Rush, Hannity et al. have blown a pipe in their responses to Gingrich and Perry’s attacks on Bain Capital.

Here’s what’s bothering me about this whole thing.

When Romney and Bain capital do things that hurt people, but that aren’t illegal, in the name of furthering their interests, Rush et al. have no problem with it. When Gingrich and Perry do things that hurt people, but that aren’t illegal, in the name of furthering their interests, Rush et al. go nuts.

‘But wait!’, you say, ‘what Newt and Perry are doing is WRONG!’.

Many people make the case that morals, right/wrong, etc. play no role in business, as long as the law isn’t broken. But these same folks often seem to have a problem when the same attitude is brought over into politics. America was founded on the idea that only a moral people was capable of self-governance.
You hardly hear morals mentioned any more in our political discourse. And that’s where the problem comes in.  See, many on the right seem to think that all’s fair in business. Many on the left seem to think that all’s fair in politics. Each hates the other for their respective views. Interestingly, both are rooted in the same utilitarian, ends-justify-the-means mentality.

I won’t worry about the left’s views. They have to deal with themselves.

I have to deal with my own side.

Too often on our side, you hear and see capitalism being treated in a dogmatic fashion. It’s all or nothing. If you criticize a company or you criticize a type of business, you’re anti-capitalist. No questions asked, no room for discussion. As long as it’s legal, you can’t say a word.

‘If you criticize a company/type of business, you’re anti-capitalist’ reminds me an awful lot of ‘If you criticize Obama, you’re racist/unAmerican’.

This makes sense; both attitudes stem from a mindless, dogmatic mindset.

I won’t advocate for government solutions to what I personally believe are wrong business practices. However, I as a citizen have a right to hear about these and make judgements about them, specifically what they tell me about the character of a person who is running for president. And I have the right to determine that on my own. I don’t need a talkshow host or presidential candidate or anyone else telling me I’m not a conservative if I as a private citizen make a determination about a candidate’s character*, regardless of whether the issue at hand is legal or not. All this aside, a lot of people in the country are watching what transpires. I can’t remember the last time I saw prominent conservatives rail this consistently and shrilly when a city took private property with eminent domain to give to a development company. When TARP and Bailout II happened, Rush, Hannity and the rest were only too happy to beat up the democrats, Obama etc. over it, but I don’t remember them berating the companies who took the money with the same vociferousness.

Many people see this and it makes capitalism look real, real bad. The system gets unfairly blamed because it has inept or corrupt public proponents.

I know a fair number of businessmen who impose upon themselves the responsibility to provide jobs to people in their community when possible. Some of these guys could increase their bottom line by outsourcing the labor , but they put certain things above that. Do they have to? Nah. Should government force this? Certainly not. But there is a practical aspect to all this, which I’ve discussed with these guys. If you live in a society where all the jobs have been outsourced, you’re living in a very unstable and dangerous society. They also have in common a Judaeo-Christian outlook. In that system of beliefs, you are obligated to help people you see in need (exs. Luke 3:11, Isaiah 58:7, Ezekiel 18:7, 1 Timothy 6:17-18 for your reference) and to not encourage sloth (ex. Ephesians 4:28). And unlike many of the proponents of no-holds-barred capitalism I’ve encountered, these guys understand that you live in the real world, not a bubble. And in the real world, with nearly 9 percent unemployment and a debased moral system which does NOT eschew envy, a debased moral system which is propped up and engaged in by many businesses, and you’re gonna get class warfare. And history bears out it will win. Godless Capitalism, like any Godless system, will fail.

If you’re objecting, ‘But there’s no right to a job in the Constitution’, I have three things to say in closing.

1. You’re right.

2. There’s no right to immunity from class warfare either.

3. The reason the Founders wanted small government was so that individuals could fill the void of power through right choices of their own free will. When individuals abdicate that responsibility, the void WILL be filled. And there are plenty of demagogues waiting to do it.

* for instance, if Mitt is so little affected by the consequences on real people of his business practices, why should I believe that he will be affected by the consequences on real people of his failure to get rid of Obamacare, or any political practice for that matter?

Let me share my own observation re: Mr. Limbaugh and conservatives in general. We’re very good at identifying the problem. We’re not so good at proposing solutions. When I say ‘we’, I am speaking generally, recognizing that there are exceptions. This is always present in my mind when I hear a conservative make a salient point about some problem that is frustrating all of our efforts to restore our country. It always makes me ask ‘Okay, so what do we do about it?’

So when Rush (God bless him) finished ranting about this, I asked, ‘Okay, so what do we do about it?’ As far as I heard, he started in this direction by saying ‘the agressor sets the rules’, but beyond that, not much.

So I got to thinking.

I thought of what has worked in conservative activism, especially in the last 2 years; then I thought of how regular folks like myself, who don’t have extra money or high-placed contacts could put some of these things to use, and I came up with four items, which follow.

One quick note before I enumerate these items. In this diary, I am going to give the ‘Reader’s Digest’ version of each. I will follow with four more entries, each focusing on one of these items, for those who find this interesting. If you do like these, please read the follow up because i will include key things that I cannot touch upon here.

1. Get involved in the Precinct Committeeman project. A popular term in 2009 and 2010 was ‘fundamental transformation’. Well, this project can effect a fundamental transformation of the republican party. The Precinct Committeemen determine the kind of candidates we get to vote for in primaries and therefore elections. I know you’ve held your nose in elections past, disgusted that you have to settle for some RINO sleazebag or wimp. There IS a way to end the pain: change the candidates. And the PC project shows you how. RedState’s very own ColdWarrior tirelessly writes and promotes this project; his posts are how I discovered it. I myself have found out that in my district, the seats are full. Nevertheless, I am going to start attending meetings so I can learn how it all works in detail, and then when the time is right, I may even be honored with the responsibility of being a PC. Even if for whatever reason you can’t get directly involved, there are ways to help, such as researching what goes into becoming a PC and making a website about it. I will put more in my next entry, coming soon.

2. Get involved in your local media. Politicians are concerned with how they are being portrayed in the media, it’s true. But this goes double for their home districts. I had a recent experience with a high state official (a good guy, BTW), whom I interviewed for a small publication in his home district. His level of concern with how he’d be portrayed was palpable. There is a definite psychology to having your picture, biographical info and quotes written on paper or on a website somewhere. And there is also an understanding that if the wrong person (i.e., an editor for a major publication, a political opponent) picks up the wrong story, you could be in for a lot of bother. So you can use media to (a) deal with bad apples and (b) to keep the ‘good’ guys in check. You can sharpen your writing skills here at RedState. After you think your skills are good enough, try getting on with an existing publication. If that’s not your thing, try starting your own blog or website. You can use a resource called WordPress to easily make your own blog. There are also tools for making your own website. If you have a question about technical aspects of making a site, let me know. I know a fair bit about it, and I’ll be glad to lend a hand if I can. (Sorry, I’m not an artist, though.)

3. Look into starting a PAC or other non-profit political organization. Why? So you can legally raise money to run good ads in key districts, that’s why. Imagine if right now we had a cool $2 million to run ads in Boehner’s or Cantor’s districts, regarding the squishiness on the funding battle. Remember as we said above, these guys are very sensitive to what goes on in their own districts, regarding media. I know you’ve had the frustrating experience of watching milquetoast political ads during election season, screaming at the tv and everyone in the room with you ‘why didn’t they mention x,y,z?!’ Well, if you can start your own organization, you can ensure that the right kind of ads are run.

4. Put together a ‘holy grail’ plan. Rush has consistently mentioned that Obamacare sat in a drawer somewhere for 40 years, put there by dims waiting for the right time to come so they could put everything they wanted into reality. It’s about time we start doing the same. There are a lot of smart people here; we should put our heads together to come up with things we would like to see our elected officials implement when we put them in power. We need to distill those things into a definite agenda. Then, when we use PC slots (above) to get the right kinds of candidates and local media and PAC activities to help get them elected, we have a friendly, but serious meeting with them. ‘We put you into power to see x, y and z done. Now we expect it. And if you start getting nervous about the dims and the lamestream media’s reaction, you had better know this: our reaction will make theirs look like a weak moan. And when some lobbyist comes encouraging you to go against the will of the people, you tell them you are already beholden to a special interest: the American people.’ If they ignore our promise (not threat), we use our media and PACs to make them feel the heat.

The above are just suggestions. The idea is to get a discussion about specific tactics and strategies going, and to offer some ideas to folks itching to get into the game. I hope you have found this post worth your time. Thanks for reading.

Above is a link to a 2:36 excerpt of Shirley Sherrod’s account of supposedly realizing the error of her ways, you know, the part that is supposed to absolve her of any current racism. Well, go the 1:50 mark and you’ll hear her say this:

That’s when it was revealed to me that it’s about poor versus those who have. It’s not so much about white… it is about white and black, but it’s not you know…it opened my eyes.

(All emphasis mine.)

Just a few words. But they say so much. They betray the fact that Sherrod has not abandoned her racist viewpoint, but that she has added a piece to the puzzle that is her worldview:  that piece is marxism. From where I stand, it seems that she didn’t realize that it was wrong to view the world through the lens of color, but that it is wrong to view the world solely through that lens. Her words seem to strongly indicate that the solution is to add the filter of class.

To be honest, I am surprised how many good, smart people seem to be overlooking these key words (q.v. Beck yesterday). They play the part right before, and in some cases, even the above words themselves, but they seem to just gloss over them. It seems to me that this piece of the film, which is supposed to absolve her from any current racism, just makes it clear that she is still a racist and has merely graduated to class warfare.

Sorry.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38734.html

That p.o.s. Grassley helped work this out. Why didn’t we primary his backside out in June? As I understand it, he had no challenge. Why? An answer would be greatly appreciated.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) heard an earful from GOP lawmakers upset with Barton’s remarks during a series of votes on the floor Thursday afternoon.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/103919-boehner-gets-earful-from-angry-gop-lawmakers-over-barton-remarks

I don’t get it. When that embarrassment Grayson from Florida was accusing the GOP of wanting to kill people, during the ‘health care’ debate, I don’t remember the same vociferous anger from Rep. Miller and his cohorts.

Someone on that article that I linked to made the perfect comment,

Good to know that Reps. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) and Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) prefer tyranny over bad PR.

Just for the record, I live in Louisiana, about 45 miles from the really bad stuff, and my family’s business is going to be really affected by this. But Mr. Barton was right. This was nothing more than an unconstitutional shakedown. He had the guts to say it. And now we see what reward you get for courage in the GOP.

Vote the RINOs out, put people with principle and the guts to stand on that principle in office. THAT’S how we’ll get on the road to recovery as a nation.

Bringing toy guns to school and pretending to shoot each other; fighting. These things nowadays would mean suspension, MINIMUM; the threat of expulsion and even arrest are also very real.

Let me tell you what got kids into REAL trouble in those days; running your mouth to the teacher; lying to the teacher; not obeying instructions; stealing. These were the kind of things where the teacher would shut the class down, everyone would get deathly quiet, and you knew that it was not going to be good for the guilty party. And when the guilty party confessed, which was most of the time, they went straight to the principal’s office. The teacher would leave the class unattended for several very quiet and nervous minutes while s/he dragged the troublemaker’s bohunk before the principal. Later, you’d hear how Johnathan’s momma, or daddy, or (God forbid) both, would show up to take Johnny home for a second spanking (after the one the principal administered). When the teacher got back, you can be sure that every kid in that class was intent on behaving and doing their work.

I’m late finishing college, because i worked a lot after high school; thankfully, I’m almost done. A friend of mine is a teacher, and he helped me get a job at a local charter high school, as a math and science tutor; it’s a good job, good pay and lots of down time to study. I’m thinking perhaps of one day teaching (after we’re done saving the country), so the job was a very nice and fortunate thing. The very first day, in the very first hour, I saw a student get caught in a lie by the teacher (I had observed as well as the teacher the actions that the student lied about), and then when asked (not confronted), he ran his mouth at the teacher, telling the teacher that what the teacher said was b.s. (in the full version of the words). The teacher’s reaction? ‘Okay, so-and-so, just do your work, alright?’ I was floored. Even when I was in high school in the late 90′s, you didn’t see that. The teacher would have escorted you to the principal’s office, and there’d a been hell to pay.

Now, as I said earlier, there are folks who knock the times in which I was in elementary school. You could still say a lot of politically incorrect things, and no one blinked an eye. You could fight in school, and not much happened. You could bring toy guns to school, point them at each other, say in a game, right in front of the principal, to your playmate, ‘I’m gonna kill you!’ and no one blinked an eye. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that we who were in cub scouts would bring our pocketknives to school, with the faculty’s full knowledge and blessing; cub scouts were respected. We NEVER worried about anyone cutting us. The WORST KID in the school wouldn’t have dreamed of bringing a weapon to school, and we had some tough ones. A school shooting was beyond our wildest imagination. Then, the big, BIG sins in school were to show disrespect, to lie and to steal.

Toy guns, fights, pocket knives, ‘i’m gonna kill you’ in a game, all chalked up to ‘boys will be boys’. We never dreamed of killing a fellow student, or of even threatening a teacher. If we got in that much trouble for lying or mouthing off, we couldn’t imagine what would happen if we did something crazy like that.

Now lying, cheating, stealing, disrespecting authority and elders, are attributed to ‘that’s how kids are going to be’.  You have metal detectors and police at the schools (including the one I work at, in the same town I went to elementary in). You can’t even joke about guns or bombs, without at minimum suspension. In spite of all this, the next Columbine is  (sorry to say and God forbid) in all likelihood just a matter of time.

How far we’ve come in such a short time; again, I’m not that old (30).

We can attribute these problems to all sorts of things; bad teachers, political correctness, frivolous lawsuits, Dr. Spock and on and on…

I think first off, the problem is bad parents.

Too many parents want the school to babysit their kids. I actually think many of these people want the school system to raise their kids. The schools are charged with this responsibility, but the tools they need to do this right (prayer in school, punishment, teaching general concepts of right and wrong, and on and on) have been taken from them. The parents show no support for the teachers when they correct the kids; when I was in primary and secondary school, the parent by default took the faculty’s side, until all the info was out. Now, it is the exact opposite.

But the point of this post is not to harp on the causes of the problems in school. I am merely pointing out what I think is an interesting observation; when you place the moral and disciplinary focus on respecting authority, honesty and forthrightness, everything else takes care of itself. When you don’t treat those things as serious, all hell breaks loose.

The same jerks who undermined our schools, by first getting rid of prayer, then corporal punishment, and then value judgements of any kind (any kind, that is, except the Marxist agenda they now promulgate) knock the days when I was in elementary as backward and unenlightened; they shudder to think that PC was a non-entity, that fist fights were taken as normal behavior of boys and that patriotism was an expected quality of all good American students. And many of them are smug about their accomplishing the destruction of all that and the replacing of it with an effeminate ( in the classical sense), touchy-feely, non-judgmental, ‘no rules’ emotional environment. But what have their ‘accomplishments’ gotten us? School shootings, pervert teachers, teenagers who think that it’s cool to have a baby out of wedlock (see that recent poll?), absurd levels of drug use, in short, a nihilistic generation of young people who will be soon voting (if they even have the desire to do so), and who have no hope about the future.

So, after reading this long-winded post, you must be wondering, ‘what’s the point, dude? get it out already!’

I’ve noticed that there’s been some discussion about whether we on the right should not worry about social conservatism, and instead focus on fiscal conservatism. I’ve seen some say that without an economy, we have nothing.

I’m pretty sure they’re wrong.

We didn’t have half the problems the schools have now; and I’m pretty sure we had less money in the schools. I know that we had about 15 computers in a very large, well-off elementary school; the school I work at now has computers for literally every student. Teachers get paid much better now than they did when I was a kid. The teacher’s unions have gotten stronger, meaning more benefits for the teachers. And yet, the problems in the school get worse. The great post-Reagan economy didn’t do a damned thing to solve those problems.

Funny, how when I was kid, things that didn’t cost a penny did the trick. Teaching honesty, respect and forthrightness did.

I think those who think that without an economy we can’t have social conservatism have it wrong. I think without social conservatism (read: traditional values) we can’t have a country.

One last note; it may be argued (as I would) that a good economy might actually hurt social conservatism; where was all this widespread anger towards Big Government when the economy was good? Having less money often means getting your priorities straight. You become more cut-and-dry. Less ‘tolerant’ of b.s. Maybe we could do to have an economic dry spell. (By the way, we tutors have been rationed on the amount of hours we can work; I help my dad with his business and we are oil-field dependent. There’s a great chance that when i get out of college next year, I won’t be able to find a decent job, and one of my degrees is very high demand (math). I don’t want anyone thinking I’m saying all these things about austerity from a comfortable cocoon. ) When you’re making money, you get fat and soft and, frankly, stupid.

Maybe instead of thinking that the economy will solve all our problems, we should, as many fine people here and elsewhere have argued, should look to God and to morals. Then the rest will take care of itself.

I had access to some big shots and could have done the whole networking thing, but I really wanted to go for the following reasons:

1. To see how the other side lives (actually, to see how high-falutin’ republicans are in person)

2. To see if any teaparty types like myself would show up.

3. To take the pulse of conservatism of the candidates and heavy hitters.

I was not disappointed. The only downside was the Paulites booing Congressman Pence for expressing support for Israel; I left when Paul came to speak, and i heard that some of his supporters got taken out by security.

The high-falutin’ republicans I got to talk with were largely very nice and very friendly. They surprised me because of how conservative they were acting.

I was pleasantly surprised that this was the biggest SRLC ever, in terms of attendance. And many, many of the folks I met were tea party from all over; I even met a gentleman from Michigan!

I went to Newt’s American Solutions presentation and then heard him speak at the SRLC. I was very impressed with his ideas, which I will post later. I even got to ask him a question.

The one thing I was really pleased to hear was that everybody who spoke (and they were many and well-known) said in front of the cameras that repeal was the no. 1 priority when the GOP wins.

The other thing that gave me peace was that many cynical conservatives that I know, with whom I spoke personally, noticed something that I had been thinking: all the GOP heavy hitters are sounding much much more conservative these days. I know we’ve got to deal with RINOS and jelly fish (i made many phone calls in the last two weeks to Republican senators’ offices over the usual RINO and too-cowardly-to-commit-to-repeal issues), but to see big names assert conservatism in front of the cameras and the supporters was heartening. Some people I have very close contact with, who went to the behind-the-scenes stuff said that the conservative talk didn’t stop behind closed doors.  The point is, many conservatives seem to be coming out of the closet and the base gets fired up when they do. I really believe that if they keep this up, and if we tea party and grassroots folks keep our end of the bargain, we’re gonna win big in 2010 and then in 2012 and then we’re gonna get our country back.

Thanks.

Bear in mind folks, this puts everything in the Constitution up for grabs. The Bill of Rights. Free Speech. The Second Amendment. Everything.

And yet this idiot, a Republican, no less, is promoting this because he confidently predicts that the court challenges will fail and repeal is impossible because of BO. Never mind that BO is almost certain to be booted out in 2012, barring any idiocy by the GOP.

This guy is a dangerous idiot. He could probably get the support of Dems, because they would love to get their filthy hands on the Bill of Rights and a lot of other stuff in there.

I implore you. Shut this idiot up.

They’re trying to kill our fighting spirit.

Before I go on, here is an interesting poll you might like to view:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001117-503544.html

Why anyone would think that repeal is anything but a winning proposition is anybody’s guess.

But there is a lot of trash from the left. For instance, the hill had an article today, ‘Headache on Horizon for GOP as it weighs health reform repeal.’

This article was pure tripe. For instance,

Republicans advocating repeal will be competing with popular provisions that start immediately, while having to warn against less attractive items that voters won’t feel for some time.

With these people, up is down and down is up!

So, here’s what I suggest: we need to plan and implement a massive information campaign. We need to just beat in the stuff that is already unpopular, and, in a deliberate and timed fashion, release the details that no one’s talking about yet. Like all the stuff in Ken Blackwell’s Nanny State on Steroids article.

I talk to all kinds of people, on all parts of the political spectrum, from all over the country.

They have no idea the sort of stuff in the bill.

For instance:

Visits to your house, to check on your kids if you are a tobacco user.

Or if you’re a mom 21 or younger.

Or, most enragingly of all, if you have veterans in your home.

Check the article out here: http://patriotpost.us/opinion/ken-blackwell/2010/03/10/hidden-dangers-in-obamacare/

I can see the ads now: we run one dedicated to each of the above items for a coupla weeks; the MSM will howl and scream and that will get us more exposure. And we finish each ad with the Dingell soundbite that came out today, about controlling people.

When they scream, that means we’re cutting them. And the loud they scream, the deeper we cut. We need to put them on the offense.

So the reason I’m writing this is to ask:

do you guys think this is a viable idea? Any suggestions as to the implementation? I will work on a couple of ads and post them here for you to look at. Please let me know what you think, and if you like it, please ‘recommend it’ to keep it up at the top.

In the above-linked article, these jerks were talking about modifying this monstrous bill rather than repealing it.

Get on the phones. Or send a Free Fax: http://faxzero.com/

emails are nice, too.

John Kyl:

WASHINGTON, D.C. OFFICE
730 Hart Senate Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4521
Fax: (202) 224-2207

Mike Enzi

Washington D.C. Office:

379A Senate Russell Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: (202) 224-3424
Fax: (202) 228-0359
Toll free: (888) 250-1879

John Cornyn

Washington DC

517 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-2934
Fax: 202-228-2856

McConnell

Washington Office