Saturday, October 17, 2009

Do they deserve a comeback?

'Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125564976279388879.html

Or... Tea-Party organisations on their way to providing conservative alternative to deeply compromised, rudderless, leaderless GOP?

'But these newly energized conservatives present GOP leaders with a potential problem: The party's strategy for attracting moderate voters risks alienating activists who are demanding ideological purity, who may then gravitate to other candidates or stay at home. It's a classic dilemma faced by parties in the minority -- tension between those who want a return to the party's ideological roots and those who want candidates most likely to win in their districts.'

Some people take ages to get out of long-standing patterns of thought. Like the person who wrote this. Many of the people in the tea-party movement(s) are not Republicans. They are moderates or unaligned people who care that the basic fabric of their society is being torn to pieces by the hated ideology of socialism. They instinctively understand the enormous structural impact of the trillions of debt overhang on the economy and their childrens futures. They understand that what Obama and his rag-tag band of commie lightweights can do to America with the power they currently weild is frightening- and they want elected representatives who will go into combat against that on their behalf.

They hold no tribal allegiance to the Republican party. They understand that many of the beltway Republicans are not fiscal conservatives, and are deeply beholden to large corporations and/or lobbying constituencies. Big government/big corporation statism is just as rife among these Republicans as it is Democrats- which is why its hard to distinguish between them. What these independents and conservatives want is a REAL alternative to Republican/Democrat statism and corruption. Joe the Plumber is a perfect example of this. Not a Republican ideologue, just a man who wants his country run the RIGHT way.

It may actually be too late for a conservative party in the US. There must be a mathematical equation for the point where the number of people who are the financial beneficiaries of state-run theft by tax exceeds the number of voters needed to prevent tax increases and vast government programs. I suspect that the US has already passed the point of no return. What a tragedy.

Who is John Galt?

2 comments:

Adrian Buck said...

"There must be a mathematical equation for the point where the number of people who are the financial beneficiaries of state-run theft by tax exceeds the number of voters needed to prevent tax increases and vast government programs. I suspect that the US has already passed the point of no return."

Well, there are equations depending on the nature of the vast government program. But these equations describe curves not points. Consider health insurance, the bulk of health insurance schemes are provided by employers, so as unemployment increases, the number of people not covered by Health Insurance increases, as does the number of people who would like the Government to provide Health Insurance. Once the economy recovers, the demand for vast government programs will fall. That is why the bulk of the US Welfare state was enacted during the great depression.

Edmund Ironside said...

The high tide mark does not really change the fact that subsequent to these huge programmatic enactments, every tide is higher on average. The amount of the economy controlled by the government is permanently increased, the amount of taxpayer money congress believes it is entitled to never diminishes, and gradually the whole economy and the lives of citizens drift into the governments orbit. Without extremely robust and vigorous counteraction, that's where the US is drifting.