The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Sen. Rubio Weekly GOP Address

Posted on | December 9, 2012 | 66 Comments

by Smitty

Via American Freedom, truly an excellent personal story, excellent ideas, and excellent delivery:

Contrast Rubio’s don’t-scare-the-horses delivery with William Kristol at the Daily Standard

And the conservative movement?—?a bulwark of American strength for the last several decades?—?is in deep disarray. Reading about some conservative organizations and Republican campaigns these days, one is reminded of Eric Hoffer’s remark, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” It may be that major parts of American conservatism have become such a racket that a kind of refounding of the movement as a cause is necessary. A reinvigoration of the Republican party also seems desirable, based on a new generation of leaders, perhaps coming?—?as did Ike and Reagan?—?from outside the normal channels.

What’s not in question are the basic principles of conservativism that go back to our founding documents: liberty, equality before the law, private property, free enterprise, &c.
What’s coming into question is whether the GOP elite has snorted so much Progressive cocaine as to make their heads ‘splode and forget those basic principles.

It’s not fair to rip Rubio over this weekly GOP address speech and call him a milquetoast. The weekly address is not CPAC, where Rubio can be expected to arrive with some sort of bacon gun and shoot pork product pellets into the sea of meat-craving conservatives. The weekly address is certainly an occasion for something short and vaguely positive that colors within the lines.

However, for 2014 and 2016, this blogger wants to see some recognition that those lines mark a Progressive pit into which the country has sunk, and correctly identifies the systemic issue for the problem: our government has shifted from being representative to redistributive over the last century. Both parties have been buying votes with entitlements and turning a country of opportunity into some sort of neo-feudalism.

Hopefully the GOP can glom onto the reality of 2012, which is that the Gradual Onslaught of Progressivism is not going to attract voters anymore. If the GOP is merely saying tom-ay-toe to the Democrat’s tom-ah-toe, then the losses will continue to mount. It’s time to put on the Big People Pants and talk hardcore reform.

Update: linked by Nathan J. Martin

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Category: GOP

Comments

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  • Wombat_socho

    They never seem to quote the rest of the speech where he lays into the academic/government complex, for some reason.

  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    Very good point

  • Adobe_Walls

    Twice as conservative as it was in 1980 isn’t a quarter as conservative as it needs to be.

  • Adobe_Walls

    That was fun!

  • http://alanye.com/ Dai Alanye

    Regrettably, YOU. The Republican Party is gradually, with many ups and downs along the route, becoming more conservative. Taft–>Goldwater–>Reagan–>?who’s next?

    We’ve had a setback, but to any suggestion we surrender the only proper reply is, “Nuts!” That came during another setback, as we all know.

  • Adobe_Walls

    Concur.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    When a good number of people in this country still possessed virtue, they did not act on the impulse of envy. There will always be a certain percentage of the people who are redistributive, but, as we saw in the first hundred or so years of The Republic, there was a larger percentage who were not so envious.

    Once God was murdered by Progressive Thinking [and Morality and Tradition and Prudence were, thus, defamed], the stage was set for the self-restraints on envy to be removed. The United States cannot survive without Virtue being dominant among the populace – as we are now witnessing.

  • Quartermaster

    As Adobe asked, “what party do we have?” I wish you luck in “taking it back,” particularly since it has never been a conservative party in the first place. That why the “neocons” fit right in back in the 70s and have come to dominate the party.

    People have been “trying’ to take it back” for years and have no succeeded as the Establishment, which took the Neocons to their breast, are so entrenched that rooting them out is essentially impossible.

    You may have little use for people like Adobe Walls, and snark about pessimism not being a plan, but unfounded optimism is far worse. There is a near zero probability that the GOP will be changed in any meaningful way. The problem is in its political genes and has been since it was founded. It too better than 100 years for the Democrat Party to go from a conservative party, to the moonbat refuge it is today. You might be able to make an argument that we could do the same with teh GOP, but I’d be forced to say “rottsa ruck” because we don’t have anything like 100 years to turn things around. That’s assuming you can make the argument in the first place, and from what I’ve seen above, it’s not in you.

  • Quartermaster

    If a new party formed around conservatives, you could get the same result as the GOP originally did. There are many people outside both parties now that have no political home anymore that may be drawn in as well.

  • Quartermaster

    Being realistic is not pessimism. The people you list essentially left no fingerprints on the party. A lot people like to invoke Ronnie Raygun, but they run away from the things he really stood for. Contra Adjoran, I see no reason to judge the GOP as twice as conservative as it was in 1980. Conservatives have little influence, actually less than they had in 1980, in the GOP.

    Neoconservatives, OTOH, are dominant because the Establishment took them to their breast. The Neocons are not the friend of Conservatives, since they are not conservative, but they are the friends of progressives because they are progressives.

  • Finrod Felagund

    If you have an alternative to working to take back the GOP that’s something other than “we’re permanently screwed”, I’d like to hear it.

    To rework Sherlock Holmes, when you take away all the impossible options, whatever’s left, however improbable, is what you have to choose from.

  • http://alanye.com/ Dai Alanye

    To you, realism seems to equate with surrender. It’s a matter of opinion, of course, but I don’t see the neocons in control, nor things as hopeless as you seem to think.

    In any case I can assure you, having worked for Goldwater as a young sprout, that the base of the party is more conservative today than in 1959. True realism, however, recognizes that we can’t expect to immediately overcome all the socialistic “progress” this nation has made since FDR. We must only gradually replace electoral goodies with wheat germ and broccoli. Slowly, slowly catchee monkey.

  • Quartermaster

    I did not mention the base, as such. I did, however, mention that conservatives have little influence in the party, and that is the problem. The Base may be conservative, but we get ignored when it comes time to make the decisions. This is after better than 30 years of making sure the GOP Establishment guy gets elected, and bearing the blame, after we do more than our share of the work, if the guy fails.

    If you sincerely think that acknowledging reality is surrender, then you are welcome to your opinion. It’s an intellectually immature opinion, but you can have it.

    You and Adjoran remind me of a drunk whose friends try to help him with his problem, but get vehemently refused because you have no problem. We’ve already tried to “take ‘our’ party back,” and have done so since 1964. If you really think you can displace the Establishment without some sort of extreme measure, after 50 years of more “civilized” work has done so little, then you are welcome to the rotting carcass the GOP has become.

    As for me, I’m leaving people like you behind. Trash all you like. I will not be joining you in your futility.

  • Quartermaster

    I’ve been listening to your song and dance (it isn’t original with you, but you are repeating it) for much of my adult life. The solution you are offering is just more of the same we have done for the last 50 years. Yeah, that’s really worked out well.

    You need to think about you last sentence because I’d throw it right back atcha.

  • Finrod Felagund

    Like I said to the other bozo, I have no use for whiners and fatalists.

  • http://alanye.com/ Dai Alanye

    Our disagreement is not about the value of recognizing reality but about what reality is. You have one opinion, I another. Yours seems quite pessimistic, while I’m naturally upbeat.

    I’ll say this, though: Pessimists have the best of both worlds. If they guess correctly they get to crow about it. If they guess wrong they get to be happy with the rest of us.

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