The Path Back to Power Begins With Opposing Socialism
As was evident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, it is deja vu, 1961, all over again. We have a young, cool, witty, personable president — and an adoring press corps.
“I am Barack Obama,” the president introduced himself. “Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me. (Laughter and applause.) Apologies to the Fox table. (Laughter.)”
What is also evident is that, without its new superstar in the lineup, the Democratic Party is a second-division ball club. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are not terribly formidable. Last fall, the Congress they ran had an approval rating below Vice President Cheney.
Why then is the Republican Party agonizing publicly over what it is supposed to do? If history is any guide, the pendulum will swing back in 2010.
After all, in 1952, Eisenhower was elected in a more impressive victory than Obama’s, and ended the Korean War by June. And, in 1954, he lost both houses of Congress.
Lyndon Johnson crushed Goldwater by three times the margin of Obama’s victory. He got Medicare, Medicaid, voting rights, and a host of Great Society programs. And, in 1966, he lost 47 House seats.
Ronald Reagan won a 44-state landslide in 1980, cut tax rates — and proceeded to lose 26 sets in 1982.
Bill Clinton recaptured the presidency for his party in 1992 after 12 years of Republican rule. In 1994, he lost 52 seats and both houses of Congress.
Though, demographically, the nation is tilting toward the Party of Government, the GOP must remain the party of free enterprise, and should follow the counsel of Australia’s Robert Menzies, long ago:
“(T)he duty of an opposition … is to oppose selectively. No government is always wrong on everything. … The opposition must choose the ground on which it is to attack. To attack indiscriminately is to risk public opinion, which has a reserve of fairness not always understood.”
Rather than debating what the national party position should be on foreign policy, health care, education, or social issues — which the party will decide when it chooses a nominee in 2012 — the GOP should focus now, and unite now, on what it will stand against.
Here the party has a good start. With the exception of Specter the Defector and the ladies from Maine, it united against the $800 billion stimulus bill.
And as it is impossible to shovel out an added 6 percent of GDP in two years, without vast waste, fraud and abuse, this stimulus package is going to come back and bite Obama by 2010.
And, recall, in his address to Congress, Obama assigned Joe Biden to see to it there was no waste, fraud or abuse in spending the $800 billion: “And that’s why I’ve asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort — because nobody messes with Joe.”
Joe has been set up to take the fall.
The next place to take a stand is against “cap and trade.”
More and more Americans are coming to conclude, after the record cold temperatures in many cities this winter, that global warning is a crock — that there is no conclusive proof it is happening, no conclusive proof man is the cause, no conclusive proof it would be a calamity for us or the polar bears.
But cap and trade would mean a huge hike in the cost of energy for all Americans, the shutdown of fuel-efficient U.S. factories, and their replacement by dirtier and less fuel-efficient Chinese plants.
And we do know the agenda here is a vast transfer of wealth and power from U.S. citizens to government bureaucrats, and from the U.S. Government to global bureaucrats who will run the oversight and enforcement machinery set up by the Kyoto II conclave in Copenhagen.
A third issue on which Republicans ought to stand and fight is health care. For the end goal of Obamacare is the same end goal as Hillarycare: nationalization, bureaucrats deciding what care each of us shall receive, when we may receive it, and whether we even ought to have it.
If the Republican Party remains the party of the individual and the private sector, does it have any choice but to fight?
For if cap-and-trade passes, and Obamacare becomes law, the government share of GDP rises to European socialist levels, and, as we saw after the Great Society, there is no going back.
A party defines itself by what it stands for, and what it stands against. After the Bush era, the Republican Party has been given the opportunity to redeem and redefine itself — in opposition to a party and a president who are further left than any in American history.
A true conservative party would relish such an opportunity.
After all, the Goldwater young did not lie down and die after a defeat far more crushing than the one the party suffered last fall.
Is this Republican Party made of similar stuff?
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC
The Republican Party should remain conservative, but should come to the conclusion that the George W. Bush Presidency was not conservative. The party should then consider how it can embark on a true conservative agenda, while still reaching out to those who supported Bush.
[...] If that is to happen, of course, the Republican Party must actually be consistent, reasonable, and principled in its role as opposition party…to be controlled by Ron Paul Republicans, perhaps. Read the rest here. [...]
PB,
Hope you are doing well. Let me make this short… if you think the old crap is ever going to work again please share with me some of that s**t you’ve been smoking.
Take a look around, have you noticed anything different about getting a decent job in the last decade? We all can’t be pundits for a living.
ps. I sincerely enjoyed your “Where the Right went Wrong”.
The path back to temporary power begins with opposing socialism, it is true.
The path back to a generation of power (and prosperity) begins with opposing a certain type of socialism: war socialism.
A state that conceives of itself in a primarily military way will always lean towards socialism, because a certain type of socialism makes perfect sense when one’s nation is on a war footing.
National defense is the biggest and most wasteful government program. It purports to do two things, one unnecessary and the other impossible.
The idea of a large standing army is that it keeps us safe from subjugation by a foreign power. Our nation is invadable, but it is not subjugable. It is too large and it’s populace too well armed. Any conceivable invading army or alliance would break themselves on Texas alone. Our army has no purpose in protecting us from invasion.
The other, newer rational for a standing army is that it protects us against terrorism. This too, is impossible. Armies are good at fighting other armies in war. They are not good at keeping individuals from doing bad things. If they were, the nation with the largest army on earth wouldn’t have been victimized on 9/11.
Here is my question.
Why is the opposite of “too much government” construed to be “free enterprise”?
Are there no important liberties to defend other than freedom to make money without interference?
I remember when the Soviet Union fell it was hailed as the triumph of capitalism. Not democracy, not sovereignty of the people.
Capitalism.
When I read the constitution, the declartion of independence, the federalist papers, and any of the other classic documents of our nations history, I do not see free market capitalism cited as our raison d’etre.
There’s more to human liberty than money.
Thanks -
So Pat, if I understand you correctly, the winning formula for the GOP is to:
1. Oppose financial stimulus in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, thus ensuring an even worse economic freefall, a policy that will surely resonate with the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and the tens of millions who feat doing so.
2. Conclude that because of the recent cold winter, climate change is a crock, despite overwhelming scientific consensus on the ussue. Therefore oppose cap and trade and offer no solutions to the problems of climate change or energy security. In addition to underscoring Republican hosltility to science and GOP anti-intellectualism generally, I’m sure this will appeal to those under the age of, say 30, who have the most reason to fear a warming planet and the exhaustion of our finite carbon-based natural resources.
And finally, oppose health care reform, even though large majorties of Americans favor it and tens of millions of Americans are a only a job loss or a major illness away from destitution. Keep insisting that a federal program will entail rationing of care while ignoring that in today’s system rationing is accomplished by income level and (lack of) health insurance. And propose nothing in the way of a solution to the problem.
Yup, sounds like a wining platform to me.
BTW, the GOP may pick up a few House seats in 2010 but are just as likely to lose a few more in the Senate. You’re right about one thing–barring a first-term disaster, Obama will be re-elected in 2012, Democratic policies on health care, energy and other major issues will be enacted and the Democratic Party will be ascendant for a generation if not longer.
Matt–If you think that any “financial stimulus” will help the economy, you’ve got another thing coming. Try reading the magazine.
I’m hoping that the difference in the mid-term elections in 2010 will be that over the past 8 years the Republicans have driven too many people out of the party who don’t want to come back. I don’t like what the Democrats are selling, but I refuse to return to a party that branded me a traitor for opposing the Iraq War.
Matt,
1. Mises.org. Learn how inflationary practices by governments and central banks actually prolong market corrections. Also, read about the depression of 1920-21 on this site.
2. Learn the difference between experts and intellectuals: those who interpret, synthesize, and communicate the work of experts to a mass audience. There is a consensus among intellectuals. People (including you) should always be skeptical of the biases of intellectuals in this powerful (and important) role.
3. Learn more about Obama’s plan for a centrally-planned health care scheme, which– as you said– has many of the same flaws as the current situation.
Finally, I hate to break it to you, but the ascendency of any party for any length of time is only possible in the minds of those who have been hypnotized by the one they follow. A few years ago Rove & Co foresaw a GOP ascendency. (Of course, they weren’t as smart as Obama & Co.)
Learn more, and then tell your friends! It’ll be fun!
Boy do I ever agree with any number of posters here including especially Matt. This is the maybe the worst Buchanan column ever, predictably enough centered precisely on his somewhat weird affection for the GOP that has so thoroughly repudiated him. An affection that here comes close to endorsing the idea that the GOP present itself as not just deeply stupid but deeply dishonest too.
Reid and Pelosi may not be heavyweights but who exactly does Buchanan think the Republicans are going to come up with right now? Newt Gingrich talking about using a death ray pulse against the North Koreans and chomping at the bit to go to war against Iran and possibly Pakistan too? Another clueless, easily manipulable tabula rasa like The Shrub with Sarah Palin? Maybe John McCain again so he can insult everyone’s intelligence all over by shifting his illegal immigration stance back to his “gotta lie to the boobs” lines? (And plumping for more war too?) Or how about Jeb Bush, so we can once again be treated to a child of privilege who has trouble with three syllable words and whose political astuteness is leading him now to slam Reagan who is about the only Republican name the populace can think of without gagging?
And then there’s Buchanan’s use of the boogy-man word of “socialism” even though it appears that Obama is not going to want to keep a governmental stake in every company he (admittedly wrongly) bailed out.
The Republicans are so far from being a responsible, adult party that it’s laughable. They bottom fed so assiduously now for so long that they no longer just pander to a slack-jawed base, they’ve become slack-jawed morons themselves. Absolutely no grasp of ideas other than that they hate and fear them on sight, in total favor of merely finding and worshipping some God-fearing, flag-waving rube of a “leader” whose pride in ignorance can make them feel proud of their own.
Time, and intelligence in the face of a very intelligent guy like Obama, is just passing these people by very rapidly now. Other than making some pathetic squeaks now and then about the inane (“Obama didn’t go to church on Faith Day!”) they’re irrelevant, and rightly so. And encouraging them to just sit like vultures to pick opportunistically—but utterly without principle—at the inevitable problems and mistakes that arise is just ridiculous.
The country deserves and indeed desperately needs some mature, responsible, principled opposition to some of what Obama is doing and even more importantly what he is likely to do. But the Republican Party—and Buchanan apparently too, sadly enough—doesn’t even seem to *recognize* what that is at the present time, much less find the ability to provide same.
Very sad reading this Buchanan article. Very disappointing.
There is a lot of mis-information put out about climate control, very much in part because of government interference.
First, for old people, we’ve seen all this before, where the tree huggers accuse “RICH NATIONS” of polluting the planet, whether from pesticides, or transportation, or energy production, acid rain, clearing the forests, damming streams, not damming streams, etc.
I grew up giving Dad a rough time about evil BIG BUSINESS, and he would show me pictures where the CARIBOU LIKED to travel and forage under the power lines that his company put through the TREE HUGGER’s VIRGIN FORESTS. He would show me studies where the warm water from a power generation plant would melt the winter’s ice a month sooner, and this would provide an increase in fish and other wildlife in the area around the river.
I would show him studies where evil AMERICANS were eating ALL the world’s food supply, and sucking ALL the world’s petrolium resources. He would show me where trade with America was developing major parts of the world, and suporting their economies.
The first question honest people would ask, is, “Who made Al Gore king, and why does HE get to decide what is the perfect temperature?”
He predicted a 23 foot rise in water level in 100 years. That’s a couple car-lengths above your head, if you stand on the shoreline and don’t move for 100 years. Later they quietly said, “Oh, oops, we meant 23 CENTIMETERS”, which is up to your ankle. (So the folks in the midwest town can build an emergency 20 foot levee, on the banks of their river, in 48 hours, but humanity won’t be able to deal with a 10 INCH rise in the Ocean in 100 years?)
The reason they were OFF BY 2 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE was not science, but a political agenda (the same agenda, by the same people, that we have been familiar with for 50 years).
It looks like that in the next 100 years, at current rates (or even slightly accelerated rates if one expects that human activity is effecting global temperature), we will see a 1 to 4 degree rise in temperature, and a 10 inch rise in ocean level. (To put this into perspective, remember that the TIDES rise from 5 to 15 FEET twice a day).
From Ice Cores, which appear to show temperature and carbon dioxide level and airborne particulate level, for the last 400 thousand years, we see 3 major rises and falls in temperature, from quite a bit hotter than it is now, to MUCH MUCH colder (ice ages). Mankind (if you believe in science and evolution) has survived (without modern science) at least 2 of these cycles.
In each case, there is a correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide, and an inverse correlation between temperature and particulate matter. There is disagreement in the scientific community about whether or not carbon dioxide CAUSES the temperature change, or FOLLOWS it.
We are in the down-slope of the 75 thousand year cycle, and if this is like in the past, there will be 2 to 5 thousand year fluctuations up and down, before the earth decends to another ice age, 50 thousand years or so into the future.
Over the last 100 years, industrial societies have released massive amounts of carbon dioxide, as a by-product of transportation, power production, and agriculture, as well as simply due to the number of people that live on the planet.
Scientists who support an alarmist view of the GLOBAL WARMING issue choose to believe that carbon dioxide CAUSES warming, and they point to evidence that the long term trends predict a degree or two of warming in the next 100 years, and also to the fact that the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE seems to be warming a tiny bit (1/1000 of a degree) faster than the southern hemisphere, and they reason that as the northern hemisphere is “more developed”, this seems to prove their computer models’ predictions.
For political reasons, they loudly predict that the ONLY SOLUTION is for ADVANCED COUNTRIES to cut their transportation and power production, to cut the generation of carbon dioxide.
There are THREE PROBLEMS with this myopic view:
#1 – who died and made AL GORE king, and why does he get to dictate the perfect temperature for ALL TIME?
#2 – why ONLY concentrate on PRODUCTION of carbon dioxide, rather than investigate what it would take to plant more trees and plants, or seed the ocean with a carbon dioxide EATING ALGAE?
#3 – note that ALL the POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED solutions involve restricting business in “developed” countries, but the MOST POPULOUS COUNTRIES like INDIA and CHINA are totally excused from participating.
Anybody paying attention? The KYOTO ACCORD, and the carbon-credit scams, seem to have SLOWED THE CLEANUP of industrial pollution in those countries who signed the accord. The US is one of the CLEANEST industrial countries in the world, but the global-warming alarmists would like to paint JUST THE OPPOSITE picture.
Because the alarmist-opportunists (like Al Gore who has made an approximate $400 million from this issue, all WITHOUT CHANGING HIS PERSONAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION HABITS) are supported by a “lowest common denominator” democracy, who tend to be under-educated and reactionary, they have had to change the name from “GLOBAL WARMING” to “MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE”. Therefore, any of the “sound-bite thinkers” will perceive the US media’s sensationalist coverage of any weather pattern as proof of the claims of CLIMATE CHANGE.
The ignorant will jump up and down, screaming insults at their political enemies, accusing them of being “unscientific” and “wanting to kill babies with pollution and war”. Expect them to be immune to voices of reason, and rather than focus on issues, they will resort to personal attacks (Limbaugh is FAT, Bush was DUMB, Palin has IMMORAL CHILDREN, etc.).
Takes one to know one, and I USED TO BE one. And if anyone wants to discuss theories of calculus-based physics, or teleological arguments for the existence of a “higher power”, bring it.
Matt – “Republican hosltility to science and GOP anti-intellectualism ” You wish.
Some of the more rabid liberals who hang out at TAC would like for everyone to forget that Obama got 53% of the vote. This was IN SPITE of the successful October surprise, where big money manipulated the oil prices, and pulled corn from the farmer’s feedlot. This caused the desired short-term crash of the US economy in the first week of October, but the unintended consequence was that it crashed against the timebomb of the Fannie Mae mess, and that dominoed to the rest of the world, as it turns out that the US does not have a monopoly on housing-mess ripoffs.
The Congress was carefully fed the 1-year LIBOR chart, that shows flat except for the October anomoly. But twits like Oklahoma’s Coburn didn’t bother to check the 10-year LIBOR and didn’t realize that the situation was not as bad as the Dems (and Republican crooks in the Senate) stampeded them into believing. Bush and McCain fell for it as well. TARP 1 was a huge panic by the Congressional crooks to cover their crimes, not realizing that the international backlash would never arrive, as their counterparts (crooks) in other countries had been playing the same games. TARP 1 was all about making whole those investors overseas, who were cheated by “the full faith and credit” of the US.
So, Obama’s 53% was in spite of the fact that this 1/8th black was perceived as a “minority”, and 95% of the blacks voted for him. The majority of other minorities, and also the majority of the Catholics voted for him. Most of the Democrats, and some of the Republicans.
Still, only 53%. Takes an admirable amount of moxie then, to claim that the other 47% of the US must ALL be idiots.
Pat, you gave us a thoughtful article, but what is missing is the “FIX” for Congress’s crookedness.
Heard today on Boortz, by a caller who sounded like he might be black: “If you put 100 rattlesnakes in a barrel, they won’t bite each other. Same with Democrats.” (Paraphrasing) Now we just need to keep the Rabid-Libs from getting us to bite each other, as their seminar callers and bloggers are working hard to do. LOL
An overhaul of the Social Security Ponzi Scheme ripoff, and a flat-tax replacing the IRS would be a necessary precursor to implementing PAT BUCHANAN’s plan.
5 years ago, I didn’t love my country enough for die hard Republicans. Now, I’m not “mature, responsible, principled” enough for die hard Democrats. So many words… so little to say.
In my comments above, I indicated that the GOVERNMENT is interfering with science. They do this in 2 ways. First, scientists are often beholden to those who fund their research, so look for a tendency to agree with whoever provides the lab (or university) funds, but also see a desire NOT TO REACH CONCLUSIONS THAT ARE AT ODDS with what is perceived as the prevailing political or scientific beliefs of the time. (How many times have we seen a new “drug” declared “totally safe” for the first 10 years it is on the market?)
Global warming alarmists are angered by a growing backlash against their scientifc support, and see it as baseless and without scientific validity.
We get our temperature information prior to 350 thousand years ago from geologic information. From 350 thousand years, to 100 years ago, we use archealogical information, such as the icefield core samples, etc. From 100 years ago to 10 years ago, we have actual thermometer readings (mostly inherited and controlled by the NASA clearing center, in the US). Over the last 10 years, we had US satellites, and in the last 5 years we have foreign satellites also.
Part of the scientific backlash is that the British (and some other countries) are getting pissed at the US, because they only showed half a degree of warming in the last 100 years, but were “pooh-poohed” by the US scientific establishment who claimed a FULL DEGREE of increase over the last 100 years.
Well, it turns out that a BUDDY OF AL GORE’s (“buddy”, as in personal friend, with a long term relationship socially and politically) at NASA had been changing historical temperature readings to bring them in line with Al Gore’s theories. (That is, many of the “thermometers” were on airport parking lots, and were “declared” inaccurate, and so the “average” readings needed to be adjusted downward). So, if the last 100 years gets 1/2 a degree “colder”, then the global warming is much more “alarming”.
For anybody who thinks I’m a nutcase, go read for yourself:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/09/arctic_aerosols_goddard_institute/
While orbiting satellites can measure to fractions of degrees, it takes ground instruments to calibrate these, so it turns out that even the satellite readings over the last 10 years are suspect, and may have been “tweaked” to meet scientific expectations.
Thermometer readings show from half a degree to a degree of warming over the last 100 years. Satellites show us 3/4 of a degree cooling in the last 10 years. Most scientists expect from 1 to 4 degrees increase in the next 100 years.
But if the earth is cooling in the last 10 years, why is icefield melting observed all over the world? Some British Scientists (among others, cited above) claim that high-level atmospheric conditions (and specific particulate matter) effect ice-melting much more than does the amount of carbon dioxide, and that we are looking in the wrong direction for the Earth’s climate answers.
Only the “political true-believers” would not want ALL EVIDENCE considered before committing the world community to permanent and costly remedial actions. The US said this when it declined to ratify the Kyoto treaty, but were accused of purely political motives by those who choose not to examine the scientific evidence.
For anybody put off by the populist tone of the above references, go GOOGLE Monckton (one of Margaret Thatcher’s scientists in charge of debunking scientific fraud in the UK in the 80′s), for more of the same (you’ll get formulas enough to satisfy even the most discerning mathmetician).
Or, check this out:
http://bobmccarty.com/2009/05/12/senator-labels-agency-memo-smoking-gun/
TomT:
You’re somewhat beating a straw man of your own imagination I think. Matt, whose comments triggered yours concerning global warming, can speak for himself but I at least took his comments as not saying that there isn’t room for scepticism about global warming or etc., but were instead directed at those who essentially say that they know in the bowels of Christ the truth of the matter and that there is no need to have any concerns at all and that global warming is all a conspiracy of some sort.
Certainly there are good scientists who say that we’re not going to warm, or that it’s going to be mild and nothing to worry about. And certainly one can be against the Kyoto stuff even if you are a true believer given its inequities and costs and way of doing things. And few people I think no matter what they believe have much serious regard for Al Gore.
But what Buchanan seemed to endorse was the GOP embracing the kind of folks out there who look at what does seem the clear majority of scientists out there who *do* say that we are warming at least somewhat and that it might be troublesome and essentially say that they are all liars and involved in a giant conspiracy of some sort.
And this has some history to it, as many of these folks are the very same ones who, given the tiniest invitation, have and will continue to take off on how Darwin was some evil guy and how evolution via natural selection is bogus and the biblical account of things ought to be taught in schools and all the tens of thousands of scientists in the field since Darwin comprising probably 99+% of same are either stupid or have colluded in a conspiracy.
So it’s the kind of nuts who think like this who I think Buchanan was essentially saying the Republicans ought to embrace, and, like Matt, I think that’s just beyond dumb. Not only intellectually, but politically too; the public can smell the anti-intellectualism/proud know-nothingism in this and they aren’t fools. They weren’t fools even back in the day of the Scopes trial whose lesson they well took to not trust yahoos like WJ Bryan, and they are a helluva lot more sophisticated today.
Cheers,
TomB – This blog would definitely be diminished if your voice were not clarion, and bringing the insight that you usually seem to possess.
One of my kids is “ADHD”, but is also genius level, if you trust his IQ Score. He also has that creative, sort of dyslexic outlook. Marching to a drummer that nobody else can hear. I like to refer to it as “hope and change”. Here is that I HOPE they said, and if not, then let’s change it.
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http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2009/03/22/docile-oxen-happy-peasants/#comments
TomT, on March 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am Said:
…Mr Stooksbury, explain to me why they had to rename “global warming” to “climate change”.
WRW, on March 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm Said:
Tom, What on earth are you going on about? And, please, take the “climate change is a hoax” hobby horse to FREEP or other dwellings of dittoheads.
“Waiting for him to catch up” . . . chuckle. Yeah, right. You’ve displayed ample free thinking here.
And . . . no conservative would/should identify as a Republican at this point.
Clark Stooksbury, on March 23rd, 2009 at 5:10 pm Said:
“Mr Stooksbury, explain to me why they had to rename ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change.’”
That’s a silly question straight out the Limbaugh/Hannity prayerbook. Go to Google News and search “global warming” and I guarantee that you will see recent news stories using the phrase.
rz, on March 24th, 2009 at 7:29 am Said:
Not so long ago I found some liberal blogger (I don’t exactly remember where that was ) complaining about the evil conservative conspiracy labeling “Global Warming” as “Climate Change”. And here is a conservative telling me that in fact it is a liberal conspiracy!
Maybe TomT you should care more about the issue and less about the label.
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TomB said, “Certainly there are good scientists who say that we’re not going to warm, or that it’s going to be mild and nothing to worry about.”
What idiot said that?
What we said is, DOES THE COST YOUR PARTY WISH TO INFLICT EQUAL THE BENEFITS? And… WILL THE PORTION OF THE WORLD YOU WISH TO CONTROL, AND THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO MAKE, REPRESENT A BIG ENOUGH PERCENTAGE OF HUMANITY THAT IT WILL BRING THE DESIRED EFFECT?
That’s what Pat, and people other than the soundbite thinkers, wish to ask.