Conservative reform won't come soon

I think this article is pretty much right on--but I take a bit of issue with labeling David Frum as a reformist. I remember distinctly a few years back how he was trying to deflect blame onto social conservatives--over the plain fact that the war's unpopularity was the cause of much of the GOP's woes.

I think we need to ask ourselves something--is all the talk about smaller government, repeated almost as a drumbeat, an idea that is real and living, or is it just a dogmatic mantra that doesn't have much there? The same on supply-side views of taxes? On war and national defense? A lot of these ideas are good in and of themselves--but we have to be "prudent" about them. New circumstances require some ideas to evolve. Once a battle is won, the same problems may not be present.

Here's one thing we can take from Reagan: he wouldn't have intentionally gotten us into a protracted war like Iraq. When he came close to it, in Lebanon, he wisely cut his losses and left.

All these overlong shirt-rending pieces are painful to read because none of the--not an effing one!--wants to confront the 900-lb. gorilla in the room: our overseas meddling, and this is a bipartisan problem at that.

overseas meddling.. and ENTITLEMENTS

Bush tried social security reform for 5 minutes, then gave up - while expanding medicare and medicaid. Our choice this election was between left wing Peronistas and nationalist Peronistas. We're Argentina either way. Since half the country does not pay income tax, I have no idea how you convince them to step away from the trough. As soon as the Republicans got to town, they gold-plated the trough so it is not like anyone led by example.

Brooks and Kristol refuse to take responsibility for destroying the GOP and conservatism. National Greatness Conservatism. Project for a New American century. I'm so sick and tired of these hacks. The big problem, they're embedded like a tick in the media. NY Times, Washington Post, FAUX News, National Review, Weakest Standard, AEI etc etc. Does Deroy Murdock talk about purging the people who pushed for the invasion of Iraq as far back as the mid 1990s? (Google Neocons Clean Break) Podhoretz, Krauthammer, Frum, Brooks, Kristol, Ledeen, etc etc all need to be purged!!

http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/11/06/christopher-manion/

Above link is an interview with Christopher Manion. Old school conservative. I recommend it.

Another Neocon Thigh-Slapper

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/023940.html

They tend to take global warming seriously.

If taking global warming seriously means that they think we can or should do anything about this natural process, then they're idiots who deserve to wander in the wilderness.

I agree with the poster who said that crusading for limited (smaller) government, government within our constitutional boundaries, IS reform.

The rest of this is just warmed over, me-too liberalism with a shiny new coat of bullsh&t.

Rod,

ask the webmasters to implement a routine for one's comment to be cached in the event of a captcha failure. I had written a long response, failed the captca and could not get my original post back, I am not starting over with it.

Let me make a point that's going to be overlooked among secular conservatives of Reformist impulse: no conservative movement that hopes to be successful can do so without religious conservatives.

This is exactly right. As a conservative in flyover country (where we grow the food you eat), I am seriously looking at 3rd Party options (Constitution Party). A lot of the reformists seem to think that the problem is social conservatism, i.e. traditional values. They are wrong. I'm conservative on both fiscal and social issues, but if I have to choose between voting my wallet or voting for life, I vote life. This of course is how GWB got elected.

The problem with social conservatives is not their social values, it's that they are by and large not small government fiscal conservatives. Moderating the pro life, pro family meme of the GOP in favor of more emphasis on inequality and global warming is just democrat lite.

My husband believes we have past the tipping point where the pie eaters (public employees and their various clients who live on local, state and federal largesse) now outnumber the productive pie makers (those who actually produce the wealth) and so America has entered the death spiral of democracy as the citizenry tries to vote themselves rich.

Unless someone can talk over the heads of the media and preach self sufficiency and hard work we can pretty much expect a visit from "The Gods of the Copybook Headings".

I believe Sarah Palin might be able to do that. A modern day Deborah.

One reason "reform" won't come soon is, there's no agreement on what it is.

I used to be a Republican, migrated to "Independent," and now, yes, mark me down as a family-lovin', church-goin' "Democrat." I still want smaller government--a more effective government--the Government's nose out of my business, and to get rid of that hideous debt. I seek respect for all life and for the environment we depend on. But as I listened to Republicans, this cycle, harangue about "tax and spend Liberals" (not to mention questioning others' faith, patriotism and "realness"), I certainly didn't recognize myself in any of that. Though I wondered who they thought has been in charge for the last 8 years . . . LBJ?

Yikes! It is extremely alarming that the church is swaying to the siren song of progressivism in the name of helping the poor and being good stewards of the environment. Truth be told, socially progressive churches (accepting homosexuality, abortion, redefining marriage) are NOT Christian churches. They are pagan institutions masquerading as Christian.

The progressive movement is rooted in an idea that is in direct contradiction to Christian teaching. Progressivism rejects the notion that humanity is fallen, that human nature is fixed, and that humans are born wicked. Progressivism strives to perfect humanity and presents government or human leaders as the solution. Christianity teaches that humanity IS fallen, IS wicked, and can only be saved by Christ. Can only be saved by Christ.

So right off the bat we have a conflict which can not be resolved. The world views of Christianity and Progressivism are not compatible and are in fact enemies.

Brooks has proposed the most idiotic reduction of converservatism I have ever read. If I don't want to be on Sean Hannity's team I can be on David Frum's? I guess I'm going to take up another sport.

Yes, the GOP needs reform. What that should look like, is something akin to what Ron Paul (wildly popular among the under 25 set) pushed, namely: small government, Constitutionalism, and yes FREEDOM.

OK, here's the token Liberal to offer movement conservatives some sincere advice.

Conservatives joining the fight against poverty and climate change are good first ideas. But the Right, including the religious variety, need to start embracing pragmatism regarding social issues.

For example, nothing would lower the rate of abortion more than these two things: improving the living conditions of the poor and promoting free access to contraception. When the economy goes bad, abortion rates go up - and this would hold true whether the abortions were legal or not.

Religious conservatives would do well to remember that abortion existed before 1973 and will continue to exist regardless of the status of Roe v. Wade. Churches that campaign against abortion should be the ones handing out free condoms and birth control pills. That is the results-oriented, pragmatic approach.

(Also, Evangelicals would do well to emulate the Catholics and denounce the death penalty, as well as promoting an end to war, instead of cheerleading for it. If you're Pro-Life, the BE pro-life in every sense of the words. The hypocrisy just drives people away from you.)

These are the kinds of things the "New Right" types have to convince the religious conservatives to go along with. Good luck.

Brent says:

"It appears the church is being deceived by the seemingly parallel interests of progressivism's stated goals. Unfortunately progressivism only leads to the loss of liberty for everyone except the ruling class. Religious liberty especially. Biblical principals are now so called "hate crimes" in more progressive western countries."

I don't see how "progressivism" is good for the ruling class, which I define as those at the top 1%, who are about to see their taxes rise. And from my point-of-view, the drastic decrease in real buying power of the middle and working classes over the last ten years has led to a serious loss of their liberty.

As far as religious liberty is concerned, can you explain exactly which Biblical principles are now called "hate crimes", and in which countries? Be specific, as in citing the text of actual laws and give examples of how these newly defined "hate crimes" have been tried and convicted in courts.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/01/british-cop-warns-christians-leafletting-in-muslim-areas-is-a-hate-crime/

As far as religious liberty is concerned, can you explain exactly which Biblical principles are now called "hate crimes", and in which countries? Be specific, as in citing the text of actual laws and give examples of how these newly defined "hate crimes" have been tried and convicted in courts.

Apparently you've missed all the news stories about the Canadian Human Rights Commission persecuting writer Mark Steyn, and the UK police doing the same thing to street preachers.

Re: Having lost the Congress in 2006, and now the White House in 2008, the neoconservatives have decided to rebrand themselves as "reform conservatives", and their first act is to dump all over everyone who doesn't live in the DC area, Manhattan or somewhere west of San Francisco bay by attacking Governor Palin via the most vile and obnoxious of means.

Neither Ross Douthat nor Reihen Salem nor our host here are identifiable as "NeoCons", a group generally associated with an assertive, even bellicose, foreign policy. And our host ere lives in or near Dallas.

Re: After a few years of this, they may well choose to restructure their lives to capture less income.

Why? We're not talking about confiscatory 70% rates. And even if we were, it would stioll make no sense to forgo the extra income simply so you don't have to pay the taxes. After all, even at 70% you're still 30% richer whereas if you forgo the extra income you're 0% richer. At least when I grew up and learned math, 30% > 0%.

Your Name:
David Brooks is one of the "reform conservatives", and arguably David Frum is as well. If you do not consider Frum to be a neoconservative, then who is?

I also do not recall Rod Dreher exhibiting contempt for the "Joe the Plumber" type of conservative, unlike Frum, Brooks, Noonan, Kmeic and others. Perhaps you can refresh my memory?

Your Name, neither you nor I know what tax rates lie in the future. Candidate Obama proposed removing the ceiling on Social Security, for example, on top of other tax hikes. One calcuulation estimated a marginal tax rate on high income persons in excesss of 55%. If marginal tax rates approached 70%, you can bet there would be a reaction, because that "30% > 0" observation does not take into account the time and effort required to obtain the 30%. Many people will think twice about working hard just so they can hand over 7/10th of their income to the government, and will find something else to do with that effort.
I find it rather depressing to have to explain such a basic concept here, or anywhere: people actually do react to taxes, they are not just automata that work/eat/sleep when told by their superiors in government. Not outside of North Korea, anyway. Therefore they react to changes in incentives.

If you do not believe me, consult a tax accountant, or consider the fact that when US income tax rates had a maximum of 90%, virtually no person actually paid that tax rate. They sheltered income in various ways to avoid it.
Certainly Joe "rum runner" Kennedy never paid anything like 90% of his income; if he had, the trust funds that pay for Kennedy clan vacations and stints in rehab wouldn't exist.

Joe Max, let us find the parameters and boundaries of your free speech absolutism. Would you have a problem with commercial television broadcasting hard core porn and extremely violent movies such as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre I-II-III-IV-V" at 8:00 AM on Saturday morning? Please elucidate as to why, or why not this would be appropriate to you.

The GOP can do just fine without fundamentalist Christians and the Midwest, at least in national politics. Your post fails to understand the changing demographics of America, and ignores the Obama win. In short, the GOP cannot win without excising (and some might say, exorcising) the religious right. More after the jump:

http://willworkforjustice.blogspot.com/2008/11/dick-armeys-conservatism.html

Anti-Dhimmi says:

"Joe Max, let us find the parameters and boundaries of your free speech absolutism. Would you have a problem with commercial television broadcasting hard core porn and extremely violent movies such as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre I-II-III-IV-V" at 8:00 AM on Saturday morning? Please elucidate as to why, or why not this would be appropriate to you."

Refine your parameters: is anyone obligated to watch? Do the V-chips in every television sold in the USA suddenly stop working?

I think the problem would be finding a market for such. As it is, our modern 500 channel Internet-enhanced cable TV systems do exactly that. So far, civilization has not fallen.

IMPOSED speech is not free speech. If anyone is *forced* to watch it, or unable to easily block their children from watching it, I would be against such a thing, on the same grounds. I don't want my kid to listen to the obscenity preached by Michael Savage in prime time, which to me is far worse than Hollywood sexuality or horror movie violence. But I don't think he should be banned from the air.

Are you making a case based on "public commons" ownership of the commercial airwaves? I thought conservatives didn't care for Fairness Doctrines and the like. But freedom cuts both ways, my friend. Tell you what - I'll support the banning of such material from the airwaves on "public commons" grounds if you'll support the return of the Fairness Doctrine on the same grounds. Deal?

While I've got your attention, care to take a shot at the questions I posed? I'm still waiting for a right-winger to actually answer the questions with real citations.

Joe Max, I do not have to refine any parameters. Not everyone has 500 channel internet-enhanced cable TV. In some cities, fully 1/3 of the households receive only broadcast TV. Never mind whether the V-chips are working or not, many people don't know how to program their TV sets anyway. Never mind whether there is a market for this sort of thing or not, we are exploring the limits to your free speech absolutism.

You say you would oppose such a thing, yet you claim to be a free speech absolutist. How do you square these two positions?

Here's another question, would you repeal laws against slander? Suppose someone sat outside your house in the public street with a sound truck blaring all sorts of lies about you all day and all night, surely a free speech absolutist wouldn't want that to be curtailed in any way. After all, it's free speech, absolutely...

As for the tax issue, you are so interested in bashing the example and trolling for flames that you don't bother to address the actual issue of tax policy presented. The simple fact is, people will change their behavior to minimize their exposure to taxes if they perceive that taxes are "too high", where "too high" has some variables. It is utterly simplistic to believe that there would be no difference in the way high income and high net worth people structure their taxable income if the marginal tax rate were raised to 70%, or even 60%. I do not understand why that simple fact generates such bile and ire.

The easiest way for the Obama administration to raise taxes will be to let the current tax cuts expire in 2010 and not renew them. In that case, some of the high income people who supported Obama will see their taxes increase. There are various tax increases already under discussion beyond that, and statements such as Rep. Frank's assertions that lead one to expect higher taxes sooner than 2010. More worrisome is the structural nature of some of the tax proposals that are out there, but that really is beyond the scope of this thread.

Strawman arguments, such as "modeling ourselves after the highly successful Chinese Communist economcy" are really boring to read, and not worth a reply.
I'm sorry that I'm not providing you with a better punching bag. Perhaps you would be more comfortable posting at the DailyKos, DemocratUnderground, HuffingtonPost, or some other similar forum?

At some point in the future, abortion will cease being an issue. Traditionally-minded, middle-class America will be so busy protecting their homes from being burnt, their sons from being shot and their daughters from being raped that abortion concerns will become a distant memory.

By my calculations, it's quite probable that around 80 to 90 percent of the babies that get aborted would otherwise grow up to be Democrat-bloc voters, and by that I mean people whose livelihood consists of transferring social resources from demographics that tend to be Republican to demographic blocs that tend to be Democrat. Imagine there were another 15 to 20 million more net Democrat votes in this last election. Yeah, that's right, the Republican problem is one of demographics, not of message or tactics.

You have two choices:

A) give up the abortion issue when your communities are in flames and your entire world is collapsing
B) give up abortion now and try to salvage some sort of future for your children.

There is no third option.

As usual, Brooks wants to divide the world into two groups. Yet the people he mentions as reformists--Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Rod Dreher, Yuval Levin, David Frum, himself--really don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of significant issues that so called reform conservatives would have to negotiate--e.g., abortion.

Brooks accuses traditionalists of wanting to double-down on past Republican proposals and ignore how much the world has changed. Yet, he ignores his own (and Frum's) complicity in the problems of the Bush years. Back in 2004 and 2005, Brooks was writing in his column that there were no problems in Iraq and was penning glowing descriptions of Bush policies, which he seemed to think showed that the Republicans understood how America was changing. Of course, David Frum wrote that notorious "Unpatriotic Conservatives" article in NR which basically sums up the groupthink and unwillingness to deal with other conservative critics that undid the conservative movement during the Bush years.

So, Brooks’ categories are confused, but Brooks also seems to be distancing himself from all the ways in which Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” was a product of Brooks’ and others’ critiques of small-government conservatism after the government shutdown debacle. I think Brooks’ points about the limits of a small-government agenda are well-taken, but he’s the one who seems to be doubling-down on a failed, or at least problematic, model of government and ignoring the degree to which calls for Republicans to get comfortable with government enabled a lot of the corruption among Republicans the past few years.

All this suggests that the “reform conservatism” project that seems to be coalescing has its own tensions to work about between empowering grass-roots social institutions like the family and empowering government in new ways that will supposedly help ordinary people. I think reform conservatives like Brooks are correct that there are goods we can’t get through the market alone, but I think he’s forgetting what was learned about the inefficiency of government in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to put so much faith in broader government programs.

I'm quite sure that most people who are strongly "pro-life" have never had to make the choice.

My wife and I had a profoundly retarded son - he never spoke a word or walked - he never sat up - he never turned over on his own - he never looked at me - for all I knew he was deaf and blind as well.

Every meal he ever ate we fed him. Every diaper he ever wore we changed him. Every foot he ever moved from where he was lying we carried him. Every time he went to bed we carried him upstairs. Every morning we carried him downstairs.

We became a test marketing project for Depends adult diapers - we got 'em free and had to let the manufacturer know what we thought of them.

He lived to be ten years old. We did nothing but worry about what was going to happen to him. Then one day he simply woke up and died.

My wife gave up the best ten years of her life caring for Michael. We got no help from any government agency except our local school for handicapped kids. No medicare ; no medicaid; no state assistance. You see I "made too much money" - what a joke that was.

Michael is gone now. So is my wife. She never went to church. She was not a believer. If there is a God in his heaven then she is sitting under a massive oak watching her perfect 10 year old son play with his 12 year old brother (yes - we lost two boys) in the green grass under a sunny sky with a cool breeze moving through his hair mop - "Mommy look at me!! Look at my kite!!" and she will wave and smile.

There was no Catholic priest at her funeral - a local female Methodist minister who knew my wife, a woman who never went to church, as a woman who lived Christian values in her daily life . I will not forget her kindness. She spoke without being asked of how this woman made a lunch hour appointment for an abortion and changed her own mind at the last minute and went on to have two fine daughters. She was glad she had a choice.

Talk is cheap. It’s a lot easier talk about having a kid like Mike than to be the parents. Too many of you fine religious folk feel so good about yourselves for being “pro-life”, then you smile and go on to your next “Fellowship” meeting or casserole supper.

Suppose you knew you were going to have a Michael? Would you want a choice?

No one should have to bear a Michael at age 30 if they don’t want to.......that’s choice.

Those who advocate the opposite should be prepared to urge society to provide care for that child for its entire life, even if you have to raise taxes. It’s the cost of being pro-life. Think of that the next time you see two old people pushing an adult retarded child in a wheel chair in the mall.

toritto,

I'm sorry for your grief, but I disagree with you.

We have a profoundly disabled son, now 26. I was offered the option of testing before he was born, and refused it. I determined to love and raise and protect the child I carried, and I don't regret it.

Talk is cheap. It’s a lot easier talk about having a kid like Mike than to be the parents. Too many of you fine religious folk feel so good about yourselves for being “pro-life”, then you smile and go on to your next “Fellowship” meeting or casserole supper.

I'm not going to try to trade horror stories with you. Mine are worse than yours, incomparably. You have no idea.

Just do yourself the favor of not insulting me and people like me, and understand that we don't think that murdering inconvenient people is or should be OK. And that in my case this is not a statement cheaply bought, so get over yourself.

Dear old susan: I am sorry for your situation and I understand.

But understand this: You make your choice. I respect your choice.

My wife made the same choice as you; but she was glad she had a choice.

Allow others to make theirs.

Regards,

Toritto

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/clowning_i_hope/