Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A Greater Mind Thinks Like Me

Thomas Sowell echoes what I have been saying about the Republican party:

A Gallup poll last week showed that far more Americans describe themselves as "conservatives" than as "liberals." Yet Republicans have been clobbered by the Democrats in both the 2008 elections and the 2006 elections.

In a country with more conservatives than liberals, it is puzzling – in fact, amazing – that we have the furthest left president of the United States in history, as well as the furthest left speaker of the House of Representatives.

Republicans, especially, need to think about what this means. If you lose when the other guy has all the high cards, there is not much you can do about it. But, when you have the high cards and still keep taking a beating, then you need to rethink how you are playing the game.

The current intramural fighting among Republicans does not necessarily mean any fundamental rethinking of their policies or tactics. These tussles among different segments of the Republican Party may be nothing more than a long-standing jockeying for position between the liberal and conservative wings of that party.

Think of the Republican and Democrat parties at a Texas Hold’em Poker table.  Every time the Democrat is dealt a hand, they go all in.  The Republicans look at their hand and fold every time.  They do not call the bluff, which almost all of them are, and they end up losing big.  If you fold every time in poker, you will lose, even when you do play a good hand.

Now, I am not saying that Thomas Sowell talked to me about his column.  This is something that every conservative, from Rush to Beck to Hannity and on down have been saying to the Republicans since they took control again back in 2002.  They have been telling the Republican party that they need to be conservative and that by pretending to be a moderate only loses elections for them (it is a winning strategy for Democrats when the Republicans play the moderate card).

This is largely why I supported Ron Paul, even though I have my own disagreements with him.  What attracted me to him was his concern for the legislation that was passed and how it relates to the United States Constitution.  He would vote against anything that he believed was unconstitutional, regardless of how it could benefit him or others.  This is the sign of a true conservative.  If you cannot justify a law using the Constitution or make no consideration when writing it, then you are not a conservative.

But I suspect that there are no conservatives in the leadership ranks of the Republican party.  Despite Thomas Sowell believing that they are conservative, just running as moderates to get votes, I think they are moderates.  Rush Limbaugh blames it on the inside the beltway mentality, but I do not buy that either.  I think that many of the Republicans who run as conservatives first and later run as moderates while they are incumbent were lying from the start.  They were never conservative, just ambitious.

And Ronald Reagan is dead.  His movement, though heart-warming, is dead.  It is high time that many of these conservative firebrands stepped up to the plate and ran for office themselves.  I am sick and tired of them trying to pick the most conservative candidate and then trying to convince us all of that fact.  Rush Limbaugh did say that George W. Bush was “more conservative than his father.”  That was a bad speculation on his part, one that he has never admitted to or apologized for.

We need a new movement, one that focuses not on party but on principle and hold their representatives and Senators accountable to the Constitution.  We need to get aggressive and attack those who violate the United States Constitution for their own political gain.  We need to stop the madness in Washington so that we are not tied down in debt and economic ruin.