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Obamination
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Gridlock
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Tebowphobia
December 14, 2011 | 114 comments
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The Real Case Against Sexual Harassment
November 9, 2011 | 177 comments
A Further Perspective
The Perils of Progress
"Getting things done" will be our undoing.
For months we've been bombarded from both sides of the political aisle with the idea that when it comes to healthcare, and nearly anything else in Washington, that our most pressing need is to "get something done." This idea that Congress was created by our founding fathers with a mandate to "get things done" should be offensive both historically and grammatically to all Americans. At the same time, despite the precipitous drop in popularity of the party in power, folks continue to point out that the GOP is "leaderless" and "rudderless."
They point to meaningless signs like the results of the straw poll at CPAC; as if the votes of 2,395 mostly young people -- including an openly gay group for the first time -- were vitally important. Believe me, I've been to CPAC many times and many was the time that friends and I repaired early to the bar, leaving the ballots commingled on the floor with sandwich wrappings.
But far from anointing Ron Paul as their presidential nominee of choice, the most indicative effect of including gays was this result from the poll: while the great majority of respondents named reducing the size of government as the most important goal of conservatism, only nine per cent cited the promotion of "traditional values." Scary stuff when you realize that the former is impossible without the latter for our particular constitutional republic.
A smaller government that is not based on the moral underpinnings of our founders would have been just as repulsive to them as a larger one that is. As John Adams said, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.… Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."
So the goal of a true conservative movement should be to conserve -- or in this case to reestablish -- those founding ideals; that a nation of laws and not of men ought to govern loosely at the federal level, with great emphasis on state sovereignty. How sweet to the ears of conservatives should be the words of the Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And maybe the best consequence of the hopefully short-lived majority reign of Obama and his party is the greater awareness the American people have gained regarding the nature of their government; that it was founded as a confederation of individual states with an intentionally restraining instrument known as the U.S. Constitution. This may not seem like a big deal to those who are familiar with American history, but when was the last time you tried to explain something like the Electoral College to, say, a college student? Blank stares and disbelief are usually the reaction to the news that our president is not elected by the country, but by the individual states.
But the fact that ours is a union of fifty entities with vastly diverse needs and interests was made crystal clear by the deals cooked up by Harry Reid and friends in their attempt to nationalize healthcare and otherwise wreck our economy. Voter anger at cash-for-cloture deals such as the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase translated into a thorough and stunning victory for Republicans in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts.
Americans started to wake up to the reality that sometimes some states were more equal than others and they didn't like it one little bit. But this is a good thing, as this kind of friction between the states was very much intended by our founding fathers as a way to restrain the forces that would collude with each other in order to establish the ever-growing federal government most of them feared.
And make no mistake about it; government expansion is the goal of liberals, or progressives as they now label themselves. But that is surely what they are, because they see the growth of federal power as progress, whereas conservatives feel exactly the opposite. In his essay, The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine wonderfully summed up this difference when he warned that governments in a continuous quest for progress are the most dangerous:
If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.
A great day for progressives in Washington is one where they "get things done." But for conservatives, it's when Congressmen are at home doing what they do best: raising money.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (43) | Leave a comment
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Ret. Marine| 2.24.10 @ 7:21AM
I don't think the balnk stares are even looking any futher than the noses on their faces these days. If ever there was a time in our National history where these stares were out of neglect, this is the time. Maybe not!
Blinded by the drunkenness of those who would yeild their mighty pens by fiat, they do not know who they serve, or maybe they do. One thing is sure, it is not We the People and for their error they will surely pay a price.
Conserving is a state of mind. It is not natural, it has to be taught. Teach your children and grandchildren well in the manner of conserving and maintaining values, principles and good moral behavours. To do likewise is dishonesty towards life, liberty and the pursuit of one's happiness.
I have often wondered why it is these pimps calling themselves our representatives, need the days in the chambers to do, well nothing really. I don't know about the rest of you out here in the land of the AS, but quite frankly, I've grown weary of being lawed into a corner. There are about 4,ooo ways for each of us today to break the law today, so to speak. Hows that working out for you?
I suggest We the People mandate all of these pimps take a couple of years off, without their pay and bennies, while We the People work our way through all the laws of this land. Eliminate all but 10 of these and call them the " what part of thou shall not do you not understand " legislation.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seperation of Church and State and all that nonsense, right. As one of our founders said ," Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people It is wholly inadequate for any other." Enough said.
Thomas| 2.24.10 @ 10:25AM
I love reading your comments, and Melvin's too, more than I enjoy whatever article you comment on.
My simple manner in viewing anything concerning America and it's present state is focusing on the principle on which it was founded by some pretty brilliant people. Individual liberty and freedom and not collective entitlement. You can succeed or fail but deal with either as your responsibility. You are entitled to nothing.
Our government feeds on granting entitlement to the folks who vote them power. Without morals and religion we have a tough time holding on to this republic.
We may be seeing a revolution. It can go either way. November will be an indication.
Alan Brooks| 2.24.10 @ 7:45PM
"those founding ideals; that a nation of laws and not of men ought to govern loosely at the federal level, with great emphasis on state sovereignty. "
That's finished. All you can do now is (optimistcally)
govt getting more corrupt.
skools from getting worse.
and so forth.
Alan Brooks| 2.24.10 @ 7:48PM
"All you can do now is (optimistcally)
govt getting more corrupt.
skools from getting worse."
a Freudian slip. You want to
keep govt from getting more corrupt.
keep skools from getting worse .
etc.
That's it.
Melvin| 2.24.10 @ 7:54AM
The problem with government is too many lawyers. Especially today it is as if a prerequisite for Congressmen or Senator is to have been an attorney.
But not the attorney who has acutely hung his or her shingle out and practiced law for an extended amount of time.
Many attorneys are graduating straight out of law school and heading to Washington D.C. and either working for lobbyists, special interest groups or the government itself.
Heaven forbid, upon retiring from the Marine Corps I came within a hairbreadth of attending law school.
A good friend of mine who was the local JAG during a B.S. session made the statement that litigators do not think or act like everyone else. Their thinking processes are made to overly analyze and tear something apart and rebuild it into the fashion in which an exact resulted is manufactured.
Someone correct me here if I am incorrect, but out of all the sitting Congressmen and Senators over half are attorneys?
I wouldn't say that this is a fair representation of America. If anything it is an overrrepresenttation of lawyers.
Attorneys are a very, very tight nit group and this is one of the main reasons that TORT reform in the health care debate will be all but next to impossible to achieve.
The Congress and the Senate create and pass legislation that fosters lawsuits that are favorable for big settlements and costs Americans billions upon billions of needless dollars being spent to cover the, "What if we get sued," mentality that prevails from everything from the grocery store, to going to the doctor.
How could this ever be fixed, one simple solution.
Tom Hanks made a statement from the motion picture Philadelphia. "What to you call ten thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea?.... A good start."
Before someone sues me for hurt feeling this last statement was my meager attempt at humor.
Tom| 2.24.10 @ 8:06AM
I find this problematic "the most indicative effect of including gays was this result from the poll: while the great majority of respondents named reducing the size of government as the most important goal of conservatism, only nine per cent cited the promotion of "traditional values."
Where there really that many gays in attendence that they were statistically significant in bending the results? The veiled blame on gay attendence actually masks a bigger problem: The vast majority of CPAC attendees do not see promoting traditional values as important.
Copyleft| 2.24.10 @ 8:25AM
I'm curious why the author sees this as a "problem," to the point that he even declares it's IMPOSSIBLE to shrink the size of government without returning to abject worship of the founders. (Clearly, a false statement.)
"Traditional values" in the minds of many people, particularly the young, means such backward and blatantly evil crap as segregation, denial of women's right to choose, forcing religion into govnernment, snooping into people's bedrooms, and other such nonsense... stuff that is blatantly irrelevant when we have much bigger problems to face.
The uneasy alliance between religious zealots and small-government conservatives has always been tentative. If the author finds these new poll results troubling, it's because they reveal the base incompatibility of the two worldviews.
Maybe the Tea Party will fuction as a splinter movement to further clarify this disconnect. In any case, it'll be fun to watch!
Tim| 2.24.10 @ 9:07AM
I think you have it wrong Copy. People, even those on the left, realize that governments tend to grow in size and complexity while simultaneously becoming more inhuman and inhumane in their methods. If you put aside party hackery, hippies, religious believers and libertarians all share some basic values.
MacAoidh| 2.24.10 @ 12:44PM
I'm going to disagree a little here, in that I don't think the CPAC attendees were so much disparaging of traditional values as recognizing the immediacy of the fiscal danger we're in. Last night on Hannity there was a preview of this Generation Zero documentary that Citizens United did, and from what I gather it really affected a lot of the people at the convention who saw it (and had the same effect on the Tea Party convention in Nashville as well). That movie discusses the financial collapse and the economic problems we face, and lays bare the unsustainability of federal entitlements. But it does so in a cultural context. So to recognize the fiscal issues as paramount is not necessarily an affront to traditional values; in fact, shrinking the size of government will have the effect of removing the subsidies on social pathology ingrained in welfare and other entitlement programs which pay people not to work and save.
JimH| 2.24.10 @ 8:25AM
It is not a legitimate role of the state to promote values of any kind. The only proper function is to defend property from threats bothe external (military) and internal (police). Many that are termed conservatives agree with the left on using the state to promote some social goal or agenda. The only differance is in what is being pushed.
Tom| 2.24.10 @ 8:36AM
The poll did not say what is important for government to promote but what is important for conservatism to promote. They are two wildly different things.
MacAoidh| 2.24.10 @ 12:51PM
Thank you, Tom. You've hit on something crucial there, which is that it's past time for the conservative movement to fight cultural battles IN THE CULTURE, where they belong. For example, the Tim Tebow ad during the Super Bowl probably did more for the pro-life causes than any amount of legislation, because it effectively got a message across without coercing or threatening anyone.
Consider what the Left has done in convincing people to recycle, buy Priuses, boycott tuna fish that isn't dolphin-safe, not buy fur coats and so on. They didn't accomplish those goals through legislation, for the most part; they've done it by propaganda. And in most cases what they bring to the table is a pack of lies. What can conservatives do with the truth if they apply it to the culture?
Stop trying to pass laws that people see as limiting their freedom and start engaging the left in the culture. That frees your legislative agenda to address economic liberty and revive the economy before the nation goes bankrupt.
JimH| 2.24.10 @ 1:19PM
Actually, reading the questions in the poll shows that the drift is how much government ought to be involved in people's lives.
Indy Voter| 2.24.10 @ 8:48AM
JimH you are spot on, when I heard our own President say the role of government is to make our lives better, I dropped my head in disgust. The majority of our elected officials don't understand what the role of government is...how can we overcome poorly educated voters, gerrymandering, ACORN / SEIU, special interest money, etc. to put people in office who understand the role of government. Protect our rights, protect us against all enemies, foreign and domestic, enforce the rule of law...uphold our Constitution. My governor is first in line with hand held out for any Federal money and does nothing to uphold State's Rights...extremely frustrated in a Blue state.
Northern Rebel| 2.24.10 @ 8:31AM
One of the best things to happen was the snowstorm that paralyzed Washington D.C.
A good government is one that is shut down!
If they sent all the "unessential" gummint workers home in our nation's capital, there would be nobody there!
Al Adab| 2.24.10 @ 5:02PM
Hey Rebel,
Since we identified so many non-essential workers, why not just pay them to stay home. It would actually save money since the costs of the empty buildings, those not sold or rented out, and the lack in new regulatory costs, which they work to invent every day, would be a boon. ...And think how they would spend the money on their permanent vacations.
Melvin| 2.24.10 @ 9:14AM
You know what is going on is much like an argument with a wife, who at every chance or argument keeps bringing up something that happened in the past over and over and over.
Not one person is saying, that we need to go back to racism, denying women their rights, or having minorities go back to riding in the back of the bus.
This dead horse has been beaten do death and this horse beating is exactly why as a Country cannot seem to extricate ourselves from.
We as a Nation make a little progress and then some organization brings up the past, "Oh, we're going to go back to having the Klan march through the street, Susan B. Anthony is rolling in her grave." Yadda, Yadda, Yadda
This Country is been turned into a bunch of "whining bitches."
We are all pretty much in agreement here that we want big brother to get out of our wallets and off our backs.
But in order to bring that about, isn't going to take any earth shattering event, just do it. So what if the damn people bitch and whine. Someone always is going to complain no matter what is done. Fiscal responsibility infringes one no-ones rights, but does effect all.
The point here is and we all know this, we can't fiscally sustain what each of the political parties are doing from a fiscal point of view.
Eventually the Lion chasing his tail will consume himself.
Phewww, I feel much better now.
Curtis| 2.24.10 @ 9:14AM
How about we not promote traditional values, or stupid morally wishy washy choices. No chearleading for anyone. Don't expect a pat on the back if your a welfare queen with 9 different kids with 9 different daddies, don't expect a pat if your married and go to church every sunday.
One is an idiot that's slowly destroying herself, the other is doing what they're supposed to do. You don't get cookies for doing what you're supposed to do.
The two principle our founding fathers would have understood is;
-mind your own business, and
-let people fail or succeed according to their own choices and merits.
Tim| 2.24.10 @ 9:54AM
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
C. S. Lewis
Stuart Koehl| 2.24.10 @ 10:05AM
A cursory examination of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers quickly reveals the Founders established our system to ensure that things did NOT get done, unless there was an overwhelming and obvious need.
To get anything else accomplished, the constitutional process requires compromise and consensus building--which, ironically, is what ideologues on both sides constantly denounce. In the absence of compromise and consensus, we have gridlock, just as the Founders intended. The status quo will prevail, change will be incremental, radical change in any direction will be avoided, and the ship of state will remain on an even keel.
Oldefarte| 2.24.10 @ 11:13AM
Lisa, great point! Unfortionately GETTING THINGS DONE equates into passing legislation that INCREASES the deficit and the debt. Alternative [but ignored] is the alternative of GETTING THINGS DONE by passing legilation that DECREASES same, by eliminating/reducing governmental programs, expendatures,etc that COST THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER!!!!!
Stuart Koehl| 2.24.10 @ 11:18AM
Or the real alternative of simply doing nothing, which has much to recommend it. Whenever some crisis erupts, I have the irresistible urge to shout, "Don't just do something, stand there!"
Warren Bonesteel| 2.24.10 @ 11:48AM
"But for conservatives, it's when Congressmen are at home doing what they do best: raising money."
...and then you wonder why the system is corrupt??? ...and why Republicans say one thing on the campaign trail, go to D.C., and eventually leave with wealth that many an ancient king only dreamt of possessing?
Yes, Democrats do the same, but I am constantly amazed by Conservatives who seem to think that their own feces has the odor of the rosaceae. ...the Democrats are no different, of course.
From town councils to county commissions to state legislatures to D.C., the system is corrupt. Left or right, the underlying problem is never addressed. The discussion appears to be over which is the most corrupt or about how much corruption is acceptable. The discussion never addresses getting rid of the problem.
Stuart Koehl| 2.24.10 @ 11:56AM
If you want to get money out of politics, I suggest you get politics out of money. As long as government distorts the marketplace and can favor one business over another through legislation and regulation, businesses and other interest groups such as labor will pour money behind candidates and parties that they believe will help them. They have every right to do so, and would be foolish if they did not. Attempting to keep money out of politics by regulating contributions and political speech is not only futile (like water, money will find a path or cut a new one) but also antithetical to a free and democratic society.
MacAoidh| 2.24.10 @ 12:54PM
Thank you, Stuart. Shrink the size and reach of government and corporate dollars will be spent on productive endeavors rather than rent-seeking through lobbyists.
Al Adab| 2.24.10 @ 1:18PM
Very astute article and analysis. Getting things done, especially when we don't even define the "problem" becomes a simple synonym for increasing government control and operations. Every "problem" must have an agency dedicated to its "solution".
All of this of course takes money we haven't stolen from citizens,or worse, printed yet. Our government was designed to be one of limited scope and action. As we continue to violate that basic principle we continue incrementally to lose our personal independance and Liberty. Every "crisis" or fad of the day, becomes the justification for new powers, agencies and regulations. We have indeed sold our birthright for a bowl of pottage.
uncle curmudgeon| 2.24.10 @ 3:43PM
Article I, Section 9; U. S. Constitution: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made in Law;..."
which is why the crooks get nervous when Congress can't "get things done". I think it was Finley Peter Dunne who pointed out that, "No man is safe when the legislature is in session."
jcm| 2.24.10 @ 3:55PM
Tom and MacAoidh, agree. This piece is condescending toward CPAC, and I still wonder why, every year, Ms. Fabrizio kept paying the CPAC entry fees, not cheap, only to leave early to get drunk and "leaving the ballots commingled on the floor with sandwich wrappings. " Whatever that means.
Pingback| 2.25.10 @ 3:32PM
The American Spectator : The Perils of Progress | Drakz Free Online Service links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: