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What say you?
Very powerful stuff CL.
Unfortunately, the blow-up is inevitable. My fear is the aftermath. The left will want the State to cure the economic problems (the State caused) with even more socialization, and in the chaos, the right will demand more law and order from the State - a historical recipe for disaster.
I can't listen to conservative talk radio anymore. Hearing them drone on and on about stuff I know to be absolute piddly-dink in the grand scheme of things makes me positively nauseous. Having four hungry mouths to feed in the event it takes a wheelbarrow to carry money necessary to buy a loaf of bread, is an image that haunts me. The Muslims are probably just sitting back and waiting for us to self-destruct - everyone in the world can see what's going down except our own stupid politicians. Maybe with some of the freshman Repubs going up this November, we can make an effort to educate them before the banksters get to them.
Okay, now yer starting to piss me off. Your beef is with R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N-S, not with "conservatives." I hate most Republican politicians, too. The Establishment types, and the so-called conservatives who when they reach D.C. start pandering to the liberals/progressives. Neither McCain nor Bush was a fiscal conservative--anybody with half a brain knows that.
You either do not know history or you are not being honest. The conservatives voted for Bush over McCain because he was the lesser of two evils. Ditto Bush over Gore and Kerry. I held my nose and voted for McCain over Obama. That doesn't mean that I supported him. I'm a conservative, and I'm not to blame that we had no decent choice for President since Reagan ran.
Why spend all this time hating "conservatives" when the enemy is the liberals and progressives? I consider that there are very few true conservatives in congress. I'd say Jim DeMint. What's your beef with him? Rubio talks a good game. What's your beef with him? What's your beef with Rush Limbaugh?
I don't know who peed in your cheerios, but might I suggest that you CHECK YOUR FIRE!!? You are raining bombs down on your natural allies while the enemy sits back and chuckles.
Good. That means we're getting somewhere.
And how did that strategy work out? We either recognize our failures and change strategies, or just keep getting more of the same crapola. Conservatives aren't victims of either the left or the Establishment.
The State. I've been harping on these same issues for more than 2 years now. I critique conservatives all the time. I ripped on McCain during the election.
My message has consistently been that, we either get back to our Old Right heritage, or start waiving the white flag.
The Old Right would have trounced on Bush and the Republican Congress for their spending, welfare, and yes, even the wars - no holds barred! A chance to audit the Fed would have been their A-#1 priority.
It's a lot different today though, isn't it?
So we either become pure or we start "waiving the white flag"?
No. You must ally with those who are relatively close to you and attempt to inch away from the road to serfdom step by step.
As a continental European, I am extremely envious of those broad popular movements in the anglosphere that still adhere to some classical liberal principles, precisely because they are popular and impure.
I live in a country where classical liberalism is alive and well in irrelevant tiny think tanks but dead and buried in the arena of political ideas that is our democracy. Now don't get me wrong, I fear the meltdown and the chaotic aftermath thereof as much as you do, but do consider the fact that you are lucky to still have allies. I feel it is a mistake to alienate yourself from these natural breeding grounds for liberalism because they are not pure.
As for the so-called compassionate conservatives, would Gore and Kerry have been better than Bush? Is Obama better than McCain? Of course not, they were and are much worse. We are driving at fast speed towards a cliff, and it doesn't make political sense to scoff your nose at someone who proposes to at least slow down a bit because there's a guy in the trunk who wants to hit the brakes. Sure I'd like to hit the brakes too, but you can't drive a car when you're in the trunk! Get out of there and mingle with the passengers, and then, just maybe, there's a chance we can stop it in time.
That said, I love your blog man. Intercontinental brofist.
There's no such thing as "purity," for who would be the judge? My message here is about a) priorities, and b) accepting the reality that we're up against a beast different from what we originally thought.
Playing hop-scotch won't help you win, if you're playing Texas Hold 'Em. And a strategy that's continuously failed, must ultimately be abandoned.
I once read a saying, can't recall from where: "The perfect is the enemy of the good." As I recall, the person's point was that perfectionism can work at cross-purposes to what is good. If you put so much effort into being perfect, you never get any good accomplished. I think it applies to politics and libertarians, too.
Sure, I admire your philosophical purity. I also admire your deep thinking, and your scholarly way of viewing the world. But you are living in a convent, apart from the real world. Come on out and get your hands dirty actually doing some good, rather than sitting back and decrying the fact that politics is ugly business.
Sure, I held my nose and voted for McCain. If he would have been even incrementally less of a disaster than Obama, then it was worth it. Re-taking over the Republican party is a job for the long haul. It will take hard work. It won't be easy. And once accomplished, it will not be coasting down-hill from there. Enemies are all about, trying to destroy both parties.
But I'd rather support those who are better than those who are worse. Is that the "ideal"? HELL NO. But I live in the real world, and I am not sure that libertarians do. Sure, people who wrote in Ron Paul last election, or Ralph Nader the one before, can be smug in the fact that they are purists, working towards the greater good. But they can also be blamed for helping the candidate that they hated the most to win.
As I replied to Gigero, my message is that of priorities, not perfection.
You're making 2 big assumptions here: 1) that they had any interest in McCain winning to begin with, and 2) that McCain would represent a significant difference from Obama.
The real world problems staring us in the face will not be solved until "We the People" decide to adopt a new mindset. Using history as our guide, skepticism of power, distrust in government, and the no excuses advocacy of freedom and liberty gives us our best shot. It's a longer term approach, but there are no short term solutions, making those efforts futile.
THE solution is very simple,
create WARS! American loves war, war shore up the dollar value! The USA loves war so much that they always create war when dollar face threat!