House of Eratosthenes

Hawkins has a new article up, Why the Republican Party is Psychologically Out of Whack. He cleverly kicks it off with two quotes that showcase the party’s deep split:

“I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.” — Jim Demint

“(Arlen Specter) is what the party needed to be. They need to cultivate more Specters instead of deriding him as a RINO.” — Michael Smerconish

I agree emphatically with Hawkins about what he says about the Smerconish sentiments:

…I think they’re indicative of what’s wrong with the David Frum, Ross Douthat, Meghan McCain, Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker, David Brooks wing of the party. Arlen Specter isn’t a RINO and the GOP needs to emulate him? Not only is Arlen Specter to the left-of-center, he just left the Republican Party. How in the world can any sane Republican say that’s what we need to be copying?

The split, ironically, is the reason why the Republican party is somewhat deserving of support: It is a manifestation of principles. The unprincipled will always be among us, after all. If you don’t have principles, their attitude will be everlastingly unanimous, just as a boat without an anchor is never conflicted about where it wants to drift in any given moment.

That’s one way to look at things. To those who have weak minds, it’s tempting to ignore time and view the entire universe through a snapshot. Once time enters the equation, it is the unanchored boat that lacks direction, and the anchored vessel that possesses it. The tension on the line is simply a “price” to be paid for having an anchor.

Hawkins seems to see things this way:

Make no mistake about it, the GOP needs moderate voters and moderate politicians. We cannot expect a hard core conservative to win a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-to-2. We can’t expect a Republican senator from Vermont or California to be as conservative as a Republican senator from Oklahoma or Georgia. Yes, people like this can make conservatives pull their hair out at times, but it’s impossible for us to have a majority or get things done without them.

However, the flip side to this is that moderates are not the majority of Republicans, they’re not ideologically coherent as a group, and they simply don’t bring enough manpower, money, or energy to the table to drive a successful political party. What that means is moderates have to be the Robin to our Batman. Conservatives, who have stronger beliefs, more numbers, and just bring so much more to the Party are not going to happily fall in line over the long haul in a moderate Republican Party. Conservatives have to be in charge — and this can work.

I’m not too interested in this fantasy about winning elections. That’s quite a wait, for one thing; for another thing, it really can’t be done without telling people what to think. I think right now people know what they want: that wonderful, hip and edgy liberal goodness. I say, let them have it. But at the same time, while people may be spectacularly uninterested in the substance of ideas right now…they still hate to be deceived.

And that’s the position the Republican party needs to take right now. The democrats are the bosses — the GOP is the conscience of the democrats.

Like, for example, the democrat President said we shouldn’t pass debt on to the next generation. We need to make the economy work for everyone. Republicans need to agree in substance with the empty meaningless platitudes, then appear before the cameras and demonstrate the opportunity for improvement in sticking to the meaning of the platitudes.

The task that would confront the Republicans, then, would be to go out in search of these discrepancies between what the democrat-bosses say they’re going to do, and what they really do.

The task that would confront the democrat party would be to deny these opportunities to the Republicans. This would all be for the benefit of the country itself. How would it not be? How could utter and then substantiate a syllable of protest against it?

The job done by the democrats, so far, in sticking to their knitting: Medium to shitty.

The job done by the GOP, so far, in calling it out: Much shittier.

Fix that.

Fix that?
Golly, if the current Party of those calling themselves Republican is getting too rough for RINOs to casually survive in their current pretense, then I can’t see anything but a self-resolving issue here.

Darwinian, if anyone asks me.
- CaptDMO | 04/29/2009 @ 13:13
Yup. As I was commenting in the e-mails yesterday…this would have been a great act of courage on Sen. Specter’s part. If, that is, he did it in 2005, or perhaps in 1995. As it is, it’s kind of like a 79-year-old trying to pick up girls by learning how to rap.
- mkfreeberg | 04/29/2009 @ 13:18
Republicans are either extremists or hypocrites, I guess.

As long as liberals hate us more than they love their freedom, there will be no compromise.
- JohnJ | 04/29/2009 @ 20:56

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GOP Psychologically Out of WhackWednesday, April 29th, 2009

GOP Psychologically Out of Whack
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009