Nov
30
2007
After killing Lupins and collecting coconuts on Florina Beach, I headed over to Fark this evening to get some silly headlines. I’m sure that one of these days they’re going to create a whole new website just for the Florida tag in the same manner that they did for another of their famous tags. Headline: “Walton County to alter Nativity scene.”
The County Commission decided this week to include secular items such as a snowman to the display after Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent the county a letter in July claiming that the creche is unconstitutional
Great. Just what this country needed. As if the ACLU wasn’t bad enough. Now we have these guys. Had I not been up since 4:20 this morning, I would e-mail them this (scroll down to the “On the 3d of October.”)
Happy birthday to me.
Nov
30
2007
Invasion by the Ronulans
Filed Under Liberty and Democracy | 12 Comments
Invasion by the Ronulans
Filed Under Liberty and Democracy | 12 Comments
I have been too busy with work lately to get very interested in, excited by, or aggravated about politics, or to require the services of my usual de-stressing agent of this website. But I have been following the course of the presidential primary in both parties, and have a feel for where things are going. Or rather, I have a feel for the train wreck we’re headed for, with no idea if there will be anyone alive after the crash.
In my opinion, the recent surge by Mike Huckabee is a sign that the most extreme of the evangelical conservatives still weren’t satisfied with the field they had after the entry of Fred Thompson, and have finally thrown their weight behind a second tier candidate to bring him up to the next level. This basically fractures the Republican Party from the three original camps that our national conservative coalition was based on back in 1980, into a multitude of different political campaigns, with each campaign getting some measure of one or more of the original parts. That original Big Three was, of course: Anticommunism, Classical Liberalism, and Traditionalism.
Ironically, the least changed of these groups in terms of membership is the one whose internal focus has had to undergo the biggest transition since its origin. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the acceptance by the Chinese of certain free-market reforms, anticommunism as such has ceased to exist as a movement. But today’s National Defense conservatives rightly determined that our victory in the Cold War would not mean everlasting peace, but merely a change in targets. For the most part, the anticommunists of old are those leading the charge against the jihadis we fight today. The hardest core of the this faction still supports John McCain despite his slide from prominance, but a considerable number have been drawn away by effective leadership displayed by Rudy Guiliani during the WOT.
Skipping over Classical Liberals for a moment, Traditionalists have probably been the ones most diffident in the current campaign, never seeing anyone who fully championed their causes. While originally this part of the conservative coalition was the most undefined and nebulous, over the years it has morphed into some significant sub-groups that are often referred to as parts of the coalition in their own right today. Of course, that’s mostly because the MSM thinks this camp is coexistent with these sub-groups and there is no real differentiation between them. After all, everyone in the Traditionalist camp is a gun-toting pro-life evangelical Hispanic-hating member of the 700 Club – right? Not quite. As I’ve said, a sizable number of the evangelicals are drifting toward Huckabee at the moment, but quite a few traditionalists (including some evangelicals) have thrown their lot with Mitt Romney, the only major candidate married only once. Those most concerned with immigration issues originally supported several of the lower tier candidates like Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, but most are being drawn away by Fred Thompson, who has taken a strong stand on the border in his policy statements. Interestingly, heavyweight Pat Robertson has decided that the threat from jihadis trumps any differences over religious issues and has thrown his support to Guiliani.
Then we come to Classical Liberals. The home of the fiscal-restraint supporters and libertarian-minded advocates who had been so aggravated with our free-spending Congress that they managed to turn it back over to the Democrats, this camp was also originally the hiding place of those old-money country club Republicans who were otherwise left out of the Reagan coalition. That is not to say this was the weakest part of the coalition – exactly the opposite. This is the glue that ties all other parts of modern conservatism together, and where most of us keep at least one foot, if we lean toward some other camp. Because it is through the diversity we gain through liberty and tied together in federalism that allows the coalition to work as a team. Before Fred Thompson arrived on the scene, this was the most fractured of all the groups, because one major candidate was conservative for a liberal city, another for a liberal state, and a third whose idea of liberty is restricting free speech during an election. Thompson’s strong advocacy of federalism has attracted many of these people, but possibly not enough to earn the nomination. And a small minority of these, the strongest of the libertarian-minded folk, have a champion of their own who spurns any other label. Which is where this whole tale has been headed….
For the past couple of months, a rather apolitical friend from work (whose own website has always been a featured link on this page) has begun to drift slightly toward the Republican Party because of the outspoken libertarian advocacy of candidate Ron Paul.
I will say clear and bluntly that it is my belief that Congressman Paul is naive of those threats that could kill (and need I remind everyone have already killed) a great many Americans, and his radical isolationism is a throwback to some of the worst times in Republican history. That said, his defense of libertarian principles must be sincere (IMHO), and is something I generally agree with, even if not to the severe extent he takes it.
Yesterday, in what may have been jest, this friend I refer to said that supporting a dark horse Republican candidate like Ron Paul means he should have a login here at The Black Republican, and that he should have posting privileges. And so I throw open the gates of our little world to our newest contributor: Doug Heavener. Please take everything Doug says with a grain of salt, because he is not exactly a poster child for the mainstream of our brand of political thinking. But this could be fun.
Nov
9
2007
They call this progressive?
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
They call this progressive?
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Wow! The lady doth protest too much, methinks!
Talk about Projection!