Every time I say something that could be construed as marginally nice about the Republican party, I get some reader who apparently just started following this blog yesterday throwing L. Neil Smith quotes at my like I'd never heard of the guy.
It is true that, should I vote for a major party candidate during my biennial performance art at the polls*, I am marginally more likely to scribble in the circle for a GOPer than a Dem, if only because the very foundation of the modern Democrat party is based on Robin Hood wealth redistribution nonsense. Really, guys, I'm not jealous of Bill Gates and don't want any of his money unless he decides to walk over here and hand it to me of his own free will (and even then I will politely refuse once before accepting it, because nobody wants to look common and trashy taking handouts.)
Look, before the whole Values Voters surge of the '80s , the Republicans were the ones who wanted to waste your money on jet bombers and the Democrats were the ones who wanted to waste it on hobos. The GOP plan had the advantage that jet bombers are actually in the Constitution, plus if you wound up broke, you had a jet bomber you could hock, whereas if you followed the Democrats' plan, all you had was a well-fed crackhead, and you can't get bupkis for those at a pawn shop, trust me.
But ever since the GOP coyly invited the evangelicals over to play and started writing bad checks for bombers, and then declared war on drugs, terror, and Leaving Children Behind, they've made it pretty well impossible for me to get all worked up with enthusiasm for them. Oh, sure, they make all the mouth noises about small government, but when's the last time they actually did anything about it?
There was some initial hope, albeit dim and flickering, that the Tea Party movement would take things over, but all signs are pointing to the "Taxed Enough Already" folks getting co-opted by the usual "The Gays and the 'Bortion" wing of the party, leaving us at status quo ante.
Oh, well... I should have plenty to make fun of while the power's still on.
*Something I only recently started doing again because, what the hell, if people are voting at me, I might as well vote back at them.
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44 comments:
It gets a bit frustrating being pro-freedom, because politicians run for power and they all think they know what is "best". Best would be running for political office and stalling every single political vote you can. I'd willingly vote for a man who's sole job was to stand and filibuster every single bill in Congress. Just think of the things we could accomplish if the government wasn't interfering at every turn.
Just think how small the government would be if we had people in charge that actually wanted small government. When I run for POTUS, my campaign will be "Veto Everyday". If you want a bill passed it will take the will of the people and not the will of lobbyist and whims of congressmen.
I'm eligible in 9 years.
-Rob
Yes indeed, " While the powers still on "
That is after all the bottom line...
I know that it's part of the common vernacular, but Robin Hood was not a tax collector, he stole from the tax collector and gave to the poor. Saying that the Dems. are acting like Robin Hood gives them cover for simply redistributing wealth, in reality, their simply following Marx.
Panamared,
"but Robin Hood was not a tax collector, he stole from the tax collector and gave to the poor."
What Robin Hood was was an armed robber. 'He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor...'
Like robbing people is okay as long as they're icky rich people. The line from the 1040 to the tumbrel is never as long as most people think it is.
RevolverRob:
Repealing the 17th amendment will go a long way towards achieving your goal. Corrupt or not, Senators selected directly by the Sate Government, will keep the Federal Government from stealing wealth and power from the State.
Those deck chairs need to be lined up in more of a checkerboard pattern, the parallel lines are sooo last year. And pre-iceberg, too.
What frosts me the most is the fact my 3 year old, well, they spent all his money before I was born. It's hard to look someone small in the eyes and ponder the future that my parents generation and before have purchased for us.
As long as we have power...well, keep us amused, would you, Tam?
Tam.
My point is, reality or not, Robin Hood is thought of as a positive role model. Giving any part of Government that cover is not helpful. Thief yes, but more accurately, anti-government terrorist.
I used to complain about the big spending Republicans, but I also acknowledged that it would be worse with the Democrats in charge. That has proven to be all too true ever since the Democrats took over congress in the 2006 elections.
These days I try to ask anyone who complains about the representation they have, whether they have done anything about recruiting better representatives for themselves. Voting is part of the process, but any one persons vote doesn't count for much. Far more important is what we do to influence other voters, and especially what we do to influence the politicians who represent us.
I ask people who listens to their opinions. Do any of your representatives in Congress or your State legislature know who you are? If not, why not? If your representative isn't interested in your opinion, I think it's time to find a different representative. If that is too much trouble, maybe the idea of a constitutional representative republic is doomed.
Well, there's been one Tiny Dim Flicker of a Point of Light so far. At least Paul Ryan said in a speech a couple of days ago that he's proud to cling to his Guns and His Religion.
Weak, dim, can't read a Newspaper by it, but Ray of Light is still there.
I'm a values voter; I think killing unborn babies, spending more than we have, subsidizing poverty and dictatorships, and banning guns are all bad.
We should have started this whole thing with some kind of document that lined out what the .gov could and couldn't do. That would have helped.
This post has rendered every PoliSci department redundant.
I view our present political system as a two-headed ogre. The two heads bicker back and forth, but the body ransacks and loots us no matter which head claims it's in charge that day.
My guess is that Robin Hood took from the rich and kept it. PR can work wonders.
The Robin Hood story... the Dems/commies tell it in reverse. Somebody here previously commented that RH stole from the tax collector and gave to the poor. Actually, when RH robbed the tax collector and his political cronies, he was recovering the poors' stolen money/property and returning it to its owner.
What the Dems/commies are doing is quasi-legalized (unConstitutional) robbery, with the threat of armed robbery by IRS thugs, and giving it to their cronies and their entitlement-driven voter base on the "plantation". The problem with voting the Dems out is business-as-usual Republicans have long since been afflicted with the same disease.
The question was posed do our elected representatives know who we are and care to hear our opinions? And if the answer is "no", why? To my mind, the problem goes right back to professional politicos. Contrast that with Thomas Jefferson's vision of the common man who has a stake in society taking his turn representing his district, then going home when his term was over.
I think, too, we might well be wary of the third not-so-major party being voted in en masse. My understanding is revolutions don't go so well. When Castro took over Cuba... that being by force from a dictator... they were real happy until Castro told them what he was starting to do. His CHANGE dashed their HOPE. Sound familiar? Same thing can happen voting for a party and/or their candidates that you know nothing about. Hey, it got Obama elected as e Dem and got us where we are leading up to the 2012 elections.
"I did it all for the Wookie, the Wookie, c'mon, and you can take the 'bortion and stick up your . . ."
Shootin' Buddy
Panamared said...
Repealing the 17th amendment will go a long way towards achieving your goal.
YES, an thousand times YES!!!
Terry
Florida
Problem is, guys, you aren't going to get a repeal of the 17th Amendment passed.
Other than those of us cleaning Wookie fur out of our vacuum cleaners, pretty much NO ONE is going to vote to remove direct election of Senators. They'd be admitting that the electorate is too stupid to pick a Senator.
And the PR play the opposition will run! An amendment designed SPECIFICALLY to disenfranchise the electorate and remove the choice from the PEE-Pulls' hands! ZOMG!!!!!eleventy!!! It's the first step to a world where flamboyantly gay (yet homophobic) Nazis ride dinosaurs through town machinegunning old people and children. Yada, yada.
Even if you did repeal it, those same forces would be brought into play in EVERY state to have the STATE pass a law mandating direct election. Perfectly legal under teh 17th Amendment -- which means you have to win this fight as if you were trying to get the repeal amendment ratified TWICE. (Once to repeal the 17th, then refight the same damned fight, after the opposition has studied your best arguments, in ENOUGH states that you actually get legislatively appointed senators in a fillibuster-proof majority. And you get to REFIGHT the battle in the state legislatures every single year.)
A plan with a better chance for success is the proposed amendment that would give the states a veto over any law or adminitrative rule, executive order, etc., that a super-majority of state legislatures passed a bill rejecting. You COULD slip that one through, and it would have the same effect as the idea of state legislative appointment of federal senators.
Yea, but we can dream.
back to the vacuum cleaner project.
Terry
Fla.
Before the "values voters surge of the eighties", the Republicans had been holding an almost unbroken minority in the Congress going back to the Roosevelt Administration, and had mutated quite a lot of the way into the Rockefeller Republicans. Those "values voters" provided a not inconsiderable amount of donations and gruntwork to make the Reagan Administration happen, and whatever you think about the GOP, it's probably better that the stage was set to take the majority away from the Democrats in the Nineties.
"But ever since the GOP coyly invited the evangelicals over to play..."
I'm not saying that evangelicals alone made the blunting of the Donks' power possible, but I don't think it would have been possible without them. This current celery stick with shit spread in it that we found in our lunch is aggravating, but I can't see how things would be improved if the GOP hadn't had the evangelicals on board back in the Eighties.
I sure liked having them back in the day, and can't bring myself to be overly critical now, although there sometimes seems to be issues of common sense cropping up here and there.
Mike James
How long has it been now since the senate has passed a budget? And yet somehow the gears of the machine keep grinding along. I know I'm a broken record on this, but once Congress gave the departments the ability to pass regulations and enforce them as if they were laws...we! were! screwed!
The DEA runs short of cash? Hey, lets just go claim that this hotel owner in prime Vegas real estate is a drug dealer...take his casino...and sell it for cash.
I will always vote, because I just HAVE to. But congress is no longer in control of our government. And I don't think they care as long as they continue to get rich.
Geodkyt, I'm pretty sure the a Constitutional amendment repealing the 17th would preempt any State laws. That's not to say you couldn't envision other scenarios ("the 17th amendment is stricken; states can do what they want" for example.)
D's tax and spend, R's borrow and spend. Same denominator. I like the way you characterized the decline of the GOP over the years. There is no hope. Libertarians nipping at the heels of BIG government ain't enough. Even the press now dismissively mocks calls for smaller government.
Nice pic of you up at Oleg's place, Tam.
17th Amendment repeal is a start but the whole thing needs to be much more asymmetrical.
We need to have California Senators elected by Texans, and Illinois Senators elected by New Mexico, with and Massachusetts Senators elected by Oklahoma and ones in Maryland elected by Nebraska - like that. And the Senators get a free Winnebago to live in when their term is finished, with and a GPS tracking bracelet - nuthin' else.
C'mon and think outside the box a little here, but the punishment needs to fit the crime, and they got plenty to pay.
I've been voting in every election since I turned 18, figuring the media is spending a lot of time and money convincing the population that it is more effective to vote for the next American Idol than to vote for liberty. I'm still trying to encourage liberty, but it gets harder with stupid people like my SIL the flaming Stalinst voting.
Revolver Bob! To steal a phrase from the Chicago machine, "veto early and often."
RKN, the press, at least for the last 20 years has always mocked the idea of smaller government. And they will continue to do so until the Federal Journalist Licensing Bureau shows up at their office to request their presence at the reeducation camps recently vacated by the conservatives and the Republicans.
BuSab: an idea whose time has come.
While we're fixing Washington, I believe that we should mandate telecommuting for Congress. This way, they would be held more accountable and might actually act like representatives of the people. As it is, Congresscritters end up being assimilated into Washington culture; once that happens, they are merely Washington's envoys to the people.
Can we throw Claire Wolfe quotes at you instead? They're kinder and gentler than El Neil can be....
I have become convinced that part of the problem is the Big 'L' Libertarian party is happy playing the big fish in the small, irrelevant tidal pool. That way, they can keep their idealogy pure from all that nasty compromise that comes from actually governing a group of people.
Maybe, just maybe the Libertarian party would be better suited following in the footsteps of various gun rights groups and spend time and effort informing voters and cluebatting politicians. True, it is a harder thing to do than get some 3rd rate nobody on a state's ballot*, but it actually more beneficial in the long run.
*the political equilivant of that sidebar ad with the vibrating dancer and "Click Here to Win an I-Pad!!!"
I've decided to treat this election cycle as if it were an NPR pledge drive.
I'll go vote (there's a guy running for County Surveyor I want to throw my weight behind), and read the returns the next day. Between now and then, however, I'm gonna:
o turn off talk radio AND NPR
o ignore news about the election (since it's not really news but rather the Jackals of the Press asking each other what they think about what so-and-so just said)
o watch my daughter grow up
o get in more range time.
gvi
I am one of those who believes in showing up at the polls and turning in a mostly blank ballot. I think that gives me more of a right to bitch about the outcome of the election than had I not participated, at all.
@Rob, who has admitted to being 26 years old: Oh, you kids, these days! Y'all have no idea what a (somewhat) free country we had back in the fifties and sixties!
Tam, jet bombers are cool. A couple of the best times I ever had in my life were at the Warner Robins Airplane Museum, which is basically a petting zoo for people like me who like old bombers. They have a weird old B-57 there, whose canopy I was careful to lick so as to keep up my autistic credentials, and even an English Electric Lightning, unfortunately deprived of its turbines.
You reflected my opinions quite well.
Justthisguy...you have GOT to get to Dayton and visit the USAF Museum...the Valkyrie alone is worth the trip.
Most people don't realize this, but there are basically 2 very different Robin Hood stories. There's what I would call the "Commie Robin Hood", which features him stealing from the rich because they are rich and giving their (presumably honestly gained) money to the poor, and is the one most commonly cited.
There is, however, another version of the story that pops up from time to time, which I call "Militant Libertarian Robin Hood". In this version, Robin takes only that which is unjustly taken by the authorities (such as exorbitant taxes) and gives it back back to its rightful owners.
For an example of the second version, I highly recommend the series starring Richard Greene that aired on CBS in the '50s (it's on Hulu) for an example of this alternative story. Actually, a lot of early TV shows have this kind of stuff in it (Rocky & Bullwinkle, lots of Westerns...) It's an interesting contrast to modern cop shows where the Constitution is treated as a pesky afterthought, or at best an impediment to real police work.
6:37 PM, August 22, 2012
Rick C said...
Geodkyt, I'm pretty sure the a Constitutional amendment repealing the 17th would preempt any State laws. That's not to say you couldn't envision other scenarios ("the 17th amendment is stricken; states can do what they want" for example.)
Nope. All repealing the 17th Amendment would do revert the decision as to the method by which federal senators are appointed reverts back to the choice of the individual state legislatures. Nothing in the pre-17th Amendment Constitution forces them to use any particular method.
The state legislatures can choose to do so via direct election. By 1912 (when the 17th Amendment was introduced for ratification), 33 states (out of 48) used either a general election, or a binding general primary to select their senators.
One interesting factoid from the 17th Amendment history shows promise, however. One of the fears of people who oppose state-initiated amendments is that, under Article V, we would face an open convention, where literally anything could be passed out as an amendment. . . after all, that’s basically how we got our current Constitution. The fear is that such a convention cannot be held to only argue specific amendments, but is free to do anything, from repeal the 2nd Amendment, to declaring single payer national health care a “right”, to entirely replacing our Constitution.
Same situation was occurring with the 17th Amendment, with most of the states submitting formal applications for an amendment for direct election of senators. CONGRESS submitted out the 17th Amendment from their end before the state applications would have triggered a constitutional convention, specifically out of fear of a “runaway convention”.
Joe in PNG said...
10:21 PM, August 22, 2012
I have become convinced that part of the problem is the Big 'L' Libertarian party is happy playing the big fish in the small, irrelevant tidal pool. That way, they can keep their idealogy pure from all that nasty compromise that comes from actually governing a group of people.
Maybe, just maybe the Libertarian party would be better suited following in the footsteps of various gun rights groups and spend time and effort informing voters and cluebatting politicians. True, it is a harder thing to do than get some 3rd rate nobody on a state's ballot*, but it actually more beneficial in the long run.
*the political equilivant of that sidebar ad with the vibrating dancer and "Click Here to Win an I-Pad!!!"
TARGET! FIRE FOR EFFECT!
Robin Hood isn't the model for the Democratic Party, Robin is the original Hood, complete with hoodie.
The Democratic Party is the Church of little faith, and the Republican are All the Kings Horses and all the King's men.
The TEA Party was quickly marginalized by the media making it EVIL and the Republicans pretending to embrace their ideals.
Most people aren't worth the thought that goes into controlling them, certainly not to the level that any government uses to keep power. But they keep trying.
Declining to vote is the same as saying "you didn't build that."
Politicians were imperfect humans; they build their campaigns.
In the same way a Marxist believes in robbing you because you aren't spending your money perfectly (by his definition), so refusing to vote for the best candidate is undercutting someone for not being perfect.
In the same way liberals showcase their hypocrisy (smarter, more compassionate), libertarians showcase their apathy and refusal to vote. There is no virtue in it.
dustydog,
"Declining to vote is the same as saying "you didn't build that.""
No, declining to vote is saying that no candidate on offer has an agenda you can, in good conscience, support, although the proper thing to do then is to write someone in or turn in a blank ballot, lest your disgust be mistaken for apathy.
Seriously, on how many planks can you fundamentally disagree with a candidate's platform and still vote for them? Suppose, just for the sake of illustration, that Hillary Clinton jumped parties and miraculously received the GOP nomination in Florida, due to divine intervention or whatever. Would you vote for her to get rid of BHO? If not, why not?
Tam 8:22- "No, declining to vote is saying that no candidate on offer has an agenda you can, in good conscience, support, although the proper thing to do then is to write someone in or turn in a blank ballot, lest your disgust be mistaken for apathy."
I'm not the first to say this and I won't be the last... We need an option on the ballot that reads:
NONE OF THE ABOVE CANDIDATES ARE SUITABLE. TRY AGAIN.
That's a lot more likely to be taken seriously than a write-in vote for Mickey Mouse or Snoopy among others.
I can just imagine what would happen if you were to "say something that could be construed as marginally nice about the" Democratic party...
Waiting for this hurricane to arrive is getting to be annoying, with so many people getting all excited about it.
FerChrissakes, Isaac ain't even a real hurricane, yet. I do love the delightful cool and breezy pre-hurricane weather.
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