The Other McCain

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

Is Norquist Thinking Wishfully?

Posted on | December 2, 2012 | 34 Comments

by Smitty

The whole clip is interesting, but the interviewer brings up the Tea Parties ~9:55. Grover’s premise is that Obama’s economic policies are going to have such a negative effect as to trigger a small-business backlash against Obama, presumably because after BHO has, say, doubled unemployment, there will be more loose people to demonstrate:

Via Tea Party News Network.

Donald Douglas cautions: “Don’t Promote Grover Norquist as Voice of Resurgent Tea Party Movement“, and links a Front Page Mag article that highlights GN’s various ‘odd’ connections.

They are indeed worrisome, but, if Norquist is on the board of the NRA and the ACU, should we blow off the NRA? Should we skip CPAC? The guilt by association is a slippery slope, for all have sinned, and fall shortly into the glory hole of Cthulhu.

My ambivalence on Norquist’s famous Tax Pledge is similar: you have to start somewhere, but self-congratulation for plugging one hull breach is silly if we’re still taking on water in five other locations. I’d like to know GN’s plan for moving from controlling taxation to unwinding the rest of the Progressive Project and restoring federalism and the notion of separation of powers.

Ground truth: there is a tremendous leadership vacuum on the right. While we can agree on a laundry list of things to do, there really is not yet any standard bearer with enough charisma, vision, and name recognition to unite the right. Thus, if Grover chooses either to promote or try to become that frontman, I’m not going to bother heckling until there is something more interesting available. Leadership is where you find it, and all purity test victories have a Pyrrhic flavor to them.

Category: Tea Party

Comments

34 Responses to “Is Norquist Thinking Wishfully?”

  1. Barbara Espinosa
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 8:01 am

    The Tea Parties were part of the problem in 2012 election. The group of Tea Partiers and conservative bloggers that started Anybody but Romney campaign. Well they got anybody but Romney

  2. McGehee
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 9:34 am

    Norquist’s stand on taxes is based on the now denigrated notion that Congress can’t spend what it doesn’t collect in taxes. One would think the persistence of deficits over the decades would have disabused him. Certainly a $16T national debt ought to.

    None of which means that abandoning the pledge should be shrugged off lightly. It’s simply brainless to surrender anything, however trivial, willingly to the Leviathan.

  3. K-Bob
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 9:51 am

    This isn’t your fault, Smitty, but you happened to mention that word…

    … If I had to pick the one word that is used in the most anger-inciting, careless or cynical way, out of all the words used throughout the entire panoply of right side commentary, it would be “purity.”

    I’ve had that tossed in my face so many times for simply pointing out one. single. problem–one!–with either a candidate or a position or a tactic, that I can’t take it any more. It’s the word people on the right use that acts as the tactical inverse of the left’s favorite STFU word, “racism,” in that it is used *against* us, *by* us, and it’s used specifically (by far too many who should really know better by now), to either derive the maximum offensiveness when it is played, or showcase the most astounding carelessness. It’s the fart at the Thanksgiving table. The cell-phone going off during the wedding. The Cleveland Steamer in the punchbowl.

    The reality is, if a guy like, oh, say Grover Norquist (to just pick some random guy), wants to be in the leadership of any movement–left or right–then he needs to be on board with at least ninety percent of the principles, policies, and positions OF that movement. Otherwise all he would be doing is trying to take it over and turn it into something else. And you can’t lead that way. All the important ships have to be headed in the same general direction or it’s just not really D-Day anymore.

    See, If there is one great thing about the recent election–one truly excellent thing about it, at all–it is this: We no longer have to pay attention to what these 80%-or-less A*holes say. Their entire universe of arguments has been washed away even more devastatingly than the Jersey shore. At best they are ministers without portfolio, and anything good they may have done is now firmly in the prehistoric past.

    Prehistoric, did I write? Yes. Because we’re now in the post-cliff Election cycle. The cliff is going to happen before 2016 (or never. Place bets). Trusting these 80-percent-conservatives at a time like this is like Israel giving up land for peace.

    No more.

    We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

  4. K-Bob
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 10:23 am

    And yes, the segment was interesting. Norquist isn’t stupid, just like Rove isn’t stupid, so he can do a solid interview. That’s not what I was addressing in that rant (ramble). When you look at what he’s done though, …my God.

  5. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 10:42 am

    Norquist is right on taxes and spending (we have a spending problem, not a lack of tax revenue problem), but his ties to Arab governments is disturbing and don’t want to elevate him or make him out to be something more than he is. He is definitely a Hedgehog on his tax pledge. Okay.

    Our debt is not 16 Trillion, when you add in all the entitlement commitments it is more than ten times that amount and growing. This glacier of debt will grind us (and Europe) down, just like glaciers can scour mountain ranges, it is just a matter of time. And the thing about glaciers is they are not as slow as you think. They can sneak up on you but can move surprisingly fast.

    The next best hope? It might be Brazil.

  6. Coulter76
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 10:54 am

    I’m a Norquist fan, and he more than any other individual ended the Democrat “Lucy and football” scam of “give us tax increases, then we promise to cut spending.”

    I will say though, if Republicans could extract REAL entitlement reform, I would go along with a tax increase, but don’t think for a minute that’s what Obama and Democrats are wiling to do.

    I would go along with Simpson-Bowles reform in a heartbeat, and I think conservatives made a mistake dismissing it out of hand.

    The United States is simply never going to give super majorities to Tea Party conservatives that are going to be able to both cut entitlements, taxes, and domestic spending.

  7. SDN
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 11:01 am

    The United States under a warm-body democracy is simply never going to give super majorities to Tea
    Party conservatives that are going to be able to both cut entitlements,
    taxes, and domestic spending.

    FTFY. And it’s why I view a second Revolutionary War as necessary and desirable. The Founders did not intend a warm body democracy where takers had just as much of a vote as makers. However, there is no peaceful way to reform back to that ideal. Ergo, Revolutionary War II and a removal of the Tories / Leftists. And since it must be done, ’twere well it were done quickly.

  8. Coulter76
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 11:04 am

    Or conservatives could be sneaky like Democrats and once Entitlements were reformed, go back and reform the tax code?

    It’s MUCH easier to lower taxes than it is to reform entitlements.

    Of course, we could also have a Civil War.

  9. steveb
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 11:19 am

    So, let me get this right – the American media slams republicans and conservatives every single second of the day 24/7, and all of a sudden they do the EF Hutton act on every word Norquist utters. A man who hasn’t been relevant in a good while. So, the media, who hates our stinking guts, is now appointing a guy, with very strong ties to Islam, as our defacto leader. Smitty, is that the train you want to jump on? Sure about that?

  10. McGehee
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 11:31 am

    It’s not about jumping on trains or even dying on hills. It’s about letting the media stampede us by any tactic.

    The fact they’re playing up Norquist means they want him isolated. Why should we give Leviathan what it wants?

  11. Dai Alanye
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 12:32 pm

    Under present conditions I propose we give the libs what they want (sorta) with a wealth tax on billionaires. Come out against the income tax as a penalty on work, yet go after the ultra-rich like Warren Buffett via a tax they cannot avoid.

    Will such a proposal become law? Not a chance with two branches of government against it, but the screams from privileged leftists will be sweet. Might even attract some of the “takers” to our side.

  12. K-Bob
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 1:22 pm

    Dang, that was grumpy. Trust me, it wasn’t aimed at Smitty or most of yez.

  13. Quartermaster
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 1:32 pm

    I fear we may have one. Lincoln’s war of 1861-1865 was not a civil war, unpleasant though it was. A real civil war would have been far, far nastier, and far more destructive of both regions. For the north, the war of northern aggression was just a war of imperial conquest, and a war for independence for the south. The south could not have cared less about Massachusetts She just wanted to be left alone.

  14. Quartermaster
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 1:36 pm

    Norquist is a Dhimmi and the lamestream media know it. They are glad to play up idiots like Norquist and Lindsey Graham simply because of their divisive influence.

  15. K-Bob
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 3:10 pm

    Graham is a lot like Norquist, in that when he finally bothers to engage in the right issues at the right time, he’s freaking brilliant. The rest of the time you want to see him locked away in a ward somewhere where he can’t hurt himself.

  16. Coulter76
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 3:34 pm

    I’d love a peaceful secession, but if you can’t even get the “red states” to vote in a conservative vs a liberal Senator, something tells me you’re not going to get a majority of those same state residents to vote for starting a new country, much less take up arms against this nation and be ready to die on a battlefield.
    The Tea Party started out as a real movement that was gaining traction to tackle the fiscal nightmare of this country, but then the idiot SoCons decided to latch on because they had been wisely ignored by conservatives for so long. Most people now associate the Tea Party with the 700 Club. We got bogged down in the Culture War talking about rape babies instead of a roadmap to keep us from becoming Greece.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 6:23 pm

    Smitty wrote: …The guilt by association is a slippery slope, for all have sinned, and fall shortly into the glory hole of Cthulhu.

    I am a sinner, but I have never provided aid and comfort to our enemies. I have never consorted with terrorists who want to destroy Western Civilization. I have never worked closely with people who would enslave and murder Jews. I have never promoted the causes of those who are working to overthrow The Constitution and seen that they get access to our President. Grover Norquist has, and continues to do all of these things.

    As for the NRA, CPAC, et. al.: pressure must be put upon them to rid themselves of Norquist’s presence.

    Grover Norquist is a menace to our side and our embrace of him compromises our legitimacy.

    He must be shunned.

  18. Bob Belvedere
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 6:27 pm

    His ties are with Muslims – those who want to murder us or enslave us.

  19. Bob Belvedere
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 6:29 pm

    Agree with you, SDN, except for the ‘Tories’ part: I am a Tory, which means ‘outlaw’ in Gaelic.

  20. Bob Belvedere
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 6:32 pm

    That the majority of people in this country willingly except Leftism is no reason for us to seek deals with the Left. The Left never, ever, makes a fair deal. They have rejected Morality in favor of Ideology. They take advantage of our Honor and lie and deceive us.

    You don’t compromise with Evil…and Leftism is Evil.

  21. Bob Belvedere
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 6:33 pm

    Grover Norquist Delenda Est, Conservatores!

  22. Bob Belvedere
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 6:35 pm

    I say the Republicans should Abstain from every vote and let any measures be passed by Democrats only. They want to rule, well then, let them.

  23. Wombat_socho
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 7:02 pm

    You do realize that Stacy, Smitty and I can all be classified as social conservatives as well as Tea Party supporters? I suggest you mind your manners before you have to find another blog to poop on.

  24. Quartermaster
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 8:10 pm

    Conservatives would be no where close to where we are now if not for the SoCons. The real problems are the Neocons who think you can throw away the social issues and still win. Morality is a serious problem in this country. In fact, immorality is why we are where we are as a country. Freedom is only for the moral. Without it the only thing that can keep the peace is a police state. So, If you want the SoCons to go away, I wish you luck in keeping anything like freedom.

  25. Quartermaster
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 8:11 pm

    I’m sure there are a good many moonbats that would be glad to classify you and I as Tories.

  26. Finrod Felagund
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 10:00 pm

    We don’t have a colossal debt because we don’t have enough revenue, we have a colossal debt because we spend too bloody much, period.

  27. Finrod Felagund
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 10:03 pm

    Why did Mourdock and Akin lose? Because they said stupid stuff that’s OK with the SoCons but with no one else in this country.

  28. McGehee
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 10:56 pm

    Norquist means nothing to me — but he obviously means something to the Leviathan. And for that alone I would deny it a meal of him.

  29. K-Bob
    December 2nd, 2012 @ 11:03 pm

    That’s why I love this bar. Uhh, site.
    Social conservatism, mixed with Tea Party fiscal outrage and all grounded in the workable, best parts of libertarianism.

    It’s like finding out they play “both kinds” of music here.

  30. Thane_Eichenauer
    December 3rd, 2012 @ 12:24 am

    Heaven (or heck) help us if Grover Norquist is ever cast in a remake of The Manchurian Candidate. If so I would find a way to buy shares in Muslim Conspiracy, Inc.

  31. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2012 @ 9:01 am

    Let ’em. In England the term was originally meant as an insult, but the conservatives embraced the slur and the rest is history.

    I’m in sympathy with John Derbyshire’s sentiment [I say ‘sympathy’ because his Atheism is sometimes offensive]:

    I’m an old Tory. I don’t want anyone telling me how to live, and I think society will keep its shape well enough if we all cleave to some common, traditional understandings, support a strong executive leadership on the rare occasions it’s called for, give over our minds to communal religious observances for an hour or two per month, and mind our own businesses the rest of the time….

  32. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2012 @ 9:03 am

    John Adams: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  33. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2012 @ 9:05 am

    He is most certainly not a TMC. Norquist is doing this of his own free will. The evidence is there that he is, at best, a Dhimmi.

  34. Eric Ashley
    December 3rd, 2012 @ 10:42 am

    This is THE BASE.