Category Archives: Republicans

Updated: GOP, RIP?

Elections 2008, Ilana On Radio & TV, IMMIGRATION, Media, Neoconservatism, Republicans

The excerpt is from my latest WorldNetDaily column, “GOP, RIP?“:

“At bottom, what does David Brooks, the ‘Reformer,’ mean when he instructs ‘Conservatives … to appeal more to Hispanics, independents and younger voters'”?

‘Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods,’ wrote H.L. Menken. ‘If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.’

‘Appealing to,’ or ‘reaching out,’ is political prattle for promising stuff. Republicans – ‘Reformed’ and Unreformed – have taken away from their defeat that they should be flogging more stolen goods in communities where such stuff is especially coveted.

These ‘Reformers’ want to ensure that the unreformed voter knows what’s on the menu next time around.

Time magazine would agree: “Thou Shalt not Covet” is so passé. (Or “so yesterday,” as the hip would say.)”

The complete column is here.

Update (Nov. 16): I will be chatting to Jerry Hughes of the Accent Radio Network, on his show, Conceived in Liberty. The topic: my column “GOP, RIP?” The time: 11:30 until 12:00 PM, Pacific.

Updated: Pawlenty Or Ponnuru; It’s All The Same

Conservatism, Economy, Elections 2008, Energy, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Republicans

The Republican Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, has declared:

“‘Drill baby, drill’ by itself is not an energy policy. It’s not enough. We’re going to need wind and solar and bio mass.”

What Pawlenty is saying is that arguing with global warming politics is not viable. Therefore, the logic of drilling must be substituted with the illogic of expensive, and hence dirtier, sources of energy. As I wrote in “The Goods on Gas“:

“The more efficient the source of energy, the less waste and pollution are involved in its conversion into energy. Think of the totality of the production process! The fewer resources expended in bringing a fuel to market, the cleaner and cheaper is the process.”

So, Mr. Pawlenty, drilling is so an energy policy—especially if one hasn’t drilled in decades, and if oil is one of most viable sources of energy. Most Republicans have simply lost the ability to make a case, any case.

Update (Nov. 20): It’s my theory that the quest for power, among the punditocracy and the pols alike, creates a convergence toward opinions most acceptable to power brokers and voters.

To wit, in “Rebooting the Right,” Ramesh Ponnuru, editor of National Review, ladles out the same lukewarm, happy, middle-grounds we’ve heard from most GOPers–and I surveyed in “GOP, RIP?“:

“At the GOP governors’ meeting this month, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota argued that Republicans need to stay conservative but also modernize. A revitalized conservatism would push for tax reform with an eye on middle-class families, not hedge-fund operators. It would seek solutions to global warming rather than deny that it exists. It would place a higher priority on making health care affordable than on slashing pork programs. It would promote the assimilation of Hispanics rather than regard them as a menace or a source of cheap labor.”

Updated: Pawlenty Or Ponnuru; It's All The Same

Conservatism, Elections 2008, Energy, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Republicans

The Republican Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, has declared:

“‘Drill baby, drill’ by itself is not an energy policy. It’s not enough. We’re going to need wind and solar and bio mass.”

What Pawlenty is saying is that arguing with global warming politics is not viable. Therefore, the logic of drilling must be substituted with the illogic of expensive, and hence dirtier, sources of energy. As I wrote in “The Goods on Gas“:

“The more efficient the source of energy, the less waste and pollution are involved in its conversion into energy. Think of the totality of the production process! The fewer resources expended in bringing a fuel to market, the cleaner and cheaper is the process.”

So, Mr. Pawlenty, drilling is so an energy policy—especially if one hasn’t drilled in decades, and if oil is one of most viable sources of energy. Most Republicans have simply lost the ability to make a case, any case.

Update (Nov. 20): It’s my theory that the quest for power, among the punditocracy and the pols alike, creates a convergence toward opinions most acceptable to power brokers and voters.

To wit, in “Rebooting the Right,” Ramesh Ponnuru, editor of National Review, ladles out the same lukewarm, happy, middle-grounds we’ve heard from most GOPers–and I surveyed in “GOP, RIP?“:

“At the GOP governors’ meeting this month, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota argued that Republicans need to stay conservative but also modernize. A revitalized conservatism would push for tax reform with an eye on middle-class families, not hedge-fund operators. It would seek solutions to global warming rather than deny that it exists. It would place a higher priority on making health care affordable than on slashing pork programs. It would promote the assimilation of Hispanics rather than regard them as a menace or a source of cheap labor.”

Updated: Republicans’ Incoherent Mea Culpa

Conservatism, Elections 2008, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Neoconservatism, Republicans

An incoherent P.J. O’Rourke dithers on about why Republicans have betrayed conservatism. On the most important national questions-cum-calamities—perpetual immigration and war—he seems to think more of each was the way to go. That is if I understand the man’s bafflegab (perhaps I don’t).

If anything, led by deracinated neoconservatives, Republicans’ move to the left on immigration has been their downfall. And if O’Rourke’s own support for an ill-begotten war doesn’t yet excite disgust deep down, what hope is there for the rest? As I said, “GOP; RIP.” Here’s O’Rourke, if you can stomach him:

“Our attitude toward immigration has been repulsive. Are we not pro-life? Are not immigrants alive? Unfortunately, no, a lot of them aren’t after attempting to cross our borders. Conservative immigration policies are as stupid as conservative attitudes are gross. Fence the border and give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry. Put the National Guard on the Rio Grande and know that U.S. troops are standing between you and yard care. George W. Bush, at his most beneficent, said if illegal immigrants wanted citizenship they would have to do three things: Pay taxes, learn English, and work in a meaningful job. Bush doesn’t meet two out of three of those qualifications. And where would you rather eat? At a Vietnamese restaurant? Or in the Ayn Rand Café? Hey, waiter, are the burgers any good? Atlas shrugged. (We would, however, be able to have a smoke at the latter establishment.)
To go from slime to the sublime, there are the lofty issues about which we never bothered to form enough principles to go out and break them. What is the coherent modern conservative foreign policy?
We may think of this as a post 9/11 problem, but it’s been with us all along. What was Reagan thinking, landing Marines in Lebanon to prop up the government of a country that didn’t have one? In 1984, I visited the site where the Marines were murdered. It was a beachfront bivouac overlooked on three sides by hills full of hostile Shiite militia. You’d urge your daughter to date Rosie O’Donnell before you’d put troops ashore in such a place.
Since the early 1980s I’ve been present at the conception (to use the polite term) of many of our foreign policy initiatives. Iran-contra was about as smart as using the U.S. Postal Service to get weapons to anti-Communists. And I notice Danny Ortega is back in power anyway. I had a look into the eyes of the future rulers of Afghanistan at a sura in Peshawar as the Soviets were withdrawing from Kabul. I would rather have had a beer with Leonid Brezhnev.
Fall of the Berlin wall? Being there was fun. Nations that flaked off of the Soviet Union in southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus? Being there was not so fun.
The aftermath of the Gulf war still makes me sick. Fine to save the fat, greedy Kuwaitis and the arrogant, grasping house of Saud, but to hell with the Shiites and Kurds of Iraq until they get some oil.
Then, half a generation later, when we returned with our armies, we expected to be greeted as liberators. And, damn it, we were. I was in Baghdad in April 2003. People were glad to see us, until they noticed that we’d forgotten to bring along any personnel or provisions to feed or doctor the survivors of shock and awe or to get their electricity and water running again. After that they got huffy and began stuffing dynamite down their pants before consulting with the occupying forces.
Is there a moral dimension to foreign policy in our political philosophy? Or do we just exist to help the world’s rich people make and keep their money? (And a fine job we’ve been doing of that lately.)”

Update (Nov. 11): John Zmirak of Taki’s Magazine concurs about the “senile” P.J.:

P.J. O’Rourke is now officially senile. Pour a stiff glass of bourbon before wading into this farrago of parrot-sh*t. The problem with conservatism, for P.J. as for Frumbag, is conservatives. They should learn to put up with forced desegregation and worthless public schools, gay marriage, abortion, colonization by hostile, nationalistic foreigners, and the use of the U.S. military to fight other country’s wars. In return they might, just might get… drumroll please: fiscal responsibility. Yeah, we’ve never spent a dime on all that federal equality micromanagement and foreign conquest, or all those uninsured unskilled laborers. That’s funded by pennies from heaven.

The same pious homilies are echoed by most of conservatism’s custodians—just enough “insight” to make themselves appear as though they’ve retained something of their faculties and have embarked on a quixotic quest to confront their excesses and errors; but not quite enough to show Republicans up for the rudderless sorts they are (for the most).

As always, Republicans are great at dimming and dumbing down debate.