"Liberty's permeance in American society often makes its manifestations
elusive or invisible to those born into it. Even if liberty is acknowledged, it
is often taken for granted and its permanence assumed. Therefore, under these
circumstances, the Statist's agenda can be alluring ... It is not recognized as
an increasingly corrosive threat to liberty but rather as coexisting with
it." ~ Mark Levin from 'Liberty and Tyranny'
Unfortunately, it seems to have become accustom for the usual Republican consultants and campaign operatives (i.e., Mike Murphy, Steve Schmidt and others), who encounter a significant defeat at their own behest, often times to reflect not on their own shortcomings and messaging, and not towards the opposition's deceitful webs spun to gain victory...no, these guys continue to tow the party line and instead blame conservatives and the adherence to principled beliefs that while conveniently claiming in one breath when it suits them, seek to change (or 'modernize') for political expediency in another.
What's sad is that with the defeat of Romney, their candidate all along, many throughout the party have not only turned on conservatives (many of whom traversed beyond the primaries to side with the Republican nominee), but they've now turned on him as well. Take for instance the reactions of younger guys like Jindal and Rubio, or those among the older guard, like Gingrich, when Romney professed to donors that Obama had won the election by promising free stuff to targeted constituency groups; in essence, promoting the expansion of the welfare state (The Santa Claus mentality that Rush has been talking about over the past week, if you will). Suddenly, conservative principle, that all these guys have espoused at one point or another, takes a back seat to defeat, and now they're ready to make the GOP into anything to possibly win future elections. Now, while winning is obviously important, what's it say about a political party that has lost its philosophical foundation on which it bases its policies? Likewise, what does it say about those party members who wish to recapture political power by skirting those foundational principles? Is it expected of the conservative base to abandon this foundation for some modernization that moves us further away from the crux of conservatism?
Rush says that these Republicans don’t want to be seen as disagreeing with the welfare state...they want in on it...
And then when you've accepted the confines of the welfare state, co-existing with it, and don't want to speak to the truth of it, you've not somehow become nobler for it...you've become another enabler of it; in effect, a neo-statist.
Perhaps instead of blaming conservatives for the ills of the GOP, the operatives and politicians, the neo-statists lurch if you will, should understand that Democrats won the election by capitalizing on the decline of the country: the takers vs. the makers. Santa Claus has come to town, GOP...and instead of diving over one another to get yours, maybe a winning strategy would be to uniformly expose the myth of the jolly old man and where his gifts actually come from.
ADDENDUM: Levin touched on these enabling tendencies during the second hour of Monday evening's program and expanded...
I want to tell the Republican Party bureaucrats something: Your paid consultants who become extremely wealthy losing elections, the Mike Murphy's, the Steve [Schmidt's], a whole cabal of losers and punks; you keep sending them out on the Sunday shows, to this online rag called Politico, and other places, to trash conservatives and tea party activists and so forth; I want to tell you Republican Party bureaucrats something: You want to create a third party? Then you keep doing this...because...one of the reasons why the number of independent voters keeps growing and growing and growing, many of these people are dissatisfied with you. They're conservatives who want nothing to do with the Republican policies. I also read somewhere, it's probably the same trash out of Politico, that, you know, this guy, Senator Moran from Kansas and others have said, 'Look, 2010, we were fighting the tea party in the primaries; 2012, we just kind of left things alone; now we're serious. We've gotta control who they nominate, we've gotta control this process.' And they keep bringing up Akin and Mourdock. And I keep thinking to myself, 'Where Akin and Mourdock the only Republicans who ran for the Senate this year? Are they the only Republicans who lost?' Ladies and gentlemen, this is how the propaganda works, even from the Republican Party. The overwhelming majority of Senate races lost by the Republicans were establishment Republicans or Republicans strongly endorsed by the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., not tea party conservatives, not conservatives per say. And you look at how they use the liberal media, these Republican politicians and bureaucrats, to spin, to create this myth...
...but worse of all of it, Senate and House aside, John McCain was their guy, Romney was their guy, and I'm not attacking Romney, I'm making a point. Bob Dole was their guy, Gerald Ford was their guy. Our guy was Reagan. There you have the two landslides. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Until we clean out the old bulls, the hangers-on, the losers who cannot think outside the box, who are not quick on their feet, who do not really embrace conservative principles, who frankly have no intention of doing anything fundamentally to advance constitutionalism again; until we do that, it's going to be very hard to defeat the Democrats.
I go along with others who've said it could get so bad in the next two or four years that the Republicans will win the next election. And I think we need to be very mindful of this and very prepared for this. That said, that's not a mandate. Folks, we need to reestablish the Constitution. We need to make 'capitalism' a good word again. We need to bring back what I call the American mindset or psychology. We need to do all these things. It's daunting, it's an enormous task. If you think about it too long, you'll get depressed about it. But we need to fight this, one issue at a time.
But isn't it interesting that right now our biggest foe are the paid consultants, paid for by the Republican RINOs, the old bulls and the Ruling Class, to go on tv and trash us, to trash talk radio. Somehow 'we' lost this election, you see. And what's very annoying about this is we actually rallied behind Romney, rallied behind all the candidates, and did everything we could to drag them across the finish line, and this is what we get in return.
Speaking on one of the post-election media talking points that's constantly repeated, illegal immigration/amnesty, as if that's the only thing that came of this election, Levin goes on to discuss something that can actually be said about most all of these targeted issues: it's bad politics!
It's just appalling. It's appalling what's happening to the country, to the Republican Party, to some of these conservative organizations...the culture is getting hollowed out, the society is generally being devoured by the government. The conservative movement's being devoured by the Republican Party, which is being devoured by itself. And this is what they focus on.
People come here on their own free will in violation of our laws, I don't care who they are or where the hell they come from. They cross the border, they come into a sovereign country, and we're made to look like fools. There's something wrong with some of us who say, 'Well, that's not right. Can't we fix that?' No. Why? Well, because, people vote. And because they vote, the political expedient is we have to figure out a way that ethnicity votes like every ethnicity, and they're voting overwhelmingly Democrat, so we need to get in on this game, this illegal game. So, politics, and bad politics, drives policy. Rather than principle, rather than the rule of law, politics is driving policy, and bad politics.
And when I hear some of our wonderful tea party conservative candidates, although some of them pretend they're not anymore when I hear a number of them campaigning and saying 'oh, we gotta address this...' It's not because they want to address it because it's a legal matter that needs to be addressed; or they want to address it because there's something immoral about people who voluntarily come into our country illegally and then demand to stay or somekind of amnesty or access to this that or the other. No, it needs to be addressed so we can get votes, they argue. And then when you object, there's something immoral with us. 'Don't you know these are human beings?' Of course I know they're human beings! Does Mexico know they're human beings? Why don't they treat them like human beings? Does Mexico know that Guatamalans who come into its country illegally, who they throw in prison, that they know taht Guatamalans are human beings? Apparently not. And so we have Republicans, and even conservatives, talking the talk of the Left, abandoning their own principles, participating in the propaganda of the Left, 'Well, we're not like them; we don't want it ultra-ultra comprehensive, just kind of comprehensive.' And so there are few political voices left to speak the truth. And we are inundated with this; it's just endless propaganda. You know, I don't know the answer to it, but I refuse to give into it.
Unfortunately, it seems to have become accustom for the usual Republican consultants and campaign operatives (i.e., Mike Murphy, Steve Schmidt and others), who encounter a significant defeat at their own behest, often times to reflect not on their own shortcomings and messaging, and not towards the opposition's deceitful webs spun to gain victory...no, these guys continue to tow the party line and instead blame conservatives and the adherence to principled beliefs that while conveniently claiming in one breath when it suits them, seek to change (or 'modernize') for political expediency in another.
What's sad is that with the defeat of Romney, their candidate all along, many throughout the party have not only turned on conservatives (many of whom traversed beyond the primaries to side with the Republican nominee), but they've now turned on him as well. Take for instance the reactions of younger guys like Jindal and Rubio, or those among the older guard, like Gingrich, when Romney professed to donors that Obama had won the election by promising free stuff to targeted constituency groups; in essence, promoting the expansion of the welfare state (The Santa Claus mentality that Rush has been talking about over the past week, if you will). Suddenly, conservative principle, that all these guys have espoused at one point or another, takes a back seat to defeat, and now they're ready to make the GOP into anything to possibly win future elections. Now, while winning is obviously important, what's it say about a political party that has lost its philosophical foundation on which it bases its policies? Likewise, what does it say about those party members who wish to recapture political power by skirting those foundational principles? Is it expected of the conservative base to abandon this foundation for some modernization that moves us further away from the crux of conservatism?
Rush says that these Republicans don’t want to be seen as disagreeing with the welfare state...they want in on it...
And then when you've accepted the confines of the welfare state, co-existing with it, and don't want to speak to the truth of it, you've not somehow become nobler for it...you've become another enabler of it; in effect, a neo-statist.
Perhaps instead of blaming conservatives for the ills of the GOP, the operatives and politicians, the neo-statists lurch if you will, should understand that Democrats won the election by capitalizing on the decline of the country: the takers vs. the makers. Santa Claus has come to town, GOP...and instead of diving over one another to get yours, maybe a winning strategy would be to uniformly expose the myth of the jolly old man and where his gifts actually come from.
ADDENDUM: Levin touched on these enabling tendencies during the second hour of Monday evening's program and expanded...
I want to tell the Republican Party bureaucrats something: Your paid consultants who become extremely wealthy losing elections, the Mike Murphy's, the Steve [Schmidt's], a whole cabal of losers and punks; you keep sending them out on the Sunday shows, to this online rag called Politico, and other places, to trash conservatives and tea party activists and so forth; I want to tell you Republican Party bureaucrats something: You want to create a third party? Then you keep doing this...because...one of the reasons why the number of independent voters keeps growing and growing and growing, many of these people are dissatisfied with you. They're conservatives who want nothing to do with the Republican policies. I also read somewhere, it's probably the same trash out of Politico, that, you know, this guy, Senator Moran from Kansas and others have said, 'Look, 2010, we were fighting the tea party in the primaries; 2012, we just kind of left things alone; now we're serious. We've gotta control who they nominate, we've gotta control this process.' And they keep bringing up Akin and Mourdock. And I keep thinking to myself, 'Where Akin and Mourdock the only Republicans who ran for the Senate this year? Are they the only Republicans who lost?' Ladies and gentlemen, this is how the propaganda works, even from the Republican Party. The overwhelming majority of Senate races lost by the Republicans were establishment Republicans or Republicans strongly endorsed by the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., not tea party conservatives, not conservatives per say. And you look at how they use the liberal media, these Republican politicians and bureaucrats, to spin, to create this myth...
...but worse of all of it, Senate and House aside, John McCain was their guy, Romney was their guy, and I'm not attacking Romney, I'm making a point. Bob Dole was their guy, Gerald Ford was their guy. Our guy was Reagan. There you have the two landslides. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Until we clean out the old bulls, the hangers-on, the losers who cannot think outside the box, who are not quick on their feet, who do not really embrace conservative principles, who frankly have no intention of doing anything fundamentally to advance constitutionalism again; until we do that, it's going to be very hard to defeat the Democrats.
I go along with others who've said it could get so bad in the next two or four years that the Republicans will win the next election. And I think we need to be very mindful of this and very prepared for this. That said, that's not a mandate. Folks, we need to reestablish the Constitution. We need to make 'capitalism' a good word again. We need to bring back what I call the American mindset or psychology. We need to do all these things. It's daunting, it's an enormous task. If you think about it too long, you'll get depressed about it. But we need to fight this, one issue at a time.
But isn't it interesting that right now our biggest foe are the paid consultants, paid for by the Republican RINOs, the old bulls and the Ruling Class, to go on tv and trash us, to trash talk radio. Somehow 'we' lost this election, you see. And what's very annoying about this is we actually rallied behind Romney, rallied behind all the candidates, and did everything we could to drag them across the finish line, and this is what we get in return.
Speaking on one of the post-election media talking points that's constantly repeated, illegal immigration/amnesty, as if that's the only thing that came of this election, Levin goes on to discuss something that can actually be said about most all of these targeted issues: it's bad politics!
It's just appalling. It's appalling what's happening to the country, to the Republican Party, to some of these conservative organizations...the culture is getting hollowed out, the society is generally being devoured by the government. The conservative movement's being devoured by the Republican Party, which is being devoured by itself. And this is what they focus on.
People come here on their own free will in violation of our laws, I don't care who they are or where the hell they come from. They cross the border, they come into a sovereign country, and we're made to look like fools. There's something wrong with some of us who say, 'Well, that's not right. Can't we fix that?' No. Why? Well, because, people vote. And because they vote, the political expedient is we have to figure out a way that ethnicity votes like every ethnicity, and they're voting overwhelmingly Democrat, so we need to get in on this game, this illegal game. So, politics, and bad politics, drives policy. Rather than principle, rather than the rule of law, politics is driving policy, and bad politics.
And when I hear some of our wonderful tea party conservative candidates, although some of them pretend they're not anymore when I hear a number of them campaigning and saying 'oh, we gotta address this...' It's not because they want to address it because it's a legal matter that needs to be addressed; or they want to address it because there's something immoral about people who voluntarily come into our country illegally and then demand to stay or somekind of amnesty or access to this that or the other. No, it needs to be addressed so we can get votes, they argue. And then when you object, there's something immoral with us. 'Don't you know these are human beings?' Of course I know they're human beings! Does Mexico know they're human beings? Why don't they treat them like human beings? Does Mexico know that Guatamalans who come into its country illegally, who they throw in prison, that they know taht Guatamalans are human beings? Apparently not. And so we have Republicans, and even conservatives, talking the talk of the Left, abandoning their own principles, participating in the propaganda of the Left, 'Well, we're not like them; we don't want it ultra-ultra comprehensive, just kind of comprehensive.' And so there are few political voices left to speak the truth. And we are inundated with this; it's just endless propaganda. You know, I don't know the answer to it, but I refuse to give into it.
