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Streetcar Line
We're Not OK, Jack
What conservatives need right now is another Jack Kemp for a younger generation.
Not that there really could be another Kemp either, of course, because his particular brand of infectious enthusiasm and passion for bold ideas are sui generis. But somebody new could play a similar role to the one he played for the conservative movement for the better part of two decades. And somebody darn well better do so. Without the ability to cut through the establishment media noise, capture the popular imagination, and sell solid, intellectually coherent new policy ideas, the movement will be in the wilderness a lot longer than anybody in it seems now to expect.
Lest people forget, it's worth reviewing the manifold ways in which Kemp pushed policies and, equally important, attitudes, into an inhospitable political environment. Kemp always has offered a generosity of spirit and a broadness of vision that keeps conservatism from becoming hidebound. With Kemp long retired from active politics (but not at all from actively communicating ideas in new columns and speeches), today's conservative organizers and officeholders need to learn from Kemp's example.
It is the example of perhaps the single most influential House Member, without official leadership position, since James Madison. And it wasn't just Kemp's successful advocacy of "supply-side" tax cuts that made him so important -- although conservatives today are so steeped in the tax-cut dogmas that they may not remember how revolutionary Kemp's ideas seemed at the time and how hard they were to promote. It was that Kemp was a constant, insistent, optimistic advocate for anything that he thought could spur economic growth and raise people out of poverty. Kemp shaped more successful policy from his post in the House, and later as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, than just about any legislator in American history.
First, the tax cuts: It was Kemp who sold Ronald Reagan on supply-side theory, way back in the late summer of 1976. It was Kemp who sold most Republican House members on supply-side economics between 1976 and 1980, overcoming the party's static, green-eyeshade proclivities. It was Kemp who inspired Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and Dan Lungren to form the "Conservative Opportunity Society" that pushed not just tax cuts but a whole host of economic growth and anti-poverty initiatives.
Significantly, Kemp worked across the aisle, forging unlikely alliances without ever giving up his conservative bona fides. Witness Kemp's work with District of Columbia delegate Walter Fauntroy to pass legislation in 1987 establishing tenant management and urban homesteading in public housing. Witness his numerous ideas for "empowerment zones" and his ceaseless push for welfare reform -- the latter of which did not grow directly from his prescriptions, but certainly was inspired by his long-stated goals.
And Kemp never failed to challenge conventional wisdom or narrow preconceptions. It was a joy, for instance, to hear him have the guts to stand up at a hyper-conservative Republican National Convention and extol America's "liberal, democratic values." He meant small "l" and small "d," of course, but listeners weaned only on modern political rhetoric probably wondered what planet sent Kemp to them. (Houston, we might have a problem.)
If Reagan was the Gipper for whom conservatives wanted to win, Kemp has always been the quarterback who repeatedly moves the ball down the field.
Conservatives today who want to recapture the popular imagination (not to mention popular support) ought to emulate Kemp's loud and tireless simultaneous engagement with policy details and public relations in the best sense.
Fortunately, there are some conservatives today who seem to have the right spirit. U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is one, as are U.S. Reps. Mike Pence of Indiana and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin -- the latter of whom once worked for Kemp at Empower America. Everybody in the conservative movement ought to move heaven and earth to help these lawmakers get wider exposure through speaking events, radio and TV appearances, and other public forums.
But the Kempian model is more than about mere men. It is a model about bedrock values, beliefs, and attitudes. It is a model about openness to new approaches without losing core principles. Kemp's own core was expressed in his 1987 speech announcing his candidacy for the presidency, in words describing the polar opposite of what is now the approach of the Obama administration: "No government in history has been able to do for people what they have been able to do for themselves, when they were free to follow their hopes and dreams. The American Dream is not to make everyone level with everyone else, but to create the opportunity for all people to reach as high as their God-given potential allows."
Today's policymakers also seem not to appreciate Kemp's advocacy (from that same speech) of sound currency, of missile defenses, of protection for the sanctity of human life, and of unfettered school choice.
In Kemp's conception, government can be active, but only as a catalyst for private action, not a replacement for it. Kemp surely would not sit by and let the nationalization of health care occur unchallenged -- but he also would be out front (as Rep. John Shadegg has been) with ideas about what government can do to spur reform.
Pence and Ryan and Shadegg and company would do well to emulate Kemp's boldness. Facing a leftist American administration is nothing in comparison, for instance, to facing the Soviet Empire. But David Caprara, a top Kemp aide at HUD and now a Brookings Institution scholar, recalls Kemp sponsoring him on a trip to Moscow, where he bore a copy of a Kemp speech at the Heritage Foundation called "The Democratic Capitalist Manifesto" -- translated in Russian. Caprara presented the speech to council member Elena Kotova -- and, Caprara said, she later said to him: "I laughed aloud with pleasure when I read Jack Kemp's Democratic Capitalist Manifesto. This is what we reformers have been standing for!"
Conservatives, in that spirit, let's stand tall. And, like Kemp, be bold.
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Pingback| 2.20.09 @ 6:57AM
The American Spectator : We're Not OK, Jack - ezineaerticles links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.20.09 @ 7:24AM
Topics about Health, Food and Well being » Archive » We’re Not OK, Jack links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Alan Brooks| 2.20.09 @ 8:02AM
there was something to worry about. in Dec. '96 Geo F. Will pointed out Kemp "did a narcissistic dance" in the autumn election.
i DO recall Kemp was overly-chipper in his bearing that year, an unconservative tear-the-bleachers down Gary Hart gleam in Kemp's eyes.
Pingback| 2.20.09 @ 8:54AM
Topics about Music » We’re Not OK, Jack links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Red Phillips| 2.20.09 @ 9:11AM
Jack Kemp? Please no. He is a neocon and a peddler of me to technocratic "conservative" alternatives to liberal programs. His performance in the VP debate was disgraceful. He tried to out liberal and out compassion the libs. Plus, he is bad on immigration.
While I don't think I want to throw the whole baby out with the bathwater, America's liberal (small l) and democratic (small d) values are PART OF THE PROBLEM. That is the fundamental insight of the paleocons.
sre| 2.20.09 @ 9:24AM
"The American Dream is not to make everyone level with everyone else, but to create the opportunity for all people to reach as high as their God-given potential allows."
I'm not sure that is true anymore. I think a lot of folks would like to make everyone level with everyone else and they resent the fact that some folks have more God-given potential and work harder to maximize it.
Decades of political correctness, hostility to religion, moral relativism, and expanding government/socialism have changed the way Americans think.
Alan Brooks| 2.20.09 @ 10:23AM
Jack is a future-chirp on immigration:
"immigrants will build the 21st century..."
i.e. the 21st century dystopia.
Chip Hanlon| 2.20.09 @ 10:40AM
In your article you mention Paul Ryan as one of the Republicans who "gets it." I used to be a Paul Ryan guy, too. However, he voted for both TARP AND the auto bailout. Unacceptable... too much of a "pragmatic" streak in Mr. Ryan, it turns out... no longer deserves to be thought of as a future light of our party, sorry.
http://www.greenfaucet.com/economy/what-has-paul-ryan-done/10072
Alan Brooks| 2.20.09 @ 11:02AM
Goldwater, then Reagan, then WFB.
the good are gone, the hacks remain.
Obama Rules| 2.20.09 @ 12:22PM
Jack Kemp!?! BUAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!
JG| 2.20.09 @ 12:23PM
Great article and very true.
However, Paul Ryan needs to be removed from that list. I can only imagine what Jack Kemp is thinking now about the TARP and the bailouts that have gripped our economy over the past several months---and Paul Ryan voted for it all. He voted for the TARP because it was on the eve of an election and the illegal use of the TARP for the auto bailouts for political expediency when the chips were down. Hardly a bastion of hopeful conservatism.
Michigan-Matt| 2.20.09 @ 12:30PM
I'm kind of amazed that someone of inestimable talent like Jack Kemp can draw out from the dark cornered recesses of conservatism these comments from some knuckle-dragging, cynical, eternally-angry white men.
Come on guys, Jack isn't some RINO'ish scapegoat to vent out your rancid spleen... besides, you've already done that to Chaffee, Dole, Snowe, Collins, Specter, Rockefeller, Ford, Bushes etal. Isn't that spleen running dry yet? And how long do you guys go on complaining and issuing purity test results before you've eliminated everyone save your own sorry butt.
Jack Kemp did more for the conservative movement in America than RR or Goldwater. He energized a young, thoughtful base of behavioral-GOPers who are now moving up into leadership posts in the Party and the movement.
From some of the comments here, I wonder if you some of you guys have misplaced loyalities... you shouldn't adore Goldwater... it's Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo you're really kindred spirits with.
Kevin Riley O'Keeffe| 2.20.09 @ 12:40PM
I was around in the 1980s, and I never understood Kemp worship then. The man got to put his name, along with that of Sen. Roth, on what was actually Reagan's tax cut bill, due to the Constitutionally enumerated separation of powers. That was his sole "accomplishment." After his dismal performance as Bob Dole's veep in 1996, I'm amazed anyone still takes Kemp seriously, let alone 13 years after the fact.
Brad S| 2.20.09 @ 12:42PM
"America's liberal (small l) and democratic (small d) values are PART OF THE PROBLEM. That is the fundamental insight of the paleocons. "
Would the fundamentally insightful paleocon who wrote this care to elaborate on what needs to happen to help mitigate the effects of this PART OF THE PROBLEM?
Kevin Riley O'Keeffe| 2.20.09 @ 12:43PM
Jack Kemp came out against California's Proposition 187, which means he was to the left of 59 percent of California's 1994 electorate. He's closer to Cruz Bustamante than he is to real conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan.
Brad S| 2.20.09 @ 12:54PM
Quin,
You're post on Jack Kemp revealed a lot more about some conservatives than most would care to admit, judging by some of the comments left here. Good Lord, getting into a snit about a great figure in modern-day politics because he was opposed to an unenforcable Prop 187?!
Someday, paleocons, the bridge is going to get blown out from under Horatio. Will you then be reflective on your ideas fetish, and how it's hurt quite a few good PEOPLE who could've helped you with getting those ideas implemented? Or will you retreat to another bridge, only to get that one blown out from under Horatio?
Michigan-Matt| 2.20.09 @ 1:06PM
Brad S notes: "Someday, paleocons, the bridge is going to get blown out from under Horatio."
It's already happened. The knuckle-draggers whined about the GOP picking McCain and then, according to Rove's estimate of 4 million soc con voters who didn't vote on '08 Election Day, helped elect Obama by default.
I wouldn't trust them to clean the bridge, much less protect it. Paleocons or neocons or soc-cons are the modern equivalent to the dinosaur... the problem is they aren't smart enough to know the numbered days are already past.
Quin| 2.20.09 @ 1:59PM
Mr. O'Keefe, please allow me to correct the record. Kemp did not "get to put his name" on "what was actually Reagan's tax cut bill." Kemp was the main person who sold Reagan on the idea, back in 1976. It was KEMP's tax-cut bill that Reagan adopted for his 1980 campaign, not vice versa. And I know what I'm talking about: I had dinner last night with some Reaganites who were there when Kemp sold Reagan on the idea.
Marc Jeric| 2.20.09 @ 2:23PM
America is not the country it used to be - the beacon to the world - because Americans are not the people they used to be. Beaten into the mass of 3 generations of illiterates who know nothing of history, geography, mathematics, logic, politics, full of self-esteem and phony marks, etc. by the unholy efforts of our marxist-inspired teacher unions, the Americans now talk of "social justice", equality of results, oppresion of the poor by the rich, pacifism, rapacity of private enterprise, and so on and on.
Red Phillips| 2.20.09 @ 2:29PM
I am ashamed to admit that I was a member of Students for Kemp in college. But I have an excuse. I was young and dumb. But as I got older and wiser I came to understand that what the GOP and the mainstream “conservative” movement were peddling was not actually conservative. It was slightly less social democracy than the other guys.
The reason there is hostility to Kemp is because he was such an embodiment of what was wrong with the movement. He is not just a neocon. He is a caricature of a neocon. Pro-intervention, pro-immigration, grandstanding and demagoguing on race, gimmicky me to proposals, frequent references to Lincoln, etc. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
Surely you Kemp defenders were embarrassed by his VP debate performance. He was desperately trying to out liberal Gore. It made me wince to watch it.
Brad S, regarding rolling back democracy, repealing motor voter and the 17th Amendment would be a good start.
Michigan-Matt, “knuckle-draggers?” Real nice. What, are you in the third grade? Proves something I have always said. Those why pride themselves on their moderation and pragmatism are really more concerned about not looking bad for the “serious” crowd. So they demonize those to their right so as to make themselves look more reasonable.
Well pardon me, but I’m actually more concerned about RESTORING THE REPUBLIC bequeathed to us by the Founders and our forefathers than looking acceptable for a bunch of pragmatic dim-wits. Put me down as siding with those knuckle-draggers like Patrick Henry, George Mason, etc.
J Pritchard| 2.20.09 @ 2:36PM
I'm with Red. Quin is right about Kemp's influence on young conservatives in the 70's and 80's--I was as big a Kemp fan as anybody when I was in college--but by the 90's he'd become a captive of his own press clippings. His performance (or rather lack theof) as Dole's running mate in general and the Gore debate in particular were sickening. Kemp's standing there and nodding in self-satisfaction as Algore complemented him for not being as much of a racist as all those other Republicans still outrages me. He lost me forever that night.
James M. Farrell| 2.20.09 @ 3:52PM
Thanks for mentioning John Shadegg, my Congressman. Rep. Shadegg is a really bright and engaging guy who barely lost out to John Boehner for House Minority Leader. Keep an eye on him as the Republcan Party dusts itself off in 2010.
Oldefarte| 2.20.09 @ 4:53PM
We're definately NOT okay, and in fact, are in deep excrement. The underground liberal movement [by means of its captured MSM] has managed to resurface from their bomb-throwing, flag-burning, street-protesting 1960's ways, into once again brainwashing Americans that their ideas are superior. The present astonishment and shock of some moderates [and liberals] at Obama's audicity-to-date is amazing, but his powers of destruction will continue unchecked until 2012 at least. Given the proposition that there will be something left in 2010 and 2012, NOW is the time for not a Kemp-like politician [he was mostly words and was confined to congress], but a RWR/Gipper like [outside the DC/bestway] eloquent, conservative [aka, Haley Barbour, for example] to begin using media/communications in Reaganisk-style to inform businessmen, college students, taxpayers, parents of young children, workers, etc. as to what, why, how, etc. the liberalism of BHO and the Democratic Party is destructive to their best interests and survival. Conservatives [Republicans] MUST oppose with a capital "O" anything/everything politically proposed by these liberals now in charge, and logically/rationally explain their opposition. This country is now on the path to destruction, and unless a true conservative leader emerges [and ordinary conservatives voice their opposition to the liberal establishment], the end will come sooner than later.
Sons of Sam| 2.20.09 @ 4:59PM
We need to stop pining away for yesteryear, and stop waiting for a "white knight". The Reagans, Goldwaters, Kemps and Gingrichs of the past were only effective because of the efforts of MILLIONS of hard working patriots who had shaken off the slave mentality and were fighting to regain the American dream and to take back America. WE need to get going; and when we do, the new heroes we're all hoping for will show up. And not until then.
S.O.S.
http://www.geocities.com/samadamssos/
steve d| 2.20.09 @ 5:13PM
wrote a letter to Editor (TIMES HERALD RECORD< MIDDLETOWN,NY) concerning Rep. Jack Kemp way back in the '80's. He was supporting the removal of the state income tax deduction on federal taxes. He clearly stated that "this deduction, subsidizes large bloated high tax state governments at the expense of well run low tax states" . He was vilified by many New Yorkers, but he was of course was correct and honest!
Steve Donnelly
Thomas| 2.20.09 @ 5:18PM
Jack Kemp for GOP cheerleader? There is one outstanding reason why Republicans should disabuse themselves of THAT notion immediately. He was Bob Dole's VP candidate and he made less of a favorable impression on the base than Bob did.
HomelessLeRhino| 2.20.09 @ 5:38PM
I'd take 218 Kemps in the house in a heart beat. I can get past his being pro life, as I am realistically pro choice. Pelosi would be back in her cage. The rest of the 200 pound chimps of the current majority would be sedated and released into the wild. Instead they run the nation, and are biting off our hand and ripping off our faces. A party of many big tents is the only answer.
JR| 2.20.09 @ 5:39PM
Most policies and ideas of Kemp are good. But his endorsement of open borders and free trade apparently are not working well these days. We import, did you know? 32 consecutive years of trade deficits and still working strong. Jobs are where? Sent to Mehico and China? Why? By about 2011 if we wanted to build another Raptor, we would have to bow to the Chinese for all of the parts. BHO will see to it that we build less and less fighting equipment, while kissy kissy with the enemy.
Red Phillips| 2.20.09 @ 8:06PM
In order to get credit for being a supply-sider don't you have to also actually cut spending? What spending did Kemp want to cut?
David Govett| 2.20.09 @ 8:22PM
After the spending spree of the last Republican majority, I have no confidence in either party to control spending. Words are cheaper than dollars, at least for the moment.
st louie mo| 2.20.09 @ 8:24PM
I remember Dole/Kemp's first stop after the convention was to the St Louis Gateway Arch. A nice crowd showed. The conventional wisdom was Kemp would enliven the ticket.
It was just the opposite. Kemp was a great disappoint to Dole's spirit speech. He was always better then advertised after that for me.
Nice try but I'm for Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! She's looking pretty smart in contrast to the current act.
PCPSmoker| 2.20.09 @ 8:33PM
This is the same idiot who backed McAin! He and Mclame, and those two idiots from Maine, and that Corker jerk should all die. Quinn, go write the next "another perspective" column
Richie Aprile| 2.20.09 @ 8:36PM
Forgot my favorite quote of all times:
Gore: "The republicans are racists, for the exception of Jack Kemp"
[The Great] Kemp: "Thank you, Mr Vice President."
Remind me again, how is he different from those two "economic conservatives" in Maine?
Yea, we need him....to die!
Pingback| 2.20.09 @ 9:46PM
A New Boston Tea Party? « Jim Blazsik home links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Kevin Riley O'Keeffe| 2.21.09 @ 12:03AM
"Mr. O'Keefe, please allow me to correct the record. Kemp did not "get to put his name" on "what was actually Reagan's tax cut bill." Kemp was the main person who sold Reagan on the idea, back in 1976. It was KEMP's tax-cut bill that Reagan adopted for his 1980 campaign, not vice versa. And I know what I'm talking about: I had dinner last night with some Reaganites who were there when Kemp sold Reagan on the idea. "
OK, assuming that's accurate, Kemp did have one major accomplishment almost 30 years ago. And while I'm the first to admit it was a biggie, the guy's been, as one poster said, pretty much a caricature of neo-"conservatism" throughout the vast majority of his career. He never followed up on his single triumph, and his Cabinet seat and Vice-Presidential nomination were more than ample reward for his service to the nation. The question is, what has Kemp done for authentic conservatism since 1982, to justify his present state of veneration? That's what I'm not seeing.
Pingback| 2.21.09 @ 6:05AM
Pregnancy Dates Calculator links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Emil| 2.21.09 @ 8:21AM
No one has mentioned it yet, but it was Kemp's idea that the poor should own their own homes that was a contributing factor to the current banking mess and recession
Rick Josey| 2.21.09 @ 10:01AM
Hillyer is right, we do need another bold leader like Kemp. The key to Jack’s success was revealed in the statement “It was Kemp who SOLD Ronald Reagan on supply-side theory.” Kemp SOLD Reagan an idea. And we need leaders today who will SELL conservative principles to the masses.
If conservative Americans are to stop the socialistic madness encroaching upon our freedoms they must not just tell their message, they must SELL it. And the best way to do this quickly is through the culture…
In late 1963 Americans were depressed, much like they are now. President Kennedy had just been assassinated and the nation was mourning. But then in the spring something amazing happened, something that changed our nation’s mood literally overnight. The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. And the United States was changed, overnight. And what effected the change in our national mood? MUSIC.
Patriotic hit songs, that’s what we need. Conservatives need to organize HUGE RALLIES across this country. Bring in the big bands and popular speakers let depressed working Americans get charged up and organized. That’s how you change things, in a government BY THE PEOPLE. We need a grass-roots movement, and we can rally the troops with music, movies and other cultural venues.
Yes, we need another “Jack Kemp.” We need many like him, men of principle who can sell America’s greatness to her people. And take a stand against the Chicago-style corruption that’s trying to destroy our nation.
www.PatriotHangout.com
Gerry| 2.21.09 @ 10:24AM
Has anyone on the right listened to the best speaker in the US House or senate? His name is Thad McCotter US rep. from Michigan. If you really want to take the Republican party back to true conservatism this man should lead the way.
Don| 2.21.09 @ 10:26AM
W.E. Simon was the actual architect of the Reagan Revolution..
Read his 2 great books on empowering the individual and raising ALL boats.. he fully believed every individual had the power and God given ability to succeed on his or her own, as long as the Govt stayed out of the way and did what LIMITED GOVERNMENT should do.. Provide for a strong National defense and not much else...
Written during the disastrous Peanut Carter era:
A TIME FOR TRUTH followed up by:
A TIME FOR ACTION...
Tax cuts, less regulation, and how to compete against the then ascendant Japanese Business Model...And he was right.
Read them..they are the Bible of Conservatism.
We need more Bill Simons and Ronald Reagans to take the lead or we will be doomed to socialism now that the Dems have swept into power.
Jeremiah| 2.21.09 @ 1:51PM
The reactionary -- or, as reactionaries now like to call themselves, the "coservative" -- is in fact reacting against and responding to capitalism.
This, I know, sounds absurd. How is it that people who profess to love the free market and worship its "invisible hand" as they would God could be said to be reacting against capitalism?
The reactionary conservative seeks to explain capitalism, which is in essence an "explaining away" or mystification of the processes of markets that cause so many people grief.
Reactionary views also displace the natural and reasonable grievances of people against markets onto suspicious minorities (blacks, gays, immigrants, etc.) as a means of assuring middle class people that it is not bankers, or politicians, or owners of vast internation corporations that have menacing power over them, but instead a handful of the weakest, poorest, and least social mobile people in society who have that power.
Have Jack Kemp, reactionaries. Have whom you will. You're still fooling yourselves -- as even you now begin to realize.
Mary| 2.21.09 @ 4:08PM
Mr. Kemp was a very attractive candidate. I'd be interested to know how the tenant management and urban homesteading policies played out, and if they're still viable.
Obama doesn't want us to think of ourselves as exceptional. He wants Americans to think of themselves as part of the greater whole. That's never been our MO, and if and when it does become our MO, all is over but the wailing.
Woe is us! Woe is us! This cry is quintessentially un-American. I don't think he can beat us down to his level of existential angst. I just don't.
He was the gossamer candidate, and now he's one downer of a president.
We are exceptional! Some of the best and brightest saints were the biggest and most energetic sinners.
Go read Hamilton's letter (1780) to James Duane, The Defects of Our Present System. Defects like the weakness of Congress, the self-interested machinations of the States, the pathetic and ragged state of the Military, and though it may not hearten you because our present defects have seemingly moved towards what is perhaps the logical conclusion of Hamilton's ideas and plans, it will remind you that chaos and turbulence is very American. That it's congenital, and that it's a mistake -maybe even a sin- to lose heart.
Hamilton's genius is undeniable!
Obama has to get the middle class to share his angst, to absorb it in their sinew. He needs to corrupt the middle class some more; to make them more like the permanent underclass: a dwindling middle without much hope or joy of life, and looking always to hate and eat the rich.
It's a chump's game, and I don't think an energetic people -and I think we still are energetic- want to acquire such a minimum-wage worldview.
Politics is about personalities, but it's also about ideas.
For all the attention that Sanelli has gotten, his rant wasn't at all an I got mine now you get yours rant. He differentiated between people who may have been taking a chance many of us would have taken given the economic circumstances, and those who acted dishonestly.
Sanelli's passion for Justice is the same kind of passion that Conservative leaders need to find.
America do you want a bureaucrat in the examining room with your doctor telling you that at 57 you're too old for the advanced treatment for hip replacement?
Do you want a bureaucrat deciding if your Mom's life is valuable or not? Our HMOs who have tried to play this role too will be bearing the bureaucratic standard.
Once you descend into that amoral and godless pit, only catastrophe or revolution will get you out.
Demanding better thinking from our polticians might likely get us some.
Both Kemp and Reagan realized what a sin losing heart really is.
A little Burke for you from his Reflection On The Revolution in France:
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed. The dislike I feel to revolutions, the signals for which have so often been given from pulpits; the spirit of change that is gone abroad; the total contempt which prevails with you, and may come to prevail with us, of all ancient institutions when set in opposition to a present sense of convenience or to the bent of a present inclination: all these considerations make it not unadvisable, in my opinion, to call back our attention to the true principles of our own domestic laws; that you, my French friend, should begin to know, and that we should continue to cherish them. We ought not, on either side of the water, to suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by the counterfeit wares which some persons, by a double fraud, export to you in illicit bottoms as raw commodities of British growth, though wholly alien to our soil, in order afterwards to smuggle them back again into this country, manufactured after the newest Paris fashion of an improved liberty.
Philip| 2.21.09 @ 7:46PM
Don, nice to see another “acolyte” of the late great Bill Simon! I was a college student when I read “A Time for Truth,” and it had a huge effect on my worldview. His exposition of how the world’s “standard” fuel progressed from wood, to coal, to whale oil [!], to kerosene, to petroleum, was absolutely brilliant. And more relevant today than ever!
I think a lot of people are missing QH’s main point: what the conservative need now is a “happy warrior” with a passion for [proven good] ideas, and pushing them. Jack Kemp admirably filled this role for ~8 critical years. Rush Limbaugh does a fantastic job, but he is outside of the political world.
I tend to agree with many of the substantive critiques of Kemp’s later years, but Mr. Aprile’s comment that the recently cancer-diagnosed Kemp “needs to die” was offensive and beneath contempt. Shame on you, sir.
Oldefarte| 2.22.09 @ 4:11PM
Let me correct the previous statement by Emil [No one has mentioned it yet, but it was Kemp's idea that the poor should own their own homes that was a contributing factor to the current banking mess and recession]-----Kemp's idea of OWNERSHIP no doubt implied being able to PAY FOR that home, not simply BUYING same. If the poor or anyone would PAY FOR their BOUGHT homes, there would not be a recessionary problem today!!!!
Augustine 25| 2.22.09 @ 10:01PM
Ironically, Kemp also attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. This was Barack Obama's undergraduate institution for his first two years. I'd like to see us compare Kemp's grades at Oxy with Obama's.
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My Huge Rewards - Private school contests reward braininess - Dallas Morning News « M links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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njnjknjk| 8.19.09 @ 11:14PM
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