I’m not one of those who is overly worked up over the pending resolution of the CR/Debt issue – given we only hold the House, we never were going to get much out of it and the sole purpose of the fight, for me, was to have a fight.  There were (and are) two reasons to fight:

1.  You never win a battle on defense.  You must attack in order to win.  MacArthur once was asked what his formula was for defensive war – he gave the one word answer:  “defeat”.

2.  To clarify things.  Fights make people pick sides.  Might as well know clearly who is with you and who isn’t.

But now that we have had the fight and we have started to go on offense and we have clarified things, I’m starting to wonder if the GOP is worth saving.  Boehner’s a good guy and mostly with us, but he seems to have flunked out on what should have been the basic strategy – pass the necessary legislation with a defund of ObamaCare and then done NOTHING until the President broke down.  Every GOP leader should then have been on TV morning, noon and night saying only this:  we’ve passed the necessary legislation to keep government open, we’re just waiting for Harry Reid’s Senate to pass it and Obama to sign it.  If Reid did bring it up for a vote,  and it was killed – then pass it, again.  If Obama got it and veto’d it, pass it again.  Until they break, we give nothing.  Eventually, they break and we end up with much less than we asked for – but they broke, not us.  But, the GOP leadership wasn’t up to that – and the reason appears to be that most of the GOP leadership is afraid of the Ruling Class.

They were looking at polls – some of which were, as usual, completely bogus – and the chattering classes getting all mad and, of course, some GOPers actually attacking the GOP and the leadership got scared…they started to surrender almost the moment the government was shut down.  They believed, that is, the nonsense story that shutting down the government was going to crush the GOP.  They believe this because that is what the Ruling Class believes – honestly, folks, they actually believe that the 1990’s government shutdown was a disaster for the GOP…even though we retained our Congressional majority in the election held just after the shutdown.  Its absurd, but it is what they believe…and so the GOP leadership was frightened that we’d lose in 2014, and so quickly lost heart.  And here’s the thing where I get to wondering if we need a new party:  even if it could be proved that a particular action on principal would cause a defeat, it is still the thing to do.  You don’t decide to do the right thing only because it is politically popular; you do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.  ObamaCare is an utter disaster – we disagree with it in general and in particular…in general because Big Government is a fraud and in particular because this law is just hideously bad on its own.  This is what we conservatives are supposed to fight against and the only leverage we’ll have short of a GOP majority in the Senate in 2015 is the debt ceiling and spending.  It wasn’t a matter of fighting against it some other way – this was the only way to fight against it.  Those who said we must not shut down and we must increase the debt were essentially saying, “don’t fight against ObamaCare”.  Screw that.

So, the question remains – should we form a new party?  A party which won’t have Beltway squishes and tools of the Ruling Class who will cut us off at the knees?  Now, remember, one thing a Third Party guarantees is President Hillary Clinton, and probably for a full 8 years.  A new party might be able to get a majority by 2024, but the chances of getting it sooner are very, very small.  Or should we still work on the GOP and see if by “primarying” a few more squishes the rest might get the message?  Might understand that the GOP is either the party to dismantle Big Government, or its nothing?

Discuss.

Right now the liberals and the establishment GOPers are both warning that the shut down risks the future of the GOP – that this fight may backfire on us, causing the Democrats to regain control of the House in 2014, thus entirely shutting us out of power and ensuring a completely socialist/crony-Capitalist America in the future.  This is, indeed, a genuine risk – but what the liberals and establishmentarians aren’t realizing (or, at least, not admitting) is that if we don’t fight, then we lose anyway.  If the only purpose of having GOPers in power is to slow down the drift to the left, then there’s no point in having a Republican party.  The future of our nation is at stake – we will either become socialist/crony-Capitalist, or we will remain American; there is no half way house.

We on our side prefer to remain American.  One thing lost in the shuffle by most people is the way that the TEA Party has broken the power of corporate donations over the GOP.  To be sure, a lot of GOPers still count on Big Corporation, but more and more GOPers are free of it – especially people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.  The TEA Party has injected a strongly populist strain in to the GOP which rejects both Big Government and Big Corporation.  Because the TEA Party has done this, we can really see the battle lines clearly, now.  Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and John McCain and Lindsey Graham are all united against us – people who are supposedly entirely at odds on ideological grounds make the same sort of complaints about us.  Doesn’t that tell you something?  Barack Obama, et all represent the establishment – the establishment which controls the government, the universities and the media.  The establishment which has bankrupted the United States.  Gravely damaged our ability to make, mine and grow things. Fastened upon us nonsense like “affirmative action”, “political correctness”, and all the fascist apparatus needed to force us to agree to the nonsense.  And the establishment is very mad that we are challenging them and are determined to destroy us.

And maybe they will.  We might lose this fight, good people.  We might live out the remainder of our lives in a socialist/crony-Capitalist America where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, poverty spreads, the American dream dies, citizens become mere serfs of the government and the whole thing eventually falls apart (don’t worry too much about foreign conquest resultant upon this collapse – the rest of the world is also dying off, some for the same reasons we are, others for different reasons…but all because of sheer human folly).  A century ago some were wondering what the collapse of civilization would be like:  well, here it is!  On the other hand, we might win this fight – but we’ll only win if we do, indeed fight.

I believe that there is still a majority in America which wants to live free – which wants to work for itself, take care of itself, defend itself against all comers.  A majority which figures that getting married is superior to shacking up; that men and women are different and bring different things to the table; that believe in God and the life of the world to come.  A majority which despises financial sharks but who also want very much to help those on the dole become free, independent citizens working for themselves.  But how is this majority to be found except by someone raising the flag and calling all to rally around it?

That is what we’re doing.  When Paul did his filibuster against government spying and then Cruz made his statement against ObamaCare, the lines were drawn – we don’t want to merely tinker around the edges of the leviathan State, we want to fundamentally transform it back in to what our Founders intended.  Such a re-formed State would have no place for time servers like McCain and Pelosi; no place for financial sharks like Soros and Buffet; no place for ideological thugs; no place for those who grow fat off of government contracts.  In short, no place for those people who are doing very well these days.  And so those elements which are doing well are fighting hard against us – they know that if we win, they lose, and lose completely.

Majorities are not built overnight and, indeed, when a new force comes on to the field, it usually appears weak.  Often, it appears weakest and nearly defeated on the eve of its final triumph.  We do appear very weak right now – but here’s the thing: we are setting the debate.  The establishment is actually dancing to our tune:  forced by us to defend the indefensible, they have given up on that and are merely hoping to frighten us in to surrender.  Maybe it will work – maybe the American people really has, by a majority, decided that being serfs and waiting for crumbs from the master’s table is best.  So be it.  But I don’t think it will work – and I think we will win.

But, meanwhile, we fight.  We fight today.  We fight tomorrow.  We fight all the time and on every issue.  We will not stop fighting until we are totally victorious or totally destroyed – knowing, because we do believe in God and the life of the world to come, that even if destroyed by human forces in this life, we will triumph in the next.

UPDATE:  Much talk today about an impending deal on the CR and the Debt Limit, with plenty of TEA Party people grousing about a “surrender”.  Knock that stuff off – let’s see what the deal is.  Remember, given that we have a Democrat President and Senate, we never were going to get much – and as far as de-funding ObamaCare, that was never really a possibility (delaying the individual mandate for a year was – and remains – a possibility, and Obama might sign on for that given the clusterfark roll-out…he needs a year to fix it and, also, it gets it off the agenda until after the 2014 mid-terms).  But we needed to fight, as I said; we could not just roll over.  So, we fought – now we’ll see what the GOP leadership can give us (and trust me on this, they will try to give us something to be happy about…they know that a raft of primary challengers awaits them if they don’t bring us home something).  The most crucial thing is to get something which doesn’t allow Obama to “crisis” his way through 2014 – aspects of the deal must box the Democrats in to actually coming up with a budget for the remainder of FY 2014 and for FY 2015, which starts just over a month before the 2014 mid-terms…and a deal to actually have a budget would then keep Obama from distracting us from his increasing failure and give us a handy campaign issue if Democrats break faith (which is almost a certainty).  Keep calm, stand firm – we are winning this.

Roger Kimball – a genuinely smart guy and a great writer – has a long article up over at Pajamas Media entitled The Anglosphere and the Future of Liberty.  It is a good article and well worth reading, but I do think it misses a very important point.  The gist of it is that the Anglosphere – those nations which share the English language and precepts of English law and government – have led the world in to liberty and are likely to save and restore liberty in the future.  In as much as it asserts that the English-speaking world has had a unique desire for liberty, it is correct.  It is also correct in the assertion that it is the English desire for local rule which is the basis for this liberty.  But if anyone is thinking that because of this heritage that there is a future for liberty in the world, then he’s gravely mistaken.

Kimball is smart enough to out a large “if” on the whole concept – if we do what is right and necessary, then we may save and restore liberty.  But I believe that most in the Anglosphere don’t understand fully what is right – what, that is, needs to be done.  And this is because we fail to understand why liberty is dying: it is dying because people work for others, rather than themselves.

Liberty is not an outgrowth, tyranny is.  Liberty is the natural condition of all mankind, until the corruptions of the world come along and wreck it.  We don’t actually run from tyranny to liberty, but it is always from liberty to tyranny.  You can’t have a revolution – a real one, that is, as opposed to the mere replacing of one tyranny with another – without there being a democracy; without, that is, a free people who are possessed of liberty and thus willing to fight to preserve it.  The Founders were not slaves – they were free men, and so fought when they perceived that someone was proposing to take their freedom away.  And here’s the thing – you can’t have a democracy unless a majority of the people are independent of all others.  For there to be liberty, most people must be able to take care of themselves without let or hindrance from anyone else.  

In olden times, this was done by trying to have at least a majority be free farmers, working their own land.  That is not terribly practical today, but the fact of the matter is that liberty started to atrophy in the Anglosphere at the same time that a majority of people stopped being owners of the means of their own livelihood.  As we were ever more crammed in to cities to work in factories and offices owned by others, we became unfree – and ever more willing to listen to people who proposed to take from some and give to others.  It made more sense, don’t you see?  When you’re a free man or woman working your own farm you know what “re-distribution” is – it is the taking of what you’ve worked very hard for and giving it away.  When you’re a drudge in a factory or an office cubicle, it becomes less clear…its a matter of taking away from the rich SOB who runs the factory or office and, presumably, giving to you, the worker.  That it doesn’t work out like that doesn’t take away from the appeal of such a scheme in a society which has become unfree – most of the money taken from one group of rich people is just passed over to the group of rich people currently favored by the government, of course, but the rhetoric of re-distribution appeals to a sense of justice in the wage-earner.

And this is where we conservatives have failed for so long – we don’t accept that socialism has an appeal, let alone an appeal to an actual, genuine sense of justice.  But, it does.  Deep in the hearts of all men and women is a notion that you really shouldn’t have too much – certainly not too much of wealth you clearly didn’t earn by the sweat of your own brow.  This is why there is little hostility to someone who builds up even a quite successful small business and becomes a millionaire, but there is resentment against a financial shark who made his billions by sharp practice.    The socialists twist this rational sense of justice, of course.  No socialist has ever really figured out what the problem is, but they have figured they can make hay by playing upon rational resentments and twisting those emotions in to a scheme whereby the socialist now becomes the owner (as it were) of the un-earned wealth – the distributor of the fat, and thus the tyrant of society.  But for all their twisting, we must not loose sight of the fact that there is a real basis here. 

If there is to be a future for liberty we won’t find it in appeals to a Constitution that most Americans only have a hazy idea about.  We won’t find it in a rigid defense of what is called Capitalism but which has completely degenerated in to a State-run, crony-Capitalism.  If there is to be a future for liberty it will only come by a revolutionary movement determined to set up a system which will in short order get a solid majority of the people owning their own means of livelihood.  Either directly as individuals, as part of family enterprises, or as worker-owned and managed cooperatives.  Once we get 50% plus 1 of the American people working desperately hard for themselves and only enriching themselves, then all appeals to socialism will die off…people are able to be suckered in to thinking that stealing from others is a good idea until they realize the person being plundered is themselves. 

All our proposals must advance this cause.  We must seek to tear down regulations which hamper business formation.  We must reform the tax code so that it doesn’t punish someone who wants to work.  We must provide financial backing and incentives via the tax and regulatory code to make it ever more appealing for people to set up on their own.  And we must campaign among the propertyless with a vision of them owning property and working for themselves – not because we’ll get all of them, all at once, to join us, but because we’ll get some of them…and any addition to our ranks of free and independent citizens means that genuine democracy has spread, and our side is one step closer to victory.  Our campaign must be of Freedom against Slavery…while making it clear we mean real freedom: the freedom to work for one’s self and take care of one’s own. 

There is a future for freedom, IF we understand what freedom really is and then go out and fight for it.

“…To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church…” – Our Lady of Fatima, 1917

You non-Catholics reading that might not be familiar, so I’ll explain.  We Catholics believe that our Blessed Mother, Mary, appeared to a few children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 and uttered that rather dire prophecy, as well as some other things.  You can believe that Mary appeared, or not, as you like (I do believe it), but no one can argue against the particular prophecy – the poison that arose in Russia in 1917 – communism – did indeed spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church, as well as many other horrors.  I bring this up not as a lesson in theology or faith, but because there is a bit of an argument brewing on the right over a book which not only asserts the indisputable truth of the prophecy, but also goes a bit further and asserts that our government policy came largely under the control of communists and fellow travelers.

The book is called American Betrayal: the Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character, by Diana West and the premise is that communism so deeply penetrated American government that it not only swayed American government policy in a pro-communist manner, but allowed our society to be infected by communist ideology overall.  Not only did the communists get us to sell out at Yalta, they also got us to buy in to moral relativism and other communist ideas which have lead to the moral destruction we see around us today.  The first I heard of the book was when I read a very hostile review – not from some lefty, but from a prominent conservative who’s views I greatly respect, Ron Radosh.  The title of his review, McCarthy on Steroids, sets the tone for the whole piece.  Radosh’s review is excellently written and makes many good points – but I confess I was disturbed by the title: as if Radosh thinks there was something wrong with McCarthy; reading the review, I can help but believe that Radosh does think ill of McCarthy – that McCarthy had in some way gone wrong.  Not on the fact that communists had infiltrated, but I guess on some of the tactics that McCarthy is alleged by his critics to have used (being mean, browbeating, making false accusations, etc).  Trouble is, in reading accurate accounts of the McCarthy period, I find no evidence of McCarthy using any of the tactics his enemies claim.  Leaving aside McCarthy, we have a battle – between fellow conservatives and not about whether or not communism is an enemy which infiltrated, but about just how much infiltration there was and how culpable people on both the right and the left were and are.

Over at PJ Media, David Solway deplores the intramural argument – seeing in it a disintegration of the overall conservative movement as we battle internally while the leftist enemy advances.  There is much to be said for this.  We daren’t fight too much among ourselves.  I, too, deplore an argument which sets us against each other – and while one, small blogger is not likely to resolve the issue, I think I have a couple things to say which both sides may find useful.

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Well, here’s why:

She drew the big names — but didn’t dole out the big bucks.

The celebrity-backed charity launched by departing Daily Beast editrix Tina Brown failed to meet the company’s goals in its first year out of the gate — handing out just $10,000 in grant money in 2011 despite raising nearly $1.2 million, IRS records show.

The nonprofit Women in the World Foundation kicked off to much fanfare in 2011 with a star-studded Manhattan party that cost $168,048 and was hosted by Meryl Streep…

…Total expenses, including the launch party, came to $536,868 for the period.

Of course, they are now claiming they are giving out bags of money – in 2012 about $1.1 million out of $2.6 million raised.  Given that I’m a knuckle-dragging, Bible-clinging, teabagging bastard, my math might not be so good…but that, I believe, works out to less than 50%.

Now you might ask, what has something like this got to do with anything?  Well, because this kind of self-dealing by the Ruling Class is what happens all the time.  They are always giving themselves bags of money and congratulating themselves on being so wonderful – and ensuring that they have fabulous parties along the way.  Do you think that Hillary is going to get a “Liberty Medal” because she’s done anything significant?  Nope.  She’s going to get it because she’s Hillary; and they can have a swank party to celebrate it – all at taxpayer expense either in the form of direct taxpayer money, or because the money being spent on it is tax deductible.

Just get in to that Ruling Class and do as you’re told and all door are open.  You’ll have wealth.   You’ll get awards.  You’ll be ensured a well-paid sinecure either in corporate or government America (which are becoming increasingly interchangeable).  Doesn’t matter if you’re a complete idiot or unrepentantly morally corrupt (though you can run afoul of things some times – as the former Mayor of San Diego found out…but even that took decades of misbehavior before someone decided to call him on it…he was one of them; he did as he was told…he had to be protected lest the unwashed masses find out).  Got no talent?  Can’t tell sh** from shinola?  Doesn’t matter.  Just get the right credentials, mouth the right liberal phrases and do as you’re told – you’ll be taken care of.

Leeches like Brown are living off the wealth produced by others – and they are legion in our nation.  Our whole country is infested with these folks – and they are destroying us because being mindless pinheads in service of a anti-human, leftist ideology they advance causes which destroy the very sources of wealth they latch on to.  You see them everywhere – they are in political office, they are running our largest corporations, they man the bureaucracy (especially at its highest levels), they are 90% of the MSM, they run most of the non-religious non-profits.  If you ever say “they are ruining things” then here’s your “they”.  Think of Tina brown blowing through half a million dollars as part of a “charity”.  That is the Ruling Class.

I bring this up because we must get unconfused about this – we are fighting a whole class of people, which includes at least half of the GOP leadership.  These people are either too stupid to know what they’re doing (I’d guess about 70% of them fall in to the “too stupid” category), while the rest know full well what they are doing and think its a good thing…after all, we Bible-clinging morons simply don’t know what’s best for ourselves.  We need a Ruling Class to ride herd on us, you see?  The stupid just want to keep living well, the rest believe that if they can finally, absolutely destroy the United States (fundamentally transform it, as it were) then they will have done a service to the world.  They will have got rid of a Christo-fascist, racist, sexist, homophobic entity which is destroying the world.

For us to survive as a people, all of the Ruling Class ultimately has to go – we can’t think in terms of just winning one election or hoping that a Republican gets in, even if that particular Republican is a a true-blue conservative.  We need a revolution – someone who will go to DC like Andrew Jackson in the 1830’s to clean out the whole mess…get rid of these people.  They are not only unfit for government and corporations, they are unfit for decent company.  Fire them. Send them packing.  Take away their taxpayer funds and tax deductible “charities” which are merely vehicles for their swank lifestyle.  Walk through the bureaucracy and fire everyone who has in even the least instance misused taxpayer money, or abused their authority.  Hammer the big corporations – break them in to little, bitty pieces so that a free market can emerge once there’s no longer corporate money-bags suppressing competition via government regulation.  Unless we think in terms like that, we’ll just be fighting with particular tentacles of the nasty beast rather than driving a stake through it’s vile heart.

Rant over.  But I’m serious – we’ve got to kill the whole, nasty dragon…not just bits and pieces of it.

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