Well considering the Sierra Club is made up of members who donate, or pay dues, then yes, it IS litigation made by citizens, albeit by joining common cause. The NRA is not significantly different, nor any number of other non-profits that are involved in a wide variety of litigation. Considering the sheer population of America, the formation of specific groups to pool and address issues of concern amongst people is reasonable, and in reality, the only realistic way handling such disputes. Why would I remake the wheel, for instance, by starting up my own 2nd Amendment lawsuit when I can donate to the NRA for the same cause?

“where did the “Trust fund babies” come from?”

From this line asserting that people”…can make a nice living off foundation money helping the government stick it to taxpayers.” Which I presume is talking about well heeled groups that are involved with litigation. My rejoinder might be slightly inaccurate, and maybe I should rephrase it to “lawyers of foundations paid for BY trust fund babies”.

I’m not asserting that everyone knows the tiniest bit of regulation, especially in industries or issues they may not work in. And the issue of people with low information on government on a Federal level, let alone a state level, I agree, is fairly sorry. But it seems that most people aren’t of the mind that regulations (or other refrains about earmarks, spending, etc) on a broad level are of that much concern. That’s mostly what I was getting at, and echoing my agreement with Daniel that it seems that regulatory reforms (in the direction of LESS) doesn’t seem to be setting electoral fires.

You write “Litigation from either side of the debate is constant.” It sure is. And your point is? The fact that the legal profession is paying their kids way through Yale on the fees we pay to prevent the government from over regulating us is hardly proof of a successful system. Do you imagine that litigation is carried on by private citizens? When the Sierra Club pushes for regulations that affect your property and that will also increase the budget of the Department of Environmental Protection, just who’s side do you think the Department will take, yours of the Sierra Clubs? This is a tough one, think hard.

The Regulatory Reform portion of the Contract was just an attempt to make litigating to get your property back less necessary. It was to provide some balance in the rule making process. Have you read it by the way?

Once again you impute stances and motives to me that are not mine and do not appear in the text. Did I write that anyone was “hoodwinked?” Where did the “Trust fund babies” come from? You seem to be confusing me with someone from the Business Round Table, or the RNC.

My recommendations were drawn from case studies drawn from all Fifty States and several foreign countries. They don’t reflect a dishonest system(s) so much as over-lawyered, lazy, and politically correct ones. Nowhere did I find citizen participation welcomed or powerful.
For instance, in one State I studied, individual citizens have had the power to formally propose regulations for decades. Not one was ever proposed. Several States have sunshine provisions on regulations making State Departments re-propose regulations. Yet even though enforcement of these rules is the basis of their authority, state agencies needed to be reminded to re-propose their own reg’s.

You seem to have a problem with “The leadership” whomever they may be. If you understood these things you would perceive that the regulatory system consists of the bureaucracy and the special interests manipulating the system to their own advantage. They share the same culture and values. “The leadership” of both parties have no incentive to change it because they both benefit from their occasional power to intervene.

Except thats not true, and it can be found in the often public, very aggressive war that happens over the bevy of environmental, business, and labor regulations that are constantly in flux. Hell, litigation from either side of the debate is constant.

I’m not trying to write a “manifesto”; what I am trying to write is that your assertion that everyone is secretly being hoodwinked on regulations is nonsense. Not only is it nonsense, but it backs up the general attitude that the only reason why conservatives lose is because that somehow that voters all got bamboozled by those wily trust-fund babies on the left. Certainly that kind of thinking is incredibly convenient for the leadership that led everyone into this mess into the first place, as they can continue to blame boogeymen on the left for their own incompetence.

I did write: “You and your neighbors on the other hand, are not organized to protect yourselves.” I’ll try to explain this again. Interest groups are organized and funded to dominate the whole rule making process. They actually write the rules before you and your neighbors ever learn about them. In fact most rules pass into existence without the publics knowledge. The citizens learn about them only when found in violation.

I wrote nothing about “Mysterious seams” of “Silent Majority voters” or of “Renewal” or electoral politics for that matter. Sorry if my attempt to describe a very real if mundane process interfered with your manifesto.

That seem’s rather simplistic. And it also presumes theres this mysterious seam of Silent Majority voters out there to mine for Republican’s, or other third-parties. It’s possible, in fact it may be probable, that the majority is truly and surely NOT silent, and in fact is actively voting, donating, and volunteering for the other guys. Which means the issue is beyond trying to sell a product every two or four years. It’s far deeper, and culturally rooted than running TV ad’s or direct mailers can effect. Which poses far more significant problems than simply tinkering with the message.

People use to mock, and rightly so, left-wing groups made up of college students who proclaimed that they “spoke for the People”; Republicans are increasingly looking as ridiculous as they clearly don’t represent the cultural majority of the country. Clearly the work of renewal is beyond electioneering and to more substantial things, something that Daniel has touched up with ideas of cultural renewal and the like.

Sean, my point was that environmentalists, race and gender hustlers etc. for instance, organize around passing and enforcing idiotic reg’s that inhibit your freedom. You and your neighbors on the other hand, are not organized to protect yourselves. You can make a nice living off foundation money helping the government stick it to taxpayers. But there is no career path that is going to pay you as a taxpayer to protect yourself.

Which is to say, in a snide way, that they evidently don’t attract voters. I’ve never quite understood what electoral system people are running for when they suggest that popular pieces of legislation being, well, popular, is a bad thing. Now we can get into other issues of whether a piece of legislation is bad, good, or indifferent, but from a purely electoral standpoint, people voting for legislation they want is ideally what the system is set up to do.

If you wish to change what people desire, than electoral politics is not your stomping ground. Someone once stated that politics is the excrement of action and it still rings true. For years Republicans, amongst others, have been convincing themselves that the changes that are happening politically are simply because of “judicial activism”, government fiat, and general acquiescence on the part of people. They refuse to accept that, on a cultural or demographic level, the game has shifted considerably and that this results for the dejure approval of things that have already been defacto for years. I’m not arguing that this is good or bad, but rather how it is.

Admittedly this is a tough row to hoe especially for those whom are attempting to win elections with a point of view that is, majority wise, no longer popular. Unlike certain groups that cordon themselves off from the world to build their own society of their own culture and mores, some want to rule based off being “right” (the so called “natural governing party” rhetoric), as opposed to winning elections. Until somebody builds their glorious Ayn Rand objectivist meritocracy, were all going to be stuck with what we got.

Humiliation doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. There’s something horrible about watching people who style themselves conservative thinkers, writers and policy wonks appointing Rush Limbaugh–a dishonest, hypocritical showman–their leader. It doesn’t just open up the GOP to the possibility of humiliating defeats–it’s inherently degrading to glorify and take direction from someone who thinks that what you do is ridiculous and irrelevant. The analogy that leaps to mind is of young women who go to Hollywood intending to become actresses, and end up working for porn producers instead. Or maybe of revolutionary intellectuals who end up cranking out mindless propaganda on the orders of the uneducated and thuggish elements within their own movement.

Gordianus, no offense to you in particular, but from a conservative standpoint most federal regulation should go away because it is not authorized by the Constitution. So “reforms” that are less than that are inherently “gimmicky.” Carbon emission credits as a quick off the top of my head example.

I don’t naively believe that the public wants to phase out federal regulations not specifically authorized in the Constitution, but that is the conservative’s dilemma. Half measure ideas concede the liberal premise and concede the moral high ground.

I am not sure what Daniel meant by better policy ideas. Closing down the Fed and the IRS, returning to sound money and actually following the Constitution are certainly better policy ideas, but they are not what I generally think of when I think of “policy ideas.”

Whatever one may think of Rush, I think he was right here in a certain way. Better policy ideas are likely not the way to defeat Obama. Opposing his stupid ideas and then pointing the finger after we crash and burn are.

I obviously agree with the general notion that “conservatives” are idea bereft and this is not a good thing.

Whatever serves his turn at the moment is what he says. If praising poorly-executed but allegedly “substantive” presentations helps his interests, he’ll do that, and if mocking the formulation of policy alternatives gives him an angle, he’ll do that. As I’ve said before, the man is a disgrace, and if the movement anoints him as their champion they will endure even more humiliating defeats in the coming months and years.

The problem with the Contract and similar phenomena is that unlike left reforms, they don’t have greedy continuing constituencies endlessly defending and expanding them.

I agree. I’ve never understood why people claim Gingrich is the “ideas man”; his image as a technocrat always seemed kind of half-baked, and mostly to do with his time out of office, when he wrote about his futurist ideals. But otherwise, if you are comparing him to the other side of the aisle for sheer intricate (or byzantine if that’s your take) legislation, you really can’t compare. Even the Contract for America’s “radical” ideas such as term limits were rebaked from populist platforms a 100 years before.

Thus, the conservative movement finds itself bereft of EITHER policy OR gimmicks. They literally got nothing.