The Fight Conservatism Faces

So, unless you have been living under a rock, been hit by a rock, or have been about to be hit by a rock for the past two months, you are probably fully aware of November's election debacle.  I have discussed that in more than a few blog posts.  It was a painful moment and every moment since has felt equally painful.

So the next question is, "what is the future of conservatism?"  After such a morale-crushing defeat and the recent fiscal cliff "deal" to take the morale nadir and lower it, it is clear that conservatives are in for a rough time in the coming years. So, what are the steps to come back from this?

Disclaimer: I am neither a political strategist nor a professional political pundit.  I don't care, either.  Most of those on the right these days seem to be hilariously incompetent at their jobs.  So I am just going to approach this from the little perch I call "common sense."  At least as far as I see it; feel free to disagree.

I believe that the movement needs to take the next year working out its internal conflicts and differences.  Because the conservative movement is intellectually and (sometimes surprisingly) ideologically diverse, we tend to have internal factions that will disagree on issues and approaches.  We have libertarians, social conservatives, tea party conservatives, general Republicans, the sometimes-nebulous "establishment" Republicans and so on (it may seem redundant to separate some of those categories, but I have my reasons).

Now, I have no idea what the outcome of this internal battle will be.  There are many issues and many opinions on how to handle them.  However, right now, debates on approach seem to be the primary battle happening right now among conservatives.  Do we stubbornly hold the line at all costs or try to be conciliatory for the sake of image?  Do we focus on economics at the expense of social issues?  I'm sure the answer is more complex than my personal opinion on either matter or many others.

These internal battles must be fought, however.  Currently, we are too severely fractured and lash out at each other too frequently for such a status quo to continue.  Differences that must be worked out if were are to counter the moves of progressivism effectively.  Yes, it will be painful.  However, we are the people who believe that pain is required to succeed in life.  I can understand reluctance to face the pain, but it is inevitable.

One thing I do hope for, as these battles rage, is that we can be more respectful to each other.  I have seen far too much mockery and mean-spiritedness between conservatives of late.  That is troubling, not only because it reduces the quality of the debate to do so, but because we're on the same side.  We want the same ends.  We merely disagree on methods.  Turning off our intellectual brothers and sisters will not help us.

I have more to write about, but for the time being this will have to suffice.

On George W. Bush - Governing Philosophy

Time to get into the weeds, it seems.

It's time to talk about everyone's favorite president, George Walker Bush!  Also known as 43.  Or Dubya.

You see, something that bothers me a lot is just how much the man is criticized, even four years out from his presidency.  President Obama continually uses him as a scapegoat (despite making the country demonstrably worse off than before).  Liberals constantly scream and cry how he was a moron who was two-steps away from becoming a tyrant (not sure how that works; idiots generally don't have the wherewithal to become tyrants).  Some conservatives even (particularly more libertarianish ones) believe he and Obama are equal amounts of bad.

So where does the truth lie?  Was president Bush some horrible, idiot man-child given hell bent on maliciously expanding the government until we were all made serfs?  Or was he something less than that?

I am actually inclined to agree with the libertarian, who saw Bush's "compassionate conservatism" as bad policy.  His solutions for societal problems, like education, was bigger [federal] government.  Following the September 11th attacks, the solution was the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security, both of which granted large of amounts of power to the federal government.

However, this does not make Bush comparable to Obama in any way.  It is ridiculous to suggest that the motivations and actions of one of comparable to the other.  When Bush pushed for the Patriot Act and DHS, he was not doing it in some crazy attempt to massively expand the government to curb our freedoms.  If you believe that was his motivation, you live in some other world entirely.  He believed it was the right thing to do to keep us safe.

Now, that's not to say it was not ill-conceived.  It most certainly was.  In the hands of 43, however, it was relatively benign, designed and used to protect us.  Clearly he and many others who do not understand constitutional restrictions did not realize that out of their hands, such power could easily be abused.  Even now, the current administration is using defense bills to try and grant itself power to spy on American citizens.  Not overseas foreign nationals suspected of terror ties, but Americans themselves.  The slippery slope strikes again.

Same goes for any other big government initiative proposed by Bush.  His heart was most certainly in the right place for things like "No Child Left Behind;" the proposed (and passed) solution was just as incorrect and constitutionally dubious.  This does not make him equal President Obama, however.  They do not have the same motivations for doing things.  Bush, as far as I can tell, believed the government was capable of doing good things for the people.  Obama, on the other hand, clearly believes that the government is better and/or smarter than the people and thus should be doing things it is assumed they can not, regardless of ability.

To Bush, government was the tool for a solution, that it could help the individual improve him or herself.  To Obama, the government is the solution, all the time.  In essence, it subsumes the individual.

I think that is a very distinct philosophical difference.

Firing a Few Rounds

Honestly, you can not be completely surprised I have a few rounds left to fire off in the circular tent squad.  I already unleashed most of the clip in my first election analysis.  However, there are two other things I want to address.

First is Chris Christie.  I have heard a lot of people blaming him for the election loss, though I feel that is a lot more emotion than deep analysis.  It is pretty easy to knee-jerk against a guy who embraces the most dangerous president since Woodrow Wilson.

That said, I think they may be preparing to kiss here.

That being said, I do assign a very small portion of blame to Chris Christie.  The problem was not Governor Christie's complimenting of Barack Obama.  The problem is that he complimented him, at best, for getting nothing done.  At worst, he complimented Obama for a job badly done.  Power was inevitably going to return slowly considering how widespread the damage was.  The real problem lay and still lies in what is happening while the power remains unrestored, particularly the logistical nightmare triggered by the disruption of commerce.  People starve, freeze and live in filth as long as that has not recovered.

Yet, FEMA under Obama, much like under Bush, was woefully unprepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.  And Chris Christie complimented him on a job well done, a move which I have no doubt helped to solidify the appearance of Barack Obama being in control, despite people suffering a week later when the polls opened.  He complimented the president for doing a few photo-ops in a bomber jacket.

Ultimately, I think that the governor killed any prospects he had of national office.  While I do not hate him like some seem to now, I am immensely disappointed in the man.  No one should be in the business of giving undeserved accolades, whether because they are blind, for the sake of their own reelection (Christie will be up for reelection next year) or just to seem bipartisan.

Finally, my last problem is with those people who believe that the Republican party should divorce itself from the social wing.  This seems to come up every election (often from liberals...hm...) and frankly, I think is a foolish idea to consider.

For one, social conservatives bring the bulk of the energy and enthusiasm to the GOP fold.  Additionally we have numbers that moderates lack.  Splitting the party along these lines would shrink the influence of conservatives and right-leaning libertarians as they would fight amongst themselves more to vie for influence than come together.  The Republican party serves, in many ways, as a means to smooth over the differences between the two and allow them to face the left side of the aisle with greater unity.

The other problem is approaching moderates as some sort of monolithic block.  I believe this to be silly, at best.  The fact of the matter is, everyone who claims to be moderate/independent leans one way or the other.  It is not a matter of dumping social conservatives to appeal to these people; it is a matter of making a cogent argument to them in the first place.  I do not believe conservative values will fail to resonate with people when articulated clearly. 

Moderate candidates cannot do this and that, I believe, is where the problem truly lies.  As long as we keep selecting Doles, McCains and Romneys to represent conservatism on a national stage, we will continue to fail.  Now, I do think it is reasonable to debate which issues should take precedence.  Dropping certain planks because they are politically inconvenient is not the solution, however.

I believe the Democrats and progressive recognize our weaknesses when we choose moderates.  It is why they goad us into considering dumping certain ideologies and morals, particularly when elections go their way.  They wish to use this period of post-election soul searching to divide us further.  The least I can ask is that we don't fall for this kind of silly, knee-jerk stupidity.

Since there is one more big, very important topic that I wish to discuss, there will be one last blog post tomorrow or Tuesday.  Until then, readers!

Also, I hope you spent at least a little time today thinking about the veterans in your life.

On the 2012 Election

Well, after taking a kinda-sorta break immediately following an election that was a disaster, I am back and in full force.  I have my ice cream, my vodka and my fuzzy bunny slippers and I am all ready to curl up and cry for another few months.  Yes, I will be eating all three.

In all seriousness, as I slowly recover from the utter demoralization of Tuesday, let me give you my thoughts on what happened.

This man loses more gracefully than liberals win, sadly.

First of all, I was utterly shocked by the result.  Not only did Mitt Romney lose, but the Republicans lost seats in congress (though they maintained their house majority).  You already know this.  I think I can also say with confidence I was as flabbergasted as the rest of the conservative movement by this.  It seemed like the momentum was on our side, with the terrible shape the nation is in, and people would be wise enough to make the change needed to fix our ever-growing problems.

They did not and now the question is why?  Let me take a stab at it.

First, I honestly believe Romney was a bad candidate.  Now, do not get me wrong, conservatives did not have a good crop to choose from to begin with.  Most of the others had baggage or inherent flaws.  I love Rick Santorum and Herman Cain (the latter's recent advocacy of a third party notwithstanding), but I also realize neither could have won.  I am also not shortchanging Mitt, for I believe he put as much effort as he personally could into his bid.

However, Romney had several glaring issues, among them Romneycare.  It took the issue of Obamacare off the table almost entirely.  It was most certainly mentioned here or there, but its taxes, spending and rationing never got the play it should have.  Indeed, with Obama's re-election, many businesses fully intend on avoiding its costs and a firmer argument against it may have avoided the lost jobs we will be seeing.

He also never truly has been a conservative.  In this election, it seemed imperative to me that our side draw a clear distinction between ourselves and Barack Obama and, in so doing, show those demographic groups who often vote Democrat that we have their best interests at heart.  That never happened. Romney certainly talked a good game and selected Paul Ryan, to his credit, but it never truly got beyond that.  Thus the lines between the "devil we knew "and the "devil we didn't" became increasingly blurred, particularly during the third debate.

However, moreso than Mitt's own flaws as a candidate was his campaign apparatus.  I believe he surrounded himself with establishment advisers who gave him bad advice.  Part of me genuinely wonders if it was Mitt himself who preferred passivity or the advice he was given to be less aggressive.  Perhaps it was a combination both.  Either way, his campaign was mismanaged, much in the same way John McCain's was (though McCain was a charisma black hole, if what happened Sarah Palin is any indication).  His lack of aggressiveness on issues like Benghazi allowed to truth to stay sealed up tight.

Additionally, I am hearing stories now of a truly weak ground game by the Republicans, which, if true, is truly absurd.  Millions of conservatives and Christians not voting should not be happening, particularly in an election this important.  Obama having a stronger ground game should not have translated into an inept one by his opposition.

This points to what are really the inherent weaknesses of the Republican Party.  If its establishment is so mired in their own egos and belief in their ability that they cannot organize effectively, it is about time they be replaced with people of energy and fresh ideas.  Replaced by people capable of adapting to the information age and changing demographics.  In particular, that establishment must be replaced by people with true conservative principles instead of party loyalty.

I believe when we realize this, conservatives will have learned the true lesson of 2012.

P.S. Think I may write about some of the smaller issues on the election tomorrow or Saturday.  There are many small issues like Chris Christie, Akin and Mourdock and others that deserve some mention.  That and I just feel like talking about it.  You got a problem with that?

On the First Black President

There's something that has been weighing on my heart lately and now seems as good a time as ever to mention it.

I am very, very disappointed in the administration of President Barack Obama.

"Yeah, no kidding," you're probably telling yourself right now.  It is not a secret I find the current administration contemptible.  However, by disappointment, I refer to nothing more than a deep, profound sadness.

When I was a little boy in Irvington, New Jersey, I attended a school that was, as I recall, majority minority.  Thus we always had presentations regarding the heritages of various minority groups.  We even had a yearly assembly for Kwanzaa (even then, I was confused by it).

One thing that always seemed to stick in my mind, though, was the suggestion that we could, one day, have a black president.  We were told the usual childhood encouragement ("If you work hard, one day, you could even become president!").  I was taught about our nation's racist heritage and how we had yet to have a black man in the White House.  The racism never really stuck.  Historical racism stayed just that for me: historical.  However, for a long while, there was a little place in the back of my mind that always hoped to one day see a black man in the Oval Office.

Perhaps ironically, I eliminated that though at the beginning of 2008's primary season, long before Barack Obama became a viable contender for the presidency.  I had come to recognize that it did not matter what the person in the White House looked like.  Only their character mattered.  So I found myself immune to his charm and his teleprompter-based style when Sentator Obama ascended as the candidate of the Democrat Party.  That immunity kept my eyes open as I saw all the warning signs of radicalism, despite the media's shameless attempts to hide it.

Yet, on election night 2008, when it became clear that Barack Obama had won the presidency, I saw my Facebook page explode with friends who were excited to have made history.  Indeed, on the inside, I felt a small resurgence of pride in that a black man had just been elected president of the United States.  Like most conservatives, I resolved to give him a chance, despite my apprehensions.  Those feelings were driven, in part by that old spark of pride in seeing a black man ascending to the White House.

That spark has made the past four years all the more painful, disappointing and shameful.  Instead of being a beacon of hope and positive change, the past four years have been dismal with exploding debt and economic stagnation.  The president, instead of bridging divides between Americans, has intensified them and viciously attacked those he does not like or sees as convenient targets.  He has forced legislation through congress and ignored the Constitutional limits on his power time and again.

Despite his actions yielding negligible or bad results time and again, Barack Obama refuses to take responsibility.  He blames his predecessor constantly, even after being in office for four years.  He spends more time golfing and hobnobbing with celebrities than he does in intelligence briefings.  His office is empty more often than not as he speaks at rallies filled with screaming fan boys and girls, rallies that are far easier than than fielding questions from the press corps.

I feel that Barack Obama has been robbed of his sense of personal responsibility.  A man with no real accomplishments, he has been handed nearly every position he has held in life.  Some will say he excelled in college, but he has never released his transcripts.  Judging by how peculiar that is and a lack of real accomplishment in his professional life, that leads me to believe he did not do well at all.  Penning no papers on the Harvard Law Review, considered intellectually lazy as an adjunct professor and voting present more often than not in elected office, he is little more than a self-entitled shell.

Now that lack of accomplishment in his life has returned to haunt him as he is unprepared to take responsibility for his failures or defend himself against true challenge to his worldview.  And now, as his campaign appears to sputter out, latching on to internet memes week after week in a desperate attempt to stay afloat, all I can feel is a profound disappointment at how far the hope and change of 2008 has fallen.

I often hear older black people say they were taught by their own parents and grandparents to be a "credit to their race."  They had to endure racism and thus had to work harder to achieve and succeed.  Yet now, the president seems to be nothing but the antithesis of a "credit to his race."  In the end, the first black president, whether he wins re-election or not, has been everything he should not have been.

And it is a shame.