I tire of the simplistic analysis of the election [63 House gains for GOP; 6 Senate gains] as a victory for the “conservatives,” a loss for the “liberals,” and blah, blah, blah.
There are few true conservatives in this or any recent American undertaking, because there is a fundamental misunderstanding among many people of the meaning of the term, and there is a purposeful co-opting of the term by bad-minded sorts to dignify their radical extremism.
There is nothing “conservative” about Limbaugh, Palin, Rove, Hannity, Beck, O’Donnell, etc.. Those people are statists; they are police power extremist reactionaries; they invoke the Framers for their reactionary positions without ever having studied them. They are to conservatism what Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Rumsfeld, and Romney are to John Adams, Barry Goldwater, and Mike Kennedy [Captain Motion].
I am offended that they have co-opted the distinguished label of “conservative,” but I am even more distressed that people who properly attack the statists’ positions simple-mindedly call them “conservatives.”
What we see in Tea-Party-ism is a nominal and maybe superficial yearning for a return to certain fundamental founding standards, but most who are animating and marching and sandwich-boarding for such have never read founding documents, and they were curiously and tellingly silent when the Bush junta virtually eviscerated fundamental liberty values in service to “security,” which was anathema to the Framers.
As Justice O’Connor remarked upon her retirement, we will lose the Republic if people stay ignorant of its founding premises and of the Constitution.
There was no “conservative” victory here, but merely a shifting from the left-wing version of statism [socialism] to the right-wing version of statism [fascism], and liberty will suffer with either version in power, because statism is the enemy of liberty.
We need to return to the founding premises of small government [not even Reagan pressed for that, but merely mouthed the words], and big liberty, and limited central government involvement in our daily lives. Article 1, section 8, enumerates the extent of the central government’s power, and if it is not there, the central government cannot do it, and then the 9th and 10th Amendments announce the remainder. Neither those who lost nor those who won, now nor in 1994, understand that constitutional truism. Ron Paul is one of the few who does. As do I.
Aye! A toast to ye, Cap'n. I have long thought that the Republic is more in danger of going the fascist way than the socialist way, with essentially the same result. However, as long as the masses are content to be distracted with their bread and circuses, then those with the power to manipulate the Republic are free to do so and will continue for their own gain.
ReplyDeleteThe bread and circuses analogy is most apt, too. That is why there are tax-paid stadiums and other venues for sporting and various entertainment events: bad-minded politicos learned from the latter days of Rome that such distractions cause people not to question their government, while it subtly eviscerates their liberties. We need to study more and be titillated less, or we will lose all, and the default increasingly veers in the direction of power and away from liberty.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think of the reading of the Constitution on the floor? Sincere or more smoke and mirrors?
ReplyDeleteSmoke and mirrors. They tried to politicize the Constitution by reading an expurgated version that did not reveal the real foundations on which the Republic evolved and grew. The members are required to defend the Constitution, which they cannot do without understanding it, but they really don't care - they are largely there for themselves, not for the Republic. I am more impressed with the fact that the newbies, at least those labeled as tea partiers [even though none of them celebrated the real Tea Party on 12/16!], will get a lecture by Justice Scalia. Maybe that will inspire some to start to understand and care.
ReplyDelete