RoR: Forum

Post 1

Friday, April 5, 2013 - 2:39pm

I couldn't agree more! The essence of that move would be sharpen the debate between libertarian conservatives and the establishment conservatives and that would move the GOP strongly towards libertarianism. And that would make the real differences between Progressives and Libertarians evident - which would do wonders for the education of the voters.

The social conservatives are very much like the Progressives in one way - both are dishonest about their actual agenda. The social conservatives want to achieve religious goals, but won't admit that, just as the Progressives want to achieve socialist goals but usually won't admit that.

I agree that the social conservatives, once outside of the party, would still, most likely, vote for the GOP candidate. And the energy they bring would be replaced by the energy of a new GOP and the younger voters and those who are kept away by the Religious Right. But the question is how to chuck them out. They have woven themselves into the active, grass-roots level and see themselves as on a mission from God.

Post 2

Friday, April 5, 2013 - 7:35pm

Steve you are wrong: religionist conservatives absolutely do announce their intended religionist political goals.

As for Ed Hudgins's embarrassing pursuit of the Republican Party, I can only say that Democrats should invite the economic interventionists to leave.

Why not jump in to the DNC, join up, and help them?

Well, it is because far too many self-identified "Objectivists" are really just atheist conservatives. "Radicals for capitalism" has a nice ring to it, but like all slogans, it masks more than it announces.

Given the so-called "right" to an abortion, here is a radical capitalist idea: Your mother NEVER loses her inalienable natural right to kill you. The so-called "birth" of cutting the umbilical cord is only symbolic to primitive people. The baby cannot live on its own, certainly not for 10 years give or take. It is in the giving and taking that liberals and conservatives alike find themselves lacking in education or intelligence. If you can terminate a first trimester human being, then you can terminate a first year fetus. And I say, "Power to the mother!"

And that is just one issue - albeit perhaps the core problem - that differentiates and Objectivist philosopher from a Republican politician.

The ration cards in Iraq and the Iraqi state oil monopoly - to say nothing of the total lack of "weapons of mass destruction" - should be embarrassing to say the least.

No Objectivist can find any syllogisms or facts to support protectionist or mercantilist or racist programs of limits on immigration that come from the GOP.

Some self-identified "Objectivists" are only "atheist Republicans." They will find that the real controllers of the GOP are happy to take their support and their votes but have absolutely no intention of abandoning the Christian right.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 4/05, 7:37pm)

Post 3

Friday, April 5, 2013 - 8:25pm

Michael,

Steve you are wrong: religionist conservatives absolutely do announce their intended religionist political goals.

Only a few. Most of them mask their arguments. They don't attack gay marriage as a violation of holy scripture, they talk about family structure, male and female role models in the home, thousands of years of tradition, of a need to maintain the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, and of a slippery-slope argument that if you loose the traditional definition of marriage it will result in polygamy and bestiality. Those are all arguments that avoid their real agenda of enforcing the scripture via the law.

They argue that after conception there is a new entity that has the full DNA of a unique human and therefore it is murder to engage in abortion. They don't say that their real belief is from biblical interpretation.
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As for Ed Hudgins's embarrassing pursuit of the Republican Party, I can only say that Democrats should invite the economic interventionists to leave.

Michael, it is your statement that is embarrassing. We should be pursuing viable converts from all parties. And Ed did mention that without the Religious Right, we would win more Democrats who currently wouldn't have anything to do with the GOP. Of course we should invite the economic interventionists to leave the Democratic party, but since that party is dominated by Progressives, who are fiercely fighting to continue the transformation of the country into a socialist paradise, into an exemplar of huge government, and into the regulator of all things - not just business but your every move... well, that doesn't seem very likely, does it?
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Why not jump in to the DNC, join up, and help them? Well, it is because far too many self-identified "Objectivists" are really just atheist conservatives. "Radicals for capitalism" has a nice ring to it, but like all slogans, it masks more than it announces.

That's really disgusting - Cheap shots like that, where you don't give evidence, and don't name names, but spew out slurs like vomit from a drunk isn't very attractive. If you want to question my beliefs or Ed's or whatever unnamed "Objectivists" you are talking about why not have the balls to do so openly.
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Given the so-called "right" to an abortion, here is a radical capitalist idea: Your mother NEVER loses her inalienable natural right to kill you. ... If you can terminate a first trimester human being, then you can terminate a first year fetus.

Perhaps you want people to see you as a fool, perhaps you were so upset over something that you didn't even notice what nonsense you wrote. How can anyone take that kind of rant seriously? You have said in other posts that you take words seriously. I'd say that you abuse them on a regular basis. If you want to discuss abortion, make a serious argument.
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No Objectivist can find any syllogisms or facts to support protectionist or mercantilist or racist programs of limits on immigration that come from the GOP.

Michael, you are clearly drinking deeply of the far left's talking points Kool-aid. And no Objectivist would ever need to support those made-up positions. They can instead support the libertarian conservatives. Can you point to some "libertarian progressives" we could support?
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We still haven't heard Michael's plan to move our political system in a good direction. Do you think it impossible? Do you think it will happen without any plan? Do you think humans have no volition and so it doesn't matter? Some "former" anarchists that deeply identify with aspects of the far left find themselves in such confused straits.

Post 4

Friday, April 5, 2013 - 11:10pm

Michael the weapons of mass destruction WERE there. They are now "safely" in the hands of Assad in Syria. Until Obamullah decided to of course help the rebels which will of course put them in the hands of Al-Qaida, Hezbollah and the Palastinians...

Post 5

Saturday, April 6, 2013 - 6:09am

Steve: "And no Objectivist would ever need to support those made-up positions. They can instead support the libertarian conservatives. Can you point to some "libertarian progressives" we could support?"

To take the last point first, the late Christopher Hitchens. No One Left to Lie To was his attack on Bill Clinton. Hitchens was a old guard liberal who fought eloquently in print and in front of audiences for the role of reason as applied to human affairs.

As for the Libertarians, who in the LP should be denounced for our benefit? I have no idea myself; I do not know them that well. They do embrace a broad tolerance for all kinds of idiocy. Their claim that you have a "right" to harm yourself is certainly non-objective, or non-Objectivist, which is why Ayn Rand consistently denounced them.

It was curious, though, that she did so, but there you have it. Similarly, considering all the nice things she said about Christianity being concerned with the individual that she did not continue that line of thought, but instead excoriated the crowd from National Review. But, then, paybacks are hell. Here, too, rather than denouncing the Religious Right, why not start with our points of agreement. Love thy neighbor as thyself begins with love of self.

As for the opening, they are not "made up positions." The GOP is against "illegal immigration." They rally a lot of support across the economic spectrum.

While it is true that not many people want to keep Mexicans out because they themselves want to clean restrooms in office buildings, I can point you to Facebook links in which Republicans complain that "Obama wants illegals to have free healthcare." What is the real target? Is it the free healthcare? Maybe... maybe not...
And in the tech sector, I can point you to LinkedIn complaints about competition from India and Indians.

(Some employers complain that we are short on programmers and need to open up immigration for them to come here and work. I have no problem with immigration, but the real problem is the "fun at work" philosophy of the Dot.Com social media crowd which wastes productive effort. But that is another topic in a different forum here on RoR.)

MEM: Given the so-called "right" to an abortion, here is a radical capitalist idea: Your mother NEVER loses her inalienable natural right to kill you. ... If you can terminate a first trimester human being, then you can terminate a first year fetus.
SW: Perhaps you want people to see you as a fool, perhaps you were so upset over something that you didn't even notice what nonsense you wrote. How can anyone take that kind of rant seriously? You have said in other posts that you take words seriously. I'd say that you abuse them on a regular basis. If you want to discuss abortion, make a serious argument.

Argument is the problem, not the solution. Rationlist syllogisms lead nowhere. In Understanding Objectivism: A Guide to Learning Ayn Rand's Philosophy by Leonard Peikoff and Michael S. Berliner, Peikoff makes the point that males learning Objectivism tend to apply rationalist arguments that run contrary to the primary value of life as the standard of action, whereas women tend to integrate fact and value correctly and come to a truly objective understanding. You demonstrate that male rationalist error.

Here is the problem with arguments about abortion.

If abortion is murder because it takes an innocent human life, then should a miscarriage be investigated as manslaughter? It may be that the mother was not at fault, but in no other case do we make that assumption. Traffic accidents are always investigated. So are cases of accidental firearms discharge. What makes miscarriage different from other instances of manslaughter (involuntary homicide)?
If a mother has the right to terminate her pregnancy, then when does she lose that right to take the life of her child? Why is cutting the cord a symbolic act, when, in point of fact a newborn is wholly incapable of self-sustaining action?

I do not have any answers. But I do not pretend to.

Post 6

Saturday, April 6, 2013 - 12:43pm

Michael,

I asked for the name of a single libertarian progressive that an Objectivist could support. I don't think that Hitchen's is a progressive. He was something of a Neo-Con, at least for his support of the middle east wars. He was opposed to the "drug war" and held other civil rights kinds of views we could support, and he was quite famous for his opposition to religious positions, but he wasn't a progressive. Hitchens wasn't an "old guard liberal" - he was a full blown trotskyite - an avowed communist. But he did a radical change in position and it seemed to involve completely abandoning old positions, but he didn't really take up any new economically-based positions (like Capitalism) and instead focused intently on opposition to fundamental Islam and religion in general. (I enjoyed reading Hitchens... always eloquent.)
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As for the Libertarians, who in the LP should be denounced for our benefit? I have no idea myself; I do not know them that well. They do embrace a broad tolerance for all kinds of idiocy. Their claim that you have a "right" to harm yourself is certainly non-objective, or non-Objectivist, which is why Ayn Rand consistently denounced them.

Maybe you misread me, or had some other point not related to my post that you are making... because I never referred to the Libertarian Party at all. Our entire discussion was about the libertarian conservatives in the GOP.

[Side Note: As to the right to harm yourself, you do have that. If you own your life, you have the right to extinguish it. If you own your body, you have the right to damage it. People have the moral right (and should have the legal right) to do these things even though they would be irrational and immoral acts. Yes, you have the moral right to behave in an immoral fashion so long as it doesn't violate the rights of another.]
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Yes, the GOP is against illegal immigration. The alternative is eliminate all laws that prohibit anyone from any other country from crossing any of our borders anywhere. It means, among other things, that we don't stop people to check for criminal or terrorist status. Some Objectivists, and some libertarians favor that position and some don't. I don't. Your claim was that this is a position taken for racist reasons and I dispute that is a GOP position or even the reason that most Republicans are opposed to the idea of an open border. The fact that you can find some post by an individual who identifies with the GOP, and that the post is racist in nature is not the same as saying the GOP is taking a racist position. Anyone, unfortunately can find racist positions taken by members of all major parties.
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Michael, you accuse me of making the "male rationalistic error" - of applying rationalistic arguments that run counter to the primary value of life as the standard of action. But then you don't list a single thing I said that would fit that description. More cheap shots, unsubstantiated accusations, and sloppy thinking.

You said:

If a mother has the right to terminate her pregnancy, then when does she lose that right to take the life of her child? Why is cutting the cord a symbolic act, when, in point of fact a newborn is wholly incapable of self-sustaining action?

1) There must be some point in time where individual rights can be said to attach to the embryo/fetus/child. Before that, it is not reasonable to treat it as having the right to life, and after that point it is.
2.)"Self-sustaining action" is a partial description of the definition of life... but that definition is for any form of life, including bacteria, chickens, humans, etc. Individual rights ONLY apply to humans.

We aren't looking for "life" in this argument, we are looking for when the moral rights of an individual entity, who is human, attach. And further, you are misusing the concept of self-sustaining. It doesn't mean that there is no form of dependency at all. Every single form of parasite, like a leech, or entro-bacterium are as dependent on their host as a newborn is on support. Howard Roark depended upon oxygen in his environment. Self-sustaining differentiates the living organism from a machine or a simple chemical reaction where the actions are better seen as reactions.

For humans, "self-sustaining" would include the dependency of an infant - it would be sustaining itself by crying when hungry, for example, and there would be a natural evolution of the individual where "self-sustaining" would include less and less dependency - but this isn't related to the abortion issue which deals with when individual rights attach.

I could see arguments that choose birth as the legal bright line - where the individual becomes separate, becomes an individual, or arguments that choose some point in the third trimester where medical authorities state that the infant could survive outside of the mother without artificial support.

Moral rights are universal and arise out human nature. Legal rights apply to an individual at a specific point in time and a specific context, but they arise out of the written law. The written law should be our best effort to specify the concretes that will mark the boundaries of actions that might occur relative to a moral right. Written law should always apply equally, yet it will only apply when the context it defines occurs and that context should be one that invokes protection of a moral right.

There is no "male rationalistic error" in that thinking.

Post 7

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 4:08am

Steve I believe Michael is suffering an acute case of "OsnapSteveWolferismorerationalthanmeophobia".

Lol perhaps it is curable!
Joking!!(sort of)

Post 8

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 12:43pm

There was some inviting going on this morning on the talking head shows.

Lindsay Graham(as an example of a kind of Social Consevative)was sounding a little more real politik this morning, which translates to 'caving in to political reality in order to survive.'

But he sounded like his conclusion was, compromise with Obama, not disinvite himself from anything.

And for anyone who witnessed the discussion on ABC this morning...I don't know about you, but I was flabbergasted.

George Stephanopolous, George Will, Ariana Huffington, David Stockman ((New book excerpt), Paul "Pure Endowment Economy" Krugman, and Greta Van Susturn sat around a table and... it was odd exceeding. Krugman and Stockman sat next to each other and were barely civil; they took turns not agreeing with each other on 100% of everything, the current state of economics, exposed as purely political argument.

Krugman referred to himself as a 'bearded Spock' at one point. Seriously. Perhaps he is starting to understand the 'Lost Episode of Star Trek' nature of his own nonsense.

Huffington(loved her in 'Green Acres')chimed in with her expertise, and her hair looked magnificent, by the way. Too much Austerity going on, that is what is killing the economies. Her and Krugman rubbing feet under the table, was a nice moment.

Stockman pointed out, "Wha AUsterity? It's a rounding error."

George Will was ineffective, as usual; he seems resigned. Got the cushy job, who cares? Is ready to retire and post on fringe internet websites like the rest of us.

Stockman pointed out that although part of the picture is boomer retirement, the retirement of the boomers doesn't come close to explaining the drop in workforce participation -- we are at 1979 levels today -- and Krugman did his usual muddy the water best by repeating what stockman just said, by claiming that the numbers are not as bad as they sound becuase the boomers are retiring...was he even listening to what Stockman just said, or was his purpose to muddy the water?

We are now in a four year 'recovery' beating the same dead horse with the same dead ideas; it was pointed out that if the government still reported unemployment using the same methodology that it did in the year 2000, the unemployment rate would be close to 16%...

Stephanopous used the phrase "not since the Great Depression" and soon after everyone at the table was in a panic, talking over each other.

Blondie(her hair looked fabulous, did I mention that?)repeated her theory -- must have picked it up reading "People" at the Beauty parlor -- that it is 'austerity' that is doing in Europe, and America is following Europe's path down the tubes. We should be more like Greece and less like Germany and Estonia-- the economies that are doing the best of the bunch in Europe.

And Krugman gleefully pointed out that Japan is now joining in all the reindeer fun and borrowing and spending its way to prosperity. (Or maybe they just looked around and got tired of being the only economies with any sense of restraint and discipline left in this global C.F.)

Mr. Topsey Turvey Economics by way of "imagine ours is a pure endowment economy" is getting his weekly exposure to millions of Americans to reassure them that the blood streaming from their ass for now four years and counting is going to slow down Real Soon Now -- as soon as the GOP stops hornswaggling poor old Obama and lets him public spend our way to prosperity. Not enough stimulus, you see.

Stockman was just shaking his head...and pointed out what is waiting at the end of the road of all this as soon as interest rates return to anything like 3-5% (much less, the 18-20% of the late 70s/early 80s.) And the math challenged Krugman muddied the water over that by simply claiming he 'disagreed.' He's dug in fangs deep and not about to let go.

Greta came across as the voice of reason.

Someone, I forget, I think Stockman pointed out, if the 2008 heart attack was banks 'too big to fail' then why four years later are banks bigger than ever? What has Obama done except entrench the same crony capitalists even deeper into the national jugular?

Greta pointed out, plenty of help thrown at Wall Street, but none of it is making it to Main street after four years. She spoke up for small businesses, and Krugman showed his contempt for small businesses.

Paul Krugman finally came as close as I've ever seen to explaining his irrational desperate campaign to keep the public spending floodgates open. You see, this isn't really about economics at all, but about "What kind of a nation do we want to be. The GOP wants to dismantle the Great Deal -- I mean, the New Deal/Great Society, and the Democrats are figthing to keep it in place."

DC is out of touch completely with both the nation and reality, and these Sunday Morning TV clusterfucks pretty much demonstrates why.

Driving the nation to it's knees is not compassion for anyone.

Jules, where is that damned meteor when we need it? DC isn't fixable. It just needs to break, and it's not doing so, because it has the power to go down last, and it will.

regards,
Fred

Post 9

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 1:59pm

Because we humans make choices, and because it is possible for ideas to spread like wildfire, and because this is even more likely during times of great stress... there is hope that a powerful grassroots movement could sweep the idiots from Washington. But I'd say that is less likely than a statist wildfire being the winner during a time of great crisis - given our current culture. So, I agree with Fred, at least as a probability, "DC isn't fixable."

Once you get out of DC there is a tiny bit more hope (unless you are in one of the People's Republics - like California). That hope is that those states that aren't on the fast track to bankruptcy decide they don't want to be drained of liberty or treasure and begin an extended process of nullification of federal powers by blocks of states. What would Obama do? Send in the military? Try to arrest state legislators or judges?

Post 10

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 2:55pm

Michael M � Your post here is really incoherent but in posts on other threads I think you expressed your concerns about Republicans/conservative much better. So I�ll comment on your general concern (and those of others as well).

You make an error when you consider all Republicans and those labeled �conservatives� to be of the same set of beliefs. I�ve done a breakdown similar to Steve Wolfer�s on the CPAC thread. http://rebirthofreason.com/cgi-bin/SHQ/SHQ_FirstUnread.cgi?Function=FirstUnread&Board=5&Thread=3219

There are social conservatives, neo-cons, and libertarianish conservatives. Further, as I observe in my GOP piece, about half of Tea Party activists are social conservatives. But abortion, gay marriage, and such issues are not their priorities. People are full of contradictions and we can exploit them for the good, encouraging the right beliefs and sentiments.

What�s the alternative to trying to work on many fronts�the political, the academic, etc.�to create a more rational, individualist culture and more limited government? Wait until everyone is converted to Objectivism? Sit on the sidelines and bitch about the world going to hell and passively letting it happen?
By the way, when I was at Cato, Ed Crane and others were making efforts to reach out/educate Democrats on economic liberty. But as I observe in a longer piece I�ll publish soon, top Democrat leaders have changed over the past 30-40 years. They use to generally favor free enterprise and private property, but also believed in a government safety net and government intervening to correct what they saw�mistakenly�as market fails. But most of the leaders today really are Euro-socialists, believing in government control across the board. They are more hopeless than in decades past.

The Tea Party movement, however, offers hope for the GOP as do the Ron Paul supporters.

So complain if you wish, but I�ll continue to work on whatever fronts look most promising to make sure the future is not an America collapsing like Greece or Cyprus.

Post 11

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 5:03pm

Ed:

"But most of the leaders today really are Euro-socialists, believing in government control across the board."

The Democrats are totally helpless in that regard. But that is largely true of Republicans as well, back to Nixon. Read Nixon's 1970 Economic Stabilization Act.

Reagan the actor said one thing and did another, and the price of his legacy -- accelerating the demise of a system that was already failing -- was already farming with ox carts in the 80s, and we damn well knew that truth-- was his 'grand compromise' with O'Neill in which they both sold out the future. Reagan got his Cold War mentality "a little more guns in exchange for a lot more butter," setting onto rails the current Wreck on Rails. We are thirty years past when playing small ball in DC is going to avert a major collapse, and Reagan's true legacy is squandering that last chance. So run, don't walk, away from any C.F. in which Reagan is the enshrined hero, he was an idiot, even if he was a lovable idiot. So was Clinton a lovable idiot, so was Bush, so is Obama. What is it with America in these times our lovable idiots?

We haven't had decent freedom loving GOP and Democratic leaders with vision since Eisenhower and JFK, both WWII vets.

I think it is a mistake to regard the current GOP as anything but a massive part of the problem, totally unsalvagable. If reforming the GOP is America's last hope, then America has no last hope, and the sooner we get a clear eyed realization of that, the better.

I voted for Clark in 80 in my first election, then after that, saw it as gesture politics going nowhere, then held my nose and voted for the GOP ever since. That was a huge mistake on my part and I strongly regret every vote. Never again. I wasted my entire life supporting a lie, false hope for freedom is as bad as no hope for freedom, maybe worse, because it keeps the nation from effective remedial action.

We don't have a Republican and Democratic party in this nation. We have DC/Wall Street vs the rest of the nation. We have an inbred fraternity of cronies skimming off the top of the tribe and looking out only for itself, nation be damned. David Stockman has it right. Paulson was as bad as anything the Obama administration has dreamed up since, and there was a seamless transition from Bush's administration to the new tag team of scum parasites.

Go back and listen to Romney's gleeful answer in the 2008 GOP Primary debates -- at Reagan's Library no less, Mr. Freedom-- in front of his widow. Anderson Cooper asked him and the other GOP front running idiots, "Tell us why YOU are best suited to run the US Economy." I swear to God, McCain, Hucklberry, and Romney all answered in context. They not only didn't challenge the basis of the question(this isn't the fucking former Soviet Union)but each of them embraced the question with candy and flowers.

And what did the GOP do in 2012? Ran the same f'n idiot with the same message. "Let ME run the US Economy!" What did the GOP learn in four years? NOTHING. And remember that was WITH Ron Paul spelling it all out with a giant crayon at that same debate, resulting in dumbass grins from Romney, that meathead McCain, and Hucklberry.

If that's the nation we live in, then fuck that nation, it should crash and burn, it will crash and burn, and no amount of wishful Polyanna thinking is going to keep that from happening. Sometimes the answer is, you've landed in a lifeboat filled with the criminally insane, so duck.

So 'hope' is sadly praying every night for a meteor to destroy DC and take all these clueless inbred gladhanding dufi with them; I guarantee we'll get over it, right after we all stop celebrating. I'd love to see the results of that poll question in this America.

Barring that, we are left to duck, get out of the way of this massive tribal C.F., and watch as it fails as it must, doing our best not to sustain it in the least.

Playing small ball around the edges is no defense of freedom, it is support of a rotted and corrupt system that needs to burn before there is any hope again for freedom.

DC was and is a magnet for paternalistic parasitic scum, far too inbred and fed by the chokepoint ivy league for our own damn good. DC defends mainly DC and the DC way of life. DC waves the America flag while doing that.

DC is fast becoming America's version of the Hunger Games, complete with real hunger in America.

DC is a cancer in America, grown unchecked for far too long, It is killing what used to be America.

DC isn't fixable.

Take all the time you need to figure that out, the answer isn't going to change any time soon.

regards,
Fred

Post 12

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 6:38pm

Fred,

With only three exceptions, I've voted for every single Libertarian Presidential candidate - starting with Hospers in '72. That's a run of over 40 years. The exceptions were Reagan both times he made the general elections, and Romney last year.

[As a side note, I think you were overly harsh on Reagan. Even as persuasive as he was, he was fighting the entrenched forces of Washington, and like all of the Presidents before him, he had only so much political capital to spend. He honestly wanted to shrink government - but he was overly optimistic on the revenues from "supply-side economics". Here's a mental experiment. If, say the 4 presidents before Reagan, and say 4 after him were for all practical purposes, clones of Reagan, where would we be today? It is asking too much to expect any one president to overturn the legacies of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Nixon and Carter plus all of the federal creep from nearly every other president. How much can be expected of a single man in that office when I'd say it is really the job of the voters to get things right, and the job of the culture to get the voters right.]

Branden mentioned that it might not be reasonable to expect practical results from the Libertarian party in our two party system and that it might be best to think of it as a political incubator and a source of public education. I'd add that it generates a nudge towards liberty that is felt by the party closest to it (in civil liberties that once was the Democratic party, and in economics it remains the conservative wing of the GOP).

Romney, for all of his many flaws, was still a strikingly clear contrast to Obama. The GOP doesn't get all of the blame for that election. It is much more on the shoulders of the voters, the mass media who failed to do their crucial job, and the educational system that has been turning out generations of political illiterate graduates.

There are a few people in Washington right now that are better than we've seen before... at least in my lifetime. Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz come to mind - all in the Senate - and there are some others. They are still so few that they won't be able to turn DC around, and without the voters waking up, no liberty these libertarian-republicans might magically win back for us would last.

Politics, the good and the bad (mostly bad) is what is going on between now and when this awful house of cards collapses. Then we will see a sharply different politics arise. Probably far worse. But until then, I think we need to support those few, who for now, are in the libertarian conservative wing of the GOP (that's not the same as supporting the GOP) and rather than hoping for a victory, just know that our fight is to continue to push the edge of the educational battle forward.

I think Ed is right to support this libertarian faction of the Republican party. I can only imagine how awful it is for those few good people to survive the day-in, day-out, mind-numbing stupidity, cupidity, corruption and trivia that is DC - on both sides of the aisle.

Post 13

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 7:11pm

Steve:

Maybe I am too harsh on Reagan. I understand his Cold War mentality, but he paid too high a price (his deal with O'Neill, his Grand Compromise) to accomplish something that was happening on its own (the collapse of a terrible idea, the Soviet Union.) The US Intelligence community knew fully well that the Soviets were so desperate in the the 80s they were farming with ox carts. Their system was falling apart in front of our eyes. The collapse of the USSR -saved- its people. What Reagan basically did was spike the ball after the game was all but over, but he sold out the future to pay for the ball.

That was our last chance to make -moderate- changes to entitlements to avoid the present Wreck on Rails. The kind of small ball being talked about today would have been doable and effective 30 years ago if the nation had leadership. Didn't happen, the Dems dug in their heels and the GOP were inneffective precisely because they had no credibility, either on the subject of freedom or fiscal responsibility.

That same small ball is a joke today, we are pissing in the wind, thirty years too late to do any good.

That is Reagan's legacy. The price of his legacy -- the accelerated demise of the USSR-- will in the end be our own. A little more guns -- that we didn't need -- in exchange for a lot -- a huge amount more butter -- was a terrible, wasted bargain.

What happened to the Reagan defense buildup in the 90s? Clinton leveled it off.

Did he roll back the butter? No, in fact, he attempted to pile on more(Nationalized Health Care, etc.)

I think we need to be clear eyed about who we admire. This nations great leaders were from earlier generations.

We've settled for a series of charismatic leaders after the disasters of Johnson and Nixon and a national psyche driven largely by People Magazine ever since. Reagan, I'm afraid, was an early leader in the new charismatic president model.

He should have stuck to making B movies, he was great at that.

regards,
Fred

Post 14

Sunday, April 7, 2013 - 8:16pm

Fred,

I disagree with your evaluation of Reagan. The cold war was a dangerous period. The missles pointed at us were real. We watched one dictator after another take charge of the Soviet military and never knew when one of them might push the button. We tend to forget the 10 of millions of people who were killed by the Communists. One of the few real and proper purposes of our government is our defense.
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What happened to the Reagan defense buildup in the 90s? Clinton leveled it off.

Did he roll back the butter? No, in fact, he attempted to pile on more(Nationalized Health Care, etc.)

That wasn't Reagan's fault, that was Clinton.
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I don't think it is a good thing to lump Reagan together with the likes of Nixon or Johnson or Clinton. If he had stuck with making B movies, do you really think we would have been better off? Who do you imagine would have been the President that would made things so much better? Here were the other candidates running in that Primary season:

Governor John Connally of Texas
George H. W. Bush
Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota
Congressman John B. Anderson
Congressman Phil Crane
Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker
Senator Bob Dole

Or, if he had lost the 1980 election we would have Jimmy Carter for another term, or if he'd lost the 1984 election we would have had Walter Mondale. How does he stand out against that bunch?
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Reagan was not perfect, but he was damned good. As a leader, he was an elequent spokesperson for freedom in a world that had previously elected Jimmy Carter. The problem isn't with what he didn't do, but the fact that one man alone isn't going to ride to the rescue and fix everything for us. We not only choose charismatic candidates, but we expect them be supermen.

Post 15

Monday, April 8, 2013 - 4:43am

Ed:

When Reagan defeated the USSR, did all those nukes and tyrants and madmen disappear in Eastern Europe and Asia? Or did modern America do what modern America always does, which is, throw a victory parade when some concrete was knocked down, and then almost immediately announce that "It's the economy, stupid!" as evidence of how deeply we all understood the significance of the collapse?

Do you remember, right in the aftermath of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, we threw a second victory parade early in Gulf War I? It's what modern America does. It's what all peace loving democracies do, including the Greatest Generation(who ended WWII as soon as possible, even before it was actually over.) In some case because that's the sane thing to do. But as a former defense contractor, sometimes because its good for business as usual to have a constant level of conflict in the world, to be ready to fill in that "War on ______________" pro-forma at the first sign of a slowdown around the Beltway.

You left out Ed Clark, who I (and I think you) actually voted for. I think what you intended with that list is to present folks who had a snowball's chance in Hell of actually being elected. Clark ended up with 1% of the vote, pure gesture politics -in the tribe we live in.-.

That is who I think would have been better than Reagan for the nation, back when I used to actually vote that way, before several wasted decades now of holding my nose and voting for the lessor of two weasels.

And I don't expect our state plumbers to be Supermen; I expect them to be plumbers. No, not expect; pray for them to be plumbers, and am always dissapointed when they mistake those plungers for royal f'n scepters. If our tribe was sane, we could select state plumbers from a pool of random candidates from the phonebook to do what a properly sized government at every level should be doing. We would do that precisely to protect the nation from the current cancer-- the infestation of paternalistic power grubbers overcome by their visions of doing good, which translates into justifying a totally out of all control imperial cluster fuck in DC. That is the objective result of what we've tolerated; all that is left is recognizing the path of how we got where we undoubtedly are today.

Our tribe got to the point it is at as you say, precisely by expecting our leaders to be Supermen who do things like 'run the economy.' Including fix them after fucking them up. Those who believe in a strong federal government 'running the economy' are happy as long all major parties of power concede that is the proper function of our federal government. It is not, and the current lousy results are the only proof necessary.

When we find ourselves in the middle of a stampede of stupidity, the only thing to do is duck, get out of its way, and try not to support it too vigorously as it carries out its intent to run us all off of a cliff.

But if a goal is limited government, then who grew the federal government more than Nixon, Reagan and Bush?

That's all history, and moot at this point, as we don't have a time machine. We can love or hate Reagan at this point until we are blue in the face, that was thirty years ago. But we don't have a time machine, and we also don't have a magic money machine, and we can't go back and recover what was misappropriated from the nation for decades. What is left is an exercise in accounting, and won't be smoothed over by the current attempts at creative accounting.

No, what is left is being in the middle of a massive tribal panic, like being on a lifeboat overfilled and swamped and about to go under, and watching the rats in DC scramble over the corpses of their victims as the consequences of decades of faith in lightweight for sure not Superman charisimatic gladhanders comes pouring over the gunwhales.

It's going to be time to swim. All that is left is the when, not the if, and the apologizing to our kids for letting this cancer destroy the greatest nation on earth.

regards,
Fred

Post 16

Monday, April 8, 2013 - 9:05am

Fred,

I think you meant to start that last post with "Steve" not "Ed."
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Take a look at two different economists. Krugman and Laffer. Lets imagine that neither of them did anything other than write books and speak in favor of their different views on economics. I think you'd agree that even though Art Laffer isn't perfect, there is a marked difference between he and Krugman.

What I wanted to do with my last post was to show the marked difference between Reagan and the other presidents we've had, and between Reagan and the others who were running for president at the time.

The man remains a hero of mine despite those areas where I sharply disagree with his beliefs. I agree with what Nathaniel Branden had to say, ""[H]e has been a very underestimated man by his opponents. I think that his understanding and handling of our relationship with the Soviet Union was brilliant. Gorbachev himself gives Reagan credit for effectively ending the Cold War. Are there areas where I would disagree with him? Sure. He was opposed to abortion. He did not believe in total laissez-faire capitalism. He did build up our national debt enormously. But I tell you one thing he did that impressed me so much it almost wipes everything else off the mat. It�s something I found thrilling beyond words. And that was: he was in Russia, and he gave a speech in the University of Moscow. And the theme of the speech was to explain to the people there what American capitalism is. Here is the president of the United States, in a distinguished university in a country with whom we�ve had hostile relationships for decades�getting up, and in the most passionate yet totally non-belligerent way, explaining what economic freedom means, what capitalism means. It was so extraordinary in the moral clarity that he brought to his presentation that I�ll remember it, with great admiration, forever."

Reagan saw the good that man could achieve, the value of freedom, the evil of statism, and he understood that the greatness of our country came from the ideals our founding fathers used win our freedom and form a new nation. That was the heart of the moral-political platform from which he honestly and eloquently did his best to lead the nation.

To the degree that we share those values, we shouldn't be lumping him with the likes of Nixon or LBJ.

Post 17

Monday, April 8, 2013 - 10:59am

"We have nothing to hide. We have nothing; and we must hide it." -- Khrushchev.

Post 18

Monday, April 8, 2013 - 4:48pm

Fred: "And I don't expect our state plumbers to be Supermen; I expect them to be plumbers. No, not expect; pray for them to be plumbers, and am always dissapointed when they mistake those plungers for royal f'n scepters."

Funny that you put it that way, Fred. Brings to mind a previous blog post of mine, elsewhere, from a few years ago...Yup, that's SuperObama and a soviet t-shirt, sold at a comic book store in Philadelphia, PA, just blocks from the Liberty Bell and the Constitution Center...

(Edited by Joe Maurone on 4/08, 4:50pm)

Post 19

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - 11:24am