Whenever I ask myself, “What were the Republicans thinking?” I find the answer in the immortal collection of essays by Irving Kristol, Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea. In that book, Kristol lays out his grand plan for how the Republicans can truly achieve immense power in the United States, but that to do so will mean abandoning principles of fiscal conservatism and balanced budgets and embracing the “conservative welfare state.” Kristol further instructs that in matters of economics and foreign policy, the people aren’t to be listened to (as democratically elected politicians sometimes mistakenly believe), rather they are to be led because they are ignorant of these matters and they know it. In addition, Kristol and his associates guided the New Right to create a budget crisis by implementing socialist policies to compete with those of the left and to use this crisis to force the public to choose between traditional socialism and market-based social engineering. Well, the people have chosen: If you’re going to have a welfare state, let the left run it–after all, you can’t beat a guy at his own game.
The pundits on all sides will talk about this election as being a choice between right and left, speculating, “Was Romney too far to the right?” Or, “Was Romney not ‘right’ enough?” But “the right” as it is now defined comes with all sorts of baggage that is both inconsistent with the founders’ principles (to which the right pays much lip service) and irrelevant to national politics (or at least should be). The right has become the right side of the left: a quasi-market-based philosophy promising more efficiently to achieve the-all-things-to-all-people government at the core of liberal philosophy. But what makes the Republican Party “too right” to the pundits is that it couples this “conservative welfare state” with federal attempts to control people’s behavior at home and the shape of the world outside its borders. Regardless of the labels, from top to bottom, the right now merely offers a different flavor of statism from the left’s, not an alternative to statism itself. What’s worse is that while not providing an alternative to statism, the New Right purposely displaces those who would.
neo-conservative
"Not Obama" Is Not Enough: On & About This Week's Show
Scary Week!
Last week was scary! The Eurozone seemed to be in free fall from fears of Grexit to Spaindemonium! And the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower on Friday, June 1 than it did on December 31–all gains for the year erased. But the worst news was that unemployment ticked up from 8.1% to 8.2%–or so they say. The actual unemployment number is more like 22% according to Shadow Government Statistics. Obama says the 8% is still an improvement over the 10% we saw in 2010, but scratch the surface and you might find that the reason that “headline” number fell is that it doesn’t include long term discouraged workers, while the ShadowStats number does. The more comprehensive number has risen from 20% in 2010 to 22% today–things are getting worse not better!
Republocrat Oligarchy
Obama wants us to stay the course but I want no part of that! Unlike most in the mainstream, however, I think voting Republican is also staying the course! It’s no coincidence that spending and government grow year after year, decade after decade, regardless of which party is in control of Congress or the White House. Self-proclaimed former neo-Trotskyist