Posted on 05/22/2008 9:48:34 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Recent congressional losses, President George W. Bush's unpopularity, and bleak generic ballot poll numbers have conservatives fearing the "liberalization" of America – a move toward secularization, the growth of government, stagnation, mediocrity and loss of freedom.
Yet there is still a way to revive the conservative cause. Doing so will require avoiding the traps of pessimism or election-year quick fixes. Conservatives need to stand back for a moment and think about our philosophical first principles.
Conservatives value the lessons of history and respect faith and tradition. They are skeptical of mass movements, perfect solutions and what often passes for "progress." At the same time, they recognize that change is inevitable. They also know that while man is prone to err, he is capable of great things and is meant to be free in an unfettered market of ideas, not subjugated by a too-powerful government.
These were the principles relied upon by our Founding Fathers, and which paved the way for a Constitution that delineated the powers of the central government, established checks and balances among its branches, and further diffused its power through a system of federalism. These principles led to a market economy, the primacy of the rule of law and the abolition of slavery. They also helped to establish liberal trade policies and to meld idealism and realism in our foreign and military policies.
The power of conservative principles is borne out in the most strong, prosperous and free country in the history of the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
It's like a guy who cheats on his wife, and now has to convince her that, if given another chance, he won't do it again.
Excellent essay by the man who should be our next president.
Can someone tell me again how the hell John McCain won the nomination? All I remember is seeing him at the bottom of the polls, then a haze came over me and all of a sudden he was the nominee. I’m still not sure it’s real.
Characteristic, refreshing common sense from FDT. His writing usually reminds me of how uncommon common sense really is these days.
Maybe he does want to be the veep...
Wow, an article by a Republican that doesn’t end up with suck it up, hold your nose and take the plunge on November 4th. I didn’t think such articles existed these days.
From your lips to God’s ear.
The Conservative cause needs a leader. How about it, Fred? You're perfect for the job!
The media picked him. The MSM constantly printed/said wonderful things about McCain, while continually painting Romney as evil incarnate. People bought it. Oh, and IMHO, a lot of Dem crossover voting for McCain to ensure that the Dems wouldn't have to run against Romney. The left feared Romney and felt that McCain was either beatable, or if he actually won the presidency, he is actually one of them anyway.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I know what you mean. Remember when Rudy was the guy to beat? Then Romney? Then Huckabee? After a late start, Thompson stirred up a lot of media attention. All the while, McCain was not on anyone's radar screen and then suddenly he's the nominee. It's almost surreal.
“The Death of Conservatism Is Greatly Exaggerated”
It’s not dead. It’s just not wanted in the Republican Party any longer.
I find it totally ironic that those who constantly dismissed Fred because he was “too old” are now some of the most ardent John McCain supporters.
Fred aint dead and i’m feeling better myself Bump
Until the Republican Party goes back to its core values it will continue to lose elections.
That's easy. Everyone had this mental list of who they would vote for in order of preference. John McCain was at near the bottom of all those lists. Even some democrats were higher on the list. Nobody was paying attention to John McCain way down there at the bottom, well because he was at the bottom so had no chance of winning. McCain was out of money and out of ideas early in the political season and almost quit before Fred Thompson even got in.
So everyone one the top half of the list just kicked each other around and kick each other out. Suddenly nobody is left on the list except McCain who did absolutely jack squat the entire first half of the season.
Well all the sudden he found out he was the only person actually left in the race and said well guess I'm stayin in then. It wasn't that McCain really won the nomination, it was more that everyone else lost.
I'm not sure but I think that is the same strategy that McCain is employing now that he is the nominee. Let Obama and Hillary knock each other out and he'll be the last person standing.
Just curious because you are in Alaska, how would you feel about Gov. Sarah Palin for McCains’s VP ?
For later read.
Good story. Parallels my own.
I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I doubt it will happen. Veeps are designed to balance the ticket and maybe pull in a swing state. Alaska will go Mcain irregardless of who is veep, so Sarah Palin wouldn't bring enough balance to the ticket.
Sounds like he's saying that Conservatives no longer have a significant political party that represents their values. I totally agree.
The real root of the problem indeed. Funny Thompson can use the name Bush and Conservatism. Bush both in 2000 and 2004 ran as a left leaning Moderate {trying to be Gore Lite in 2000} and shunned the Conservatives in the GOP away from him. It was not Reagan Republicans or Independent Conservatives he embraced, rather it was the Ford/Rockefeller GOP who has had his ear for 8 solid years and have all but destroyed the party since gaining platform and leadership control in late 1995.
Conservatism isn't dead but the GOP as a party is almost in a terminal state. The GOP doesn't have exclusive ownership of Conservative voters as they come from the DEMs as well as Independents. Those are the cross over voters. If the Dems want a GOP Liberal they'll vote for their own. If they see a GOP Moderate vs their own Liberal they may stay home. If the GOP ever wants landslides in POTUS and Congressional elections again it had better get back to the basics meaning the platform that won them the 1994 congressional elections and stick to it this time. Otherwise they are nothing more than the other Democratic Party.
The way I see it, the first four primary elections were mainly liberal states that allowed open primaries, that is, the Republicans allowed liberals and independents to destroy the candidacy of ALL of the conservatives that were on the ballot.
But she could pull the Hillary voters over that are angry with Obama,if he gets the dem nod, for being “sexist”
I couldn’t agree with you more.
ear-mark
btt
Nah, the MSM or media didn’t pick him. The powers that be did simply because he is a front. Not that the others weren’t; but he agrees with their agenda. But, more to the point; the powers that be want globalization and be dammed with America or anyone else.
Conservatives failed to unite behind Fred Thompson, the most conservative of the serious candidates. This was partly Thompson's fault. He did not successfully rally social conservatives behind him and did not successfully answer the constant attacks of the Left.
Many conservatives were more focused on defeating Rudy Giuliani than in electing a conservative. The McCain and Huckabee campaigns teamed up to fight Thompson and Romney.
standing by conservative principles does not always guarantee success at the ballot box – it did for Ronald Reagan, but not for Barry Goldwater. But abandoning these principles doesn't ensure victory either. Circumstances often play the deciding role
The anxiety which this conservative feels is that we no longer operate in an "unfettered market of ideas" but rather we are being simply engulfed by " circumstances."
In a world of political correctness, which actually means in a world of cultural Marxism, we conservatives are being philosophically, culturally, and linguistically isolated. Liberals have not only distorted our vocabulary, they have stolen our language, our epistemology. We can no longer communicate with cultural symbols or with commonly accepted expressions of principle that our fellow citizens, who are not committed conservatives, easily hear and accept as familiar. Cultural Marxism has succeeded in isolating and marginalizing the world of conservative principles so that we can no longer express in a language that will be understood those principles which Fred Thompson says are timeless.
Let me illustrate: I grew up at the time of Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet. Despite the preoccupation by these sitcoms to undermine the role of the father, it was understood through the whole of the culture that the father was the ultimate head of the household who operated by and through collaboration with the mother. He was a figure of respect and authority. But then, in those days so was my pastor. The cultural Marxist concluded that a paternalistic society (just like a Christian society represented by the pastor) was a society prone to rejecting Marxism and equally prone to accepting fascism. So they undertook to destroy the positive image in the popular mind of both the father and the pastor and they succeeded brilliantly. What is the last time you saw any depiction of a Protestant cleric in a positive light?
In every election cycle and often in between we will see published in these threads some report about some psychiatrist or group of psychiatrists who have concluded after a study of Reagan, or Bush, and now McCain, that the current Republican leader is somehow psychologically deficient. This comes right out of their catechism which says that the paternal society is a society susceptible to fascism.
Today, a candidate, even those on the left, has to be very careful of his affiliations with any pastor. That is because symbols of our society which formally had been regarded to be positive have become radioactive. It is the left which now conditions our culture so that it reacts 180° different from the way a thinking conservative reacts to the same stimulus. The left controls our culture through the media and the Academy.
We all know how the media does it we see countless examples everyday. But the left lays the intellectual foundation for what the media does in the Academy. There the left has done away with rationality and substituted an epistemology based not on the scientific method but on Marxist "science." Thus we get the bizarro world of women's studies which has so departed from "rational" discourse to be a national disgrace. Yet the the most august academic institutions in the world, the Harvard's and the Yales, are utterly incapable themselves of addressing the cancer in their midst which is a reproach on their very reason for existence. Instead of cleaning house, Harvard fired Larry Summer for a gaffe involving a breach of Marxist etiquette and the abandonment of intellectual rationality was symbolically completed.
If Harvard cannot contrive, in Fred Thompson's words, a, "free [and] unfettered market of ideas", which is after all the very essence of their business, where can we find one? It is no good to respond that Harvard is peculiar, it is not, it is merely the head of a rotten fish.
What this means is that our academic community tells the world that you can form opinions and describe them in symbols and language which are irrational so long as they are politically correct. Conversely, the Academy tells us that we may not express opinions in language and symbols which are contrary to cultural Marxism even if they are rational. Is it not necessary to detail the application of this Orwellian doctrine to the candidacy of Barak Obama. Rush Limbaugh, for example, has brilliantly lampooned the taboos of criticism established by the media: his ears, his wife, his parents, his religion, his pastor, his voting record, and etc. etc. etc. On the other hand, this callow candidate, an empty vessel, has become a symbol into which the media pours all the positive imagery it can muster.
Name your issue, immigration? The debate has been cast by the left as a matter of racism and so the subject closes. Tax cuts? The debate has been cast by the left as a matter of class warfare. Gasoline prices? The debate has been cast by the left in anti-capitalist terms of profiteering. Homeland security? The debate has been cast as a matter of incipient fascism. Free-market values? The debate is cast as a matter of environmental crisis. The list could be extended almost indefinitely to reinforce the point that the left's response to every issue is to cast the issue in terms that are congruent with Marxism. In doing so it has the intellectual support of our universities and think tanks and the overwhelming cultural support of our media. They have succeeded so well that language and symbols no longer have recognizable meaning.
We have gone from Leave It to Beaver to Brokeback Mountain in a generation. It encapsulates a cultural revolution.
Small wonder that Fred Thompson concedes:standing by conservative principles does not always guarantee success at the ballot box
Conservatism isn’t dead, just conservative ‘leaders’.
Fools support for amnesty may signal the death of conservative Republicans.
Hear me Juan McLame?
This needs to be the REAL convention revolution - dump McCain, and nominate FDT instead.
A lot of Democrats and Independents voted for him in the early open primaries which carry disproportionate weight in determining the GOP nominee.
Way to fix the problem? Hold every State's primary on the same day, and close them so only Republicans can vote in them.
Good point. I know, well, people from California to Colorado to Texas to Mississippi to Michigan who voted for Paul, people who voted for Thompson, people who voted for Huckabee. I know people who voted for Hillary in the Dem primary. I know people who voted for Obama.
I personally know not one person who voted for McCain. At our caucus, there was one vote for McCain (I didn't know the man).
Obviously, this "survey" is invalid, but questions arise. Did these people vote for him and now hide their stands due to buyer's remorse, lack of courage, embarrassment, or some other reason (I doubt it--they are all outspoken)? Or are the McCain votes ephemeral.
Well, let’s see....it’s the bottom of the 9th inning, republicans are trailing 4 to 1, the runner on first base just got picked off, the runner on second died from heat stroke and the runner on third is trapped in a run-down between third and home.
McCain is at the plate. He has a bucket over his head, he’s facing the wrong way and he can’t find his bat.
Yep, looks good.
It makes me want to cry that he wasn’t picked.
"...Conservatives value the lessons of history and respect faith and tradition. They are skeptical of mass movements, perfect solutions and what often passes for "progress." At the same time, they recognize that change is inevitable. They also know that while man is prone to err, he is capable of great things and is meant to be free in an unfettered market of ideas, not subjugated by a too-powerful government.
McCain became the presumptive nominee while winning only 31% of the total primary vote. Winner take all and open primaries helped McCain game the system.
A South Carolina guy told me that once it was clear Obama was a sure thing, he voted for McCain on the Repub ballot. I’m sure that happened a lot. Open primaries are stupid.
Well said.
Did Bush choose Cheney to get Wyoming (or to get Texas, if you accept the Democrats claim that Cheney really resided in Texas)? No ... neither state.
Very well said. Thanks for posting.
In a word; Huckster. He pulled the SoCons (who already did not like Romney) away from Fred and handed the nomination to McCain.
“Can someone tell me again how the hell John McCain won the nomination? All I remember is seeing him at the bottom of the polls, then a haze came over me and all of a sudden he was the nominee. I’m still not sure it’s real.”
I’m afraid it is real! But keep seeing McCain referred to as the “presumptive Republican nominee”. So wish something would happen to cause a BIG CHANGE at convention! A draft of a Thompson/Romney ticket would be a dream come true!
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