Posted on 04/09/2014 2:31:00 AM PDT by markomalley
How does the Republican Party establishment choose its presidential candidate? Typically, constitutionalists accuse their establishment rivals of being moderate, risk-averse, stubborn old fools who lack faith in conservative principles. This is a soothing interpretation, as it begins from the hypothesis that the contest between conservatives and the GOP elite is a family feud.
But there is another hypothesis -- less soothing, but, at least from an outsider's bird's-eye view, more reconcilable with the facts. This hypothesis is that America has reached a stage of progressive soft despotism in which the only important family feud in national politics is between the fundamentally allied factions of the Washington establishment itself.
(snip)
So here he is, the 2016 GOP nominee:
He supports a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants. This drops anchor for the progressive captains of the ship of state, eventually inflating the electorate with millions of people lacking education or cultural heritage related to individualism and property rights, while deflating manufacturing costs with low-skill, low-literacy workers.
His position on manmade climate change is "evolving," drifting and shifting somewhere along the continuum from "climate change may be real" (Jeb Bush, 2011) to "when you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role it’s time to defer to the experts" (Chris Christie, 2011).
(snip)
Whatever you do, don't assume that any candidate who espouses a few items on the Republican side of your Venn diagram is satisfactory. That section then becomes the ruling class's shiny distraction. Keep your eye on the intersection of the circles, where the two mildly competitive factions of the progressive elite follow their bliss together -- at their nation's expense.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The part he missed is that they contract with some nice, shiny talking heads to convince us that the selected progressive candidate is truly a hard core conservative...
When the Establishment so strongly supports Jeb Bush, I honestly wonder if they want to lose on purpose. Either that or they are completely disconnected from reality.
Surely they know that the name Bush, rightly or wrongly, brings a knee-jerk NO reaction from a huge swathe of Americans.
Yep, the article is a good analysis and Jeb fits the description.
And, right, they don’t care about winning, just like they don’t care about repealing 0bamacare. I suspect contributions are higher than when a Tea Party candidate runs, either way.
This is to concede that the country is lost for good and all.
It does not have to be that way.
Germany in 1930 was at a very crucial crossroads. Not totally surrendered to the growing call for despotic government, but with few opportunities to call for alternatives, an otherwise relatively civilized, intelligent people crumbled to their baser instincts, and paved the way for a mesmerizing personality to ascend to power, with what was a minority representation. Once in power, this minority became the voice and image of all Germans, because it was “the law of the land”.
A practice of law that was to become much at odds with the established jurisprudence, with frequent “reinterpretations” and ever more tyrannical applications, where a minority opinion of any kind was turned into the “enemies of the state”, and the holders of those opinions, or even a minority that lacked sufficient clout to raise strong objections, were hustled off, made into “nonentities”, and held in custody.
It can’t happen here? Well, it has, and it can again, this time with much more high-tech means to enforce its application. Even in the absence of a sound and responsible judiciary, it is possible to overwhelm the systems of even the most oppressive of regimes, and confound their objectives.
Confront the fact that during your lifetime, you are going to lose everything. And with nothing left to lose, a kind of glorious freedom arises, a transcendence in which everything you do to struggle against this onerous despotism seems blessed with a special immunity, a touch of something almost divine, where your steps and actions are sure and the outcome appears to be ordained. And maybe, just maybe, it is. If only your will does not fail.
Pray as if it all depended on the power of the Almighty. And keep up the fight as if it all depended on you.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
...The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.[Posted on 03/19/2013 7:04:07 AM PDT by Perdogg]
Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.
Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.
Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.
If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you...
This is where prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into being taxpaying members of society.
Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers.12 million more people assimilating into society. 12 million more people being productive contributors.
Latinos, should be a natural constituency for the party, Paul argued, but "Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over immigration." ...he would create a bipartisan panel to determine how many visas should be granted for workers already in the United States and those who might follow... [and the buried lead] "Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers...[Posted on 04/21/2013 1:52:42 PM PDT by SoConPubbie]
...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]
Rand Paul On Shutdown: “Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea”
RCP | November 18th, 2013 | Fox News Special Report
Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3093108/posts
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Senator, when Obamacare was at issue, a month ago, when it came to a continuing resolution to funding the government you supported a filibuster of other Senators, who demanded that you had to have a change or the abolition of Obamacare as a condition for funding the government. In retrospect do you think that was a good strategy? But even more importantly —looking ahead, the deadlines are coming up, the resolution’s going to run out, we’re going to hit the debt ceiling soon — would you be prepared to use same tactic as we approach the new deadlines? SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Well, I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it’s a conundrum. Here’s the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can’t give the president a blank check. We just can’t keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can’t vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don’t we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.
To Republican Party establishment Jeb Bush would make the perfect step ford POTUS.
I read an article lauding Jeb Bush in the WSJ today, based mainly on contrasting him to the phantom “Tea Party” that they have created in their minds. The author claimed that the “Tea Party” was just the attempt of a vanishing demographic sector (elderly rural whites, I guess) to bring back their dominance and the world as they knew it. Bush represents the future, according to the author.
Then he proceeded to laud Bush for his love of government programs (such as Common Core and Obamacare), something that evidently seemed to the author to be “the future.”
It occurred to me then that one of the reasons for the GOP failure to seek or present conservative candidates is that the establishment wing of the GOP has created an image of the conservative wing that is a complete parody - and has begun to believe it.
I’m sure there are “Tea Party” types out there who do see themselves as bringing back a vanished time that never really existed, but that’s not the essence of the movement. If I could sum it up as one thing, I’d say conservatives simply want to defend the private sphere, which was always the foundation of US civic life.
The private sphere can be defended by limiting the amount of money and power in the hands of the federal government (or any level of government) - and by restoring people’s control over things like their healthcare, the education of their children, etc. And that’s what it’s all about, not some phantom attempt by elderly, cranky crypto-white supremacists to bring back a world that never existed. But the GOP-e parody vision of conservatives is the one that has become the dominant and defining vision.
The thing I don’t like about Bush - who was a good Florida governor but who seemed to have a somewhat different approach at that time - is not any individual statement, but that his whole philosophy now revolves around more big government, the bigger and more intrusive the better, government everywhere, government when you get up in the morning and when you go to bed at night, government when you brush your teeth or eat your lunch, government solving your problems, government living in your head, government telling you what to think, government in every aspect of life. That, to me, is the problem with not only Bush, but with the entire Democratic Party and GOP-e.
Well done! You should write the New GOP platform.
Another Bush /Clinton election will make us a laughing stock around the world.
350 million Americans and our “democracy” picks members of the same 2 families again. Shades of Patrician Rome.
It might come to a fight...but not now, not when we have overwhelming numbers on our side.
The author describes our national political situation very well.
Might events falsify my hypothesis?
IMO, sadly, a major war or national disaster is the only thing that MIGHT reverse our march to tyranny. Such a circumstance MIGHT actually hasten the end of democracy & what little freedom we have left. God forbid that BHO or HRC ever has the powers FDR had during WWII.
I believe we are beyond the point of returning to honor & freedom by political means. Corruption rules the political process.
The civil war that some are predicting will really be a political insurrection, pitting conservatives against the government & the 50%+ of the people that support it - a replay of the Civil War with likely the same outcome: the government wins & the losers are severely punished. “Reconstruction” will see the end of any semblance of a republic.
Indeed, and neither of these is Cincinnatus or Caesar....
They can’t stop a massive Tea Party write-in campaign.
They foist Jeb or Christie on us, we write in Ted Cruz.
What kind of arithmetic supports the above synopsis?
WSJ has wanted open borders since the 80’s
I’m a died in the wool Ted Cruz supporter. He is right on every issue I can think of.
Who will I settle for? That’s a tough question, because I want to win:
Definitely:
Sen Jess Sessions
Gov Sarah Palin
Probably:
Rick Perry
Rand Paul
Mike Lee
If my arm is twisted behind my back:
Scott
Martinez
If a gun held to my head:
Kasich
I’ll write in Cruz if:
Bush
Romney
Christie
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