The Other McCain

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

Bloggers Surprised GOP Under-reacting To Unproven Tea Party Commitment To Long-Term Agend– Oh . . . Shiny!

Posted on | September 5, 2010 | 68 Comments

by Smitty

Without the slightest disrespect to Dan Riehl and his point, the GOP isn’t ready to lead, one should ask the question: lead what?

First, I’m not here to pat myself on the back. On the Geller scale, I would fall well short of asserting I’m doing “enough” to support American renewal.

Second, let’s not go counting ourselves a representative sample. We hold a lot of truths self-evident in the dextrosphere. Conservativism is a largely common-sense, Constitutional affair, modulo occasional thumb-wrestling over the sort-order of fiscal vs. religious concerns. However, the country is still largely asleep at the switch over the dangers of Progressive statism. Things self-evident to friendly bloggers may not generalize, or be felt as intensely by the population at large. Yes, polls are trending this direction, which brings me to my next point.

Third, Politics is attrition warfare. We can state, with decreasing certainty, the following points:

  1. The election in two months will favor the GOP at all levels.
  2. The GOP will control the House of Representatives.
  3. The GOP will control the Senate.
  4. The GOP will hold an effective veto-override majority in Congress.
  5. The Tea Party will continue to influence the GOP along Federalist lines through the 2012 election.
  6. The Tea Party will succeed in flushing the GOP of Progressive, RINO tendencies, past 2012.

Given that analysis, let’s return to the complaint that the House GOP seems deer-in-the-headlights, when something a little more fiery and less card-held-close-to-the-chest would seem to be appropriate amongst those of us who fancy we Get It.
While it is crucial to continue on as we are, calling it as we see it, giving napalm showers to any knob needing such, let’s allow for some unknown unknowns. Specifically, the magnitude of conservative victory in November is still speculative, and the staying power of Tea Party determination.
When the closets are thrown open, and the Federal financial skeletons come tumbling out, and it turns out that the lying liars were deceptively understating the magnitude of the crisis, and we’re suddenly twice, thrice as screwed as we think we are now, does the Tea Party wet itself? Does it double down in determination to Fix This Noise?
The greatest unproven element here is patience. With the political wind, like any physical wind, you cannot sail straight into it. Movement upwind involves tacking and jibing to cross distance against the wind. We sometimes act as though the GOP should be a shaft-driven vessel, capable of going flank three straight upwind. Not the case. The same procedural inertia that substantially dampened the Democrat Party majorities in the 111th Congress will work the other direction, as well.
The crucial role of blogs will be to sustain the focus and intensity of the Tea Parties, even when the toughest Rand Pauls, Scott Browns, Joe Millers, Christine O’Donnells, Allen Wests, &c. are forced to eat tough votes for reasons that may not ever clearly be articulated.
I submit, without warranty, that Speaker Boehner in 2017, still backed by a strong Tea Party movement, will be cruising through Progressives with the subtlety of the USS Constitution wrecking an enemy.  But, if We The People lose heart, or become distracted, then all bets are off.

Category: Dan Riehl, Republicans

Comments

68 Responses to “Bloggers Surprised GOP Under-reacting To Unproven Tea Party Commitment To Long-Term Agend– Oh . . . Shiny!”

  1. Thomas L. Knapp
    September 6th, 2010 @ 1:38 am

    Randy,

    Apparently you wouldn’t know the real world if it snuck up behind you and smacked you across the ass with a bass fiddle.

    Hint: In the real world, unlimited immigration is a fact, any deranged fantasies of yours as to your power to “allow” or “not allow” it notwithstanding.

  2. waylay
    September 6th, 2010 @ 6:11 am

    Randy. There he goes again with your mental delusions…

    OT, I thought gg was banned for clogging the comment section with unreadable copy/paste bullshit. So why am I still seeing that all over the place?

    “clogging comments”, “unreadable”, “bullshit”; all fair points BUT…

    gg wasn’t banned for posting “copy/paste” material. AFAICT less than 5% of his posts included “copy/paste” from other sources.

    AND

    Whatever i posted in the comments above IS very much “readable”, is NOT “bullshit”, is on the point.

    I did copy/paste Jack Okie in two of the three comments, and if that part comes out as “unreadable”, “bullshit”, well then, i might be guilty as charged, just as I’m guilty of quoting Randy Rager in this post.

  3. waylay
    September 6th, 2010 @ 2:11 am

    Randy. There he goes again with your mental delusions…

    OT, I thought gg was banned for clogging the comment section with unreadable copy/paste bullshit. So why am I still seeing that all over the place?

    “clogging comments”, “unreadable”, “bullshit”; all fair points BUT…

    gg wasn’t banned for posting “copy/paste” material. AFAICT less than 5% of his posts included “copy/paste” from other sources.

    AND

    Whatever i posted in the comments above IS very much “readable”, is NOT “bullshit”, is on the point.

    I did copy/paste Jack Okie in two of the three comments, and if that part comes out as “unreadable”, “bullshit”, well then, i might be guilty as charged, just as I’m guilty of quoting Randy Rager in this post.

  4. Estragon
    September 6th, 2010 @ 6:24 am

    The notion we would have majorities sufficient to override Obama’s vetoes is the stuff of pure fantasy. For that we would need 290 seats in the House – a gain of 112 – and 67 in the Senate, for a gain of 26! I’d love to believe it, but rationally I must give such an outcome zero probability for this election. Perhaps after 2012 . . .

    We need to be realistic. Winning control of the House would stop the Obama agenda in its tracks, and only requires a gain of 40 seats. Winning the Senate would give us the Committee Chairmanships and the power to stop bad judicial nominations, and we need a gain of 10 seats for that.

    When such fanciful numbers are bandied about as if they might happen, they can have the effect of diminishing what would be a great and historic victory.

  5. Estragon
    September 6th, 2010 @ 2:24 am

    The notion we would have majorities sufficient to override Obama’s vetoes is the stuff of pure fantasy. For that we would need 290 seats in the House – a gain of 112 – and 67 in the Senate, for a gain of 26! I’d love to believe it, but rationally I must give such an outcome zero probability for this election. Perhaps after 2012 . . .

    We need to be realistic. Winning control of the House would stop the Obama agenda in its tracks, and only requires a gain of 40 seats. Winning the Senate would give us the Committee Chairmanships and the power to stop bad judicial nominations, and we need a gain of 10 seats for that.

    When such fanciful numbers are bandied about as if they might happen, they can have the effect of diminishing what would be a great and historic victory.

  6. Estragon
    September 6th, 2010 @ 6:44 am

    As usual, Libertarians “support the Constitution” – but only those parts of which they approve, and only with the interpretation they choose to apply to each clause, phrase, and semicolon. For instance, Mr. Knapp disapproves of the Supreme Court recognizing federal authority over immigration, so he insists the feds still lack the power. Does he not recognize the Constitutional clause granting the Supreme Court the power to “settle disputes arising from this Constitution”? Which other parts does he not support? How can you “support the Constitution” so selectively?

    In the Bizzaro world of Libertarianism, it seems only Libertarians are granted the insight to PROPERLY interpret the Constitution, not even the Constitution itself can override their decisions.

    It is said that the Constitution which most clearly and absolutely protects individual liberty in human history was the Soviet Constitution of 1937. Of course, like our Libertarians, only Stalin could divine the true meaning of those protections, and we all know how that turned out.

    People instinctively understand that the LP-ers are a fringe group, which is why only Ed Clark in 1980 managed as much as 1% of the national vote, and none of their candidates since – including the execrable Ron Paul – have managed more than half that. Heck, even the “Margin of Error” generally scores over 3% . . .

    Yet we have the Libertarians now pretending the Tea Party movement is their own, although they still remain a tiny fringe group. As if conservatives weren’t fighting government growth and excess for nearly a century before the word “Libertarian” was coined.

  7. Estragon
    September 6th, 2010 @ 2:44 am

    As usual, Libertarians “support the Constitution” – but only those parts of which they approve, and only with the interpretation they choose to apply to each clause, phrase, and semicolon. For instance, Mr. Knapp disapproves of the Supreme Court recognizing federal authority over immigration, so he insists the feds still lack the power. Does he not recognize the Constitutional clause granting the Supreme Court the power to “settle disputes arising from this Constitution”? Which other parts does he not support? How can you “support the Constitution” so selectively?

    In the Bizzaro world of Libertarianism, it seems only Libertarians are granted the insight to PROPERLY interpret the Constitution, not even the Constitution itself can override their decisions.

    It is said that the Constitution which most clearly and absolutely protects individual liberty in human history was the Soviet Constitution of 1937. Of course, like our Libertarians, only Stalin could divine the true meaning of those protections, and we all know how that turned out.

    People instinctively understand that the LP-ers are a fringe group, which is why only Ed Clark in 1980 managed as much as 1% of the national vote, and none of their candidates since – including the execrable Ron Paul – have managed more than half that. Heck, even the “Margin of Error” generally scores over 3% . . .

    Yet we have the Libertarians now pretending the Tea Party movement is their own, although they still remain a tiny fringe group. As if conservatives weren’t fighting government growth and excess for nearly a century before the word “Libertarian” was coined.

  8. Thomas L. Knapp
    September 6th, 2010 @ 7:44 am

    Estragon,

    You appear to have mistaken me a self-proclaimed constitutionalist. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m not one.

    The fact remains that SCOTUS didn’t “recognize” a federal power to regulate immigration — it simply made that power up from whole cloth after 90 years of Congresses (including Congresses composed of the same people who wrote the Constitution, publicly debated whether or not the new federal government should have the power to regulate immigration, and decided that it shouldn’t) denying that they had any such power.

    I’m also no longer associated with the Lobertarian Party, nor do I claim that the Tea Party is libertarian (there seemed to be a chance early on that it would be, but it didn’t happen).

    And FYI, the word “libertarian” was coined before the founding of the United States.

  9. Thomas L. Knapp
    September 6th, 2010 @ 3:44 am

    Estragon,

    You appear to have mistaken me a self-proclaimed constitutionalist. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m not one.

    The fact remains that SCOTUS didn’t “recognize” a federal power to regulate immigration — it simply made that power up from whole cloth after 90 years of Congresses (including Congresses composed of the same people who wrote the Constitution, publicly debated whether or not the new federal government should have the power to regulate immigration, and decided that it shouldn’t) denying that they had any such power.

    I’m also no longer associated with the Lobertarian Party, nor do I claim that the Tea Party is libertarian (there seemed to be a chance early on that it would be, but it didn’t happen).

    And FYI, the word “libertarian” was coined before the founding of the United States.

  10. Thane Eichenauer
    September 6th, 2010 @ 7:47 am

    I’ll offer a comment that I hope many readers will sympathize with. If they took a poll of 9 people and 5 of them said that the 2nd amendment only applied to government armies would that mean that those of us who support the human right to keep and bear arms should suck it up and allow for government demands for our guns permits (that is if they were required in Arizona)? Just because some arbitrary percentage of people support SB 1070 doesn’t mean that law is moral or is likely to increase my safety or security.

    I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I don’t think that making it easier for the government police to deport otherwise peaceful immigrants is a useful endeavor. It has resulted in my personal mechanic moving to Maryland thereby forcing me to find another that I do not have any history with.

  11. Thane Eichenauer
    September 6th, 2010 @ 3:47 am

    I’ll offer a comment that I hope many readers will sympathize with. If they took a poll of 9 people and 5 of them said that the 2nd amendment only applied to government armies would that mean that those of us who support the human right to keep and bear arms should suck it up and allow for government demands for our guns permits (that is if they were required in Arizona)? Just because some arbitrary percentage of people support SB 1070 doesn’t mean that law is moral or is likely to increase my safety or security.

    I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I don’t think that making it easier for the government police to deport otherwise peaceful immigrants is a useful endeavor. It has resulted in my personal mechanic moving to Maryland thereby forcing me to find another that I do not have any history with.

  12. Adobe Walls
    September 6th, 2010 @ 4:52 pm

    Thomas L. Knapp,you believe that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s actions and Arizona’s “Know-Nothing Appeasement Act” are indefensible. You may with justification call this position “the high ground” because your belief that a lack of specific power to regulate immigration makes it unconstitutional. As this administration believes that it’s “policies” trump the constitution and federal law regarding immigration and every thing else, their “position” shall remain in the septic tank.
    As Arizona is at war with the Federal Govt, and those invading across their border, I’ll forgive their inability to appreciate the finer points of this discussion. Apparently you didn’t get Dresden either.
    If I’m not mistaken, you believe that even if constitutional, restricting immigration would be immoral and or violate natural human rights.
    The Declaration of Independence states all men are created equal not all men are created Americans. If we don’t have the constitutional “right” to regulate immigration we should add that to the long list of thing we need to fix fia Article 5 or a convention.
    If you want to argue the morality of restricting or regulating who may or may not live in this country, you may join the rest of us standing on the flat ground next to the septic tank

  13. Adobe Walls
    September 6th, 2010 @ 12:52 pm

    Thomas L. Knapp,you believe that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s actions and Arizona’s “Know-Nothing Appeasement Act” are indefensible. You may with justification call this position “the high ground” because your belief that a lack of specific power to regulate immigration makes it unconstitutional. As this administration believes that it’s “policies” trump the constitution and federal law regarding immigration and every thing else, their “position” shall remain in the septic tank.
    As Arizona is at war with the Federal Govt, and those invading across their border, I’ll forgive their inability to appreciate the finer points of this discussion. Apparently you didn’t get Dresden either.
    If I’m not mistaken, you believe that even if constitutional, restricting immigration would be immoral and or violate natural human rights.
    The Declaration of Independence states all men are created equal not all men are created Americans. If we don’t have the constitutional “right” to regulate immigration we should add that to the long list of thing we need to fix fia Article 5 or a convention.
    If you want to argue the morality of restricting or regulating who may or may not live in this country, you may join the rest of us standing on the flat ground next to the septic tank

  14. Adobe Walls
    September 6th, 2010 @ 4:58 pm

    @Thane Eichenauer

    “It has resulted in my personal mechanic moving to Maryland thereby forcing me to find another that I do not have any history with.”
    “You cost me MY SERVANT!”
    What is this a Harry Potter movie.

  15. Adobe Walls
    September 6th, 2010 @ 12:58 pm

    @Thane Eichenauer

    “It has resulted in my personal mechanic moving to Maryland thereby forcing me to find another that I do not have any history with.”
    “You cost me MY SERVANT!”
    What is this a Harry Potter movie.

  16. Thomas L. Knapp
    September 6th, 2010 @ 8:33 pm

    Adobe,

    The Arizona law certainly isn’t unconstitutional — since the federal government isn’t empowered to regulate immigration, that power is reserved to the states or the people. The state of Arizona has exercised that power, with the apparent support of a supermajority of people living there.

    Constitutional, however, is not the same as right, smart, a good idea, etc.

    Not being a constitutionalist, however, I find that whole argument of only passing interest.

  17. Thomas L. Knapp
    September 6th, 2010 @ 4:33 pm

    Adobe,

    The Arizona law certainly isn’t unconstitutional — since the federal government isn’t empowered to regulate immigration, that power is reserved to the states or the people. The state of Arizona has exercised that power, with the apparent support of a supermajority of people living there.

    Constitutional, however, is not the same as right, smart, a good idea, etc.

    Not being a constitutionalist, however, I find that whole argument of only passing interest.

  18. Clueless Klein, Or, Why Congress Recalls A Toilet : The Other McCain
    September 7th, 2010 @ 11:59 am

    […] last century, are going to require massive effort at every level to recover. We The People have to demonstrate commitment to entering a post-Progressive era, or the powers that be will simply await for the storm to blow […]