I can’t tell for sure if Josh Treviño is quoting Christopher Buckley approvingly or not, but in case he is, I take exception with this statement:
“While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of ‘conservative’ government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance.”
Anyone who would call the Bush administration eight years of conservative government I think is playing fast and loose with definitions. Especially for the Bush/Daschle/Hastert years, but also for the Bush/Lott-Frist/Hastert years, I don’t see conservative control of government there.
Can anyone point to me how any of the above listed men (President Bush, Senators Daschle, Lott, and Frist, and Speaker Hastert) have any ties to the conservative movement in any form? What did they do, or write, or say, that connected them with us before taking office, or while they were in office?
If one wants to question one’s ties to the Republican Party, I can be sympathetic. I’ve sure done that enough from time to time, even though I’m currently convinced that conservatives are best served by fighting hard within the party and for the coalition. But I don’t see how the conservative movement, as fragmented as it always has been, is represented by what goes on in Washington.
And of all people, Christopher Buckley should know that. If he doesn’t, he should try to step back and look on his family history, as so many of us not named Buckley have, and see how conservatives have often been less than fully at ease or welcomed into the party. There’s a reason that Christopher’s own uncle James was once elected United States Senator from New York on the Conservative party line, defeating Republican incumbent and Governor Rockefeller appointee Charles Goodell, after all.
The fact that the younger Buckley is so seemingly ignorant of the histories of the movement and the party, or willing to ignore them for the sake of endorsing Barack Obama, is such a disappointment for someone who trades on his father’s name.
Ever heard of the Ron Paul rEVOLution? Well, it’s now time to get updated. It’s now the Barack Obama rEVOLution that we have to contend with:
Obamanauts are apparently as devoid of an ability to produce as the One himself. And Ronulans have now been rewritten in history to be Obama supporters. Ha ha.
Since I got my iPod Touch, I’ve had problems with it crashing hard, and requiring a total restore from backup. At first I ass umed it was the leather case I kept it in, but no. Then I thought it was due to heat just from using it a lot going out, but no.
No action I took kept the occasional crashes from happening, which is annoying. I hate to go to use it, and find it needs to sit for a half hour or more to reset, reinstall the firmware, restore my backup, then copy all my music and videos back onto it. That’s unacceptable.
I finally last week or so figured out the solution: It’s been crashing when I lay it face up on a flat table and recharge. The heat builds up. So I went and got a a dock/alarm clock that stores the iPod vertically. Sitting upright, the metal back is exposed to the air, thus letting it cool.
No crashes since.
Two NLCS games for the Dodgers, two losses. This is less fun, heh.
“We’re all socialists now.” “We have to defeat the socialist bailout.” “This is the end of free markets and the start of socialism.” On both sides of the ‘bailout’ recovery plan debate, the word socialism has come fast and freely. Sometimes used in sad irony, sometimes in bitter earnestness, the word always comes.
However I think the word ‘socialist’ is being used too broadly now, without much thought, and as the hammer to drive a reflex rejection of government action. I believe that while this reflex just happens to be useful most of the time, due to the massive expansion of the government in the period 1933-1980, but to be always opposed to government is a liberal (read libertarian in modern language) reflex, not a conservative one.
Please, spare me the quotes of Ronald Reagan. He said what he said for specific reasons, but he was all for government action when it was right. Whether to fight the looming threat of international Communism, to combat crime in America’s streets, or to protect the lives of the unborn from the butchery of abortion, President Reagan was ready, willing, and able to send people from the government who were there to help.
So that is why I use the scare quotes in my inflammatory title. I do not believe that government intervention into the financial markets, particularly in cases of severe distress, is inherently socialist in any meaningful way. Here’s the difference:
I will start with the simplest refutation, and quote the Merriam-Webster definition of socialism: Socialism is “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” Socialists seek to confiscate control over the driving force of the economy: the production of goods that people wish to buy and sell. However, I would argue that banks, brokers, and insurers are not part of
That is a vital distinction. No conservative I know wishes to end government ownership of any property at all, or even the government’s providing of appropriate services to the people. Consider the three legs of the Reagan coalition’s stool so often discussed in the primaries:
- Strong defense: Reaganites favor the ability of the US government to project overwhelming force anywhere in the world, when it is necessary for our way of life to be preserved. Consider that well: we willingly grant the government the authority to wipe out entire cities with powerful thermonuclear bombs as politicians and bureaucrats see fit.
- Strong values: Reaganites favor aggressive government intervention in hospitals and other medical facilities to end the practice of discretionary abortion on demand, literally taking for itself decisions of life and death.
- Strong economy: Reaganites favor a crafted system of taxation and regulation where the suppliers in our economy, the businesses that are the engine of employment, are freed from the burdens of excessive taxation and regulation, in order to keep that engine running well.
I hope there is little argument on those three points. Especially on the last, we tend to believe that the right thing to do is to foster productivity from the people in our economy who produce things, within the bounds of the Constitution.
I assert that the financial recovery bill, and other interventions being made by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are precisely that. We are not taking a planning role in the economy, outside of the bounds of the Constitution; we are taking control of our money supply, which is one of the duties of the government. We are not confiscating property; we are buying property at prices that are too high if anything.
What we are doing now is a supply-side intervention. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve trying to preserve the ability of the producers in this economy to get the credit they need to produce, to hire, and to grow this economy. They take these drastic actions to counter a panic that is arguably the direct result of prior government action in the Community Reinvestment Act.
This is not socialism. This is government action that may be good, or may be bad, but it has no connection with the radical, erosive ideologies that caused so much suffering in the 20th century, and still do to this day.
So please, to those who argue against the ‘bailouts’ going on right now, argue the policies on their merits. Talk about moral hazard, affordability, or the need for ‘creative destruction.’ But please, don’t talk about freedom, socialism or any of that, because none of it is at stake here. What we’re doing here is supply side economics. Just look closer and you will see.
Ryan Fagan thinks only Joe Torre could have kept the Dodgers playing as a team while sitting Colletti’s old guys.
Good for Torre. Because as long as Colletti’s around, I expect we’ll be getting a steady stream of overpaid old guys to find a place for, sadly.
Elgin Baylor has retired as Clippers VP of Basketball. I’m shocked. But, then again, he’s 74. I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s tired of it.
Good look to him.
I just bought things from Amazon. DRM-free music tracks. Specifically: Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads, and Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley.
I would have spent two dollars more to buy them from Apple, but Apple didn’t have a DRM-free version of either. Sigh.
The campaign seemed to be going in a certain direction, but John McCain made an announcement today:
Mets fans have a lot to look forward to, poor guys:
“You don’t see a lot of guys that have statistical numbers play well in these championship series,” Manuel said. “What you see is usually the little second baseman or somebody like that carries off the MVP trophy that nobody expected him to do. That’s because he’s comfortable in playing that form of baseball, so therefore when the stage comes, it’s not a struggle for him.”
Yeah, because that’s what the Yankees used to do to win so many Series. They’d sit Murderer’s Row, because those stats compilers like Ruth never did anything in the postseason.
Or the Big Red Machine, they never won squat because they insisted on playing all their high stats guys.
Nobody ever heard of Kirk Gibson when he came up with the clutch play over those big stats A’s. He was just a light hitting utility man hopping from team to team until Lasorda saw the true value in him. What’d Oakland ever do anyway?
And who could forget regular season flops like Messrs. October and November, Reggie Jackson and Derek Jeter, who hit for a combined lifetime .189 AVG, .201 OBP, .235 SLG in the regular season, but made their names known in the playoffs.
Anyway, the whole article is full of stupidity like that, but that was just my favorite bonehead quote Poor Mets fans. They now have a manager who’s putting an emphasis on fewer runs.