The Reason For The Alt-Right

Presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton addressed a rapidly growing segment of the conservative movement last week, known as the Alternative Right or Alt-Right.  As predicted by many, this speech did nothing to dismay Alt-Right followers.  Instead, it merely strengthened them and gave them legitimacy on the national stage.

I won’t go into what the Alt-Right generally believes in, as I think Vox Day does this well, but I will highlight that many mainstream conservatives are opposed to the idea, largely because it is viewed as racist by the communists.

I’ve always found it fascinating that conservatives will bend over backwards to prove they aren’t racists, from funding liquor and strip clubs for blacks to granting amnesty for Mexican invaders all the while calling the Left the real racists.

So far, gay marriage has been made legal via Supreme Court mandate and transsexual bathroom usage is now a national issue.  More than likely the latter will be put up before the Supreme Court, which a long and proud history of ignoring basic science (see Nix v. Hedden as an example).  The result will probably be that there are 200 human genders and that all businesses must create bathrooms for all of them.  They have a tendency to engage in magic thinking, after all.

Moreover, the greatest sin of all time, murder, has been legalized in the US, provided the doomed human being is present in his mother’s womb.  The conservative movement has made zero headway in this issue but for some reason always trout it out during an important election cycle.

The Alt-Right is merely a response to these failures and a retooling of tactics to use against the communists.  It is a refution of the old, vague conservative ideas which seem to grow more moderate as the decades drone on.  The communists lost the Cold War.  It appears that they’ve won the propaganda war.

What the Alt-Right recognizes is that the communists only have the political equivalent of shit tests, applies political Game theory to them, and turns those tests into a win.  Being called a racist means nothing to them.  Homophobic?  Nah, they’re just pedophiles.  Misogynistic?  What’s wrong with wanting women to be happier at home?

I would like to note too that Donald Trump is not Alt-Right.  In fact, the only political ideology which Trump ascribes to is himself.  I have no illusions about who he is.  But when he took Megyn Kelly to task when the supposed conservative blond brought up the “War on Women” idea to him, he cleaned her clock.

If nothing else, it highlights the kind of attitude that the Alt-Right has.  Having observed many prominant people on the Alt-Right, I can say that they are not afraid of the charges of racist, sexism, or “homophobia” and instead of trying to prove themselves to their ideological enemies, instead focus on attacking them.

Ultimately, the mainstream conservative movement better embrace the Alt-Right or get out of their way.  Because if you aren’t with them, you’re against them.

Conservatives Are Losers

The old adage “give them an inch and they will go a mile” is probably the best way to describe mainstream conservatives right now.  They have constantly failed in their efforts to stem the tide of a whole host of issues from abortion to LBGT fascism to successful wars overseas.

I guess we could sum up mainstream conservatism is one word: failure.  Despite all their ranting and ravings against the American communists, they have failed to stop them, failed to steer people in a more favorable direction, and ultimately failed to even properly identify their enemies.

Communists have managed to successfully alter the demographics of our nation from being a predominant culture of liberty minded individuals to a culture that imports low-church communists from other countries, mainly Mexico, while simultaneously altering the existing culture to more readily accept communist principles and policies.

Communists won the propaganda war in the last half-century.  Sure they lost the Soviet Union, but that country was doomed to fail from the beginning.  But they were able to convince an astonishingly large number of people in the West that communism was good.  Hell, I’d argue that Putin is much more free market than the US these days.

But what was the conservative response to all this?  Mainly it was to say that they weren’t racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.  They even went out of their way to try and prove it to a bunch of people who don’t give a damn who you really are.

The time for defense is done.  If you are a conservative-minded person, stop paying attention to the leaders who lost the culture war.  They suck at their causes and they’ve further driven our country down the toilet with their pointless hand-wringing and sickening attention to detail.

The offensive is what needs to be done now.  Take a clue from the communist playbook and start applying their techniques against them.  Stop trying to prove to them that you’re not racist, homophobic, or whatever and start calling them out for who they really are: anti-civilizational morlocks.

The time is now.  We need to stop allowing these wicked little imps from destroying our country for the sake of some unproven cause.  You don’t need dialectic, you need rhetoric.  Start using it against them.

Otherwise you’re just another cuckservative.

Mark Levin’s Intellectual Envy

I had respect for Mark Levin.  That is until he ran from intellectual debate from Thomas Woods.  Before that, I was impressed by him.  I had a signed copy of Liberty and Tyranny and enjoyed many of his points.

These days I wonder where his loyalties stand.  I am inclined to believe that he is a Statist operative of the Republican old guard who doesn’t desire for a balanced budget, but for government to work for Republican interests.  Either that or he is an intellectual child who hates the fact that other people have good ideas for freedom.

Case in point, here is his recent quote regarding nullification:

the nullifier kooks are neo-confederates wasting a lot of our time & diverting our focus; they're a small, fringe group

Why is this a diversion?  As far as I can tell, given what happened with marijuana legalization in Colorado, nullification is a much faster process for liberty than working within the Federal system of government.

I’ll grant that Mr. Levin’s amendments he has proposed are not bad ideas.  I would be happy to see all of them adopted into the Constitution.

But I think Levin forgets the one key factor involved in implementing laws: that is the power to enforce them.  And when you pass a law that limits the government, who is going to enforce it?

The government is not qualified to police itself.  As it does this already, we have seen the terrible results, from police wantonly being able to murder citizens without repercussions to an Attorney General who has been caught selling (or donating) weapons to drug lords.

Nullification is not just a remedy to reverse bad laws, but a way for groups of citizens to hold the CentralFederal government accountable for the unconstitutional laws they pass like indefinite detention, prohibition, or forced health insurance.  In effect, it is a means for a collection of people operating under a sovereign state to challenge the decrees of the higher state.

Of course, Mark Levin probably knows this.  I know he isn’t stupid, he is just extremely envious that other people have better ideas than his own.

And so he resorts to age-old liberal tactics like playing the race card.  What a chump.

Teaching Mainstream Conservatives New Tricks

Well, it seems that the mainstream conservative Sean Hannity is coming around to what many paleo-conservatives have been saying for a decade or so:

On his Friday radio show, conservative talker and Fox News host Sean Hannity warned that the United States may fall apart if tax rates remain high.

“The states are now fighting and battling against their own federal government,” Hannity said. ”Same thing with individuals. If you live in a state like New York, New Jersey, California [or] one of these high-tax states [where] 60-plus cents of every dollar goes to taxes, you’ll say, ‘What the hell am I doing this for?’”

“A lot of people have told me that,” Hannity continued. “A lot of people are moving. … I noticed that Bobby Jindal moved to remove his state income tax. He’s not stupid. You know what’s going to happen in Louisiana? The same thing that is happening in Texas and Florida — their populations are soaring. They’re doing a lot better. State governments are fine. They’re surviving. They don’t have the property taxes they do in New York, which is obscene. In New York, you just pay and pay and pay and pay.”

Unlike many other Western nations, the United States has a diverse group and despite the mass migration of various foreigners from Socialist nations, still maintain a significant and sizable group of rugged individuals.  And with the producer class mostly in the more conservative states, they will eventually get fed up enough with the increased taxes.

Of course, I mentioned the fact that our payroll taxes have gone up.  I mean, in actuality, they have been raised back to their level that they were a few years ago, but still, given that the economy hasn’t recovered and that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, it would have been better that Congress hadn’t allowed it to happen.

But it is refreshing to see the more mainstream conservatives acknowledge what is really going on, instead of just pledging undying loyalty to Republicans and assuming they’ll fix things.

“Judeo-Christian” Values?

I have often heard from Christian conservatives that our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values.  I have often wondered what that really means, as they are never quite specific beyond that statement, as if we are just simply supposed to know what it means and accept it.

While it is true that the majority of the Founding Fathers (and when I say Founding Fathers, I mean the men who drafted the United States Constitution) were Christians and their ideas and beliefs were deeply rooted in Christian morals and beliefs, it seems that the current group of Christian conservatives put way too much stake in this.  More than likely, most Christian conservatives invoke the Judeo-Christian value line because they want some form of soft-theocracy implemented in the nation.

As far as I can tell, there is no concrete definition of what Judeo-Christian values are in a modern context.  At best, I think the Ten Commandments are the most descriptive of such values, but even then not everyone coherently adheres to it.  If anything, Christians in the United States are the worst examples of adulterers, liars, thieves, and murderers.  After all, around 82% of Americans consider themselves to be Christian and I do not believe that it is only the pagans and the non-believers who are committing all the crimes.  Of course, Christians will use the fallacious “no-true Scotsmen” argument in order to deflect attention away from these “bad examples”.

As a Christian myself, I do not take responsibility for the actions of other Christians because I am not them.  I do not apologize for the wrongs wrought on others by people in the name of Christ.  If the Bible is right about anything it is that those who use Jesus as an excuse to do evil do not have a healthy afterlife to look forward to.

Back to the point, though, I think that this claim to Judeo-Christian values is just men and women grasping at straws in order to justify making religion part of government.  I will grant that mainstream religious beliefs in the United States have been, by and large, censored or ignored in the mainstream media and most of often they are mocked or insulted in mainstream entertainment media (or what passes for it these days).  Christians in the United States, by and large, are ashamed of what they are and so such things tend not to bother them.

However, whenever I hear someone point to Judeo-Christian values, it seems to me that the speaker is usually pushing for a theocracy of some kind.  In terms of law, what more could you possibly want?  Everything that can be considered a crime under Judeo-Christian values is already illegal, along with so many other things do not fall under that spectrum of values.  Heck, even non-Christian nations consider sins like murder, envy, lying, adultery, and oath-breaking to be evil.  I hardly think that those things are exclusively “Judeo-Christian”.

I think it is best if we just look at Christian values as simply following the two greatest commandments, as first taught by Moses (I think) and re-emphasized by Jesus: first, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all might, and with all your soul and secondly to love your neighbor (i.e.. all other people) as yourself.

For those who have little regard for God, the least you can do is to love others as you love yourself.  Indeed, it is probably the first expression of the non-aggression principle, as loving another human being means not taking actions against them without their consent.  Surely, if you truly loved another person, you would not treat them in a manner that you would want to be treated.

I think that is a better version of morals than some vague allusion to Judeo-Christian values, don’t you?

The Mainstream Conservative Folds

In what is probably a predictable move, Joseph Farah, Chief Editor of World Net Daily, has decided to vote for Willard “Mitt” Romney:

Based on his long and contradictory political record, I do not have much hope that Romney is going to do a 180 if he wins. I don’t think he will steer the nation on the U-turn course that is absolutely necessary to save us from the brink of disaster.

However, the idea of a second term for Obama genuinely scares me. I don’t believe America could ever recover from such a cataclysm. The country will suffer irreparable harm, if it hasn’t done so already.

While I remain a principled constitutionalist who doesn’t believe in voting for anyone who does not understand and embrace its limitations on federal power, I believe 2012 is one of those rare election years in which freedom-loving Americans will, out of necessity, be forced to vote defensively.

I won’t be voting for Romney because I think he will save America or reverse our dangerous course. But I will likely be voting for him to buy America the time it needs to avoid catastrophe. It’s just that simple – and sad.

And there is the excuse that I have been hearing from many mainstream conservatives like Joseph Farah for over a decade now.  The logic amounts to this:

1. Candidate A is a <opposing party> and I cannot vote for him.
2. Candidate B is a <the other party> but does not share a majority of positions I would like him to have.
3. Voting for a third party candidate or a write-in candidate would be a waste of a vote since nobody else would vote for him or her.
4. Not voting would really be a vote for the winner (illogical, of course, but no one questions it).
5. Therefore I must vote for Candidate B because things will be slightly less worse than with Candidate A.

While it is true that Joseph Farah wrote a book in 2008 about not voting for either Barack Obama or John McCain, this year he seems to have finally given into fear.

This is why I no longer count myself as a conservative by any measure.  They constantly talk about principles and going back to the Constitution (which would be a great thing) but when faced with a Republican candidate who won’t do that, they vote for him or her anyway.  Worse still, when a candidate genuinely presents a constitutionalist message like Ron Paul, he or she is mocked, insulted, and criticized by the very people who still agree with him 90% of the time.  Instead, they focus on the “winnable” candidate, not the one they mostly agree with.

This trend has been going on ever since 1988 in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan, who duped the conservative movement into believing he was conservative (he may have been at one time) and still increased the size and scope of government while maintaining the illegal Statist institutions such as the Federal Reserve in the process.  Why do you think Ron Paul ran as the Libertarian party candidate in 1988?  He was so disgusted with the lack of putting principles into practice under the Reagan administration that he decided to try and go his own way.

I am tired of seeing conservatives play the game and fold every time, while claiming that this is the most important election ever.  They are a collection of morons and idiots who think that somehow voting for the guy they disagree with but happens to be in the correct party is a virtue while standing on your principle is a vice.

This is also why I believe that the mainstream conservative movement, the one created by William F. Buckley in 1955, is dying.  They are fading out as more and more people are realizing that they are not true to their principles and are instead shills for the Republicans who at best pay lip service to conservatives’ own causes.

Until conservatives stop voting out of fear, stop voting against something, and start voting for something, they will always be losers.

Jonah Goldberg is so Friggin’ Stupid

So I watched this disgusting video from the Daily Caller:

Basically, here we have a man who is afraid of the youth rallying around Ron Paul or the extreme Left-wing.  Put simply, his neoconservative brand has been proven to be a failure, given the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, the failures of the neoconservative economic policy (which comes courtesy of long dead economists and homosexual hedonist Lord John Maynard Keynes), and the outright failures of the neoconservatives to avert the financial crisis, both past, present, and yet to come in the near future, of which their compatriots in the Republican party take much blame alongside the Democrats.

Let me deconstruct some of his arguments here bit by bit:

“Personally I think the voting age should be higher, not lower.  I think it was a mistake to lower the voting age to 18 to be brutally honest.”

That’s fair.  But I want to challenge Jonah Goldberg with something: where in the Constitution does it say that you had to be 21 or older to vote?  In other words, when the amendment was passed to lower the voting age, it did not overwrite any existing articles or amendments to the United States Constitution.  Secondly, this was done back when we had a draft and warmongers like Mr. Goldberg were sending 18-year-olds overseas, especially poor minorities, to die without having at least a minor say in their policies.

It is true that young people are largely apathetic when it comes to the political process.  They do not care much for voting for some pompous old guy who reminds them of their father.  However, like so many other older Americans, they do enjoy their share of free handouts and have no problem mooching off of others.  I can say that I am certain that many young people, especially those closer to my age, harbor resentment toward authority figures who have told them to go to college and get a worthless degree and not to worry about the debt they have acquired as a result.  Meanwhile, they are having trouble finding jobs related to career fields such as Anthropology, Business Administration, and Communications, not to mention the utterly worthless degrees like basket weaving and <insert supposed victim minority here> studies.  So they are saddled with mounds of debt before they even have a job to pay it off and then come to find that the high-powered salary position they should have gotten upon graduation is really waiting tables for other successful people.  And we wonder why the Occupy Movement gained so much traction?

Another thing that annoys me about this statement is that even though joining the US military is completely optional, he basically said he wants to nullify their votes and allow politically motivated men to direct the affairs of the military, effectively using our troops as pawns and cannon fodder for personal gain.

“If they’re going to run the country one day, then we should probably explain to them why they are so friggin’ stupid about things and it is a simple fact of science that nothing correlates more with ignorance and stupidity than youth.”

So tell me, Mr. Goldberg, how does one measure stupidity?  There must be a way since science requires, first and foremost, some tangible unit of measurement in order to facilitate experimentation.  At least the hard sciences do, but I don’t consider “soft” science to be true science at all really.

On the other hand, I am bearing witness to the extreme stupidity and selfishness of the elder generation.  So far, they have saddled the youth with debt, flooded the market with money thereby inflated the cost of goods and services, spend themselves into debt where they are totally reliant on government, and voted for the people who will not change any of this but keep the gravy train rolling.  They have little regard for the youth of America and see us as little more than producers to be exploited for their own gain.  Even the elderly who can afford healthcare are on Medicare, justifying it by saying that they paid into the government Ponzi scheme (and it is a Ponzi scheme) and thus they deserve the payouts, regardless of how bad the return is.

Meanwhile, the youth by and large do not believe that either Social Security or Medicare will be available for them when they reach that age.  They know this because they understand how Ponzi schemes work and that there just simply isn’t enough money to be used in that manner.  They also distrust many of our leaders to do the right thing.

Since Mr. Goldberg is a little on the arrogant side himself, let me explain something to him: wisdom does not come with age.  I know that the motif throughout much of our culture is the wise old man but the truth is that wisdom is not something people get as they grow older.  But arrogance and haughtiness is something that many elderly, especially these days, gain as they grow older and become more set in their ways.

The fact that young people think Socialism is better than capitalism, that’s proof of what social scientists call their stupidity.

First of all, the fact that most people cannot explain the differences between Socialism, corporatism, and capitalism, regardless of age, shows that most people are idiots.  The fact that Jonah Goldberg and others like him cannot see the difference between capitalism and corporatism demonstrates severe retardation when it comes to the field of economics.

Secondly, one of the primary reasons that is true is largely because of the State-run education system in our country that has favored obedience over critical thinking and collectivism over individualism.  If Jonah Goldberg had any sense, he wouldn’t fault the youth for falling for thirteen years of indoctrination from the American Left.

Thirdly, this idiot probably wouldn’t know what true capitalism was anymore than knowing what the true Constitution really says about legal tender, standing armies, and the size of the House of Representatives.  I don’t see guys like him calling for limited government, but more government, just a socially-conservative and pro-world police one.  That is hardly a model for a free market.

Fourthly, if Jonah Goldberg had any wisdom whatsoever, he would know that our form of government is supposed to be a Republic and not “Democratic capitalism”.  This means he is a clear failure at understanding even the basic ideas behind the Constitution, which are taught in high school if you take advanced political science.

The fact is, National Review is, and always has been, a big joke of an organization.  It was founded on the premise of big-government corporatism in order to snuff out the Soviets, who were considered enemies not because of Socialism or communism but because they were not Catholic or, at the very least, Christian.  The founders of the organization, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Brent Bozell, Jr. were devout Catholics who viewed the Soviets as a threat to their beliefs.  They were probably correct, but they also were not conservative in their zeal to expand the military in order to continue the Cold War.

To his credit, William F. Buckley would later denounce the War on Drugs as having been a failure and denounce the War on Terror.  I don’t think Jonah Goldberg listened to the wisdom of the his elder in this case and shows the same level of stupidity he mention in the short video clip.

Jonah Goldberg represents the Republican party establishment here.  While his words are directed at the Left-wing youth, he considers all youth to be “Socialist” and I assume he probably lumps in groups like Young Americans for Liberty as well because they do not share his socially conservative, pro-war views.  Men like him are merely totalitarians (did he not say he wanted to beat sense into us, both literally and figuratively?) who disguise their true intentions with conservative buzzwords like “Founding Fathers” and “constitution” and “liberalism”.  The truth is, he is just as bad as the so-called Socialists he opposes, just on the other side of the coin.

As for me, I’m really hoping that the coin will land on its edge.

Conservatives Compromise with the Irrational (or Evil)

My daily commute to work could be very insane.  I despise traffic and it is one of the few things I lose patience over.  Living here on the rim of insanity provides me ample opportunity to practice patience, if I took the usual routes from my home to where I work.

So what did I do about it?  I simply went to MapQuest, got the directions from my home to my place of work, and eliminated all the roads that I know would be crowded with traffic.  My usual route takes at least the same time as it would if I took the common one and it keeps me sane at the same time.

Why did do that?  Why did I not just assume that the common route would be the best one?  It’s simple really: I don’t settle or compromise on things that are important to me.  I consider it very important to find the route to work with the least difficulty because I hate traffic.  I am not about to wait around for the government to build more roads, increase lanes, or build reliable public transportation in order to get me to my work location faster.  As it stands, it takes them years just to finish the approval to start building a new road in most cases.

Voting is a much more important than my daily commute.  More specifically voting for the right guy to represent me in any government office is a very important endeavor and I am usually very careful to find the person with the best fit.  I know most of you yahoos would rather watch football or log on to Facebook than investigate a political candidate, but I don’t like to swallow what some asshole on the mainstream media says about a politician.  As such, I do not compromise my vote.

However, I find that most of even the most dedicated voter will still compromise on their values because they do not support the other guy, be they Democrat or Republican.  Conservatives are notorious for this because they will always pick the most conservative guy in the primary and when they lose, they will still vote for the Republican because they think he or she will be better than the Democrat.

Unfortunately, when you make any kind of compromise, it is the more irrational party that will win.  In other words, by compromising your values and not writing someone else in or voting for another candidate, you are perpetuating the growth of government by supporting the big government guy.

I talk about how both Newt Gringrich and Mitt Romney are not conservative a few days ago.  I know that the current selections are not anywhere near what would be ideal for a conservative to choose.  But why are they already compromising their principles?  Because they think things are worse under President Obama.

How foolish is that?  President Obama has done a lot of things I disagree with, but for the most part, I suspect most Americans lives have not been directly affected by President Obama.  I know mine has not.  This does not mean that the government does affect the market but can you really say that you lost your job because of President Obama (or President Bush for that matter)?  More often than not, the collection of individuals engage in economic activity are what determine what companies succeed and what companies fail.  You can have a really great product but if nobody wants, because they don’t see the utility of it, then your company goes broke and you lay off the employees.

I know, I’ve simplified things when it comes to studying the use of scarce resources that have alternative uses.  But honestly, most great companies can overcome the restrictions and restraints that come from unnecessary government regulations and ultimately succeed.  Sure it takes a lot more effort, but short of an outright government ban of your product (like domestic oil from the Gulf of Mexico), success comes in spite of regulations.

Sure, there should not be anymore government regulations and I firmly believe that there should be none at all.  Yet we are stuck with them because people are willing to compromise with their political ideology because they hate the other guy all because that guy happens to be in the wrong party.

The truth is, there is no real difference between the policies implemented by Democrats than there is with Republicans.  Both parties have grown the government into the beast we face today and both have benefited from the loyal support of people who compromise with their own beliefs.

The fact is, unless conservatives in mass pick Ron Paul as their nominee, they are doomed to face a choice between two Statists, not fiscally responsible administrators.  It would make no difference if Barack Obama or Newt Romney won next year precisely because they all are the same jackass.  Yes I know that they all say different things and espouse different ideas, but ultimately they will all have the same policies put in place.  After all, despite what President Obama said in his 2008 campaign, he has only created more wars and implemented many of the same things that President Bush would have.

And the only reason I say that Ron Paul is different from all the rest of the yahoos who would presume to rule over us is because his long record speaks as to one of consistency and actions matching words.  It would be a shame to ignore a politician who means what says and does just that.

Mainstream Conservatives Have Failed…Again

These days, I wonder how a person can call themselves a conservative and support the Republican party.  Such actions are paradoxical at best, given the past history of the relations between the conservative movement and the Republican party leaders.

I believe I have discussed this topic before, but I am still wondering how conservatives can seriously consider voting Republican now, especially since they do not consider the top three candidates to be conservative.

Newt Gringrich, the current media-anointed frontrunner, is anything but a conservative.  He used conservatives to bring Republicans to power in the House and then demonstrated poor leadership with regard to budgetary matters.  You will also notice that the Federal government did not have a budget surplus until after he resigned.  He also has supported the bankster organization Freddie Mac (or was it Fannie Mae?), supported global warming initiatives, and supported Obamacare.

On top of that, his personal life has been nothing but a circus of wives and mistresses, the latest of whom managed to convert him to Catholicism.  It’s funny because I don’t remember being taught that in order to be a missionary to others, you need to be in the missionary position with your target.  In any case, this does not bother me too much, largely because I don’t care all that much, but I thought conservatives did care about such things.  In any event, Gringrich has gotten to the head of the class largely because of the conservatives dissatisfaction with most other candidates and because of his articulate manner in the many debates.

Mitt Romney is just as bad as Newt Gringrich for conservatives since he believes in man-made global warming, supports TARP (not only when it happened but he still thinks it was a good idea not implemented properly), and at one time was pro-choice, which doesn’t make him a very good Mormon.  He also laid the groundwork for Obamacare when he was governor of Massachusetts, which is not a popular issue among conservatives, although the supposed conservative think-tank known as the Heritage Foundation also supported Romneycare alongside Senator Ted Kennedy.

Then we have Ron Paul, or He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, who is never considered a conservative by mainstream conservatives.  He is considered either a kook or libertarian (or both) in most conservative circles.  I personally consider him to be a Constitutional Conservative, as he is always touting the Constitution when discussing the role of the Federal government.

In short, it seems to me that the Mainstream Conservatives have failed, yet again, to produce a solidly conservative candidate to their liking.  The top tier candidates are not in line with Mainstream Conservatism and the ones who do are getting single digits in most polls.  But hey, it’s OK, because as long as a Republican wins, then conservatism wins, right?  Just don’t pay attention to the growing government and shrinking liberties, both personal and economic.

Responding to a Bible-Thumping Social Conservative

Responding to a person in the one of the forums I post in (I’ve posted my response there as well):

“Fiscal Conservatives” reject social conservatism, and they suppose that they stand against communism/socialism and stand for personal responsibility, i.e. the no work, no eat ethic of James Smith at Jamestown, which considers it unproductive and immoral to take the fruits of another’s labors - the body, blood, sweat and even tears that comes with toil. On an individual level this is called stealing/thievery. And, when sanctioned as a rule by a society, it is called slavery.

Communism/socialism is the devil’s ploy to empower his minions, clear the way for the eventual rule of antichrist, and undermine the Salvation of man. As the devil is God’s monkey, at first glance the general tenet of communism/socialism might appear to be a “Christianity” without Christ, but, being without Christ, of course it is totally distorted and is only used to deceive man. It is a lifestyle that is forced upon others by deceit or “out of the barrel of a gun”, against their God-given free will, and is antithetical to True Christianity.

In order to dupe the masses into submission, communism seeks to abolish absolute morality/social conservatism and True Religion (that is why Tsar Nicholas II, the last worldly protector of Orthodox Christianity, was murdered along with his whole family in Russia).

And, in order to prevent man from even thinking about reaching for the highest needs as presented in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, communism/socialism focuses on, and caters to, the basest needs and animal urges of humans in exchange for their very souls. And having no recourse to True Religion, once they have sold their souls, they are the devil’s disciples and will do anything to protect their bounty and keep it viable, as very insightfully revealed by the very evil character in the movie “The Tourist” when he said “he has taken from me something [money] for which I have paid the infinite price, my soul”.

The love of money, such as Judas and by extension apparently “Fiscal Conservatives” have, does not engender the Grace and help of God, which is required to personally overcome the snare of the devil and his angels and minions. I say personally because eventually the reign of the antichrist will come and therefore our victory is in our enduring until the end, in our personal fight/struggle to avoid being numbered as one of the devil’s disciples/coconspirators, whether knowingly or not does not matter if we reject the teachings of Christ outright. It will be the fruit of our labors that will reveal all - did we contribute to clearing the way for the eventual rule of antichrist or not?

So, “Fiscal Conservatives”, if you truly want to work against communism, you must embrace morality/social conservatism too!

And “Christian”, if you go along with, or support, a “Fiscal Conservative” in any way because you think that he is the lesser of two evils or is a stepping stone, know that you are allying yourself with a “useful idiot” of the devil himself and will need to answer for it.

It is no secret that most of the Founding Fathers, the ones who wrote the Constitution anyway, were mostly Christian, with a few rare exceptions.  They applied their principles and philosophies into the United States Constitution in an effort to create a more stable Republic than the one laid out by the Articles of Confederation.  It was an effort to ensure that the States worked together in a more cooperative manner than they had been.

Despite many of them being profoundly Christian, they choose to keep specific religious laws out of it and leave such matters to the States.  This is why the First Amendment was passed, in order to ensure that the Federal government did not set up a national church like England had.  Instead, they laid out the groundwork for what the Federal government could do, implying (implicitly at first, though the Tenth Amendment made it explicit) that the Federal government could do anything outside of the scope of what was written down.

Christian morality is at the heart of this nation or at least was for a very long time.  Even in this day and age, there are roughly 82% of Americans who say they are Christian, so we can say that we are Christian nation, despite the apparent moral breakdowns, although my generation has done less drugs and fornicated less than the Baby Boom generation.

In any case, if you mean that social conservatism is concerned with matter of Christian morality being codified into law, it is unconstitutional for the Federal government to do so, by and large and such matters should be left to the States.  But the problem with the rampant immorality is not necessarily because of a lack of laws or a lack of enforcement of said laws.  After all, the Federal government has over 10,000 laws on the books and each State probably has thousands as well.  The problem is not a lack of laws or a lack of law enforcement but a sick society.

For example, if everyone held life as sacred, then abortion would not even be an issue as it would barely cross our minds.  As such, no one would consider any law regarding such a despicable thing and probably just equate it to murder, a law that should already be on the books.  Use of drugs like heroin are often done because of a lack of meaning or emptiness in a person's life.  A Christ-centered life would be much less likely to use such things because the Holy Spirit can fill most holes in our lives if we let Him.

The solution, as I see it, lies not in the government but in the individual person.  Spreading the Gospel to others and convicting them to follow Jesus and accept God's grace is the only real solution with tangible results.  All the government has done when enforcing most of its laws is pervert justice to a point that would make even the most fanatical Christian cringe.  We see children taken away from their parents for the flimsiest of crimes such as shoplifting.  A man accused of child abuse is counted as guilty, even if all charges are proven false in a criminal court.  This is all because government is nothing more than a collection of selfish individuals, not God's angels.

Electing social conservatives, I'm afraid, has only lead to more immorality.  This is because social conservatives need social issues to stay alive in order to remain elected, much like Democrats need welfare recipients to get elected.  Did any Republican in Congress during the Bush years ever propose to cut funding to Planned Parenthood?  It was not until this year that one dared to do so, when it was more than likely to fail given the Democrat-controlled Senate and Obama in the Whitehouse.  The point is, social issues have been used as a kind of political football in most cases.  Does any social issue ever get resolved by an elected official, or at least marginalized?

One thing you are overlooking is that to be fiscally conservative, you need to have a high degree of integrity to begin with.   Once you obtain the reins of power, the temptation to give in to lobbyist and various special interests becomes great and men and women of weak-wills and dishonest practices will fall quickly, regardless of their apparent fiscal conservatism from the onset.  To be fiscally conservative is to be filled with solid moral fiber in the first place, otherwise you will just end up corrupted like all the others.

The Conservative Persuasions

The term “conservative” exploded into mainstream media around the time that Ronald Reagan become President.  Probably slightly before that, but it was not considered a prominent political ideology until around that time.  It is a term that has been used mainly in a derogatory manner when referred to by mainstream “journalists” but a badge of honor by many others.  Ultimately, the movement has become mainstream and, as most mainstream movements do, splintered into various sections and factions.  Right now there is a huge ideological divide within the conservative movement and more than likely a generational one as well.  But in general, there seems to be some distinct categories of the American right-wing despite some snowflakes here and there:

• The original conservatives are now considered paleo-conservatives.  These folks believe in government being limited to its traditional constitutional role.  Another term that could be used for them is “Constitutional Conservatives”.  This group appeared around the time that the Progressives gained a lot of traction in the Federal government.  Today they would be considered largely libertarian, or mistaken for libertarian, but they do believe that the several states have a right to pass whatever legislation they see fit so long as it does not interfere with the Constitutional requirements (Bill or Rights, 14th amendment, etc.).  By and large, this group does not see military intervention in foreign nations or a massive Federal government security network as we have as a legitimate function of government.  They take issue with everything that does not strictly adhere to the United States’ Constitution.  They can find allies in libertarians because of their pro-limited Federal government stances.  They are often shunned, however, by most of the other conservatives because of this.
• When William F. Buckley, Jr. first started his own conservative movement, he focused on stopping the spread of communism and saving the Christian (Catholic in particular) world from secular tyrants.  His conservative movement was largely supportive of limited powers except when it came to defeating the Soviets, where a blank check was given and excuses were made.  They were highly supportive of traditional family values as well, and many of them have pushed for social policies reflecting such.  Buckley was instrumental in influencing later conservative pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter.  This is why I refer to this group as Mainstream Conservatives.  They are the most significant group among the conservative movement, however, they often times lack a significance influence on the Republican party, who often pay lip service to them much like how the Democrats pay lip service to the black civil rights groups.  Usually, this group is content with whoever is shoved in front of them by the Republican leadership because that person usually shares their views on foreign and social policy.  In fact, this is largely how Republicans have been able to maintain their power and influence for the past couple of decades because of their ability to pretend to care about matters like abortion and gay marriage in order to rally this gullible group.  It should be noted that before his death, William F. Buckley himself came out against the War on Drugs and the War on Terror as he believed that both were ineffective and against his own brand of conservatism.  Many of his followers ignored him.  Although I call this group Mainstream Conservatives, it is actually a dying breed now that the Soviet Union is long gone and because of the next group, which gained prominence during the Bush years.
• The final group of conservatives are the Neoconservatives.  This is a distinct group as outlined by Irving Kristol and whose purpose is “to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy”.  Neoconservatives are more concerned with getting government to work “right” rather than limit it.  In general, this is the conservative rhetoric that dominates the mainstream political discourse.  Even many of the Mainstream Conservatives openly support and rally around Neoconservative candidates and nominees, often resorting to fear tactics in order to discourage voting for your principle.  They are often proposing plans to reform the tax code, redesign existing, archaic welfare programs to be more accessible, and a foreign policy program that extends the Mainstream Conservative one.  They believe in spreading democracy across the world in order to make the world a better place, against the will of the people living in those nations of course.  They have often been allied with Mainstream Conservatives because of their shared views on foreign policy and social policy, however, they have sharp disagreements in fiscal policies.  But still, they consider fiscal issues to be much less important than other issues.  Constitutional Conservatives often butt heads with this group and are often alienated as a result.

So the three groups of conservatives, as I see them, are the Mainstream Conservatives, the Constitutional Conservatives, and the Neoconservatives.  While the Mainstream Conservatives have a significant influence within the media, especially on radio, Neoconservatives have a larger influence on the political class while Constitutional Conservatives are largely ignored by both only to be openly attacked when they step out of bounds (the boundaries being Hell in most cases).  However, with the significance of Ron Paul’s CPAC wins, soundly beating neoconservative Mitt Romney two years in a row, and his consistent polling, as well as his significant fund-raising efforts, Constitutional Conservatives are making much more headway.  Because many Constitutional Conservatives are Generation X and Generation Y while many of the Mainstream Conservatives are of the Baby Boom Generation, the significance of the influence of Constitutional Conservatism will continue to grow.  In many cases, these young people, such as myself although I am not a Constitutional Conservative, have listened to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and have found contradictions in his and many others’ support for the Constitution.  Because they will be saddled with the largest national debt in the history of mankind, they do not accept any 10 year plans for balancing the Federal budget nor do they expect to be collecting Social Security.  As such, their concerns are more immediate and they view Ron Paul as the kind of wise grandfather who seems to know more about life, the universe, and everything than their immediate predecessors.

Note both the Mainstream and Constitutional Conservatives both claim to be adherents to the Constitution, where as the Neoconservatives often claim that they are not “backward-looking”.  However, most Mainstream Conservatives will gladly abandon constitutional principles and the limits imposed by it in order to further their own agenda.  The most significant of this are the modern foreign wars, so long as they were started by Republicans.  They are a dying breed, though, largely because of the Neoconservative influence on the political class.  They compromise their own principles in order to elect Republicans and use the excuse of voting for the lesser of two evils.  Because of this, they are largely becoming extinct, as show by the growing lack of overall conservative voter turnout in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

Unfortunately, there are still plenty of Neoconservatives who have influenced Mainstream Conservatism enough to blur the lines between them.  This is largely because of President Bush’s own brand of Neoconservatism, which is still a major influence in the Republican party.  The three “frontrunners”, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry have all expressed Neoconservative beliefs and attitudes which is to make government better and more efficient instead of cutting it down to its constitutional limits.  It will be a while before the Constitutional Conservatives take back the movement.  Even if Ron Paul wins it all, he will meet significant opposition from all sides, but I am sure he is used to it.  In any event, this is the current state of the conservative movement.

Offensive Military Action and the Constitution

The Constitution of the United States indicates that only Congress can declare wars and issue letters of Marque and Reprisal.  In effect, this means that the power to initiate offensive campaigns must be approved by Congress in a formal vote.  This is why I believe that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional because it grants the President the ability to initiate offensive campaigns and then go to Congress to ask for additional funding.  In effect, it absolves Congress of the crucial responsibility of sending soldiers into conflict, where many could die, and instead places it on the President.  It also grants the President way too much power to commit military forces to areas that we may not otherwise wish to go.

The problem is, most conservatives these days deny that interpretation of the Constitution and, in effect, deny the writings and intentions of the Founding Fathers who they so revere as saints.  It sickens me when I hear about conservative pundits wishing to start another war with Iran all because they might develop a nuclear weapon.  In other words, they want to send our troops into an even more hostile land than Iraq or Afghanistan all because Iran may launch a nuclear weapon on Israel.  They forget that Israel could easily launch its own series of nuclear weapons and completely wipe out all their enemies in the Middle East.

Today I heard a new argument for going to war with Iran, a war that we cannot afford and probably will not have a stated objective to finish like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.  The argument was that because we have signed a treaty with Israel saying we will defend them from foreign aggression, then we must go to war with Iran.

Those of you who are intelligent know that this argument is utter garbage, but for those of you who are conservative or just a pro-war Statist (which right now includes all the Democrat(ick) leaders and their myrmidons), I will explain why.  The reason is simple: the Constitution requires Congress to declare war.  Even if we had a defensive treaty with another nation, we could not initiate offensive military actions against another nation who was threatening our ally without a Congressional declaration of war.

Let us keep in mind that allowing one man the authority to initiate war against foreign nations without Congressional approval is more dangerous than most conservatives realize.  To say that it is perfectly OK for the President to do such a thing means you support Obama’s actions in Libya and the countless innocent people he has killed by his massive bombing campaign there.  Not only that, but he snubbed Congress by ignoring their vote that required him to leave.  Of course, Congress also voted to continue the funding of the bombing campaign but the fact remains is that if the President could do that without any consequence to his office or his policies from within our government, it means he is a virtual dictator.

And that dictatorship he holds is in place largely because of the pro-war conservatives who have dominated the right-wing in the Republican party over the past several decades.  Thanks a lot assholes.

The Mythical Fiscally Conservative Republicans

Recently, I was asked why I have directed by ire at the Republicans instead of the Democrats concerning the Debt Ceiling.  That is a good question and I know that it seems that I have been extremely critical of Republicans and mostly been withholding criticism from Democrats.

The truth is, I withhold my criticism of the Democrats largely because it is patently obvious that the Democrats are a bunch hypocritical, lying projectionists (not the PowerPoint kind) in just about everything they do.  If they call you a racist, most likely it is because they are racist themselves and believe that you think like they do.  If they say you hate women, this stems from their own misogyny.  The Democrat(ick) party has managed to portray themselves as high and mighty in these social areas while managing to get most people to believe that the Republican(‘t)s are not.  It is quite amazing and in my own way, I admire their superior marketing ability to portray themselves as the opposite of what they are.  Now that the social network has more and more people connected, this is largely being unraveled to the people who actually read what others say.  I personally have learned a lot from observing and about the opinions of others.

In these current debt ceiling dealings, the Democrats have not put forward a budget, as is Constitutionally required, and President Obama has no plan other than to depend on these continuing resolutions.  The Republicans have put forward several plans.  I personally liked Senator Rand Paul’s budget plan, however, nobody really voted for it, not even many of the Republican(‘t)s in the Senate.  The current popular plan, as proposed by the Republican(‘t)s, is the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act.  And while on paper it may seem like a good plan, I do not trust it.

The reason why I criticize the Republican(‘t) party more than the Democrat(ick) party is because the Republican(‘t) party often gets elected based on their conservative values, which usually include fiscal issues.  They are voted into office in order to cut spending, taxes, and the obsolete government programs which do not serve the interests of the American people anymore.  However, during the last two decades, they have done nothing of the sort, despite having almost absolute control over much of the Federal government during most of it.

Remember the Republican Contract with America?  How much of that was implemented?  As far as I can tell, none of what they promised in 1994 ever really came to pass, even when President George W. Bush had both Houses of Congress.  The bottom line is that history is against the Republican(‘t) Party when they claim to be for smaller government and reigning in on spending.

In essence, the Republican(‘t) party is lying constantly to their constituents and have failed to deliver any coherent conservative agenda, besides bombing Muslims and other assorted foreign enemies.  And since President Obama has added three more unconstitutional wars, largely to benefit foreign oil companies, I think he has taken that issue away from the warmongering elements.  So all the Republican(‘t) party has is fiscal issues and in this, they are failures.

I know that perfect is the enemy of the good, but I would argue that this is more like the lesser of two evils.  And keep in mind that the lesser of two evils is still evil.  The fact of the matter is, neither party wants to cut spending per se, just the spending on programs created by their opponent.  And that is the current state of politics in the United States these days.  It is not a question of who will cut spending, which is necessary for the future well-being of our nation, but who will cut what programs and redirect that money elsewhere.

One last thing:  I once asked a conservative if he would vote for a pro-life Statist or a pro-choice fiscal conservative.  He opted for big government pro-life guy, largely because he would not compromise on the abortion issue.  What you have to understand is that for me, the debt ceiling is an issue on which I do not compromise for the sake of getting things done.  For once, I would like to see that the government does not get things done and in fact stalls, sputters, and shuts down all unnecessary functions.  I do not care who does that or who is behind the government shutdown, I just want all the lazy tyrants who write the Second Set of Books to get fired and be forced to figure out a better, more productive function in society.

The only saving grace in this whole debt ceiling issue is that the Democrat(ick) leaders under the direction of President Obama have been holding up any solution through their conceit and stubbornness, of which I thank God for.  If the time limit is reached and the debt ceiling is not raised, then I will have to credit the Democrats for causing it, not the Republicans.

In the meantime, understand that I do not expect anything the Republicans say they will do to be certain, save for raising the debt ceiling.  Any proposals to cut, cap, and balance spending are to taken with a grain of salt and anyone who thinks otherwise is a foolish person deserving of flogging.

Demonic Miss Coulter

Full disclosure: I have not read Ann Coulter’s latest book Demonic, but seeing as how I am a blogger (barely) I feel I have a right to say anything I want.  It’s not like we have a responsibility to provide accurate or factual information, after all.

I still don’t understand what it is that conservatives have against the libertarian stance on social issues.  By and large, it tends to be more in synch with what they truly believe rather than with what Leftists believe.  But it all came to a head when Ann Coulter insulted libertarians after the Republican Presidential Primary debate on Bill O’Reilly’s show:

O

The first thing I’d like to point out here is that Miss Coulter seems to be under the assumption that government provides the moral guidance of the populace.  This is a mistake made by both Left-wing and Right-wing Statists of all types.  While it is true that government can and usually does have a dramatic influence on the collective moral compass of the vast majority of people, it does not have to.

Yet I am constantly amazed at how many people assume that if we were to legalize drugs of all types, we’d suddenly see chaos in the streets.  Criminals would rule by their axes and toddlers would be raped by child molesters who are high on paint thinner.

Yet for some reason, we all go to the modern day civilization we have now when narcotics and alcohol were legal to sell to children.  This Drug War, another war the government fails to admit that it is losing, was started by President Nixon probably due in large part of his contempt for the hippies.  And while I share his contempt in hippies, I think his solution to make their non-violent behavior illegal was a misguided one at best.  But no one ever said that President Nixon was a nice guy.  On a side note, it is amusing to hear conservatives whining about how the liberals are criminalizing conservatism, considering their boy Nixon did to the liberals first.

As for this whole notion that marriage can only be sanctioned by the State, is that not a Statist attitude?  More and more, when I view the fight between liberalism and conservatism, I just see two Statists arguing over what kind of oppression the State should be engaged in.  Personally, I am offended that I had to swear an oath to the State before I was able to swear an oath before God when I got married.  What if the State decided to demand a confession of your crimes before you went into the confessional booth at a Catholic church?

The fact is, marriage licenses were not issued in the United States until 1853.  So between 1776 to 1853 I suppose nobody was ever truly married, according to Miss Coulter’s illogic.

Another thing I find outrageous about Miss Coulter’s comments is her charge that libertarians do not stand for anything.  If anything, Congressman Ron Paul has stood on his firm principles of limited, constitutional government and had little to no allies supporting him in the past two decades.   This is largely do to social conservative snobs like Miss Coulter who continually snub him while ignoring things like his Sanctity of Life Act (look it up), a bill that would effectively do away with Roe v. Wade.  That bill, by the way, has had no more than two co-sponsors, which means that Republicans do not give a damn about the Pro-Life movement.

Apparently Miss Coulter’s latest book, Demonic, is about the mob mentality used by liberals to maintain their followers, people I affectionately call the Low-Church Left-Wing Statists.  But what about the Low Church Right-Wing Statists?  They too are lead by mob rule.  If you comfort them about these issues and presented your case in a sound and logical manner, many of them will respond in the same way that your run of the mill liberal responds to opposition (usually by throwing insults).

I firmly believe that if the government were to get out of all of these social issues like marriage, abortion, drugs, prostitution, and gambling, most things would remain the same.  Sure, you would have some people who would more openly indulge in these various non-violent activities, but by and large the vast majority of people avoid these things because they are smart enough to know how potentially destructive it all can be.  Also, the allure of the forbidden activity would also vanish because it is now legal.

On one final note, I would like to remind Miss Coulter that back in the summer of 2006, the Republicans had majorities in the House and the Senate and attempted to pass the Marriage Amendment, which would force States to only marry one man and one woman together.  Despite all the hype surrounding it, most voters decided that the Republicans were just big-spending jackasses who needed to be reminded of why they were elected.

So I wonder if Miss Coulter realizes that these days, social issues are losing issues for either side when it comes to politics.  I suspect this is largely because people do not like to be told what to do when it comes to sex and drugs and would rather have the option to make bad decisions on their own.  Also, the Federal government continued to spend large amounts of money on programs nobody cares about or even knows about and the Republicans did not change anything.  Yet as we enter this next election cycle, it is amazing to me that many prominent conservatives like Miss Coulter refuse to throw out their old, out-dated playbook and try something new for once.

The True(ly Disgusting) Conservative

I used to be a conservative.  The operating phrase here is “used to”.  I admired them for their stand on limited government.  I was such a fool back then.

If you want to ever understand what a true conservative is, look no further than Mark Levin.  He is probably the most conservative talk radio show host out there these days and he certainly says a lot of things I do agree with.

But he’s got one huge and potentially fatal flaw when it comes to his views, one that he doesn’t ever reconsider and arrogantly defends at all costs: his support of the military and police force.

And this is the fatal flaw of any conservative you’ll come across.  They will blindly and strictly defend the actions of all military and polices forces without question.  If you question what they are doing, you will be called a liberal or a nutjob.  If you suggest that the weapons and boots of the government could be used against you when you fight for limited government, you are no longer considered a conservative.

The fact is, I’ve had more insults and illogical arguments thrown at me from conservatives rather than liberals.  I’m sure I could get a full share from both if I regularly went to the liberal forums, but I guess I had set my expectations too high.

You see, I’m more of an individual than most people would like.  I don’t care for fitting my belief system into a specific box.  Heck, I have disagreements with Christians over things.  I mean, don’t get started on the fallacies and sheer absurdity of Calvinism.

But conservatives are not free thinkers anymore than liberals are.  In fact, many libertarians lack any original thought and tend to spout out views that were given to them by smarter men than them.  I guess it is just the way of the collective: to look to the smarter people to guide them.

There is a difference though in how the “low Church” members of any group handle opposing views they can’t resolve on their own.  When any group has members who are more than willing to resort to insults and not to reason or to simply admit, “I don’t know”, you’ve got Brutals and yahoos and not a group you should associate with.

That is why I have little tolerance for insults in any debate.  It’s not that I’m thin-skinned, if I was, I would simply hunt down your bosses and get you fired, much like what Dave Ramsey did to Matt Collins.  It’s got more to do with the fact that once the insults start flying, I know that I’ve won the debate and that there is no point in moving forward.

But this is how Mark Levin operates.  If you make any reasonable argument against him, he’ll insult you and shut you down.  He’s probably banned more dissenters from his Facebook page than I have followers on my twitter account (it’s only less than two hundred though).  But if you were to read some of the vile shit his followers throw at their opponents, the rules become clear: you can only be a bastard if you agree with me.  This is how most popular pundits operate and it’s getting sickening, regardless of their ideology.

But it is for that specific reason that I abandoned conservatives, libertarians, anarchists, and just about everything else: it’s because I have yet to find a group that doesn’t treat its opponents like garbage.

And yes, I used to be an asshole myself to a lot of people on these stupid forums.  So I know that you can change if you’re one yourself.

Roads and Schools…and Radio Waves and Airspace and…

The conservative movement usually does get a few things right, much more so than the Left, which is why I’d rather have them in charge than Leftists.  Granted, not many Republicans who get to the heights of power are conservative these days, but if there was another solid conservative like Ronald Reagan, I would seriously consider voting for him or her.

The one thing that conservatives do tend to get right is that many things that the government currently does should be privatized.  Health care is a major one considering that the Left decided they could do better than private individuals when it comes to health care.  And while I have my doubts as to whether or not the Republicans will ever make a decent attempt at repealing Obamacare, I know that the conservative movement, by and large, supports a total repeal of the bill.

But there are a great many other things that conservatives don’t ever consider when it comes to privatization.  Despite their love affair with the free market, at the end of the day they’ll choose war over free trade because that’s been their nature since about 1955.    So when you begin a discussion about free markets with conservatives, be prepared to limit them to the few things they actually want privatized and don’t bother discussing the fundamental concept behind free markets: the value of property rights.

When most people hear about property rights, they think about the houses they’ve bought or the cars they drive.  They tend not to consider what property really is.  From the libertarian perspective, anything that is material can be owned by someone, so long as that person can maintain ownership.  In a civil society, this usually involves some kind of proof of ownership and a common respect for another individual’s property.  In a not so civil society, this usually involves protecting your property with force.  Either way, anything you own is your property and you have a right to it, which is one of most basic cornerstones of liberty-minded thought.

Every time I hear conservatives discuss the role of government in our lives, they will never mention that it can be optional.  Often times, you will hear about how the government is needed for ‘public’ (that word should be substituted for ‘government’ at all times) goods and usually that is roads and schools.  While matters of justice and defense from foreign invaders are a subject for debate even among liberty minded individuals, these are usually agreed upon as not being necessary for any level of government to manage.

Government schools came about as a result of the progressive movement, a largely Leftist movement, and while many of the people who pushed for government schools in the late 1800s were Christians this does not automatically make them conservative.  Conservatives sometimes have trouble realizing that just because someone is Christian, it doesn’t mean they are conservative or liberty-minded.  Granted, many know better after President Jimmy Carter, but I still encounter fools who won’t see the forest before the trees (or whatever metaphor is better than that).  In fact, if you do a little research on the history of ‘public’ schooling, you’ll see a lot of secular progressives who wanted to circumvent the teachings of the Church in favor of the teachings of the State.  If only I could get my wife to read some of this material, then she would whole-heartedly agree with my determination to homeschool any children we have.

Roads is another one and this one is a bit tougher because there was no progressive movement to have the government make roads.  They just kind of did it and everyone accepted it.  However, these days road-building has become a huge central planning tool (and it probably was back in the day) where local and state officials will create new communities when they pave new roads.  Instead of letting market forces handle the demand for roads, all levels of government have taken it upon themselves to pave roads, maintain roads, and generally plan out where people are going to work, live, and play.  The reality is, the government should not plan our places for us, but respond to the free market, as a worse case.  Unfortunately, hardly anyone is really interested in privatizing the development and maintenance of our roadways  and I doubt that will be the case any time soon.

Other things that conservatives don’t even consider are the radio waves where private companies and individuals should own radio frequencies for a certain radius.  That way, we don’t have to debate over what authority the FCC has since they’ll end up non-existent.  Conservatives generally don’t consider this, however, because they like the fact that the FCC keeps obscenities off the air.  Frankly, I’ve never understood how hard it was to simply turn the station off.

Another thing is the airspace that airplanes travel in.  If a private company owned that airspace, they could manage it how they wanted.  In some cases, people may actually buy airspace in order to keep planes at a certain height when they fly over their own property, in an example, rather than having to appeal to the local, state, and/or Federal officials demanding that air traffic be redirected.  Which would you rather deal with: a bureaucrat who can’t be fired, a politician who can’t be voted out of office, or an individual whose monetary interests are more directly tied to your contentment?

I have never considered ‘public’ services to be ‘public’.  I always view them as government services that are created for the benefit of a voting public, but at the end of the day they are subject to the whims of bureaucrats and politicians alike where as the free market usually seeks to benefit themselves through the voluntary transactions of individuals.  Customer service is always better when a person’s financial interests are on the line.  I’ve hardly ever meant a mean cashier at a retail store.  I know they exist, but they’re rare.  However, I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from government ‘services’ like the IRS, DMV, and the Post Office, just to name a few.

In short, I believe that while conservatives have a good attitude towards privatization, I think they just need to take it a few steps forward and push for less government services and more private services in just about everything the government currently does.  It’s usually a tough sell, I know, but given that many conservatives are prone to rational thinking, it can be done.

Libertarians: Keeping Conservatives Honest (More or Less)

It’s no secret that there is no love between conservatives and libertarians.  Well, there is some, but often times there is just as much disagreement between conservatives and libertarians as there is between liberals and conservatives.  The ideology is very different between the two and libertarians are often looked down upon by many conservatives.
The insults are probably the worst.  Of all the libertarian people I’ve read up on and talked to, most of them have yet to refer to conservatives in some clever and derogatory way.  At best they are called fools for voting Republican without regard for the consequences.  However, I’ve seen libertarians be called “liberaltarian” and “kook” among others by the very conservatives who grip about liberal insults.
While it’s true that all of us libertarians have a very different outlook on the role of government, we are not all that dissimilar from conservative thought.  I myself was a conservative in my younger, more naive years (there I go insulting them like I just complained about).  I made the transition when I realized that freedom was more important than security and that the government has been, by and large, a very bad investment when it comes to justice and security.
But libertarianism does more than offer an alternative to conservatism for those who desire limited government.  Because we are further to the right (generally) than the conservative movement, we tend to keep conservatives more honest and question their own leaders when they refuse to adhere to the principles of limited government.  What we do is challenge there more fanatical devotions to Republican leaders who behave like liberals but claim the holy mantle of conservatism.
This doesn’t always work out the way we want, of course.  If one of us libertarians pushes too hard, the conservative will buckle down and get defensive, to the point of supporting worthless dolts who don’t give a damn about their own ideals.  This guy Bennett from Utah is a prime example, considering that he was re-elected during the Bush years.
The truth is, libertarians are needed within the conservative movement because we going to hold you to your principles, whether you like it or not, because many of those principles are our principles.  Sure we have conflicting views on some things like foreign policy and social issues, but at the same time, this nation isn’t too concerned about those things right now.
Considering what has happened in Greece, what will probably happen in Europe, and what has to happen here, isn’t it time we set aside our petty differences on social and foreign policy and focus instead on the very serious fiscal issues that Democrats and liberals clearly don’t give a damn about?
Or are we bound to constantly fight each other over things we both know the government cannot fix any time soon where as budgets are surprisingly easy, despite what a politician might tell you.
Still though, I fully expect many conservatives to look down on libertarians because for many, it’s considered some kind of higher calling.  I know because I used to think that way too.  And so long as you believe that you are right and everyone else is evil, well, you’ll never compromise.

Conservatives, Divisive as Ever

Shortly after Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll, I posted a poll on the small conservative forum I regularly post on.  It was a question as to whether or not you would vote for Ron Paul, if he managed to secure the Republican nomination for President in 2012.  Many conservatives, you see, have trouble with the very notion of Ron Paul winning his Congressional seat, let alone such a high office.
So I posed the following answers to the question “If Ron Paul wins the nomination in 2012 to run as President, would you vote for him?”:

• Yes, I would gladly do so
• Yes, I would begrudgingly pull that lever for him
• Yes, but only if President Obama is still on the Democratic ticket
• No, I’d vote Democrat instead
• No, I’d vote third-party or write-in instead
• Not even in Hell

So the poll went on for awhile.  Eventually, the mods locked the thread because, you see, the Ron Paul-haters really stepped up the hateful rhetoric and many of the more libertarian posters responded in kind.  In any case, the final results were as follows:

• Total people who voted: 28
• Total people who would gladly vote for Ron Paul: 7 (25%)
• Total people who would begrudgingly vote for Ron Paul: 6 (21%)
• Total people who would do so only if Obama was on the Democrat ticket: 5 (18%)
• Total people who would vote Democrat instead: 2 (7%)
• Total people who would vote third party: 2 (7%)
• Total people who said they wouldn't even vote for Ron Paul in Hell: 6 (21%)

When Rush Limbaugh responded to the CPAC straw poll, he merely stated that there must have not been that many conservatives at CPAC for him to have won.  At another point on this same forum, I asked someone if he would rather vote for a pro-choice libertarian or a pro-life Statist.  He responded by stating he’d rather have a Statist running things than a libertarian solely because of that one issue.
Conservatives are not the answer to limited government.  They are merely the other side of the coin when it comes to directing this nation.  I’m afraid our best bet is to convince those few who are open to libertarian ideas that our ideas are better and marginalize the fanatics.

I Guess Conservatives Wanted Obamacare All Along

It looks like that David Frum’s ilk have decided that it’s not conservative to repeal and replace Obamacare:

A radical reaction has erupted in response to the health care bill, and its motto is: “Repeal and Replace.” But this isn’t a principle; it is a talking point bordering along utopianism. True conservatives are not radicals; they respect tradition and work for stable reform to fix institutions.
Edmund Burke said, “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” This provides a solid framework for the conservative to approach problems. Societies inherit institutions, traditions, and values from previous generations. Some of them are bad, so it is the job of the conservative to identify institutions that are worth conserving while working to reform those that are not.

I’m sorry, but I thought conservatives were about nuking the Soviets (halfway done), outlawing abortion, and fighting for limited government.  In that exact order.
To be perfectly fair, David Frum and this guy (Oliver Garland) probably represent about as many conservatives as I represent libertarians.  Already we are seeing many Republicans and non-conservative conservatives start saying that the Democrats had it right except for a couple of issues when it came to healthcare reform.
Frankly, I am sick and tired of the conservative movement.  They have had ample opportunity to bring the Federal government back to its constitutional roots and they have royally screwed it all up on numerous occasions.
This man, Oliver Garland, seems to forget that Obamacare was just handed down to us last month.  Yet he says we should identify the institutions worth conserving.  I guess Obamacare is an institution now.
What a freaking idiot.  I cannot believe that this man could be so much of a weasel that he would think we wouldn’t notice this total failure of logic.  And he tags the Tea Party movement as ‘Utopian’.  I thought the Democrats and their Obamacare-like reforms were what would be considered Utopian.  I love how the last bastion of small minds is to accuse their perceived opponents of the very thing they are guilty of.  I believe it’s called projection.
Unfortunately, I believe these ideas will take hold within the Republican party leadership in Congress.  I’ve already heard of significant Republican leaders discussing this very idea.  The truth is, many Republicans and conservatives wanted Obamacare and were only opposed to it because Democrats were for it.  Both parties seem to enjoy doing this and creating pseudo-conflicts.  A prime example is the USA PATRIOT Act, which the Democrats were for until President Bush and the Republicans pushed it.
There are no principles in DC and David Frum and Oliver Garland represent the weasel side of how things work.  But since they claim to be conservative, I think I’m going to associate their ideas with conservatism from now on.  If we all do this, maybe conservatives will do us all a favor and permanently disown them in some fashion so these wolves can finally take off the sheep’s clothing.

Questions for Conservatives

Ever since Ron Paul won the straw poll at CPAC, many conservatives have gone nuts over the prospect of someone who actually wants to adhere to the principles of limited government getting elected as President.  While Ron Paul’s victory may be a fluke, because libertarianism has always been outside of even mainstream conservatism, that doesn’t mean that we can’t push for more victories like that one.
Since conservatives have, by and large, dominated the right-wing culture in this country, I believe that many people may be waking up and calling the conservative leaders to task on their ideology.  Many independent and newly active Tea Party patriots are not all that interested in the social agenda that the conservative movement prides itself on.  Instead, they are pushing for limited government and the likes of Romney, Huckabee, and even Palin don’t seem all that concerned about the ever growing monster that is our Federal government.
So I have some questions for the conservatives out there who feel the need to lambast the likes of Ron Paul and his ideals of limited government, even in terms of military spending:

• If you believe in a limited constitutional government, how can you reconcile this ideal with the $1 trillion we are spending on the military right now?  To put it another way, if we cut military spending in half, would we be less safe from terrorists?  Yes, I am aware that this is dependent on the right kind of spending, but just assume that all the cuts are the right kind.
• Given that we have over 15 intelligence agencies and given the recent failures of said agencies to prevent two Islamic terrorist attacks, don’t you think it’s high time we culled them down into one?
• Would you reconsider the merits of the USA PATRIOT Act, given that when the wrong people are in office, they will target political enemies rather than real ones like Janet Napolitano attempted last year?  Would you reconsider if you knew that the Republicans opposed this legislation as put forward by Democrats before 9/11?
• Considering that the Republicans had control of Congress and the Presidency from 2003-2007, would you now consider that the abortion issue means absolutely nothing to the Republican leaders and any so-called pro-life Republican should be taken at face value?  Consider further that Planned Parenthood didn’t lose any taxpayer funds during that time period either when reflecting on this question.
• Would you consider voting for Ron Paul if you knew about his Sanctity of Life Act?
• Have you read over Ron Paul’s foreign policy proposals?  Did you know that he has an alternative plan for dealing with Islamic terrorists that is just as active as the Bush Doctrine, but makes less of an impact militarily and could potentially save many lives?
• If Ron Paul won the nomination for President in 2012, would you vote Republican, Democrat, or third-party?  If not Republican, then why did you vote for John McCain in 2008?
• If the only thing stopping you from supporting Ron Paul and his like-minded colleagues is his foreign policy stance, would you be willing to reconsider your own preconceived notions of National Security, given the past Islamic terrorist attacks?
• Could you do your best to ignore the more radical elements of Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty and focus instead on forming an alliance with his group to further the limited government agenda?

Most of these questions are meant to be rhetorical, but if any conservative happens to read this and feels a need to answer any or all of these questions, feel free to so.  The fact is, the old conservative movement has failed to deliver on its promises despite controlling the House and Senate to some degree or another from 1995-2007.  Instead the national debt doubled and many polices initially rejected by Republicans were later passed all.
It is high time that the conservative movement of Rush Limbaugh, William F. Buckley, Jr., Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck seriously reconsider their own priorities and make a better decision in terms of the ultimate goals to achieve and what steps to take.  Making strong national defense stances is not enough.  Complaining about Democrats and liberals is not enough.  We need the real leaders of the movement to stand up and give us stated goals and the steps to achieve them.  It’s what the progressives did back at the previous turn of the century and they have, by and large, succeeded despite all their drawbacks.
It’s our turn and let’s not waste it with bickering and pointless infighting.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Old Conservatism is Dying (swiftfoxmark2.blogspot.com)
• Ron Paul wins early conservative poll (seattletimes.nwsource.com)