A foot in the door
Having given up on the two major parties, it's still encouraging to hear a call for slapping down the party in power, from members of that party. A pile of seven Republicans who realize the GOP has dropped all pretense of being the limited-government alternative have written essays on the theme "Time for us to go" for Washington Monthly.
These are names that resonate in memory, like Richard Viguerie, who says, "If Big Government Republicans behave so irresponsibly and betray the people who elected them, while we blindly, slavishly continue backing them, we establish that there is no price to pay for violating conservative principles."
And Joe Scarborough, who remembers, "... right-wing, knuckle-dragging Republicans like myself took over Congress in 1994 promising to balance the budget and limit Washington’s power," and notes, "The fact that both parties hated each another was healthy for our republic’s bottom line. A Democratic president who hates a Republican appropriations chairman is less likely to sign off on funding for the Midland Maggot Festival being held in the chairman’s home district. Soon, budget negotiations become nasty, brutish, and short and devolve into the legislative equivalent of Detroit, where only the strong survive. But in Bush’s Washington, the capital is a much clubbier place where everyone in the White House knows someone on the Hill who worked with the Old Man, summered in Maine, or pledged DKE at Yale. The result? Chummy relationships, no vetoes, and record-breaking debts."
We're not going to see a reversal of the deterioration of our liberty anytime soon, so in any election the best we can hope for is a slowdown of the decline. It's insane that these two Big Government parties think they're polar opposites, but as long as they're crazy, it makes sense to make them equals. A Democratic Congress and Republican president could keep themselves in gridlock long enough for us to eke out a little freedom on the side, a foot in the door that might let the original American spirit back in the house.
These are names that resonate in memory, like Richard Viguerie, who says, "If Big Government Republicans behave so irresponsibly and betray the people who elected them, while we blindly, slavishly continue backing them, we establish that there is no price to pay for violating conservative principles."
And Joe Scarborough, who remembers, "... right-wing, knuckle-dragging Republicans like myself took over Congress in 1994 promising to balance the budget and limit Washington’s power," and notes, "The fact that both parties hated each another was healthy for our republic’s bottom line. A Democratic president who hates a Republican appropriations chairman is less likely to sign off on funding for the Midland Maggot Festival being held in the chairman’s home district. Soon, budget negotiations become nasty, brutish, and short and devolve into the legislative equivalent of Detroit, where only the strong survive. But in Bush’s Washington, the capital is a much clubbier place where everyone in the White House knows someone on the Hill who worked with the Old Man, summered in Maine, or pledged DKE at Yale. The result? Chummy relationships, no vetoes, and record-breaking debts."
We're not going to see a reversal of the deterioration of our liberty anytime soon, so in any election the best we can hope for is a slowdown of the decline. It's insane that these two Big Government parties think they're polar opposites, but as long as they're crazy, it makes sense to make them equals. A Democratic Congress and Republican president could keep themselves in gridlock long enough for us to eke out a little freedom on the side, a foot in the door that might let the original American spirit back in the house.
posted by B.W. Richardson at
7:50 AM
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