We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Non-cons of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your place at the trough and a whole world to win!
One non-conservative Big Government Republican (George Bush Sr.) praising the ‘conservative’ credentials of another non-conservative Big Government Republican (John McCain). I assume I am not the only finding this more than a little absurd. These guys are not ‘neo-cons’, they are ‘non-cons’.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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“Read my lips….”
So, how’s the weather forecast in the UK for the next, oh say about four and a half years?
It seems Bush I also endorsed Bush II, didn’t he ?
Or perhaps, simply inept con-men who believe that we are more stupid than are they.
Just as soon as I begin to get depressed about having the Obamanator as our president for four years (even though we probably need to it to remind everyone how much worse things could be) his wife comes out and opens her mouth.
This will truly be a race to the bottom. May the lowest common denominator prevail!
Tman, don’t come here, its not worth it. The weather is looking like surveillance with oppressive spells. They’re campaigning to get buying and drinking bottled water regarded as immoral. I think that says it all really.
Oh, I don’t know Perry.
McCain has been one of the most fiscally conservative Republicans in Congress for many years. Unlike, for instance, Romney in Massachusetts. I suppose if you think borrowing and government debt is the proper way to fund bloated budgets, then you might disagree. It comes down to the meaning of conservative. Many self anointed conservatives worship the government credit card. McCain doesn’t, nor do I. That’s why I considered Reagan a spendthrift rather than a fiscal conservative. What made Reagan a “conservative” was patriotism and a willingness to fight, that was what got him the blue collar Reagan Democrats. Throw in tolerance of religion and the South comes in too. That, in short, was the Reagan coalition. The pundits, otherwise known as fleas, were just along for the ride.
I suspect your dislike of McCain comes down to a poor choice of propaganda on your part. ‘Cause otherwise I don’t think we are talking about the same person.
Really now, being “Conservative” or “Liberal” (or is that now “Progressive?”) has only to do with the ends sought through use of the mechanisms of governments; and to some differentiating degree with how the mechanism is to be operated as means to those ends.
But, it is all government, with ever-increasing horsepower (should that be “Bull” power?) and increasing fuel consumption – as well as plenty of mule biscuits left over for the sparrows to pick through.
“Non-cons”!
Excellent, Perry. You have enhanced the language, and may help open some eyes. A good day’s work.
Over here we call them “Rinos” (“Republicans in Name Only”). Same thing.
It’s a sad commentary on the state of American political affairs when McCain can be seen as “conservative” by anyone. Yes, Chuck, he’s more conservative than Romney. Or Ted Kennedy, for that matter. So what? The man has spent the last fifteen years or so at war with actual conservatives in the party.
I’d be interested to know where the McCain-Feingold BCRA and McCain-Kennedy “let’s just pretend everyone belongs here” Immigration Bill fit in your political spectrum. Conservative? Really?
Sure we are, I just see no need for the wilful blindness. The whole state control of political speech thing probably has a lot to do with it. The incumbency protection act alone is enough to put him beyond the pale not just to libertarians but to genuine conservatives. Of course that is far from all but that is enough.
We here don’t care very much about “actual conservatives in the party”.
What matters is the record on the issues.
McCain-Feingold – bad.
McCain’s votes on a stingy fiscal policy – good.
Perry,
I think you are infatuated with a single issue. McCain planned to get into the presidential race (he was in it in 2000). I think McCain-Feingold and “the gang of 14” were deliberate political moves. You can’t get elected on a too narrow partisan (i.e. conservative) platform. It’s the general election he has in mind, not the primaries, and he may make it too!
Reagan did. Both Bushes did (although they weren’t consistently conservative after the elections). Ford and Dole weren’t all that partisan, and they both lost. The Republicans gained control of the House with a strict conservative platform, and their representation in both chambers dwindled as the level of conservatism in their policies dwindled.
I didn’t say McCain was a Reagan.
If you’ll vote for nothing less than another Reagan you’ll have to wait a long time…
Each candidate has his personality and his tactics.
I don’t think all of McCains moves are right, not by far…
Question:
I preferred Bush over McCain in 2000. In hindsight – was it a good call ?
Not at all, I despise McCain for many reasons! Also, voting for what you do NOT want does not get you to what you do what. The whole ‘lesser evil’ thing is a colossal strategic mistake that ends up making things worse later in return for accepting not as bad now.
Ford and Dole would have lost any election, no matter what their platform, and what they said.
I also oppose McCain-Fiengold limits on how much rich individuals and companies can donate to election campaigns.
However, to call it the “incumpency protection Act” is an error – incumpents went down in large numbers in 2006.
As for Bush 41 and Bush 43.
A few people on Fox News said that getting close to these two Presidents (who he has never liked) could help McCain with conservatives.
I do not understand why.
After all neither “read my lips, I am telling lies” George Herbert Walker (he of the Americans with Disablilities Act and so much else), or wild spending George Walker Bush (he of no-child-left-behind, the Medicare expansion – and whose latest demented fantasy seems to be that more overseas aid will promote properity and reduce terrorism) are conservatives.
What John McCain needs to do is to campaign with people who have voted to control government spending and repeal regulations – not increase government spending and impose regulations.
There are quite a few decent Republicans in both House and Senate (although, sadly, not a majority of either group) and many of them support McCain.
It is (for example) the anti “earmark” campaigners he needs to be seen with.
Not the absurd Bush 41 and Bush 43.
Although conservative bloggers and talk radio people need to think of a reply to this question.
“Why are you not supporting John McCain – when you have supported the far less conservative George Walker Bush for the last seven years?”
No way he’s getting my vote. A century in Iraq (and the implied continued willingness to waste American resources on giving welfare to the whole damn world) will end up being even more expensive than the welfare state.
Small govenment and war against (or aid to) the inconsequential do not mix. War is the health of the staet.
I prefer this.
Unfortunately the White House, but for Reagan, has had Rockefeller Republicans in place, off set by mildly “conservative” Democrats, with the exception of Carter, for the last 50 years. All the hot air and sniping every four years has yielded pretty much the same thing ultimately. It seems almost 1984ish that anyone can devine a clear difference between an electable Republican and an electable Democrat. It seems all you have to do, in practicality, is spend $3 Trillion, tax $2.2 Trillion, borrow the rest, don’t actively take people’s guns, and allow abortions but don’t talk too much about it, and you’re in. You can blow all the hot air you want, but as long as you payoff, you’re golden.
Of course, the legacy, post FDR, has been an ever growing list of entitlements that always cost much more down the line. The first phase of the New Deal/Great Society hit under Reagan, and instead of turning the tide, we borrowed to fix the listing ship. Now we are a mere $10 Trillion in debt, and an additional $40 Trillion in debt on an accrual basis. BOTH parties have gotten us here, and from a Republican standpoint, it didn’t begin with Bush I, it goes much further back. Non-cons didn’t just sprout out of the soil.
Having said all that, I pretty much began to ponder just what the Republican Party held for me when the “thousand points of light” came down chute. The face of Bush I embodies when I began to doubt the Republicans’ place in preserving individual liberty.
But now, it seems that a break is occuring from this pattern, as we have Paul and Obama who both look break the mold. It is telling about our future how this is panning out. Paul, after a surge of interest, is nearly off the radar and Obama is steaming toward the presidency. It would appear that 45% composite taxation and vaporizing liberties is just a bit too rightward for the body politic. The likes of Paul unpalatable to most everyone. He’s got Arlo Guthrie, I guess, and that’s about all.
Paul, you’re right, “incumbency protection act” is a bad name for it, even though that’s what the Republicans in Congress thought it was. In actuality it’s the “legacy media protection act”. It’s not the limits on donations that are particularly troubling. It’s the idea the government can declare things you say on your own personal website to be “in kind” donations and fine you for not declaring them. This looks a lot like punishing political speech to me. How that got past the Supreme Court is still a mystery to me.
And while it’s true neither Bush (especially the second) was a conservative, McCain has shown a troubling tendancy to want to “get things done” by betraying his political allies and supporting whatever the other side is up to. That’s why many of us don’t like him – he’s just not trustworthy.
My point is that running as a narrow partisan conservative is what wins power for the Republicans on the national level; Reagan was a prime example. One is hard pressed to find major presidential GOP candidates who are more partisan than he was.
The Republicans still do not seem to have learned their lessons.
Not just on entitlement programs – but even on little things like earmarks.
There was the meaningless Bush plan to reduce them
And the House Republicans have just backstabbed Jeff Flake (one of the minority of Republicans who is serious about reducing government spending).
It is enough to drive me to despair – if I had not already despaired long ago of course.
Rich Paul – “war is the health of the state”, and defeat is the health of other people’s states.
Peace is not on offer (radical Islam is not interested in peaceful coexistance) – the choices are victory or defeat.