The Myth of an Impure GOP (Ideologically sound, but not always effective)

National Review ^ | 01/15/2013 | Jonah Goldberg

[SeekAndFind]

It’s hard for a lot of people, particularly on the right, to recognize that the conservative movement’s problems are mostly problems of success. But the Republican party’s problems are much more recognizable as the problems of failure, including the failure to recognize the limits of that movement’s success.

American conservatism began as a kind of intellectual hobbyists’ group with little hope of changing the broader society. Albert Jay Nock, the cape-wearing libertarian intellectual — he called himself a “philosophical anarchist” — who inspired a very young William F. Buckley Jr., argued that political change was impossible because the masses were rubes, goons, fools, or sheep, victims of the eternal tendency of the powerful to exploit the powerless.

Buckley, who rightly admired Nock for many things, rightly disagreed on this point. Buckley trusted the people more than the intellectuals. Moreover, as Buckley’s friend Richard Weaver said, “ideas have consequences,” and, consequently, it is possible to rally the public to your cause.

It took time. In an age when conservative books make millions, it’s hard to imagine how difficult it once was to get a right-of-center book published. Henry L. Regnery, the founder of the publishing house that bears his name, started his venture to break the wall of groupthink censorship surrounding the publishing industry. With a few exceptions, Regnery was the only game in town for decades.

That’s hardly the case anymore. While there’s a higher bar for conservative authors at mainstream publishers (which remain overwhelmingly liberal), profit tends to trump ideology.

And publishing is a lagging indicator. In cable news, think tanks, talk radio, and, of course, the Internet, conservatives have at least rough parity with, and often superiority to, liberals. It’s only in the legacy institutions — newspapers, the broadcast networks, and most especially academia and Hollywood — that conservatism is still largely frozen out. Nonetheless, conservatism is a mass-market enterprise these days, for good and for ill.

The good is obvious. The ill is less understood. For starters, the movement has an unhealthy share of hucksters eager to make money from stirring rage, paranoia, and an ill-defined sense of betrayal with little concern for the real political success that can come only with persuading the unconverted.

A conservative journalist or activist can now make a decent living while never once bothering to persuade a liberal. Telling people only what they want to hear has become a vocation. Worse, it’s possible to be a rank-and-file conservative without once being exposed to a good liberal argument. Many liberals lived in such an ideological cocoon for decades, which is one reason conservatives won so many arguments early on. Having the right emulate that echo chamber helps no one.

Ironically, the institution in which conservatives had their greatest success is the one most besieged by conservatives today: the Republican party. To listen to many grassroots conservatives, the GOP establishment is a cabal of weak-kneed sellouts who regularly light votive candles to a poster of liberal Republican icon Nelson Rockefeller.

This is not only not true, it’s a destructive myth. The Rockefeller Republicans were purged from the GOP decades ago. Their high-water mark was in 1960, when the Goldwater insurgency was temporarily crushed. Richard Nixon agreed to run on a platform all but dictated by Rockefeller and to tap Rockefeller’s minion Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate. When the forebears of today’s tea partiers threatened to stay home or bolt the party in 1960, Senator Barry Goldwater proclaimed, “Let’s grow up, conservatives!”

It’s still good advice. It’s not that the GOP isn’t conservative enough, it’s that it isn’t tactically smart or persuasive enough to move the rest of the nation in a more conservative direction. Moreover, thanks in part to the myth that all that stands between conservatives and total victory is a philosophically pure GOP, party leaders suffer from a debilitating lack of trust — some of it well earned — from the rank and file.

But politics is about persuasion, and a party consumed by the need to prove its purity to its base is going to have a very hard time proving anything else to the rest of the country.

— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

[Longbow1969]

Let me be absolutely clear with you. I think the entire birther conspiracy case is ridiculous. And it’s not just me who thinks that, its virtually every serious, reputable conservative. Try to call a constitutional scholar like Mark Levin and get your birther conspiracies on his show, he’ll declare you a big dope and boot you off the air.

Arpaio is someone I still admire for his efforts against illegal immigration, I am sorry he got suckered into the birther nonsense. Sometimes good people get wrapped up in silly causes. In the end though, Arpaio has squat. His investigation produced nothing that convinced a prosecutor or court to buy into any of these birther conspiracies. Other than make the purveyors of it look silly, birtherism will never amount to anything. It’s a joke.

Further, I think you do the conservative movement a disservice by pushing these loopy conspiracy theories. I think after losing a few elections there is a tendency for a small minority in a movement to start gravitating to conspiracies to explain their defeats. That makes it doubly important that sane, serious conservatives call out the conspiracy kooks among us and keep them from staining the conservative movement. Is that clear enough?

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Democrats are not that concerned about beating republicans. Don’t get me wrong, they will and do cheat to win. All the same they are not that concerned when they lose, because they have infiltrated and diluted the republican party.”

Well they are not concerned about beating Rs right now because its so easy for them to do.
Dems stick together as a team and have a forward thinking strategy.
Rs react at the moment and fight with each other. They make believe they will win each election rather than face reality and change it.

Its not hard to see why O gets what he wants and will continue to.

So OK, we cleaned the Senate of Scott Browns, so now we got Eliz Warren. Lets see what an improvement that will be.

[Yosemitest]

" It’s not that the GOP isn’t conservative enough,
it’s that it isn’t tactically smart or persuasive enough to move the rest of the nation in a more conservative direction.
Moreover, thanks in part to the myth
that all that stands between conservatives and total victory is a philosophically pure GOP,
party leaders suffer from a debilitating lack of trust — some of it well earned — from the rank and file.

— Jonah Goldberg "

I disagree in party.
It IS "that the GOP is NOT conservative enough" and that's VERY CLEAR !

A "philosophically pure GOP" would go a long way to clean up this HELL we now live in, but it's not "ALL that stands between conservatives and total victory".
What else is needed is fortitude to stand and fight!

I read a great article by Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow, Ret. written February 4, 2011 from "NewsWithViews.com" and here's part of it.

COMPROMISE – A DIRTY WORD
Compromise – is defined as:
“A middle way between two extremes”

If this is a literally correct definition, and I believe that it is,
what then are we to do when the two extremes at the opposite ends of the plane are
that which is moral
and that which is immoral?
Is it possible that a righteous compromise can be accomplished
when such a compromise, by the very definition of the word, must contain the elements of an extreme that is in and of itself evil or wicked ?

Compromise is as old as humanity;
compromise began as a human endeavor to attempt to escape the penalty for the transgression of God’s laws
and to mitigate or contravene the absoluteness of God’s word.
Compromise is man’s way
to lessen the seriousness of disobedience to immutable laws and dictums,
or to excuse or condone such disobedience altogether.
No good thing comes from compromise.
Man’s accommodation of transgressions by compromise is not a defense for iniquitous acts in the eyes of God.
Compromise is the devil’s invention;
God who is perfect in every way will not be conciliated by the conditions of a compromise.

Compromise was introduced into the lives of men in the Garden of Eden by that serpent of old, Satan,
and will remain with men until the Lord Jesus Christ brings this world to an end - which He will inevitable do - and establishes His Kingdom.

THE FRUITS OF COMPROMISE
Most people have come to believe
that compromise is a useful tool
and that the negotiations thereof have brought about good things and useful policies.
If one examines that belief closely it soon becomes apparent that
there are no useful results that accrue to negotiated compromise on any level.
In fact most often
compromise actually breeds dissention and strife,
which in turn leads to more compromise.
In short compromise feeds upon itself and eats up that which is just and right in the process.

To live in a world of compromise is to live in a world without absolutes,
and yet we know that the entire universe as well as the lives of men are managed, controlled, and kept within irrevocable bounds by the absolutes established by Almighty God.
We violate those bounds, via compromise of any kind, at our peril.

Political negotiations (compromise) in regard
to the step down from the safeguarding of the sanctity of life
and from the immutable right granted by God to be defended against being murdered -
as set forth in the sixth commandment
- has enabled an American medical assassination machine
that has claimed nearly double the number of lives of the combined number of military and civilian deaths attributable to World War II.

The killing of innocent babies has reached record heights.
The lives of twenty-four percent of all unborn babies are delivered into the hands of the serial killers of the medical community.
A baby is murdered every twelve seconds,
and it is estimated that in this country alone there have been ninety-two million living beating hearts stilled by the bloody hands of the legal abortionists.
This conspiracy to commit murder,
this aiding and abetting of murder,
this disconnect between the forbidden pre-meditated murder of living adults and the sanctioned pre-meditated murder of living babies
has been wrought by a politically mediated compromise between
those who claim the right to murder babies
and those who know God’s absolute prohibition of murder.
And there is more.

Now continuing…compromise on morality resulted in the condoning of, and an exponential increase in, the filthy - God condemned - practice of sodomy and promiscuous sex.
For every compromise of God’s word a penalty is exacted.
Aids rapidly achieved endemic proportions, first in the United States and then in the rest world.
We were told that Aids was a disease of monkeys that had migrated to men.
The inventiveness of the scientific community and the political apologizers who defend such appalling and execrable behavior
often find fertile ground in the credulous minds of a spiritually deprived people.
I’m not done.

POLITICAL COMPROMISE CONTINUES TO DESTROY THE REPUBLIC
Today as never before in our history the dishonorable who control our social destiny via their political intrigues
subject the nation to a slow death by way of political compromise.

Compromise through ill-conceived trade agreements has destroyed domestic industry and extinguished millions of jobs.
Compromise on sound financial practices has destroyed the housing market, seriously damaged the economy and crippled small businesses.
Compromise on immigration has demolished the social structure, bankrupted state and local governments, critically imperiled national security and jeopardized the safety and well-being of the people.
And compromise on moral integrity has corrupted the youth, encouraged extreme vice and given license to social prurience.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END
In a recent article I wrote
that from this time forward
the people of this nation will not know a day of peace,
there will be no good news, each bad day will fade into another equally bad day,
and the black and ghostly apparitions of the former will blend with the grim and ghastly tidings of the new.
The Lord has departed from a people that have departed from Him and prostituted themselves before heathen gods,
a people who will in the coming days loathe themselves for the evils that they have committed in all of their abominations.
They will surely know that He is the Sovereign God who will carry out His word
to do evil unto them that defy His word and deny His Lordship over all of creation.

As I write this piece
the nation is seized by a 2,000 mile long arctic blast of an unprecedented magnitude;
each season delivers devastation of Biblical proportions.
Tornadoes ravage, floods inundate, conflagrations gobble up thousands of acres of trees and foliage and lumbering mudslides follow in the wake of these,
hurricanes terrify the coasts, and hail, ice, and snow bring cities and towns to a standstill.
Truly the day of the Lord is at hand.

One who reads these words and does NOT understand or relate to that which has been written
can be thought to possess one or more of the following character deficiencies:
deep perversion, callous indifference, abysmal illiteracy, or appalling ignorance.

Believers in God’s word know
that ignorance of a secular kind is directly attributable to a lack of spiritual discernment.

Solomon gives a litany of dangers that await the man who lacks Spiritual discernment:

“To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;
Who leave the paths of uprightness,
to walk in the ways of darkness;
Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;
Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.
For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
None that go unto her return again,
neither take they hold of the paths of life.
That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.”
[Proverbs 2:12-22]

A modern translation:

"Wicked and perverse men are scattered like land mines across the paths of our lives.
Without discernment we will soon be following them into the dark of destruction.
The adulteress, every man’s worse nightmare, will seduce those who cannot see past her beauty and promises.
Behind her attraction lies the steps that descend to hell.
No one who goes to her returns,
but how can anyone know this apart from God Himself telling us."
[Proverbs 2:12-22]

Read Compromise Is a Dirty Word for Club for Growth.

Take a good long look at where "Establishment Republicans" ALWAYS take us.

[AnonymousConservative]

Well said. Making tactics subservient to principle makes you lack principle. That is the problem. And now we are told we haven’t done this enough, after their last dream candidate, who did this exclusively, failed miserably under ideal conditions.

God save us.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Specifically, tell me who I am to hate and fear. I don't see it. Of course, there are goofballs, like Colin Powell, but he is no Repubican--he's a fraud, a Democrat in Republican clothes.

Where do you get it that there are sufficient numbers of the GOPe to prevent larger numbers of "grassroots" conservatives from prevailing.

I totally agree we lack those with adequate communication skills to convince enough idiots that it is not in their best long-term interest to help liberals destroy America and this is exactly what they are doing.

I'd love to see Republicans with more backbone and spine, we must declare war on Dims and liberalism.

[Yosemitest]

"I disagree in party."

CORRECTION:

I disagree in part.

[Triple]

It will not be much of a change, but what little it does change is for the worse.

Brown was no stalwart of conservatism. If he was he might have stood a chance.

Massachusetts is a stronghold for dems/socialists. Very hard to expect less than a progressive democrat coming out of Mass.

Pretending that the GOPe will actively fight to return this country to conservative principles...Good luck with that. The GOPe is concerned about re-election almost exclusively.

The GOPe is merely a weak/false opposition to encroaching socialism. The GOPe prevents a true grassroots conservative party from taking hold.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”It’s time for the United States to be split into two countries. Dems can put all their ideas into action the moment the ink on the agreement is dry. Dems can have it all their way...in their half.”

With that type of fantasy thinking expect more Dem SCOTUSs and judges ruling the red states.

Dont forget, much of O care tells red states what to do too. yes, even Texas.

[Triple]

Boehner just within the last couple of weeks removed conservatives from committee assignments - for being too conservative. They were not loyal enough to the GOPe, but instead stood for their conservative principles.

The example does not get any clearer than that.

[ex-snook]

Ford, Dole and McCain [3 out of 4, Romney excluded] have war time military service. Wonder what that conveys about their actions?

[Triple]

BTW - I do not advocate hate or fear.

Just don’t be fooled into thinking that Boehner will lead a charge to return this country to conservative principles.

He hasn’t.
He wont.
He would rather be Speaker of the House, and on good golfing terms with Obama and the other socialists, as they take our country into socialism.

[Carry_Okie]

Did I just imagine Boehners pre-budget deal committee Putsch?

Yeah, that splurt of "big tent" Republicanism at the end left a foul taste in my mouth too. The GOPe can eat it.

[Yosemitest]

Nothing!
At least they didn't promote people who DESPISE the military, to RUN the military, like Obama.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

I know a little bit about those so-called “conservatives” that were removed and from what I know about them, they likely deserved to be removed. Iowa has had our fill of these crazy Ron Paul kooks and my understanding is that those four belonged to that club. I’m glad they’re gone and if I’m correct about these guys, I admire Boehner for having the guts to get rid of them and also, if I’m right, Boehner was a gentleman in not giving them a public tongue lashing. If they’re of the same mold as these crazies we have here in Iowa, they are kooks.

[ex-snook]

"He would rather be Speaker of the House, and on good golfing terms with Obama and the other socialists, as they take our country into socialism."

C'mon man. That's crazy. The GOP just elected him again as leader with no opposition. If conservatives want to fight, they got to get into the ring, the sideline mouth only does not do it. They got to stand up and be counted.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

I was at an event where Boehner spoke and I agreed with every word he said, now, that doesn't mean I am happy with everything he does but I know his heart is there so maybe we need to bolster him and support him.

I'm going to call his office now. I despise these RATS--they're slippery and slimy and it's difficult to outsmart them, especially when the MSM is against you. Phone: (202) 225-0600

[ex-snook]

I think you are missing something about leadership at the top.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Brown was no stalwart of conservatism. If he was he might have stood a chance.”

I heard Levin say this nonsense two weeks ago.

A state that elects a Marxist like Warren sure is not even considering electing a Jim DeMint. Talk like that is just sillyness.

Brown took many tough votes for the GOP considering his electorate and look at the thanks he gets for it. Votes that Warren would never consider making.

Tell you what, throwing away all but the red-est states is a sure formula for an all Obama SCOTUS.

Dems are going to form a long line to run for POTUS in 2016.

[familyop]

The Myth of a GOP Successful While Working for Misogamists (family-haters) and the Sexually Confused

Go ahead. Try it for another few terms. The sure way to small government is default. The “progressive” big spenders of both political parties are headed that way.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”You are completely correct, but many people just don’t want to hear it. They think if we fire Boehner things would suddenly be better. They don’t understand that if we as a conservative movement can’t move public opinion, no matter who we have in elected leadership will cave to public opinion turning against them. They’ll feel they have to or they’ll infuriate the public and lose their seats”

Worse yet, they actually post like they think a few symbolic votes against weak Bohner, for Donald Duck, actually means something.

No one will take that job as the goat.

Sure, Lou Gohmert of TX is in a 100% R district where a Dem cant win (it was created that way), so Lou can oppose everything the House passes that makes it into law and be loved by his district, but Lou sure doesn't want to be Speaker because then he has to worry about losing the other Seats.

I always post to look at Pelosi as a model of a Speaker who had one goal in mind : beating Rs to get results.

Pelosi let libs have their silly symbolic play votes, but when it was time to get her D House to fund the surge and then to extend all the tax cuts for 2 years(or even pass the Senate O-care Bill) , she got her team to fall in line even thought they ran against those things.

Her goal was winning and she was darn good at it.