A Win For Republicans, Not Liberty

I really hate to be a downer on the victory that Republicans and conservatives had yesterday, but Scott Brown’s win is not a victory for the ideals of conservatism or liberty.  I know, I’m a pessimist, but you optimists need people like me otherwise you’d all have committed suicide by now.  It’s kind of an evolutionary failsafe.

As I’ve stated before, Scott Brown was not a conservative.  He was a big liberal when he was in the state Senate.  While voting for the Massachusetts version of “Universal” healthcare is something I can forgive, because it was pushed by a popular Mormon governor, he apparently has a long record of being the most liberal member of the state Senate.  This means that he, like so many other Statists, have never met a government program they didn’t like (unless it did absolutely nothing to benefit them).

So this means that Scott Brown will probably cross the aisle to the Democrats’ side in order to pass bills that favor more government and not less.  His rhetoric is reminiscent of George W. Bush, which does draw a slight distinction from the others, but not much.  President Bush did cross the aisle to get some stupid Medicare and education bills passed.  This means that anything that doesn’t involve cutting taxes or going to war without declaring war is pretty much open season for Scott Brown.

What does the future hold, given all this?  Well, the immediate future probably means that the Senate is no longer a factor when it comes to Obamacare.  What is probably going to happen is that Pelosi will put the Senate bill to the floor of the House for a vote.  More than likely, it will fail to pass there because despite the fact that it passed last year, it barely passed through the House of Representatives, garnering only a 3 vote majority in what is an overwhelming Democrat-controlled House.

Beyond that, the Cap and Trade bill will probably fail as well, if it manages to make to the floor of the United States Senate.  In fact, I expect the next several months to be pretty docile on Capitol Hill, but this is largely typical in a mid-term election year.  Unless something big happens, like the bank bailout scandal in 2008, then I doubt any real legislation of significance will pass.  Still, being the libertarian-minded person I am, I regard any legislation passed that isn’t under the scope of the limited powers as described by the United States Constitution to be just as tyrannical as the big ones.

However, after this year’s election, we will see a dramatic shift and more legislation rammed down our throats.  It won’t matter if the Democrats keep their majorities or not.  The patterns of the behavior of Congress are fairly predictable given the past and their own ideology.

There is hope for our future, though.  Peter Schiff and Rand Paul are both in the running for Senate.  Despite the fact that I don’t completely agree with these men, I know that if they get in there, they will do everything they can to obstruct the legislative process.  At the very least they will become the “Dr. No” of the Senate.  And a single Senator can do a lot more damage to the legislative process than a single House member can.  I would’ve pulled every dirty trick I could have to derail the passage of the healthcare bill in the Senate.  I would have made them read it and I might have stuck around for it all.  I’d probably just play some MMORPG on a laptop, but no said you have to pay attention to it all.

Still, while this is a minor victory for the Republicans, I doubt it will benefit any of the American people in the long run.  The reach of tyranny is too big now.  I wonder if we can ever restore the constitutional limitations without resorting to violence.  I wonder if violence would do it anyway or it would merely bring about something new and different.  But these things will have to play out as they are I guess.

For now, conservatives should have a little celebration.  But keep in mind that they will have to work much harder this time now that they put another RINO in a Senate seat.  Democrats are easy.  Attacking the party you normally support is much more difficult.