Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Republicans need to man up
Tom Smith
Boy this is frustrating, as of course it is intended to be. I listened to about 20 minutes of Rush's speech and skimmed the transcript and I don't see what the big deal is. He didn't say anything that he hasn't said all along and that isn't (more or less) true, not that I saw anyway. Republicans who want to start apologizing to the the Democrats or to the independents who voted for Obama are playing a sucker's game. I never heard Rush say "I hope Obama fails" though if by that one means, I hope he fails to nationalize the health care industry, completely undermine the dollar, raise the national debt to unpaybackable levels, then shouldn't one hope that he fails to accomplish that? I certainly do.
https://rightcoast.typepad.com/rightcoast/2009/03/republicans-need-to-man-up-tom-smith-.html
Comments
Oh no, here we go again with the obligatory WW2/Churchill/appeasement reference. Why are the Democrats always analogous to the Germans? And why is it always 1939? And not 1969? Or even 1949?
If this is an example of what even those conservatives with post-secondary education are thinking, the GOP (now the Party of Rush?) is destined to spend a long time in the wilderness. This kind of thinking is eerily similar to anyone who has ever studied intellectual history. It's the foundation of dogma - left/right/whatever.
"Conservatism never fails, only the leaders who implement it. So the solution to conservative failure must be...wait for it....MORE and ideologically PURER conservatism. This must be true, because, we have a monopoly on the TRUTH. Who needs empirical thought and actual facts when we have revealed wisdom?"
Posted by: sf | Mar 4, 2009 9:55:20 AM
On the contrary, I think we are at the beginning of an enormous empirical experiment, roughly, whether you can tax, spend and regulate your way out of a severe recession, or whether those steps will make it worse. It is similar to the empirical experiment of whether you can appease your way out of trouble with a leader such as Hitler. It's not a question of dogma to me at all. Churchill may not be a very novel example, but he is perfectly fitting one. Everything I know about economics, which is a fair bit, but a lot less than than the PhD's and Nobel Prize winners, some of whom support Obama and some of whom do not, makes me extremely skeptical that Obama's plan will work, either as proposed or as likely to be implemented. If some recognizable version of his plan gets put into effect, as seems likely, and we have a glorious recovery, as does not, I readily concede that my fundamental beliefs will be due for a rethink. I would welcome this in a way, because it would suggest that the world is not as tough a place as I now think it is, and prosperity is easier to come by than it seems to be it is. I don't think so, but who knows. But equally, I would expect Obama supporters who are intellectually honest, and I think that includes some of them, will have to rethink as well if this transformation is a big failure, as for example the Carter administration was. I am not too optimistic this will happen however, as part of my general view that the world is a tough place is my observation that people rarely admit they were wrong even when it is apparent that they were. So with Stalinism, it disappears only as Stalinists get old and die and even then more new converts seem to come along than you would expect. But, over all I have some confidence that if Obama's administration is as disastrous as I expect it to be, the majority of Americans will have enough, and look for other leadership. Sticking to one's beliefs is just a bet that that is the case.
Posted by: Tom Smith | Mar 4, 2009 10:26:55 AM
"What I expect instead is the most expensive economics lesson in the history of the world."
Yup.
"Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other."
Edmund Burke, Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 331.
http://www.bartleby.com/100/276.41.html
Posted by: Fat Man | Mar 4, 2009 6:13:38 PM
"This whole country is founded on a No." That's a bit harsh. Yes to slavery. Yes to taking the Indians' land.
Posted by: dearieme | Mar 4, 2009 4:05:10 AM