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Dick Morris: A Lone Voice

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Bloviating Zeppelin: Dick Morris: A Lone Voice

Bloviating Zeppelin

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Dick Morris: A Lone Voice

. . . in the Republican wilderness:

Gen. Colin Powell is wrong to say that the Republican Party must move to the center: Now is not the time to try for triangulation.

This is a time for the party to stand firm on its principles until this nation again comes around to the GOP's way of thinking. This process will be driven by the consequences of President Obama's program.

The challenge brought by Obama is no longer just theoretical: He means to pass the ultimate leftist agenda and has the votes to do so.

As a result, our nation will be unrecognizable well before the 2010 elections. Business will march to a beat drummed in Washington. The top producers will be hounded by confiscatory taxation. A majority will pay nothing or receive government welfare. Our health-care system will be destroyed. Illegal immigrants will be well on their way to citizenship.

Obama's brave new world will be the subject of the 2010 elections. We believe that his Congress will be swept from power as a result.

We think that inflation will join a lingering recession -- giving us recess-flation -- and that high unemployment will continue. Voters will recognize the damage to their health care as bureaucrats weigh in to prevent them from getting the care they need. Our security and defense failures may well have cost us Pakistan, and the nightmare of a nuclear-armed terrorist state may have already come true (even before Iran).

All America will be watching the Obama fallout, and Republicans must be seen as a clear alternative -- a strong voice for reversal of the harm the president will have inflicted -- if they are to benefit from this catastrophe.

If the GOP is seen as a moderate force, a party just looking to split the difference, voters will cynically conclude that there is no distinction between the parties.

There is a season for triangulation and a season for confrontation. When America faces a new challenge -- such as what the financial crisis now poses -- we look to the left and right for new answers. We want the debate to rage. Those who seek to paper over are ignored. Such was the fate of the first President Bush in 1992 and of Sen. John McCain in 2008.

But once the debate has raged and the alternatives have been fleshed out, voters want a consensus, a Hegelian synthesis, on how to move in a new direction. They want to extract the best from each alternative and combine them. This is triangulation (a term coined by Dick Morris).

To ignore the demand for synthesis and insist on continuing the debate is to suffer the fate of Sen. Bob Dole in 1996 and Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

This process -- polarization, debate, synthesis and action -- is how America has always moved ahead. We are not Japan; we use the debate to see the options. And we are not Italy or France; we come to conclusions and act upon them, eventually leaving the debate far behind.

Now another great debate has been born. The thesis is democratic socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism.

The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It's up to the Republicans to fight along these lines. Compromise is not an option, yet.

At some point, the synthesis will set in. But now is the time for clear alternatives and sharp disagreement. Only later can we hope to extract America from the leftist clutches into which it has fallen.

So what do we have? What voices in the proverbial wilderness? It seems that two voices have predominantly been heard and read recently: Dick Morris and Dick Cheney.

When the Left skewers Dick Cheney and he's far out of power, I know he must be doing something correctly. And Dick Morris states what many of us believe in our core: don't give up.

In fact, react in a polar opposite fashion to "tenting."

Make clear definitions. Stick to our Conservative guns. If exclusion occurs then so be it. Damn. I'm almost pulling on the flap of the Texas Fred tent. But I'm not yet quite ready to completely concede the GOP. I'm still inclined to continue the fight.

Because, I posit: morals and ethics and common sense doesn't change year-to-year and doesn't bend to the prevailing prairie winds. Right is right -- now, in the past, and in the future.

Some things really are Constants.

BZ

5 Comments:

Blogger Rivka said...

Heeeelllloooo.. Anyone out there?? Where is everyone?? ;0)

This was a great post BZ. On the last comment I about gave up on the GOP. Emotionally i did, but rationally I can't. I was, well, let's say I was very frustrated.

We can't throw in the towel right now. If we do then we will give Obama another 4 years to tear this country up so bad it will take 40 years or more to fix it.

We just need to make our voices continue to be heard and get solid conservatives in our party. That is all I can say. ;0)

Thu May 14, 04:18:00 PM PDT  
Blogger A Jacksonian said...

Hey! McCain was to the center... why did he lose by such a wide margin?

Seems that in offering no choice you don't actually win elections. The starker the choice, the more pointed the elections and the electorate actually has to decide between same old, same old hopey changey and actually getting something that isn't MORE GOVERNMENT.

'Moving to the center' means 'be Progressive' and take more away from the people. Somehow that winds you up with less essential liberty in the people and a more authoritarian government. I've had it with centerist 'lesser evil' types: they only slow the path down, don't change the direction of movement at all. Just because one candidate is less bad than the other doesn't make him in any way, shape or form good.

Thu May 14, 04:29:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Rivka said...

Aj,
Yes-and our party leaders don't see that at all. It is common sense for crying out loud.

Our party tends to think it is right to hold to some conservative standards, but to hold hands with the left on other issues. If you and me and my 10 year old can see that we need to be opposite of the left, why can't the leaders in our party see it? You can't say you don't want big government and vote for the stimulus or the bailouts. That is and example of the wishy washy-middle we are talking about.

Thu May 14, 06:12:00 PM PDT  
Blogger A Jacksonian said...

Rivka - Republicans have two major problems in their ranks.

First is that Theodore Roosevelt was no conservative. Just the opposite, really. By giving Progressivism a safe home in the Republican party, he co-opted it and changed its Traditionalist structure. Party members who advocate Teddy Roosevelt's ways need to be called on it, in detail, and ask why giving the federal government more to do is in any way, shape or form, good.

I admire TR, I really do. He was a great man. He was also a horrific politician who saw no end to the 'good' the national government 'could do' if it was in the 'right hands'. That is anti-democratic and authoritarian at its base. Read TR's autobiography, particularly concentrating on Ch. 10 and you will see the low esteem he holds for conservatives and his bemoaning that Lincoln did not KEEP wartime powers going.

You can admire the man and hate the politician he was - he had no malice in him. But misguided? Oh yes.

Second are those that aid and abet the Progressives: Hamiltonians and their lust for pro-active government. They allied themselves with the Progressives early on and claim to be 'moderates' while preaching the Big Government gospel. Hamilton, himself, advocated for a Monarchial system as he did not trust the common man, but came to advocate the Madisonian federal concept, and hoped it would have the paths open to stronger government involvement in the economy. These two added together, Progressives to change the way we act and Hamiltonians to change the basis of involvement of the government in our lives, both hate conservatives of the Traditionalist stamp. They also go after TheoCons with vigor, but can bribe a number of those ranks by showing how 'good' government can be in daily lives. Thus you get men like Huckabee and Romney, both willing to tax and expand government as they did while in office as Governors. Hamiltonians have even made inroads to the Fiscal Conservatives, by seducing them with how government power is such a good thing for the economy.

Progressives provide social ideology that empowers government to interfere in the daily life and Hamiltonians get the funding and backing for it.

The followers of Jefferson got seduced by Progressives in the Democratic party and now watch as human rights liquidate society in the name of government 'doing good'. Wilsonians come from that, too, and have done their best to corrode the basis of National Sovereignty.

That leaves the following in the wilderness with no spokesmen:

1) TheoCons who abide by little need for government and basic good governing,

2) Traditionalist Conservatives who abide by Washington, Lincoln, Madison and Franklin. They detest what has happened with the States being ousted from checking the federal government.

3) NeoCons who are also split, but have the strong military faction that refuses to hand more to government than their Oaths require. They do not want the military politicized, but understand it can be a political tool... and want that to be a minimum due to the lives cost in conflicts.

4) Jacksonians - the live and let live folks who want spare government so that the common man has the greatest liberty and accountability to himself and his local society. We take the Nation's honor as our own and its word has been dishonored for decades by politicians. Disrespected, bad mouthed, castigated for wanting a good family life with little to no interference from government, these are the people of the middle class and working man. Jacksonians know we can make a great Nation without a strong government: that is what happened in the 19th century.

You want a strong party of any sort?

Abide by your word come hell or high water, admit that positions taken are meaningful or don't make them. Traditionalists want that return to sane government, as well as the conservative factions that follow that dictum in other venues (TheoCon, FiCon, NeoCon). To Jacksonians that is the touchstone of a person, a party and a Nation. There is no difference at any level and any excuses to go back on your word without damned good reason are just that: excuses.

As Walter Russell Mead pointed out both Jeffersonians and Jacksonians adore personal liberty. Jeffersonians go to the ACLU (or used to) as they see law as primary. Jacksonians go to the NRA as personal decisions and survival are best left up to YOU.

Jeffersonians talk a good game.

Jacksonians mean it.

No political party is honorable, they dishonor the Nation, their party and themselves repeatedly, continually, and show the lack of honor for their positions they volunteer for.

The Republican party has a platform.

Tell those in office they vote for that, as the party wants, or they are out. If the party can't do that, then leave it, as it will not honor those positions held by those in the party. Do something else: you are free people and not limited by anything as all your liberty and freedom are vested in YOU not a party. We share a Nation to protect ourselves... if your party won't do it, as the Democratic party stopped doing decades back, then leave it. The majority starts just outside the cities, and many don't vote as there is no honor in supporting these horrific beasts that stand for self-aggrandizement, and power for themselves.

I voted for Palin.

I voted against my local Republican as he went to Syria to have tea with a tyrant and despot. I cast a vote for a no-name independent as he was better than the Democrat involved. Anyone was better than the major party candidates - it makes me sick to have a man who gladly goes to Syria as my representative. Any party that welcomes that sort of thing will never, ever, get me as a member - so I am a member of no political party.

If you can't support liberty, then what the hell good are you, anyway?

Fri May 15, 05:24:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Z said...

Actually, I think that "10 ways.." picture is hilarious! Very clever.

I heard a lefty pundit the other night saying "since when do VP's stick around after office? Why doesn't he go HOME?"

Um...think AL GORE?

Fri May 15, 07:28:00 AM PDT  

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