My letter to Hillary

(Hat tip to Beth at MVRWC)

More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part V of a Dialogue)

This is a continuation from the fourth part of this series which can be accessed here. To start from the beginning (if you have not read the previous parts) please go here.

And though I have noted it in every part of the series so far, a reminder of the colour schemata in this series (to cut down on confusion as to the sequence of arguments) still seems pertinent; ergo I reiterate for a final time what I noted in the first part of this series:

The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

Without further ado...

Furthermore, the Reagan years were an aberration of sorts...in the past hundred ten odd years, there were only three non-establishment Republican candidates: Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. (The Democrats had only one -Harry Truman- in that same span of time if you exclude the thrice defeated William Jennings Bryan.) TR only became president because the establishment plan to shut him up by making him vice president backfired when McKinley was assassinated. He was able to get elected on his own in 1804 and if he had not died when he did, probably would have won in 1920...a story for another time altogether perhaps.

Goldwater broke the back of the establishment in 1964 along with the Democratic stronghold of the south though he lost in a landslide thanks to the establishment doing their part of not supporting him as they should have. But he made an important breakthrough because other than his home state of Arizona, all the states he won electorally were in the deep south: a break of the "solid south" which had been dominated by Democrat electoral power since 1856. This paved the way for Nixon to come through in 1968 and then even more spectacularly in 1972 but Nixon was an establishment candidate. He was replaced by Ford in 1974 and in 1976, the entire establishment supported Ford against Reagan -even Goldwater who basically brokered Nixon's resignation supported Ford over the candidate who was ideologically much closer to himself.

Well, Goldwater was actually closer to Rudy Guiliani that he was to Reagan. Once issues like abortion and homosexuality became issues Goldwater was both pro-gay and pro-abortion.

Sigh...more education is needed on this obviously.

I think it is more than safe to say that Reagan turned out to be a true conservative while Goldwater didn't.

Senator Goldwater did take the view that someone who was gay should not be disallowed in the military if they are competent soldiers. If you are going to oppose his view on that then at least familiarize yourself with it first. It is not a matter of being "pro gay" but instead pro military and recognizing that those who can shoot straight can make valuable contributions to the nation's defense even if they are not personally straight. There is also the recognition that there have been homosexuals in the military in every military since the days of the Roman empire and policies that involve pretending otherwise are both naive as well as stupid.

I happen to have not viewed the gays in the military issue as much of a big deal -ironically I differed from Goldwater on means though not the end if you will. I had no problem with the "don't ask, don't tell" policy when Clinton announced it (unlike Goldwater) and I do not now: it has nothing to do with being "pro gay" any more than defending someone's right to believe something makes me "pro" their view. And I am not going to anathematize Goldwater for disagreeing with me on this issue viz. the means.

As far as the abortion issue goes, to understand Goldwater's position it helps to consider some of his comments from The Congressional Record:

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." [Senator Barry M. Goldwater: From The Congressional Record (circa September 16, 1981)]

I can not only understand Senator Goldwater's anger on these matters but to some extent I have long shared it. On religious matters it embodies opposing those who would try to make others follow every jot and tittle of their personal opinion as if it was required dogma lest they be viewed as "heterodox" "anathematized", or whatever.{1} On political matters it encapsulates those who try to claim some unique franchise on the term "conservatism" by focusing on one or two issues and disregarding the rest; essentially, ignoring the underlying philosophy of a conservative outlook while uncritically parroting one or two talking points positions which are based on certain foundational presuppositions which they do not bother to question. To quote Goldwater, "just who do they think they are"???

Of course there are some areas where Reagan fared a bit better on the issue of conservatism. Neither man was supportive personally of abortion but they went about it differently. In Goldwater's case, his claim that women had a "right to abortion" late in his life was a recognition that RvW was "settled law" (cf. John Roberts) whether we like it or not. But just because something is "settled law" does not mean it cannot at some point be changed.

Goldwater according to his autobiography was personally was opposed to abortion -viewing it as a states right issue not a federal one. And while Reagan was better on balance than Goldwater on abortion perhaps;{2} nonetheless, on the plethora of what embodies conservative principles, Reagan did not fare as well overall as Goldwater.

For Goldwater was not only opposed to The Great Society as Reagan was but also to The New Deal which Reagan was in many respects not. (My view on this is somewhere between that of Reagan and Goldwater.) But the root difference between Conservatives and Liberals was one that Goldwater noted decades ago in the following fashion:

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man's nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man's nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand,—in the name of a concern for "human beings"—regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. They are, moreover, in a hurry. So that their characteristic approach is to harness the society's political and economic forces into a collective effort to compel "progress." In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.

Senator Goldwater did not believe in trying to harness any governmental entity to try and "compel progress" regardless of what that proposed "progress" happened to be. He was in other words completely consistent on this matter. The same cannot be said of The Gipper who did not mind trying to use government at times to "compel progress" depending on the issue at hand.

The problem with judicial activism on one hand is it makes one lack credibility when they criticize the other side for doing the same thing: yet this is precisely what the religious right sorts want to try and do. The hallmark of conservatism is advocating the maximum of human liberty consonant with societal order: subsidiarity if you will. And part of subsidiarity is not involving the federal government in the attempt to compel societal virtue.

This is why Goldwater did not favour activist judges of any stripe and Reagan in this area was a bit inconsistent. They were both conservatives, believing in the same core principles but differing at times on how they viewed those principled to be best implemented. Neither was 100% perfect but Goldwater overall was better than Reagan was.

At bottom, your comments about Goldwater reveal to me that you do not really understand the heart of conservative philosophy despite (usually) having some good conservative instincts XXXXXXX. But that is a subject for another time perhaps...I have said all I intend to for now on it.

And if not for Carter being such a horrible president, Reagan would probably not have been elected in 1980. There was that and also because Carter and his advisers made the same mistake in 1980 that Governor Pat Brown and his advisers did in California in 1966: they presumed Reagan was easier to beat than the other major candidates so they sabotaged the front runner to get Reagan as an opponent. So Reagan got the nomination, resisted the attempts to paint him in demonic colours that the Democrats tried to do, and won in 1980 by significantly dominating the south -winning all but Georgia and West Virginia. He added those states in 1984 when he swept the south: the second time a Republican had ever done that. (Nixon was the first in the 1972 election to do it.) Bush Sr. ran as carrying Reagan's mantle the same way that Taft ran as carrying TR's mantle in 1912. And just as Taft was a huge disappointment, so too was Bush Sr. and both of them lost re-election in three party races. The Republicans in 1916 as in 1996 went with an establishment candidate and need I go on??? The bottom line is, what we saw this year is historically more probable than not.

1916, the year of the Bull Moose "It's all about Teddy" debacle.

You mean 1912. Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election in 1916 on the "he kept us out of war" platform winning narrowly.

TR's act of self-agranddizement was both embarrassing and destructive.

In a sense it was sure. But your claim that it was an act of "self-aggrandizement" shows me you do not know much about what actually happened. TR followed the Ben Franklin model and did not campaign for the presidency -noting that he would not seek the nomination but if there was a grass roots movement that supported him, he would not refuse out of a proper sense of duty on the matter. As it happens, there was such a movement from many who were pissed off at the Republican party bosses and the most visible person they could find to champion their cause was TR. I could note more on this but that you do not even realize that TR responded to a movement to draft him and did not lead such a charge himself tells me just how shallow your knowledge on this matter really is.

But you are right about this event having a destructive nature to it as it basically drove the Roosevelt element out of the Republican party and let the conservative oligarchy element to deservedly die on the vine in the general election. But it also opened a new vista in the form of the election primary contributing to the nomination of a candidate.

That election also was one of the first where primaries became a factor in nomination and it was the Roosevelt faction that favoured the primary system as a way of breaking the establishment hold on the party machinery. The problem is, the primaries were not viewed as binding back then but instead as voluntary; ergo Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette won two primaries out of the first four, President Taft won two out of the first four, and TR won nine of the last ten including Taft's home state of Ohio which he won by a large margin. The momentum had clearly shifted and Taft was losing where the party bosses were unable to keep a tight control on things. And at the convention, the conservative party bosses rigged the machinery to get a nomination victory for Taft. They did this not only in seating Taft delegates in Alabama and Arizona but also from California -a state that Roosevelt had won. As a result of the California shafting, TR and his delegates saw the screw job in the making and walked out of the convention hall and formed their own party.

Of course you think that TR was the "embarrassment" because he did not smile, lie back, and have "thoughts of England" while he was being screwed by party bosses. But then again, that is the difference between those who are party loyalists (like you) and those who are not (like me). Disgraceful actions are disgraceful in and of themselves, not okay or otherwise worth being quiet about when "our guys" do it but then shrieking like a banshee when "their guys" do.

One of the major differences between TR and Reagan was their post presidential years. Reagan was a true statesman when push come to shove and Roosevelt wasn't.

Reagan was an old man of 77 who did not have much else he could do when he left office whereas TR had just turned 50 and still had plenty of gas in the tank. That point aside what exactly did Reagan do of a "statesman-like nature" that you think was so compelling or otherwise accomplishing of something positive??? I cannot think of anything offhand -he gave a great speech at the 1992 convention and attended Republican functions on occasion but that is about it.

By contrast, TR was involved in a much-publicized African Safari in support of science in 1909-10{3}, fought the corruption in his own party in 1911-12, trekked through South America in 1913-14 again to aid in the advancement of science -though that time he was infected by malaria and the result was a loss of a massive amount of weight and health problems that plagued him for the rest of his life.

Despite that though, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, offered once President Wilson received his declaration of war to raise an all-volunteer infantry, and on party matters also through his efforts at campaigning for Republicans enabled them to regain control of the Congress in 1918 which put an important check on President Wilson's efforts. And besides these things, he was an energetic campaigner for physical fitness and hunting his entire life, supported the Boy Scouts, and wrote a number of books on a variety of subjects from foreign policy to history.

If I did not want to finish this thread as soon as possible, I would supply links in that paragraph to substantiate every point I made. The bottom line is this: the contributions of TR after he was president so dwarfed those of RR that your assertion is (with all due respect) absurd. I do not fault RR for this for a variety of reasons but your deprecation of TR's post-presidential record overall is frankly quite disturbing.

But McCain has repeatedly stuck the knife in the back of the GOP establishment (and it was not even to being a conservative dagger), whereas the other guys didn't. That's the major difference here.

As I said, I can sympathize with some of McCain's annoyance. I find myself embarrassed by the ahistorical and narrow-minded dogmatism of the self-anointed "true conservatives" a lot. The pro lifers particularly are at times embarrassing and I noted this not only recently but indeed in every election cycle since I have been blogging to some extent or another.{4} And I noted it in discussion forums long before anyone had heard of my apologetics stuff and in various conversations and formats prior to that as well. If not for having spent enough time on this response already, I would make quite a list -my position on this has been both ample as well as consistent over the years.

For what could be a response to Medved's Kool Aid drinking (although it isn't actually) Rush's little brother has this to say.

David is wrong: McCain is not "liberal lite." Compared to Obama (8%) and Clinton (9%), McCain's lifetime conservative rating is 82.3%. That is lower than the ratings of Tancredo (97.8%), Brownback (94%), Hunter (92%), Thompson (83%). I am not sure about Guiliani and Romney but if we consider the flop-flop of Romney and Guiliani's views on certain core conservative issues where he is seriously lacking (unlike McCain) it seems probable that both of them would finish lower than McCain on that score. (The American Conservative Union does not rank governors or mayors so this is a nebulous area.)

No, you are wrong. I hinted above that his voting record does not give us a true picture of the real John McCain. How many of John McCain's votes in the Senate were decisive?

Neither you nor I are in a position to know this without an exhaustive review of the Congressional Record.

I think it is undisputable that the legislation he has co-authored and sponsored tells us more about the real John McCain than his voting record. I can't think of any legislation McCain co-authored or sponsored that wasn't only leftist but to the far left.

So because you cannot think of any, that means none exists huh??? You realize presumably that finding just one piece would invalidate your whole presumption. However, I am not sure whether or not you would ignore whatever I would present as if it was non-existent. Certainly without a pledge to avoid such things I will not expend an ounce of time on the matter.{5}

Just the damage wrought by MF itself more than wipes out any positive effect of his voting record.

By whose assessment??? The intention was to (i) control soft money contributions in campaign financing, by prohibiting national political party committees -in not only national but also state and local races-from raising or spending non-federally limited funds and (ii) utilizing issue ads within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election which named candidates along with any such ad paid for by corporations -be they non profit or unincorporated entities -one that stretches to both business entities as well as union ones.

The result so far is a significantly lessened influence of soft money on campaigns since MF was signed into law. It is a regrettable piece of legislation in several ways this is true and we will see clarifications on it coming from the courts which in my mind is just fine. But I doubt you have taken any time to look soberly at this piece of legislation -a presumption based on your track record thus far in what I have responded to.

Medved is lying through his teeth when he says that MF was only "useless" and has done no real harm, especially to the Right to Life cause. The Wisconsin Right to Life case soundly refutes him there.

One example doth note a definitive statement on this matter make. MF affects a variety of activist causes -among the organizations fined for failure to follow campaigning guidelines in the 2004 election were (according to Wikipedia) the liberal League of Conservation Voters ($180,000) and Moveon.org ($150,000) as well as the conservative Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ($299,500). I do not know the reasons for the fines so levied so am not in a position to say whether they should have been more or less in any given case.

Presumably Medved was referring to the effect of MF on balance as opposed to one particular issue or group. But then again, I am inclined towards giving a charitable interpretation whenever this is feasible to do where the party in question has not given me just cause to not do so. By contrast, you apparently are driven to presume the worst without sufficient cause to do so viz. Medved's statement on this matter. This shows the depth of who really has a "derangement syndrome" here XXXXXXX and I will give you a hint: it is not this little black duck, nosiree.

And MF is as brash a violation of the First Amendment as the criminalization of porn isn't.

You appear to take a Hugo Black approach to the first amendment and historically the courts have never sided with that interpretation -heck the 1919 Schenck vs. United States case{6} is the example that most readily comes to mind. That point being noted though, there is still a question as to the extent of MF in passing constitutional muster. And that being noted, I have no problem with the Supreme Court (in its current configuration under Chief Justice Roberts geared as it evidently is towards judicial restraint) hearing cases on MF.

But it doesn't stop there. You have McCain Leiberman, which is McCain's open vying for the Cardinal's red hat in Pope Algore I's church of the environmentally ill.

You realize presumably that variations of that bill have been introduced since at least 2003 and they have died every time right??? Even the one currently up (S. 280) is nowhere near being in danger of being made into law. But to know this would be to know the status of the bills and the percentage of bills that actually make it out of committee.{7}

I don't think I need to tell you how dangerous the radical evironmentalist agenda is to this country in terms of economics and national security.

I agree with you on that.

And yes there is the McCain Kennedy amnesty bill. This is the only area where the unconservative Bush is anywhere near as liberal as McCain.

Bush is a fiscally irresponsible "dime store new dealer" (cf. B. Goldwater) and McCain is not. There is another issue for you.

Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, McCain's voting record post-2000 is only in the low 60's to high 50's.

It varies from session to session but you are (as you have been thus far) quite spectacularly wrong. The average in that span of time excluding 2007 is...well...you do the math yourself. Here are the numbers:

2006: 65%
2005: 80%
2004: 72%
2003: 80%
2002: 78%
2001: 68%
2000: 81%

I trust you do not need a calculator to figure out that you are (yet again) quite mistaken.

Furthermore, the average numbers are even higher than that prior to 2000 on balance with only five years with a rating of less than 83% going all the way back to not only his first Senate year (1987) but even including his previous four years as a Representative from Arizona (1983-1987). I could say more but once again: the facts do not substantiate your presumption.

If you are going to say that McCain is going to govern more conservatively than Bush you need to bring something more substantive than "Bush has set the bar so low" to the table.

I have not said he would govern more conservatively.{8} What I said was simply that it would not be hard for him to since Bush set the bar so damned low.

Finally, you really have a lot of nerve engaging in the same kind of deadagenting and sophistry that you have railed against (and rightly so) these last few years. In the text of this letter I have pointed out where you have done that to the point of moonbattery.

Since so little of what you said is sustained under examination, you would be wise to not speak so brashly as you have been. I have engaged in no sophistry at all. What I have done is take a view on these matters which accounts for the diverse streams in the well of what is commonly called "conservatism" while you have shown an ahistorical understanding on these matters both wholly and in most of the significant parts. Conservative instincts are good to have (and on balance you have them) but instincts not informed by facts make for a dangerous combination.

I could get up in a twist about having my intelligence so carelessly insulted. But why? I have better things to do than to expend emotion on such nonsensical horseshit.

If anyone should feel their intelligence has been insulted on this, it is me. Kindly do your own homework next time and do not blindly and uncritically genuflect, bow three times, and incense the opinions of either of the Limbaugh boys.

Notes:

{1} Or someone's particular interpretation of an accepted dogma to the exclusion of other possible viewpoints.

{2} If we rule out his signing of the most liberal abortion law in the country when governor of California.

{3} Financed by both Andrew Carnegie and also sales of his own writings.

{4} I do not have time to look for them but the archives of this weblog contain several examples -the most recent one from January of this year:

On the Candidacy of Mike Huckabee and the Political Stupidity of Pro-Lifers (circa January 9, 2008)

{5} I spent enough time tracking down the sources on this note already.

{6} Which upheld the US Sedition Act of 1918.

{7} A hint: it is very small and I gave it to you already.

{8} I did not realize that in responding to the longer email the first time, I actually did say this though I intended more nuance than that. The emailer can consider this to be a victory for them if they want but it would be a pyrrhic victory if they do.

After the last posting, if I do not reflect upon something good, it may ruin the rest of my day; ergo it is Shakeapeare time and a bit of a sonnet on spring.

It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green corn-field did pass,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

Sex slave dungeon: As dramatic family snaps emerge, the question is asked - how could NONE of Josef Fritzl's family known his horrific secret

I have an operative presupposition that appears to be a bit of a paradox. To try to frame it into words, essentially I believe and have for as long as I can readily recall{1} two principles:

--People are much better than we presume.

--People are much worse than we presume.

Taking this approach a priori, I find myself oftentimes pleased at the good that I see in other people. But conversely, a subject such as the one covered in the above Daily Mail article shows the converse about people being worse than we presume. I try as much as I reasonably can to see the good in others but sometimes that is impossible and this is one of those times.

Some, perhaps many people would read the above article and foam at the mouth about how evil this man is for what he did to his own family, what he in justice deserves for his wickedness, and the like.{2} But not today.

No today I find myself thanking God that but for His grace, that could be any of us who would rail against this man.{3} I may feel differently tomorrow but right now, that is all I can muster except to pray that God will comfort and heal the victims of this evil man.

Notes:

{1} I can in retrospect see this at least implicitly going back at least a couple decades if not longer.

{2} Certainly I will readily admit that I am inclined at that direction myself oftentimes.

{3} The theological term for this is "original sin" or the idea that we all have a weakness in our nature that can make us susceptible to a variety of ills from the most minor to the very worst of evils. That without complicated theological terminology is the concept in a nutshell.

More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part IV of a Dialogue)

This is a continuation from the third part of this series which can be accessed here. To start from the beginning (if you have not read the previous parts) please go here. And though I have noted it in every part of the series so far, a reminder of the colour schemata in this series (to cut down on confusion as to the sequence of arguments) seems to me to be advisable; ergo I reiterate yet again what I noted in the first part of this series:

The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

Without further ado...

What I am surprised by is that you did not realize this until now or (if you did) you did a good job of hiding it. There is a reason I am not a Republican anymore XXXXXXX -a reason why twelve years ago I told the Republicans to blow it out their pieholes. I was sick of this crap back then and over time my view has not changed. Welcome to the realization I had back then: that the establishment usually wins because they stack the deck against those who are outsiders.

Tell me what good does leaving the GOP do? How does that help advance the conservative cause? This is the very thing the country club establishment wants.

To explain the dynamic I sense is coming will require a history lesson but heck, I am willing to provide it. To start with, there are conservatives in both parties XXXXXXX, not just the Republicans. There are also conservative Independents. Ultimately party loyalty is what is killing this country and frankly I think both major parties need to be obliterated.

Now before you think what I am saying is not possible, it happened in the 1800's on more than one occasion. To start with, the Federalists (party of Washington, Hamilton, Morris, and Adams) was the original party of those who favoured the Constitution and a strong federal government and an energetic executive. However, the Federalists did not come into being as a party strictly speaking until the 1790's after the dispute over the Bank of the United States and Thomas Jefferson founded a party in opposition to it which former Federalist James Madison joined.

The Federalists ruled from 1789-1801 and went into decline after the death of former President George Washington (1799), the loss of President Adams in the second contested presidential election to Thomas Jefferson (1800), and the death of Alexander Hamilton in his duel with Aaron Burr (1804) left the party without a strong leader to coalesce around. The Federalists made matters worse in their opposition to the War of 1812 and as a party they were dead after 1816.{1} It is true that there were still identified Federalists as late as 1830 but there was no party of that name or general principle by that time even if former Federalist and the greatest chief justice in United States history (Chief Justice John Marshall: an Adams appointee) was still running the Supreme Court into the 1830's.{2}

The opposition Republican party (now styled the Democratic-Republican party) was founded in 1792 and took power in 1801. By 1820 they were the only party in the country and thus the 1920 election was won virtually unopposed by incumbent President James Monroe: only the third time in history this happened after General Washington's two unanimous elections to the presidency in 1788 and 1792. However, that party could not sustain itself due to competing interests and it broke apart into factions between 1821 and 1824 which resulted in the election of 1824 having four candidates of the same party (Democratic-Republican or the old Jeffersonian party) with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams winning despite not getting most of the popular vote or even the electoral majority over General Andrew Jackson,{3} Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford, and Speaker of the House Henry Clay. From this election, President Adams and Speaker Clay went on to form the Independent Republican party from the more federalist-minded of the Democrat-Republicans while President Jackson's supporters founded what is the modern Democratic party. Those were the two parties that competed for the presidency in the 1828 election which was a rematch of President Adams and General Jackson -and Andrew Jackson beat President Adams pretty convincingly in that election.

Speaker Clay ran unsuccessfully as the nominee of that party against President Jackson in 1832 and was soundly beaten by Jackson despite there being an Independent candidate and an Anti-Mason party candidate in that election. But between 1832 and 1836 there was another party reconfiguration which resulted in the 1836 election seeing the Democratic party candidate opposed by four members of the Whig party -a party formed out of the Independent Republicans and Democrats who were pissed off at President Jackson. The Whigs tried to run four candidates against Vice President Martin Van Buren{4} to keep a majority and getting it thrown into the House of Representatives where one of four Whigs could be selected. The strategy backfired as Martin Van Buren won enough electoral votes to secure the victory. The election for the Vice Presidency was contested and thrown into the House of Representatives: the first and only time thus far that this has happened in case you did not know.

The newly formed Whigs would go onto win the presidency in 1840{5}, lose in 1844{6}, win in 1848 (with General Zachery Taylor), lose in 1852 (with General Winfield Scott as the nominee), and then come apart at the seams over the issue of slavery shortly afterward. The Republican party was formed in 1854 from the wreckage of the Whigs with the issue of slavery as its main issue running their first presidential candidate in a losing cause in 1856. They would succeed the second time with Abraham Lincoln as their candidate. At that point we had the two major parties we have had to this day.

I see us in the stages (and we have been for some time) of a major implosion of one or more major political parties and a similar recasting required today. Like those days it will require some major issues of convergence. The Federalists and the original "Republicans" were opposed on the principle of federalism. The Jacksonians were aligned against the recharter of the Bank of the United States and against business in general while the Independent Republicans (and the later Whigs) were a more business oriented party which was also less strident on the subject of slavery than the Jeffersonians. The Republican party came out of the wreckage of the Whigs with the signal issue of slavery and its abolition.

We are in a similar situation today where a major issue or two will potentially form another major party and whether it becomes a third party or merely replaces one of the major parties remains to be seen. We may even in the next ten to twenty years see two major parties formed: the situation today in many respects is as chaotic on some major issues as it was in the period from 1824-1854: a thirty year period where major parties were cast and broke apart until we saw the formation of the two parties we have seen as the winners of every presidential election since 1854. Those who were involved in shaping the previous formations did not do so from within the major parties even if they were sympathetic to{7} certain general presuppositions of one major party or the other.

There has been a kind of paradigm shift in the works for a long time -as far back as 1964 actually- and what happened in 1972, in 1980, and in 1992 were all ingredients that go into what we will quite likely be seeing in the not too distant future. (As similarly weighty issues shaped the new configurations along the lines of the way slavery and the approach to federal power shaped party reconfigurations in the nineteenth century.) The Democratic party has been living on borrowed capital for about a generation and I do not view what the Republican party has become in the past twenty years as anything worthy of being saved.

As far as the Republicans go, part of the reason I say that is the absurd and ahistorical mentality of those who ascribe one particular view of things as "THE conservative view" or "THE conservative movement." And yes, one of those I take issue with in this area is Rush Limbaugh but by no means is he the only one who does this. Whatever else a President McCain could accomplish possibly expediting that realignment which has long been in the making is one of them. As far as fiscal discipline goes, he cannot possibly do worse than the current president has done who (unlike his father) does not have the veneer of the excuse that President Reagan had for the deficits that stacked up during his presidency.{8} Even W's daddy can claim he had to fight a Democratically controlled congress in both parties unlike Reagan who at least had a Republican senate for the first six years of his term. (Budgetary matters while input on them can come from both houses and even the president to some extent nonetheless originate in the House which if they do not originate it, the money is not allocated; ergo the importance of having control of the House.)

There are in other words circumstances that mitigate the first six years of Reagan's term{9} and the entire four years of W's daddy's term. We need not bring Clinton into this because the deficits were smaller during his presidency and eventually there were surpluses: one good thing the Republicans did in his administration that he reluctantly went along with. (Another was comprehensive welfare reform.)

Since George H. W. Bush repudiated the Reagan legacy and by that cost himself the election in 1992, this has been what we have had to deal with. Gingrich's congresses promised a lot and delivered very little and the six years we had of a Republican congress and president were shameful in their fiscal lack of discipline.

The 1994 takeover of Congress refutes your implication that a straightforward telling them what was what conservative can't win. It sure did in 1994, irregardless of whether or not it was implemented.

My assertion stands because promises without action are worthless. Furthermore, midterm elections historically are usually of a lower turnout so that factor has to be taken into account as well. And besides, the Republicans in 1994 were hardly as "straight forward" as you claim. The whole "balanced budget in seven years" thing while better than what was seen previously was nonetheless a bit evasive because Gingrich and company did not bother to tell the American people that the reason for the deficits was ballooning federal programs that needed to be cut or eliminated outright in actuality not merely given smaller increases from year to year and trying to grow the economy to a balanced budget situation.

Now I must admit that I do not blame the congressional Republicans of the 1990's for taking the approach they did on the budget because they caught enough flack for it from the idiots in the media who were too stupid to realize that adding more money to a program every year -even if the amount added is less than what was originally scheduled- is an increase in funding not a cut. It was a good move but a lot more was needed. Certainly it is better than the idiots who ran Congress from 2001-2006 and whose 2006 budget was a 3 trillion budget that was growing every year and still running annual deficits of no small significance!!!

To give you some scope of this, the 1987 budget was 1 trillion. So the budget from 1987 to 2007 tripled. And considering the rate of inflation for that period in time, a credible argument cannot be made that those increases were for "cost of living adjustments" or whatever. We are in some serious trouble here when we have two parties which are birds of the same feather on issues such as the budget, so-called "free trade", illegal immigration, and other significant issues. This monopoly on significant issues cannot continue indefinitely and it will not be.

Can it be said that McCain has acted, in his political career, in manner "worthy of his suffering"? I think not.

His record is mixed but that is not uncommon for politicians of twenty years standing in DC.

Voting the wrong way on a bill that has complex facets is one thing, actively co-authoring legislation that is anti-conservative is quite another.

He considered running alonside the unrepentant John Kerry, whose, 1971 testimony was played repeatedly in the Hanoi Hilton, according the POW's who supported the SBVFT in 2004.

Again, we have John Kerry's word on this and if you want to trust Kerry on this than you are being amazingly selective in what you will accept from him.

No, we have McCain's word on that. McCain admitted that he would consider accepting a VP slot on Kerry's ticket.

I already dealt with this and what you are referring to was McCain speaking of an impossible hypothetical situation. If you think that was something serious then you are really in need of toning down the lithium dosages because it sounds like something Dr. Savage would say.

He panders to the media, many of whom who show more sympathy with his captors than they do the POW's.

This is "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" kind of stuff XXXXXXX.

How so? So, you don't think McCain panders to the left wing media and that that very same left wing media that has more sympathy for those who held McCain and his fellow POWs in totureous squalor for over a half decade? In fact, when I pointed this out to you before, you seemed to be in agreement with it. Why the sea change all of a sudden?

You just went from "many of whom show more sympathy" to "that...media has more sympathy" in a kind of universal statement. Furthermore, while I have no love for the msm (as you probably know) unfortunately they are at times a necessary evil to deal with. We can debate on the best way of how this is done but there is no "one size fits all" approach to be taken.

My intuition on McCain and the media is that McCain tries to take a Reagan like approach to the media but does not recognize that executives (be they presidents or governors) are in a better position to pull it off than congressmen and senators are - Reagan's profound superiority at public speaking over McCain notwithstanding of course.

This has always bothered the hell out of me about McCain.

Whether we like it or not XXXXXXX, the media is a necessary evil in a lot of this. Without them, it is hard to nearly impossible to get your message to a broader audience and with them, you have to deal with the fact that they have an agenda. (We have alternatives now that we did not have in years past but McCain is pretty old school in this regard to some extent.) Whatever prudence or lack thereof that you want to ascribe to Senator McCain in this area, it would be wise to view the situation for what it is.

How is pandering to the left wing media necessary for conservatives? If anything it is couterproductive for conservatives. The biggest mistake a republican not to mention a conservative one can make is pander to the media. This is the very thing that sunk Newt Gingrich.

What sunk Gingrich to a good extent is that he was a good guerilla fighter on the defensive but not really cut out to be the primary spokesman on issues pertaining to an overall agenda. There are other factors that led to his downfall but that was a key one right there. He is not the first leader of a revolution who once they were in power could not effectively govern nor will he be the last.

The one thing Rush Limbaugh warned the 1994 freshman class about was to not try to get the media to like them. That it would be the very thing that destroyed them becuase the left wing media hates republicans and conservatives even more so. You couldn't anymore worng when you say McCain isn't stupid. He is not only stupid, but his relationship with the media is a textboook example who of how useful an idiot can be.

As I said before, McCain is old school when it comes to the media. You see it as "useful idiot" and I see it as a seventy-one year old senator who does not understand many of the dynamics of the new media age we are in. I am not saying Limbaugh is wrong on this point in principle but he also spoke to the freshmen at a time when there was no real alternatives to the mainstream media other than the very small (but growing rapidly) talk radio outlet and the occasional conservative publication of limited circulation (like National Review).

With the advent of a more balanced overall media picture now -including more conservative-inclined cable news outlets like FoxNews, the explosion of the internet, and a variety of online sources such as Drudge, NewsMax, etc- the landscape is significantly different now than it was even in 1994 which (lest you forget) was two years before the launch of FoxNews. If you want to claim that McCain should have better adapted to the changing circumstances of media in that time, perhaps so but a lot of things have changed very rapidly in a short span of time and a rule of life is that older people (and McCain at seventy-one qualifies as old) do not usually respond quickly to these sorts of changes.

The recent New York Slimes non-story about McCain and the lobbyist could not be anymore timely in proving my point. This is a story they have been sitting on for eight years. Now, why would they sit on such a hot non-story for that long? Simple. They've been waiting for McCain to get the nomination so they can destroy him. IOW, they've been playing him. Sad thing is, a blind man could see this coming from a mile away, but McCain being so blinded by his desire to be liked was too stupid to see it. And since the left-wing media is a stable of whores and the Old Gray Lady is the madam you can expect a lot more of this.

Perhaps but people have gotten a lot more jaded about the msm in recent years. And unlike in previous times, there are a host of ways to fact check and otherwise examine these matters via "Armstrong research,"{10} That is why the msm has gotten their eyes blackened in recent years with an increasing frequency: that and the fact that the msm is not the only game in town anymore...just ask Dan Rather about that.

Before you use the "President Reagan went over the heads of the media to the people" line, remember that as president there is a bully pulpit of sorts that senators and house representatives do not have. Unlike the president who can call press conferences by virtue of his position -and thus has a platform for making their views known apart from media spin- senators and representatives cannot do that unless they at least implicitly do something that appears to support the media weltanschauung. And a Republican who does not toe the Republican party line fits that in a way that a Democrat who does not toe the Democratic party line does not. This is not to defend or excuse McCain mind you but instead to remind you of what he is up against. As president he will not be so constrained.

Reagan's ability to go over the heads of the media precedes his presidency.

He did it as governor of California too...another executive position. Prior to that, Reagan was the head of the Screen Actors Guild: another executive position of sorts. Starting to see a pattern yet???

Otherwise how do you think he got elected without the benefit of an influential conservative talk radio?

Two words: Jimmah Carter.

If he had that he would have even been able to destroy Clinton (the only Dem President since FDR to to get reelected) in 1996.

Who would have been able to destroy Clinton in 1996??? Surely you do not mean Reagan who was in the throes of Alzheimers by that point.

And given McCain's hero status as a POW, it gave him a great opportunity to speak over the heads of the media but he chose to be a suck ass. And given McCain's long standing reputation as a left wing media kiss ass, it would most definitely constrain him as president because reputations do matter.

McCain's hero status as a POW of a war that the msm despised and continues to despise. Or did you forget about that part of the equation???

This is a mere synopsis of the problems I have with John McCain. His nomination perplexes me greatly.

He was not even in my top four of candidates. In order, my candidate choices ideally were 1) Duncan Hunter 2) Fred Thompson 3) Sam Brownback 4) Mitt Romney 5) John McCain 6) Rudy Guiliani. I would vote for a Democrat before I would vote for either Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul so I need not mention them. I only want you to realize in my saying this that I am not enthralled by McCain being the nominee either but we have what we have.

You're number one guy endorsed the one you demonize the most. What does that say?

The pickings among the candidates that were left at that point were on the issue of illegal immigration akin to Scylla and Charybdis.{11} I frankly wish Hunter would have said nothing but it did not happen that way obviously. Imagine that: politics is the art of the possible not of the perfect.

On one hand, a good case can be made that he is better than both Shrillary and the Magic Negro.

Side note: that Sharpton parody from Paul Shanklin is my favourite parody in a long time!!!

It's one I would, under normal circumstances, instinctively embrace. But Rush Limbaugh makes the point that if we are going suffer in the next four years it is better that it be a Democrap holding the bag for it than a republican.

Limbaugh is not going to fail to support McCain. I remember in 1992 he said a lot of the same things about Bush's papa and then went out and supported Bush Sr. He will do the same thing this time -guaranteed.

Uhmm, don't think so.

I have yet to see Rush not support a Republican.

If anything, he will give tacit support at best. Remember, McCain is a totally different animal than Bush Sr. In fact, I think Rush is right when he says that his endorsing McCain would hurt him given the fact that conservatives are not going to enthusiasctically back McCain and Rush's endorsement will only scare the liberals McCain is going to have to win over.

Tacit or otherwise, he will endorse McCain: that was my point.

Now, I'm not sure if I would embrace that view, but it can't be dismissed out of hand given what a McCain Administration would bring in the unlikely event he wins in November.

I remind you that a year is a long time in politics...McCain has lower unfavourable ratings than Clinton (and that is not going to change) and Obama is still quite unknown. The more Obama is drawn out, the less attractive he will be.

Yes, but once McCain attacks Obama's liberalism, Obama can strike back by saying "Senator McCain just last year you were on the same side as us on many of these issues." IOW, Obama will have an easy time portraying McCain as the weaker version of himself that McCain truly is. Obama may be an empty suit, but he is light years smarter than McCain.

Obama's inexperience is going to hurt him against McCain after Hill is through beating Barack to a pulp. That is the value of Hill staying in the race: she will be able to go after Obama in ways that McCain could not if it was just him and Obama. And of course once she does that, McCain could then merely "concur with the senator from New York" on these matters.

And there are not a whole lot of issues which Obama can claim that he and McCain are simpatico on. Hillary would have an easier time making that argument than Obama would (albeit not by much) but she is not likely to at this point get the nomination unless she can lock up enough delegates to take it at the convention through a back room deal. If that happens, the fallout for the Democrats would be a lack of substantive unity going into November which would be a detriment to them.

I think these are things we conservatives have to think long and hard about in the next nine months.

As a former Republican you have my sympathies. But you wonder why I have in various ways endorsed a third option in politics for a long time. But for all your talk about how that throws things to the Democrats, now you appear to be willing to do the same thing but directly instead of potentially indirectly.

First of all, the main reason I oppose the stupid ass third party theory is that our electoral and governemental process doesn't faclitate more than two major parties in practice. I said this clearly when I utterly destroyed your Kingdom for a Third Party arguments a year or so ago.

That was three and a half years ago and your recollection is faulty on more than just the time line.

What, you don't think I would remember?

My how we revise the past and omit what is not convenient!!! I remember having to constantly explain to you that I was not proposing the traditional approach to third parties in that hypothesis but you continued to misrepresent my stance. Yeah, misrepresentation is "destroying [my] arguments" alright...more like erecting strawmen, knocking them down, and then crowing about "victory"...What, you do not think Iwould remember???{12} I may not be a Republican anymore but I still have a memory like an elephant most of the time.

If you care as much about preserving conservative constitutionally sound principles you cannot be indifferent to what happens to the Republican party whether you regard yourself as such.

Who said I was indifferent??? Just because I do not tip the biretta, bow three times, and incense uncritically the dogmatic pronouncements of Pope Limbaugh on what is and is not conservative does not make me indifferent.

At least the indirect approach sets the table for something possibly coming out of it other than establishment retrenching. But then again, you seem to not recall just how Reagan was really perceived by the establishment: he was as distrusted by the "far right" as he was the "far left."

No, your third party idea only further empowers the country club establishmment within the GOP.

Since you continue to not get the third party idea that I outlined (which is in many respects unconventional anyway), it is difficult for me to not laugh as I type this in response. You remind me of those fundamentalists who no matter how many times it is explained to them continue to say "but Catholics worship Mary."

It is damn difficult to have a dialogue when one party refuses to listen and (as a result) continues to caricature the position of others. Even if I do not always represent 100% accurately your view it is not for want of listening as people capable of critical discernment often have nuances to their positions which are not self-evident and require repeated emphasis. But one thing I do tire of very quickly is those who are set straight on an issue more than once and yet they continue to repeat the same misunderstandings or errors over and over again. How I choose to respond to such things depends on a case by case basis on my mood or level of patience at the time respond to this sort of thing in a variety of ways.

Let's see what your vote for Perot "set the table" for, eight years of Clinton and eight years of Bush.

At least I voted.

Now, it is safe to say that eight years of Clinton was bad.

Not completely. It did get us us six years of a Republican congress in both houses which derailed or otherwise watered down a lot of what Clinton wanted to do. If only from the standpoint of breaking that logjam of four decades of House control and Senate control for forty of the previous forty-six years it was a worthwhile endeavour because without Clinton as president, it never would have happened. But beyond that point, it also got us progress on welfare reform, a balanced budget, a nationalization to general elections for congressmen and senators that previously did not exist, and also contributed to a generally good degree of economic growth.

There are a few other bits and pieces here and there I could probably list if I gave this point a bit more thought but that is all I have time for now. Suffice to say your "safe" assumption here is not as "safe" as you presume it to be.

And if your BDS runs it's full course, you are going to wind up saying that Bush is worse than Clinton if you don't think that already.

You are confusing my realistic assessment of W with your McCain Derangement Syndrome. At least I gave W the benefit of the doubt before he was elected and then let him deprive himself of my good will over time while he governed. It is not derangement to do the same thing for McCain that I did for W. As far as the last two presidencies as a whole go, it is too early to be fair to either Clinton or Bush in deciding which of them was better than the other -particularly Bush since he is still in office now. Plus, even when he leaves in a year, some of his legacy depends on what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as how the court shapes up after his nominations particularly the selection of Roberts as chief justice.

Neither of them will be viewed as a great president -overall probably average at best for the both of them with W coming out a bit better on the basis of his court selections. But right now and in the here and now, he looks pretty bad and that is reality whether you like it or not.

Ergo, you unwittingly argue more forcefully than I do that your third party ala voting for Perot was foolish.

You mean the election where I voted and you did not??? I have not a whit of regret at that vote because I voted instinctively on something I had a faint shadow of knowledge of at the time. Knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision without a hesitation.

The realignment I spoke of earlier is coming and oftentimes ideas have to start outside the machinery of the major parties before either one will accept them -akin to the fact that alternatives to pharmaceutical remedies start outside the medical establishment more often than not only to be accepted by the establishment at a later date. The principle here is the same.

And I have also explained that this is why I remain republican.

Out of love of party is what it seemingly boils down to when you take it to brass tacks on some subjects.

And the [disputed issue deleted] reveals that I am a lot less willing to circle the wagons for our side when they choose to be two-faced wimps than you are.

No, that issue reveals that you are more willing to charge into windmills like Don Quixote than I am or (to use a WWII analogy) "fly kamakaze-like at aircraft carriers." If that is what you are asserting, then I agree with you. That is all you have accomplished on that one for the most part: alienating people who could be allies to the cause (even if imperfect ones) out of some stupid "my way 100% or the highway" kind of mentality. For your extolling of Reagan, The Gipper certainly did not take that approach (to his credit). You would be well to learn from him on that matter.

To be Continued...

Notes:

{1} The last time they fielded a candidate for president.

{2} He died in 1835.

{3} Who did but not enough to win the election.

{4} Whom Jackson gave his support to at the Democratic convention.

{5} With General Harrison beating President Van Buren only to be succeeded a month after his inauguration by Vice President John Tyler when the president died of pneumonia.

{6} When former speaker Henry Clay lost to James K. Polk after the incumbent President Tyler was denied the nomination and then kicked out of the Whig party.

{7} Or in many subjects perhaps supportive of.

{8} Winning the Cold War by bankrupting the Soviet Union is what I refer to here.

{9} And the deficits went down in the second half of Reagan's presidency as you presumably know was due to the economic growth.

{10} Aka "googling various terms."

{11} That was one of Hunter's main issues as you know: he was not about to endorse McCain on it and Romney's recent "come to Jesus" conservative view was obviously viewed as suspect.

{12} To note a few examples from our earlier discussion:

[Y]ou cannot find in this country's history a third party approach such as what I am advocating...

Yes it is telling. That is why I am proposing alternative third party strategery here...

I recommending a policy here that has reflections in the American experience with third parties??? No, I am not and surely you can agree with that much...

I am proposing this third option along with other ideas like my rider reform proposal and am not rehashing old ideas or approaches by any stretch...

Frankly, I think the general trends of third parties in history would make such multiplication unlikely. Remember, I am proposing a party that takes time to build a coherent philosophy and grass roots influence before running candidates for office. This is a radical approach for third parties to take which is why there are not likely to be a lot of imitators should one utilize this method as I am suggesting...

[Y]our argument is not interacting with the substance of what I am proposing...[Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa November 11, 2004)]

As subsequent emails from you continued to misrepresent what I was saying to no small degree, I decided to drop the issue at that time and not continue discussing it with you.

Points to Ponder:

No one can claim to think in a purely abstract way and apart from personal mitigating factors in their apprehension of reality. This is why I have as I have gotten older and (hopefully) aged with some measure of grace focused more and more on foundational presuppositions and less on the round and round kinds of arguments that go nowhere. In a nutshell, someone who is not willing to reassess themselves in this area from time to time -to (in paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin) "doubt a bit of their own infallibility" makes themselves incapable of any potential progress as a human being. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 7, 2007)]

Thousands rally in May Day effort for immigration reform (APnews)

I already touched on the whole "May Day" subject in an expository musing back on May Day of 2008 and this thread does not in most respects surprise me much. It is the usual garbage about illegal immigrants whining about not being citizens such as this bit:

"We come here to fight for legalization. We're people. We have rights," said Eric Molina, an undocumented factory worker who immigrated to Zion, Ill., from Mexico.

Notice how the article does not say he is an illegal immigrant. Yes, he has "rights" -chief among them the right to be deported.

While most of the article is standard illegal immigration tripe, this part bears particular consideration:

Activists say this year's efforts are focused less on protests and more on voter registration and setting an agenda for the next president.

If I have not said it so bluntly before I will say it now:

Any "activist" or anyone else who attempts to register for voting those who are not citizens of America should be tried both sedition as well as violating the law and (if convicted) thrown in jail for at least ten years!!!

When my ancestors came to this country in the early twentieth century{1}, they did so legally.{2} They also learned the language and thereby were able to integrate themselves into the country. They did not come here arrogantly refusing to learn the language and expect everyone else to accommodate their refusal to learn the language, etc. Until these sorts are willing to do what countless immigrants before them did with regards to legalization and assimilation, they and their boosters deserve to be treated with contempt: the people themselves because they have broken the law and the boosters for not only promoting a policy dangerous to national security{3} but for something even more intrinsically insidious{4} than that.

Notes:

{1} I note this so that my views on the idea that my family owes anyone "reparations" can be once again on the record. Or if more detail is wanted on this matter:

With regards to the whole slavery reparations issue, I personally have no sympathy whatsoever for those who whine about wanting "reparations"[...] because my ancestors were also slaves economically[...] or otherwise[...] which is part of the reason they immigrated to this country. They also either arrived here legally or they quickly made themselves legal citizens. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa July 10, 2006)]

{2} Via Ellis Island and New Brunswick.

{3} Not to mention many of these sorts advocating polices that are by logical extension seditious.

{4} The policies these sorts endorse constitute a pattern that is guaranteed to trap the Mexican populace into the lowest caste of society with no possible chance of advancement because they will lack the tools needed to elevate themselves and their families. This is a sort of subtle sort of slavery that those who promote bilingual education and policies that work against the Hispanics assimilating into America inexorably endorse whether they realize it or not.

With all the talk in recent weeks about the supposed "moral equivalence" of Senator Barack Obama having Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a mentor and Sen. John McCain being endorsed by "right wing" religious sorts, I want to remind readers of something I noted back in March:

And as Senator Barack Hussein Obama has been attending that church for twenty odd years and only now that he is running for office deigns to try and place some separation between himself and Rev. Wright[...], consider that the next time someone makes a big deal about something far more minor and insignificant -such as Senator John McCain spending twenty minutes in the presence of some bigoted preacher.

What is twenty minutes versus twenty years??? [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa March 21, 2008)]

I stand by my original observation and question on this matter as written.

More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part III of a Dialogue)

This posting is a continuation from the second part of a dialogual series which can be accessed here. To start from the beginning (if you have not read the previous parts) please go here. I also want to remind the readers of the colour schemata in this series so there is (hopefully) no confusion as to who said what and where; ergo I reiterate at this time what I noted in the first part of this series:

The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

Without further ado...

Like I said yesterday, McCain's self-serving (even for a politician) is all the more disgusting given the fact that he was POW in the Hanoi Hilton. People who have had that experience ought to know better than to act like McCain has. I am of the belief that war heroes who run for elected office have greater obligation to act uprightly than others do. The great psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl would say that they have an obligation to live in a manner "worthy of their suffering".

What I do not understand is this: you are angry because we have McCain as a Republican nominee and have talked about throwing this to the Democrats in 2008 so that the establishment finally realizes that pretending that conservatives can be completely ignored is a policy that means certain defeat. But then in the past you said that my voting for Perot was stupid because it essentially gave the election to Clinton as a lot of people approached this as I did. Now you seem to functionally advocate now what I advocated then.

First of all, GHW,glaring problems notwithstanding, was nowhere near as bad as John McCain.

As I noted already, I do not agree with you on this. John McCain has been a senator who has to truck and bargain in the senate to try and get anything done whereas President George W. Bush has been the executive for going on eight years now who was and is in a position of far greater power and capable of getting a lot more done.

Whatever you want to say about McCain he was not a lame executive on numerous important issues as W has been for the first six years of his presidency. McCain did not fail to stand up with the power of the bully pulpit and threaten the veto pen to his own party if they did not govern according to conservative principles including fiscal discipline. The whole "well we are at war" excuse was pathetic...it may account for 2002 and 2003{1} but it would not account for 2004, 2005, or 2006.

And I do not give three shits about the fact that it will be another deficit this year: the Republicans messed up big time and attempts now to claim to have "learned their lesson" or whatever will have a difficult time sticking. The only real hope here is that the progress in Iraq continues to look good as it has been for the past fourteen odd months or so. At least with a Republican presidency in McCain and a Republican congress (if we can get that combination), I trust McCain to wield the veto pen against his own party unlike W who lacked the guts to.

GHW never sided with the left on issues for the express purposes of sticking it to conservatives.

What do you think all that "compassionate conservatism" crap was??? GWB presided with a Republican congress over one of the (if not THE) largest expansion of the budget in any six year period in history -both in terms of actual dollars as well as by percentage. And as so many conservatives were constantly calling for smaller government and fiscal restraint during that interim as always, the unwillingness of GWB to wield a veto pen to do anything whatsoever about this is a fact that by itself does not mesh with your statement above so that is all I will say on the matter.

And I am not advocating "throwing this to the democrats". In fact, I said if you would only pay attention to what I actually said, that I while I do not necessrily embrace the idea there is something to said about the idea that if things are gonna go to hell in a handbasket, it would be better if the Dems were left holding the bag for it than the GOP, as Rush Limbaugh put it.

We do not know if things are "going to hell in a handbasket" yet. There is a lot of talk about recession but we have not met the key indicators that would note a recession is happening. [Note: The rest of this paragraph was written in February. -ISM] Last Tuesday's "balance of trade" figures for January came in at $59.2B which was a tad below the estimate of $59.5B. It is a moderate indicator. Last Wednesday's "crude inventories" figure came in and also be a moderate indicator -they were ambiguous at best. Last Thursday had three figures, one moderate and two high including two retail sales figures -they were at -22% which was less than the -5% anticipated- and last Friday had consumer price index figures which are also high indicators that remained unchanged keeping the Core Consumer Price Indexes at 2.3% on the year which portends about a .75% funds rate cut by the Fed tomorrow.){2} The media is of course going to play the perceived problems for all it is worth as if it is the same way they played up every casualty in Iraq as "proof of a failed policy."

Besides, do you think if the Dems win and everything goes to hell that the media will paint it as anything but "the fallout of eight years of a failed Bush economic policy" or something similar? They did not do this with the mild recession early in Bush's term{3} but we both know that the media has no respect for the law of non-contradiction any more than apologist sorts do when it is not to their advantage. In the case of the msm, they are banking on most people having either no memory of that or no desire to actually factcheck them.

I also think that Rush has a point that there is no way the Dems are gonna do anything that will secure defeat if they have to be the ones to take the blame for it.

This election is wide open. Besides, they already think they will win no matter whom their person is so do not forget that. I for one want them to continue to be so arrogant because it increases the chances of their undoing.

They will surely do it if a Republican will. And with McCain in office with even bigger Dem majorities, as conventional wisdom predicts

Conventional wisdom in this election year has been wrong time and time again thus far. Even I who usually do well with political forecasting have been wrong to a higher degree than the norm thus far this year: the most difficult to predict election since 1952.

and the fact that McCain is a dove on the interrogation methodology (which is essential to any war effort and by logical extention can be as much a dove on matters like rules of engagement), they would be in position to do just that.

You are presuming without warrant that McCain's presumed opposition on some points means he is thereby in opposition or weak on other points which at best have a tenuous connection. There is a difference between rules of engagement and interrogation methodology. Come on, surely you can do better than this.

I mean what is the GOP minority going to do about it? Hell, they won't even be able to criticize McCain, who would be the leader of their party in the so unlikely event it will take a miracle he were to get elected.

For all the talk about McCain as president being the leader of the GOP, why are you seemingly not extending this to its logical conclusion and putting the largest chunk of the blame for the GOP's current mess in the lap of GWB??? It is pointless to claim that the Republican congresses are primarily at fault when the role of the executive is to lead and an "energetic executive" of the sort the framers envisioned will always be able to control the legislature.

Heck, Bush suddenly after six years finds his veto pen and is able to stymie the Democrats time and again in 2007 and also this year (thankfully). If he had been a man for the first six years of his term on the budget front, he could have done an even better job as "leader of the GOP" than he is doing now in keeping the Dems on a controlled leash of sorts.

The executive always has that kind of advantage. Similarly a weak executive is a disaster and while W has not been weak in a Carter-like way, he has nonetheless as a rule not been strong in a Reagan-like way or even (I hate to say it) the way Clinton was at times. Obviously his approach to 9/11 and the war on terror has been a noted exception of course. I can never take either that or the very good Court nominations from him -my annoyance at him having to be embarrassed into nominating Samuel Alito notwithstanding.

As far as John Roberts and his selection not only as a justice but as chief justice, that was something that I viewed as most excellent at the time{4} and brilliant in hindsight: possibly the most restrained chief justice since Chief Justice John Marshall at least thus far which may well make the Roberts nomination for chief justice the second most significant in United States history after the aforementioned nominee of the first President Adams.

This situation is not analagous to 1992.

Oh but it is. In 1992 you had a Republican president and a minority Republican party. Perot's involvement got Clinton elected as we would both admit to and two years later, we had Republican majorities in both houses of congress and a good degree of optimism of what that event could mean.

Of course the Republicans struggled against Clinton a bit the same way the Dems are against Bush now insomuch as the executive will always have an advantage over the legislature in the absence of a veto-proof majority. But from 1/2001-1/2007 we had Republican control of congress and the presidency and the abominable budgetary results cannot be explained away by you or Rush or anyone else. Just as in 1992 we had the issue of Republicans breaking promises and more of the same which led to their defeat, that is precisely what happened in 2006 where many pissed off conservatives deserted the Republicans in the election.{5} And it may well happen in 2008 as well unless the war issue can be gotten out of the headlines other than having good news to report (of course) and the economy can somehow avoid a recession.

Oh yes and there was a recession in 1992 also if you recall. And (of course) we also had those who played the "gee, if Clinton gets nominated the antichrist will rule" kind of crap which was intended to scare people into voting for GHWB and the same is the case with either Obama or Hill as the Democratic nominee. There are a lot of similarities to 1992 in the current election year. And one more thing while I am thinking about it.

I do not buy (at any price) the crap of the Republicans "not being able to govern in the majority" ala what Rush has said for a number of years. That argument may have been valid in the 1990's{6} but not in the twenty-first century and with a Republican president. For crying out loud, these guys were stood down by President William Clinton -a member of the opposing party. Are you telling me that President George W. Bush of the same party (the "party leader") could not have successfully stood up to them???

Make no mistake about it: the person most at fault for the disintegration of the conservative movement was {{{insert dramatic fanfare tune here}}} President George Walker "not Texas Ranger" Bush. Yet to listen to you, it was a sole senator from Arizona who deserves the blame there and who deserves no benefit of the doubt whatsoever before he is president of the sort that most people of decent will are willing to grant to any president.

W got the benefit of the doubt from me overall for six years with each succeeding year being less and less generally speaking since 2004.{7} I am not about to treat McCain any differently should he win than I have W except I will probably start him off with a lesser grade than the A+ I gave W starting on January 20, 2001.{8} Where he goes from there is up to him.

To be Continued...

Notes:

{1} The 2001 budget was approved by President Clinton before he left office so it does not count even though that year was a surplus.

{2} My prediction here was on the money.

{3} Which was the result not of Bush's policies but fallout from the "dot com" bubble burst that happened on President Clinton's watch.

{4} Bush replaced the constructionist with what from all appearances is a solid originalist thus holding serve on the court. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 8, 2005)]

For those who wonder what the distinction is between my varying choice of words to describe the two chief justices (Rhenquist and Roberts), see the recent clarification thread located here:

Clarifying My Use of Use of Various Jurisprudence Terms (circa March 13, 2008)

{5} In 1992 many voted for Perot, in 2006 not a few conservatives stayed home.

{6} I agreed with it then actually and considering the novelty of it for a couple of years, it was a persuasive argument.

{7} It has stayed fairly constant in the past years due to the progress of the war in Iraq after he wisely changed the Rumsfeld strategy a year ago and put General David Petraeus in charge over there on the ground and General Robert Gates in Rummy's spot.

{8} Probably an A-: time will tell.

Points to Ponder:

When you lose a parent, the child in you dies. [Don Felder]

On Reminding Readers of the Significance of "May Day" and Revisiting In Brief a Common Flawed Antiwar "Argument":
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

For some odd reason, May 1st has historically been a day that your host has not blogged on. This has never been out of a plan but was instead realized earlier today when we did an archive search for threads posted on this day to re-present if the subject matter in them was particularly pertinent to the day in question. With May 1st we have the traditional "May Day" celebrations by those who masquerade under various masks of marxism.{1} Though there is a United States counter-celebration today known as "Loyalty Day"{2}, it is far less well known than "May Day" celebrations.

But anyway, as the "May Day" celebration is the more well-known of today's celebration and considering how I despise with every fiber of my being marxism, it is surprising to me that I have only once in the history of this weblog written on May 1st other than what was blogged this morning in the wee hours. The thread happens to pertain to some extent to contemporary situations in that many of those who are involved in protesting the subject covered in the thread and who utilize the flawed arguments dealt with in said thread happen to be either marxist in reality or at least by logical extension are sympathetic to the overall weltanschauung of marxist socialism. So with that in mind, I wanted to take this time to remind readers of that thread{3} and present here in even briefer form a schemata of the arguments dealt with in that thread. Briefly therefore at this time, here is the previous post's argumentation with all exposition boiled away and presented in a far simpler form for easier digestion:

A common argument of pseudo-"peacemakers" pertaining to the war in Iraq and their opposition to it is to claim that all who supported the war somehow should "go enlist themselves" or something similar to that. Our first response to that assertion is that it would put the economy into the toilet rather rapidly since a large proportion of those who support the war{4} are those of the more technically skilled jobs, computer technicians, engineers, business owners, entrepreneurs, etc. while those who are whining about these things tend to be those who do not contribute to the economy except (at best) as a worker. This pattern fits that of the marxists who love to indiscriminately tear down existing structures to build anew without concern for whether or not they will make a situation better or worse with their machinations.

Those who make this "chickenhawk" argument do not address the fact that not everyone has the physical tools to be a soldier. Some of us are just fine but have certain physical limitations which would not allow for such things however we may wish otherwise. There is also a problem with many who make the flawed "chickenhawk" argument who have in the past supported United Nations "peacekeeping" operations who have not bothered to enlist for those projects themselves; ergo with the latter sorts there is internal contradiction in what they have failed to do and what they now expect their adversaries to do which renders their stance both illogical as well as hypocritical.

But even with those who can avoid the trap of internal contradiction and hypocrisy, they do not escape the problems of illogicality and impracticality not to mention manifesting either (i) an ignorance of history or (ii) a disingenuous and malicious agenda on their part.

The ignorance of history is twofold, the first being that many of the arguments advanced by these sorts are from the Vietnam era and include questions such as asking "would you send your son or daughter to fight": an assertion that implies a military draft or some other form of coerced service. As there has been no military draft in the United States since 1973, this makes all the "would you send" kinds of question-arguments absolutely irrelevant to the modern context. We have a volunteer military now and those who enlist do so with an awareness of the possible risks. That is one reason the branches of the military offer favourable financial packages such as money for service, access to government loans for housing and education, etc. But even beyond that there is one point we have raised over the years which we do not recall seeing anywhere else and it is one which cuts the "chickenhawk" argument off right at the neck, namely this one:

If everyone in support of the war went to Iraq, other than the serious overcrowding that would be involved among the other things already noted, there would also be a surrendering of the homefront to every kind of seditious specimen imaginable!!! [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 1, 2006)]

Vietnam taught us that we can win every battle on the field and still be perceived as the loser{5} if the moral fortitude to stay the course in a conflict is undermined on the home front by usual suspects{6} and their willing useful idiots in the mainstream media. And this is one reason of no small importance as to why not everyone who supported the war in Iraq or the current postwar reconstruction of both the nation and the government structures could be over in Iraq as enlisted soldiers.

The issues of practicality, overcrowding, and the detriment to the economy in America aside for a moment, if the home front contained only agnostics or those in varying degrees opposed to what we were doing in Iraq, we would ultimately set the stage for defeat.{7} Those therefore who make this argument either are ignorant of history and what happened in Vietnam -as well as the problems brought about as a direct result of the latter{8}- or they are aware of it and simply want to see us defeated in Iraq by undermining the moral fortitude on the homefront necessary to insure that we can achieve our objections over there.

No matter how you slice it, the "chickenhawk" argumentation cannot withstand rational scrutiny and therefore need not be taken seriously by anyone with a normal intact functioning brain. And as has been noted on this humble weblog in years past, whatever the reason such people do these things{9} they encapsulate what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind{10} and not without reason. This is why the notion of leaving them unopposed on the home front would be a suicidal and profoundly stupid proposition because there needs to be on the home front in any war people willing (as well as able) to combat such people and their propaganda.

Notes:

{1} Points to Ponder on the Many Masks of Marxism (circa July 3, 2005)

{2} Wikipedia entry on Loyalty Day.

{3} Revisiting the Flawed "Chickenhawk" Argument (circa May 1, 2006)

{4} By support this term can be understood as either supporting the mission as it is laid out over there or even supporting the mission if not the methodology being used at a given point in time. Your host happened to fall into the latter category for a good three years as we noted in a posting late last year after the strategy in Iraq was changed to one far more to our liking.

{5} If we should have learned anything from Vietnam -a war won on the battlefront but lost in the halls of Congress due to the influence of the marxist sponsored "antiwar" movement- it is what happens when there is a loss of support on the home front. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 9, 2007)]

{6} See footnote six.

{7} [I]f all that was left in America were either those agnostic on the war situation or in varying degrees opposed to it, the ultimate result would be our defeat if we were not out to completely wipe the country off the map. (And of course we would not seek to do that at all.) [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 1, 2006)]

{8} [T]he US's post-1975[...] track record of not "having our allies' back" was a significant reason for the Iraqi distrust of us for a while after the ceasing of major military operations in Iraq. And in the case of the Iraqis, they only had to remember what we did after the ceasing of major operations after the 1991...

This is why I have never jumped on the whole "we have to get out because the Iraqis are not stepping up" school of thought that even permeates the outlook of some conservatives initially supportive of the war effort. Unlike them, I was taking history as my teacher here and recognizing that the Iraqis knew what we did last time and what the result of our failure to have their back did under Hussein's regime. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa July 26, 2007)]

{9} Whether such people do these things because of an illogical solipsistic situation, because they are marxists posing under the mask of being "peacemakers", or whatever else. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 1, 2006)]

{10} This is what they had in mind when referring to enemies "both foreign and domestic."