A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
"What Did Bush Do?"
I am very reluctant to discuss politics in academia or at businesses. My current clients have on staff a large percentage of immigrants and people of color and other minority groups (in other words, probably not fertile ground for a conservative blogger); the black manager of the developer group has a picture of Barack Obama prominently on display in his office. Usually I don't hear much politics at the client site, but late this week arriving just before an informal presentation in a developer's office, I found the others discussing the zealots (in particular, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and Sarah Palin) being nominated or supported by the extremist right-wing Tea Party. Any faithful reader to this blog knows that Sarah Palin is not a "conservative" but a right-leaning populist, and I have been sharply critical of the Tea Party Express, particularly for their part in sabotaging the certain defeat of Harry Reid in Nevada and Mike Castle's lock on winning Biden's old US Senate seat in Delaware. (Given the bleak economic environment, Sharron Angle still has a shot at unseating Reid, but her two nomination challengers would be leading by double-digits.)
My Asian colleague had picked up on the hint that I'm a conservative and have a blog (which he refuses to read on the basis that he doesn't want to read a "Republican" blog). Like Sean Hannity, I don't like the allegation that I'm a Republican shill (but I'm not a Sean Hannity conservative) ; I haven't worked for or contributed to the GOP. I have been sharply critical of Republican priorities, talking points and strategy. I have been primarily a pro-business conservative, i.e., classical economic libertarian, whom feels that Big Government growth has become unsustainable for the economic future of the United States, increasingly inefficient and unmanageable, and unresponsive to the people. I have to be careful in describing myself as being pro-business, because liberals seem to equate that being a shill for Big Business; nevertheless, I am supportive of the Citizens United SCOTUS decision, because I feel a ban on corporate political speech is unconstitutional. In fact, I oppose corporate subsidies, welfare and bailouts on principle. Obama's critique of lobbyists is self-serving; I've been highly critical of Barack Obama's own form of intrinsically corrupting crony capitalism, e.g., the deals with health care industry groups, the auto industry, AIG, the GSE's, etc. I differ from many mainstream Republicans in important ways, including my belief that nothing is off limits (including defense) in terms of cutting the national debt and in strategically balancing our foreign policy and streamlining our foreign entanglements (including an end to nation building).
The Democratic Party left me, rather than the other way around. Even during my salad days as a liberal Democrat, I was a fiscal conservative. I actually believed that Jimmy Carter would bring zero-based budgeting to the US government. But the party had a schism. I was more of a John Kennedy pro-growth, centrist Democrat, not a Ted Kennedy progressive Democrat. When I supported Ted Kennedy in the 1980 Democratic caucuses in Texas, it was really more a protest vote against an inept Jimmy Carter and a belief in the unfinished legacy of the Kennedy brothers, not a commitment to Ted's liberal agenda. In fact, it was Ted Kennedy's partisan attack on the brilliant jurist Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court that triggered my permanent break from the Democratic Party.
My Asian colleague spouted the usual progressive talking points regarding the Tea Party, allegedly failed economic policies and alleged GOP obstructionism on health care and other issues. The Tea Party had been triggered by a clarion call on misguided Democratic morally hazardous attempts to provide home mortgage relief at the expense of other taxpayers whom signed and lived up to their mortgage obligations in good faith. I patiently explained the common sense objections to the Democratic agenda. I pointed out that health care costs have exploded because of ordinary expenses (e.g., Viagra, checkups, etc.) built into health insurance that perverted the very nature of insurance (I pointed out that we don't include gas, oil changes, and minor repairs in auto insurance), not to mention gold-plated mandates, and that Democrats years ago rejected an offer of Republicans to allow for catastrophic coverage, which is the real issue; I also pointed out that many big companies are allowed to self-insure, thus attaining much lower administrative costs, while small companies cannot band together across states to achieve the cost scalability and/or self-insurance rights and are subject to intrinsically corrupt, expensive individual state mandates.
There was the inevitable attempt of my colleague's attempt to engage in Bush bashing: he demanded that I posit any redeeming value of the Bush Presidency. He wasn't receptive to Bush's national safety achievement after 9/11, the success of Bush's surge strategy in Iraq or things like Libya's renouncement of its nuclear ambitions. I ticked off bipartisan legislation on taxes, education reform and a Medicare drug benefit; I noted Bush's leadership in attempting to address entitlement and immigration reform. I also pointed out that Bush inherited a number of problems that had their start in the Clinton Administration, including the housing bubble, a stock market crash, the financial scandals and 9/11. I reminded him that the Democrats had flipped leadership in the Senate by coaxing a GOP senator (Jeffords) to caucus with them, that Bush never had the kind of Congressional majorities that Obama has.
A point that progressives often attempt to do is try to bait conservatives into playing by their rules, e.g., by demanding that conservatives prescribe a competing megalomaniac economic policy. I try to explain that the government needs to pick its moments, choose its battles, act consistently and predictably, and spend its resources more carefully. Conservatives don't want to pick winners and losers, but promote broad-based, fair tax and regulatory policies that by design eliminate the need for special favors. I pointed out that the very existence of 2000-page laws that no legislator understands in voting yea or nay is the antithesis to the rule of law.
Did I convert my colleague into my way of thinking? Probably not. He did go out of his way to say he is not a Democrat; that was clear by the fact he listened to what I was saying, instead of constantly interrupting. He called it a good discussion; if nothing else, he came away from the discussion knowing that not all conservatives were unreasonable ideologues. I made my own odyssey to conservatism without someone else to guide my path. It didn't happen overnight; maybe my colleague will never come to embrace conservatism as I have, because the mainstream media is heavily slanted. People rarely change their world view on the basis of a solitary conversation or writing. All I can do is to be an ambassador for my variation of pragmatic conservatism, plant a seed of common sense and be patient.
Petty Politics, the Palins, and Joe Miller
Sarah Palin thinks that she is a kingmaker; her Senate endorsements in California, New Hampshire and Alaska carried the primaries. Sarah's troublemaking husband Todd was reportedly furious with Alaskan nominee Joe Miller's lack of reciprocity in gingerly sidestepping issues of an endorsement of a prospective Sarah Palin run for the Presidency. (I would basically classify Miller's carefully worded response as almost exactly the same way John McCain has responded, by pointing out there were a number of qualified candidate and he is focused on winning the election this fall.) Todd's tactless email to Miller somehow got leaked publicly. Whereas Sarah Palin still pays lip service to her prior endorsement, her active support of Miller has notably dropped since the kerfuffle surfaced.
PLEASE. Todd Palin, if you are looking for someone to attack, let me be clear: Sarah Palin is unqualified to be President, and I will never vote for a national ticket with Sarah Palin on it. The fact is that everyone knows that Sarah Palin and the Murkowski clan are at odds with each other, and Sarah Palin herself could have run against Lisa Murkowski. But even Scott Rasmussen found Sarah's fellow Alaskans were more unlikely to support her. She quit two-thirds of the way through her first and only term, in the middle of the biggest recession in decades, and she thinks that being a quitter qualifies her over governors whom have served full terms like Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, and others? Give me a break!
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Donald Trump is thinking of running for President in 2012. Back in 2007, Donald Trump beat Linda McMahon's husband Vince in a hair match at WWE Wrestlemania. Are you prepared to see a bald Obama after the 2012 election?
- Lady Gaga placed ahead of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Forbes' recent most powerful women in the world. Nancy Pelosi is jealous: she thought the costume she wore in The Wizard of Oz was better than any of Lady Gaga's.
Musical Interlude: The "British Invasion" of the 1960's Series
The Beatles, "Do You Want to Know a Secret?"
