In 1980 Ronald Reagan swept into office and effectively re-invented American politics and American conservatism, ushering in an age of supply-side economics, deregulation, and substantial tax cuts. He united conservatives and some democrats with his social agenda, and won the hearts of as many Americans through his genial nature and oratorical skills as he did with his politics.

But that was then, and now we have watched the past eight years of Bush-era Conservatism lead to huge escalation in the size of the Federal government; the mismanagement (until recently) of two wars; and public support of conservative policies dwindling. We face an Obama Presidency which in and of itself I am not terribly concerned with, but we also face a huge Democratic majority in Congress, and a possible 60-seat Democratic Senate.

I really like checks and balances, so this prospect is frightening.

Now, I realize we’ve been in the last throes of a rather ugly, depressing Presidential race. Conservatives have broken into several camps during these past months. There are those who have disavowed Sarah Palin and jumped ship; those who have stuck to digging up dirt on Obama; those who have argued the merits of the McCain/Palin ticket; and those who have written off the election and have begun to think about the future of the Republican Party and American Conservatism in general.

Many conservative writers have already begun this process, from David Frum or David Brooks, to the editorial staff at Culture11 (read Tory! Tory! Tory! and Coming Up Conservative. Ross Douthat penned an article two years ago that dealt with this issue, The Party of Sam’s Club.

Now, not all these writers and commentators agree on each issue, but they do all share in common the notion that it’s time for Conservatism to adapt, change, evolve, and re-fashion itself as a more competitive brand, a safer, more appealing alternative to the Big Government of the Liberals. After all, following the last 8 years, conservatives can hardly claim to be the party of Limited Government, can we?

David Brooks and many of these others write that we need to re-take the Center. I would agree. I am a centrist-conservative to begin with, but I think even for those more conservative than I, the obvious truth must be that the vast majority of Americans don’t adhere strictly to either Big Government Liberalism or to any orthodox free-market capitalism. The arguments against supply-side economics are getting more plentiful and persuasive. Unfortunately, the alternative presented is a liberal one rather than a conservative. We risk allowing the country to veer far left rather than take it a bit closer to the center.

Douthat argues for a more family-focused conservatism, which places some emphasis on health care and on family-friendly taxes–no tax on those earning under $100,000; larger tax credits for children; a “consumption” tax to encourage savings, and so forth. He argues also for some sort of GI Bill type college tuition reimbursement program for stay-at-home moms.

David Frum and others argue for carbon taxes to replace other more invasive personal taxes. Bill Harrison mentioned this in his Rove article this week as well, arguing that Carbon Taxes could replace at least a portion of FICA taxes. This is one way the conservative movement can also be a green movement.

I would argue that now is the time to begin thinking about these things. Let’s move away from this notion of tax-cuts, and toward the many very good ideas on tax reform. With smart reform, we might have better luck lowering taxes. With family-friendly policies, we might have better luck with the average voter–after all, to the young family of four making $70,000 a year, perhaps hearing that you will not have to fill out a tax return at all will motivate you to vote more than hearing about some big tax cut for the enormously wealthy. This is the logic, I realize, that Obama is using, but he only goes half the distance. He still has his policies wrapped up in regulation, spreading wealth, etc, whereas a conservative policy would focus on business growth, family, and smart reforms of complex and unnecessary government organizations like the IRS.

Conservatives also need to give up the “deregulation” talk. It has become a dirty word. Let’s talk about reforming old regulations for a new century, and then let’s evaluate where deregulation has worked, and where it hasn’t. Let’s also talk about oversight. Limited Government can still very effectively use oversight rather than oppressive regulation, intended to prevent collapses like the one we’re experiencing, but without the oftentimes costly effects of government interference.

I also believe that social conservatives would do well to shift their focus away from gay marriage and the never-ending abortion debate and focus on real-world policies that effect the American family. Education, health care, tax reform, these are all social-issues, and they can all be applied through the lens of the American family. Some of the ideas I mentioned above are as much matters for fiscal conservatives as they are for social conservatives. (Oh, and fiscal conservative doesn’t have to be an oxymoron anymore!)

I will wrap this up.

The point I’m making is that conservatism, in so many ways, needs to let the past go to some extent, and start thinking about the future. Conservatism, perhaps due to the negative incantations of its most popular radio and TV pundits, perhaps due to the unnecessary secrecy of the Bush/Cheney administration, has become a cynical and unpleasant movement. I can barely read half the conservative blogs these days, they have become so hopeless, so negative. Isn’t it time we decided to make Conservatism the party of Individuality, Reason, and Hope? Can’t we woo the younger voters by appealing to that very American quality of self-determination? Appeal to the American family by pushing policies that will actually help the American family? And appeal to the entrepreneurs of America by pushing policies that will free them to do business the way they see fit?

Conservatism has lost its way. It is time we went out into the wild and meditated for a while. Let’s talk about the future.

Are conservative bloggers delusional, crazy, or…simply spending too much time in the echo chamber?  (note: I consider myself to be a moderate conservative in many regards, but I am striving for realism, not partisanship, in this Presidential season…)

Nobody can deny that Sarah Palin made improvements in her poise, grace, and sentence structure in last night’s debate, that she didn’t come off as the uber-bumbler of the Gibson and Couric debates.  However she did not, by any means, restore her image in my mind, nor did she, if we are to trust the polls at all, win the debate. I don’t particularly like Joe Biden, and I don’t think he defeated Governor Palin utterly, but it was at best a tie, and judging by the numbers, more a Palin loss than anything else.

I think most Americans simply don’t want someone who relies upon phrases such as “gosh darn it” to fill gaps, or who waxes colloquial rather than display any real grasp of the subjects at hand. They want substance, knowledge, and intellect. And despite his gaffes, his mistakes, (or as Rove put it, his lies!) and his obvious gaps in knowledge, at least Biden showed that he truly does understand international and domestic politics.

Palin insisted that she was not an “East Coast” politician.  She reminded us often that she was an outsider, a maverick, as though we are so foolish as to believe that any outsider who comes to the White House will somehow remain one once they’re there.  Like Bush, right?  The outsider, the governor, the cowboy.
(more…)

I’m beginning to wonder how conservative can remain in such denial over Palin.  I watched the Katie Couric interview.  It was bad.  Plain bad.  The SNL skit cut whole sections of it word for word to use in their sketch.  In other words, no parody needed.  They can fire the writers, and just copy Palin lines word for word….

I know I’ve said all of this before.  But I find the denial I see in some conservatives kind of shocking.  When McCain, during the last debate, mentioned he now had a maverick partner, I thought his smile looked almost pained, like he had realized he was wrong, but had to just keep saying it, as though saying it would make it true.

(more…)

Ron Paul is a man I very much admire, despite the fact that I often disagree with his positions.  He is nevertheless a principled man, with principled opinions.  His views are extreme, but only insofar as they are classically American.  They hearken back to the early days of this country, and to the basics of our Constitution.  He is an advocate of the freest sort of free-market, a critic of the Federal Reserve, and an isolationist, which is primarily where he and I differ.

His commentary on the current rather terrifying Government bailout of big business is an incredibly insightful look into this crisis.

He discusses the illusion of economic prosperity that Americans have been under.

For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.

The reason for this, Paul believes, is exactly the same thing as the Government’s propsed solution.  Government intervention in the free market has artificially inflated prices, made money too easy to come by, and forced banks to lend to previously overly risky buyers.

These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.

The subsequent fall in prices after the burst, Paul believes, will make for both winners and losers.  And on this point I couldn’t agree more:

This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners — in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers — builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.

The government doesn’t like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated. This was why the Great Depression was as long and drawn out in this country as it was.

Indeed, the Government seems to care far more about the interests of the big businesses who were party to this collapse than to the average American.  I, for one, live in an area where housing has shot up and up and up and has effectively made the town uninhabitable for average working people, teachers, professors, and basically anyone not making at least $100,000 a year.  High housing costs have also driven up rent, which is now almost as unaffordable.  Rich second-homers have moved in, driving up costs even more.

I would like to see the housing costs go down.  Then maybe young families could afford to stay here.  As it stands, it’s pretty much impossible.  Young families are constantly moving, making this town a whole lot less fun and diverse.

Paul also believes that this sort of Government rescue will lead to more risky behavior from the financial institutions, and why wouldn’t it?  If you don’t have consequences for your actions, then where is the imperitave to change?  We certainly (obviously) cannot trust our banking industry to look out for us.

Additionally, the government’s actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.

Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.

But my struggle comes down to this: Can we successfuly weather a change away from Government interference?  Business seems only too happy to ask Government to step out of their way, while at the same time expecting a hand-out, favorable policies, subsidies, and eventually bail-outs.  In other words, Big Business seems to want to have its cake and eat it, too.  They want the Government out of the way (or in a “support” role) until their scams run amock and then they come running to the Government–and to the taxpayers–to give them their corporate welfare check to the tune of, this time, $700 billion dollars.

Is this a free market?  Well, if free means free money for failed business, then yes.  But it doesn’t if we’re speaking of the sort of free market that depends upon survival of the fittest, wherein businesses that follow bad business practices die off; wherein the winners in a housing crisis born of artificially inflated housing costs are those initial losers forced out of the false market, and the losers are the ones who caused the problem in the first place.

Free markets are based on natural order and  balance.  We need to either embrace them, or cast them away.  We need to either get government out of the interference and corporate welfare game or we need to socialize this country.  We can’t have it both ways.  And free markets don’t necessarily mean no government oversight at all.  Our Government can still have its white-collar police force, making sure that businesses aren’t breaking the law, and that the industries we depend upon are on the up and up.

Paul writes:

It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.

The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.

I agree, but I don’t know how it can be done.  I don’t believe that it will be done.  Will our lawmakers find ways to regulate with intelligence, stripping away old, bad regulations and laws and replacing them with basic rules that actually make sense, or will they simply add new regulations and laws on top of the old ones, creating even more of a behemoth than before?

This is a confusing time in American economics.  A part of me has felt that the free market has been a failure, that corrupt businessmen and corrupt politicians make it an impossible dream–a lovely ideal.  That part of me believes that these businessmen should pay the price, not we tax-payers.  I also feel, when I hear McCain speak of less regulation, that the GOP has been false, that their conservatism has been overly focused on social concerns, and not on the fundamentals of fiscal policy.

They claim they want less regulation, that they are advocates of the free market, but then they propose this enormous corporate welfare project, which sheds a great deal of light on their true nature.  As far as I can tell, the Republicans are only free-market advocates so long as business is good.  They won’t take to the task of letting the sick die so that the healthy can live, and so now we have a business climate that is overcrowded, fragile, and unsustainable.

In forestry terms, it is like an old growth forest that has not been thinned in ages.  All the small fires have been quickly put out.  Before human intervention, there was nobody there to douse these small fires, and so the forest remained naturally thin, and the fires naturally small.  But over the years as fire after fire was suppressed, and foolish legislation prevented healthy logging, the once thin forest thickened, and unsustainably, even dangerously so.  Now when fires sweep through it they are ever larger, ever more deadly.

Now a fire can bring the whole forest down.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mr. Dodds for bringing this latest development to our attention.

Hey, remember Ron Paul? Well, I know you have all been eagerly waiting to hear who he would endorse this election cycle, and he has made his decision: it’s Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party! Whoopee! ‘Cause everyone knows Christian theocrats make the best libertarians.

Just goes to show, once and for all, the kind of conservative Ron Paul really is.

Heh.  Which just helps throw me for another loop.

Michael Steele steels the show off-camera at the RNC

~by Adam Hobson

If you were watching the RNC on television like millions of other Americans you probably noticed the crowd break out into a “drill baby, drill” chant during speeches by both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin. What you didn’t see is the origination of this chant during a speech earlier that night by Michael Steele, a speech that was not televised on network television, and a speech that was probably the single best of the night.

Unlike the headlining speeches from Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, Michael Steele’s was far more positive. His message echoed the theme of the night, Country First, and he built up John McCain, not by tearing down Barack Obama, but by showing that John McCain would do just that, put country first.

(more…)

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”

~Barry Goldwater

Watching the Democratic National Convention this year has been an odd experience for me.  I have enjoyed some of the speeches.  Governor Schweitzer of Montana was fun, and his speech was a good preface to Hillary’s call for unity.  Even I can be roused by some of the calls for a better tomorrow, by the pleas for new technologies, greater investment in science and our education.

I just find that on a logical level–on the plain of Reason rather than Emotion–I could not adopt much of the liberal ideology, even if I wanted to.  For instance, last night at the DNC convention, I’m not sure how many times supposedly intelligent people said something to the effect of “Gas prices have gone up, and oil companies are making record profits, so we need to tax gas companies more (to punish them!)”

This use of windfall profit taxes requires a complete abandonment of reason.

First of all, yes gas prices are up.  This is due to a number of things, but primarily to supply and demand.  Also, yes, the oil companies are making record profits.  This, however, is not due to gas prices being up, but to sales being up.  It is costing the gas companies more to get the oil, and this added cost is passed along to the consumer.  Add to this the fact that as China and India develop their economies, they purchase more oil.  So do other developing nations. So, for oil companies, sales are up.  This means they make more money.  So do the nations which sell the oil in the first place, like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and the UAE.
(more…)

By Julian Krasta

The intellectual communities all over the world are waiting in an agony of suspense as to whether John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. The suspense is rooted in the hope for granite security and the prospect for lasting peace, which could altogether vanish if, in January 2009, the wrong man raises his hand and takes the oath.

Senator McCain is uncomplicated with respect to the leadership and defense of our country. His fearless patriotism was formed and hardened by an irrefutable fact: The American People’s collective resolve coupled with the actions of our awesome military, in their harshest terms, are proof to our enemies – of the past, present and, yes, future – that we play in a bigger and badder league than they could ever dream.

By stark contrast, Obama requires a daily diet of total compliance and idolization. His word salads are a gross national product of cants and fantasies, and is devoted to injecting chaos into the jellied minds of the crowds of people (here and in countries such as Syria) that play into his fantasies. He has successfully accomplished this because his is a cocktail personality, meaning: He senses other people’s vulnerabilities, he reads their personalities, and performs accordingly. It is the classic sign of a sociopath.

Liberals argue that Senator McCain might be too old, too hotheaded, and too off the mark (and some frustrated Republicans and core conservatives chime in with the fear that he is too liberal-minded). In some respects they are all correct – in some respects. There are even those who poke fun at his banal tone. Again, some of their levity is not entirely unjustified. My view of the Senator, which is shared by many, many other conservative advocates, is quite the opposite. To quote an old saying: “Still water runs deep.”

Moreover, John McCain has served our country faithfully as a Navy fighter pilot (a stone-cold truth not even (Ret.) Gen. Wesley Clark can deny or devalue (notwithstanding Clark’s cheap shots to discredit McCain’s leadership qualifications)). He endured horrible physical pain during his imprisonment in Viet Nam. Primarily, he is lock, stock and barrel more transparent than the Democrats’ candidate claims to be because, good, bad or indifferent, Senator McCain has no hidden agendas. Neither does he feign being anything other that what we see.

Barack has an impressive record of political ineptitude: He and his party strive to expand policies such as welfare (to ensure dependence on the government dole by those below the poverty line in order to fortify their votes). Obama opposes privatizing Social Security, which is supported by Senator McCain – a proposition that would be advantageous to taxpayers in that we would be able to invest and manage our benefits.

Obama opposes school vouchers (one means to the end of our children being short-changed in their education). He used the words “ugly and racist” to depict opponents of the 2007 comprehensive illegal immigration bill, yet it is commonplace (and widely accepted by his supporters and conveniently overlooked by the media) when he repeatedly brings into the fray the fact he is black. This comes from the chosen one of the party that went up against the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution (respectively: abolishing slavery, granting citizenship rights to newly-freed slaves, guaranteeing the right to vote for blacks – Thank you, Larry Elder).

Senator McCain has always been a proponent of nuclear power, and he is calling for no less than 45 nuclear power plants to be built by the year 2030. Barack has said that this might be worth investigating – until he decides to cast his vote in opposition.

Obama possesses a superego and is fully one-dimentional. He has (with the wholesale aid of the liberal mainstream media) caused his supporters, as well as al Qaida and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, to believe that there’s a wizard behind his curtain when, in fact, there is only a brick wall.

Islamist jihadists are determined to dominate this planet, by whatever force necessary, and become our supreme rulers. From the standpoint of their blood-lust adventurism, the very future of the freedoms of the human race has become the issue.

John McCain understands this. Without equivocation, but in peremptory tones, he has said plainly that he is as equally determined to use whatever force is necessary to prevent terrorists from gaining the upper hand and, as President, would not imprudently withdraw our troops from the hot zones.

Obama, on the other hand, is hedonistic with his [politically motivated] litany of “I will end the war” and begin bringing our troops home if he becomes president. This move comes under the heading “Miscalculation and Maladroitness.” It would be as foolish as an impatient homeowner ordering the tent removed from his house before the poisoning process can fully and effectively destroy a vermin infestation “…because the tent is an eyesore.”

This smacks of arrogance and audacity. His myopic presumptions equate to reckless endangerment: gambling with our lives here at home as well as the country we call home to satisfy his aspirations – that is (using another analogy), no less irresponsible as when a parent or guardian leaves a baby or a pet locked in a hot car to go shopping.

Moreover, Obama’s ambition has blinded him to the fact that withdrawing our troops, reducing military spending, and suspending or cancelling defense programs would not only weaken the security of our homeland it would sharply increase domestic unemployment in all related sectors of private, public, and government businesses.

Furthermore, if we lose the strength in numbers of trained military personnel now – or a year or two from now – and our country is attacked again, three to four months would need to pass before capable replacement ground, sea, and air combat troops could be expected to reach required potency and supplant those who had been killed and injured. In that time, we could go beyond the crisis level and face unmitigated disaster because of a lack of trained manpower.

Our enemies could exploit this perceived weakness. They might attack, possibly with lethal chemical weapons, and destroy (but not be limited to) municipal and military communications centers and installations, commercial and military airfield complexes, fire, police and energy stations, water and food supplies, roads and railways, all personnel therein, and every civilian within specific radii of those areas.

John McCain is aware of the foregoing, because he is a long-horn, scarred, intemperate and veteran bull. Faith should be invested in him, in that he would exercise every power vested in him as President to go the distance and cut out the fanatic canker that threatens humanity and prevent such attacks.

Obama is a neophyte. His daydreaming has left him deficient of legislative and leadership experience. With neither to his credit, he wouldn’t be able to stop an asthma attack.

It would therefore come as no surprise to the GOP, conservatives or rational Democrats if, as president, he one day swings open the White House doors, flashes a smile at the beast looming above him (whose entrée into our land he helped engineer), and says:

“What a nice horsey – of course I’ll sign for it.”

Can Obama win the reddest of Red States, Utah? In this land of conservative Mormon voters, it seems quite unlikely. Still, it looks like the candidate is sending volunteers to woo these unlikely voters…

This on top of the fact that even some Democrats feel that they’re too conservative for Mr. Obama. (more…)