Polite Kid

Why I am not a Republican
Jerome Corsi writes about his disaffection from the Republican Party, and about his differences with the Jed Babbin, the new editor of Human Events. Babbin, it seems, chided Corsi for his series of articles outlining the North American Union plan. Babbin derided the idea of the NAU as 'black helicopter conspiracy themes.'
Corsi says:
These Human Events articles were widely popular, in some weeks last year constituting as many as two or three of the 10 most read articles published that week on the Human Events website.
Yet, today, Babbin has even removed my name from the list of columnists published on Human Events and I�ve transitioned to becoming a full-time staff reporter at WND.''
So now Corsi is no longer with Human Events, because he wouldn't toe the line and soft-pedal the NAU story? The apologists for the supposedly non-existent -- or benign -- NAU seem to be very determined to stop discussion on the subject, or, failing that, to whitewash the project. Those who write about it or who take a negative view towards the NAU are likely to be assailed by name-callers on the big GOP webforums. I've blogged about this before; supposedly the White House and/or the RNC have assigned operatives to go on the internet and quash any criticism of the NAU. That seems to be overkill if the project is really a figment of some paranoiac's imagination, or if it is merely a benign trade agreement, as claimed.
So Corsi has been a target, as the most visible and vocal journalist raising questions about the plan.
Corsi laments the fact that the Rockefeller Republicans have assumed control of the party, and Human Events, under Babbin's editorship, will become increasingly a mouthpiece for the Republican Party.
I also tried to explain to Babbin my view that right now, the Republican Party is controlled by what used to be called the "Rockefeller Wing."
Like David Rockefeller himself, the Rockefeller Wing involves millionaires and billionaires who run multi-national corporations.
Rockefeller Wing Republicans are already beyond borders in their determination to advance their multinational corporations for unbridled profit, whether or not U.S. sovereignty and the middle class are destroyed in the process.
I have reflected that Howard Phillips was probably right when he urged Ronald Reagan to form his own, new political party.
I�m not sure the moral Christians belong in the same party with the Rockefeller Republicans.
At any rate, George W. Bush in his second term seems determined to destroy the Reagan coalition once and for all.
[...]
We would be better off without a Republican Party if having a Republican Party means we continue compromising U.S. sovereignty under this false banner of one-sided trade agreements that have nothing to do with legitimate "free trade."
If Human Events under Babbin�s editorial direction is to become an apologists� forum for Republican Party true believers, so be it. ''
Corsi mentions the fall-back argument used by Babbin and the others that failing to support the GOP will guarantee a Hillary presidency. That empty argument is all they have, and they think that it will suffice to scare many conservatives into voting GOP, even if it means voting for a globalist, CFR candidate -- which, as Corsi mentions, all of the so-called top tier candidates are.
I am positive that the GOP leadership and their true believer followers are thrilled that Hillary is the likely nominee, because the threat of Hillary in the White House is the only 'argument' they have to convince conservatives to vote for whichever of the pathetic 'top tier' candidates is opposing her.
Sorry, GOP, but I agree with Corsi and with Richard Viguerie that this is not enough. A vote for any of the preferred GOP candidates is a vote for more globalism and a vote against real conservative policies. If that is all the Republican Party is able, or willing, to offer us, then the Republican Party has outlived its usefulness.
A political party is only a means to an end, not an end in itself, and if the GOP no longer stands for conservative ideas and traditional America, then it needs to go, and make way for a real conservative party.

Labels: Globalism, Gop, Nau, Party Politics, Presidential Candidates, Spp, Third Party

Here is a fun survey to tell you which candidate you should support, based on the answers you give. (H/T Daily Paul)
If you agree with us that issues matter, then take the following objectively designed short survey to see which of the leading candidates most agree with your position on a wide variety of issues - and also who least agrees with those positions - you may be surprised!''
I took the quiz, and came out with Ron Paul as the leading choice.

Labels: Elections, Presidential Candidates

Of the commentary I've read on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, this piece by Andrew McCarthy at NRO makes the most sense -- although I disagree with his ultimate conclusion.
Benazir Bhutto Killed by the Real Pakistan
A recent CNN poll showed that 46 percent of Pakistanis approve of Osama bin Laden. Aspirants to the American presidency should hope to score so highly in the United States. In Pakistan, though, the al-Qaeda emir easily beat out that country�s current president, Pervez Musharraf, who polled at 38 percent. President George Bush, the face of a campaign to bring democracy � or, at least, some form of sharia-lite that might pass for democracy � to the Islamic world, registered nine percent. Nine!
If you want to know what to make of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto�s murder today in Pakistan, ponder that.
There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the "rule of law" as a cudgel to bring down a military junta.
In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison.
Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West.''
I agree about the 'real Pakistan' -- but I would go further: I would say 'the real Islam.'
Listening to the various presidental candidates' pronouncements on this event gives me the impression that most of them hope to use this to their political advantage; McCain beating his chest and emphasizing his 'experience' in dealing with military matters, and Giuliani grabbing another pretext for reminding us of his superior leadership after 9/11. Thompson seems to be taking a similar tone, as also Hillary Clinton. It seems that overall, the assassination will be used to try to justify even more military (and political) intervention in the Middle East and to 'destroy Al Qaeda' at whatever cost to us in human life or money.
Only Ron Paul said what seems evident to me: our interventionist policies are at least in part a factor in this assassination and the whole chaotic picture there.
In an interview from a few months ago, Benazir Bhutto herself lent some credence to that view:
Fortunately for her, the West�s urgent fear of Pakistan as a breeding ground for terrorists has given Bhutto the chance to redefine herself. During most of her exile, she was considered irrelevant by Washington. Then she hired Hillary Clinton�s image-maker, Mark Penn, and began playing up to Musharraf.
When Musharraf�s popularity dove in 2007 after his jailing of judges, lawyers and journalists, Bhutto suddenly emerged as America�s "ideal." U.S. politicians needed her�progressive, secular, female, willing to compromise�to put a face of democracy on their support for Musharraf�s autocratic rule.
True to form, Bhutto manipulated Musharraf to erase the charges against her, promising not to return to Pakistan until after national elections. She then broke that promise. But once she sensed that even her stalwarts were appalled at an arranged political marriage to a dictator, she spurned Musharraf and became her own woman again.
I sense a dark reflection in both Bhutto�s psychological history and her country�s constant turmoil�a compulsion to repeat past traumas. A prime example is the way she returned to her country on Oct. 18.
Ignoring warnings of terrorist cells plotting to kill her, Bhutto presided from atop a caravan over a parade that took 10 hours to snake through Karachi. Near midnight, the streetlights went out. The police disappeared. Her feet swollen from standing, Bhutto ducked below into a steel command center to remove her sandals. Moments later, a bomb went off. "I had a sickening, sickening feeling," she tells me. She now believes the bomb was wired to an infant that a man had been trying to hand to her. She recalls saying to the people with her, "Don�t go outside�another blast will follow." It did.
[...]
Despite the corrosion of her reputation by corruption and compromise, Bhutto appears to be America�s strongest anchor in the effort to turn back the extremist Islamic tide threatening to engulf Pakistan. What would you like to tell President Bush? I ask this riddle of a woman.
She would tell him, she replies, that propping up Musharraf�s government, which is infested with radical Islamists, is only hastening disaster. "I would say, 'Your policy of supporting dictatorship is breaking up my country.� I now think al-Qaeda can be marching on Islamabad in two to four years."
It seems to me that our policy of meddling in the affairs of Islamic countries in particular comes at too high a cost and with too small a return. How has our experiment in 'democracy' worked so far? We have no great success stories to point to. A while back we were told that the 'elections' in Iraq were a great triumph, yet we can see now that those elections were not the turning point we were assured they would be. And how many lives and how many dollars have we spent since then?
Bhutto's assassination appears to be another instance of our meddling, in the name of 'democracy' and in fighting 'Islamofascism', resulting in unforeseen complications. Some are predicting civil war in Pakistan now, and even if that civil war does not materialize, Pakistan will still be a chaotic, terror-plagued country, and an unreliable 'ally' at best.
We will see whether this event leads to more military involvement on our part, and whether the hawkish candidates make political hay of this story. I am afraid that may be the case, but it may be just as likely that the substantial portion of the American people who are fed up with our 'war on terror' will balk at the idea of an escalation of that conflict, and a deployment of more troops to the Middle East. It could go either way.
Of course, reading the commentary over at the big GOP forums, it's easy to get the impression that this event whets the appetite for more military involvement. Many of the commenters agree very much with Andrew McCarthy's concluding comments:
But we should at least stop fooling ourselves. Jihadists are not going to be wished away, rule-of-lawed into submission, or democratized out of existence.
If you really want democracy and the rule of law in places like Pakistan, you need to kill the jihadists first. Or they�ll kill you, just like, today, they killed Benazir Bhutto.''
No, I can't agree with McCarthy there, though his piece made sense until that last paragraph or so.
Leaving aside the fact that we are not waging all-out war against jihadists or anybody else, but fighting a politically correct war against a 'few extremists' who are causing all the trouble, there is still the inescapable fact that, even if we were committed to all-out war against Islamic enemies, Moslems number between 1 billion and a billion and a half worldwide. Rather a staggering number, even if we believe that nonsense about only a 'tiny minority' being pro- jihad. How many troops can we marshal against such a numerous enemy, and in so many places? It's foolishness to think we can militarily defeat or wipe out 'jihadists' singlehandedly, or even with the pitifully few allies we have in our current 'war on terror.'
Since we can't destroy them, and since hoping to convert them either to another religion or to a milder, less violent form of Islam (which does not exist, by the way) the best we can do is to minimize involvement in their affairs. They have plenty of Islamic countries in which to practice their way of life; there is no need for them to be given entree to our countries in the West, because in doing so we entangle ourselves in their affairs and we give them political power in our countries. We have to let them run their countries as they see fit; what else can we do? We are not omnipotent, nor should we try to manipulate the whole world to our advantage. Doing so only increases the resentment and animosity that many Moslems and others already feel towards us.
That is far from saying that 'we cause Islamic terrorism', a position which many people try to attribute to Ron Paul, but it is apparent that the more involvement we have with Islam, the more we welcome Moslems into our country and the more we meddle in their countries, the greater the possibility of conflict and terrorism in our countries.
And there is simply the undeniable fact that we cannot work our will around the world; we cannot, physically, impose our way of life, and more importantly our way of thinking on alien peoples. They are not like us; the foolish utopian universalists on the right who imagine that everybody is interchangeable and that 'everybody wants democracy' are living in a delusional world. And even when given 'democracy', many in the Islamic world use it to install some very tyrannical regimes. Democracy in the sense of the vote or representative rule is only a method, it is not a guarantee that a free society will result.
We need to give up our messianism or our paternalism, and leave the people in the rest of the world to do what they like as long as they don't threaten us. But as long as we invade, intervene in, and invite, the world, we will have to deal with unfortunate consequences.

Labels: Interventionism, Islam, Jihad, Middle East, Presidential Candidates, Wilsonianism

From The Hill:
Tancredo slams Katrina spending
GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) said Friday it is "time the taxpayer gravy train left the New Orleans station" and urged an end to the federal aid to the region that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina two years ago.
"The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called 'recovery� efforts has been mind-boggling," said Tancredo, who is running a long-shot presidential campaign. "Enough is enough."
Citing administration figures, the lawmaker said that $114 billion has been spent on the effort to rebuild a large stretch of the Gulf Coast after the storm hit New Orleans in August 2005 and claimed more than 1,600 lives.
"At some point, state and local officials and individuals have got to step up to the plate and take some initiative," said Tancredo. "The mentality that people can wait around indefinitely for the federal taxpayer to solve all their worldly problems has got to come to an end."
I agree with him on the Katrina gravy train. Two years after Katrina, I am still stunned to read about people who are still drawing some kind of federal assistance money, such as living rent-free, thanks to taxpayers' money, and still complaining whenever the government tries to end their handouts. Two years is more than enough time for people to put their lives back together, and I agree with Tancredo that the taxpayer should not be seen as the perpetual sugar daddy.
Personally I am convinced that, if allowed, the professional 'Katrina victims' want to make their handouts permanent entitlements, that will continue for generations. After all, if we make excuses for people because their ancestors several generations back were slaves, why not offer that same advantage to descendants of Katrina victims?
But kudos to Tom Tancredo. He is hitting all the right notes, speaking truths that the other candidates avoid.
Even if Tancredo is a 'long shot candidate' as the old media never tire of telling us, his candidacy is a way to get a conservative message out there, because the 'leading' candidates are too timid or too subservient to stray outside the PC boundaries. We have become so unaccustomed to hearing a politician speak truth that we are shocked by what should be an everyday event.
I do hope that Tancredo, as a result of this candidacy, will gain in visibility and in influence, politically; there are far too few conservatives in national positions, and even fewer who have the kind of commitment to the pro-border enforcement cause that Tancredo has.

Labels: Conservatism, Politics, Presidential Candidates, Tom Tancredo

The CNN debate transcript, at least the first part of it, is here.
Just a few quotes, mostly on questions to do with immigration and sovereignty:
Ernie Nardi: This is Ernie Nardi from Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, New York, with a question for the ex-Mayor Giuliani.
Under your administration, as well as others, New York City was operated as a sanctuary city, aiding and abetting illegal aliens.
I would like to know, if you become president of the United States, will you continue to aid and abet the flight of illegal aliens into this country?
Cooper: Mayor Giuliani?
Giuliani: Ernie, that was a very good question. And the reality is that New York City was not a sanctuary city. (OFF-MIKE) single illegal immigrant that New York City could find that either committed a crime or was suspected of a crime. That was in the executive order originally done by Ed Koch, continued by David Dinkins and then done by me.
The reason for the confusion is, there were three areas in which New York City made an exception. New York City allowed the children of illegal immigrants to go to school. If we didn't allow the children of illegal immigrants to go to school, we would have had 70,000 children on the streets at a time in which New York City was going through a massive crime wave, averaging 2,000 murders a year, 10,000 felonies a week.
The other two exceptions related to care -- emergency care in the hospital and being able to report crimes. If we didn't allow illegals to report crimes, a lot of criminals would have gone free because they're the ones who had the information.
But, most important point is, we reported thousands and thousands and thousands of names of illegal immigrants who committed crimes to the immigration service. They did not deport them. And what we did, the policies that we had, were necessary because the federal policies weren't working.
The federal policies weren't working, stopping people coming into the United States. If I were president of the United States, I could do something about that by deploying a fence, by deploying a virtual fence, by having a BorderStat system like my COMSTAT system that brought down crime in New York, and just stopping people from coming in, and then having a tamper-proof ID card.
Cooper: Time.
Governor Romney, was New York a sanctuary city?
Romney: Absolutely. It called itself a sanctuary city. And as a matter of fact, when the welfare reform act that President Clinton brought forward said that they were going to end the sanctuary policy of New York City, the mayor actually brought a suit to maintain its sanctuary city status.
And the idea that they reported any illegal alien that committed a crime -- how about the fact that the people who are here illegally have violated the law? They didn't report everybody they found that was here illegally.
And this happens to be a difference between Mayor Giuliani and myself and probably others on this stage as well, which is we're going to have to recognize in this country that we welcome people here legally.
But the mayor said -- and I quote almost verbatim -- which is if you happen to be in this country in an undocumented status -- and that means you're here illegally -- then we welcome you here. We want you here. We'll protect you here.
That's the wrong attitude. Instead, we should say if you're here illegally, you should not be here. We're not going to give you benefits, other than those required by the law, like health care and education, and that's the course we're going to have to pursue.
Cooper: Mayor Giuliani?
Giuliani: It's unfortunate, but Mitt generally criticizes people in a situation in which he's had far the -- worst record.
For example, in his case, there were six sanctuary cities. He did nothing about them.
There was even a sanctuary mansion. At his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed, not being turned into anybody or by anyone. And then when he deputized the police, he did it two weeks before he was going to leave office, and they never even seemed to catch the illegal immigrants that were working at his mansion. So I would say he had sanctuary mansion, not just sanctuary city.
Cooper: All right. I have to allow Governor Romney to respond...
Romney: Mayor, you know better than that.
(Laughter)
Giuliani: No ...
Romney: OK, then listen. All right? Then listen. First of all ...
Giuliani: You did have illegal immigrants working at your mansion, didn't you?
Romney: No, I did not, so let's just talk about that. Are you suggesting, Mr. Mayor -- because I think it is really kind of offensive actually to suggest, to say look, you know what, if you are a homeowner and you hire a company to come provide a service at your home -- paint the home, put on the roof. If you hear someone that is working out there, not that you have employed, but that the company has.
If you hear someone with a funny accent, you, as a homeowner, are supposed to go out there and say, "I want to see your papers."
Is that what you're suggesting?
Giuliani: What I'm suggesting is, if you ...
(Crosstalk)
Giuliani: If you're going to take this holier than thou attitude, that your whole approach to immigration...
Romney: I'm sorry, immigration is not holier than thou, Mayor. It's the law.
Giuliani: If you're going to take this holier than thou attitude that you are perfect on immigration...
Romney: I'm not perfect.
Giuliani: ... it just happens you have a special immigration problem that nobody else up here has. You were employing illegal immigrants. That is a pretty serious thing. They were under your nose.
(Applause)
And ...
Romney: I ask the mayor again. Are you suggesting, Mayor, that if you have a company that you hired who provide a service, that you now are responsible for going out and checking the employees of that company, particularly those that might look different or don't have an accent like yours, and ask for their papers -- I don't think that's American, number one.
Number two ...
Cooper: We got to move on.
Romney: Let me tell you what I did as governor. I said no to driver's licenses for illegals.
I said, number two, we're going to make sure that those that come here don't get a tuition break in our schools, which I disagree with other folks on that one.
(Applause)
Number three, I applied to have our state police enforce the immigration laws in May, seven months before I was out of office.
It took the federal government a long time to get the approvals and we enforced the law. And Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, and the policies of the mayor of pursuing a sanctuary nation or pursuing a sanctuary city...
Cooper: We've got a number ...
Romney: ... are, frankly, wrong.
Cooper: We've got a number of questions from our viewers on this topic, so we have a lot more to talk about on this. You will have another chance to respond.
(Applause)
Giuliani: And it's really hard -- it's really hard to have employer sanctions...
(Audience booing)
Cooper: All right. Let's play this next video from the same topic.
(Begin video clip)
Michael Weitz: Good evening. There are thousands of people in Canada and Mexico waiting to come to America legally. They want to become American citizens. They want to be part of the American dream. Yet, there are those in the Senate that want to grant amnesty for those that come here illegally.
Will you pledge tonight, if elected president, to veto any immigration bill that involves amnesty for those that have come here illegally?
Thank you.
Cooper: Senator Thompson?
(Applause)
Thompson: Yes, I pledge that. A nation that cannot and will not defend its own borders will not forever remain a sovereign nation. And it's unfair...
(Applause)
We have -- we have thousands of people standing in line at embassies around the world to become United States American citizens, to come here to get a green card, to come here and to assimilate and be a part of our culture. They are part of what has made our country great. Some of our better citizens. We all know them and love them.
Now, it's our country together -- their's and ours, now together. It's our home. And we now get to decide who comes into our home.
And to place somebody above them or in front of them in line is the wrong thing to do.
We've got to strengthen the border. We've got to enforce the border. We've got to punish employers -- employers who will not obey the law. And we've got to eliminate sanctuary cities and say to sanctuary cities, if you continue this, we're going to cut off federal funding for you, you're not going to do it with federal money.
(Applause)
Now, there are parts of what both of these gentlemen have just said that I would like to associate myself with.
First of all, of course, Governor Romney supported the Bush immigration plan until a short time ago. Now he's taken another position, surprisingly.
(Laughter)
As far as Mayor Giuliani is concerned, I am a little surprised the mayor says, you know, everybody's responsible for everybody that they hire, but we'll have to address that a little bit further later. I think we've all had people probably that we have hired that in retrospect probably is a bad decision.
(Laughter)
He did have a sanctuary city. In 1996, I helped pass a bill outlawing sanctuary cities. The mayor went to court to overturn it. So, if it wasn't a sanctuary city, I'd call that a frivolous lawsuit.
(Applause)''
One question to Tom Tancredo was from a man who said he 'needed' guest workers for his business, and he wanted to know what Tancredo would do to help him.
...Well, I'll tell you, I'm not going to aid any more immigration into this country, because in fact, immigration...
(Applause)
... massive immigration into the country, massive immigration, both legal and illegal, does a couple of things.
One of it is, makes it difficult for us to assimilate. The other thing is that it does take jobs.
I reject the idea -- I reject the idea, categorically, that there are jobs that, quote, "No American will take." I reject it.
(Applause)
Now, what they will do...
(Applause)
... what you can say -- what you absolutely can say to these people is that there are no -- there are some jobs Americans won't take for what I can get any illegal immigrant to do that job for. Yes, that's true.
But am I going to feel sorry if a business has to increase its wages in order for somebody in this country to make a good living? No, I don't feel sorry about that and I won't apologize for it for a moment. And there are plenty of Americans who will do those jobs.
(Applause)
[...]
Cooper: We've got another question from a YouTube watcher. Let's watch, please.
YouTube question: Good evening, candidates. This is (inaudible) from Arlington, Texas, and this question is for Ron Paul.
I've met a lot of your supporters online, but I've noticed that a good number of them seem to buy into this conspiracy theory regarding the Council of Foreign Relations, and some plan to make a North American union by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico.
These supporters of yours seem to think that you also believe in this theory. So my question to you is: Do you really believe in all this, or are people just putting words in your mouth?
Cooper: Congressman Paul, 90 seconds.
Paul: Well, it all depends on what you mean by "all of this." the CFR exists, the Trilateral Commission exists. And it's a, quote, "conspiracy of ideas." This is an ideological battle. Some people believe in globalism. Others of us believe in national sovereignty.
And there is a move on toward a North American union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and it eventually ended up.
And there is a move on toward a North American Union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and eventually ended up. So we had NAFTA and moving toward a NAFTA highway. These are real things. It's not somebody made these up. It's not a conspiracy. They don't talk about it, and they might not admit about it, but there's been money spent on it. There was legislation passed in the Texas legislature unanimously to put a halt on it. They're planning on millions of acres taken by eminent domain for an international highway from Mexico to Canada, which is going to make the immigration problem that much worse.
So it's not so much a secretive conspiracy, it's a contest between ideologies, whether we believe in our institutions here, our national sovereignty, our Constitution, or are we going to further move into the direction of international government, more U.N.
You know, this country goes to war under U.N. resolutions. I don't like big government in Washington, so I don't like this trend toward international government. We have a WTO that wants to control our drug industry, our nutritional products. So, I'm against all that.
But it's not so much as a sinister conspiracy. It's just knowledge is out there. If we look for it, you'll realize that our national sovereignty is under threat.
Cooper: Congressman Paul, thank you.
(Applause)''
Reading through the transcript it does appear that Romney and Huckabee had a sharp exchange over the immigration issue, specifically over tuition breaks for illegals. When reminded of his favoring children of illegals in that respect, Huckabee resorted to claiming the moral high ground by saying we are a 'better country' than to punish children for their parents' acts. And then Huckabee went into his Abraham Lincoln-esque story about coming up from poverty.
In all, the debate doesn't seem to have revealed anything I didn't already know, and it confirmed my already-existing perceptions of the candidates. I think this series of debates (which are not real debates, anyway) have done little but produce a certain campaign fatigue in many of us; I'm hearing people say they are sick of the election and the candidates.
Any thoughts?

Labels: American Sovereignty, Amnesty, Elections, Gop Ron Paul, Illegal Immigration, Presidential Candidates, Presidential Debates

I've been looking at the coverage of the Constitution Party nomination of Chuck Baldwin, and it's much as I expected.
Surprisingly, though, the Fox News coverage (see the video here) was rather fair and even-handed.
But here, the headline seems biased:
Constitution Party chooses talk-show host over Keyes for presidential nomination
Meeting in Kansas City on Saturday, the Constitution Party tapped talk show host Chuck Baldwin over former ambassador Alan Keyes as its 2008 presidential nominee.
The pick was seen as something of an upset, given Keyes� higher national profile. Known for his fiery stemwinders, Keyes is a two-time GOP presidential candidate who abandoned the Republican Party this month to join the Constitution Party, which stands for limited government and is committed to ending abortion and bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq.
But Baldwin�s roots in the Constitution Party run deeper. He was the party�s 2004 vice-presidential candidate, and party members said his stands were more in line with party thinking.
Still, the two waged a fierce battle in the days leading up to the vote, described as the most contentious in the party�s 16-year history. Baldwin wound up winning easily, 384-126. The Missouri and Kansas delegations basically split their votes between the two.
"They just rejected the most qualified man to be president," said Tom Hoefling of Lohrville, Iowa, who is Keyes� national political director. "Chuck Baldwin will have no impact on this election whatsoever."
And Keyes would have an impact?! Keyes, who has already run twice for president, and who couldn't even make a go of his cable TV show, or talk radio?
I see that the Freepers are reacting to this news with their usual knee-jerk responses. About 25 percent on the thread I read are conservative enough to recognize that Baldwin is the real deal, while another 25 percent seem to think Keyes is by far the better man (Keyes has a small cult among Freepers, some of whom are still looking for their personal black conservative hero), while close to 50 percent on the thread are already sneering and jeering.
The Constitution Party can't win; Baldwin, they say, is an unknown (unlike the household name, Keyes, I take it) and the CP is full of 'fruit loops' and losers.
At least reading the discussion over there, I am reminded once again just why I want nothing more to do with the Republican Party.
The mere fact that so many people in both parties, but especially, it seems, on the ''right'' are so quick to declare all third parties as hopeless causes, and as havens for 'nutjobs' and crazies, explains very well why we now have two dysfunctional parties with a strangehold on our political system.
As long as there are so many diehard party loyalists who think that straying from our two divinely-ordained political parties will result in the end of the world, we will never find our way out of the maze we are in.
At what point will these hard-heads and dimwits realize that the system as it is ain't working -- or at least, if it is working, it is not working for the American people? If our present sorry state of things does not break people of their dependency on the two-party system, nothing will.
We all just witnessed a combination of our malevolent media and obtuse citizens reject the candidacy of a good man, Ron Paul. For many months, since Ron Paul first announced his candidacy, we've heard the news media ridicule and dismiss him, on those rare occasions when they deigned to notice him at all, and we've heard every village idiot in the country proclaim 'no third party can win. You're throwing your vote away if you vote third party.' Or this one: ''if you vote third party you are just helping to elect a Democrat, and it will be your fault when [Hillary/Obama] is in the White House''.
This kind of ''thinking'' is what will guarantee that our situation only goes from bad to worse. This stubborn cluelessness is what has allowed our two monopolistic parties to flout the will of their constituents, and to go rogue. The political classes know that they don't even have to pay attention to the will of the people; they know that there are enough docile, knee-jerk loyalists who think they have 'nowhere else to go' who will vote for them and continue contributing to their candidacies and to the Party, regardless of their defiance of us and their open contempt for us.
Is there a chance that we can learn from the experience with Dr. Paul's candidacy and avoid letting the media and the obstructionists among us marginalize Chuck Baldwin's candidacy too? This may well be our last chance to stand up for traditional American principles before the demographic tidal wave washes away the last real vestiges of our political power. There is a lot at stake in this election, and yet I see a state of torpor among many in this country, or a kind of passivity born of resignation and cynicism. I see too many people who are beaten already, who are convinced that nothing we can do will make a difference, so why even try?
There are so many who have been thoroughly convinced that the two-party system is inevitable and forever; we can't change it, so we are foolish to try.
With such defeatist attitudes, of course these lugubrious predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies. We can't change things precisely because people have been convinced that we can't.
Either we try to rekindle the old American can-do spirit and the spirit of independence of mind, or we just give up and shuffle off the stage of history, leaving it to the invading hordes and their multiculturalist collaborators.
We have another chance now; let's make the most of it.

Labels: Constitution Party, Gop, Party Politics, Presidential Candidates, Third Party

I cast my vote today. After a lot of soul-searching about what choice to make, it is something of a relief to have the voting process done and over with, for myself at least. Now I can be at peace about it, knowing that I made a conscientious choice that seemed, given the available choices, the best one.
I see that The Economist editors have decreed that ''It's Time". Time for Obama to be President. He's earned it, they inform us.
In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.''
It's not as though this is surprising, coming from The Economist. They are not conservative, but globalist/corporatist in their overall philosophy. I let my subscription lapse some time ago because I got tired of their always pontificating about the Third World or "the poor world" vs. "the rich world", the latter being us, of course. It's clear they favor mass immigration to the 'rich world' and they favor the globalist agenda generally. There is nothing conservative about that.
But the idea that Obama has earned the presidency is absurd. They say the way he has conducted his campaign is persuasive.
What I think they are really saying is the same thing that Obama fans have said: ''it's time." The idea is that "it's time" for a black President. Like Hillary's female followers said, "it's time" for a woman President.
What kind of idiocy is this "it's time" mantra? If we choose our Presidents that way, why have elections, why have requirements for holding the office? Let's just pick one of every kind, every race, creed, nationality, sexual preference, gender (don't let's leave out 'transgendered' people!) and language. Why not? Take turns, now, children. It sounds like kindergarten: everybody gets a turn. So now it's blacks' turn.
A modest proposal: I propose we just throw some names into a big barrel, like in a raffle or lottery, and draw them out at random. It would save enormous amounts of money that is now squandered on these overblown 'campaigns', which are tiresome, dishonest, and generally useless. It would be eminently 'fair' if all you care about is giving people of every race, nationality, and so on a ''turn" at running the country. For example since somebody somewhere has decided "it's time" for a black President, we could just throw a lot of black people's names into the barrel and draw one out at random. We might want to discard all the requirements for the Presidency, too, They are probably racist and they certainly are 'discriminatory.' After all, allowing only citizens to be President is unfair, isn't it? Oh, wait: it looks as though that requirement is now being ignored anyway, suspended so as not to 'discriminate' against Obama, who refuses to prove his citizenship.
After we have a black president, will it ever be "time" for a White President again, especially a White male president? Somehow I have doubts about that. A precedent will be established, and then the Republicans will have to run a nonwhite candidate. I am sure they have somebody in mind, even now. And in the future, Hispanics, by sheer numerical superiority, will be in the drivers' seat.
I don't know which way the election will go; I did my (small) part as a citizen and we will have to wait until Tuesday (at least) to learn the outcome. I hope people will vote for the best (among the less-than-stellar choices) and not vote out of spite against fellow Americans, or vote for the worst in hopes of a backlash. Too much is at stake to take chances or gamble on extremely long shots.
The Economist says:
America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world.''
I prefer not to gamble with the future of this country; my family, like a lot of American families, has a great deal invested in this country. At great risk and cost to themselves, our forefathers settled, created, and sustained this country for centuries (since the early 1600s, in the case of many of us). To roll the dice with the future of this land, to risk our progeny's future is not a chance we should want to take.

Labels: Political Campaigns, Political Correctness, Presidential Candidates

We've all been watching the discussion of the citizenship questions regarding Obama. I've said almost nothing about it because the whole subject is so complicated, seemingly, that it makes my head swim to try to sort it out. And regardless of what some critics say, we don't know for certain where Obama was born; the question of his birthplace is far from settled.
According to World Net Daily, there is a Chasm dividing Americans over birth certificate
The chasm between those who want President-elect Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate to verify his eligibility to hold the nation's highest office and those who simply support the Democrat is widening.
"The Constitution means what we today decide it means," opined one participant on a new WND forum that offers readers an opportunity to express their opinion on the birth certificate dispute.''
[Emphasis mine]
So as in all things, Obama proves to be a polarizing, divisive figure, as the article shows us. The fact that many Americans hold to the 'Humpty Dumpty' school of thought on the Constitution is troubling. Remember in Alice in Wonderland, when Humpty Dumpty told Alice that ''a word means precisely what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less"? Such is the attitude most liberals and other uninformed people hold in regard to that shifting, changing, ''living" collection of words called the Constitution.
Here is the latest discussion from Texas Darlin's blog on the natural-born citizenship question. Make of it what you will. I am not sure the truth will ever be known, so I am not devoting too much time or energy to trying to solve the legal puzzles.
And over at Free Republic, someone posted a link to a .pdf file which is from a legal publication, discussing this topic. You can download the file at the link; it's 20-some pages long but if you are savvy in legal and constitutional matters, you might find it interesting.
Amending Natural-born citizen requirements
However, at Webster's Blogspot, Terry Morris raises a more important question:
...let us say, hypothetically, that it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Hussein O. is not a natural born U.S. citizen prior to, or early in his actual presidency. What would be the result? A commenter named Mark has speculated over at Reflecting Light that Congress would quickly initiate an amendment proposal to retroactively qualify Hussein O. for the presidency, and that the requisite number of states (three fourths) would happily ratify it as a show of their non-racism and non-discriminationism.''
Terry asks readers' opinions as to what might happen if this scenario actually happened.
I say that this is the more important question because I think there may be a larger plan here to push the issue of the 'natural-born citizen' requirement for the presidency. I have been getting the impression for a few years now, in light of the move towards a ''global society" and the erosion of the whole idea of nationality, that there is a plan to remove the citizenship restrictions on presidential candidates.
But suppose it's brought to light that the president-elect is either not a native-born citizen, or that he holds dual citizenship? There would be quite a commotion should he be disqualified after the fact, and especially should his disqualification be on the basis of what most Americans would consider an obscure technicality.
Consider that we are being dragged into this new 'global age', into a supposed New World Order in which nationality and national citizenship will be stripped of their importance, if not abolished altogether. Who better to inaugurate this new order than someone of mixed parentage, a cosmopolitan, transnational upbringing, and ambiguous birth, namely, our president-elect? This may be the very reason he was likely groomed and propelled to the presidency in such a head-spinningly short period of time.
This section from the .pdf file linked above from FR confirms what I have been thinking:
The natural born citizen clause of the United States Constitution should be repealed for numerous reasons. Limiting presidential eligibility to natural born citizens discriminates against naturalized citizens, is out-dated and undemocratic, and incorrectly assumes that birthplace is a proxy for loyalty. The increased globalization of the world continues to make each of these reasons more persuasive. As the world becomes smaller and cultures become more similar through globalization, the natural born citizen clause has increasingly become out of place in the American legal system. However, even though globalization strengthens the case for a Constitutional amendment, many Americans argue against abolishing the requirement. In a recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll taken November 19�21, 2004, only 31% of the respondents favored a constitutional amendment to abolish the natural born citizen requirement while 67% opposed such an amendment.12 Although some of the reasons for maintaining the natural born citizen requirement are rational, many of the reasons are based primarily on emotion.
Therefore, although globalization is one impetus that should drive Americans to rely on reason and amend the Constitution, this paper argues that common perceptions about globalization ironically will convince Americans to rely on emotion and oppose a Constitutional amendment.
Part one of this paper provides a brief history and overview of the natural born citizen requirement. Part two discusses the rational reasons for abolishing this requirement and describes why the increase in globalization makes abolishing the natural born citizen requirement more necessary than ever. Part three presents the arguments against allowing naturalized citizens to be eligible for the presidency and identifies common beliefs about globalization that will cause Americans to rely on emotion and oppose a Constitutional amendment.
Now, think of it this way: if someone had tried to introduce the idea a year or more ago, it probably would not have aroused much interest or much support, outside the usual leftist circles. I am sure most Americans gave little thought to the possibility of a non-citizen president, or a president with dual citizenship, which may be the present situation. So an initiative on this issue would have gone nowhere, most likely.
But when the issue is personalized, around a candidate who has so many zealous followers, a personality who seems to evoke such a strong emotional response, it stands a much better chance of attracting support.
All this secrecy and subterfuge about the birth certificate, and the presentation of such an obvious fake Certificate of Live Birth on the Internet may have been fostered in order to start the public talking about the citizenship requirements for the Presidency, and it might also have served the purpose of creating opposition which would cause the Obama supporters to rally around their Dear Leader, seeing him as the target of 'bigoted' attacks from the right.
I know someone will mention Occam's Razor, and imply that I am reading too much into this, but I think it's certainly a possibility. Even if this is not part of an overall plan to push the idea that the citizenship requirement is 'discriminatory' and 'unfair', it's probably likely that the Democrats and the left generally are milking this for what it is worth. Count on the fact that they want to pull down all our traditional fences and safeguards. Anything which furthers the global, anti-national agenda is on their to-do list.

Labels: Citizenship, Constitution, Globalism, Presidential Candidates

''...McWhorter suggests we're in a transitional phase in the way people feel about race as a national obsession. In the short run, "I suspect that where we are going is whites feeling ever more that it's time we blacks get over it, while an ever shrinking population of blacks continue hoping that whites will change their tune and 'wake up,' " he says. But this too shall (eventually) pass. "In about 50 years," he adds, "we will be so hybrid a nation that any idea of black-white relations as a major problem in need of address will seem archaic."
The above comments from John McWhorter, who is often touted as one of the 'moderate' or 'conservative' blacks, are part of the concluding paragraph from a piece called Double Vision: The Race Issue Revisited from AdWeek.
According to Ron Guhname at Inductivist, McWhorter said on the Laura Ingraham show that he is supporting Obama.
...he plans to vote for Obama for president because of the tremendously positive psychological effect that it will have on blacks. Hope will be felt like never before, and race hustlers like nut surgeon Jesse Jackson won't be taken seriously anymore.''
Mr. McWhorter, in all his racial excitement, must have neglected to read yesterday's New York Times poll:
The results of the poll... suggested that Mr. Obama�s candidacy, while generating high levels of enthusiasm among black voters, is not seen by them as evidence of significant improvement in race relations.
For the first time ever, the person who is one step away from the most powerful position in the world is black, but still blacks folks don't think things are getting better?!''
Guhname is skeptical of the 'vote-for-Obama-because-worse-is-better' meme which has taken a stubborn hold among some on the right. McWhorter thinks that an Obama presidency will give blacks 'hope' while polls suggest they don't see the prospect of an Obama presidency as any evidence of 'progress.' So what will change after January 20, 2009?
The AdWeek piece on the race issue contains the usual PC boilerplate. Nothing much to see there, but there is confirmation of some of the trends many of us have noticed:
If some white people are insensitive to the travails of their black compatriots, some are very, very sensitive -- and proud of it. "There's now a kind of white person under 30 who thinks of himself as an 'honorary' black person [because he's so highly aware that] the playing field isn't level," says John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Center for Race and Ethnicity, and author of the just-published All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can't Save Black America. "Quite simply, the 'playing field' issue means that blackness is thought of as a problem, which is not where we need to go." Moreover, he says, this sort of hyper-consciousness leads to such white people "thinking they can 'be' something that you cannot 'be' unless you were born to it.
[...]
There's clearly a sizable white constituency that welcomes the prospect of an Obama victory as a sign that America has already become a post-racial society -- that the struggle of race is behind us. This sentiment also influences the way in which people react to popular culture, advertising included.
It's obvious to anyone who watches TV that the content of advertising has become more inclusive, and not just in the form of "black" versions of "white" commercials. We see easy-going interaction between the races in recent spots for everything from Miracle-Gro plant food and McDonald's Happy Meals to Levi's jeans.
David Lubars, chairman, CCO of BBDO North America, suggests advertising content is a pop-culture leader in its inclusiveness. "Advertising does a much better job of showing diversity and reflects the American fabric better than the movies or TV shows," he says. "You watch any evening of TV commercials, you see a great mix."
The piece is full of the usual smug PC platitudes on race, and it's clear that the advertising industry has an agenda other than inducing people to buy products or services. They are selling an agenda, trying to shape society towards ends that they see as moral and good. Should that not be the province of clergy and philosophers, not advertisers? Oh, for the good old days of advertising when they were merely pushing widgets or toothpaste or soap. Now they are shaping the world we live in, leading us in directions that we might not go if we were approached more directly, rather than insidiously as with today's advertising.
McWhorter's support for Obama is not surprising; blood is thicker than politics, as we've said before. The idea that Obama's election will inaugurate not only the first black president, but new heavens and a new earth, will prove to have been a fantasy, I'm afraid. It is too big a gamble on a long shot to think that some kind of new consciousness will awaken in White people. As the AdWeek article says, we have a large constituency of White people, especially the under-30s, who see themselves as 'honorary blacks', by virtue of their great sensitivity. One of these days, these people will be in the ascendancy, and an Obama presidency will probably be the beginning of the end of the old America.
The idea of hoping for an Obama débâcle to 'wake people up' reminds me of the idea many non-Christians have about Christian believers. I've heard the accusation made that 'fundamentalists', believing in the impending End Times, want to hasten Armageddon in the Middle East so as to provoke Christ's return and thus inaugurate the 'new heavens and a new earth' promised us. The fact is, I've never encountered a Christian in real life or even on the wild-and-wooly internet who thinks that way, or who would say 'bring on Armageddon!' so as to hasten Christ's second coming. But isn't that the thinking behind the 'worse is better' scenario? Bring it on, so that the millennium will follow? As for me, I have no thoughts of hastening the tribulation. I believe we should work to delay this 'worse' that is supposedly inevitable.
And let's keep in mind that last paragraph I quoted at the beginning of this piece. McWhorter thinks that it will take half a century for our people to be 'hybridized' out of existence. I see it happening much sooner, if things don't turn around, and I am not sure that speeding the process up, which is what an Obama presidency would do, is helpful.

Labels: Advertising, Anti White Racism, Elections, Presidential Candidates, Propaganda, Racial Division, Racial Guilt

A few Obama-related links:
First, Barack Hussein Obama and the Triumph of Marxism
Fjordman's latest on Obama.
Several of the links following contain some information about Obama which certainly calls into question the facts presented by the candidate himself and his campaign people. However, I've been halfhearted about posting links of this kind because I think most of my readers have no illusions about Obama, and those who really should read these things and consider them objectively will not do so, being fully indoctrinated members of the cult. So it may be preaching to the choir to post these links, and I suspect most of you are aware of the information contained therein, having already read it at the linked sites or elsewhere. But I present the links as rather interesting information, raising further questions.
These links have some interesting information about Obama's vague past, and the many gaps and unanswered questions.
Pamela at Atlas Shrugs compiled an impressive amount of information about Obama's birth, and notes the discrepancies between the official story, and the (rather scant) existing public information.
This rather odd story from the Times UK introduces readers to Obama's 'auntie' living in public housing in Boston, and his uncle, both described as coping with the "harsh realities" of immigrant life in the U.S.
And last, but certainly not least, Steve Sailer has made his new book on Obama available online at VDare. It's available in .pdf format, and can be downloaded. I've downloaded it, but I have not yet started reading it. Have any of you?
The .pdf file is here: America's Half-blood Prince: Barack Obama's Story of Race and Inheritance

Labels: Blogosphere, Media Bias, Presidential Candidates

A while back, I read this piece called The GOP: A house divided by Darvin Dowdy. It seemed to me that there is a lot of truth in the blogger's assessment of the state of the Republican Party, and more importantly, conservatism and the country at large.
The GOP has divided like some amoeba on a glass slide under a microscope.
There are the Globalists that continue to warn the various GOP candidates and politicians that they will damage their political careers if they take the side of those wanting to seal the border and strictly enforce existing immigration laws. They blame the discontent by GOP voters on the Iraq War, run-away federal spending and scandalous behavior by elected GOP politicians. They delight in pointing to the downfall of those who have taken strong enforcement first stances. J.D. Hayworth lost his congressional seat in Arizona after taking a tough stance on the border. George Allen of Virginia lost his senate seat, some say for the same reason. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. And in the current presidential race the campaigns of both hard line border enforcement candidates, Hunter and Tancredo appear to be sinking like a rock. Their fundraising efforts a total joke. Or so these geopolitical elitists would want us to believe.
And then there�s our side of the divided amoeba. We don�t really have "advisers" and "strategists" telling us what our next move should be. We live every day with the reality of illegal immigration and its negative, downward pull on our social structure. We�ve observed the illegals banding together, marching in the streets of America. Streets that we as taxpayers have paid to build. We saw them waving Mexican flags and burning American flags. Their monumental ingratitude. We�ve watched our politicians allow these illegal hordes to invade our nation and enjoy rights and privileges that actually accede our own. And when we dared to raise complaints regarding this dangerous and worsening situation these same politicians, that we elected, presented us with disrespect, insults and intimidation. Yet we fight on to maintain and protect our nations sovereignty.
Sadly, we are losing. The globalists controlling our party seem to be gaining the upper hand. Both Hunter and Tancredo are nearly out of cash. The other candidates , good men all, will simply not remain on our side in the long term, in my view. They are making all the correct noises now because they want our votes. But when the battle gets intense they�ll fall back on they�re long proven expertise � the art of compromise.''
This piece was written before Tancredo dropped out of the campaign, but the writer asks where the donors are for candidates like Tancredo and Hunter? That is a good question; why are their campaigns seemingly underfunded? We see the same phenomenon, though, in the case of McCain and Huckabee, who seem not to be raising much money.
So the question begs to be answered � why? Why have the campaigns of Hunter and Tancredo faltered? Certainly its not lack of support. Duncan Hunter recently left the entire GOP pack in the dust in the Texas Straw Poll. No one was even close. He�s also won other straw polls. Tancredo did well in the recent Iowa straw. Why are they so upside down in the fundraising department? Would it be fair to say that their followers are a bunch of dunces who go about waving their flags and emotions in the air? Who are so stupid that they can�t figure out that it takes money to run a campaign? God forbid as I count myself among them. Well the jury is not yet in on that verdict yet. But honestly, something simply doesn�t add up. About 60% of Americans support tougher enforcement of immigration laws. Hunter and Tancredo both have large followings. So where are the donors?
Where the heck are these so called Border Watch groups, I ask? Groups like the Minutemen Project? And U.S. Border Watch? Jim Gilchrist�s Wake Up America? And U.S. Border Control? And these are just a few. There are many more org�s of this nature. But when you visit these sites you see no open support for Hunter or Tancredo. No ads, banners or anything. You can�t tell me that there isn�t a way to, legally, get the word out to their members regarding the fundraising woe�s of these 2 candidates. My gosh the entire Borders/Illegals issue is at stake! Certainly the decision makers within these organizations must have enough snap to know that without enlightened politicians and originalist judges on the bench our cause of U.S. sovereignty is doomed! Many of the org�s have become bogged down in the details and have lost sight of the mission. I ask all who read this to begin some kind of email campaign or other correspondence to these org�s immediately. Especially those who might be members of such groups. Put pressure on them to more aggressively work for our 2 valiant candidates Hunter and/or Tancredo. Withhold your donations to these groups until they regain the correct priorities. Inform them, if they don�t know, of the dire fundraising situation that our 2 candidates face and encourage them to formulate an action plan to help keep these campaigns effective financially. These candidates can not be effective without TV/Radio campaigns and that takes money. ''
Given the fact that most Americans favor controlling our borders and stopping illegal immigration, it is suprising that there doesn't seem to be much financial support for restrictionist candidates and groups. Why is that?
So while the fundraising efforts of our valiant candidates Hunter and Tancredo continue to sink into the quagmire, the globalists that have hijacked "our" GOP are standing around in the shadows having a good laugh at our expense. Snickering at us. Also sinking into the quagmire is our cause of sealing the borders and insisting that our elected officials see to it that immigration laws are strictly enforced. Why should they listen to us? We can�t even keep our own candidates in a liquid financial state. So to all of you who still believe that the notion of national sovereign borders is not an antiquated, obsolete concept, I ask you, do you enjoy the sting of defeat? How do you like being laughed at, rebuked and put back into your place by the elitists?
I also put forth the question � is it too late to reverse this negative trend? Is there still time? I believe there is time but none to waste. I welcome your comments. And who is your least-favorite GOP open borders globalist? ''
Why is it that there is so little money going into the restrictionist cause, seemingly? Do we not believe in the people who are heading up these groups? Given the recent Huckabee/Gilchrist/Simcox stories, it would seem there might be some cause for skepticism now. Will that recent bad publicity lead to further fracturing and weakening of the restrictionist cause? Will Tancredo's dropping out further harm the movement -- especially as it appears there is no 'top tier' candidate to take up the mantle of Tancredo?
It seems as if the Republican Party is more divided now than it has been in my memory, and the divisions are stark and rather bitter in some cases. The liberal wing of the Party is contemptuous of the conservative wing, and expects the latter to obediently go along with the liberal GOP agenda and to expect nothing in return.
The party rank-and-file are being asked to choose between various liberal candidates, each of whom has been anointed as being 'electable', and to simply accept that these choices are the only available options.
It seems to me that this aura of 'electability' is bestowed by the media and the party elites, and that simply the title of 'electable' becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These candidates are 'electable' only if we accept the inevitability of their election -- which too many seem to do. If we say in advance that only these 'top tier' candidates stand a chance, we are taking away the voters' right to choose for themselves. It ain't over till it's over. Neither the biased old media nor the party elites have the right to tell us who can be elected or who can't. If they can make that decision for us, they've essentially taken away our voice in the election.

Labels: Conservatism, Elections, Gop, Party Politics, Presidential Candidates

I've been following the discussion about McCain's picking Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.
I must admit I was surprised by the choice, though it will have no effect on my own vote.
I have to say I am also surprised by all the buzz generated by the choice, and by Governor Palin herself; she has seemed to impress many people favorably, even on the Democrat side of the aisle, with a number of disgruntled Hillary supporters enthused about the addition of Palin to the ticket.
Predictably the Democrats are calling the choice 'tokenism' and there are the expected personal insults: she is a 'right-wing extremist' and a 'Nazi sympathizer' for having worn a Buchanan button during his visit to her town in 2000. Some Republicans on other forums dislike her because she is 'extreme' on social issues, with some even criticizing her choice NOT to abort her Down's Syndrome child. Some Republicans say she represents the triumph of 'affirmative action' in the GOP, and say that McCain was pandering to feminists by naming her. Though he's shown he's certainly not above pandering to certain constituencies, I think he may have been 'reaching out' not to Republican women, who, one supposes, would be less inclined to seek such pandering, but to unhappy Hillary supporters. He's always fostered the 'maverick' image, and has seemed more often than not to be courting liberals/Democrats rather than Republicans, who he likely thinks will swallow their dissatisfaction and vote for him after all, as 'good Republicans' generally do. I think he knows that many Hillary supporters are quite angry about the treatment their candidate received by the anointed candidate, and I think he is right; there are quite a few who are ready to jump ship and vote GOP this time, which is not a frequent occurrence among Democrats. I know some Democrats, mainly women, who have already threatened to vote GOP, and this may well confirm that decision for them.
So, given McCain's tendency to try to cross party lines and appeal to the liberals on the left side of the aisle, it isn't surprising that he would try to snag some female votes by choosing Palin.
Some argue that Palin is not likely to win many feminist votes, considering her very conservative views on social issues, namely abortion and gay marriage. But that belief is probably based on a misconception about how radical many Democrat 'feminists' are. The extreme left wing of the Democrat Party is its public face, but there are many rank-and-file average women out there whose 'feminism' consists mostly of rather middle-of-the-road ideas about having more women elected to various political offices or about equality in the workplace. Not all who call themselves feminists are as socially radical as those who have the loudest voices in the Democrat Party; not all women have abortion as their number one issue, or gay marriage.
Some of these women are realistic enough to know that legal abortion is not under threat in this country; it just isn't likely that Roe v. Wade will be reversed anytime soon, so all the scare tactics of the left are just rhetoric. Some younger single women may consider abortion very important, but I think there are many more who are not as concerned about it when it comes time to cast their ballots.
I don't know what Palin's positions are on issues that are all-important to me, such as immigration (note that I said 'immigration', not 'illegal immigration') or affirmative action or homeschooling or hate crime laws. I have tried to find information about her positions, but there seems to be little information as to her positions. I would say that since Alaska, until recently, has not had a sizeable immigrant population, immigration and borders are not pressing issues in Alaska. I know that Anchorage has a certain amount of 'diversity' (what city doesn't, these days?) but apart from Alaskan Native issues, I don't think these things are hotly debated in the state as in so many other states.
In any case, I think she will be expected to be on board with the Party line; I would hardly expect her to deviate from McCain on issues like amnesty or affirmative action. She will be a team player; I am sure this is understood from the get-go.
I have to say, though, that this quote from her, cited in the above-linked article, is unfortunate, though typical in the GOP these days:
In an interview last year with this reporter, Mrs Palin lamented the paucity of leadership in the Republican Party, saying it was weighed down with "good old rich white boys". She mentioned no names.''
[emphasis mine]
And as I said, I would not have voted for McCain in any case.
At least, though, there is some excitement and life being injected into this gosh-awful, dead-and-alive election. For months, we've known who the Presidential candidates would be, and the conventions have been a dismal display. I talk to so many people who express disillusionment and alienation, who say they are beyond sick of the campaigns. And these are not partisans, or political junkies, just average people who feel dismayed by the choices on offer. Maybe the presence in the campaign of Governor Palin, who at least seems to be a well-spoken, personable woman, will shake things up and spark some discussion. Her presence might perhaps highlight the sorry state of both parties and their presidential nominees. I know little about her, but she does seem to me to break the mold somewhat, being something other than one more stale beltway hack or corrupt machine politician.
Having said that, I don't share the enthusiasm many people have expressed to me about the 'history-making ' potential of a black President or a woman Vice-President. To me, it should be about character and ability, not about race or sex.
Is Palin good for the GOP in this election? At this point, it appears so. But is the GOP good for us?
Democrat or Republican, it's a wash. On the important issues, we still have nobody representing us.

Labels: Elections, Gop, Party Politics, Presidential Candidates, Social Conservatism

First, a hopeful sign or two: what a pleasant surprise to read about a judge who favors enforcing our laws -- equally, with no preference given to protected groups. What a radical notion in this age of liberal madness:
A state Superior Court judge called for a grassroots effort to change federal laws which he said currently allow legal immigrants and U.S. citizens to be prosecuted for unlawful activity, but prohibits prosecution of illegal aliens.
It's happening in communities like Gettysburg and Shenandoah and Tamaqua, Judge Correale "Corry" F. Stevens told members of the Adams County Republican Committee Thursday evening at the county ag center, and it could happen in Black Horse Tavern and Aspers and Zora. For example, he said state police stopped a van for speeding on an interstate and detained the four illegals they found inside.
They called ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and they were told, "Let them go," Stevens said. The policemen had no choice.
He offered several additional examples showing that in situations that would result in arrest for legal immigrants and U.S. citizens, illegal aliens would be set free.
[...]"The federal policy is non-enforcement," he said.
[...]He said voters should ask their federal senators and representatives to amend the federal law to give:

police the power to arrest;

county district attorneys the power to prosecute; and

county judges the powers to deport;

all without needing the permission of the federal government.

"They're committing crimes and the federal government is not doing anything," Stevens said.'
So maybe common sense is not dead in our judicial branch, at least not in Judge Stevens' jurisdiction.
This is what is needed: to take action at the local level, since the feds seem determined to let anarchy reign where immigration and borders are concerned.
And here is a particularly ugly story of a crime by two of those hard-working, undocumented folks just looking for a better life in what was once a pleasant, safe town. The two perpetrators should have been dealt with by the judicial system long ago, but at least this judge, Judge Falcone, shows a no-nonsense attitude toward the demanding defendant.
Morristown rape suspect wants 5th lawyer
The trial of a man charged with dragging a woman off a Morristown sidewalk and raping her was put on hold Wednesday after he demanded a new attorney, his fifth in 21 months.
Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Falcone, sitting in Morristown, agreed to relieve the latest lawyer for suspect Joel A. Romero, 27, because Romero refuses to speak to counsel Douglas Del Tufo and claims he does not have "his best interests at heart."
Since he was caught in the act of assaulting a 20-year-old woman on July 10, 2005, Romero has gone through three public defenders and one private lawyer, Del Tufo.
[...]The Morris County Prosecutor�s Office has extended a 30-year plea deal. Falcone said he had been willing to consider a 24-year sentence but upped the offer back to 30 years Wednesday after Romero started making demands, through a Spanish-to-English court interpreter.
"I want one who speaks Spanish," said Romero, who is in the United States illegally from Honduras.
"Too bad!" blurted out deputy Public Defender Dolores Mann, who was watching the hearing in court.
"And I want to win the lottery!" the judge snapped at Romero. "You don�t run the system. Let me say this again: You don�t run the system."
I like Judge Falcone's gutsy attitude; too often I've read accounts of weakling liberal judges who coddle such defendants because of their 'special' status.
Now we will just have to see if somebody accuses the above-mentioned judges of 'racism' or 'xenophobia' for taking a non-coddling stance towards illegals.
Unfortunately this kind of decision by a judge is, depressingly, more typical.
And apparently our federal courts are being swamped by immigration felony cases. This is no surprise to any of us who have been following this situation. It's just one more cost of our 'cheap labor.'
And speaking of our judicial system and illegal aliens, the issue of 'sanctuary cities' has been in the news, with San Francisco possibly joining a growing list of cities which in effect have nullified our immigration laws, declaring that they will flout the existing statutes and protect the lawbreakers. Note that New York City is one of those scofflaw cities, which harbors illegal aliens. And with Rudy Giuliani being touted as the likely Republican presidential nominee in 2008, please keep in mind that he was a determined advocate of the sanctuary policy in NYC, to the extent of defying the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Heather MacDonald in the City Journal wrote this extensive piece in 2004, detailing Giuliani's defiant position:
Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city�s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to "terrorize people." Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.
New York conveniently forgot the 1996 federal ban on sanctuary laws until a gang of five Mexicans�four of them illegal�abducted and brutally raped a 42-year-old mother of two near some railroad tracks in Queens. The NYPD had already arrested three of the illegal aliens numerous times for such crimes as assault, attempted robbery, criminal trespass, illegal gun possession, and drug offenses. The department had never notified the INS.
Citizen outrage forced Mayor Michael Bloomberg to revisit the city�s sanctuary decree yet again. In May 2003, Bloomberg tweaked the policy minimally to allow city staffers to inquire into immigration status only if it is relevant to the awarding of a government benefit. Though Bloomberg�s new rule said nothing about reporting immigration violations to federal officials, advocates immediately claimed that it did allow such reporting, and the ethnic lobbies went ballistic. ''
So if Giuliani has supposedly gotten religion on this issue, we should remember his sanctuary policies, and his past pro-illegal statements:
As other anti-immigration movements spread across the country in 1990s, Mr. Giuliani consistently pushed back. "The anti-immigration issue that�s now sweeping the country in my view is no different than the movements that swept the country in the past," he said in 1996. "You look back at the Chinese Exclusionary Act, or the Know-Nothing movement � these were movements that encouraged Americans to fear foreigners, to fear something that is different, and to stop immigration."
Giuliani misrepresents the Know-Nothing movement, or the American Party, as do most people who refer to it as a favorite whipping boy, a symbol of 'hateful' nativism and xenophobia.
And Giuliani invokes the 'proposition nation', the idea that being an American is only a matter of uttering some magic incantation about freedom or liberty, and adhering to an 'idea':
But as he talks about immigration on the campaign trail, Mr. Giuliani suggests that his core beliefs have not changed much since his days as mayor, often quoting a speech Abraham Lincoln gave in the 1850s.
"He made a beautiful speech in which he said the best American is not the American who has been here the longest or the one who just arrived," Mr. Giuliani said recently. "It is the one who understands the principles of America the best because we are a country held together by ideas."
This is just one more example of the 'my grandfather was an immigrant' syndrome; Giuliani, like so very many of the open borders, America-as-an-idea liberals, takes his position based on sentimentalism or defensiveness about his recent immigrant roots.
Will 'conservatives' fall for Giuliani's tough-guy persona? On the immigration issue, he is not on the side of the American people. Yet it seems that so many 'conservatives' are falling in line behind Giuliani. If he is nominated and elected, we will see mass immigration continuing if not accelerating.

Labels: Illegal Immigration, Justice System, Open Borders, Presidential Candidates

Obama picks Biden for V.P.
Barack Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware late Friday night to be his vice presidential running mate, according to a Democratic official, balancing his ticket with an older congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.
Biden, who has twice sought the White House, is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded orator.
And , it appears, a plagiarist. He stole part of a campaign speech from British politician Neil Kinnock, if I remember correctly.
Why Biden? He seems a very lackluster choice. What is gained by having him on the ticket? What motivates this choice?
Not that it really makes any difference to me; to me, the two-party rigged system is not to be taken seriously anymore. I will vote third party regardless, but I am curious as to what my readers think of this, if anything.
Besides, I have little else to blog about tonight; does it seem to anyone else as if the blogosphere is especially quiescent lately? Or dispirited?
I've noticed that many of the blogs I used to read daily have either died or been abandoned, or have such infrequent posts as to be virtually extinct, while several are going on some kind of indefinite hiatus. Does anybody else notice this?
And does it seem lately as if the news is always just more of the same old same old, nothing 'new' about it? Has the news ever been more boring or ennui-producing than it is now?

Labels: Blogosphere, Elections, News, Party Politics, Politics, Presidential Candidates

Following my post about 'equality vs. liberty', Takuan Seiyo writes, in his latest essay at The Brussels Journal:
Pods are deeply committed to the idea that freedom and equality are not mutually exclusive. They are the emotional children of the French Revolution and worship its motto so much that they are willing to install PC tyranny in the name of Liberté, enforce racist and gender discrimination and robbery of private property in the name of Egalité, and stop at no fraud, libel and persecution of their opponents in the name of Fraternité.
Pods view biological race and gender differences as social constructs, and therefore social group differences as an unjust inequality that must be rectified by reconstructing society. They view nation, ethnoculture, and private property as obsolete obstacles in the way of freedom, equality and fraternity of all people. Therefore, the right of anyone to immigrate anywhere precedes the right of the one suffering the destruction of his social capital by this immigration. The right of a slacker to home, sustenance, and self-esteem counseling precedes the right of the 80-hours-a-week worker not to have his earnings confiscated to float the slacker in splendid idleness.
They view the refusal to tolerate the intolerable as unacceptable intolerance, and the desire to protect and preserve one�s family, community, country and culture as racism and xenophobia. And lastly, they have stood Jesus� metaphor on its end, so that they fail to see the beam in the nonwhites�, non-Christians� eye, but they see and greatly magnify the speck in their own peoples� eye.
This is deep, delusionary dementia.''
Deep, delusionary dementia. That describes liberalism, does it not? And the rest of the excerpt, wherein he writes about 'pods', makes it clear that it is the Politically Correct who are being described.
As usual, Takuan Seiyo writes a mordant piece on the crisis of our Western world, in which he describes with great accuracy what is happening.
I've used the 'pod people' analogy before; it's such an apt one, for those of us who have seen the old 1956 movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It comes to mind readily when you see the behavior and the relentlessness of the Politically Correct Possessed Ones.
For those few who haven't seen the classic 1956 movie or its later remakes, the story was of an invasion of a small California town by alien lifeforms resembling giant seed-pods, which 'took over' or replaced the human population of the town, gradually, with only the protagonist and his girlfriend escaping replacement. Eventually they are pursued relentlessly by the 'pods' who were once their friends and neighbors, but who are now bent on forcing them to be 'replaced' with pod likenesses of themselves.
The movie comes to mind as some of us see our neighbors and even relatives suddenly becoming willing cult followers of a certain presidential candidate. I can think of at least two such examples in my life. Otherwise normal people becoming zealous defenders of their Leader -- it can be something of a jolt to see it happen to people one knows.
But as for us holdouts, I like the term Seiyo uses to describe 'us': ''ethnoconservatives.'' I think it's a good descriptive term without the baggage of many other possible terms for people like most of us here, who want to preserve our people and our culture and our heritage.
We are the ethno-conservatives -- perhaps 60 million people in Western Europe, North America and Oceania. There are probably four times that number who are like us, but they are latent, unable at this time to cut through the fog of suppressive propaganda and inertia.
In every Western country, we are a minority encircled by brainwashed zealots discharged at a steady rate from the left-only assembly line of public education. The conveyor belt�s propulsive power is multiplied many times over by the giant dynamos of Mainstream Media (MSM) and manufactured pop culture. Our own propulsive power comes from inner conviction, books by Dead White Males, and � to steal a phrase from Abraham Lincoln � the mystic chords of memory.''
He writes that it is in opposition to the PC 'pods' and our treasonous elites that we must define ourselves, and he writes of this dominant 'mental disorder' which has gripped the West:
This mental disorder is now the dominant orientation of the Western peoples, with its triumphant apotheosis, The One We Have Been Waiting For, coasting on the final approach to the most powerful job in the world, so that he can change the world into Pod kingdom.
The dementia�s hold on the brains of the majority of the white population is such that the vile Afro-American racism that America�s probable 44th president imbibed during most of his adulthood goes unmentioned and uncriticized by the MSM. Even Mr. Obama�s opponent in the presidential election remains paralyzed by the possibility that anything he might say would be deemed "racist."
Barack Obama is expected to receive 75 - 80% of the white vote in many urban areas of the United States. If this is not having one�s body and soul snatched, nothing is.''
I rather like his analogy of the present Obamania to the Children's Crusade, which was based on the delusional notion which caused participants to go to the Holy Land and attempt to convert the Mohammedans by means of 'love and peace.' Needless to say, it didn't work out well. Such is always the case when delusional idealism goes up against merciless reality. Tradition has it that many of the 'crusaders' were sold into slavery by their would-be converts among the Moslems. Today's ''pods'' ought to take heed. History has a way of repeating.
Read the entire piece by Takuan Seiyo at Brussels Journal. There are no comments on the piece as of the time I am writing this, but that's not a bad thing; the comments never measure up to the level of Seiyo's pieces, and often derail the discussion, going off on tangents.
I agree very much, too, with his urging Western 'ethnoconservatives', regardless of nationality, to offer mutual support and to make common cause. By uniting, we stand. We are few but we needn't let that discourage us. Defeatism and resignation are creeping up on us, and we mustn't give in to those things.
To return to our pop culture metaphor, in the 'Body Snatchers' movie, it was only when the human beings went to sleep that they would fall prey to the 'body snatchers' and become mindless pods. We mustn't let our guard down or relax our vigilance, and we mustn't be lulled to inaction or somnolent passivity.

Labels: Ethnoconservatism, Ethnonationalism, Liberalism, Population Replacement, Presidential Candidates, Western Civilization

Fellow blogger Flanders Fields warns us:
Don't Trust Fred Thompson
...I will not consider one who pretends to be a conservative but who gets into office to carry water for the leftist corporatists who run our political world in the USA, other countries of the Western world, and much of the entire world.''And here we read about Fred Thompson's Pan-Islamist Campaign Manager, Spencer Abraham, described as an Islamist sympathizer and open borders advocate.
Although we read Thompson's comments on the appalling Hazleton decision, and we see that he is essentially saying the 'right' thing, (though he carefully refers to illegal immigration only), talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words. So despite his saying what a prudent candidate would say about the court decision on Hazleton, his choice of Abraham speaks louder than his comments about illegal immigration. And by the way, if he has gotten religion on illegal immigration, he has only recently done so, since he has never shown any restrictionist leanings in his past.
This report from CNN.com tells about the woman protester in Houston who was removed from a welcoming reception for Thompson.
A woman screaming "you�re not a real conservative, sir" was removed by police from a welcoming reception for likely GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson Wednesday morning. A second protester was also taken from the room.
Houston police officers escorted the woman � as well as a man � from the hangar at Hobby Airport, where Thompson was shaking hands with a crowd of supporters. They were not arrested.
The woman questioned Thompson as he talked to reporters. She asked him why he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and noted that the organization supported the North American Union with Canada and Mexico."
Unfortunately the Fredheads will dismiss this woman, whose statements were substantially correct -- Thompson is not a conservative and is a member of the CFR -- as a 'liberal' or a 'crazy.'
These comments illustrates that mindset:
Fred Thompson is a conservative and he scares his opponents - Democrat and Republican alike. I am excited about him entering the race and look forward to sending him more money.'
There are quite a few comments from readers below the story, and it does appear as though there are plenty of people who are not taken in by Thompson's masquerading as a conservative, which is a hopeful sign despite all the enthusiasm from the GOP faithful and the Fredheads.
Richard Viguerie issues his own warning: Conservatives, Beware of Fred Thompson
The frustration of conservatives is understandable. Faced with the prospects of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney as the next Republican presidential candidate, many are pinning their hopes on former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee.
Could this actor-politician be the new Ronald Reagan?
Mainstream media types assure us that he is. His record suggests otherwise.
This is the second time conservatives have pinned their hopes on Thompson. When he was first elected in the Republican sweep of 1994, he was seen then as the "new Reagan"�a charismatic movie star turned politician. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole quickly picked Thompson to give the five-minute GOP rebuttal to President Clinton�s economic address, and no less than The New York Times swooned with its headline the next morning, "A Star Is Born."
He turned out to be a shooting star�a dazzling flash in the sky, soon gone, not there dependably, night after night, like the Big Dipper. Or, as The Tennessean later put it, "A year ago [Thompson] looked like a rising star. Today he looks more like a fading comet."
Especially to conservatives who have taken the time to examine his record.''
Among the reasons Viguerie mentions for distrusting Thompson: his handling of the Asiagate scandal, the Clinton White House's Asian fundraising irregularities, the McCain-Feingold Act, his ''failure of the Goldwater Test'' - which means his failure to show opposition to big government, his "failure of the 'Reagan Test" the question of whether he surrounds himself with conservatives.
And then there is his overall record: 8 years in the Senate, during which he voted:
FOR restricting the rights of grassroots organizations to communicate with the public.
FOR allowing the IRS to require political and policy organizations to disclose their membership�a vote against the constitutional rights of free association and privacy. (The Clinton Administration used such IRS intimidation against conservative groups that opposed them.)
AGAINST impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, specifically the reappointment and reauthorization of managers (drawn from the Republican membership of the House Judiciary Committee) to conduct the impeachment trial in the Senate.
[...]
AGAINST restraints on federal spending, specifically the Phil Gramm (R-TX) amendment to limit non-defense discretionary spending to the fiscal 1997 levels requested by President Clinton.
FOR affirmative action in federal contracts.
FOR the Legal Services Corporation, the perennial liberal boondoggle that provides political activism disguised as "legal services" to Democratic constituencies.
FOR an increase in the minimum wage, which, of course, increases unemployment among the young and poor.
FOR President Clinton�s nomination of Dr. David Satcher as U.S. Surgeon General. Among other things, Satcher opposed a full ban on partial-birth abortion.
[...]
FOR restricting the First Amendment (free speech) rights of independent groups.
FOR the trial lawyers lobby, and specifically against a bill that would put common-sense limitations on the medical malpractice suits that increase health costs for all of us. (Of course! He�s been a trial lawyer himself for some three decades.)
And, last but not least:
FOR limitations on campaign freedom of speech, by limiting contributions to national political parties to $2,000 and limiting the rights of individuals and groups to participate in the political process in the two months before elections.''
But of course all these facts will mean nothing to the Fredheads, who will respond along the lines of this commenter on the CNN blog thread linked above:
Add enough of this po� mouthin�, Republican candidates and you all will get Mama Hilary for President. If you think she�s a choice is truely crazy. Explore what she and her hand picked leftest coilition did for Arkansas Public Schools. Heck! She almost did the same thing with the nation�s health care, You think HMOs are Heck??? Well, just keep on going after the rep. candidates and you�ll really get yours after the elections.''
When much of 'conservatism' these days consists of knee-jerk anti-Democrat reactions, and personality cultism (Fred was a TV actor on a popular show! Another Ronald Reagan!) Thompson is the kind of candidate we can expect, unfortunately.

Labels: Conservatism, Gop, Party Politics, Political Parties, Presidential Candidates

The quality of the attacks on Ron Paul has not been impressive so far and has been deteriorating, with some rather over-the-top rants.
And the vehemence with which some people oppose Ron Paul is a little bewildering: if the critics think Paul is a 'kook' as some of the less imaginative call him, or 'your crazy old uncle who lives in the attic' as some other critic ungraciously called him (and these are 'conservatives' speaking, by the way) then why are they so upset over his candidacy and his ideas? If he is a fringe figure who has a slim chance of being elected, or even nominated, why waste any time denouncing him? Just ignore him as the irrelevancy he is.
However it seems that many 'conservatives' or Republicans, most especially the devoted party types, are worried that Paul's candidacy may siphon off a few votes from their fave candidates, and given that Giuliani and Romney and the fast-fading McCain need whatever support they can glean, since they are generating only lukewarm support, I suppose it makes sense for some people to try to discredit Ron Paul. Or maybe they are irritated by his candidacy because they realize that someone who actually supports conservative principles will draw attention to their candidates' conspicuous lack of conservative credibility.
Or maybe they are rationalizing their own unfaithfulness to any semblance of conservative principles.
I can't guess what motivates John Derbyshire's piece
That Old-Time Religion
which is somewhat fair to Ron Paul, but in the end, dismissive of him.
Nits aside, the broad outlook there is conservative in a way we don�t often see from a presidential candidate. It is, in fact, conservatism of exceptional purity. Reading through those policy positions, an American conservative can hear the mystic chords of memory sounding in the distance, and hear the call of ancestral voices wafted on the breeze: Hayek, von Mises, Rothbart, Nock, Kirk, John Chamberlain... Unlike the product in that automobile commercial, this is your father�s conservatism � the Old-Time Religion. What is there among Ron Paul�s policy prescriptions that the young William F. Buckley would have disagreed with?
So why aren�t we all piling into the wagon behind Dr. Ron? It�s not that the guy is personally unacceptable in any way. A pious family man, he has worked in an honorable profession � Ob/Gyn medical practice � all his life. (Paul has the slight political advantage of having brought several hundred of his constituents into the world.) He is personally charming and likeable. If not exactly eloquent in the florid, gassy manner American voters are used to from their politicians, he speaks clearly and well, keeps his wits about him, minds his temper, and holds his own in debate. With the positions he has, it�s easy to see why he�s not ahead with the media or the polls, but why isn�t he leading the pack among conservatives?
[...]
If Washington, D.C. were the drowsy southern town that Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge rode into, Ron Paul would have a chance. Washington�s not like that nowadays, though. It is a vast megalopolis, every nook and cranny stuffed with lobbyists, lawyers, and a hundred thousand species of tax-eater.
[...]
On the whole, though, we have settled in with this system. We are used to it. It�s not going away, absent a revolution; and conservatives are � duh! � not, by temperament, revolutionaries.
Imagine, for example, President Ron II trying to push his bill to abolish the IRS through Congress. Congress! � whose members eat, drink, breathe and live for the wrinkles they can add to the tax code on behalf of their favored interest groups! Or imagine him trying to kick the U.N. parasites out of our country. Think of the howls of outrage on behalf of suffering humanity from all the lefty academics, MSM bleeding hearts, love-the-world flower children, Eleanor Roosevelt worshippers, and bureaucratic globalizers!
Ain�t gonna happen. It was, after all, a conservative who said that politics is the art of the possible. Ron Paul is not possible. His candidacy belongs to the realm of dreams, not practical politics. But, oh, what sweet dreams!''
Derbyshire acknowledges that some conservatives will be attracted to the conservative policies Paul stands for, but he then dismisses those principles as unrealistic, unattainable, and hence a chimera, a distraction.
This line of argument sounds strangely familiar; we've been here before. The example that comes most readily to my mind is the recall election of 2003, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was running against Republican -- and conservative -- Tom McClintock.
Ironically, in this op-ed piece which appeared at NRO during that campaign, the NRO editorial supported McClintock:
We know that McClintock is currently behind Schwarzenegger in the polls. But we also know that if elected, McClintock would fight the spenders and taxers in Sacramento. About Arnold Schwarzenegger we know no such thing.''
The op-ed writers were correct; Schwarzenegger has proven to be a disappointment to conservatives since taking office.
But the arguments against McClintock, solid conservative that he was, ran something along the lines of this:
For starters, Democrats know McClintock cannot win. They know that he has ran [sic] for statewide office twice before and lost both times. McClintock�s problem is not so much that he�s unknown but that Californians know about him and have rejected his candidacy time and again. Knowing this, a Democrat plot to boost McClintock�s candidacy at Schwarzenegger�s expense has already surfaced.''
And the reason McClintock was declared unelectable? He was 'too conservative', said Schwarzenegger's minions and the usual party hacks.
I don't live in California, hence I had no direct stake in that election, but I spent many an hour arguing online with Republicans on forums who kept arguing that McClintock should drop out and let Schwarzenegger have a clear field; after all, we all knew, said they, that a 'right-wing' type like McClintock was a loser. ''You don't know California; no right-winger can win. Schwarzenegger is the best we can get here. McClintock is a purist, he's too conservative, he'll lose. We need a moderate, somebody who is electable.'' So they got their wish: Schwarzenegger was elected. What's the old saying. be careful what you wish for?
This argument, that McClintock was unelectable, was the most respectable argument against the 'too-conservative, too-purist' McClintock; the less intelligent critics made constant cruel remarks about his slight strabismus, and ridiculed his appearance, much as some of Paul's more dimwitted opponents resort to cheap shots about his age or his haircut.
But it seems to me that Derbyshire is resorting to those old arguments about how being too conservative is political poison. How many times have I heard the 'pragmatists' drag out that quote from Bismarck about politics being ''the art of the possible"? In other words, we can only ever hope to elect candidates who hew to the accepted party line or who don't rock the boat too much, because to support principled men (or women) dooms us to unelectability and political oblivion. Ultimately the message underlying this mindset is that we are doomed to the status quo, however corrupt or pedestrian or hopeless or unacceptable that status quo is. The status quo, the presently accepted order of things, or some slight variant thereof, is all that is 'possible', and we are doomed to the 'possible', to more of the same, in other words.
Thanks but no thanks.
At some point, this mindset becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: we decree that anybody who is radical enough to try to remind us of the Founding Fathers' principles, or even the principles of a half-century ago, is 'unelectable' because he is quixotic or a dreamer or a wacko or a kook or a 'reactionary' or a purist or unelectable. I wonder how many people back in the 18th century said the same things about our Founding Fathers? It seems that a substantial percentage of people in that era were not in favor of our independence from Britain; no doubt they thought the Founding Fathers were extremists or 'fringe' elements. Most people prefer the 'devil they know', the status quo; no matter how unacceptable things are, we are used to them, and few people like real change; it's disruptive and it's frightening for many people. And it's especially frightening to those who have a vested interest in keeping things just as they are, for example, party functionaries and people who are insiders in the existing political structures. Or media people.
But if we continue to insist that only people who hew to the existing party line are 'electable' then we guarantee that only such people will ever be nominated and elected. How can we declare in advance that a certain candidate is unelectable? Why even have elections if we know in advance who can or cannot be elected? Let's just poll the party members and media elites and let them tell us who we want. That seems to be what our system amounts to, if these people can tell us in advance who we will or won't vote for.
The only way we can know who the people will choose or won't choose is to let them choose, and let them do so in the voting booth.
If I had my way, we'd stop running so many polls which tell us every other day who and what we want. Polls are intended to influence opinion and shape it as much as to check and report public opinion.
As others have said, the only polls that matter -- or should matter -- are the ones on election day, when we cast our ballots.
But the idea that conservatism cannot do anything but rubber-stamp and preserve the liberal status quo is to make conservatism merely a useless philosophy that does little but try feebly to slow down liberal change, and preserve yesterday's radical left innovations.
And Derbyshire's argument that we couldn't, say, throw out the U.N. because of the predictable howls of protest from the left means essentially that we can't do anything that upsets the left and provokes one of their frequent tantrums. If that is true, we are really and truly done for as a country; reversing some of the harm done by leftists is essential if this Republic is to survive, and we have been far too cowed by the left's hissy fits for too long. Let them howl like spoiled children; they've been allowed to blackmail us by means of their emotional abuse and the result is the chaotic society we live in today.
And the oft-repeated cliche that you can't turn the clock back -- who decreed that? I turn my clock back every fall, when we go back to standard time. I turn my clock back when I travel west across time zones. The idea that once liberals have done something it can never be undone is absurd.
We can nominate an 'electable' Republican who is no conservative, and 'win' as a party, but if conservatism loses, and we elect more of the same failed policies, the Republic loses. What do the fortunes of the party matter, if our country goes down? What have we 'won' if we get another open borders, globalist, big business, interventionist, disconnected elitist?
There's something to be said for daring, and stepping out of line, away from the failed status quo, and trying something different -- or, going back to the tried and true which did work for us for centuries. We know the status quo does not work. Doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result is madness, so the saying goes.
''If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilization escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite.'' - Russell Kirk
"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

Labels: Conservatism, Conservatives, Party Politics, Presidential Candidates