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Thursday, May 22, 2008
Mandatory Rebellion: A Necessary Price
Your Curmudgeon has been widely derided and in some places assailed for the exhortations in the first and second essays in this short series. The objectors are an interesting mix. Some are afraid that if power passes entirely to the Democrats, "we'll never get it back," which seems to imply that our new rulers would be allowed to suspend the Constitution and abolish subsequent elections. Others believe that a Democrat in the White House, backed by Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, would fatally weaken America's military and its international posture. Still others are mainly concerned with the consequences for some special interest the GOP favors. Others are unwilling to face increased taxation and regulation just to send a clear signal to current Republican candidates and strategists that we're displeased with them. Some, no doubt, are unwilling to pay any price at all.
Perhaps your Curmudgeon has gotten too old and cranky to see reason. It's possible; his stepdaughters have been telling him so for decades. But it remains his conviction that there will be a price for the revitalization of the GOP as a party that champions individual freedom, American sovereignty, Constitutional governance, free markets, and the rule of law. It will be ordinary private Americans who'll have to pay it. But equally, it will be ordinary private Americans who will pay, in time, a greater price should we collectively surrender to the accelerating convergence of the Republican Party with the Democrats as two essentially indistinguishable forces for statist tyranny.
Is boycotting the election a risky strategy? Of course. It's possible that a Democrat in the Oval Office might sign the Law of the Sea Treaty and the Kyoto Accords, might commit us to the International Crminal Court, and might get to choose the next two or three Supreme Court Justices. But it's certain that the Republican Party has departed from sincere allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. The proof is in its presidential nominee. Further proof is available from the voting records of virtually every Republican legislator now serving. If the GOP is encouraged to devolve further, we'll get more of what it's been giving us for the past twenty years: pious words about freedom to cloak actual harm to our rights and freedoms.
Every vote cast for a current Republican candidate constitutes an endorsement of present Republican machinations -- encouragement for the party to slide further toward the ceaselessly pandering, class-race-and-gender-warfare-inciting, envy-riddled left. Only by withholding our votes -- nota bene: by not going to the polls at all -- can we compel the GOP's kingmakers to take sober stock of themselves and their offerings.
The price of such a boycott would not be negligible. But your Curmudgeon has heard of no other tactic that could possibly serve us. If anyone has such a tactic in his pocket, let it now be submitted to a candid world.
Comments
Myself, I worry that - based on the past 8 years of evidence - the Republican Party (or at least, all its members who aspire to office) would take even a COMPLETE vote-out as “proof” for another decade that they had been, not too liberal, but too conservative.
Posted by Dave on 05/22/2008 at 08:33 PM"suspend the Constitution and abolish subsequent elections.”
Well, yes. The addition of another couple of activist judges to the SCOTUS would, in effect, leave the constitution open to destruction by judicial fiat. As has happened recently in California.
An election need not be abolished to be rigged. And with the SCOTUS and the media and the house and senate under their thumb, what will we do? Witness Illinois. Obama cut his teeth there, getting his seat in an election paid for by the Daly machine.
No. I don’t have a better plan than “hand over the reins of power to our enemies and see what happens”. But I cannot think of a worse one. How about this: Start with primary reform, so the presidential hopefuls will get a good feel for what America actually wants, instead of what the leftists in the first three or four primaries want? That seems like a good place to start. For the system to work, Americans need to choose who will run, and that’s not happening now. With President Barack, the system will stay flawed and get more flawed. So that meaningful reform will never be possible.
I don’t think an Obama presidency would be the end of the world. Our nation can survive the stupidest president. If we want someone better than John McCain for president, we have to make sure someone better than McCain is running. And staying home from the polls won’t make that happen. IN fact, staying home from the polls serves the democrat purpose, IMHO.
If we could go to Dobbin and give a mighty swing, and get his atention, sure. We will never get his attention tickling him with a feather.
Just my .02 I wish there were better answers but I don’t think there are- not this cycle, anyway. I will push the button for McCain because I think he has his head out of his ass on the GWOT, and he will not mess up our future with activist judges. These are issues important enough to me not to let them slide.
Pitiably, where you live, you won’t have much chance to do anything, because your state will vote blue regardless. And your gesture won’t even be noticed by the party.
Sorry. I’m just so damned beaten down by this whole process.
Posted by og on 05/22/2008 at 09:15 PMMy sister, who is a Republic legislator—at the state level—told me recently, “The world is run by the people who show up.”
DO. NOT. SIT. OUT. AN. ELECTION.
As the Sage of Butler put it, if you cannot find something to vote FOR, you can surely find something to vote AGAINST. Vote Libertarian. Vote GREEN.
If Republicans see a low turnout, the response will be, “Oh, look (::yawn::). A low turnout. Avez vous any Grey Poupon?”
If, however, they see millions of votes going, not to them, not to the Democrats, but to third parties or write-in candidates, they cannot but assume there is some sort of protest afoot.
Whether that might stimulate change in behavior remains to be seen.
As for the idea that the Left might be prevented from simply throwing the Constitution over the side, I point merely to the patience with which socialized medicine has been pursued—slowly, incrementally, step by step of the camel’s toe, until the nose is under the tent, then fully within the tent. They don’t have to do it all at once. They operate as relentlessly as erosion does on rocks. If they can get two USSC justices this term, that can be enough. A half-dozen key decisions next term. Some enabling legislation. A little work on public opinion. Like a souffle, it all comes together at the right moment.
They must be fought at every turn. Every blow must be struck as though it were meant to kill (to the PSH-ics: political metaphor). Every followthrough made as though one expected to find the enemy still standing after. One election isn’t going to do it all. One execeutive can’t save the Republic. It’s going to take a long, hard fight, and it will never be over.
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 05/23/2008 at 11:57 PM
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