House of Eratosthenes

On the other hand, this is the kind of thing that makes me sick of politics. It’s beyond obvious that on the right-wing ship, something has to get pitched overboard and something else has to replace it, toot sweet. What is to be tossed? What is to be brought aboard? That is the question.

Some say extremism is the problem. Republicans have to get more moderate. Yes, that’s it…

You do the math: America has a moderate majority — 50% of Americans are centrists, compared to 20% who are liberal and 30% who call themselves conservative. Independents are the largest and fastest growing segment of the electorate. Republicans need to appeal to the center and find common cause with independents in order to win. And that’s something they have increasingly failed to do over the past decade.

That’s a popular viewpoint, but not a unanimous one. This guy, for example, asserts something quite different:

Our party has become too fearful of our own ideas. Since 1997, congressional Republicans began a steady retreat from principled leadership to political expediency. A party built on spending discipline and government reform succumbed to the siren songs of government expansion and earmarked giveaways. Republicans squandered the opportunity to limit and reshape the relationship between the federal government and the individual.

Where do I stand on this? If you skim over my conservative platform, it will become obvious.

I find it implausible to support the idea that these people we call “conservatives” need more moderation. They’re moderate already. In a nation that was founded 232 years ago specifically for the purpose of adopting a strong nationalist identity, to profer the notion that we should continue to keep it and build on it, is the essence of moderation. It certainly isn’t extremist.

Not when, if you don’t like it, there’s a whole planet covered with other internationalist countries that are nothing more than prefectures in a global colony…to which you can emigrate if you choose. We’re the one spot on the globe with it’s own identity. What’s this drive to exterminate it? Why should I think of that as “moderate”? I don’t care what exactly the subject under discussion is for the moment…when you move to exterminate the last of something, you’re not being moderate.

Identities are good. They’re good for countries, and they’re good for political parties too. In fact, from where I’m sitting, it looks to me like Republicans lost this thing because they didn’t have much of an identity to sell. Their identity was “No We’re Not!” from beginning to end…since the day Fred Thompson threw it in, the party spent the entire time on the defensive.

The bullcusations would come out, and Republicans said “No, We’re Not!”

The liberal activists bullcused the Republicans of being mean and nasty, and the Republican position was: Nuh huh!

The liberal activists bullcused the Republicans of being against women, blacks and gays. Republicans denied it — which had the effect of legitimizing it.

Republicans were bullcused of voting with George Bush “ninety percent of the time.” McCain did something abysmally stupid in response to this: He trotted out some examples of issues on which he disagreed with Bush. You can hardly blame the electorate for what they did — which was to say to themselves “huh, that must be the other ten percent” and go ahead & vote for the other guy.

If the G.O.P. was simply doing a half-assed job of selling a brand name, like a salesman selling Pepsi products instead of Coke, it wouldn’t be nearly so aggravating. But that’s not what was happening here. Republicans were offering an alternative to ideas that have been proven not to work…this is going to become only too obvious to us in the years ahead. But that’s what this election was about. Are we so determined to change the status quo that we’ll forget what it is we’re trying to change, and therefore put in motion exactly the chain reaction history has shown us leads to the most damaging problems the most reliably? And the voters replied — Oui! They weren’t given an incentive to vote any other way.

My solution is simple. It is moderate. Here it is: Just name the damn thing. That’s what was missing. If you don’t put a name on the product you’re trying to sell, then surely your competition will do it for you. And if you ask the guy-in-the-street what Republicans were all about, you’ll get back a big ol’ mish mash of stuff that will prove the competition named the product. Oppressing homosexuals, bombing Iran, spending lots of money, starving old people and keeping gas prices really high.

Republicans aren’t about keeping gas prices high. “Drill Baby Drill” doesn’t have anything to do with keeping gas prices high. If they’re for keeping gas prices high, then George W. Bush must be just as much an incompetent boob as people keep saying, because I bought some gas today and paid easily two bones a gallon less than I paid a couple months ago.

Properly marketed, this should be a sure-fire winner. So properly market it.

Drill.

People get to keep their guns.

Pull your money out, if you want to, and use it to send your kid to a private school.

Fiscal responsibility. If they’ve gotten away from it, let ’em get back to it.

Local control. People in Newark don’t decide how fast you drive in Denver.

If you’re not born yet but you’re growing in your momma’s belly already, you’re safe. No vaginal finish line you have to cross before you count.

If a bully picks on you on the schoolyard and you don’t throw the first punch but you do throw the last one…you’re good. Bully gets punished, you walk. A midnight holdup in a back-alley — same doctrine. International conflicts, same doctrine.

You do something stupid, you’ve a right to do it. Nobody will fix it for you. That way you learn.

You say something stupid, you’ve a perfect right to do that as well. And you can reap the whirlwind.

Someone else says something stupid to you while they’re beating you up, they get arrested. Just for beating you up. No enhanced penalties for having the wrong thoughts…because in a free country, you can’t get going on that kind of thing.

You keep your 401k.

If you want to leave something to your kids in your will, you can. And they’ll get it.

I don’t expect anyone has too much more of an apetite for my opinions, and if they do, they can just chase down the link above to find the complete platform. But you know what I call this? I call this something that would get it sold instantly. My name for it would sell it like ice-to-eskimoes…except we need this far, far more than any eskimo needs ice.

My name for it?

The “Pursuit Of Happiness” party. That is the vision for America; let’s get back to it. You don’t have a right to happiness here, but you certainly have a God-given right to pursue it. And if you find it, then God bless you, for no mortal man may interfere.

If that’s extreme, I don’t wanna be moderate.

The bad thing about centrism for centrism’s sake is that it can only be defined in relation to others. If guy X wants to rape gal Y, then centrism doesn’t take anyone’s side; it’s somewhere in the middle. As Goldwater said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And… moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

But I disagree that Americans are centrist. I still think that Americans voted for Obama and the Democrats (who gained seats in the house) because Americans support redistribution, nanny-statism, and all-powerful judges. I don’t see a way for both democracy and individual liberty to win. As near as I can see, Americans’ rejection of those principles will have to be allowed to devolve on its own.
- JohnJ | 11/12/2008 @ 10:12

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Two VisionsWednesday, November 12th, 2008

Two Visions
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008