Posted on 11/12/2013 10:40:17 AM PST by Nelson Hultberg
It began with Richard Nixon. He showed Republicans how to win elections and lose their soul, how to capitulate to statism and call it a “new kind of freedom.” Consequently the GOP is now a carbon copy of the Democrat Party.
Throughout the seventies and eighties, neoconservative intellectuals eagerly fostered this “new kind of freedom” which gave Republicans an excuse to blank out on the reality of what they were doing. Led by the late Irving Kristol and big government luminaries like Harvard sociologist Patrick Moynihan and Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, these influential former socialists infiltrated the Republican Party like termites invading the support beams of one’s home. Their adoption of the name “neoconservatives” was merely a cover for wider acceptance. By the early 1990s they had eroded the sacred canons of conservatism with an amoral pragmatism devoid of respect for individual rights and freedom domestically, while fomenting a ruinous global hegemony internationally.
In the November 1977 issue of The American Spectator, Irving Kristol told us that the laissez-faire vision of the Founders was a “doctrinaire fantasy.” Its ideals “make it inadequate...for a political community.” To adhere today to what Jefferson and Madison advocated is anachronistic foolishness, he felt. It must be phased out of our collective conscience. Capitalism and individual rights are dangerous institutions and must be constantly modified by a powerful state that redistributes wealth whenever necessary. In the eyes of Kristol and his followers, freedom, while desirable, is not a primary political value. Machiavelli had the better idea; expediency is the best way to rule. These intellectuals now lead the GOP.
Despicable that the party of Taft and Goldwater would tolerate such open collectivism, but by the advent of the senior Bush regime in 1989, most Republicans were willing to look the other way. They had convinced themselves that freedom and the mega-state are somehow compatible if we wish them to be so. Kristol’s Machiavellians were established in high places and offered the GOP keys to entrenched power in Washington with their support. This, Republicans wanted badly – enough so that they were willing to ignore the founding principles of the nation and tolerate government usurpations that have enslaved millions throughout history. Consequently the GOP now promotes statism, inflation, wealth redistribution, open borders, and a police-the-world foreign policy.
Can Freedom Be Saved?
Can the conservative “freedom movement” be rescued from this tragedy of default? Can neoconservatives be exposed for their stealth and ideological treason to the American vision? Can the true freedom movement eventually restore the Republic? Yes, but it cannot be done with the Republican Party.
The GOP is too tightly controled by the neoconservative elites. What this means is that runaway government cannot be stopped by voting conservatives into Congress and “taking over the GOP” because those that we manage to elect ultimately cave in to the party’s neocon ideology. They may start out as Jimmy Stewart characters in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, full of idealism and fervor to reform, but they don’t stay that way.
Here’s why. Newly elected Republicans to Congress soon see who has the power in the party and realize that going against the neoconservative elites would jeopardize their path to re-election. To run on substantive reforms designed to restore the Founders’ vision would ostracize them from the major donors of the Republican welfare-state establishment and bring criticism instead of praise from the neocon intellectuals. So they choose to appease the corporate donors, to support amnesty for illegals, to play ball with hegemonic foreign policy mavens, and to join with government expansionists. This is how they assure their re-election.
Ideology and money control politics, and the neocons control both in the Republican Party via organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hudson Institute, the Foreign Policy Initiative, and other highly influential institutions that have been built to dominance in Washington and New York over many decades.
Thus ninety percent of incoming conservative congressmen eventually capitulate to the neocon agenda in order to attract the ideological and funding support that come from its promotional network of scholars, institute heads, and corporate/banking moguls. If not, such newcomers to Congress are abandoned by the party elites.
Republican Rank and File Misguided
So it is very naïve to think the Republican Party can be taken over merely by voting to send conservative candidates to Washington. To get control of the GOP, we will have to root out the powerful neocon intellectuals who promote the party’s vision. We will have to create a whole new array of banking moguls on Wall Street who respect Jefferson and Smith instead of Marx and Keynes. In short, we will have to create a whole new array of intellectual elites to lead the GOP. Such a scholarly take-over will require 40-50 years to accomplish. America doesn’t have this kind of time. We need to challenge the tyrannical control that liberals and neocons have over America now!
In other words it is impossible to change the structure of an institution without changing the source of its power – i.e., its intellectuals. Neocon intellectuals control the GOP by controlling Washington’s think tanks and Wall Street’s banks ideologically. Expecting incoming conservative legislators to seriously challenge these scholars is like expecting school girls to go up against Mafia lords. This is the major flaw of the Tea Party groups that wish to work “within the GOP.”
Thus trying to take over the Republican Party by voting in more “conservative legislators” is a tragic waste of time. It will never stop America’s dictatorial drift. We have been attempting to do this for over four decades, and the freedom advocates we send to Washington continue to be bought off by the GOP’s neoconservative corruption as fast as we send them.
Divorce from the Republicans Needed
How then do we defeat this neocon corruption? Only by leaving the GOP and forming an alternative independent party with an independent candidate (as Ross Perot did in 1992). When a marriage becomes unworkable, wise spouses seek divorce. We in the political arena must do likewise. Our strength lies in the fact that our independent candidate will not be beholden to neocon intellectual and financial power. He will be beholden to the American people. Thus he can run on a campaign of substantive reform. He can tell the truth to the voters. America is now ready for the truth; it will find millions of takers.
Americans for a Free Republic in Dallas, Texas www.afr.org has designed a strategy to bring about such a National Independent Party movement for 2016, AND WIN. It’s platform is comprised of Four Pillars of Reform for our tax, monetary, immigration, and foreign policy systems. These are crucial, substantive changes that must be implemented if the country is to survive and return to freedom. The leaders of both the Democrats and Republicans will oppose these reforms, but 50 percent of the American people will embrace them. That leaves 50 percent of American voters for the Democrats and Republicans to split between them, which spells victory for our National Independent Party.
AFR has published a Special Report, “How Tea Party Patriots Can Break the Demopublican Monopoly and Win in 2016,” that explains the reforms in detail. It is a blueprint for the salvation of America and the permanent establishment of a free-market, conservative, patriot political party, which will replace the Republican Party by drawing four major voting blocks together - the true conservatives of the GOP, the vast body of patriotic independents, the libertarians, and the blue-collar Democrats. Our Special Report can be viewed here:
http://afr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/TPReport.pdf
I agree. If the Kochs, Adelsteins, et al are willing to back AFR, then we could see something pretty interesting. It will take tens of millions, a well-staffed and functional organization, and visionary leadership. I’ve advocated this since Nov. 8 2012.
It will take a collaboration of donors like those above, leadership (rock-solid conservatives like Allen West, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, for example), and multi-disciplinary visionaries to guid the effort (which could include a mix of groups as diverse as The Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, Peter Schiff, and Newt Gingrich).
The right ideas, the right leadership, and sufficient money could turn these fantasies we post about all the time into reality, just as they’ve done for the other side. We already have the Communications Team - think how quickly Rush, Hannity, Levin, Malkin, and the rest of the grassroots conservative media could deliver the message. But advertizing alone can’t sell a non-existent product. We have a great product (Conservatism) - but it’s not packaged and presented right.
YES WE CAN.
The way to do it is to seize control of local municipal and County committee seats, County charimanships and state committee seats and then work from there UPWARDS with municipal councils, mayors, etc.
Nelson, I’ve read your material at Le Metropole Café, but I had no idea you were a FReeper. Good to have you on board.
Taking over the Party will require taking out the current “leadership”, either in the Primary, OR in the General.
We can if we plug into every spot there is from the local precinct to the WH....it requires hard work and diligence but it MUST be done
Absolutely correct. The proper approach to taking over the party is to capture the controls of the party machine at the precinct, district, country, and state levels. The candidate is least of the concerns; of course good candidates are important, but they don't equal control. Control comes from infrastructure.
A new party is a self-defeating exercise, with many examples. It is a lot simpler to capture the existing infrastructure and turn it than to create it from the ground up and do battle with both the DNC and RNC, who have heavily stacked the rules in their favor.
Not only NO. HELL NO!!!!!!!!
Yep.
Mitch has recognized this threat, has called out the TEA Party and is busy attacking TEA Party politicians and candidates.
It's all out War.
Conservatives splitting from the Republican Party is one sure way to guarantee the left will triumph, but it will offer principled voters the security of knowing they did the right thing, even though it will end up all wrong. It will be a wonderful way to get Hillary, or someone worse, just like Ross Perot gave us Bill, twice. Revolutions aren’t won by shooting yourself in the foot. From the days of Gramsci writing on matchbooks in a dark cell, to the cultural revolution of the sixties, to the wholesale takeover of the Democratic Party, the media and our educational institutions by the fanatical left, decades were required. It never would have happened had leftist ideologues abandoned the Democratic Party. In the end it is simple mathematics. In a 50/50 divide (loosely speaking), the party that stays 50 while the other splits 25/25 wins.
Should the Republican Party lose the viability to be a majority party in Washington, the solution isn’t for the disillusioned, de facto disenfranchised to take their principles and throw their own party. The solution will be for the minority party to join the majority party, and settle in for a long revolution to break it up, and tear it down, and change it from the inside out.
The Tea Party is still a young movement, and it has a long ways to go, as the Cuccinelli failure demonstrates. Usurping the status quo of the Republican Party will require organization, funding, a willingness to stay in the fight of winning hearts, minds and votes, just like the left did throughout the long years of their revolution. If the Tea Party and conservatives lack the commitment to win back the America that has been lost, splitting into a third party or four parties, or a European smorgasbord of political activists won’t help a thing.
I doubt if the GOP will ever be turned into a conservative organization.
The TEA Party can’t do it.
Conservatives should join the Whigs that were resurrected 6 years ago as a conservative, Constitution loving, pro-small government organization. It would certainly be an easier path that converting the liberals in the GOP.
Yes, Perot gave us Clinton. But Bush gave us Perot. Conservatives don't have to win the first time. They just have to stop losing all the time.
That depends on where you live, on how many local white working-class voters are susceptible to a values argument, and how damaged the brand is where you live.
As a national program? I seriously doubt it.
The next second party will have to appeal to Wal-Mart shoppers and young white HS graduates. The next second party is going to have to hang some banksters out to dry. The next second party is going to have to revive manufacturing. The GOP is poorly situated - VERY poorly, where I live - to do this.
Palin/Warren.
Go White, Go Right, or Go Home.
The next second party is more likely to arrest the Kochs and the Adelsteins.
F the Whigs
Nixon would have been who he was and done what he did without any neocons (though he did take a shine to Moynihan). He was more or less where the country and the Republican Party in Washington were back then.
We will have to create a whole new array of banking moguls on Wall Street who respect Jefferson and Smith instead of Marx and Keynes.
So much is wrong in that sentence. Crony capitalism and corruption will persist whatever happens with "Wall Street Marxism." Good political intentions only last so long in people. Temptation never goes away, even for admirers of Jefferson or Smith.
I guess this time it would be Obama giving us a Perotesque party, and that electing Tea Party conservatives into office as third party candidates, as opposed to electing them as Republicans, will transform the status quo. ...(?)
Too bad we can’t get the Democrats to try it.
If we could get the left to split its vote, conservatives might actually gain something by splitting the Republican vote, besides electing Democrats.
It has been done before.
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