Rino Safari: What Would Reagan Do?

"Conservatism is not a narrow ideology, nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists."
-- Ronald Reagan, 1977

Last night was a victory for conservatism.  Reagan shows us how to build on it. 

Scozzafava had no business being in the Republican party. She was a RINO and showed her disloyalty to the organization that funded her by endorsing the Democrat. She was beyond the pale and I'm glad the conservative activists hounded her out of the party.

I also generally disdain those Republicans who twist themselves into ideological pretzels trying to justify "moderation."

But everybody the other side of Reagan is not a RINO. With Scozzafava, it wasn't gay marriage and pro-abortion that sunk her. If she had stood strongly against card check, taxes, big government and the bailouts she probably would have survived to go on to be the next Congresswoman from NY-23.

Politics is about addition, not subtraction

Multifarious GOP factions calling names and declaring jihad on one another is the sure road to failure. Politics is about gaining power so you can influence and control the course of government. You do that by winning elections, not picking fights with teammates who don't think exactly like you do.

Ronald Reagan knew it back in 1977 when they were saying the Republican party was dead.  Savvy conservatives considering a third party should heed his words:

The biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over," he said to those who suggested that option.

A RINO stampede sounds like fun, but Reagan would not approve. Consider these comments from the same 1977 address to conservative activists.

"Let me say this about our friends who are now Republicans but do not identify themselves as conservatives. I want the record to show that I do not view the new revitalized Republican party as one based on a principle of exclusion."

What is a Republican?  That remains to be sorted out over the next year.  As we do, we should consider the words of proto-Republican Abraham Lincoln:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds...

Polls, and now elections, show that voters are rejecting Obama's politics of the past.  Conservatism is on the ascendancy.  Be of good cheer!

Beware Politicians Bearing Gifts

I stumbled over this Reagan quote at Liberty Tree:

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right,
but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right.

There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream --
the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order --
or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.

Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.'"

Liberty Tree

RINO Stampede is Not Reaganesque

Politics is about addition, not subtraction, and it has nothing to do with ideological purity.

Multifarious GOP factions calling names and declaring jihad on one another is the sure road to failure. Politics is about gaining power so you can influence and control the course of government. You do that by winning elections, not picking fights with teammates who don't think exactly like you do. Ronald Reagan knew it, and savvy conservatives should read his words and emulate them.

Jim DeMint, Republican Senator from South Carolina, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal giving us his vision of the GOP's big tent. He wants to build the party on principles, not issues. The #1 principle? Freedom

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you aim for principled reform, you win elections in the bargain; if you just aim for elections, you get neither.

Freedom will mean different things to different Republicans, but it can tether a diverse coalition to inalienable principles. Republicans can welcome a vigorous debate about legalized abortion or same-sex marriage; but we should be able to agree that social policies should be set through a democratic process, not by unelected judges.

A Political Party is not an ideological movement

Noemie Emory at the Weekly Standard points out the difference between an ideological movement (Conservatives, free-market capitalists, 2nd Amendment gun owners, gay log cabin republicans) and a political party (Democrat, Republican).

...a party and movement are not the same thing. A movement exists to express and promote a coherent set of principles in the world of ideas and of values. A party--especially in a two-party system--is something quite different: a gathering of diverse political forces around a large and loosely held set of interests and values, that exists to give all of its factions access to power in the practical world of events.

Yes! The GOP is the bus conservatives must ride to power. The catch is, you have to share it with some who don't think exactly like you. Fine. The temptation is to beat them into submission, but life doesn't work that way. Share the ride and maybe you can debate and convince them along the way to electoral victory.

"Conservatism is not a narrow ideology, nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists."
-- Ronald Reagan, 1977

Many want to simply throw the ideological nonconformists off the bus, but Noemi reminds us that Reagan would not approve. Consider these comments from Ronald Reagan's 1977 address to conservative activists.

"The biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over," he said to those who suggested that option.

"Let me say this about our friends who are now Republicans but do not identify themselves as conservatives. I want the record to show that I do not view the new revitalized Republican party as one based on a principle of exclusion. After all, you do not get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won't associate or work with. If we truly believe in our principles, we should sit down and talk.

Those itching to purge the party of all impurity need to stop blabbering on about Reagan and actually pause to read what he has said.

WSJ - Jim DeMint
Weekly Standard - Noemie Emory

3000 Words

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Liberal Scorned By Reaganomics

Reaganomics didn't cause this recession, and Obamanomics won't end it

The long-memoried elephant may be the Republican symbol, but it's the liberals who can't let go. A deep, resentful hatred for Reaganism, and the man who fathered that wonderful doctrine, has simmered just below the surface in the jealous hearts of liberal politicians, bullhorn wielding community activists, and their fellow travelers in the press and in academe. They're now all atwitter at President Obama's multi-trillion dollar ultra-liberal thumb in Reagan's eye.

We're in a recession. They happen every 10 years or so; it's called the business cycle. This one is particularly nasty due to the toxic combination of stupidity and greed rolling simultaneously through the public, private and government government sectors. The free market didn't fail. It performed just as Adam Smith would expect when rapacious predators become untethered from all ethics and morals while willfully-ignorant, doe-eyed naifs abandon prudence and common sense.

Entropy prevails at every turn of this mortal coil, but only in this one case do the screamers on the left insist we abandon a successful model.

Follow the left's logic (if you can)

The war on poverty was started in the 30's, we've spent trillions just since the 60's, but we still have poverty. So why not stop throwing money down that rat hole? Giving money to the poor doesn't make them rich, so let's stop it.

Our schools churn out successively less-educated generations of students, so why not dismantle the public school system?

Car wrecks take thousands of lives every year. Why not tear up the roads and destroy the automobile?

Nobel Laureate Economist Paul Krugman leads the charge, but footsoldiers like the NY Times and LA Times are the real happy warriors, goose stepping to Obama & Pelosi's Solidarity March. Ding dong! Reaganism is dead! They scream, never pausing to contemplate the unprecedented economic gains and job growth we've enjoyed since the dismal Carter years.

All of the Anti-Reagan arguments hinge on the nebulous issue of "fairness." The rich got richer, the poor got poorer...

Brad Schiller wrote an article entitled, The Inequality Myth, in the WSJ last year. It it, he uses census data to shred the liberal argument that inequality has increased since 1980.

While there is some substance to these fears of widening inequality and middle-class stagnation, the situation is not nearly as clear-cut. Demographic changes in the size and composition of U.S. households have distorted the statistics in important ways.

First, we can easily dismiss the notion that the poor are getting poorer. Allowing for population growth shows that the average income of people at the bottom of the income distribution has risen 36% (Since 1970).

Note that rate matches the median income growth for the same period. "They're not rich," he concluded, "but they're certainly not poorer." Another important point is that the "poor" is not a static group. More so than in any other country, American poverty is a temporary state for the vast majority of people who find themselves there.

The supposed decline of the poor and middle class is exaggerated even more by the dynamics of population growth. When people look at the "poor" in any two years, they think they're looking at the same people. That's rarely true, especially over longer periods of time.

Since 1998, the U.S. population has increased by over 20 million. Nearly half of that growth has come from immigration, legal and illegal. Overwhelmingly, these immigrants enter at the lowest rungs on the income ladder. Statistically, this immigrant surge not only reduces the income of the "average" household, but also changes the occupants of the lowest income classes.

He also points out the effects of a shrinking median household size:

... the average household size has shrunk to 2.57 persons from 3.14 -- a drop of 18%. The meaning? Even a "stagnant" average household income implies a higher standard of living for the average household member.

Last year, the Census Bureau published a new set of income statistics that adjusted for changing household size and composition. In a single year (2006), this "equivalence-adjusted" computation increased the income share of the poor by 8% and reduced the standard measure of inequality (Gini coefficient) by 4%. Such "equivalency" adjustments would mute unadjusted inequality trends even more.

Some people would have you believe that all of this added income was funneled to the rich. But the math doesn't work out.

The increase in nominal GDP since 2000 amounts to over $4 trillion annually. If you assume that all that money went to the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households, that bonanza would come to a whopping $350,000 per household. Yet according to the Census Bureau, the top 10% of households has an average income of $200,000 or so.

The implied bonanza is so absurd that the notion that only the rich have gained from the economic growth can be dismissed out of hand. Clearly, there is a lot of economic advancement across a broad swath of population. Dramatic changes in household composition, household size and immigration tend to obscure this reality.

And that's what it's really all about: Eat the rich, as multi-millionaire Aerosmith leader Steven Tyler sings. The poor haven't gotten poorer, but the rich have gotten conspicuously and gallingly richer. The President may be winding down the Iraq way, but he's stoking good old fashioned class warfare.

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned. This crisis presented know-it-all social engineers a golden opportunity to roll back Reagan's free market capitalism, and they've grabbed it with both hands, shamelessly exploiting public uncertainty, unhindered by facts or history. You can stand there and let it happen or you can arm yourself with facts to turn back this ignorant onslaught.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21krugman.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/economy/27policy.html?_r=2&hp
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-budget-assess27-2009feb27,0,5874116.story
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120511125873823431.html
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/01/24/there-krugman-goes-again/

President Obama Scolds Wall Street Over "Shameful" Bonuses
Senator Dodd: Pay the Money Back!

Wall Street is learning the truth of an old Ronald Reagan quote:

Get in bed with the government and you'll get more than a good night's sleep.

Being scolded by the government about shameful behavior and wasteful spending is like receiving a lecture on morals from a crack whore.

Don't Feed the Crocodile (or Bear)

Two great men: President Ronald Reagan and Sir Winston Churchill.

I love quotes, and I love it even more when I find one famous person paraphrasing or quoting another. Here, President Reagan does a riff off of Sir Winston. Both were staunch critics of appeasement. Wise words that we would do well to heed today.

"To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last--but eat you he will!"
–Ronald Reagan

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile–hoping it will eat him last.”
- Sir Winston Churchill

That goes for feeding bears, too...

Reagan's Wisdom: Antidote to Liberalism

As we fight the slide to Socialism and goodies giveaways by our elected "leaders" it is useful to return to the words of Ronald Reagan. I get frustrated arguing with those who think liberal government policies will solve our problems.

Liberalism is easy: Every problem can be solved by government. Can't pay for health care? Uncle Sam will pick up the tab. Poor? Here, have this money Uncle Sugar shook out of somebody else's pockets. Confused by too many choices in the marketplace? Bureaucrats will make those decisions for you. Protectionism, paternalism, leveling the playing field. It all sounds so attractive, and it makes people feel good.

Conservatism, on the other hand, takes thought. Where will the money for government handouts come from? What would happen if you take away incentive to work or make money? What would happen to personal initiative if government took care of everybody and shielded us from those tough decisions? If people had no more incentive and no more initiative, what would happen to our country?

Ronald Reagan, a man much greater and wiser than I, addressed all these issues decades ago. His solutions, drawn from the wisdom of the ages, healed a malaise-ridden nation whose economy had been made moribund by a half-century of liberal policies.

American Rhetoric, an on-line speech bank, has the complete text of a speech President Reagan gave at Hillsdale College. You can read the text or even listen to a recording of the speech. It will refresh your belief in free enterprise and restock your armory for doing battle with the feel-good liberals. You can read the entire text or listen to the speech here.

Here are a few excerpts:

But how much are we to blame for what has happened? Beginning with the traumatic experience of the Great Depression, we the people have turned more and more to government for answers that government has neither the right nor the capacity to provide. But government, as an institution, always tends to increase in size and power, not just this government -- any government. It's built-in. And so government attempted to provide the answers.

Ludwig von Mises said that, "Government is the only agency that can take a perfectly useful commodity like paper, smear it with some ink, and render it absolutely useless."

There’s a fellow in Indiana with a shop. He’s got seven employees. At the front and back of his tiny shop there was a twelve foot door -- each end. OSHA has just told him he has to install exit signs in the event that a new employee might become confused in case of fire and not be able to find his way out. He asked a pretty logical question. He said if he can’t see a twelve foot door, how’s he going to see that exit sign?

You know, it has been said that politics is the second oldest profession, and I've come to realize over the last few years, it bears a great similarity to the first.

But, you know, if you lose your economic, you lose your political freedom, all freedom. Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream, or genetically. And it's never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it's gone and gone for a long, long time.

Already, many of us, particularly those in business and industry, there are too many who have switched rather than fight. And it's time that particularly, some of our corporations learned, that when you get in bed with government, you're going to get more than a good night's sleep.