Monday, February 7, 2011

Obama Scare, independents and my never ending nightmare

I must say I am quite disappointed, and yet completely not surprised by the outcome of the vote to repeal Obamacare. It clears the House on a nearly partisan line, and dies in the Senate along a partisan line. Its exactly how the measure was passed in the first place. Look this article isn’t really about the details of Obamacare, we’ve been over those a million and a half times. We know what’s in there, we know its bad legislation. We know that Jim Matheson voted for all the procedures necessary to bring the bill to a final vote in the house, including the measure to grant Nancy Pelosi unilateral power to deem it passed, and we know that Jim Matheson voted against the repeal of Obamacare, yet we continue to act surprised when we find out Democrats are voting like Democrats. Why?

I must confess if there is one thing that is making me cringe anymore is people saying “I’m independent!” or “I vote person not party!” I will concede the point that the Bush Era was a bad one for Republicans. We lost our nerve after the backlash against us for the government shut down of the 90s. Instead of standing up to the media and standing up for fiscal responsibility we began to govern no differently than the Democrats. Its what I call “the era of the moderates.” People too scared of political consequence to stand for anything. But while we cowered in the middle the Democrats moved sharply left. There is nothing moderate or anything short of radical about that party anymore. Meanwhile when we lost the House and the Senate in 2006 and the White House in 2008 we were forced to examine ourselves and try and figure out what went wrong.

In my opinion the emergence of the Tea Party showed us. The left would have you believe its about racism, hate or fear. The media (and as we’ve discussed previously even comic books) play of this insane notion that this movement is all about fear and hate and its not. At its core the argument is simple: Government should neither waste our time or our money. The government has been notoriously bad about wasting both, and its only gotten worse since the Democrats seized power. But among the Glenn Beck watchers out there who are aware that government corruption is a rampant problem is a gaggle of individuals who are satisfied to watch TV and not get active in politics. The problem is that this approach leads to what I call a limited informed opinion. Limited in that you only know what the talking head tells you and do not have the experience with partisan politics to really know what’s happening.

This weekend we attended the first meeting of the Tooele Young Republicans club. It was a great event but there was a bit of an open forum at the end where representatives of a number of Tea Party type organizations got up, and all of them touted their openness to the Democrats. While that’s great let me just add one thing that was left unsaid but needed to be. The Democrats are not open to us. The simple reality is that right now legislation passes or fails completely on partisan lines. Look at the voting records. The Democrats don’t reach across the isle, the just bully the country into getting their way, only one party is even remotely interested in serious budget cuts and that is the Republican Party.

I beg all of you, examine the voting records especially of the Mormon Democrats Jim Matheson and Harry Reid and reel in horror when you discover the many ways they have betrayed their faith. Neither one can be appropriately described as moderates, even if they are nice guys.

I am at a point with politics where I am looking at things in very black and white terms. Either it is wrong or right, either its constitutional or its not, either it enhances liberty or it chains us down. The fact of the matter is that the GOP does have its problems, but only a unified conservative front under the umbrella of a pre-existing party can stand united against the united socialist front that is the Democratic Party. Shoot Dennis Kucinich is one of the nicest most polite people on the planet, but he’s also honest enough to admit he’s a socialist.

In the end its not whether or not a politician or states person is nice or not that is going to matter, its how they are going to vote in Washington, or on Capitol Hill locally. Partisanship matters, because whether someone has a D or an R at the end of their name is going to tell you a lot about what they believe in. One believes the government should micro manage your life and that, as Van Jones said, “there’s plenty of money out there, its only a matter of how we’re going to spend it.” The other believes the government should butt out of your business and personal life so long as you are not hurting others in pursuit of your own happiness, that one also believes in fiscal responsibility, though has had difficulty making some of the more difficult cuts but whose fault is that really?

The biggest drain on our budget, the biggest black holes sucking in and destroying our resources with a dismal return are social security, medicare, Medicaid and our ever expanding list of social programs. Are you ready to make those cuts? We are if you are. But in the end we can only save this country if we stand united. No more can we get away with having an “I” after our names, or an “L” or “C”.

Good grief there are few bigger fans of Ron Paul, Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises than I. I am fully aware there are problems and problematic people in the GOP, but in the end I have a better chance of getting things done as a Republican than as a fragment of a fragment of a fragment of a movement who united represent the majority of Americans, but as a fragmented as we stand to be wanting to be bipartisan so we can claim to be “open minded” (whatever that is) we end up useless to the cause of liberty, and when we cast our ballots for people like Jim Matheson an inadvertent aid to those despots who seek to “fundamentally transform America.”

The line was drawn by the Democrats while Bush tried (unsuccessfully) to reach across the isle. The line is their. Its time to chose your side of the line and either work toward defeating this Obamacare nightmare, the insane financial regulatory reform bill, and what’s left of the various stimulus packages. Failure to come together, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Moderates and even Neo Cons alike means the end of America as we know it.

2 comments:

  1. Wow lil bro what can I say? You have very strong,well researched and thought out oppinions. While I feel a tad embarassed that this comes on the heels of My remarks about Mathesson and being Independant I cannot pretend that You have Me by the short and curlies as it were. I concede to everything but I will not re-join the Republican Party as it currently is constituted. I actually still vote mostly Republican if that counts for anything. I am happy to be the first of I am sure will be legions to follow this blog!

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  2. Thank you for your comments! I concede to the point there is work to do in cleaning up the GOP. But we have seen a great deal of progress in this effort, but to succeed we need to swell the ranks of active conservatives in our ranks to over run those who would stand for the status quo.

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