Sep 24 2010
I Feel The Thunder Of November From My House
We are living in exciting times. This election cycle Washington DC is going to have its bell rung by all those average Americans who reside, work and live out their lives outside the beltway. Having grown up inside the DC beltway (literally and politically) I cannot express how exciting and moving this election year has become. When you watch for decades as power becomes entrenched and people are too busy to keep an eye on all the trouble an army of bureaucrats can create running around trying to play God, it is refreshing to see a national realization that it is time for change. Real Change.
President Obama campaigned on changing America. John McCain campaigned on changing DC. We should have been paying closer attention to the nuance and what it implied.
in 2009, after 8 weary years of fighting wars (which we are still winning) and 8 years of political finger pointing (to this day the GOP will not admit run away spending was the fault of the GOP Congress, not President Bush who proposed minimal growth in discretionary spending year in and year out), the nation decided to gamble on the Democrats. We forgot that, as bad as the GOP was, the Democrats had even worse ideas and intentions.
But now we have a clear understanding of what we must do. And it is laid out in a series of great web videos/ads that reflect the fact that we are not going to go back to the Bush days – we are going back to the Reagan Revolution!
First, a trip down memory lane:
And now, the image of today:
And finally, the rumble of a sea change building as we head into one of the most historic elections in living memory:
This call to arms is happening across the nation, and is now a feature of each campaign – as is clearly shown in the recent CO senate debates:
“We have expressed our opinions to Washington, D.C.,” Buck began.
“We have let them know when they were running up debt that we didn’t want it anymore. We told them to get off the back of small business…. When they tried to pass the nationalized health care bill, we sent them e-mails. We told them we need to secure our borders.”
Buck’s supporters at the debate, held in a deeply conservative community, had raucously cheered and jeered over the previous hour. They fell into silence as he enumerated their grievances. Then he did everything but pass out the pitchforks. “They have heard us; they heard us,” he continued. “But they ignored us. And come November 2, folks, they will ignore us no more.”
In that cri de coeur, Buck encapsulated the energy, confidence, and revolutionary zeal crackling through the huge class of GOP Senate challengers now approaching the Capitol from all points on the map.
The article goes on to claim this is a conservative movement, but if one takes the time to see what is ignited and is driving this movement it is a libertarian march on DC. The Reagan comment about DC elites deciding what is right or wrong for everyone is a non-partisan observation. Some conservatives have misread the movement and have tried to co-opt it. As long as the plan is to reign in and shrink government, the movement holds together.
A new morning in America is coming – but only if those attempting to lead the charge remember the reason for this movement. We are rising up to dismantle government and allow all Americans to pursue Life, Liberty and Happiness as they see fit, so long as they respect the rights of others. The grand progressive experiment is over, now is a time to get back to the grand experiment that is America.
AJ,
This post is a classic example of why I love to read your writings for analysis of events, then I suddenly get the urge to pull my hair out before the closing of your post.
One paragraph has both elements:
“The article goes on to claim this is a conservative movement, but if one takes the time to see what is ignited and is driving this movement it is a libertarian march on DC. The Reagan comment about DC elites deciding what is right or wrong for everyone is a non-partisan observation. Some conservatives have misread the movement and have tried to co-opt it. As long as the plan is to reign in and shrink government, the movement holds together.”
I finally concluded that in actual mindset, you and I are far closer together than our writing styles and points of emphasis would tend to suggest.
I willingly embrace the label of “Conservative.” I do wish to Conserve the Constitution, persons’ natural rights (“liberties” even) as described by the likes of Justice Blackstone a few years before the American Revolution, and right to be secure in person, property, and papers. Conserving these rights creates liberties.
I also believe in a morality that cannot be enforced by legislation. I believe that morality is endowed to us by God with those famous “unalienable rights.”
Where I part ways with the self-proclaimed Conservatives that drive you batty is I believe that prohibitionary legislation like the great prohibition (i.e., alcohol) and the lesser prohibition (i.e., narcotics) are doomed to failure by creating more harm than good. (Such as encouraging the criminal yet court-approved civil forfeiture statutes.) Yet I still willing embrace a spirit of conservation.
Yes, that spirit of conservation goes to the environment. Yet, I despise governmental land grabs in the name of the environment.
I am a Conservative. I am proud of it.
Where am I failing to seek to shrink government? Where am I proposing to expand government?
Let’s not create a straw man argument and let everyone believe that you are talking about the blowhards reverends of years gone by. The Conservative Movement may have learned to walk with those nannies, but those nannies have moved on. The Movement is far more than you give it credit.
It represents people who can articulate their rights clearly, who can identified people who do not have the same ability or desire to articulate those rights, and who do not accept being treated as fellow travelers with the reverends of days gone by.
A Conservative wishes to Conserve the Constitution and (using the old language of Magna Carta) our ancient rights going back centuries earlier. That fundamentally reduces government.
I do not accept your straw man description. Pray analyze numbers, trends, science, etc. You do it wonderfully. Your powers of description of groups often misses its target wildly. Remember the gun’s barrel has to point down range to have the best and most efficient chance of hitting its target.
Just a reminder… Up here ( Alaska) … Murkowski with her ( I guess) … $1,000,000+ war-chest (Note: Those$$ buy a LOT more tv ad time than eg… Calif) …
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Some pretty good TV spots… Not sure if they are effective… Comes across a little bit whinny to me at first glance … This one is fairly critical, folks… although, as I’ve opined before… Lisa is not a Repub disaster if elected on the write-in …
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I find myself wishing Mr. Miller would be more specific when responding to specific questions …
I’m curious, Toes, what questions do you wish he would be more specific on? Admittedly I’m a long way from Alaska and don’t see much of what he says.
btw, that 3rd video, Last Best Hope, is just awesome. Everyone should watch it.
WWS … His interviews on local tv… hehe … I can’t be “specific” as I do not have transcripts… But … my best answer is … He’ll be asked a question … then, instead of answering on subject with his specific solution … he’ll swerve into some variation of this statement on his website … http://joemiller.us/splash1/response.php
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Quote… “I want to rein in federal spending, roll back excessive regulation, AND reduce taxes. Some call these views extreme; I call them common sense.”
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Ok, Mr. Miller … Exactly WHAT specific taxes would you reduce … since that was the actual question asked ?
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On Excel it would be called a “circular reference.” … a formula that refers back to its own cell directly or indirectly for truth …
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Best I can do to answer your question right now…
Still 2 votes for Mr. Miller in Ninilchik, however …
hmm, that sounds like the professional political gambit that has been driving me crazy for years. The only (lame) defense is that EVERY one of them does it, on both sides – the only exception I can think of is Chris Christie, which is what makes his youtube clips so awesome to watch!
I must have missed it, but I don’t recall voting for America’s transformation. Where exactly is it in the Constitution?
Oh here it is: But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Well that seems quite clear.
We seem to have waves of “progressive experiments”. The first was Teddy Roosevelt, then Woodrow Wilson, then FDR, now Obama.
Changing the Senate from being controlled by the state legislatures and controlled instead by the largest metro areas of the states was one of the first moves of the “Progressive Era” around the turn of the century. That is when the state governments lost their check on federal power.
If the “progressives” had their way, all decisions would be made by unelected career bureaucrats (EPA, FDA, etc) with the politicians being able to wash their hands of the decisions.
One of the first things the Republicans need to do when they next gain the executive branch is execute a huge purge of the departments removing the “progressives” from these departments and downsizing them in both number of people and reach.
Since it’s impossible to figure out who’s “progressive” or not, and probably illegal to cut people on that basis, the only way to achieve that goal is to cut the departments wholesale.
Dep’t of Energy – cut it, Give the responsibility back to the states.
Dep’t of Education – get rid of it.
EPA – cut personnel by 75%
that’s just for starters.
Here’s a controversial idea, but given how much trouble they’ve been the last ten years – CIA – kill it and give all the responsibility back to the DOD, which already has parallel capabilities.
Tarpon–
“…Where exactly is it in the Constitution?
Oh here it is: But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…”
That’s not the Constitution, but rather the Declaration of Independence, isn’t it?
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“Since it’s impossible to figure out who’s “progressive” or not, and probably illegal to cut people on that basis”
Well, what can be done is to clean house in appointed positions. First of all, get rid of every single one of the US Attorneys just like Clinton did. Then go through the departments and clean house of all political appointees.
The Democrats have been very aggressive in setting bureaucratic policy in the departments in line with political policy. The Republicans haven’t. It is time to change that. It is also time to downsize the departments and begin whittling back their authority to dictate policy autonomously without being responsible to the people. Their policy decisions need to be voted on by our representatives in Congress, not simply made by decree by people who do not face the voters.
I agree, we should get rid of the DoEd completely. Schools are a state responsibility, not a federal responsibility. DoE should be managing only national infrastructure and nuclear energy. I agree on EPA, it needs to be cut way back and the same with FDA. With Obamacare, the FDA is going to be the agency that is most intrusive in our lives outlawing things the government doesn’t want us to do or have. They will do things like withhold certification for drugs and procedures the government doesn’t want to pay for under medicare depriving all of us of these.
Interior needs to be cut way back, too, with more responsibility transferred to the states.
And finally, I would like to see at least ONE Senator from each state appointed by the state government if we can’t go back to both of them being appointed by the states.
The best suggestion I saw for FDA was to have an independent underwriter, such as Underwriters Laboratories does for other things, certify various drugs and procedures. The position of what medicines and procedures are effective or not should not go ultimately to political appointees, it should have its primary basis on science and research.