At the Twilight's Last Gleaming: Newt digs his heels in, scolds conservatives for demanding that the GOP stand for something

October 30, 2009

Newt digs his heels in, scolds conservatives for demanding that the GOP stand for something

GOP savior-wannabe Newt Gingrich is confident that a future GOP majority containing the likes of Dede Scozzafava is a goal worth spending what’s left of his political capital.

He’s so confident of this, he’s willing to wag his finger at conservatives who think that the Republican Party ought to stand for something. The Hill reported October 27:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) late Monday had some choice words for Republicans supporting Conservative Party party candidate Doug Hoffman (N.Y.), accusing them of conducting a "purge" of the GOP.

[…] "This idea that we're suddenly going to establish litmus tests and all across the country we're going to purge the party of anybody who doesn't agree with us 100 percent; that guarantees Obama's reelection, that guarantees Pelosi as Speaker-for-life," he told Fox News last night.

This is such a worn, clichéd argument. Gingrich’s ridiculous hyperbole (“we're going to purge the party of anybody who doesn't agree with us 100 percent”) is unworthy of him.

Gingrich is fighting a straw man. Are there any prominent conservatives saying that 100 percent agreement is a requirement for their endorsement? I’m not aware of any.

Does Gingrich think there any principles worth drawing a line in the sand and saying: I will not vote for any candidate that crosses this line?

What if there was a candidate running on the GOP line who agreed with Newt on every issue, with the teeny, tiny little exception that he supported the right of neo-Nazis to gas all Jews in America?Would Gingrich scold conservatives for backing an independent candidate against this Republican?

If not, then I have no choice but to conclude that he doesn’t consider any of Dede Scozzafava’s negatives – such as her enthusiastic support of the right to kill one’s preborn child – to be troubling enough that he would withhold his endorsement of her.

So, Mr. Gingrich: Should we support anybody that manages to snag the Republican nomination, no matter what they believe? What price should we be willing to pay to regain a GOP majority? Should we care how that majority will govern, or is gaining and maintaining power the highest value of the GOP?

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What Happened to C-Pol?

For over a decade, this blog was called "C-POL: Constitutionalist, Conservative Politics". Over time, my deep-thought ponderings have been moving away from the rough-and-tumble of everyday political wrangling and toward the larger philosophical, ideological, and cultural currents of our age.

I've changed the title of the blog to highlight my conviction that the "fundamental transformation" (to adapt President Obama's phrase) of the United States that's currently underway is, in the long run, bad not only for this country but for the world in general.

Scoff if you must; I'm okay with that. I aim to make my case as time goes on. I'm okay with being on the "wrong side of history" if I'm actually right.

Why our country is where it is

As I have traveled across the country, I have been astounded just how many of our fellow citizens feel strongly about their constitutional rights but have no idea what they are, or for that matter, what the Constitution says. I am not suggesting that they become Constitutional scholars -- whatever that means. I am suggesting, however, that if one feels strongly about his or her rights, it does make sense to know generally what the Constitution says about them. It is at least as easy to understand as a cell phone contract -- and vastly more important.

-- Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, October 16, 2008 speech

The U.S. is not a democracy!

Q. If we are not a democracy, why are our officials elected by a majority of the people, and why are our laws passed by a majority of the lawmakers?

A. We are not a democracy because both the people and the lawmakers are limited by the fundamental law of the land, our written Constitution. Election by the people is not a grant of power beyond the constitutional limits of the office. A representative government limited by law is a republic, not a democracy. In a republic a majority of the people cannot vote away their own rights, or the rights of others -- unless ... unless they step outside the Constitution.

-- Preserve The Constitution, By Don Fotheringham (October, 1995)

The Cancer of Democracy

Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome.

— Lazarus Long, in Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset

At the Twilight's Last Gleaming

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October 30, 2009

Newt digs his heels in, scolds conservatives for demanding that the GOP stand for something

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