Hate to break it to you, but we’re not such “gullible goyim “here!

This isn’t a neo con site and doesn’t cater to the Israel first crowd. So why are you here?

My point was to reassert the old Conservative observation that government handouts are a moral hazard.

Paulistas might even come to be the majority of Republican activists in the next few years (or at least a plurality of many factions), but they cannot constitute a majority of Republican voters for many years, at least unless and until a majority of people stop getting their news from Fox, NBC, ABC, etc.

The reality, David, is that most Republican voters appear to support sustained or increased American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It will be another year or two before the Republican base becomes more dovish than the Democratic base…after all, Bush was in power 8 long years.

The American people may be moving slowly towards peace, but don’t you think it won’t take much to pull them back to war. The concurrent polls on Iran, where Americans don’t want war but would be glad to see Israel do it and could agree to it themselves in a variety of (frankly, unfair and easily provocable) circumstances, are a good example of this.

I just got back from the US where I was for my sister’s wedding. Both my grandparents and my parents-in-law used to get the American Conservative, and my GPs were big Buchananites. They were puzzled why the War in Iraq occurred and they were sceptical of Bush’s provocations against Russia. But now that Obama is in power, and they watch Fox News all day, they all think Obama sold out the Czechs and Poles, and that Romney and Gingrich are very articulate on foreign policy. They are suddenly convinced Putin is a communist waiting to recapture lost territory and that Iran should be punished because it (IT!) is so aggressive. Anything to show those damned Democrats!

This is our reality. :>(

The point is why would you analyse the granting of welfare provisions as a concession to a grand collective group like “industry” if there were no legitimate demand for it because the market was so damned efficient at providing the given service? Why would the Free Conservatives go along? Were they just trying to make serfs out of the proletariat?

Why did Bismarck provide a comprehensive social welfare programme for German workers?

Perhaps there were legitimate demands for social welfare because the market cannot and does not provide all services efficiently and in the common interest? Perhaps people who have actual troubles getting decent health care coverage are not stupid losers? Perhaps it is not normal or sustainable that health care be 16% of GDP and always growing with way above average inflation?

It would be absolutely silly to make opposition to universal healthcare the litmus test for conservatism.

It is still sillier to pretend we are going to get nationalised, universal healthcare anytime soon. What we are getting is a bill where the Democrats, backed financially by the insurance companies and Wall Street (as they have been for a while), will force us to buy private insurance at a high cost, while the State absorbs many of the legal liabilities of the private companies, allowing them to remain inefficient, and yet profitable.

To oppose the Democratic plan because it is a scam and a ripoff is wonderful. To oppose it on libertarian grounds because you don’t want to be forced to buy insurance is fine. To oppose it because you think it is too hard on our great private insurance companies that people are really too hard on is insane. The latter is, alas, the Republican strategy. Just like their line on TARP … basically silence but yelling at Obama “HEY you can’t tell banks (which take billions of govt money) how much to dole out in bonuses!!”

Good grief.

Check out our website for some constitutionalist purism on the health care debate, which we created because so few others were speaking for this perspective.