You missed the point of the post on Rick Moran.

We don’t mind discussion. We don’t mind conservative philosophy. We don’t mind talking about Political personna. We don’t mind hashing out ethical theory. We don’t even mind when others come by and attempt to remind us to be civil in our disobedience… but those that come around here, opening up a forum, discussing a matter, then going elsewhere to trash-talk those who challenged their opinions? They’re gonna get told.

As for your post, Rick Moran isn’t correct about anything he talked about in any of his posting on “Angry Ideologues vs. Statists” an excerpt:

Do “modern liberals” desire to create a “Utopia?” That is an exaggeration. Liberals are no more enamored of Utopia than conservatives. Both political philosophies seek to create societies that emphasize different virtues; self reliance vs. community; moral order vs. fairness; personal responsibility vs. the collective good.

This is absolutely an incorrect application of Ethics in modern politics. You both presume that “conservatives” and “liberals” are simply caught in an ongoing Ethical debate between empiricists and rationalists, as if there is a dividing line of those debates in modern politics.

His post began in agreement with a useful idiot trash-talking a radio personality’s NYTimes bestseller based on the fact that at our ethical core, liberals and conservatives of modern politics come from the same roots.

Conservatives tend to be Kantian, even though most of them would deny it because many get hung up on his Categorical Imperative. They also tend to use descriptive ethics based on history as you pointed out to make their case on something other than Kantian views. This is a medium of practicality. Make no mistake however, some of the most SACRED conservative views are an amalgamation of the best political positry of and since The Enlightenment Era.

What Mr. Frieserdorf and Mr. Moran do not understand is that conservatives of your everyday cloth understand one thing… IT’S THE CONSTITUTION STUPID!

Ideas like Separation of Powers, Electoral College, Limited Government, Enumerated Bill of Rights, Collection of Taxes, Separation of Church and State are all spelled out quite nicely in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Mr. Levin’s book speaks to the removal of authority from the citizens to the demagoguery of political elitists.

Mr. Moran seems to be under the impression that “Not Liberal, Not Democrat, Not Independent, Not Libertarian” equates to conservative. Defining oneself by what they are not is called “spineless”.

The fulcrum of his argument is that “slippery slope” logic is where Conservatives stake their position for volleyed attacks against liberals with “extremist” word warfare. This is a fallacy in and of itself. He must presume that Conservatives are primarily concerned with losing power to statists who are really veiled communists, and socialists, that are left of center, and for the “squishy middle” demagogues at best. Rather conservatives of the “tea party” ilk and the libertarian bending outraged are simply standing on principle for power in “We the people”.

Clearly when a conservative speaks about Obama and the left as socialists and communists, it is because their actions speak loyalty to these ideologies… and calling a spade a spade is not some orchestrated effort on the part of conservatives to put more Republicans back in office… It’s more about expressing the voting pattern of “THROW THE BUMS OUT”…

Mr. Moran and all other folks who have a problem with and are hyper-critical of political activists from the conservative movement, including the radio personalities we listen to, has no forbearance on the argument of “what we *should* be doing”.

This is why Mr. Lane asked him to explain this to his local party chair… to which Mr. Moran took the intellectual high road… which in the view of most “Pragmatists” is another way of saying… “I don’t get involved, I just judge”.

Going back to what I originally posted about… Mr. Moran should have resolved the issue here in the forum he opened. Instead he complained about his popularity… which tells me more than I need to know about Mr. Moran… he’s a pompous idiot that would rather blog, than do something about the losses of freedom that are affecting EVERY aspect of our constitutional rights.

First, I would welcome you to RedState and commend you for your well-reasonsed contribution.

I also commend you for reminding us of the need to recapture the values that our nation was founded upon, and to update this vision into a coherent intellectual framework to support the conservative policies that we need to effect to maintain our nation’s greatness and to regain those individual freedoms that an overreaching federal government has arrogated to itself. This needs to continue to be our strategy.

However (and you knew this was coming), we are not living in an era that encourages deliberative dialog and discussion. Especially since the franchise has been granted too all adult citizens (plus the dead and ACORN frauds, but that is another tale).

And we are also in a world where, whether you choose to accept the evidence or not. our President and the leadership of the Democratic Party are engaged in a systemative program to centralize power in the Federal government, overriding Constitutional protections in the process, and to create a one-party system based upon collectivist principles drawn from Marxist-Leninist doctrines admixed with European welfare state view of the relationship of the citizen to the state and utlimate deference to multiculturalism and international state dominance embedded in a postmodernist framework.

That is a grave challenge to which modern consevatism must rise successfully with Western civilization hanging in the balance.

Thus when it comes to tactics, we cannot depend upon debate of ideas, when the other side eschews debate in favor of delegitimizing our arguments and seeking to ban our words and ideas from the public arena by labeling them as racist, ignorant, hateful, prostituted (i.e. bought by “industry” money), discredited, outdated, intolerant, theocratic…and the list goes on.

And having determined the area of debate, one which a priori excludes opposing views, they then proceed to proclaim victory and impose their views by governmental coercion upon the citizenry.

That is, the rules have changed, and we cannot continue to run the same plays because we will be whistled out of bounds and summarily dispatched.

So to take the names you mention, the Frums and Brooks – these are the intellectually arrogants who seek approval from the left intelligensia to gain admittance to their movers and shakers events by jettisoning conservative principles and conservative voters in exchange for a porridge of accomodation that gives away the farm. We see how McCain accomodated and treated his opponent with deference, and how all those people clamoring for “moderate. reasonable” Republicans smply moved the goal posts and other reasons to support the Stalinist alternative.

Thus even though it may offend one’s desire for reasoned debate, when such is no longer valued by the opposition, then we need the Becks and Limbaughs and Coulters along with the Malkins and Palins and Cheneys who will take the battle to the oppostion, who will not giver quarter and allow the opponents to define the rules of engagement, but will insist on unapologetically proclaiming the conservative message on our terms in a world in which our opponents do not act in good faith.

And given the intensity in which the current Administration and Democratic leadership are proceeding to dismantle our democratic and republican structures, we must likely act with intensity to protect our common heritage and push back against the invading forces.

We all would prefer to live in an era of peace, but when war is forced upon us, then we must adapt our tactics accordingly.

If you’re not comfortable with the rough and tumble, so be it. But we need people who are.

Character counts. Explaining the emotional impact of bad policy counts. Catchy, emotive phrases count.

There’s an entire electorate to address, not just the voters with a 16th grade reading level. If you’re not comfortable with a Republican pitch that is able to cater to all voters, then I suggest you adapt. It will not and cannot go away if we want to win.

Welcome to Redstate, but you’re wrong. That is exactly the issue. It may ruffle you fine sensibilities to speak of this struggle in those terms, but those terms are accurate.

Everything about Obama; his books, his speeches, his voting record, his policies and his associations simply scream big government socialist. To somehow say that 1+1 does not equal two when discussing Obama’s true motivations is idiotic.

Anyone can connect the dots. Doing so, does not a conspiracy theorist make. If pointing out the truth, as evidenced by past actions, speeches and facts is not in keeping with your version of the Marquis of Queensbury’s rules, well, tough nuggies.

We’re in this fight to win it.

I could be off base, but your post gives me the distinct impression I have been subjected to a lecture from which I failed to derive any enlightenment. Or, maybe I just don’t agree with you.

PS I am currently reading one of your recommended titles and for the life of me I don’t see how the nation’s founding principles are in any way in conflict with popular movements spearheaded by the likes of Levin, Limbaugh or Beck. Personally, I would not like to think that I would have sniffed at Thomas Paine had I lived back then. I’ll bet Patrick Henry offended the British intelligentsia of his day with all of that stuff about liberty or death, and the binding and riveting on of chains..

But hey, one man’s poppycock is another man’s truth. I’ll leave it there.

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Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

Don’t tell me to focus on “issues, not death panels, bc’s and the whole OBama speech to school children.” And don’t tell me what is “fair game” ie Van Jones. For more than 50 yrs. the left has been doing just that. We’ve allowed the message and the messengers to be decided for us. That is the precise reason we are in the situation we are today.

Quite frankly, I am tired of it. Personally, I did not know anything about Mr. Moran before his remarks here. I was not impressed. I certainly was not impressed after he left. Anyway, this is not about Mr. Moran.

IMO, most of the readers and participants of RedState, are regular Americans, never having been involved in politics or heavy philosophical discussions before. Certainly not in an activist way. We are everyday people; all levels of education, walks of life, and variations in certain aspects of our beliefs. But one thing for sure, we are here because we are tired of elitist, condescending lectures and directions to go where we do not wish to go.

Everything they do is calculated to make nice, even-tempered managerial types do something stupid, and they are usually very good at it. In order to effectively deal with the Alinsky disciples that now run this Country, you have to be just as cold-blooded, calculating, and ruthless as they are and you have to know their tactics better than they do.

The ONE SINGLE THING that you can never do is give them what they want; they want you to not let yourself and your constituents believe they’re really trying to do what they’re really trying to do. This is how Comrade Obama got himself elected and how nice “conservative” and Republican pundits and people like you convinced themselves and some percentage of the electorate that they guy who wrote those books and who went to Wright’s church and palled around with terrorists and communists was really just a nice bright clean, articulate moderate who’d govern from the center. Those of us who’ve actually dealt with people like Comrade Obame KNEW exactly what he was and what he was going to do. And if you don’t believe that, go review my posting history going into and then right after the election.

They want you to do something stupid, to over react so they can play the extremist card or the race card or the victim card and you never should react except on your terms. They will continue to be provacative towards you trying to get a reaction. If you don’t react, they turn up the heat. If you keep it up, they’ll overplay the hand trying to get you to react and that is when you stomp them like a bug and nobody will care because it was them who was provoked to bad behavior and your reaction was purely defensive. It is the political or collective bargaining version of Clauswitz’ strategic offensive – tactical defensive. Because the kinds of people who can get elected as Republicans cower and run at the first sign of controversy, this is the only positioning that will work with them because it allows them to say that they’re really nice guys who were just unfortunately forced to defend themselves.

…try checking your grammar before you post. And for Pete’s sake, find the ENTER key on your keyboard. They invented paragraphs for a reason.

even the BC thing to some extent, ARE issues, just the same as Van Jones, TARP, the entire health scam care bill are. We’ve already seen how these so-called “little things” can mushroom into big issues, such as Jones, who really started out as just another czar we didn’t need until Beck did some background checking. Thank God we have people like Beck, Ann, Michelle, Rush, Levin on our side to do that. “Hysterical fear that President Obama is a communist or even socialist or delusions of the like”? Hysterical fear? Delusions? Really? What do you think Cap and Trade, a horrible fiscal policy, endless spending of our money (that we don’t have) in TARP and stimulus programs that either haven’t worked or aren’t scheduled to kick in until next year at the earliest are all about? They’re about moving this country away from capitalism and free markets to one where socialism is the order of the day, where kids are indoctrinated into the party line, where the state doles out health care piecemeal to the chosen ones. Where we have increased taxes on income, on energy, even new ones based on how much carbon our homes are calculated to use by who knows what kind of formula if cap and tax passes.

Nice lecture, but we’ve turned our backs on these “little things” that mushroom into huge issues long enough. The more Becks, Coulters, Limbaughs, we can get to raise our awareness of them the better.

Why thank you because we haven’t been a winning team in two elections which mean CHANGE !!! WE little rubes and peon’s out here are going to change the Republican party BACK to the RIGHT and out of the sphere of liberals who like a tax cut. WE will be WRENCHING the part back to it’s ROOTS of SMALL GOVERNMENT!!! and if you are not on board with that don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

I guess what I am trying to argue, though TNJim and Kowalski both make valid points in regards to Snowe and Collins, despite the conservative anger, especially with moderate to liberal Republicans, with the MSM, with Obama, with whoever, remember that burning bridges is usually counter intuitive in politics, unless you wish to engage in identity politics. I empathize with many people on this site, but I also empathize with individuals who disagree with the often charged and populist rhetoric used by Beck, Limbaugh, and others. I just hope that we don’t push out necessary elements of the Republican Party, that we don’t destroy that which we fight for with our tactics. Moderation and civility can be powerful weapons, and if we beat the war drum too hard, we may make those independents and moderate democrats we will have to win over to be electable, deaf to our message.