I posted this over at Dan Riehl’s place, but I liked it well enough I thought I’d post it here, too. It was in response to some commenters who said they found it hard to credit conservative opposition to Democrat spending, when they didn’t do likewise about Bush/GOP spending:
The problem was not that conservatives didn’t protest at the Bush/GOP failures of principle. Often they did, and quite loudly. The problem was that they went ahead and voted for these RINOs anyway, because they always swallowed the “we may be awful, but we’re better than the Democrats” argument.
Just as you fix your economy by letting bad banks and other businesses fail, so the capital can be freed up for new, better replacements, you fix your political economy by letting bad politicians fail, so that your own political capital can be deployed to better politicians. What is the difference between keeping a zombie bank in business because it is your zombie bank, and keeping a zombie politician like Arlen Specter in business because he is your zombie politician?
The result is the same: the entire system remains poisoned.
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Bill, I want to thank you for this post. It finally illustrates what I mean when I say that you don’t seem to understand. The sentence I quoted puts it in a nutshell.
The whole system is NOT poisoned. The part that’s poisoned is our side of it. It’s working just great for the left.
They expand and expand–which is their motivation. A government that controls everything.
When our side screws up, and gets punished by some of us not voting for them, their side wins.
This would be fine if we were playing by the same rules–we’d have the same chance of getting our guys in next time.
But we’re not playing by the same rules.
When they get in they immediately seek to make it harder for us to get in the next time. In Washington, after Gregiore stole the governorship, she immediately ‘fixed’ the rules to ensure that this situation couldn’t happen again. Not by addressing the obvious fraud–but by making that fraud legal.
And it will happen in Minnesota once they steal Colemans’ seat.
The left is, right now, preparing legislation that will make it harder for us to get in next time–and all of it is coated in the most saccharine-sweet weasel words they can find–so that it will look ‘equal’, and ‘fair’–when it will be anything but.
And it will all be reported on by a left controlled media that most of the population still sees as ‘objective’.
Because of this, the ‘lessons’ our errant politicians get taught come with a hefty pricetag. Each lesson leapfrogs us closer to total leftist control.
Because the left’s political economy is chugging along just fine–and ANY mishaps will be blamed on the right–even now.
When the stimulus blows up the right will get the blame because they made them take about it, because the right had to be courted by the Won–which took time that could have been used in implementing the stimulus faster–and then those ungrateful Republicans refused to vote for it–which shows they never cared for the regular American citizen anyway–they held up the stimulus while trying to get tax cuts for business, and the wealthy put in. Something like that will be why the stimulus failed.
But, not to worry, the left has a NEW stimulus idea already worked out–it’s called communism.
RINOs are not a solution, and when we have a comfortable margin of seats we should root them out. But in this election, and the one before it–hell in ANY election–having a crappy version of what you want is better than letting your enemies(and they ARE our enemies, make no mistake about that) have a great version of what THEY want(and leftist/Democrat lockstep means that they ALWAYS get a great version of what they want).
These ‘lessons’ have turned out to be blind slashes at our own wrists–as the guy with a gun to our heads rifles our pockets so that he can put a few extra bullets into our twitching corpses.
Next election, I am going to do something I have never done before. I’m going to walk in and hit ‘Rrepublican: straight ticket”. While, in my nightmares I expect that it won’t matter, I still have some hope.
I’m with Bill. If you have to give up fiscal conservatism for the Republicans to win, it’s not worth it to vote for them. A race to the lowest common denominator doesn’t make me feel better just because the Democrats are in the lead.
How do they get rooted out if …
I understand perfectly well, and always have. I just utterly disagree, and, in fact, I regard you and folks like you as nearly as big enemies of conservatism as the left itself. I further regard you as even more dangerous, because at least we know the leftists are our enemies, and they make no bones about the fact they are our enemies. But it’s our fake “friends” like you who are killing us.
That’s the whole point: The RINOs, in Jack’s opinion, will always be just enough better than the commies to get his vote. He keeps forgetting that every time the left takes a bit of ground, it moves further left. Today, we are voting for “moderate, center-right” Republicans against socialist Democrats. Tomorrow, we’ll be voting for socialist Republicans against outright communist Democrats.
Jack is suicidal. He’s just not smart enough to understand it. Ignore him. He’ll end up a card-carrying member of the leftist-lite party, whatever its name happens to be, anyway.
FRNM–”and when we have a comfortable margin of seats ”
That’s when you do your ‘rooting’–not when getting rid of them hands control to your enemies.
Particularly when any time your enemies get control it becomes harder to get your guys in at all.
Calmrising, I can’t recall anytime I said that getting rid of fiscal conservatism would be a good thing. But are you so sure you’re against doing that?
See, if you’re ‘with Bill’, then your vote just allowed the party that abhors fiscal conservatism to get rid of it completely–rather than having a less than ideal situation of having to yell at idiots in your own party to try to keep them on track.
Weigh the two choices–no fiscal conservatism at all, or some, with some more if we can yell loud enough.
Bill would take the first choice–as a matter of principle. He figures that the American people will only take so much before they put the right people back in government
But so far all we’ve gotten is more of the wrong people.
Finally, Bill, much as I love this site(it’s my first stop, whenever I get online), I worry about the influence that conservative neophytes, like you, are having on conservatism.
Those of us who’ve always been on the right side of the spectrum are more ‘play the cards you’re dealt people’–try to get the best hand, to be sure, but work with what you get–because it may never be perfect.
But you guys are very all-or-nothing sometimes and I think the dominance of the extreme left(of which many of you were members) is, at least in part, the result of so many of you wising up and coming in from the rain.
I think you’ve still got a bit of that mindset.
I’m reminded of situations where people flee states that have become lefty hells–because they’ve become lefty hells–who slowly start to pull the place they’ve moved to leftward.
Call it a streak of overactive idealism.
You can’t bear the idea of toeing the party line when there are idiots on that line. We who’ve been dealing with this understand that our party will listen to us more than the other party will.
So you tell everyone ‘let’s teach them a lesson’. And we get Democrats. And you think that will show the party that you mean business–and it very well might.
But what good does that do when you can’t get your guys back into office?
See? That’s the problem.
And you’re thinking that the next two years will get you a fed-up electorate.
And I’m thinking we’ve got an electorate that’s very susceptible to the MSM. I’m thinking that it’s gonna be even harder to get our guys in two years from now.
So what I see is that your lesson two years ago got us Pelosi…and your lesson this year got us Obama–and Republicans scrabbling after RINOS(Saxby Chambliss, anyone?) to hold on to the ability to filibuster.
And I’m not seeing anyone waiting in the wings yet that’s gonna ride to the rescue.
So I think you might understand that we who aren’t johnny-come-latelies are starting to look at you and wonder if you’re gonna leave us all at the mercy of the left because you don’t want to compromise your new-found conservatism
I always get leery posting stuff like this because I don’t want to get you pissed enough to ban me–but I see stuff like this as crucial. WE have to work together, we have to get the country out of this mess–and that means working through these differences and finding a way forward.
Because the alternative is grim.
Bill, you don’t know who I vote for–or how I vet them.
My personal votes have, thankfully, not gone to RINOS save when I’ve gritted my teeth presidentially.
For me, this is academic right now–maybe that’s why I can see it. Given where you live, your votes are wasted anyway. You, like me, are in a situation where this is academic.
You can happily vote for any third party, idealistically perfect candidate knowing full well that SF will always go to the leftiest candidate they can find–or the Democrat.
But, listen to yourself–can you really say that you’re giving good advice when you can say this–
And still advocate teaching the ‘lessons’ you’ve been teaching? The left has just taken a whole huge chunk of ground. You’re worrying about a flank that’s not fighting a good as you want them to and ignoring the massive advance of your foe.
And I’m suicidal?
You’re giving up the hill because some of your soldiers are using a smaller round.
Okay Jack,
Who should I vote for? The GOP with the 1.3 Gazillion drug plan, and 1/2 Gazillion bank bail-out plan; or the moe fiscally conservative Democrats who only spent 1.1 Gazillion on the stimulus plan? The lessor of the two evils looks like its the Democrats. Of course they still have a few more years to exceed the GOP in spending.
Give me a real fiscal conservative with any chance at winning and I will vote for him, unless he is damned idiot, criminal, homophobe etc.
You vote for the person who is most likely to listen to you.
Breaking the parties down into component issues leaves you in the lurch.
There are numerous things that I don’t like about the Republicans in specific. However, overall their path forward is better.
If I want to be a ‘fiscal conservatism single issue voter’ I have two choices. Don’t vote at all…..or vote for the Republicans because they will listen more to you than the Democrats will(and, let’s be fair they DO have a much better track record on it than the Dems–despite what they’re doing now).
You have to vote, if you vote sanely, for an overall picture. Overall, Republicans have let me keep more of my money than the Democrats, they have infringed on my basic rights less than the Democrats, and they have kept me safer than the Democrats. So I vote for Republicans and work to make them a better party.
I don’t refuse to vote or vote for some ‘can’t win’ candidate and let the Democrats take control of my country by default simply to prove a point or make a statement–the stakes are WAY too high for that.
The situation right now looks like a whole lot of people said ‘I ain’t voting for the lesser of two evils’–and so we didn’t get the lesser of two evile. We just got evil.
And as far as your example goes–from what I’ve heard, the Dems are planning on surpassing the worst the Reps ever did this year.
Jack simply ignores reality in order to make his point. He would no doubt have voted for Specter, Snowe, and Collins, on the grounds that they were “better” than their Dem opponents. So he just got a 1.2 gazillion porkulus bill rammed down his throat…by Specter, Snowe, and Collins. No different than if he hadn’t voted for them, and their Dem opponents had won.
I don’t give a rat’s ass who jack votes for, because as long as he follows his straight ticket, GOP-bot philosophy, he’s voting for a losing cause. We’re not losing the hill because our troops are firing smaller bullets, we’re losing the hill because our troops are going over to the other side and firing their bullets at us.
Vote however you wish, Jack. As far as I’m concerned, your philosophy is as dangerous to my liberty as Barack Obama’s, Nancy Pelosi’s, or Ted Kennedy’s. The only difference is you think you’re on my side. You’re not. You’re on their side, and you are my enemy.
As for your idiotic play on the left moving left, here’s my response: The left always moves left, and it always gets away with it, because morons like you vote for Republicans who let them get away with it.
I’m going to vote for people who want to win back some ground and not give an inch in the name of moderation, bipartisanship, or “getting things done.”
The left knows it’s at war. I’m looking for a right that knows the same thing, and I’m not going to vote for any Dem Lites while I’m looking for it.
You get what you vote for, and you, jack, are voting for permanent defeat.
That’s rich. You condescending to me. Well, your decades and decades of “knowledgeable” conservatism, drip by drip, chip by chip, betrayal by betrayal, have brought us to this. Proud of yourself, genius?
After jack’s expressed concerns about being banned, a few comments up, I thought of replying that Bill seldom bans anyone unless they call him stupid. Didn’t bother because jack didn’t seem to be getting too close to the line.
That was then…
Just so everybody knows what my standard is for an acceptable candidate deserving of my vote, it is this: I will vote for any candidate who openly states, “Government is the problem, not the solution,” and espouses policies in line with that statement. Nor do I care what party label they happen to wear.
That’s a good standard–but will you vote for that candidate if theu have no chance of winning?
Fixed that for you. I just wrote this–
Voted Reagan–gritted my teeth a bit over Bush(but not too much, I was expecting him to be a continuation of Reagan’s policies). Gritted them alot the second time–thought he’d gone way too squidgy, but I didn’t think Perot had a chance. Voted Dole–wasn’t crazy about it, but he sounded like he’d listen. Voted W happily the first time, and unhappily the second.
In local politics I’ve been rather fortunate. I haven’t had to grit my teeth over a vote hardly ever–and I’ve gone Dem occasionally when I knew the person and their stances enough to know that they fit your standard pretty well.
Never been a ‘GOPbot’ because I view the party as a work-in-progress rather than something set in stone.
That’s reality. And I think I’ve actually said it before.
Regarding voting for Snow, Collins and Specter….other than their minimal value as filibuster fodder(and I don’t really think they have even that) did their votes really make a difference? The Dems HAVE more than 50. The only value those three would have had would have been in the Reps were going to filibuster—but they didn’t. So voting/not voting for them is moot at this stage. Vills will pass if the Dems want them to pass–Republican influence is pretty moot at this stage, no?
But it was not MY stance that made their votes important–it was yours. My stance would have had us returning a rep majority to congress in perpetuity–honing and shaping it as we went on. Your stance has us scrabbling to try and get that majority.
But you will not see that. You’ve adopted an all-or-nothing stance.
You can’t hone the knife if it’s not in your hands.
I’d like to know something, Bill. When did you start voting on the right? Who’s the first Rep president you voted for?
See, it irks me when you, a former radical lefty, who actively engaged in shoving our nation leftwards, tells me that MY politics–that were on the right side from the get-go–are the ones that are the problem. I helped in the Rreagan campaigns, I worked to get the message of the Contract with America out….what were you doing then?
See, no one who’s been involved with the right for any length of time is unaware of the fact that we’re like a herd of cats. We don’t have that lefty central authority fetish–so we always get a mixed bag.
Worse, the fact that we have so-cons and so-ibs in the party makes for some weird voting choices–and YOU should see that–we run the gamut every time social questions arise(hell, you and I get into it over gay marriage and we both support it).
Finally, I keep saying that we HAVE to work together–and what I get from you and a number of others is disdain.
It’s like you guys finally woke up, saw that your philosophy was a nightmare–that you’d been working against the best interests of the country for years, came over to our side where you were told, ‘great, now roll up your sleeves and we’ll fix this’–and you all looked around and said, ‘no, you’re doing it wrong–we know better’ and then proceeded to vote–and encourage others to vote–in ways that got us huge lefty majorities–all for the sake of an ideological ‘victory’ that is horribly damaging to the country.
Are you that confident in your ability to turn this around? If so–tell me how. Because all I see right now is a lot of hope that people will wake up, and that’s never gotten us anywhere.
Jack, your approach is relative-maximizing in the short run, but hopeless in the long run. Continuing to vote for the lesser of two evils as the whole country moves to the economic left just guarantees that every time you vote for the lesser of two evils, it’s a more evil than the time before.
The Republicans had contol of everything from 2000-2004 and what happened? More spending and wider deficits than ever. Increasing Medicare benefits right in the middle of a war. (Billo probably thinks I don’t care about old people.) The fantasy that tax cuts, in the context of increasing deficits, are worth a damn in the long run. (Laffer curve or no, if you always borrow money faster than you save it, tax cuts don’t help.) So, I did not vote for Bush in 2004, and I did not vote for McCain in 2008. I voted L. This sucked and made me miserable, but the alternative has become even worse.
Even many of the 216 out of 219 Republicans who stood against the stimulus only suddenly found their principles again after they and Bush were out of power.
What needs to happen is that fiscal conservatives need to organize outside fo the Republican party, in seven-figure numbers, and speak with one voice from said organization, and tell the Republican party, “If you do not become more fiscally conservative, we will not vote for you, and the Democrats will win every election. You have forced us to this.”
It will only happen with a large organization. Individual GOP voters (like Jack) don’t have the balls to do it without a collective voice standing behind them.
And, if it proves that fiscal conservativism always loses, then we’re all f***ed anyway, so I don’t even know why we’re having this argument.
Is this deliberate? Are you purposefully ignoring what I’m saying?
I did NOT say vote for the lesser of two evils without the caveat that you work to get better people.
Is this so hard to grasp? That it’s better to keep the crappy thing that sorta woks while you try to get something better than it is to get rid of the crappy thing before you can replace it yourself and shut yourself down?
I mean, it’s like you guys think we can’t work to get better people unless we’re totally out of power.
We’re in a world of shit–but we’re in a worse world of she’d than we’d be in if the republicans were in charge–at least they occasionally listened to us.
Don’t cast aspersions. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s YOUR position that had the support of the herd–else we’d still have control. And why deride ‘collectives’ when you’re demanding one–or was this “What needs to happen is that fiscal conservatives need to organize outside fo the Republican party, in seven-figure numbers, and speak with one voice from said organization” a call for individual action?
I DO keep saying we need to work together–and you keep deriding. Tell me, what is wrong with the idea of making our corrections while in a position of strength? Is it necessity that we make our corrections while in a position where we cannot affect policy for at least two years?
It’s as if you forget that while we teach republicans this lesson(whose purpose is the same as mine–to get better people elected) there is ANOTHER party who is doing what they want unhindered.
The creep leftward is a gallop. When and if we get the reins again the nation will be far left from where it was when this valued lesson was initially taught.
Sticking your finger in a dike might still let a bit of water dribble out–but it also keeps the flood back while the repair crew works. NOT plugging the hole because water will still leak out if you do allows the dike to breach and washes the repair crew away.
It’s just common sense.
My daughter read this, she’s politically active enough to care. She remarked that you sound like the kid whose parents take them for ice cream and the choices are chocolate or vanilla–and the kid says strawberry.
Do you all think I’m suggesting doing nothing about the RINOS? Support primary challenges. Vote for the best man. But, if your guy loses the primary, don’t vote against the RINO if doing so might allow your opponents to gain control.
You don’t cede ground when doing so gives your enemy the victory. You don’t cede ground at all if you can help it.
*I thought that the Republicans had control of everything from 2002 to 2006(didn’t Jumpin Jim screw them?)
Ever watch a judo match*? Stepping back to let your opponent make a false step is one way to win.
If you can’t wrap your mind around analogies, look at the 1992 election. The Republicans-must-win-at-all-costs true believers were rending their garments and tearing their hair at Clinton’s victory. Now, they seem to have forgotten 1994.
* Or aikido, or wing chun sticky hands, or tai qi chuan push hands, or any of the “soft” styles.
Oh Steve, not you. Parsing?
That’s the full quote. Notice that part that goes when doing so gives your enemy the victory?
Even in judo you don’t step back to make your opponent take a false step when stepping back means that you lose.
As someone who, as I stated, spread the Contract message around, I remember that vividly. Are the situations analogous? I’m not hearing the same things now as I was then.
Worse, I see the left looking like they learned their lesson–they’re going to do what it takes to keep it from happening. And they do lockstep way better than we do.
Of course it is deliberate, because you are just spouting bullshit trying to conflate “working for better people” with “vote for the lesser of two evils.”
Somehow we still end up with evil, and we never get better people, because we follow your moronic advice and vote for evil people because they aren’t quite as evil as the other sides’ evil people.
So yes, again, it is absolutely deliberate, and I’ll keep right on doing it. Don’t like it? Tough. Learn to make a little sense, and I’ll stop slamming you. In the meantime, go kiss Snowe, Specter, and Collins ass, “conservative” boy.
Nothing wrong with that - if, in fact, that was what was going on. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that that has been happening, at least where the Republican Party is concerned.
Your analogies don’t work well simply because they don’t accurately characterize what has been taking place.
It might seem so - if the choices available were limited to two, and the two were chocolate and vanilla. Unfortunately for your viewpoint, there were other choices that could be viable - and the two to which you refer were more like chocolate and imitation-chocolate.
And some of us (quite a few, I suspect) weren’t interested in chocolate, real or imitation…
Let’s go back a bit, to something you said earlier:
Given the performance of the Republicans in Congress and the White House for a substantial period now, possibly aside from the last item there (and even that may be arguable), that has become a distinction without a useful difference.
All that “work to make a better party” doesn’t seem to be producing anything, jack - except, maybe, a gradual slide further and further leftwards. I don’t think that’s the “improvement” you had in mind, but it’s definitely what you’ve got.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me…fool me (or at least try to do so) again, while I keep on voting for you - call me a devoted Republican voter.
The major choices in the election last November, where POTUS was concerned, came down to The Flim-Flam Man and his older, slightly-less-con-man brother. Some folks just plain decided they weren’t interested in “buying” the con, either way.
I happen to think, myself, that had it gone the other way, all that would have been different would have been the length of time between the inauguration and the economic onslaught.
Well, it’s not necessarily a prerequisite, but it would seem to offer a fairly strong incentive for improvement, right?
Right, dumbass. So when Pat Toomey - an actual conservative - tries to unseat Arlen Specter in the GOP primary, the RNC and President Bush ride to Specter’s rescue. Why did they do that? Because to the power elite, power will always be more important than principle, if they are given the option to choose.
You are never, never, never going to get a better GOP by your methods. You are only going to get a party that looks more and more like the Democrats, even as the Democrats move farther and farther to the left.
And how did that work out for you, Jack? The same principled Republicans that signed on to it became pigs at the trough in short order.
And what did you do about that? Not. A. Goddamn. Thing.
Except hope. You hoped that you could steer that ship clear of the rocks. And it’s not responding. Well, guess what, sport? Your crew pretty much said screw this, jumped off the boat, and fended for themselves. Now they’re looking around for another ship, preferably one not commanded by the likes of you.
You bitch and moan that we’re coming into the conservative wing just now, shouting orders and trying to take the bull by the horns. You moron. We’ve always been there. You dumbasses just never stopped hoping long enough to listen. With each election, your hoping gets the crap kicked out of it, and the country lurches to the left. It isn’t Obama, Pelosi and Reid that are doing the lurching; it’s the squishes in your party. They’re handing the enemy the rope, whining, “Oh, please like us! Invite us to your parties! We’re not mean; really!” Next thing you know, they’re bending over and taking it with the best of them, thinking that maybe being a little to the left isn’t such a bad thing if it means the good will of the Washington Post, parties in G-town and plenty of good ole butt sex to pound their principles out of them. It feels so good to be part of that elite; to be bipartisan, and all.
In other words, Jack; I’ve been working with you, but I’m tired of it now. It’s time for you and your type to go off to the corner, get the fuck out of the way and wank off.
You jaggoffs in the Republican Party have been taking my ass for granted for way too long. Sorry, but it’s time for you to listen. Really listen.
jack didn’t like my Judo analogy, so here’s another one: He knows that both major parties will bone him up the ass, but he supports the Republicans because they have smaller dicks than the Democrats.
Naw, Steve. They’ve got the same size dicks. It’s just the Republicans give him the courtesy of a reach-around.
Are you sure, Chef? Despite his name, I’m pretty sure Boehner’s dick is smaller than Pelosi’s.
Jack said:
Because, when the GOP voters “win” by electing fiscally irresponsible Republicans, said Republicans
* make things worse
* shift the conceptual “center” to the left
* do not appreciate the need for Jack’s efforts to “work for better people.” They won, didn’t they?
Jack, the GOP had decades of opportunities to take a fiscal stand on principle, and we got the biggest deficits and debt growth in U.S. history, repeatedly. It’s got to the point where the Democrats can deride the GOP on the issue.
The whole point of being fiscally conservative is that when you reward people / institutions for failure by bailing them out, then they continue to fail for you, and continue to require bailing out. Your daughter is half-right. I’m the grownup, being offered chocolate and vanilla, but ice cream is bad for you and so I don’t buy anything. You’re the guy who figures, “well, those are my only choices, so I may as well break my diet.”
If we take your way — which most will, this community is too much a minority — with all y’all “working for better people,” here’s what I predict: the GOP retakes power in anywhere from 2-12 years, we get more “fiscal moderate” leadership, and yet another simultaneous increase in both military and entitlement spending. By the time the dust settles and the GOP is again out of power, the U.S. debt has doubled again. Why is this worth it to me?
Is this so hard for you to grasp? That “the crappy thing that sorta woks (sic)” doesn’t work, and so your argument is founded on a delusional cognitive dissonance? Just because there are only two parties in power doesn’t mean that either of them are the right choice. Change comes when people demand it, not when they settle for the slightly-less-revolting version of “more of the same” and try to work from within.
Steve, I think I’ll have to give you that point. Didn’t think of Pelosi’s Package. Silly of me. She’s practically a legislative John Holmes.
Have you always been there? I know Bill wasn’t. And I haven’t seen any of you saying when you got here. So say it–and say what you we doing before you got here–were you a dem? a lefty?
The Contract was a good idea. And I support conservative challengers–including those I can’t vote for. But I never willingly or willfully cede control to Dems.
You do.
And so I’m not convinced that you know better…
The choices are Democrat or Republican. And you’re too involved in getting perfect Republicans to understand that while we’re fighting this out the Democrats are moving ahead without any impediment whatsoever.
I don’t want that because I’ve been fighting THIS fight long enough to know that every time they get this chance the whole picture shifts leftward–not incrementally, but hugely. And their plan–which is moving forward as we argue about who’s ‘right’ enough–is to leave us out permanently.
Again, it’s like you ignore that. Like you ignore the hardcore lefties working happily away while we ‘teach lessons’ to Republicans who don’t measure up.
And you teach your lesson, and he(they) lose their seats, and we lose control. And the lesson? Well it could turn out moot.
But finally I say, okay, we’ve done the damned lesson, and Democrats are turning us into the USSA.
Now what? None of you seem to have a ‘now what….’
What do we do to get control in 2010?
Jack. I’ve been a Republican and self-identified as conservative my entire voting life, starting with my first vote in 1972. I thought and still, to a much lesser extent, think along the lines of the argument you’ve outlined. See here, for example, for my version.
Bill (and the other folks at DP) however, opened my eyes a bit more during this past primary year. The clarifying example for me, was the success of Mike Huckabee’s candidacy, an eventuality that would kill any and all of my association with the Republican party. All Bill, et al, are doing, is extrapolating, or generalizing that sentiment, into an overall voting strategy, using “limited government”, “fiscal conservatism”, and liberty, as guiding principles that cannot, or should not be compromised; that it would be better in the long run, to protest vote, not vote, or vote for the opposition, in order to make it clear that those principles be paramount.
I’m still much more of a party member with bigger tent leanings than Bill will ever be, but the same thought process that allows me to utterly reject a Huckabee and what he stands for, must also recognize the validity of Bill’s argument when it comes to rejecting other “RINOs”.
The clear message of “The Contract with America” was that it defined what to be for, as opposed to being defined by a “not that”, or “not as bad as that” reaction to the other guys. The strategy Bill has outlined, is an attempt to send a message, that someone better bring that focus back, or forget about getting his support, and stop playing party power games that compromise away any focus on principle, in order to gain or maintain power.
2010 is not the goal, in that scenario; it is much more long term. Bill, correct me if I didn’t convey your thoughts properly.
Nope. Wrong. The choices are between right and wrong. If you’re willing to go for the lesser of two evils, then you’re still going for evil.
But before this election, the left was moving ahead just as smoothly, with Republicans aiding and abetting them in the name of moderation and bipartisanship. Or else, they actually believed in what they were voting for in terms of leftist policy. So, that leaves me where as far as the parties are concerned? The Republicans have compromised themselves into oblivion; into irrelevancy.
Sorry, but that’s got to be over now. I mean, really Jack. I should take an Arlen Spector over a Blue Dog. Fuck that. I’ll take the Blue Dog any day of the week, especially if he shows some fucking balls and stands up for what is right. I’m tired of party affiliation. You want to keep producing losers, then fine. Keep doing the same ole same ole. It’s what you’re good at.
Solid GOP through 2002. I think the only exception, ever, was that I voted against Alfonse D’Amato once, after some racist thing he said. But he was never a fiscal conservative anyway, he was a pork king. By 2004, I felt betrayed enough by Bush to start voting L.
That being said, the fact that you were not a radical lefty at some point in the past, and Bill was (studies show the brain doesn’t finishing developing until age 25 anyway) is completely irrelevant. I mean, do you think he’s a mole or something? If not, it’s argumentum ad hominem and of no use to this discussion.
Yes, we get your argument, Jack. We disagree. The GOP had plenty of control this decade, and we got to watch Medicare expansions, social authoritarianism, poor planning of necessary military interventions, and a back-slapping overheating of the economy so that Merrill Lynch executives could leverage 30:1 and walk away with Christmas bonuses and golden parachutes at the crash. Meanwhile, deficit spend, deficit spend, deficit spend, wealth redistribution is okay as long as it’s to rich people. I don’t believe what these people believe. I appreciate that you want me to vote for them so that the country gets broken more slowly, at times — and I respectfully disagree. If the GOP can’t be induced to behave better, next time they have their turn, there’s no point in voting for them at all.
Maybe you mainstream GOPers should start thinking of us as people you need to start catering to again, instead of people who should be criticized for not being good little GOP voters, even though we never get what we want when the party is in power. At those times, we get to stand outside the tent. “Thanks for voting for us, suckers! Now wait outside while we get back to the business of pork.”
Good luck with your approach. Keep trying to take the center with “pork light,” and watch the expectations of America continue to shift left as your party becomes more and more accommodating to them. You have my permission to continue to blame us for your party moving to the economic left.
Jack, at this point I have more faith in a Pinochet-displaces-Allende scenario than I do in your party (not mine) ever holding a line in the sand for any principle (other than ridiculous crap like keeping human vegetables alive and making sure gays hate you). On the day of the lefty takeover, you and your daughter can feel free to blame us for having principles of personal responsibility. By then, I figure you’ll have had at least one more turn to double the debt with your poor, misunderstood imperfect Republicans cutting government revenue while borrowing more money to re-raise Medicare benefits and all the rest.
Speaking as someone who wasn’t alive during Regan’s first term, I can honestly say that I was never conscious of a time when I thought “lower spending, reduce taxes, shrink government” when I thought “Republican.” At first, I was socially-conservative-fiscally-liberal, during which time the word “Republican” made me think “Promises to shrink government but doesn’t.” By the time I thought things through enough to reach fiscally-liberal-socially-apathetic, I thought of Republicans as being a coalition of several different philosophies that opposed the Democrats’ leftism. The libertarian sect of the Republican party attracted me, so I figured I’d “hold my nose” and vote for Bush Jr.
As far as I can tell, people associate “Republican” with “Bush Jr.,” and they associate “Bush Jr.” with “Prescription Drug Benefit that gives taxpayer dollars to teh evil pharmaceutical companies, making airports even less enjoyable than they were before, wars in the middle east, and bailouts of the airline, financial, and automotive industries.” As far as I can tell, they also usually consider their associations to be approximately transitive. Needless to say, I’m not holding my nose anymore.
People in my generation are about as likely to think of the Republicans as “The Party of Regan” as they are to think of them as “The Party of Lincoln.” Even if they do, they’re about as likely to care that the Republicans are “The Part of Regan” as they care that they’re “The Party of Lincoln.” Even if they do, they’re about as likely to know what “The Party of Regan” means as to know what “The Party of Lincoln” means.
The question, to me, is how big a tent do you have to be in order to win. It’s very easy for hard-core libertarians to go around saying that anybody who isn’t a libertarian Republican is just a RINO and isn’t a “real” Republican.
OK. But where to go from there? Let’s say that the Republican party did exactly what some folk suggest — purge the folk who think that government has a significant role in regulating the economy beyond acting as referee and get rid of the social conservatives.
What, then, distinguishes *that* Republican party from the Libertarian party — and what keeps it from being a marginalized powerless group just like the Libertarian party?
I grew up in a very conservative family in the Goldwater tradition — a member of the Young Americans for Freedom (the John Birch youth corps), a rather hard-core libertarian, etc. and spent much of my early life active in small-minority Republican politics in the South before the shift. In my county there were only 121 Republicans, but by God, I was one of them.
I remember moving to North Carolina and attending a precinct meeting the first time the Moral Majoritarians moved in. For years, there were about 30 of us in our precinct. It was kind of fun — we could bitch about the evil Democrats and rotate party offices. Then, that fateful meeting, suddenly about 300 newly-registered Republicans showed up at the precinct meeting. They threw all of us out of office and took over the local party, and elected their own representatives to the state convention.
We played some parliamentary games and kept them from being seated that year — there was a rule that one had to been registered for a year before one could be a delegate — but the writing was on the wall. The next year, we were on the sidelines, tNorth Carolina turned Republican, and the Republican Party has never been the same.
But what would happen if we went back? If we out-Goldwatered Goldwater? One of the things about the “old” Republican party was that it was a rather large tent. There were Goldwater Republicans, but there were also Rockefeller Republicans — and neither went around calling each other RINOs. The pre-Moral Majoritarian Republican Party was not as ideologically pure as some seem to imply. The tradition of Dewy/Taft/Eisenhower/Rockefeller — and yes, Bush/Snowe/Specter is not “RINO,” but is just as “Republican” as the tradition of Goldwater/Reagan.
The Republican Party has always been heterogeneous. The Republican Revolution of 1994 succeeded as much as it did not because it appealed to a broad ultraconservative majority in the US, but because it brought together the older coalition of libertarian conservatives who believed in smaller government, Rockefeller Republicans who focused on efficiency rather than ideology, and the newer Moral Majoritarians who focused on social conservatism.
But let’s say that the libertarian conservatives *did* manage to kick out the moderate Republicans and the social conservatives, and turned the Republican party into an ideologically pure Libertarian-lite party. I wonder if *that* Republican party — without the Northeast Republicans and without the Bible Belt social conservatives — would ever achieve enough of a coalition to take the White House *and* Congress. Or would it simply be a replay of the death of the Whigs?
I dunno. Why don’t we find out? Because right now we’re playing the death of conservatism.
The GOP hasn’t “always” been one thing or another - in fact, it has had terrible tensions within its structure - it held together and managed to paper over some of those tensions because of the threat of leftists at home - FDR and the new deal - and leftist enemies abroad - the Soviet Union, primarily.
Now that it no longer significantly resists the New Dealers, and is not faced with an exterior threat of the magnitude of the Soviets, those tensions have become insupportable. There is no gulf in the Democrat party as wide as that between Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee - and that will eventually tear the GOP to shreds. Nor am I bothered by that. I want to see a new conservative consensus form from the rubble. The GOP as it is currently constituted is no longer a viable vehicle for true conservatism of any sort.
billo, I think you religious “conservatives” would be much happier in a statist organization like the Dems, who see nothing at all amiss with a huge state that imposes its beliefs on all, whether they want that imposition or not. There you can ensure morality and enforce health regulations to your heart’s content, “for our own good.”
And I think there are plenty of Dems who might like the emphasis on civil liberties, individual freedom, a secular government apparatus, and a less powerful state that a truly conservative organization might offer.
Yours is a cogent question, billo. You might note that I, personally, never have used (and never will use) level the term “RINO” at anyone. That would imply that I were the somehow the right kind of Republican. I’m not. The Republicans are a political party, and like all political parties, they are in the business of winning elections and accumulating power. They are not in the business of standing for any particular principle.
In the final analysis, I stand for certain principles, not for a party. I am a libertarian, not a Republican (and not even a Libertarian).
Personally I might be happier in a parliamentary system, where at least I could be represented, and coalitions would have to give concessions to my group to coalition-build. Instead, I live in a political duopoly cartel. The only two games in town compete with each other, to be sure, but they are quite aligned in that their way of doing business shall be the only way. These two cartel members basically control the entire country.
I feel that my best recourse, if a disappointing one, is to do my part to get those who share my principle under one flag. Maybe we can influence the Republican Party, maybe not, but I care about my principles, not about whether the black ants beat the red ants and get first dibs at drinking my blood.
That is true, the Rockefeller Republicans just voted for Johnson. Their core values were power, elitism, and statism. And many didn’t return to the GOP until after Reagan.
Actually, while that is observably true today, it was not always so. Today, in fact, it is the RINO party. Almost all of it, at least of its formal apparat.
And you are making too light of the power seeking. It must be for more than the sake of simple power, and that devolves back to principles. Without a principle other than power for the sake of power, no political party has a justification, moral or ethical, for its own existence.
Parties form to seek power from numbers in order to act on principles. That is precisely how the GOP originally came together.
But as it stands today, it offers almost no justification for its own existence. It is truly Republican In Name Only (as far as it relates to the principles around which it originally formed.)
When you call it the RINO party, you again suggest that “Republican” means, or used to mean, something worth standing for. I don’t think so. Republican is as Republican does.
The abolishment of slavery? The end of Jim Crow? The civil rights grants? Small government? A strong defense? Opposition to global communism? Fiscal conservatism? At one time the party stood for, and acted for, all of these things.
You don’t think they are worth standing for?
Yeah, Bill, duh, the party has, at times, stood for each of those things, and I think those things are worth standing for. But “Republican” never meant those things, it was just the name of a party, a proper noun.
“billo, I think you religious “conservatives” would be much happier in a statist organization like the Dems, who see nothing at all amiss with a huge state that imposes its beliefs on all, whether they want that imposition or not. There you can ensure morality and enforce health regulations to your heart’s content, “for our own good.””
Bill, you have been reading my stuff for over ten years. Not once in that time have I ever advocated what you claim, at least in the way you mean it. Tell me, Bill, what belief do you think I want to impose on you that *you* would not impose on me?
Being a religious conservative does not mean that one necessarily wants to impose all of one’s religious beliefs on everyone. Unless, of course, you have a problem with laws against murder, rape, etc. And I don’t think you do.
Great quote from DownsizeDC:
Sorry, I’ve never really gone in for that sort of parsing. We are talking about the Republican party here, not the definition of republican, and the Republican party has stood for those principles in the past.
Leave out the strawman of the rest of that sentence, and here is my response: I believe you would impose laws regulating or banning consenting sexual acts between adults, regulating or banning the use of some drugs, regulating or banning some practices - like smoking - that you regard as harmful, regulating or banning such things as gay marriage.
Now, what beliefs do you think I would impose on you, or have the state impose?
Good thing you stuck that “necessarily” in there, because you know as well as I do there is a significant portion of the strongly religious who would like to do exactly that - whether Christian, Muslim, or other. Note that “Islam,” by the way - your attitude about “religion” per se is parochial - I am just as interested, and even more so, in making the American state hostile to the imposition of Islamic beliefs via state power as I am of Christian. Nor do I think we can constitutionally be selective and say, well, Christian ok, Islam bad.
Finally, of course I have a no problem with laws against murder and rape - they both require the initiation of force or fraud against another, and given the grievous nature of the results, the penalties should be heavy.
We’ve heard from some others on this, so maybe it’s time for me to poke my $0.02-worth in here - not that I think it really matters, at this juncture. You want it to all be about party affiliation and loyalty, and who holds the power, jack, and the point a number of folks hereabouts have been trying to get you to see is that, for us, that’s not what it’s all about.
Anyway…I’m old enough to have become cognizant of politics in America at the tail-end of the Eisenhower era, when JFK started out like a magnificent ball of fire and inspiration. I was registered Democrat - and, mostly due to the first Kennedy days, worked at it some - until Johnson’s Great
BullshitSociety and explosion of the Viet Nam War blew me (and a whole bunch of others) over to the other side of the fence. I stayed with the Republicans - and worked at it, too - until Nixon/Agnew became Nixon/Ford, became Ford…and I became Independent.I’ve seen, therefore, both sides of the two-party scene. In more recent times, neither one impresses me over-much. I’m one of those “vote the person (and/or the principles) instead of the party” guys you seem to be so overworked about. For guys like you, it’s all about who has the power - for me, it’s all about what do they do with it when they have it.
Once upon a time, I might have considered myself to be somewhat of a social conservative…but certain libertarian views kept getting in the way of that. Somewhere in the political-consciousness development process, I decided that social engineering is way less important to me - as a function of government - than a small-government, low-taxation, mostly-laissez faire, provide-for-common-defense and promote-general-welfare and otherwise leave-things-alone kind of limited structure. Kind of the direct opposite of what we’re seeing from both parties these days…
Nope, sorry - that’s your framing of the choices, and I don’t buy it for one second.
I think, too, there’s an increasing number of people in this country who don’t want to buy that, either - not when the only discernible difference between the two parties seems to be that one is somewhat better (faster and more wasteful) at taking us to Hell in a handbasket than the other.
A political party is supposed to have certain basic principles, a solid platform or basis from which it works. I don’t think most people expect perfection in adherence to party principles - ideals are fine things, but we live in the real world, not the ideal. Politicians are (mostly) humans, after all; plus, they’re politicians - they do and say what’s needed to get elected. Then, they do and say what’s needed to stay in office - it’s their primary mode of operation.
However, no matter what politicians say, what they actually do should have some sort of relationship to the party principles they claim to espouse, wouldn’t you say?
Based on performance, that doesn’t seem to be the case for either of the two major parties these days - but it’s particularly obvious in the case of the Republicans.
Speaking for myself, I’m not “ignoring” anything - I just fail to see where I’d be substantially better off if Johnny Democrat-Lite had won last November instead of Hussein The Magnificent - and I’m not personally interested in “teaching lessons” to anyone; I simply have no interest in voting for people who show no particular interest in supporting their own party’s alleged principles, let alone being interested in supporting my viewpoint.
Sorry, I can’t help you with the control problems you’re having - I’m much too busy trying to retain some marginal amount of control over my own life and affairs.
If it’s my vote you’re after, though - start by coming up with candidates for office who actually seem capable of working with that limited-government kind of thing.
It’d be a refreshing change.
I don’t think that you can put it much better this, from a 1952 essay by WFB via Jonah Goldberg in The Corner:
Can I ask why my point of looking for better candidates is met with such disdain? I don’t believe any of you have disdain for that position–but you certainly come across that way.
Colored perhaps by my saying that if the better candidate doesn’t win, it’s still better to vote for someone who is nominally on your ’side’ than to let the oppostion have free reign, yes?
And I say that only because they’re more likely to listen if we scream loud enough. We killed the shamesty that way.
Not good–but arguably better than what the Dems are gonna do.
And have ANY better people gotten in in the last eight years? It certainly seems that way. Maybe not enough, but that’s why you keep at it.
Now we’re back at ’start’.
The state of the GOP sickens me, but I can’t bring myself to let Democrats win.
Perhaps my position is like trying to put out a fire with a dixie cup–it’s not working well, but I have no other recourse.
And we slip left and left again. And I begin to wonder if what’s happening is what goes on in Europe==where the left is way out there and the right is, at best, only a stone’s throw left of center.
We need radical repair. And I can’t see how to get it….so I suggest that we keep putting on the same brake even though I can hear that I’m on the rotor.
And again, I ask, what do we do?
You mean looking for people like Pat Toomey, running against Arlen Specter in the Pennsy primary and looking very good until the DNC and George Bush stepped in on Specter’s side?
I’ll take your suggestion seriously when the party itself begins to recruit and finance people like that. But the party would, it seems, rather run Che Guevera if Che was a sitting politician than Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater as a primary challenger.
Then the state of the GOP will continue to sicken you until it makes absolutely no difference who wins, Dems or GOP, because they will finally be utterly indistinguishable.
What went wrong with Toomey exactly? How was he undermined? Not in general–I know that, but what were the specifics? How can we stop that?
We need tactics.
We’re pretty much there–with a few bright spots. I KNOW this. And yet I can see no other course….support better candidates, vote for better candidates….what else is there?
Well, actually, in talking to that daughter about this something came up.
When I get impassioned on politics(or most any subject) I tend to go on, explaining describing, citing…ranting. My daughter says it’s off putting–but I pointed out that she remembered what I’d said.
The right needs to put a lot more information out there. We need to yell as much as the left does. We need forget answering their accusations and start making our own.
Flyers in black neighborhoods that have pictures of Robert Byrd as a klansman(or some of his racist writings) and how Dems call him the conscience of the Senate.
Advertisements that list rich lefties who say ‘help the poor’ along with lists of their paltry charity.
And we need to do this in such a way that the left can’t just dismiss it. Or answer it easily.
We need our own ‘National Lampoon–that isn’t tainted by so-con ‘humor’.
I’ve got ideas….
.
Well, you would in general be wrong, since you are generalizing from an incorrect stereotyped view of Christiantiy.
I have never supported laws regarding consenting sexual behavior among adults. In fact, as a physician, I have written strongly in support of legalizing prostitution, considering the statistics regarding HIV among regulated and unregulated prostitutes. I *do* believe in regulating prostitution like any other profession so that it is done in a safe manner, e.g. mandatory testing for HIV. Do you, as a secularist and liberarian, oppose mandatory HIV testing in sex workers?
Regulating the use of some drugs? Sure. I don’t think that drunk driving should be legal, nor do I think that commercial airline pilots should be allowed to fly while stoned. I’m surprised you find that so outrageous. I have written extensively about my opposition to the so-called War of Drugs, including here.
Smoking? I believe that *all* of the public should have access to public areas, like subways. I don’t understand why you believe that smokers should have a right to functionally deny access to things like subways to asthmatics. You may not believe that there should be publically-supported subways, but the fact is that they are here. Asthmatics should be able to use public transportation without fearing a respiratory crisis. You can read my response about private establishments in the discussion about that.
Gay marriage? I don’t believe that the government should recognize marriage at all, but only civil unions, and I believe that those civil unions should be viewed simply as contracts. Thus, in terms of the civil implications of the union — implied power of attorney, property rights, etc. That any collection of people should be allowed to enter into that relationship — man/woman, man/man, woman/woman, man/man/man, woman/man/woman, whatever.
I reserve the term “marriage” for the sacrament it has always meant. Thus, I believe that the government should neither allow nor disallow gay “marriage,” since that implies a relationship beyond civil union. Since I believe in freedom of religion, I believe that traditions that believe that gay marriage is impossible should not be forced to recognize it, and that traditions that *do* recognize gay marriage (and there are Christian traditions, such as the UCC, that do, as well as non-Christians traditions that do) should be allowed to do so. I have been consistent about this for years.
Interestingly, I believe *both* in freedom of association *and* freedom of conscience.
“Now, what beliefs do you think I would impose on you, or have the state impose?”
You answered that question yourself:
“Finally, of course I have a no problem with laws against murder and rape - they both require the initiation of force or fraud against another, and given the grievous nature of the results, the penalties should be heavy.”
Considering that there have been very successful societies where what would now be considered murder, rape, and all sorts of other atrocities were considered not merely acceptable but noble, any implication that you are not willing to impose your personal moral values on society would be wrong.
“I believe you would impose laws ”
I tried to respond, but it did not show up, and when I tried again, it said “Duplicate response.” If you get a chance, check your queue and let me know if I have to rewrite it…
DONE - SteveF
Yes. Voluntary, sure. And if I were a john, I certainly wouldn’t transact business without seeing that current, valid cert.
Any society that “considers murder, rape, and all sorts of other atrocities not merely acceptable but noble” is in no way successful. It is not even a society. It is an uncivilized barbarian nexus, and is successful only in the sense that it may permit the passing on of genetic material, something ants and amoeba can do as well.
I don’t, any more than I believe that asthmatics (who are a number considerably less than smokers) should be able to deny access to tobacco in public areas, either. You want to ban something everywhere (all subways) rather than even look at ways to satisfy both sides (smoking cars, etc.)
Modern technology permits us to accommodate both, but the fanatic anti-smokers, bound to force us to do what is good for us, resort to the ban - as they always do.
I can recall a typically stupid example in my own experience. The employee cafeteria at the SF Marriott downtown was quite large - to handle the several hundred employees, all of whom received a free shift meal that was of excellent quality.
In response to initial SF anti-smoke regulations, the hotel spent more than $400k to build a sealed, separately air-conditioned annex with double “airlock” style doors, so smokers could smoke with their meals, and non-smokers would have no contact with the purported “deadly” (mythical) second-hand smoke. A year later, that wasn’t enough for SF, and all smoking inside the building was banned.
Banners always have good reasons for infringing freedom, even when it isn’t necessary to do so. And then they get on their high-horses and blabber about “public spaces should be public for everybody!”
And as Dr. Calm Rising pointed out, get back to me when you’re seeking to banish all asthma irritants, from exhaust to perfume to common allergens. After all, any discomodation of a minority of disease sufferers is more than enough to impose restrictions on the liberties of the entire world. “If it saves one cough….”
Bill Q:
Bill, I suspect plans are already in the works toward such bannings based on exactly such “logic”. Do you disagree?
Of course I agree, and a primary reason is that the banners are after control as much, if not more, than they are after “health.”
Further, I asked you what beliefs you thought I would impose on you, so am I to suppose that you believe that murder and rape and all sorts of other atrocities are noble, and those are beliefs you hold that would be threatened by beliefs I would impose on you?
“Any society that “considers murder, rape, and all sorts of other atrocities not merely acceptable but noble” is in no way successful. It is not even a society. ”
Tell that to the Romans, or for that matter much of Dar al Islam. The bottom line is that you consider your personal value system so absolute that you not only feel no compunction about imposing those values through force of law, but that you don’t even admit that societies that diverge from those values are even societies. And yet, were I to admit to a similar conviction, you would call me a statist and a foolish Christian for being so adamant.
“I don’t, any more than I believe that asthmatics (who are a number considerably less than smokers) should be able to deny access to tobacco in public areas, either. You want to ban something everywhere (all subways) rather than even look at ways to satisfy both sides (smoking cars, etc.)”
Sure, I would be willing to go with smoking cars, and smoking rooms in stops,etc.
So, you are willing for there to be laws forcing smokers to smoke in limited areas? You don’t have a problem with them being fined or jailed for smoking in a non-smoking car? You don’t have a problem with *banning* smoking in non-smoking cars and areas in public facilities? Great. Or are you calling for smoking cars, but allowing smokers to ignore the ban on smoking in smoke-free cars?
Finally, Bill, your teductio ad absurdum argument against the protection of public health in public spaces can be turned back right on to you. You claim that any attempt to protect public health by such things as bans on smoking is somehow wrong unless I am ” seeking to banish all asthma irritants, from exhaust to perfume to common allergens. After all, any discomodation of a minority of disease sufferers is more than enough to impose restrictions on the liberties of the entire world. “If it saves one cough….”
Well, let’s flip that around. Do you believe that any behavior, no matter how dangerous to the public, should be accomodated by spending public funds to accomodate it? I can play reductio games too. You think that we should raise taxes and spend billions on public building and infrastructure to accomodate the whim of every person with a desire to express his or her liberty by endangering others?
Get back to me when you’re seeking to accomodate all whims that pose risks to others, from smoking in the subway to carrying personal explosives on airplanes. After all, any discomodation of the liberty of a minority is bad enough to spend billions to accomodate it. “If it saves one free action….”
Perhaps we should build bunkers in subways to accomodate people who want to carry homemade personal explosives on public transportation. After all, if I want to make a pint or two of nitroglycerine and carry it around in my coat when I get on the Metro, who’s to say I shouldn’t be able to, right?
Of course you don’t believe that, any more than I believe that everything should be banned. And such casting of our arguments does poor service to either of our positions.
You make a great deal of the fact that while there are approximately 20 million asthmatics in the US (and add another 6-10 million symptomatic folk with similar respiratory disease such as emphysema or chronic bronchitis), and there are 44.5 million smokers. Thus, we should either functionally ban asthmatics from public spaces or spend billions building facilities to accomodate smokers (and the $400K example you give is a good one — replicate that by a few hundred thousand).
However, the number of people with asthma is increasing, in large part due to unregulated environmental factors, and the number of people who smoke is decreasing. In a few years, your demographic argument will flip. Since you now agree that smoking *does* cause significant symptoms among at-risk populaitons, including emergency room visits and hospitalization. Will you still believe that we should spend billions to accomodate smokers when that ratio flips — and smokes are as trivial a minority as you consider asthmatics to be today? Should we spend billions to accomodate a handful of smokers who feel driven to smoke in public places?
You’re nuts. And hysterical.
And I’m done with this idiotic argument with you.
Yep, I’m getting a good laugh reading the convuluted billo logic.
Grow up billo. You simply want to use the power of the state to enforce your dislikes. Cave men heated their caves with fire, causing second hand smoke. Native Americans heated their teepee’s the same way. Every third world shithole has second hand smoke from some activity or other including cooking with cow dung.
Or jack logic. Hard to keep ‘em straight.