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Saturday, May 17, 2008
Mandatory Rebellion
There comes a point when the necessity of disaffiliation, to the point of outright rebellion, from a formerly treasured institution becomes inescapable. That point is reached when the institution turns against the goals which moved us to affiliate with it.
Your Curmudgeon refers, of course, to the Republican Party.
It's a bit strange for your Curmudgeon to find himself writing in this vein, since he's never been a registered Republican and has voted for Republican candidates only as the least objectionable of the available choices. For all of that, the Republican Party has always espoused principles closer to his than has the Democratic Party. He long nurtured the hope that its politicians would eventually act on those principles.
Not only have they not done so; in recent years they've become demonstrably hostile to them.
No regular reader of Eternity Road need be told of the many defaults from libertarian-conservative principle and Constitutional governance the GOP's offficeholders have committed. It's become a chronic malady, an acutely painful one. Have the party's platform positions changed? No. Do its mouthpieces sing in a different key? No. But GOP figures in power routinely contradict the very principles they claim to honor, and betray the very people who trusted their words sufficiently to elevate them to office.
We can no longer hope that the Republican Party of today will preserve, protect, or defend Americans' heritage of freedom, or any part thereof.
In recognition of the sorry state of things, Doug Ross has posted a trumpet call:
STRENGTHEN NATIONAL DEFENSE - increase the size, capability and efficiency of our Armed Forces, bringing back our defense spending to historical levels as a percentage of the GDP.
GAIN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE - open up ANWR and the OCS to exploration; aggressively pursue nuclear energy and green technologies; and incentivize private industry to aggressively pursue clean, renewable energy sources.
SECURE THE BORDERS - build physical barriers immediately as a precursor to an overarching, sensible immigration policy. If the boat's sinking, you plug the holes first.
DEATH TO EARMARKS - zero tolerance for earmarks.
DEATH TO CORRUPTION - zero tolerance for corruption.
ENGLISH AS NATIONAL LANGUAGE - national unity requires a national language. That language is English.
IMPLEMENT FLAT TAX OR FAIR TAX - simplify the tax system by eradicating a tax code gone mad.
REDUCE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT - provide "whistleblower-style" awards for reducing the size of government and task the IRS (which will no longer have to worry about enforcing the tax code) with achieving the reduction goals on an annual basis
SPUR HEALTHCARE COMPETITION - Address health-care deficiencies with competitive, free-market solutions, not Government largesse.
ADDRESS ENTITLEMENTS - engage a bipartisan consortium to create a multi-million dollar competition to incentivize teams from private industry and academia to create solutions for our social security and Medicare liabilities.
This is what America needs...what conservatives and libertarians have been expecting Republicans raised to power to deliver. We've been bitterly disappointed at virtually every turn. Even Ronald Reagan, the best and most conservative president of recent years, left the federal government 13% larger than he found it.
It is intolerable. The persons who've perpetrated such a fraud upon us must be punished -- by being denied elective office.
Nothing else will serve. But there's another term to the equation: one that will prevent the Democrats, the immediately visible beneficiaries of a massive Republican defeat, from claiming a mandate to govern according to their "principles:"
Conservatives must not go to the polls this November, not even to re-elect a particularly favored local executive or legislator. Every Republican in elective office at this time must be ejected from his perch onto the hard ground of penal reality. But with a vote tally lower than ever before recorded for a nationwide election, Democrats and their allies in the Old Media won't be able to represent the result as a triumph for their candidates and preferred policies.
The comments to this post at the NRCC site indicate that a great many Americans already feel that some corrective action is demanded of us. No more "positive government!" We want negative government back, as it prevailed under Calvin Coolidge, if not Grover Cleveland. Government shall enforce the "thou shalt nots" of the penal law; it shall defend the borders and keep order in public places; it shall defend Americans, Americans' property, and American interests abroad; and it shall do nothing else. Republican strategists and office-seekers must be compelled to cleave strictly to that gospel. The only compulsion that will bend them is the punishment of their transgressions by the loss of all power and perquisites.
Fear not that a Democratically-controlled White House and Congress will complete the dismantling of our Constitutional republic. We can thwart them. There are far too many ways to list, simply ignoring their decrees en masse being the simplest. The stakes are too high to quail at the necessity of a little near-term courage.
The rebellion starts now.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -- Patrick Henry
Comments
Well, shucks, after 18 years of participating in Republican life, working and scheming to get ‘em elected and believing they were the Good Guys, it’s hard to swear off.
But consider me persuaded.
Posted by Robert Pearson on 05/20/2008 at 01:19 PMThanks for the linkage!
Actually, unless you want a crypto-Communist with possible ties to terrorists elected president, I’d encourage you to vote Republican for President.
That said, I think it’s high time to target the three or five worst Republican congress-critters and throw them out of the House as a warning!
Posted by Doug Ross on 05/23/2008 at 10:35 PM
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