Posted on 09/11/2011 1:17:38 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
With the opening of the fall political season and tonight's Republican candidate debate, expect influential conservative voices to clamor for fellow conservatives to set aside half-measures, eschew conciliation, and adhere to conservative principle in its pristine purity. But what does fidelity to conservatism's core convictions mean?
Superstar radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has, with characteristic bravado, championed a take-no-prisoners approach. In late July, as the debt-ceiling debate built to its climax, he understandably exhorted House Speaker John Boehner to stand strong and rightly praised the tea party for "putting country before party." But then Mr. Limbaugh went further. "Winners do not compromise," he declared on air. "Winners do not compromise with themselves. The winners who do compromise are winners who still don't believe in themselves as winners, who still think of themselves as losers."
We saw the results of such thinking in November 2010, when Christine O'Donnell was defeated by Chris Coons in Delaware in the race for Vice President Joe Biden's vacated Senate seat. In Nevada Sharron Angle was defeated by Harry Reid, who was returned to Washington to reclaim his position as Senate majority leader. In both cases, the Republican senatorial candidate was a tea party favorite who lost a very winnable election.
The notion of conservative purity is a myth. The great mission of American conservatism—securing the conditions under which liberty flourishes—has always depended on the weaving together of imperfectly compatible principles and applying them to an evolving and elusive political landscape.
William F. Buckley Jr.'s 1955 Mission Statement announcing the launch of National Review welcomed traditionalists, libertarians and anticommunists. His enterprise provides a model of a big-tent conservatism supported by multiple and competing principles: limited government, free markets, traditional morality and strong national defense.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Just bend over and say please
“When dealing with a nuclear Iran, you can’t afford to make a mistake.
When dealing with 60 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, you can’t afford to play around.
When you have 9% unemployment and 47% of young African Americans unemployed and people are getting killed near the border, you can’t just smile and make a deal and pretend everything will be just fine.”
Wow—VERY well said!
A liberal paper left of the NYTs and NPR wants to define what it means to be “conservative?” Yeah, right.
That’s like asking the fox how to gaurd the eggs.
Reagan was also very frustrated at times with these “Fall on their sword” mean spirited, “All or none” types who called themselves true conservatives.
Conservatism without a reasonable level of pragmatic and personable relations, is a false philosophical premise.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the Apex of Conservatism, and he was most well known for being pragmatic as well as a champion of logical Conservative wisdom.
How do you compromise with MARXISTS?
Either that or my tagline.
what is your source on this?
Feel good?
WSJ is to the left of NPR?
I have never seen a single democrat compromise when they are in charge, or during a divided senate/house.
To them “compromise” consists of making an insane demand. We refuse. They cry until we agree to give them HALF of their demand. (the other half coming next session)
In a true compromise, each side gets something they want, and gives up something they want.
When they pass a new gun law, do they open up BLM and Forest areas they have closed for shooting? When they demand the close of ANWR, do they agree to support the oil sands pipeline, or allow more nuclear?
When they want mandatory healthcare, do they agree that illegal aliens should lose all government benefits?
When they want gay marriage, in exchange do they then agree to allow prayer and invocations at school events again?
No, none of these things happen because the left does not want “compromise”.
Compromise is not a one sided incremental movement towards the position of one side. The old game is over. (big middle finger)
Either way, the way that the Tea Party backed candidates campaign is no different than how Reagan campaigned in 1980. Even though Reagan compromised as president, he didn’t campaign on that.
The left and establishment DC GOP operatives always bring up Angle and O’Donnell as their proof for moderation, but leave out the nearly seventy seats won in the House, and Rubio, Lee, Ron Johnson, Scott Walker, Toomey, Rick Scott, Kasich, and countless others who won with the same exact message.
Angle lost to a sitting Majority Leader, which is tough for anyone to do, and O’Donnell was always going to have a hard time winning the general election. Having that loser Mike Castle in the Senate would have been worse than a Dem because he’d be another Snowe or McCain over the next decade stabbing out conservatives in the back on critical votes. Good riddance.
Rush Limbaugh’s often-made point is that congressional Republicans always compromise with Democrats but Democrats never compromise with Republicans. When the Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate, they need not compromise with Democrats. Lest we forget that the Democrats, while in power in both houses, rammed through ‘ObamaCare’ and basically shut the Republicans out of the process because they had the voting majority and had no need to crompromise with the Republicans, so they didn’t. When in that kind of position of power, Rush is urging the Republicans not to throw away their voting majority advantage by caving in to Democrat attempts to thwart conservative bills by adding ‘compromises’ that benefit only Democrats. What is the point of working so hard to win elections if we throw away our advantage by compromising with a party that is diametrically opposed to conservative principles?
“Moderates”, lying manipulative bottom feeding scum.
They’ve moderated the GOP into a coma and its still not enough. Funny how they have no interest in moderating the party that actually needs it.
There is no point.
I don’t think we (the Tea Party) are unrealistic in our aims. We are attempting to transform a broken system. Compromising in ways that allow that system to continue limping along doesn’t help.
There are two simultaneous goals here. One is to directly affect policy TODAY. THIS is why we will not be happy with variants of “That’s the best we could get for you...”.
The second goal, at least as important, is to bump the Overton Window of what is politically acceptable. Gov. Perry referring to SS as a ‘broken ponzi scheme’ is an example of that. (I’m not a Perry fan. Nevertheless, he does SAY all the right things.) This is where the Tea Party truly SHINES.
By moving the goalposts of what is acceptable politically (in ways that allow conservative thought that was once considered out of the mainstream to now be considered and debated, AND also by moving moderate RINO thought that was once considered mainstream to now be considered dangerous politically), we are influencing policy TOMORROW.
Elections have consequences and the time has come for those consequences to positively affect those that hold a conservative line.
Before we can compromise on a new way forward, we need to bring business as usual to a screeching halt. Until the Republican Party is no longer the Party driving us to socialism at 97mph (instead of 100), being a wrench in the works is not a bad goal.
The thing is, in my lifetime, and to my knowledge, all compromise has been in a leftward direction. Let’s see some compromise in a rightward direction.
That is, instead of the Left getting something more, they give up some of their precious “gains”.
“Progress” and “compromise” is a one-way racket, er, I mean ratchet.
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