'It's Your Party, and You'll Cry If You Want to?'
By Selwyn Duke (11/06/06)
To still the siren of the heart and defer to the head is to seldom be wrongly led. - So many wrong things feel so right. "You know, I really told my mother-in-law off the other day and, boy, did it feel good." Of course, what has changed? Your mother-in-law is still the nag she always was. One change, though, is that now your family politics has descended into the abyss.
This occurs to me when I hear my political soul mates talk of sitting on their hands this election cycle. I hear pundits and plebeians both make pronouncements about how we have to “clean house” and teach the straying Republican Party a lesson. “Why, we’ll show ‘em! Take us for granted, will you!”
Now, perhaps my grasp of the principles of hygiene is flawed, but my understanding is that you can’t clean a house by replacing the dust with toxic waste. So, let’s see if we can learn a lesson here today.
I’m as disappointed in the liberal tendencies of the neo-con lot as you are. Personally, I’d like to be coronated king and have the Weimar Republicans perform menial labor around the palace. And maybe Lindsey Graham could be my court jester. But you know what is even more amusing about this fantasy than the scenario itself? It’s just slightly more fanciful than the notion that replacing neo-cons with neo-communists will, in a political galaxy not so far, far away, yield better government.
Every election presents us with a real opportunity to clean house and House – and Senate. It’s called the “primaries.” This is when true conservatives, be they major party players or the rarest of breeds – a viable third-party candidate – can be chosen over inside-the-beltway retreads. And understand that when we complain about some of the Republicans running in the general election, we are complaining about Republican voters’ primary choices. And the time to address that was before the primaries – not now.
And don’t tell me we don’t have the opportunities. Sure, such individuals may not always capture the backing of the intermittently feckless Republican leadership, but they run. And when the voters run away from them, it sends the wrong message. If we want to teach liberal Republicans a lesson, we need to nominate conservative ones.
One such opportunity materialized during the Illinois gubernatorial primaries. Conservative dairy magnate Jim Oberweis sought the Republican nomination, hoping to unseat leftist governor Rod Blagojevich, who I not so affectionately call Blago the Terrible. Instead of choosing fresh milk, however, the Republicans of Illinois opted for old cheese. They nominated Judy Baar Topinka, a political hack whose liberal views are largely indistinguishable from Blago’s. Anyway, how it shakes out is that slim just left town for Topinka, and the Blago the Terrible infection will continue to metastasize, making it a very Ill-inois indeed. Hey, people get the government they deserve.
Some will respond to my point about limiting corrective action to the primaries by pointing out that the power of incumbency needs to be broken. But this is a self-defeating argument. After all, once leftists take the reins, they will enjoy the power of incumbency. And why should we think that two years hence conservatives will be able to rise from the ashes of our immolation and break a liberal stranglehold on government?
Now, if you’re still sitting there with a red face, pursed lips and folded arms, thinking there is virtue in jumping from the frying pan into the fire, let’s gain some perspective.
Things can always be worse. Much, much worse. It’s easy to forget this, though, if you listen to the talking bobbleheads in the media and cast your vote based on vague notions about Republican mishandling of Iraq and the fanciful one that Democrats (a majority of Senate Democrats also voted for the war) hold a never revealed panacea. But, while the Democrats offer no magic bullet for the pacification of Iraq, they most certainly are the poisoned pill for something of even greater import: the Supreme Court.
If the Court hasn’t occupied the upper tiers of your priority list, tear it up. Remember that courts can effect social engineering by judicial fiat, reshaping America for generations to come. And this practice, involving contravention of the Constitution and known as judicial activism, has been practiced incessantly by leftist judges for decades now.
The best illustration is a real life example. You may remember the Kelo eminent domain decision. This was the outrage wherein, in a five to four vote, the Supreme Court ruled that localities could seize property from one private entity (usually a citizen of modest means) for the purposes of giving it to another private entity (usually a big business that would use it to make money).
Quite fittingly, this un-American decision was assailed from all sides, left, right and center. Despite this, however, most people fail to see the association between their electoral choices and such judicial abuse. So let’s identify the culprits.
The five justices who voted to abrogate private property rights were the more liberal ones: Steven Breyer, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Those standing up for the little guy were William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Sandra Day O’Connor. The late Rehnquist was a rock solid conservative, as are Thomas and Scalia. O’Connor was a moderate who often cast the swing vote.
Now, bear in mind that President Bush has nominated and the Republican Congress confirmed two more good justices to the bench, bringing the total to four – one short of a majority. And with Stevens being eighty-six years old, there’s a fair chance that Bush will have the opportunity to nominate that crucial fifth justice. Who do you want this individual to be? Another in the mold of Ginsberg, who once said,
“We [judges, when making decisions] must look for inspiration beyond our borders, to the laws and constitutions of other nations”?
Or do you want a justice who respects the rule of law and adheres to our constitution, thereby protecting our rights? A Democrat controlled legislature would “Bork” any truly good justice.
A more recent example of leftist judicial activism, albeit on a state level, is the New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of anti-marriage. Unbelievably, after admitting that no right to civil unions or anti-marriage exists in the New Jersey Constitution, the justices simply decided they would trump the will of the people and become a de facto oligarchy.
As critical as understanding what happened, however, is understanding how it happened. The people of NJ voted for liberal politicians (even the Republicans in NJ are quite liberal) who appointed and confirmed bad judges who, in turn, issued bad rulings. It’s easy to understand if you can connect the dots and follow A to B to C. The problem is that people simply complain about the C, forget all about the B, and then re-elect the A. Yes, people get the government they deserve. And if we don’t deserve the C, we’ll remember the A.
In the same vein, this past July the Democrats actually admitted that they formulated a “five-point plan for fighting state ballot measures calling for banning same-sex marriage.” Please read the linked article. The frankness about their desire to thwart the will of the people and destroy marriage is stunning.
In light of the aforementioned, will middle class Americans continue leaning toward liberal Democrats in the thinking that the latter better understand their plight? After all, liberals’ seeming disdain for private property rights and love of homosexual causes belies this notion and illuminates the reality. Liberals claim to be for the common man. In truth, they're only for the uncommon man.
Make no mistake, the liberal Democrats whose ascendancy seems imminent, led by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, have plans for you. Oh, they’re not plans proclaimed loudly from mountaintops because this might give the peons second thoughts. Nor are they plans whose design will serve us. But here are some other things to expect if liberals take the helm.
1. The border fence will never be built. Remember that it still has to be funded (there’s some question as to whether it will be funded anyway), and San Francisco Pelosi and her ilk will never let that happen.
2. There will probably be an irresistible effort to grant amnesty to the twenty-million illegal aliens in our nation. Then, once these illegals bring in their families, we may see an influx of fifty to eighty-million more from the Third World.
3. Expect an effort to repeal the partial-birth abortion ban, the law that prohibits what is nothing less than infanticide.
4. There will be efforts to raise taxes and institute wasteful, inane programs and politically correct policies.
5. We will be subjected to an endless barrage of witch hunts, investigations of the Bush administration animated by vindictiveness and designed to cripple traditionalist initiatives.
6. There will probably be an effort to resurrect the “Fairness Doctrine,” a mislabeled piece of legislation that would force talk radio to give liberals equal time. However, it would target only conservative dominated talk radio, while ignoring the left’s hegemony in the more influential mainstream media.
This is just a sampling of the socialist agenda elements that will be pushed by the liberal Democrats, should they seize control of the houses. And this brings me to my next point.
Some say they don’t trust Bush, as he has betrayed conservative principles. Okay, fair enough. But then, why in the world would you trust him to stand firm against an aggressive, relentless Democrat legislative branch bent on effecting leftist policies? Are you sure that he won’t be cowed into signing even more liberal legislation? You must think he is quite the man.
We would do well to remember that the Republicans may be a disappointment, but they’re our disappointment.
So, voting Republican this November isn’t about being a party animal who imbibes ideology-spiked Kool-Aid. It’s about quieting that siren and not mistaking perturbation for perspicacity. And it’s about understanding that the perfect should never be the enemy of the good. It is said that while Ronald Reagan adhered to certain immutable conservative principles, he understood politics well enough to realize that sometimes you have to settle for half a loaf.
This sounds a lot better to me than stale crumbs and impending starvation. And I’d expect nothing else from the let-them-eat-cake liberals in the party of the uncommon man.
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