Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

We Blew It
Weekly Standard ^ | 11/17/2008, Volume 014, Issue 09 | P. J O'Rourke

Posted on 11/10/2008 9:22:10 PM PST by gracie1

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble. The progeny of the Reagan Revolution will live instead in the universe that revolves around Hyde Park.

Mind you, they won't live in Hyde Park. Those leafy precincts will be reserved for the micromanagers and macro-apparatchiks of liberalism--for Secretary of the Department of Peace Bill Ayers and Secretary of the Department of Fairness Bernardine Dohrn. The formerly independent citizens of our previously self-governed nation will live, as I said, around Hyde Park. They will make what homes they can in the physical, ethical, and intellectual slums of the South Side of Chicago.

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 110th; 16yearcycle; bho2008; bush; conservatism; election2008; pjorourke; reaganrevolution
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041 next last
To: gracie1

for tomorrow


21 posted on 11/10/2008 9:45:08 PM PST by goodnesswins (CONSERVATIVES....saving America's A** whether you like it or not!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Oh pish-posh boyos. Everytime we loose, it’s the long knives, booze shots and woe-is-me mantras. Tell you what, take some time off and enjoy the holidays. The crap ain’t leaving...it’s still gonna be there when you recharge your batteries on Jan 2.

Listen to the “Vote Reaper”...you’ll find him quite entertaining.

Afterwhich, the GOP needs a “Council of Trent”.


22 posted on 11/10/2008 9:48:24 PM PST by curling
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: CitizenUSA
Liberalism is easy. Conservatism is more nuanced.

Yep, that's what Milton Friedman always said. "If there is something wrong," a bad businessman is usually behind it.
23 posted on 11/10/2008 9:49:29 PM PST by gipper81 (If anyone is asking "why?" - read the Road to Serfdom, FA Hayek)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: imahawk

If you look at the election data, GOP lost by narrow margins in 2006, and the margin expanded slightly in 2008 because 7 million less people (mostly conservative) voted. Problem is GOP are on the wrong side of many blue collar issues. No one questions the actions of CEO and financiers who lobby Congress, run companies into the ground, demand workers to cut their pay and benefits and yet collect huge bonuses even when the company fails. The GOP should be outraged at the CEO’s and financiers for doing such thing, instead we fall back to the argument that the CEO and etc are owners of the company and government/politicians should butt out of internal corporate affairs. Ross Perot once pointed out that main street Americans have something that lobbyists and corporations do not have, more voters. GOP ability to remain in power also depends on corporate Americas’ ability to treat their American workers fairly. Ignoring corporate America’s stupidity has manifested in losses in 2006, and the Wall Street crisis that brought down the GOP in 2008.


24 posted on 11/10/2008 9:51:36 PM PST by Fee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: gracie1

The longer the recession lasts, the more people will return to a frugal, conservative lifestyle, and at least on the financial side, conservatism will flourish. There really isn’t much chance for new big government programs in the Obama administration, and both sides of the aisle will have to learn to reign in spending, because so will their constituents.


25 posted on 11/10/2008 9:52:33 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gondring

Where is the rest of the article, I mean the media strategy recommended by the author? I don’t see one. Am I missing something?


26 posted on 11/10/2008 9:53:03 PM PST by Irene Adler (')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: gracie1

The fatal flaw in trickle down is that the fat cats invest their profits overseas instead of allowing the $ to trickle down.


27 posted on 11/10/2008 9:53:27 PM PST by shuckmaster (An oak tree is an acorns way of making more acorns.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CitizenUSA
I have no doubt Americans would be better off with a truly conservative government, but getting majorities to see the same thing is problematic. This is a generation that wants everything now, and they aren’t willing to forgo immediate gratification for some distant, greater good.

A truly conservative government would be a blessing, but I'd settle for a benevolent dictator because we have simply lost the ability to govern ourselves. We are infested with career politicians, and no rational person would want to be in the crosshairs known as the presidency; then we wonder why ballots are populated with egomaniacs like Aitch. We see derelects from society signed up to vote and bussed to the polls; we see countless interviews in which people cannot express a single cogent thought concerning what motivated him/her to vote. We have schools that preach the gospel of multiculturalism and political correctness, while opposing nothing save the ultimate evil known as intolerance.

And then we wonder what's wrong with our government. The answer is "nothing". We get the government we deserve - the problem is with our self-absorbed, post-Christian, instant-gratification, smarmy, pseudo-intellectual society.

28 posted on 11/10/2008 9:57:22 PM PST by awelliott
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: gracie1
Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

It's no more gone, in my opinion, than the Democratic Socialists were gone when GW Bush "stole" the election from Al Gore in 2000.

In fact, I think that G-d gave the Oval Office to Socialist Obama so that the people will ultimately be forced to reconnect with the Constitution and its history to protect themselves from Obama's misguided pen.

29 posted on 11/10/2008 10:24:00 PM PST by Amendment10
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: shuckmaster

Because the f-ing government taxes the hell out them. One time ago I realized that the overhead expense of being a US citizen is extreme. Talk about the rat race. The goverment is constantly there, like some sorta protection racket, to skim off your work to pay for things. We work hard, and yet the cost of living keeps going up goes up and up and up. Eventually, most people can’t keep up , and who do they turn to? The very bastards who designed this mess in the first place, the goverment. Tyranny my friends, and self imposed at that.


30 posted on 11/10/2008 10:32:41 PM PST by Hoosier-Daddy ("It does no good to be a super power if you have to worry what the neighbors think." BuffaloJack)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Arizona Carolyn
McCain ran a campaign to lose. Come on. A Socialist Organizer and we can't beat him? He gains massive $ inflows of offshore donations and McCain says nothing. This schwantz wanted to lose and surprise he did. Sarah deserved better
31 posted on 11/10/2008 10:40:13 PM PST by Hoosier-Daddy ("It does no good to be a super power if you have to worry what the neighbors think." BuffaloJack)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Hoosier-Daddy

That doesn’t excuse the people who stayed home and didn’t vote or voted third party... I always said I would crawl over broken glass to vote for the party because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate; unfortunately 20% of us were of the attitude like you that we deserved to lose... well this country does not deserve what is about to befall it due to that selfish attitude... these are the same people who stayed home in 2006 and put Nancy and Harry in charge.. how is that working out for you?


32 posted on 11/10/2008 10:53:31 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: gracie1

I can summarize the demise of Conservatism in two words:

Bush

McCain

Take back the party, 2010!


33 posted on 11/10/2008 11:21:48 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (SARAH *** JOE *** 2012!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gracie1
"We blew it."

34 posted on 11/10/2008 11:23:30 PM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie
I can summarize the demise of Conservatism in two words: Bush McCain

No, 4 words: Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain

But hell, toward the end even Goldwater wasn't a 3-leg conservative.
35 posted on 11/10/2008 11:28:17 PM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: CitizenUSA
“We are reaching the point where people who are dependent on government largess outnumber those who produce.”

Yes, there will be bread and circuses — welfare handouts and American Idol — from an Emperor ruling a once proud Republic, who has the audacity to think himself a God, nay Messiah. But as he fiddled and wrote his verses about his father, Rome burnt and the masses ran riot in the streets. He proclaimed, “What is a god to do? Call out the guards to protect me.” But Collin Powell was out dancing with the boyz in the hood, and Bill Ayers was teaching al qaeda recruits and Westley Clark how to blow up buildings. So he was left by himself to talk to the mob without the miracle of a teleprompter... Life is so unfair.

36 posted on 11/10/2008 11:29:14 PM PST by Blind Eye Jones
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: gracie1

I like PJ. Will print out for later read.


37 posted on 11/11/2008 2:25:44 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Arizona Carolyn

He got my vote, but only because the alternative (reality) was too frightening to imagine.


38 posted on 11/11/2008 6:21:24 AM PST by Hoosier-Daddy ("It does no good to be a super power if you have to worry what the neighbors think." BuffaloJack)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Gondring

Did you read the entire article?

He says our stance on abortion is wrong, our stance on illegals is wrong, and our stance on prop 8 is wrong.

I suspect if all read the article you might have a different take.


39 posted on 11/11/2008 6:57:51 AM PST by arjay (I would rather be right than consistent.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: 21stCenturion

...


40 posted on 11/11/2008 9:45:54 AM PST by 21stCenturion ("It's the Judges, Stupid !")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson