Mark, because he started the discussion. JR because I thought he’d like the original comments...I keep trying to change his mind about Mitt support. :>)
Marlowe, because he’s a friend, but also a lawyer with constitutional credentials and some great insights. No need to continue pinging JR. If I’m gonna make my point, I already tried and only time will tell.
Government Ending Freedom: How to prevent it?
Some say the best strategy is to go along with Mitt, dump him later, and then try to start over in the proper direction.
Some say the best strategy is to view Mitt as a continuation of the problem and go the future direction now.
I’m in the 2nd camp.
” Some say the best strategy is to view Mitt as a continuation of the problem and go the future direction now.
I’m in the 2nd camp.”
I would be in the second camp as well, but I am not at all convinced that there will be another chance if we don’t stop the Marxist now.
I don’t agree with either strategy as stated. The problem is more complex than that. As a Christian I’m not looking for another Savior. Nor do I want a guru or model or hero. I am an adult and can admire, but not blindly. Humans are fault-filled.
Both strategy models suffer from the “savior complex” and you find it on the left and the right. It is both politically immature and culturally naive. We didn’t get here because of one person or group. What we’re up against is the idea of central planning and it is an idea as old as mankind.
To a normal mind it makes sense and over history has had great benefits as well as great costs. The fundamental question of how to organize a society has generally tended toward some form of oligarchy, often totalitarian in nature. Liberty, real liberty, is rare, but it is founded on two ideas: individual God-given liberty and property rights.
The first denies group rights and elevates the individual. The second allows people to control the physical world around them. Note that these two ideas are fairly fresh in the mind of man. Though the thinking behind them is old, the combination of the two has occurred in just the last 400 or so years of human history. Given that written history is about 10,000 years old we have learned about those two concepts in the most recent part of known history.
That idea is up against the idea of central planning by an elite oligarchy. Understand that this oligarchy can be based on any factor - physical strength or skill (hunting/gathering/basic survival), cunning in politics or military arts, intelligence - science, engineering, etc. We aren’t against a particular party or person(s), but against an idea. The idea of liberty is ill understood, even by those that espouse it.
In the 20th century the latest manifestation was communism or fascism - both totalitarian in nature and both based on central planning. At an inflection point - WWI and again at WWII (both of which were manifestations of economic/philosophical conflict) - America’s leaders - first Teddy Roosevelt, then Wilson, Hoover and FDR - all fell for the allure of central planning. How did this happen?
Progressivism as practiced by Teddy Roosevelt built upon several good ideas - corporations could abuse their political power (this is something they’d done during the 19th century, causing quite some economic harm) and that individuals needed help in their sufferings. These are classic Christian ideals - government abuse or abuse by the powerful/wealthy and the duty of all Christians to alleviate suffering. The devil is in the details and the way TR took action opened the flood gates for government intervention in business affairs to an extent and in a way unknown at the federal level. If individual states abused their powers the SCOTUS had been effective in blocking it, thus preserving federalism and competition between ideas by means of the states. TR nationalized business regulation and destroyed the effective system of federalism.
Wilson was a typical liberal. Hoover did the most damage and is your strongest argument against Romney. As a Republican he went left fast and hard and exacerbated what would have been a fairly easily cured economic downturn. All this lead to a global depression and FDR. I’m certain you’re familiar with FDR’s massive expansion of government, the GOP and SCOTUS lead resistance and the eventual collapse of that resistance and the victory of socialism as a reasonable recourse in “tough times”.
That did it and LBJ’s Great Society was inevitable along with Nixon’s EPA, Carter’s terrible foreign policy and the malaise. The trouble then isn’t with a person or even the cult of personality that grows around politicians in general and Presidents specifically. The trouble is with the idea, the idea of central planning.
Here in the 21st century we have to defeat the idea of central planning. Everyone sees the problem, but not the solution. Economics has come along to such a degree that even liberal business people and economists see the trouble with central planning. A radical like Krugman is pushing his agenda only because we’re in a “crisis”. That is truly a big victory for our side.
So to me the fight isn’t going to be won by Romney or even Reagan II. It will be won by beating bad ideas wherever they may come up. Imagine for a moment you’re suddenly elevated to POTUS. What could you do? Even if you appointed 100% like minded individuals you couldn’t change things that much even over 8 years. You’d need a cooperative Congress, SC and state and local governments. That isn’t reality, not at all.
So the proper approach is incrementalism. We do that by 1. ending the government’s monopoly on education. I’m no purist so I’ll take vouchers, charter schools, etc. Though I homeschool that’s not available to every parent or family. Inject choice and end unionism in government and the problem eventually cures itself. Without constant indoctrination American children will move away from liberalism quickly.
2. Attack ferociously the idea of corporate welfare. For the GOP it is best to attack corporate welfare. It is a winning strategy and gives our nominally pro-market approach a shield against populism. This means breaking the government imposed monopolies, eliminating farm subsidies, etc. Much of this won’t be politically tenable all the time, but you take what you can get. Presenting corporate welfare as a culturally destructive practice is a political winner.
3. Individual welfare must be reconsidered. By this I mean SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and general governmental welfare. Social Security should be recast as what it actually is: a welfare net to support poor retirees. It should be strictly managed with this in mind. Medicare and Medicaid actually don’t work well at all and we need to move toward a real market in health care including tax reform that makes health insurance taxable just like other income. As regards to the epidemic of teen moms we have to move toward an adoption model, that includes implanted birth control. Once you break the pattern you can move toward a liberty based method.