. You are right, it will fail but I only have one life time and in 10 years or less I’ll reach the entry point into the great welfare retirement program that is going to bankrupt the next three generations of instant gratification Marxists. By the standards of today Marxists I’ll be “rich” because I haven’t lived the life of a grasshopper. There are things in this life worth fighting and dying for. Our Founders didn’t reason their way into freedom from those that saw them as beast of burden for their political gains. Fine words don’t win emotional arguments.
ruth| 11.4.08 @ 7:33PM
The people get the government they deserve. We shall see.
ruth| 11.4.08 @ 10:11PM
OR: STFU!!!
Sam| 11.4.08 @ 11:22PM
Obama--Jimmy Carter part deux.
Hal G. P. Colebatch| 11.4.08 @ 11:31PM
Thank you for this moving and inspiring piece.
Jerry| 11.5.08 @ 1:07AM
OR, remember how much you loathe Karl Rove? Well, now conservatives have 2 names to villify, David Axelrod and Bill Burton. So, does this mean that each is half the man of Karl? Let's see if I get the numbers correct, it takes over $600 Million to elect an inexperienced democrat to the highest office with George Soros' and the MSM help. What a deal! How much is left over for Barry to attend an international boot camp training program? Gotta get up to speed! And once that training is over, he will get a bright shiney star on his test paper.
The real problem I see here is one that liberals have been whining about Bush... He was inexperienced and had to depend on Cheney... Well, now Barry will need to hold onto Joe's hand. At least through his first big crisis. Then, like a big boy, he'll be able to do everything all on his own.
You have elected a light-weight. Admit it.
James Van Alstyne| 11.5.08 @ 2:56AM
Thank you, Mr. Lord, for an inspiring reminder on this disheartening evening.
Mark Oberle| 11.13.08 @ 6:32PM
Ronald Reagan raised taxes, balloned the National Debt, and increased the size of government as a % of GDP.
Why do you conservatives keep lying to yourselves???
yoyo| 1.17.09 @ 7:24PM
I am a right wing conservative christian. It is going to be a terrible long four years, and hopefully not eight years for me. I have nothing in common with a liberal. It is not posible for me to agree to any of this obama crazed agenda. Our rights, our guns, our retirement, our freedoms,our abilites to protect our country due to loss of our military. We need to do a lot of praying and organizing to get back control of congress. Yoyo