The American Spectator

SoCon| 9.2.09 @ 2:54PM

RINOs like Bob are elitist, country-club snobs who are no different than their liberal counter-parts. It's a class issue.

McCain is a huge RINO (Democrat-lite)--can't blame his loss on Social Conservatives.

Tim| 9.2.09 @ 3:42PM

You don't hear Democrats debating which part of their base to jettison...

W. James Antle III| 9.2.09 @ 4:02PM

I'm not arguing for jettisoning any part of the base, though I know some commentators are. I'm arguing for making sure that the base is getting something more than lip service from the Republicans in exchange for their votes.

Nobama| 9.2.09 @ 4:06PM

SoCons are the majority--I say WE jettison the repubs! Ha!

Red Phillips| 9.2.09 @ 5:03PM

Dan's post comes off, whether he intended it to or not, as a bit elitist itself. Dan is not the High-Brow con he is chastising, but it reads like he wink-wink agrees with them that abortion and gay marriage are unfortunate issues to have to raise. Sort of "It's your fault such unsavory topics have to be brought up." But why are what is arguably the murder of 1 million plus unborn babies per year and changing the definition of the cultural institution that has forever been the basis for a stable society unfortunate red meat turn-out-the-vote side issues for Bubba? I find it hard to imagine an issue that is more important than 1 million plus dead babies.

Ran| 9.2.09 @ 5:49PM

"The GOP tends to treat social conservatism as red-state, silent-majority identity politics "

So nicely put, Mr. Antle! Thank you.

Not one red cent, not one yard sign, not one drive to the pols unless it's for a vetted local libertarian-oriented conservative candidate.

Liberal Reader| 9.2.09 @ 5:56PM

Maybe if you intensify the accusations a little.

I mean, why stop with accusing Obama of being Hitler?

Why stop with accusing Democrats of being Nazis?

You're being coy.

You know -- because you read it in the Bible -- that liberals are evil.

Your moral superiority should be able to prop up more wide sweeping generalizations about us.

Remember, we relish thoughts of our country's downfall. In secret, we are constructing concentration camps to reeducate the offspring of born again Christians.

Ultimately, we seek to rejoin a world-wide Caliphate headed up by Osama Bin Laden. (Duh! Were you so confused by our election of someone named Hussein Obama???)

See, in general conservatives have the better philosophy. Just read Palin's face book page. It's all right there.

And if reading isn't your thing, tune into Rush Limbaugh every day.

Because Democrats are racists. We're also fascists. We're also communists. We're also traitors. We're also Nazis.

Did I miss anything?

Bob| 9.2.09 @ 5:57PM

"The GOP tends to treat social conservatism as red-state, silent-majority identity politics"

Because that is what it is!!!!

"...rather than a coherent defense of life, the family, and traditional values."

That's because socons are anti-abortion, not pro-life. They don't fight against collateral damage in war or people not receiving health care. Where are the calls for laws supporting these "pro-life" concepts? Furthermore, things like slavery and women being subservient to men ARE "traditional values". In the course of history, racial and gender equality are rather new concepts.

The losses in 2006 and 2008 were not because of the socons, but because Bush and Republicans failed at running the country when they were in charge. The not only brought us into an optional war (undermining the traditional conservative position), but cut taxes and did not reduce spending thereby increasing this country's debt more than any group in history.

The socons are responsible, however, for the shift in the exurb votes. Educated Republicans are embarrassed by socons who don't believe in science and cannot use their minds effectively. This wouldn't be a problem if politicians didn't cowtow to them, however.

Democrats have won because Rahm Emanuel recruited conservative Democrats where they could get elected. In other words, he made the Democrat tent larger. Socons want to make the Republican tent smaller by kicking out those that the Democrats went after.

You cannot win without making your tent larger. The Republican party is smaller than it has ever been in modern history at about 21% of the electorate. Democrats are now 39% of the electorate. Neither can win without the middle.

I know Antle agrees with that -- he's said so...

Eric Dondero| 9.2.09 @ 6:34PM

If there's one single group on the Right who shares more responsibility for our losses in 2006 and 2008, more than any other, it's the Paleos, and Isolationists like Ron Paul, Buchanan, Lew Rockwell, Doug Bandow, Dave Boaz, Anti-War wing of the Libertarian Party, et.al.

Those on the Right who mercisellesly blamed Bush for the "disaster" in Iraq, instead of backing him and our Troops are the ones who deserve our scorn, and utter contempt, even more so than the David Brooks, Kathleen Parkers, and Frums.

John - TMF| 9.2.09 @ 7:04PM

The "middle" is a figment of the Democrat Agitprop Social Distortion machine. (aka - Mainstream Media).

What Conservatives call RINOs (and I have some great familiarity with the term... from days when I was one of the first folks to use it on the net... BOOM BOOM BOOM...) are actually Establishment Republicans. and as such ARE the mushy MIDDLE.

Fundamentally they are constantly trying to come up with excuses to actually not vote for Democrats who are their friends, social companions, mentors, party hosts, and cultural leaders.

I would never see a blue blood Yankee-Establishment Republican at my favorite shooting range. I might see them at the "Skeet Club" with the $5,000 Perazzi custom superposed... but you wouldn't catch him dead at the 100 yard point with a second hand Model .308 Model 700 ADL at the Gun Store that I frequent.

The functional truth is that the Bob's of the world are not Republicans, and they don't vote Conservative. They don't think conservative. They vote the way that their betters tell them to vote. They take their decisions based on peer group image. That peer group is blue blood limousine Liberal Democrat.

They vote for people and issues that they are allowed to vote for by their pop culture masters. So, in actuality they are the moderates that they are constantly demanding that the GOP chase.

No, Conservatives are not the "base of the GOP". They are, however, the largest most intellectually consistent faction on the right. They are no longer willing to shuffle to the polls and pull the lever for the candidate chosen for them.

As they have proven in 2005 in Virginia, 2006, and 2008, SoCons have discovered that they are no longer forced to vote for an Establishment Republican with a few conservative looking hood ornaments. They will stay home instead of voting for a "Democrat".

As Harry Truman once said... "Give 'em a choice between a 'Democrat' and a Democrat, and they'll vote for a Democrat every time." Funny about that... he beat Thomas Dewey in an election that Dewey had wrapped up because the country was sick of Democrats... but Dewey was a MODERATE... a "Democrat". So the nation just stuck with the real thing instead.

Run right, govern right. Win and stay there. Run to the middle and get beaten like McCain... Dewey... Ford... Bush 41 in '92...

It's the RINOs who have nowhere to go... since they are the Establishment. Weird world we live in, eh?

r/TMF

John - TMF| 9.2.09 @ 7:10PM

Eric has a seriously good point, but I don't count those people on the right. They are cultural populists with narrow special interests (as you noted mostly isolationist paleopopulists) who cannot get out of the 1920's economic and social model.

Goldbug Fortress America... etc...

Several serious economic Depressions and speculations clobber the goldbug nonsense... and Fortress America blew up with the Arizona at Pearl Harbor, and had a ghastly reminder disintegrate on the Lower West Side of Manhattan on Sept 11, 2001.

Cranky is just cranky... not useful at all.

r/TMF

Nobama| 9.2.09 @ 9:59PM

Yeah, mushy middle RINO Bob, a big pro aborter who voted for Obama. You're just another elitist, Country Club republican and a sorry excuse for a human being, Bob; and as John said, you've got nowhere to go.

Conservatives are the majority in the republican party; who needs democrat lite like you?

Red Phillips| 9.2.09 @ 11:54PM

So in the Bizzaro World where Eric Dondero resides, the GOP lost in 2006 and 2008 because it wasn't bellicose enough. Not even Eric is so blinded by his ideology as to really believe that.

John, I liked your first post but you crashed and burned with the second. In those bad ol' 1920's we had something called the Old Right. Now we have neoconservatism. Now you tell me which is the more conservative, the Old or the neo (new). A so-called conservative who is embracing the new and rejecting the Old perhaps shouldn't be casting stones at RINOs or being insufficiently conservative.

Red Phillips| 9.3.09 @ 12:18AM

BTW John, had we practiced Fortress America and stayed out of WWI, there would have been no WWII. Nice try.

Red Phillips| 9.3.09 @ 12:23AM

And Goldbuggery is not the conservative position? That's funny. Just a little over 100 years ago William Jennings Bryan was accused of being a reckless radical for simply wanting free coinage of silver. So conservatives are for central banking? Yeah whatever.

John - TMF| 9.3.09 @ 8:06AM

The following critical fallacies guide many people, paleos are particularly vulnerable since they only listen to themselves:

1. The fallacy of critical path change. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.... IF only things were different they would have been different... (But not necessarily different they way you want them to be.) The US intervention into World War I was as it was. It was done for reasons that were judged valid at the time, with the information at hand. The US, early in the war, heavily influenced by strong Irish bigotry against the English combined with a very large German-American population nearly entered the war on the side of the Axis Powers. Now that would have changed history, wouldn't it? The trajectory of which is completely impossible to predict, and it is grave fallacy to do so.

2. If Perry hadn't opened up Japan in the 1850's we wouldn't have SONY, now would we? World War II was a confluence (intersection of two, and perhaps three very distinct war fronts all folded into one - you could even look for the strong suggestion of a fourth. A) WWII started with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. To secure natural resources, it began to conquer nation-states for what it needed. One nation-state was China, the next the group of oil rich islands in Southeast Asia. To secure the routes there were some inconvenient road blocks, including British held Malaysia (which was where the oil was...) and the Philippines (which was still a US territory at the time, but was on the fast track to independence).

The theory that the US could have avoided WWII by playing nice with Hitler, and giving Asia to the Japanese is weak. It is also a complete denial of fundamental human nature.

What would a Nazi dominated Europe looked like? How about a Shinto driven Emperor worshiping technological giant in Asia?

We will never know. All things would have been very different, that's for sure. None of us would be here, to be discussing it, either.

Isolationism is a pipe dream of fanciful beliefs that somehow if you just keep to yourself the other guy won't take it into his head to kill you and take your goods.

In an era of technologies providing for world travel, shipping of huge amounts of trade goods, weapons with the capability of destroying entire cities in a single strike, isolationism is a dangerous and probably suicidal fantasy.

Historical revisionism and indulgence in fallacious analysis of chains of events plucked from history make for interesting novels, and sci-fi indulgences, but do little to advance clear headed thinking on how to deal with the world of the here and now.

3. Gold has and other forms of wealth measure by the possession of certain commodities, has plagued mankind for most of its recorded history. Ron Paul is a gold bug. So are many of the other Paleos. All are tragically wrong, because gold is only worth something if all agree that it is worth something. It's use is a fundamental return to Mercantilism. That ancient affection is hardly free market, and functionally does nothing to ablate or control the most important part of any economy, human nature. It is merely one way, a primitive method at that, to measure wealth.

But then I suspect that none of this will sink past the roar of the self-generated sound of the paleo phone booth.

Tootles - The Mighty Fahvaag

Bob| 9.3.09 @ 10:07AM

Most of your logic, guys, escapes me. You will always vote for the Republican over the Democrat, right? If you vote for a third party your vote won't count for much. However, those of us who think for ourselves will vote for the individual we believe is the best option -- Democrat or Republican. Therefore, it is our vote that makes a real difference. You are the unthinking group!

Red Phillips| 9.3.09 @ 12:57PM

John, just for the sake of the argument let's say that everything you say about WWII is true. That our involvement couldn't have been avoided. That still does not make it the go to trump card to justify any and all future interventions or interventionism in general. It is not forever and always 1939. Every dictator is not the next Hitler. Perhaps WWII was just a principled exception to the general rule of the wisdom of non-intervention.

When anti-war cons cite George Washington's Farewell Address we are constantly told by interventionists that "times have changed." That it is now the year 2009. But yet, it always seems to be 1939 in the fervid imagination of the interventionists. There is always some boogie man lurking out there on the horizon that poses an existential threat to the US unless we bomb him first. Well make up your mind. Which is it? Is it the year 2009, or is it forever and always 1939?

At least non-interventionists are consistent in that we want to return to the old way. Interventionists want to return to the old way also (WWII and Cold War), just not that old of a way. So you are not the flexible modern thinkers considering all the modern contingencies that you fancy yourselves being. You are a sort of half-way reactionary.

And if you want to make arguments against gold and presumably for fiat currency then fine. Just remember there is a name for that argument. It's called liberalism and/or progressivism. We simply can’t have our people crucified on a “cross of gold,” right?

John - TMF| 9.3.09 @ 1:47PM

Just for the sake of a factual retort on a dying thread:

1. I stated several core facts about World War II... here are a couple of more:
A) Adolf Hitler and his regime were fundamentally evil and avowedly expansionist. There is evidence that Hitler's scientists might have even had a crude atomic bomb detonated some time in 1944, but had neither the resources nor the materials to do more than they did.

2. Hitler presided over, cultivated, and ordered the slaughter of over 6million Jews, some 2million slavs, and several hundred thousand others. He ran a regime based on Eugenics, utilitarian analysis and police state order.

There is nothing, at all in any valid historical analysis that would suggest that he would have stopped at Europe.

3) The Soviets were Hitler's allies at the outset of the European war. Both invaded Poland, and the Soviets invaded Finland. Hitler eventually ended that tidy little relationship with an invasion, but not until the British had stopped him from invading them. Nothing suggests that Adolf Hitler was going to stop at the Soviet Union.

4) Germany declared war on us... not the other way around. The Pearl Harbor Declaration of December 8th was made against Japan... who had already declared war on US, and attacked US.

WWII was going to involve us whether or not we wanted it to.

As to Washington's Farewell Address.
A) it was an ADDRESS, not LAW.
B) it suffers greatly in translation and context of the times. When he issued the admonition, we were barely "out of diapers". Our Constitution was brand new, shaky, and already under assault. HOWEVER, in case you didn't catch the problem with John Adams (my favorite founder) and then Thomas Jefferson (nozzo hot on my founder scale) we had sort of a nasty tiff going on with the French, and almost went to war with them during his administration. It was a war that we could ill afford, and were not culturally prepared for.

This nation, at the time of Washington's Farewell, was lightly defended, and hanging onto the continent by a fingernail. Issuing such warnings were easy, as long as we didn't have the French stirring up diplomatic issues, the British impressing American sailors into the Royal Navy, the Barbary Pirates raiding our shipping and ransoming the crews, etc.

You see, sovereignty requires of it a projection of that sovereignty within the contexts of the world in which it is asserted.

Isolationism exerts sovereignty as an act of disengagement. That is an oxymoron. You cannot declare yourself sovereign and then withdraw from the world of sovereign acts.

The mere existence of the United States of America is provocation. The defense of our national sovereignty has, by modern convention and technology necessitated our engagement in the remainder of the world on all levels.

I maintain the proposition that Isolationism is a suicidal fantasy.

For an excellent essay on some the subjects discussed please see Professor Hanson over at NRO, today.

Peace, Love and Bobby Sherman..

The Mighty Fahavaag

Daisy| 9.3.09 @ 2:40PM

Bobby Sherman--now that goes waaay back! He reminds me of puberty, an awesome discovery called 'boys' and mascara.

You're crazy and you made me laugh!

S.L. Toddard| 9.3.09 @ 7:16PM

"There is nothing, at all in any valid historical analysis that would suggest that he would have stopped at Europe"
"Nothing suggests that Adolf Hitler was going to stop at the Soviet Union."

This looks fun. Can I try? "There is nothing to suggest Hitler did not plan to conquer Antarctica". Hm. "There is nothing that suggests Hitler did not plan on conquering the moon." Oh. I like that. "There is nothing to suggest that Hitler did not foresee the creation of the television sitcom WKRP In Cincinnati and wish to co-star in the role of Herb Tarlek". I defy you do disprove any of these. You will not be able to, of course, because *the onus of proof is on he who asserts the positive*. Proof is required for either of your claims to have any validity whatsoever. *Prove* that Hitler not only had the power to conquer all of Western Europe, Great Britain *and* the Soviet Union, but that he had the power to hold them all while sending an army 3,000 miles over the ocean sufficient to conquer North America. Once you have done that, please provide proof that he *planned* to. Otherwise your claims are no more valid than mine.

"it was an ADDRESS, not LAW."

Indeed - it was an address that summed up a founding philosophy of our Republic. That you reject the ideals of the Founders is fine, as long as you recognize that you do, while we hold them dear.

"it suffers greatly in translation and context of the times. When he issued the admonition, we were barely "out of diapers". Our Constitution was brand new, shaky, and already under assault. HOWEVER, in case you didn't catch the problem with John Adams (my favorite founder) and then Thomas Jefferson (nozzo hot on my founder scale) we had sort of a nasty tiff going on with the French, and almost went to war with them during his administration. It was a war that we could ill afford, and were not culturally prepared for."

Irrelevant. The passage of time has only made his address *more* relevant, not less. Now that the catastrophic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have conclusively proved the liberal Wilsonian internationalist foreign policy of the neoconservatives to be bankrupt and unworkable in the real world Washington's address seems positively prescient.

"You see, sovereignty requires of it a projection of that sovereignty within the contexts of the world in which it is asserted."

That's simply false. Sovereignty requires no military "projection".

"Isolationism exerts sovereignty as an act of disengagement. That is an oxymoron."

Excuse me? How is it oxymoronic for a sovereign nation to use its military only in its own defense? The idea is ludicrous and baseless.

"You cannot declare yourself sovereign and then withdraw from the world of sovereign acts."

This statement is meaningless. Isolationism does not require "withdrawing from the world of sovereign acts", whatever that means. It simply means that we use our military for our defense and nothing more. We "withdraw" only from military commitments unrelated to defense against attack.

"The mere existence of the United States of America is provocation."

Neocon crazy-talk.

"The defense of our national sovereignty has, by modern convention and technology necessitated our engagement in the remainder of the world on all levels."

All levels? Does it necessitate that we engage pickpockets on the streets of Helsinki? No.

"I maintain the proposition that Isolationism is a suicidal fantasy."

Maintain it all you want - you haven't justified that proposition in any way whatsoever.

STOP TROLL STENCH!| 9.3.09 @ 7:32PM

Do Not feed the troll.

He's here because we starved him on another thread. He's here to disrupt honest discussion.

Starve the Troll!