Obamacon asks, "If not Obama, le deluge?"

What happens, asks Ajami, when people realize that he's a politician, not a secular messiah?

Hopefully what happens is they don't vote for him, assuming they come to their senses (which is what such a realization is called) before Tuesday. For many, such a moment of "enlightenment" occurred months ago when it became apparent that Obama was nothing BUT a typical politician, though one who was articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.

[/snark]

"a vote for Obama is a vote against the possibility of true and destabilizing political radicalism emerging out of the economic tsunami breaking upon us."

There is some merit in this, but please tie this thought in to the previous post on your fellow Texans: Nearly 1/4 of the people in your state, and a not much smaller percentage of voters nationwide believe that Obama is a Muslim, or a Marxist, or in some way quite literally an agent provocateur sent to destroy the country. Neither one of these candidates is a receipie for political stability.

What do these Crazy White People voters do if Obama wins? What would Crazy Left People and African-Americans do if Obama loses? I shudder either way. It is a testament to the sheer awfulness of the last eight years that we can have a conversation about destabilizing political radicalism after 56 presidential elections and **not** be imagining some bizarre, never gonna happen dystopian scenario.

"emerging first wave of 21st century Conservatives."

From the demographics of the GOP and conservative movement, I am not sure much is emerging

Not exactly on topic, but a piece of scripture that is sung every divine liturgy has been stuck in my head for a while. "Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth, on that very day his plans perish". For some reason, when I think of this election, this passage calms me right down.

Rod,

All the "oh so clever" conservative intellectuals who treat an Obama victory as little more than "an interesting thought experiment" are playing with fire. There's more at stake in this election than the future of American "conservatism."

Try to ride the tiger, if you will, but be careful you don't end up inside the tiger. Your audacious hope is that Obama will be another Carter -- and I hope you're right. But what if the guy turns out to be the next FDR? In that event, the "conservative revival" we all hope for will have to wait till we've all passed from the scene. Measure the distance in years between 1932 and 1980, or 1932 and 1994.

Mr. Dreher writes:

"It's just the idea of four more years of that same crowd running the White House and the Republican Party is like taking a flying leap into a slough of despond."

Mr. Dreher, with all due respect, are you kidding ??

Let's get back to the facts. We know that "The One" has the most leftist voting record in the Senate. We know that both houses of Congress are going to be more leftist after next week. We know that there is a very high probability (IMO better than 50 %) that there will be NO effective opposition faction in the Senate after next week.

These facts all add up to one thing: a Congress that is poised to really and truly run wild, in ways that are very antithetical to anything even vaguely resembling conservative/Traditionalist principles, unless someone stops them.

John McCain may be the only thing that stands in their way. (God help us all, that is.) Heaven knows McCain is no prize. I'd much rather have Bob Barr in there, in all honesty. Chuck Baldwin would do, too. But even McCain, for all his manifest and manifold flaws, would do the country a better turn than Barack Obama, the Quiet Marxist. 4 years of McCain might well produce a Slough of Despond. 4 years of Obama, on the other hand, would almost certainly produce a Massive Enveloping Cloud of Darkest Depression.

Would a President Obama oppose Pelosi & Reid's efforts to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine ?

Would a President Obama oppose Pelosi, Reid, Clinton & Kennedy's efforts to nationalize the country's health care system ?

Would a President Obama do anything to oppose Pelosi & Reid's effort to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act ?

Would a President Obama do anything to oppose Pelosi & Reid's effort to establish open borders ?

Would a President Obama do anything to oppose Pelosi & Reid's backing of the ultra-left's efforts to boost "social spending" ?

Would a President Obama do the least thing to oppose Pelosi & Reid's desire to raise taxes to support said "social spending" ?

Would a President Obama even bother to sit down with even the rump-conservative faction in either house of Congress to "include" them on any issue for any purpose other than providing political cover ?

Can anyone here honestly answer ANY of those questions "Yes" ? And if so, can anyone here present specifics---quotes, Web links, anything at all in the way of specific evidence---to support such an answer ?

I await what will undoubtedly be a vast and resounding silence. Cue the chirping crickets, please.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Reagan,

You only wish that Obama's most extremist exemplar were FDR.

FDR did not actively seek to eliminate political and religious freedom. Barack Obama will do so by means of the fairness doctrine, increased and more coercively imposed "hate speech legislation," and by IRS manipulation of churches and political opposition. And this is not to mention the coming judicial tyranny that orthodox Christians are going to face. I wish that the overtly religious "paleocons" or "crunchy cons," such as Dreher, would at least acknowledge the possibility of this scenario. Because they do not, they strike me as intellectually dishonest.

Enemies of orthodox Christians are going to be emboldened as never before in this country with the coming Democrat supermajority. Those who value the natural family as the basic unity of society and who recognize that political protection of the vulnerable includes the right to life of unborn babies, the elderly, the chronically ill, and the mentally disabled, are going to have to keep their opinions private or face retribution by the law or by the IRS. Barack Obama's intuitive understanding of personhood is no different than Peter Singer's, though Obama could never follow the philosophical argument all the way through the way Singer does.

But all the "crunchy cons" seem to care about is that there is an unsightly Walmart in their neighborhood that needs to be destroyed, or that the "neocons" refuse to draw a moral equivalence between the governments of Israel and Iran. But most of all, they have had their feelings hurt by the GOP, and this drives their political thinking. They are, indeed, aptly labelled "neuroticons." They are more emotivistic than the citizens of the general therapeutic culture that Dreher so often speaks about.

And, by the way, Dreher and company have fallen into the trap of reductionism in how they think about modern economic science. If they were truly traditional on economic theory, they would think less about the abstract concept of "locality" and more about the concrete realities of the natural family and the Church: both of which are under a whithering, intentional, and direct attack by Democrat Party social engineering. Would that they could swallow their considerable and unfounded pride and admit that Barack Obama is a direct heir of the French Revolutionaries, whose main intention was to destroy both the the natural family and the Church, replacing them with an abstract federal or international "village."

John McCain, though imperfect, is much more in keeping with the descendents of the American Revolution, who valued the moral and spiritual authority of pre-political societies. How can "crunchy cons" not see this? They should be much more familiar with counter-revolutionary thought than they seem to be. "Authentically" (and I hate to invoke this Hegelian term that they so abuse) Burkean they are not.

a vote for Obama is a vote against the possibility of true and destabilizing political radicalism emerging out of the economic tsunami breaking upon us.

Because having a supremely charismatic leader sincerely and steadfastly seeking the centralization of authority and power in his undivided federal government during such times of radical political instability and economic turmoil is a good idea?

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