Classic Liberal Blog

Many times on this blog I've said that if I hear one more person talking about conservatives needing a "leader," my head is going to explode!

Why do I keep saying this? Because in our republican form of government, no politician, not even the president, is "Our Leader."

Bill Quick put it another way in his post On Politics (emphasis added):

Glenn, politics isn’t “taking a shot and then going along.” Politics is voting for the people you want to vote for, and not voting for the ones you don’t. Politics is choice. Politics is not top down, politics is bottom up. Your notion of politics is what has brought us to the sad state we are in today.

Exactly! And it couldn't be said more clearly either. "Politics is choice. Politics is not top down, politics is bottom up."

Ask yourself, do you really want the Republican Party to win? Or is it something else you really want, like liberty?

Because if you really want to beat back the ever growing State, you as an individual have to accept and adopt the classical liberal philosophy that you are in charge, not the government or its politicians. You support what you really want. Period. Come hell or high water.

Here's just a few of the things the Republican Party is up to right now:

1. NRCC gives '6-figure' donation to RINO Scozzafava
2. NRCC, RNC & Gingrich back Margaret Sanger Award winner
3. Statist Lindsey Graham continues his attacks on Ron Paul
4. NRSC Backs Liberal Linda McMahon over Peter Schiff
5. Washington establishment backing Rand Paul’s opponent
6. John Ziegler kicked out of CPAC West

Politics, particularly in America, is about you the individual. And that's true for each and every one of us. Politics is not about the "party." It's about you keeping the fruits of your labor and living in peace, pursuing your own thing, without the threat of petty government abuse.

Partisan Politics—A Fool’s Game for the Masses (emphasis added)

... I go through life constantly bemused by all the weight that people put on partisan political loyalties and on adherence to the normative demarcations the parties promote. Henry Adams observed that “politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” This marshalling of hatreds is not the whole of politics, to be sure, but it is an essential element. Thus, Democrats encourage people to hate big corporations, and Republicans encourage people to hate welfare recipients.

Of course, it’s all a fraud, designed to distract people from the overriding reality of political life, which is that the state and its principal supporters are constantly screwing the rest of us, regardless of which party happens to control the presidency and the Congress. Amid all the partisan sound and fury, hardly anybody notices that political reality boils down to two “parties”: (1) those who, in one way or another, use state power to bully and live at the expense of others; and (2) those unfortunate others.

In any event, the parties’ principles of hatred have never passed the sniff test; indeed, they reek of hypocrisy. Thus, while railing against the “corporate rich,” the Democrats rely heavily on the financial support of Hollywood moguls and multi-millionaire trial lawyers, among other fat cats. And the Republicans, while denouncing the welfare mother who makes off with a few hundred undeserved bucks a month, vociferously support the hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare channeled to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Electric, among many other companies, via larcenous “defense” contracts, Export-Import Bank subsidies, and countless other forms of government support for “national security” and service to “the public interest” as Republicans conceive of these nebulous, yet rhetorically useful entities.

Notice, too, that although ordinary Democrats and Republicans often harbor intense mutual hatreds, the party leaders in Congress rub shoulders quite amiably as a rule. Regardless of which party has control, the loyal opposition can always be counted on to remain ever so loyal and ready to cut a deal. And why not? These ostensible political opponents are engaged in a process of plunder from which the bigwigs in both parties can expect to profit, whatever the ebb and flow of party politics. At bottom, the United States has a one-party state, cleverly designed to disguise the country’s true class division and to divert the masses from a recognition that unless you are a political insider connected with one of the major parties, you almost certainly will be ripped off on balance. Such exploitation, after all, is precisely what the state and the political parties that operate it are for.

Higgs is right. Regardless of which party wins, you and I both get screwed.