Primary 2012: observation du jour
Perusing the headlines about the Republican primary featured at RealClearPolitics or memeorandum, I feel an immense weariness come over me.
It’s not just that I’ve been writing about this stuff now for months and months and months. It’s that for quite a while nearly everything I read has seemed like spin—that is, pundits writing about the campaign not to describe things clearly, but in order to cause a certain result to occur, sometimes a covert one (just to take one small example, there’s Paul Krugman writing today about how Romney is a hidden Keynesian, which I’m fairly certain is intended to make Republicans hate Romney even more than they already do).
And lest you say that’s the way it always is, let me just state that I agree with you but I think this season is worse than usual. I’m not exactly sure why, although I’ve been mulling it over. But it seems as though a lot of people have finally snapped; years of frustration with government doing either too much (the conservative view) or the wrong things (the bipartisan view, although which things are wrong are defined differently by each side) or too little to “help” (the liberal view). Years of a Congress that nobody likes. Economic hardship. Lowered standards for public and private life.
There’s also the sense on the Republican side that all of the candidates are no good. Nobody’s quite satisfied, either because these candidates really are inferior as a group, or because we’re expecting too much of mere mortals, or because we’re just feeling pissy after the strain of the contentious Bush years and the tension-ridden Obama years. So the Republican electorate is cooperating in the liberal MSM’s task, which is to encourage disillusionment and/or apathy in voters on the right. And the candidates are doing their level best to help, as well.
I dunno. Maybe it’s just that it’s a gloomy day here. And maybe once the primary season is over (can’t wait!), the right will settle down to become more unified, and gather some positive energy for the November showdown. Because if that doesn’t happen, Obama will indeed be re-elected, and then the even more bitter finger-pointing on the right will start.
This is a natural consequence of kowtowing to the “blue” thinking mode. Only Newt has come to the realization that you have to ignore and ridicule the media and public default assumptions. By allowing the left to monopolize the presumed moral high ground you get guys like Mitt Romney. Here’s a smart businessman who hedges his bets by proposing ineffective middle of the road solutions when he should be shouting that we need to do different things. So by doing so he undermines any reason to vote for him. Santorum, Bachmann and the others also found themselves fighting battles they did not need to fight when a simple “WTF” would have won the hearts and minds of Voters.
Here in Connecticut it is easy to convince yourself you are in a really blue state, when the reality is more complex. In the last election a Republican businessman almost won the election, but the Democrat voter fraud in Bridgeport pulled it to their side. Gerrymandered districts ensure the legislature is Democratic.
The Dems control the main media and can give gifts from government at will. People know this is not sustainable but are afraid to take the first step to repairing it without someone to shout this out.
seemed like?
your way too kind…
read mike lupica and see how his first sentence starts…
Arfldgr: well, the “seemed like” is probably too kind, as you say.
There’s also the sense on the Republican side that all of the candidates are no good.
thats called throwing the game…
they dont want to win given whats comming that cant be avoided…
a hot potato no one wants..
and no, its not always been like this… its been brutal and games, but the difference?
never before was the game assuming that the public is completely ignorant, stupid, lacks all memory and would not care if you did it straight to their face.
ie.. i have read politicians just outright lying.. not dissimulation, not gilding the lilly,slanting… but outright factual lying…
but THAT was the differene between the soviet system and the american system…
they bloviated and called other politicans names, and so on… but they didnt outright factually lie as we WERE a meritocracy and an outright would cost the liar more than it would gain. today, we have absolutely no care if they lie, and we dont even care if they violate the constitution or are aware what constitutes it, or even care whether things work out as intents is enough.
do you know WHY there is a constitution?
how do you establish rights?
in the absence of a neutral third party, how are they established? by power.. might over the other forces the outcome.
but if you had a third party to decide…
then you appeal to the third party
now, if the third party is not neutral, then might in some form, or whim will then decide the rights…
but if the third party is neutral, then they can decide whose rights were violated.
but how do you measure and determine whether each third party is neutral over time?
the constitution tells you what it is to be that neutral third party…
without its existence, without respect for it and adherence, you do not have a neutral third party, you are not free, and might makes it all right.
that fundamental thing is completely out side of the knowledge of the current population as a principal. been trying to get that fact from the late 1800s to be known today.
we lost and we dont even know it…
because the signs of losing have not been applied yet so that the losing response is not to happen until the side is ready for it.
And maybe once the primary season is over (can’t wait!), the right will settle down to become more unified
the RIGHT cant settle down and get organized!!!!!!! there is no such thing as the right… the right is the lefts Moriarty…
there is only left, and non left..
there is not two collective organs (technically)
since the right is about individual freedom, rule of law and independent choice and thought…
HOW can it get organized the same way the left can get organized around one thing because they throw away their own desires and clone the leaders desires.
witout the common enemy of communism, there is no way the non left can organize that way, because the non lefts interest is not to control everyone but to be left alone!!!
while the lefts idea is to not leave them alone.
THATS why your tired…
thats why the soviet people were always worn out and tired… there is no peace in a war society where everyone is kicking the sleeping dog to get something out of them.
the constant having to filter your thoughts, parse the lies, and so on… and the (red terror) fear of running afoul of the system and being arrested, put on a list, etc..
the worst is the idea that maybe, just maybe the doom sayers no one wanted to listen to when Seymour the plant in the little shop of horrors was a tiny weed…
AND thats why the essential is to figure it out before there is nothing to figure out.
if you waited, as we did, to the point where there is no doubt… and everyone can tell…
its way too late…
[add to that the demographic genocide that also people deny, so it wont stop either!!!]
I don’t think Republicans and conservatives have fully understood the threat of a reelected Obama whose behavior is no longer constrained by an up coming election.
Thankls for giving voice to much of what I have been feeling, too. There are days when I would just like to pull the covers over my head and give up. But then I happen upon a video like this (HT vanderleun): http://tinyurl.com/85jqdxr
WHAT IF YOU COMBINED ALL THE WORST POSITIONS OF THE GOP’S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES?
NEWT’S MOONBASE AND HIS PELOSI COMMERCIAL AND HIS TOUR WITH AL SHARPTON AND HIS ATTACKS ON CAPITALISM…
CAIN’S IDIOTIC 999 TAX PLAN AND HIS HISTORY OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT…
SANTORUM’S INVASIVE ANTI-LIBERTARIAN AND PRO EARMARK POSITIONS AND HIS WAR ON PRIVACY
HUNTSMAN’S MANDARIN
RON PAUL’S FOREIGN POLICY
AND MITT’S…
HMMM… UH-OH: HE HAS NO NUTTY IDEAS! NEVER MIND.
” Maybe it’s just that it’s a gloomy day here.”
Ha… I got about half way through your piece and had the thought…”Since she’s a New England neighbor, I wonder if the weather today is just getting to her?”
We’ve been spoiled the last two months, but spring can never come too early for anyone in New England.
Neo… just stay away from the primary until after super Tuesday. Enjoy the sunshine over the weekend. 🙂
I feel much the same way and would describe it as generalized anxiety (bordering on fear and desperation! How’s that for negative 🙂 This is no time for a weak GOP field!
I agree with Mr Frank, who says “I don’t think Republicans and conservatives have fully understood the threat of a reelected Obama whose behavior is no longer constrained by an up coming election.” Not to mention the Supreme Court appointments. And the threats to religious liberty. And so on.
To my way of thinking, this should be more than enough to get the average GOP voter to rally behind “generic Republican who is running against Obama.”
It’s all my fault. Point all the fingers at people like me. 🙂
I’ll have to look at Krugman’s article. I didn’t realize Romney was a hidden Keynesian. I thought he was a fellow well-schooled in the Harvard mindset.
“I don’t think Republicans and conservatives have fully understood the threat of a reelected Obama whose behavior is no longer constrained by an up coming election.”
Perhaps among the politically unaware. Among those who are paying attention, there’s little doubt that 4 more years of Obama is going to have severe short and long term consequences for the country.
The immense, emotional weariness neo describes, which I suspect is widespread is perhaps due to three interconnected factors; the awareness of just how bad 4 more yrs of Obama will be, coupled to the clear sense that none of the candidates is a Reagan and none show signs of being a Truman who could grow into the job.
That they are, in fact, an inferior field of candidates in a time which calls for a President who fits the occasion or can at least rise to the occasion. None of then are ‘Presidential timber’ but they’re all we’ve got.
Along with the sense that the countries problems are intractable if a divided electorate continues. A Republican Pres. is going to need a strong mandate to enact the policies and legislation needed to address our most important problems and such a consensus is nowhere close to forming.
The great likelihood is that if a republican is elected that the democrats will block any republican efforts at reform while the MSM incessantly blames the republicans (and Bush) with a misinformed public making it probable that the republican would be a one term President with the democrats returning to power in Congress.
Things are going to need to get much worse before such a consensus will form, yet a crisis is always fertile ground for the rise of a demagogue.
Given the conditions, what rational basis is there for optimism? A grim realism and dogged determinism to prevail is what’s needed.
So we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
Generally though, when faced with two painful paths, the one that offers the greater short term pain pays off with the greater long term benefits.
I don’t think the republicans want to win this time around either. I KNOW they didn’t want to win last time. Romney was pushed aside for McCain. McCain was soundly stomped by Obama. And now we want to run Romney against Obama? Call me nuts, but I still say Newt is the man to run. We need our own energy. Period. Any mechanical engineer honest with himself and others knows that solar and wind power aren’t going to do it. We still need lubricants, because things still rotate, so we still need oil. What are you going to do with the 19 gallons of gas that come out of every 42 gallon barrel of oil?
I’m not a big booster of any of the four Republican candidates, but I don’t see where people say that Romney would not be a good president. He’s not an exciting orator, but we’ve got that in President Teleprompter. Romney has a strong academic record in his pursuit of a law degree and MBA from Harvard. He was immensely successful in his business career. He did a good job rescuing the Utah Winter Olympics. He was the Governor of a populous state. His personal life seems exemplary.
On paper, the guy is highly qualified to be the chief executive of the U. S. Ron Paul and Santorum are not. Newt has the intellect and knowledge for the job, but not the temperament or personal history.
I’m with Ann Coulter on this one. Let’s get Romney nominated and move on. The other three are a waste of time if we want to unseat Obama.
The problem, bottom line, is that only one side honors the thought there are rules in this game. When only one fighter follows the Queensbury rules, he’ll get it below the belt again and again. And lose.
We’ve got to mud-wrestle these people.
“I don’t think Republicans and conservatives have fully understood the threat of a reelected Obama whose behavior is no longer constrained by an up coming election.”
Conservatives most certainly do understand, as should any sentient being. I don’t see how the Republican leadership can fail to understand it either.
The question about the Republicans is, “Do they really care?” I have argued for a long time that the Republican Party is becoming like the “right” parties of Europe. They have no intention of reducing the size and scope of government. They merely argue that they can manage the State better than the Democrats. All they want is a seat at the table of power.
Anybody who’s been paying attention knows that we are headed for a monumental economic crackup due to the piling up of debt. 2008 wasn’t a crash; it was a warning. The real crash hasn’t happened yet, but it’s coming.
An alternative explanation for the Republican Party’s behavior is that they know this, and don’t want to be in power when it happens. In this scenario they’re literally throwing the election, and are hoping that the Democrats will be permanently discredited, so they can ride to victory in the next election. Given Obama’s obviously dictatorial character, that’s one hell of a gamble.
That might explain their bizarre handling of the current primary season. The interminable series of debates has made pretty much everybody thoroughly sick of hearing about the Republican candidates.
But another aspect of the debates points back to the first explanation. Most of the debates were held before the first primary. They were moderated by members of the liberal MSM. This tells me that they have contempt for the conservative base, and were trying to undercut the voters’ preferences by allowing the MSM and pollsters to pick a clear front-runner before any of those pesky voters got to have their say. The debates also gave every candidate ample opportunities for gaffes, thus discrediting themselves in the public mind.
A party that really wants to win wouldn’t behave this way.
“I feel an immense weariness come over me.”
You keep cycling back to this obvious statement. You’re like the set-up schlimazel in the joke, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this!”
Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech would likely be perfectly appropriate today.
If you are still an optimist you just haven’t been paying attention.
One thing is certain: If the Republican candidate loses, conservatives will be blamed.
If the nominee is Romney, we’ll be blamed for not supporting him enthusiastically enough. If it’s anyone else, then we will be told that our candidate was too far outside the mainstream, and we should have picked Romney.
Either way, the Republican leadership will conclude that conservatives should be further marginalized in the future.
Presto: The transformation of the Republican Party into a clone of the “right” parties of Europe will be complete.
Geoffrey Britain echoes my sense of the intractable problem and the inevitability of crisis. I think I am not weary today because the weight landed on me four years ago. I have already gone through denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance. Mostly anger…
The appearance of the TEA people and 2010 candidates who sound like me (although most of ’em lost) signaled that I am not alone. The New Republic is in the paroxysms of death. I am energized to fight the battles necessary to restore the Old Republic.
Folks around here and in rightyland are unwilling to recognize Ron Paul is the Truman in the race. He never held a significant managerial position. His presentation is reedy. But his principles are consistent and his character steadfast. He’s the one who steals Obama’s base and invigorates the youth that will have to do the hard work of restoration (if it will happen at all).
Sniff around Progressive boards and you might notice an undercurrent that accepts Paul’s desire to end the welfare state in exchange for ending the American empire. That impulse should be encouraged. And as I am endlessly scolded that I must compromise my vote in the absence of a Platonic candidate, the righties should look deeper into the benefits of bringing most of the foreign deployed back to our soil. If it was part of a package that would reduce the FedGov by 20%, it seems worth a more serious re-evaluation of US military posture.
The US Navy has an effective anti-ballistic-missile defense. Minor powers are not a threat. There are no other major powers. (The Chinese navy fits in a bathtub)
The current danger relies via non-military delivery vehicles. For all the blather about Iran’s nukes, Pakistan is a failed Islamic regime and a state sponsor of terror. The nuclear horse has already bolted. Time to learn from Israel. The United States needs defense in depth of the homeland.
The alternative, preemptive strategy requires a global campaign to exterminate all Muslims on the planet. The jihad is like mildew. Unless you find a way to bleach the globe, the only way to defeat it is to change the socio-political environment so it dies off.
I agree with Mr. Frank. (That seems to happen a lot.)
If Santorum, Gingrich, or Paul wins the nomination, we lose. With Romney, we have a chance.
Romney will make a competent President who will be more conservative than many think. And I look forward to seeing him tear into Obama like he has gone after his primary opponents.
foxmarks:
Yep. I’ve concluded that Paul has a better chance of defeating Obama than the other three, precisely because he would win more votes among independents and young people.
Interesting. I don’t spend much time on progressive boards, but if you’re right about that, it definitely should be encouraged.
Western Civilization and Islam cannot peacefully coexist on the same planet. Period. Islam has been at war with the entire non-Muslim world for 1400 years.
The war has gone through hot and cold spells, but in general Islam has advanced more than it has retreated. A major turning point came in the 18th century, when the Western world started the Industrial Revolution. The Islamic world was soon left behind and became a primitive backwater. It remained so through the mid-20th century.
That all changed when Western oil companies discovered immense oil fields in the Middle East. Suddenly Muslim countries were flooded with unimaginable wealth. They used that wealth to buy and influence politicians and the media in the West, and also fund the construction of mosques as well as terrorist groups.
If the West pursued energy independence, the Muslim world would be returned to the poverty that they richly deserve. An impoverished Muslim world would cease to be a threat to the West. Let them eat sand and drink oil.
We would also be completely justified in seizing and annexing the oil fields in the Middle East. Those oil fields were discovered and developed entirely by Western scientists and oil companies. The Arab Muslims did nothing whatsoever to deserve any of that wealth.
Astute comments from rickl! I’m a broken record, but Newt’s so-called “baggage” is vastly exaggerated. He didn’t need to be a perfect Reagan follower then, to be a serious candidate now. One other thing, the kinds of jokes circulating now about Newt’s “moon base” wouldn’t have flown when JFK ran, or any other president prior to Obama. Starting with AGW and ending with Obama’s latest pathetic apology to Karzai, the left has infected this country with something akin to voluntary retardation…
Nation knows it:
Obama cannnot haiku.
Buck up, people
Artfldgr: I did not say I was hoping the right would get organized. I never used that word—I said “unified.” And by that I meant one thing and one thing only: unified behind whomever is the nominee, as in voting for him and not tearing him apart for picayune reasons.
Whoa. I appear to have totally lost a comment. Not even to “lost in moderation” …even when I backed up, and tried reposting (and received a “duplicate comment” error message). Odd, that.
…and that one appeared. “Curiouser & curiouser,” said Alice.
I’ve been reading Vince Flynn’s “Mitch Rapp” novels in biographical order, not publishing order. Right now I just finished #3 (Transfer of Power) published in 1999, and have just begun #4 (The Third Option), published in Aug. 2001.
If you all need some uplifting and enjoyable action fiction, read these novels. Vince Flynn describes Washington, D.C. to a T. The two novels above were written before 9/11; yet they are “ripped from today’s headlines.”
I don’t want to go into details because the FBI will come and investigate me for bad thoughts. But I do want to say that all the political types that are annoying us in 2012 were there before the internet made them so visible to us neocons, changers, and former liberals, and former Democrats/disgusted by Republican wimp RINOs. (Ron Paul is dead to me because he’s an antisemitic poopy head.)
For example, one character, Vice-President Baxter, is a duplicate of Obama in the way they both make decisions.
These novels quite inspirational for reasons that will become clear if you read them. I love action novels even though I’m a couch potato.
Just finished Flynn’s latest, ‘Kill Shot’ not 10 minutes ago! Great read. It helps of course that the bad guys can’t shoot straight and that the hero almost never misses;-)
Check out the Lee Child ‘Jack Reacher’ series, even better.
“Ron Paul is the Truman in the race”
Sorry foxmarks and rickl, Paul is not even close to Truman’s caliber. There’s more to the measure of a man than perhaps being right on a few issues.
Fortress America however is not the way to secure America from threat.
IMHO, Paul has by far the least chance of defeating Obama.
“Western Civilization and Islam cannot peacefully coexist on the same planet.”
It’s not that Western Civ. can’t peacefully exist with Islam, it’s that Islam can’t survive long term exposure (another century) to modern civilization.
Whatever the justification, it would be counter-productive to seize and annex the oil fields in the Middle East. Too easy for the infrastructure and transport systems to be derailed.
Far, far better to develop our own and nearby oil resources, while simultaneously putting in place massive incentives for inventors, entrepreneurs and private investors to develop practical and pragmatic alternative energy systems. Which we already have or are close to developing.
Nuclear is the way to fuel the electrical grid.
But 2/3 of our oil use is for transportation. What’s holding back electric vehicles is storage capacity. Fortunately, battery technology is on the cusp of dramatic breakthroughs and that plus nuclear is the way to break free from our oil dependence.
Within the next 50 years we are going to have to transition away from oil, so drill baby drill is only a stop gap solution, though one desperately needed.
Who among all the candidates is enough of a leader to make the Democrats and the left/muslim world axis eat the truth about everything from the AGW scam to their totalitarian baiting exemplified by Obama’s latest insipid apologies to Karzai the Ingrate over the latest feigned koran defiling incident.
http://freebeacon.com/dia-director-china-preparing-for-space-warfare/
I don’t understand why Newt’s “moon base” is treated with such shallow derision. Communist China is a qualifiable fascist state, who with Putin’s Russia play the muslim dominoes with arrogant disrespect. The one thing Reagan was 100% correct about was peace through strength.
One thing that Ron Paul, foxmarks, and others don’t seem to understand is that the threat we face is far more than a direct military attack. The West and other free areas of the world need to stick together in many areas, and they need strong leadership to do this. Consider Denmark after the cartoon affair: it was boycotted in Muslim countries and supported by many Americans in a Buy Danish grass roots effort. If we don’t stick together under strong leadership with a credible military, our enemies will blackmail the weakest of us on a variety of issues until our combined strength is undermined.
Few realize that Bush’s greatest achievement was to shoulder all the hatred of the international PC multiculti crowd until the sensible in other countries had time to assess the threat from radical Islam and find ways to take that message to their own citizens. It is so easy now to criticize the Patriot Act, but the amount of behind-the-scenes coordination with the security people abroad was enormous and it was highly successful.
You can harp all you want about NCLB, but it showed the country in numbers how badly directed our education system is. NCLB is something that can be rather easily abolished or significantly reformed, but it caused people to start listening to people at places like the Manhattan Institute and to take on the Bill Ayers types in the ed establishment as well as the unions.
Bush allowed us to rub our eyes slowly as we awoke from a long sleep. He was demonized like no other president, and yet wake up we did and without the destruction of of major cities and landmarks throughout the world and without the loss of huge numbers of lives across the world. He was mocked and hated, but everyone knew he was there and they counted on that.
Anyone who wants to trade that for the isolationism proposed by an insignificant Texas congressman who attached earmarks to safe bills he would later vote against is nuts. Paul’s utopia is no less ignorant of reality than that of his pot-smoking advocates or the Haight Ashbury crowd that preceded them.
I just spotted this, by commenter “Morla” at Ticker Forum. It touches on several of the same points we’ve discussed on this thread.
(FSA = Free Shit Army)
Geoffrey Britain @ 1:53 am
I read all the Jack Reacher series. They are fantastic too. Yes, it helps to have perfect physical skills. Lucky for us that some men and women have such skills.
I still have faith that we’ll survive the reign of King Fool and his clownish henchmen.
rickl,
Just as “Mainstream republicans will vote for WHOEVER is credibly opposing Obama” so too will Obama’s base vote for him. Obama proved that liberals have no resistance to sophistry and the Occupy Wall Street crowd will easily swallow the kool-aid; that Obama is on their side and that its the evil republicans who are blocking liberal efforts at needed reform because they already believe that.
When push comes to shove, Obama is in solid with the left and liberals, even with those liberals currently disappointed with his performance. Republicans and conservatism are anathema to that crowd, they swallowed the kool-aid long ago.
Ron Paul in his way is as extreme as Obama, the difference is the MSM, which would crucify Ron Paul, just as they did with Sarah Palin. That media ‘crucifixion’ of Ron Paul wouldn’t be needed with Obama’s base but it would be highly effective with the independents and ‘moderates’ who are the ones that decide the election… and that is why Ron Paul doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of winning the Presidency, he’s another Ross Perot.
rickl: Obama would crush Ron Paul, for a host of reasons.
Let me just take one of them that’s pretty clear and easy to understand: Ron Paul is 76 years old, and by the time of the election he will be 77.
Expat @ 6:13 am abvoe,
Profound and insightful. Perhaps no thought is more telling than “Few realize that Bush’s greatest achievement was to shoulder all the hatred of the international PC multiculti crowd until the sensible in other countries had time to assess the threat. . . .”
Thank you!
neo-neocon Says:
February 25th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Oh, I’m not a Paul supporter; I just think he would have a better chance of beating Obama than any of the other three.
Paul would win votes among young people, independents, and disaffected Democrats. He would lose because most of the “ABO” Republicans would refuse to vote for him.
rickl: he would lose because most people, Republican and Democrat, would refuse to vote for him. I doubt that Paul could get more than 25% of the vote, 30% tops.
T and Expat:
The ‘sensible’ in other lands have had a decade to assess the threat of Islam. That includes our own land. Having now assessed the threat, what are the ‘sensible’ doing? Iraq was not a Muslim threat; it was something else altogether. And how are the ‘sensible’ doing in miserable Afghanistan, where our withdrawal will yield the Taliban slaughter of tens of thousands, a recap of the fall of Saigon?
What will the ‘sensibles’ (eventually; in the fullness of time; etc.) do?
What can the ‘sensible’ do to overcome the ‘insensible’ majorities and the patently insensible and unresponsive Ruling Classes?
Lest we praise GWB too much, recall his oft-uttered mantra, “Islam is a religion of peace”, and taking his shoes off on his several mosque visits. Made me puke, and I like the man a lot.
I knew posting some Ron Paul hype would pull y’all out of your lassitude. 😉
What expat and that chorus fails to grasp is that I, too, see Islam as an existential threat. I have said so here repeatedly (and I think posted about it at my own joint). But the neocon response is now a proven failure. I commented above that the threat is non-military. The degree y’all claim I am ignorant of such facts suggests you’re either not reading my words or not comprehending my thought.
Unfortunately, the US response to the non-military threat has been to militarize the police. And to hand the enemy a victory by destroying our Constitutional liberties before their vaporous threats. those who support PATRIOT and the current NDAA are my enemy. You are actually a bigger threat to American lives and American ideals than some frustrated goatherd halfway around the world.
GWB and 9/11 was ten years ago. Quit fighting the last war. Those allies that Bush was waiting for have allowed the enemy to take them over through open immigration and cultural accommodation. They’re American allies in rhetoric only. And the US is following their mistake.
Geoffrey Britain says “Fortress America” is not the way to secure America. I guess that depends on what the term means. It is entirely appropriate given the complete absence of any credible military threat. It sounds like one of those unexamined dismissals of Paul’s policy.
GB and I disagree about oil. Batteries may be on the verge of a breakthrough, but the US has all the petroleum it hopes to consume. Whether it be by petroleum or by nuclear (thorium), domestic energy is no longer a technical problem. Gov’t policy is the obstacle.
Again, RP is the top choice to get gov’t out of the way and employ Coaseian market techniques to price externalities in energy development. Even the “business genius” Romney doesn’t seem to believe there is a non-regulatory solution to supply energy and transport fuel domestically.
To say that Islam can’t survive beside WesternCiv is essentially the same as saying they can’t coexist. So we’re still stuck with the dilemma I presented. Do we exterminate all Muslims? Or do we quit screwing with their hives and let them come to their own realization?
What’s the point of a “credible military”? The US Gov’t can kill any person on earth within a few hours for the cost of a few million dollars. Instead of Mutually Assured Destruction for the nation-state era, we have Personally Assured Destruction for the Pirate-Terrorist Era. It doesn’t take a massive global deployment to kill the bad guys. And if the bad guys don’t mind dying, we’re back to global extermination as the only military option.
Nation-building has failed. Give me a new theory. Otherwise, taking care of our own and living within Madison’s Constitution has to be the best available option, right?
“Nation-building has failed.”
It was bound to fail from the get go because we have become so politically correct that we refuse to achieve total victory (absolute, unconditional surrender) and then dictate to the conquered exactly how they will reconstruct their society. We lack the will and soon we will lack the resources. Its a fool’s errand.
BHO apologizes for the accidental burning of a few copies of the Koran after the crazies murder Americans. If we were serious about victory we would air drop 100,000 copies on the rock in Mecca and napalm the pile.
Political Correctness and antidiscrimination laws will be the death of us.
I said in an e-mail right after 9/11 that the government would react not by singling out swarthy Muslim males for special scrutiny as they should have done, but by treating each and every American citizen as a potential terrorist. Heaven forbid we should discriminate based on race or religion. Now we have a federal government agency, the TSA, molesting innocent white American airline passengers. Some of the TSA screeners are black Muslims. This is clinical insanity.
Western civilization used to be confident of our cultural and racial superiority. If we don’t regain that confidence, we’re doomed.
I don’t see any other races or cultures apologizing for their very existence, or indeed for anything their ancestors have done in the past. Only white people seem to do that, and be expected to do that.
Obama trailing
Romney and Santorum
in swing states!
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/27/usa-today-poll-shows-obama-trailing-romney-and-santorum-in-swing-states/
Obama cannot haiku.
The nation knows it.
Buck up.
Thread’s dead, but I am 100% with Parker. If there is to be war, it must be to unconditional surrender.
Desert Storm didn’t solve the problem, it just put Saddam on simmer for a decade. Iraqi Freedom followed the correct war strategy.
I’ve wondered how much air/missile defense the Saudis have around the Kaaba. If an Arab nuke got through Israel’s defenses, I expect we would find out. There’s a faction in Israel that knows about final solutions.