A series of diaries and even a front-page post here on Redstate recently is making me think about the whole notion of ‘electability’. What is it? What does it mean? What are its features and factors?

After all, there is no point in supporting a candidate in the primary if he’s just going to lose in the general election against Barack Obama.

Kevin Holtsberry, in his well-written and well-argued post, is surely correct when he writes:

So here is my, probably equally naive, plea: lets debate and discuss this primary with an awareness that politics is a profession that requires skills and experience; and that all of the candidates have strengths and weaknesses.  We need to decide who we think has the best blend of the skills and experience necessary to get elected and succeed in office. We need to decide what policy or beliefs are non-negotiable and which tradeoffs we are willing to make in order to move our ideals forward (or at the least prevent further destruction).

In other words, we need to go into this with our eyes wide open to the actual political landscape we find ourselves in not the one we wish existed.

He’s right. And despite the fact that Kevin was writing to write off Herman Cain as a candidate, I had to think about what he’s suggesting.

So I did. And I remain in support of Cain, albeit with only a slight edge over Rick Perry. I’d like to share that thinking with you all, not necessarily to convince (although, that would be nice) but to discuss the idea further.

Features of Electability

From the various posts, diaries, comments both here on Redstate and across the Dextrosphere, it appears that “electability” has certain factors:

• Money
• Organization
• Media Savvy
• Ability to Convince Moderates

All of the above is supposed to give us a measure of how well Candidate X would perform against Obama.

At this early stage, however, money seems relevant only in whether Candidate X would survive. I read that Michele Bachmann is out of money, and therefore, is no longer a serious contender. That doesn’t tell me how Bachmann would do in fundraising if she were the actual GOP nominee, but it does say she’s unlikely to win the primary.

People say Cain has no chance, because he doesn’t have the money or the fundraising capabilities of Romney and Perry. At least for third quarter, Cain raised $2.8M, compared to $17.2M for Perry and 14.2M for Romney. But $2.8M probably keeps him in the primary for now, and who knows how he’d do in this quarter, after his polls have risen?

Erick criticizes Cain for not having a real solid campaign organization, and that will kill his campaign. He’s likely correct, unless Cain fixes things in a hurry.

I know much has been made of Cain’s recent misstatements in the media, but I confess I’m not terribly concerned about those. Not yet, as I’ll discuss below.

And the final factor — the appeal to “moderates” and “independents” — is one whose value changes, I think, based on the actual political landscape.

The Political Landscape: Divided Electorate?

The first question, then, is “What is the actual political landscape”? Depending on who you ask, 2012 will either be a Repulican Landslide, or it will be a tight race since the country is more divided than ever, and more balanced than ever. Rasmussen reports:

During the month of September, 33.9% of Americans considered themselves to be Republicans while 33.7% consider themselves Democrats. For both parties, those numbers are up less than a single percentage point from August. As a result, the number of voters not affiliated with either party fell from an all time high of 33.5% in August back to 32.4% in September.

If we really are in a country divided evenly in thirds between those who would never vote for Obama under any circumstance, those who would vote for Obama no matter what, and those who are undecided… then the real contest is for that 1/3 of “moderates” or “independents”.

Appeal to the moderate, then, appears to be the key factor in ‘electability’. All the money and organization and personal media savviness don’t necessarily create an appeal to moderates and independents. It has to be something else.

There is something to consider, however, about the “moderate” and the “independent”. Except for the very small minority who are principled libertarians, the vast majority of these so-called moderates are political morons. To say something like, “I’m fiscally conservative but socially liberal” simply means that one hasn’t thought about politics, about government, about principles, about the Constitution, or the proper relationship between the State and the Individual. Most people are not political junkies the way Redstaters are. Most people fall into this unthinking voter category.

Those people more than any other make their decisions based on image, soundbites, and impressions. They get their information not from blogs and Tea Party meetings, but from the media — in particular, television.

Based on the above, the only candidate for the GOP on the basis of electability in a 33/33/33 environment is Mitt Romney. He looks the part. He’s smooth. He proposes slight reforms, since people who haven’t thought much about politics or policies don’t want to confront the Big Issues. He’s well-spoken, unless flustered in a debate, and I’m sure he’ll have ironed that wrinkle out of his tailored suits by the next debate. He is, in Kevin’s words, a professional.

Plus, he’ll likely appeal to the unthinking moderates because he has taken a position on virtually every side of every issue over the course of his political career. The oft-repeated maxim that one must tack to the base during the primaries, and then tack to the center during the general, is one that Romney can fulfill better than anyone not named John Kerry.

The Republican Advantage Scenario

If, on the other hand, you believe as I do that we are actually in a situation where the GOP advantage is enormous, then Romney’s appeal declines significantly. Michele Bachmann made the point during one of the early debates. She reflected the conservative viewpoint that for years and years, we conservatives have been told to swallow our objections and vote for a guy we didn’t particularly care for because he was electable. This time, we don’t need to compromise. Obama and his policies, as well as his terrible execution, and his haughty faculty lounge demeanor have alienated at least 51% of Americans such that whoever is the Republican nominee will roll to victory in 2012.

Under this scenario, Romney’s “electability” advantage really disappears. If the country would want to fire Obama no matter who we put up, then we conservatives might as well go for purity of principle and not compromise for sake of appealing to moderates.

But even in a GOP Advantage scenario, it is true that the candidate will need to be competitive. Since elections are not a neutral selection from a large group of individuals, but a competition between two individuals and all of their supporters, we should consider the competition for a moment.

The Obama/Democrat Advantage

As a general matter, it is simply indisputable that the Democrats hold a sustained advantage in national elections due to their control over the culture.

Tim Groseclose, a political scientist at UCLA, recently wrote Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, in which he contends that because of overwhelming bias in our newsrooms, the American voter has been shifted dramatically to the left:

…the media has shifted the PQ of the average American by about 20 points on a scale of 100, the difference between (i) the current political views of the average American and (ii) the political views of the average resident of Orange County, California or Salt Lake County, Utah.

We know this already, of course. And then we throw in Hollywood and its empty-headed celebutards, who unfortunately still sway large numbers of the aforementioned “moderates”, and it is simply a fact that any Republican must swim against the stream from day one.

No matter who we select, the media and the other culture industries that shape opinion will be fully on board the Obama campaign. We must recognize this. It isn’t as if Romney will skate by, any more than John McCain — a media darling until 2008 — skated by.

Obama Money Advantage

In the factors of electability above, money and organization were listed first and second, because all of the commenters on Redstate talk about money and organization as key features of electability when looking at Romney, Perry, Cain, Newt and others. Fine, how about Obama’s money and organization?

Well, it appears that Obama will have a dominant edge over any Republican candidate in money:

But as an incumbent president facing no primary challenger, Mr. Obama enjoys one big advantage: fundraising. So far, he has raised $155 million for both his campaign and for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which will help his reelection effort. That’s way more than all the Republican candidates have raised, combined.

We have heard that Obama will raise $1 billion for the 2012 campaign. Since the man did raise $745 million in 2008 (almost double what McCain raised), and since he’s now President and happily handing out crony capitalism cash from the Treasury, I see no reason why he wouldn’t at least come close.

The Obama Organizational Advantage

Well, besides the fact that Obama is using the Federal Government as an extension of his campaign, his 2008 campaign organization was made permanent after he was elected. Obama For America simply became Organizing for America. The OFA is in all 50 states, and coordinated through the DNC. It has already been involved in, has financed, and continues to organize a number of activities in support of Obama’s policies.

And even in 2008, Obama’s ground game was being praised even by Republicans for how good it was:

Listen to this from one top Republican campaign official who says Barack Obama’s ground game is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before: “This is the greatest ground game they’ve ever put together,” he told ABC News on the condition of anonymity. “It’s scary.” He said Obama holds a considerable ground game advantage over McCain and suggests the Democratic nominee has hundreds of paid staffers in each state. Unlike in 2004 when then-Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry’s campaign “parachuted” paid staff people into key states a few days before the election, the GOP official said the Obama campaign has had paid staffers and enthusiastic volunteers in key battleground states for months….

Is there any reason to think that OFA is less organized and less formidable today, after three years of having their guy be the President?

Personal Communications & Media Savvy

Look, I think Obama is a terrible speaker. I think he’s boring, wooden, given to vacuous generalities, and the like. He doesn’t do well on his feet. And all that, but.. I’m partisan. It would be a giant mistake to underestimate Obama’s personal abilities as a speaker and as a debater. He didn’t win the Democratic nomination in 2008, and then the general election because he’s a terrible speaker.

In 2012, with the media bias as it is, it would be a mistake to think that Obama would just stick his foot in his mouth for our benefit. (Of course, if he did stick his foot in his mouth, the Praetorian Media would do everything it could to bury those, while taking our nominee’s statements out of context if it had to.)

I don’t think it’s reasonable to think the guy would self-destruct in a debate.

Competition Strategy

With all of the above, here’s where I come out.

There is a saying in the business world, “Don’t try to out-Walmart Walmart.” More generally, it means not to compete with a stronger competitor on his chosen battlefield using his methods for success. There isn’t a retailer in the world that tries to compete with Walmart on price: the advantages of Walmart are simply too great. You compete with Walmart in other ways, such as service or product selection (see, e.g., Costco, Target, etc.).

The same dynamic holds in military strategy. There isn’t a standing army anywhere in the world that could go toe to toe with the United States military: we simply dominate in every single aspect of “traditional” war. Which is why every enemy of America goes to some sort of an “insurgency” or terrorist play, hoping to win the media war, hoping to undermine the civilian support, since they simply cannot win a straight up fight.

If electability is Money, Organization, and Media Savvy, then none of our guys could go toe to toe with Obama and his machine (which includes the media). Even Mitt Romney, as “electable” as he is, gets crushed in all measures of electability against Obama. I suspect even Romney would get outspent 2:1 or 3:1 by Obama. I suspect his vaunted organization would get wrecked by OFA and its union allies in terms of numbers and ground game tactics.

To win, then, a Republican must use some other strategy, rely on some other factor where he is strong and Obama is not.

In 2012, in this election cycle, I can think of only one area where our guy (whoever he be) holds the advantage: passion.

The Republican base, thanks in large part to the Tea Party movement, is engaged and passionate in ways that the Left is not. The unions might be fighting for their survival, but I have to believe that the rank and file members who are out in the streets organizing for Obama knows in their hearts that they’re not saving the country, but saving their own bacon. The students, the glitterati, the media… they may be fervent in their support for Obama in some sort of a cult of personality way fit for North Korea, but I suspect even they realize in an honest moment that they’re not saving the country from doom.

On our side, we all believe that we’re saving the country from certain decline. People who have never been involved in politics or campaigns are turning out, saying, “I have to do something; I can’t just let this go on.”

As long as our political pros define “electability” as money, organization, media savvy… we go into 2012 at a massive disadvantage. That’s a losing strategy.

If, however, the candidates and the political wisemen of the Right start to think of electability in terms of passion, then we have a distinct advantage.

In my mind, that means two candidates: Rick Perry and Herman Cain. Both have flaws. Both have advantages. Both inspire passion in their supporters. Both are better than Obama. Both have a chance to win in the general.

Assuming that Perry continues a stronger debate performance, and assuming that Perry does release a Flat Tax plan, he does have an edge on Cain in the more traditional metrics: money and organization.

Yet, I continue to support Cain by a slim margin… because of the X Factor.

The X-Factor: Race

Fact is, race matters. And it matters more than ever in this election cycle against this president.

Having been a leftist, I know just how powerful the race card is. Remember that the “moderate” is a political moron. He hasn’t thought about much, and has no real principles to speak of. Above all, he’s marinated in the political correctness culture that dominates our campuses, our media, and our corporations.

As Kevin wrote, we must consider the actual political environment we have, rather than the one we wish we had. Do I wish that Martin Luther King’s dream was fulfilled and that a person could be measured by the content of his character rather than by the color of his skin? Of course. But that isn’t the America we live in.

Against Rick Perry, race will be the single most powerful weapon in Obama’s arsenal. Since Obama can’t run on his record, he will have to savage the GOP nominee. Against both Romney and Perry, he and his surrogates will use any race card they can find, and manufacture race cards if none exist. Remember the racist rock incident? That is fairly minor as far as I’m concerned.

The Democrats and the Praetorian Media will, of course, try to use the race card against Cain. But those attacks rebound back on them, and reveal them for the racists they really are under the surface. (Just like numerous #OccupyNarnia events feature open anti-semitism.) If anything, more the Left and its controllers in the Obama campaign try to paint Herman Cain as an uncle tom, as a house negro, an oreo, or whatever other disgusting thing, the more it would make the “moderates” recoil in rightful disgust.

Being able to largely neutralize the race card from the Obama arsenal is literally priceless. There is no amount of money that either Romney or Perry could spend to take the race card out of the race for the White House against the first black President in the nation’s history.

For this reason, Cain gets the slight edge in my mind as an electable candidate in the general. Of course, he still has to survive the primary, raise money, put together an organization, and refine his media strategy. Because the GOP primary voter is not going to choose Cain because he’s black. But let’s not pretend it won’t matter in the general.

In The End, Go With Your Heart In the Primary

So it comes down to this.

If you believe that we are in a 33/33/33 landscape, and the key to the election will turn on the unthinking “moderates” and independents… then Romney and only Romney is your guy. We may not get the actual policies we want. We may find that he will “grow in office” once he’s in the White House. We may find that he starts to “tack to the center” once the nomination is secured and find ourselves frustrated beyond belief… but if you genuinely believe there is no Republican advantage in 2012 and conservatives have to take one for the team once again, you need to be for Romney.

Neither Perry nor Cain can appeal to these unthinking moderates. Perry in particular will have a tough time, given the Texas swagger thing (which I dig as a new Texas immigrant, but recognize how much of a turnoff it would be from an image/impression standpoint).

And recognize that Romney will be getting trounced by Obama in the traditional electability factors of money, organization, and media savviness. Nonetheless, trounced or not, he’s the only one with a chance to convince moderates… since he is one himself.

But if you believe that we have a once-in-a-lifetime advantage in 2012 — coupled to a once-in-a-lifetime responsibility to do something to reverse the decline of the Republic — then go with your heart. Don’t support a candidate because he’s “more electable” than the next guy. The general election will be decided because we bring more passion to the contest, because we get more involved personally, because we individually give more to the GOP nominee than we ever have before, because of the grassroots of the Party.

For me, that remains Cain by the slimmest of margins. But I understand the principled opposition to Cain, whether over 999 or some other issue. I respect such opposition, and consider such to be the vetting we must put our ultimate nominee through.

Let us not make the mistake, however, of playing the traditional electability game for our candidate. That way lies defeat at the hands of Obama.

-TS

It goes without saying that things could change overnight in primary politics. Someone might say something stupid, or some scandal might blow up, thereby changing everything.

But as of right now, there are three main candidates for the nomination: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain. On Friday, Rick Perry released the first part of his economic plan, focusing on energy. And earlier today, Cain was on Meet The Press defending his 999 Plan from predictable liberal talking points by the “journalist” David Gregory. Romney’s detailed 59-point plan has been out for a while now.

There was an exchange between Gregory and Cain on Meet the Press that was extremely illuminating. Basically, David Gregory echoes the criticism of many a conservatives — even more than a few here on Redstate — and says that 999 can never pass Congress. Gregory points out that Speaker Boehner said there’s very little appetite for real tax reform; he suggests (idiotically, as it turns out, but hey, it’s a good talking point) that lower and middle-income taxpayers will end up paying more, and so will never support 999. Then they get into this:

MR. GREGORY: You think that’s going to create a grassroots support for this.

MR. CAIN: Oh yes, because, if they do the math, do the math on your individual situation, people are going to benefit several other ways other than whether they pay more in taxes. The fact that they’re not going to have the cost of filing and compliance. That’s a $430 billion bill for all of us every year. So if they do the math on their individual situation, I believe that they–more people are going to see it’s advantageous.

Now, here is another way, another piece of the puzzle that will help me get this passed. Public support and simplicity. Simplicity and public support because they understand it is what’s going to allow the public to help put pressure on Congress to get this passed. That’s my plan. [Emphasis mine]

You can watch the video as well to get the flavor of the exchange.

It’s a variation of what Cain has been saying on the stump for months now: “If they understand it, they will demand it.”

More On the Political Reality Thing

I’ve read through the Romney and Perry plans, as released thus far. (Although, to be honest, I just couldn’t keep my focus on the 160 page, 59-point Romney plan, but I did skim it as best as I could… and here’s the summary anyhow.) And maybe it’s because I’ve been defending Cain and arguing with several of you on the politics, but a few things jumped out at me.

Among Mitt Romney’s 59 points are the following:

3. Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
4. Eliminate the death tax
5. Pursue a conservative overhaul of the tax system over the long term that includes lower, flatter rates on a broader base
6. Reduce corporate income tax rate to 25 percent
7. Pursue transition from “worldwide” to “territorial” system for corporate taxation
8. Repeal Obamacare
9. Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace with streamlined, modern regulatory framework
10. Amend Sarbanes-Oxley to relieve mid-size companies from onerous requirements
16. Reform legal liability system to prevent spurious litigation
17. Implement agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea
18. Reinstate the president’s Trade Promotion Authority
21. Create the Reagan Economic Zone
22. Increase CBP resources to prevent the illegal entry of goods into our market
24. Use unilateral and multilateral punitive measures to deter unfair Chinese practices
25. Designate China a currency manipulator and impose countervailing duties
30. Amend Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview
41. Amend NLRA to explicitly protect the right of business owners to allocate their capital as they see fit
42. Amend NLRA to guarantee the secret ballot in every union certification election
43. Amend NLRA to guarantee that all pre-election campaigns last at least one month
47. Eliminate redundancy in federal retraining programs by consolidating programs and funding streams, centering as much activity as possible in a single agency
48. Give states authority to manage retraining programs by block granting federal funds
49. Facilitate the creation of Personal Reemployment Accounts
51. Raise visa caps for highly skilled workers
52. Grant permanent residency to eligible graduates with advanced degrees in math, science, and engineering
53. Immediately cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent
54. Reform and restructure Medicaid as block grant to states
55. Align wages and benefits of government workers with market rates
57. Cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP
58. Undertake fundamental restructuring of government programs and services
59. Pursue a Balanced Budget Amendment

As far as I can tell (more expert people, please weigh in), every single one of the above would require Congressional action.

Rick Perry’s energy plan (a really excellent, detailed one, by the way, worthy of the Governor of Texas) includes the following:

We believe that as a precursor to comprehensive tax reform (moving towards a flatter corporate tax code), we must eliminate as many specific subsidies and tax credits as possible. Under a Perry administration, no new specific tax incentives will be issued for energy development, eliminating government sponsorship for certain types of energy. In order to allow emerging energy sources to reevaluate and reorient their business model towards a more competitive environment, existing specific tax incentives would not be eliminated immediately, but instead would be allowed to expire when they come up for renewal.

To be fair, Perry touted his energy plan as effective partially because he can implement the plan without seeking Congressional approval, or legislation. He can accomplish much of it through executive order. But, as far as I know, the President doesn’t control tax policy, so Perry will need to get Congress to pass whatever his tax plans are.

Furthermore, Perry hints at his broader tax plan: “flatter corporate tax code”, eliminating government subsidies and tax credits. Well, let’s suppose Perry does come out in favor of a Flat Tax, as was suggested in a recent diary.

That will require Congress to do some legislatin’

So as Gregory is grilling Cain about how in Gaea’s name he was going to get 999 passed, I started wondering… just how in Gaea’s name is Perry going to get his economic plan passed (especially if the centerpiece is a Flat Tax)? How the hell is Mitt Romney going to get tort reform legislation passed (not to mention repeal of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, and the other dozens of legislative action needed)? #30 – “Amend Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview” — does Mitt Romney think that he can just waltz into Congress, demand that they amend the law, and voila, it shall be done? This after  the past decade or so of American people being told that denying Global Warming is the equivalent of denying the Holocaust?

When the David Gregory’s of the world from CNN to NY Times to WaPo to every other media outlet start grilling Romney or Perry for lowering taxes on the super-rich, opening up pristine National Forests to greedy oil companies, and the like… and suggest that there is ZERO political appetite for any of these reforms… what exactly will be Romney and Perry’s response?

I’d have to imagine that the response would be the same as Cain’s: “Look, David, if I’m gonna get elected at all, it means that the American people want these reforms. So they’ll pressure their representatives to get with the program.”

But… Who You Talkin’ To, Willis?

As I see things, the only way that Republicans get anything done to save the country from certain ruin is to repeal a bunch of bad laws, get rid of a very large part of the Federal bureaucracy, and make fundamental changes to the tax code and to entitlements. This is not a partisan position; it’s simple mathematics. We make major changes

Paul Ryan was on Uncommon Knowledge recently, talking about the politics behind entitlement reform.

Go to about 24:15 of the video for the relevant part. (I don’t believe there’s a transcript, or else I’d copy and paste….)

Paul Ryan says, “Look, here’s the way I see it: we need to kick this thing upstairs to the American people.” His view is that we are at a crossroads as a nation. If the American people want to become a declining socialist nation — the path of Obama — then so be it! If they don’t like the direction that Obama and Democrats are taking the country, then let that be the case. Ryan believes that we have a moral obligation to set forth the alternative to the current path to the American people.

Ryan says, “I look forward to this debate; we have to have this debate. Our job is to get this debate going; it’s to get the country talking about the big issues that will determine the future of this country.”

I happen to agree.

But here’s the question: Who is this “we” that has to have this debate?

Is the “we” the enlightened few who make politics a central part of their lives? Is the “we” the assembled policy wonks of Washington DC, the consultants, the various activist leaders (including most of the people here on Redstate.com), and the like who need to have this debate?

Or is it the average American on the street?

Because I have news for the Romney and Perry campaigns… If the people who need to have this debate are the average American citizen, the your plans need to be far, far simpler and far easier to understand.

Here’s a challenge: go read the 160 page Romney Plan, and try to explain it to your not-so-political friend or neighbor. Go read the admittedly excellent energy plan of Gov. Perry, and see if you can explain it to your “yeah, I care about politics, but man, I’m busy raising kids and holding down a job” co-worker.

Those of us who spend way too much time reading political blogs, reading up on the news, following minutiae of debates and policy positions and the horserace might have no trouble understanding what it is that Perry and Romney are proposing. But I gotta tell ya… if you’re not a political junkie, you’re simply not gonna pay any attention to all that complicated plan stuff. “Amend Sarbanes-Oxley to relieve mid-size companies from onerous requirements” is going to make any average person glaze over immediately.

My test for whether a political idea is salable is my wife. She’s a conservative, a lifelong Republican. But she works fulltime, takes care of two kids (and a husband), looks after her mother, has friends, coworkers, things to do. She’s not following politics with anywhere close to the obsession I have. If I can’t explain it to her, then whatever “it” is is too complicated, too detailed, and fit only for policy wonks.

Romney and Perry both have put forth serious plans. There are quite a few things to like about their plans. And when Perry releases the future parts of the economic plan (taxes, entitlements, etc.), I’m sure they’ll be solid as well. But there ain’t no way in hell my wife is going to read those plans. She’s simply not gonna go through 59 points of action, nor is she going to delve into Perry’s erudite solutions for energy independence.

Which means that Romney and Perry are speaking to the Republican political elites. They want to impress the political junkies, the activists, the party leadership, the talking heads and the consultants with their detailed plans. But they’re simply not talking to the average Republican voter, nor are they talking to the average American voter.

Can We Simplify?

Speaking as a Cain partisan, I’d like to ask if the other candidates can simplify the message. Simplify the plan. Even if the wise men and the talking heads make fun of your hopelessly naive, not-a-plan-but-a-slogan plan, simplify it. Make it something the average citizen can (a) understand within 30 seconds, and (b) explain to other average citizens in under a minute.

The 999 Plan, for all of its warts and flaws and as-yet-unanswered-mysteries, is so powerful because it is so simple. 9% corporate tax, 9% personal income tax, 9% sales tax — and nothing else. You can disagree with it, as many have, but… you had to understand it to disagree with it. And you did understand it, didn’t you?

Can you say the same for the Romney plan? For the Perry energy proposal?

Yes, leave the heavy duty substance in for the politically engaged (like us); but in this time, when the country as a whole needs to have deep conversations about important issues, can we simplify it? Can we make it easy to understand, easy to explain, easy to debate?

I think that more and more, my support for Cain solidifies not because he’s some policy genius, but because he’s a brilliant marketer. The 999 Plan might seem a novel idea, but in reality, it’s just a really clever idea that can be marketed effectively. As a conservative, I’m not really looking for sophisticated new governance models: our principles are enough. But I am looking for someone who can market our principles and sell our ideas effectively in the public marketplace.

Cain has proven he can do just that. Romney, Perry, and anyone else still in the race… y’all need to get to work. Show me you can sell conservatism to the American people. Show me you can make them understand your plan. Because if they understand it, they will demand it.

-TS

But I can’t help shake the feeling that they’re… willfully ignoring certain things to denigrate the 999 Plan. While risking being called a candi-bot or Cainiac or whatever, I’d like to undertake a defense.

Let’s All Agree 999 Plan Is a Great Idea

The first starting point — and this is important — is to recognize that everyone agrees that the 999 Plan is a great idea. Streiff admits “There is a lot that is superficially attractive about the plan.” Ben Howe goes further:

I’ll start with his 9,9,9 plan. On it’s face, there is a lot that I like about the 9,9,9 plan, besides its catchy name. I like that it lowers the personal and corporate income taxes to a low and flat level. I like that it eliminates other taxes like Capital Gains, Payroll & Self-Employment taxes. I like that it allows investments to be written off for business. There is a lot to like in this plan.

I haven’t heard a serious critique of the 999 Plan from the Right on the merits of the idea. For example, no one on the Right thus far has criticized 999 Plan for being regressive taxation on its face. I haven’t heard anyone critique it because it fails to combat the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Those are Leftist ideas after all.

From the Right, the criticism have all been on the merits of implementation, or rather, the impossibility of correct implementation. Hopes, rainbows, and unicorn farts.

On the Hopeless Naivete of Cain

So we get passages like this one from streiff:

The plan is unrealistic for two reasons: Congress must pass it and Congress must sustain it.

Anyone can see the inherent difficulties in passing the bill. Between the armies of lobbyists who would oppose the bill and the armies of lobbyists trying to make the plan an 10-9-4.3 Plan to help their clients the odds of passage in anything resembling Mr. Cain’s proposal approach zero. Mr. Cain is not going to have 60 votes in the Senate to prevent a filibuster and even absent a filibuster the responsibility for taxation lies in the House of Representatives. The House rarely, if ever, shows deference to a president, even one of their own party, when it comes to this core function. Again hope is not a method.

Distrust of Congress seems a fair stance. But hold that thought!

Here’s Ben Howe’s substantive criticism:

If the 9,9,9 plan played out exactly as Mr. Cain is suggesting, it might be fine. But the fact that he thinks for even a moment that it has a shot shows an ignorance of Washington unparalleled on that stage.

There are only two ways that I see 9,9,9 getting passed. One would be some enterprising Democrats realizing that they’ll have brand new money to play with and enthusiastically jumping at the chance to create a new revenue stream. The second way is if Gandalf the Grey summoned his giant Eagle friends to threaten members of Congress to make a constitutional amendment that forces it to stay exactly as it is…forever.

…

Believe me, I want the current tax code thrown out as much as anyone. I want to elect a Congress that will vote for a Flat Tax as well. But we can’t do that if we’re going to throw away all of our experience with government and ignore their penchant for taking a good idea and morphing into a monster.

Again, totally fair to distrust Congresscritters.

Both gentlemen — as well as most of the anti-999 folks — also take issue (as did Bachmann) that the 999 Plan might start out as 999 (assuming that Cain can get Gandalf to summon the giant eagle and get the bill passed), but it would be transformed into the 29-29-29 Plan in short order. Streiff writes:

You don’t have to be a genius to see how the 9-9-9 movie will end. It will be 10-10-10, 11-11-11, and so on because the plan makes no provision for capping increases.

So, in summary, we have:

1. Cain is a political babe in the woods who has no idea how Washington works, and therefore, his whole 999 Plan is total nonsense suited only for fantasy novels; and
2. Even if we assume miracles happen, and the 999 Plan gets passed, it will be corrupted by the evil wizards of Congress into the 90-90-90 Plan.

How’s All That Washington Insider Wisdom Working For Ya?

As a threshold question, I’d like to ask both gentlemen how all of the collected wisdom and savvy of navigating the halls of power in Washington DC have served conservatives and the nation in the past few decades. You know what? Forget the past few decades, when Republicans showed that they can plunder the public treasury as well as the Dems can; let’s focus on the past year and a half, since the tsunami of 2010 swept a new, Tea Party House into power.

There is this guy in the House, by the name of Paul Ryan. He became the Chairman of the House Budget Committee when angry voters sent him a flock of fiscal conservative freshmen. As I recall, he proposed a little budget plan under the name of A Roadmap for America’s Future.

As I recall, almost every single conservative — even the most devoted rabid activist types like us here on Redstate — supported the Ryan Plan. Quite a few people wanted Paul Ryan to run for President on the basis of that plan, of his rock solid fiscal conservatism, and the like.

Can we agree that if anyone understands how Washington DC works, how the levers of powers are pulled, how to work things so that they are acceptable to the untrustworthy Congress, Paul Ryan and his colleagues — people like Speaker John Boehner — are those guys?

Can we agree that given their extreme wisdom in the Tao of DC, they crafted a plan that was painfully moderate in its reach and ambition? For example, punting entirely on Social Security? (Which allows Romney to still be thought a conservative while mounting a defense of Social Security worthy of the #OccupyNarnia crowd.) Or, for that matter, not bothering to actually balance the actual budget until 2063?

But the Ryan Plan was seen as the height of sanity. What wisdom! What savvy! What deep understanding of the way that DC works!

Despite its wisdom, its political savvy, guess what? The Ryan Plan was defeated. The Senate Republicans didn’t even bother fighting for it.

Forgive me if I’m not all too enthused about the concept of being wise to the Way of Washington, if the result is that we can’t even get the Ryan Plan passed.

Forgive me if Cain’s response, when he was asked about whether he knows how Washington works (“I know how Washington works: it doesn’t!“), strikes me as eminently sensible.

Fact is, if we elect Cain and fail to elect a fiscally conservative (Tea Party-like) House and Senate to go with him, we’re not getting anything passed. We’re not getting the Ryan Plan passed. We’re not getting Romney’s 59-point Super-Duper Smart Guy Economic Plan passed. We’re not getting much of anything passed.

So what’s the guy to do? Run for office while assuming that Democrats will take back the House? Or retain the Senate?

Are we to assume that even if we send Jim Demint the “reinforcements” he asked for during Redstate Gathering 2011, and the GOP takes control of the Senate, and even if we strengthen Paul Ryan’s hand in the House by sending him a few extra Tea Party types… even that conservative Congress would not pass the 999 Plan simply because “it isn’t realistic by DC standards”?

It makes absolutely no sense.

The 2012 Election isn’t just about one office; it’s about the nation as a whole. I’m not donating only to Cain. I’m also donating to Ted Cruz in Texas. And looking at some other candidates who I think would be the reinforcements that Demint and Ryan have asked for. We can’t just get Cain/Perry/Romney elected; we have to take over the Senate and increase our advantage in the House as well. We can’t just win the election; we have to actually convince our fellow Americans that we conservatives deserve a turn at bat, having watched Obama/Reid/Pelosi wreck the country.

I operate under the assumption that any plan that any candidate has put forth will require a Republican (and not only Republican, but a conservative Republican) takeover of the Executive and Legislative branches.

So I should get excited about… I don’t know… say a plan like Romney’s that is ‘realistic’?

The answer may lie in his proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax—but only for those who earn less than $200,000 a year. This eviscerates most of the tax cut’s economic impact and also suggests that he’s afraid of Mr. Obama’s class warfare rhetoric. He even picked Mr. Obama’s trademark income threshold for the capital gains cut-off.

Yawn. And oh look, cut the top rate from 33% to 25%. Goodie. And a trade war with China! That’s a bonus. (Look, I’d criticize Perry’s plan too… if he had one. I’d be sure to look it over when he releases something other than, “I done it in Texas y’all”.)

At this point, ladies and gentlemen, doing Obama-Lite doesn’t excite me very much. And for all the talk of “hope ain’t a strategy”… seems to me that not-hoping wasn’t much of a strategy for our side either. All the careful calibration and careful moderation of the Ryan Plan got us precisely zip. All the wisdom of Boehner and McConnell and all the wise guys got us The Most Historic Budget Deal Like EVAH back in the spring, purporting to cut $38.5 billion but actually increasing the budget by $3 billion. I agree with Mark Steyn on such a wisdom-filled deal:

And in this case, it is absolutely not worth the time it takes to type up a bill that merely cuts the equivalent of two hours of government spending. This is why, if this is the best that John Boehner can do, I expect nothing from Harry Reid. But if this is the best John Boehner can do, then I’m sorry, this country is dead. And there’s no question about it, because the political institutions are impervious to course correction.

If we can’t put forth bold plans, because they’re unrealistic by the standards of political institutions that are impervious to course correction, then what the hell are we fighting for? To slow the inevitable decline by a couple of years?

C’mon, man!

But, But, But… The Corruption of Congress!

On the second major criticism, that no matter how idealistic and great the 999 Plan is, it will surely be corrupted by Congress… I have yet to hear from any critic why we should single out the Cain plan for such special treatment.

Romney plans to cut the top rate from 33% to 25%. That’s great!

And how exactly will Congress be prevented from taking that 25% back to 33% and then to 66% using the same logic being applied to Cain’s 999 Plan?

Let’s pretend that Perry has released an actual economic plan. What exactly makes it impervious to Congressional Corruption?

“Well, you see, Romney and Perry will cut spending” doesn’t cut any mustard, given that Cain isn’t exactly a dove on spending. He’s already proposed an across-the-board spending cut, to be followed by a “deep dive” into each department. It’s what a company in financial trouble does; it’s what the man has actually done; it’s what the man proposes to do to the Federal Government.

So the idea that Cain is some sort of a pussywillow when it comes to spending ain’t gonna fly.

“Well, Cain’s plan can’t bind Congress” is a complaint. Here’s streiff on this very topic:

Absent a Constitutional amendment, which Mr. Cain is not advocating, there is no mechanism to prevent the Congress from changing a 2/3 vote requirement to a simple majority vote in some subsequent piece of legislation. (Emphasis mine)

Is that so?

Here’s Cain at the Palmetto Freedom Forum (Sen. DeMint’s effort) back in September:

Cain told DeMint that he favors a legal requirement of balancing the federal budget. “I believe in a balanced budget amendment [to the Constitution]. Yes, because otherwise, we’re not going to have the discipline in Washington in terms of collectively of getting that.”

Sure doesn’t sound like the Cain who is not advocating a Constitutional Amendment to me.

In fact, Cain was one of the first Presidential candidates — way back when he was a non-factor dark horse — to sign on to the “Cut, Cap and Balance” Pledge that Sen. DeMint and Lee were asking of candidates.

Now can we agree that may the guy does know something about Congressional Corruption? And that he favors measures to try to stop that? (To be fair, I believe all of the candidates favor some sort of a “Cut, Cap and Balance” mechanism, which includes a Constitutional Amendment.)

Streiff wants the 16th Amendment repealed. Good — so do I. Name one candidate who has signed onto that.

The general fear seems to be that Cain is giving the government a “new revenue stream” to mess with by introducing a national sales tax. I just don’t understand this particular line of reasoning.

Is the idea that liberal democrats are morons who sat around smacking their heads going, “D’oh! A national sales tax! Why didn’t we think of that?” when they heard of Cain’s 999 Plan? Is the notion that a corrupt Congress won’t think to implement a national sales tax or a VAT or a Breathing Air Tax or whatever other corrupt tax scheme until a Republican candidate for President proposes one?

C’mon, man!

It Isn’t Naivete; It’s Marketing

What Mssrs. Streiff and Howe both get wrong — and many of the other critics of Cain’s plan get wrong — is that they are mistaking brilliant marketing for political naivete. Streiff even gives a nod to the marketing here, but dismisses it:

Mr. Cain’s plan has an appeal that some wonkish 57-point plan never will. That it is appealing doesn’t mean it is either workable or a good idea.

Yes, that it is appealing doesn’t make it workable or a good idea. But it does make it an appealing idea. Which is a helluva lot better than the alternatives we have so far. You’re not going to find crowds at Romney rallies chanting “59 Points!” or even understanding what the hell is in his 160-page economic plan. (Although, a Romney rally where the crowd did chant his entire economic plan would be akin to a Buddhist funeral ceremony… hours and hours of chanting….) Perry’s economic plan is easy to understand, and has a built-in slogan… oh wait… he hasn’t released one yet. Nevermind then.

There is a reason why pizza guys and burger guys and retailers and other businessmen who have to deal with consumers come up with prices like $9.99 or slogans like “Tastes Great! Less Filling!” Because they plain old work.

There’s a deeper point to be made here. Cain often says on the stump that his job as President will be to educate and inform the American people, because “If people understand it, they will demand it.”

That’s Marketing 101, folks. Simplicity sells over complexity. Don’t believe me? Check the sales figures for the iPad vs. any of the competing tablet devices — many of which are more powerful, faster, and can do Flash. Check the history of the iPod vs. competing MP3 players. The brilliant engineers at Microsoft built a superior device in the Zune; the brilliant marketers at Apple ate the Zune for lunch without breaking a sweat.

If people understand the benefit and appeal of your product, they will demand it. 999 is simple to understand. It doesn’t take 160 pages to explain it to a bunch of wonks who can then sit around praising it for its moderation, its wisdom, its non-naive understanding of how Washington DC works. No, the 999 Plan takes 30 seconds to understand, by the average voter, and inspires them to demand it.

Is that so wrong? Is that so naive?

If it is, I don’t want to be right. I don’t want to be wise. Give me the wrong naivete of brilliant marketing that might get Americans understanding a candidate’s economic policy without a graduate degree in political science, so that more of them might get around to demanding that policy…

… in November of 2012.

I’ll take that every day of the week, and twice on Saturdays. (Because Sunday is for church and football, y’know?)

-TS

(I don’t think Bachmann is entirely finished… but her window is small and closing fast.)

Feels like this beginning stage of the 2012 elections was fraught with all sorts of minor details and small distractions, all of it aimed at trying to distinguish one candidate from the other in the early days of the scrum. Small little things got magnified all out of proportion by the media, by the commentariat, and by the activists who were trying to figure out who their guy was.

Issues like Gardasil, like the Racist Rock, like versions of books, like knowing or not knowing Right of Return, and debate performances where the ‘moderators’ were throwing out one gotcha question after another, etc. all dominated the headlines and dominated our thinking. I suppose it makes sense that with such a large field, it takes too much time and effort to get into the substance of the Big Questions confronting us the GOP activist base, and the country as a whole. I figure, this is just how democracy works: all sorts of messy, rough and tumble, and people making snap judgments based on not much more than a soundbite.

But supposing that we have moved past the opening drive, it’s time for the candidates and the party activists — the most engaged, most educated, most energized within the GOP — to start shifting the conversation away from distractions and towards the real substantive issues.

And boy, there are no lack of real substantive issues in this election. Quite a few wise men on the Right agree that we have the Most Important Election Ever before us. It’s time that we all treat it as such.

What I’d Like From the Candidates

So despite the fact that I am a Cain guy, at this early stage, my loyalty is not exactly graven in stone. Or written on it, to be painted over. Or not. What happens from here on out is essential, critical event.

What I’d like to see from the candidates going forward are real substantive policy statement on the Big Issues confronting us. I don’t much care what you did in the past; that’s relevant, sure, but in the mid-game, I want to know what you’re <i>actually going to do</i> if you win.

It’s time to be assembling your advisors, putting out position papers, and articulating clearly what it is that you will do once in office, and how you will govern. It’s time for major speeches, not for bickering over rocks and slips of the tongue. For me personally, the following are the areas I’d really like to hear from each candidate in greater detail:

• Size and Scope of Government: Rick Perry has done the best here with his book, Fed Up! but it’s one thing to point out the problems. It’s another thing to make clear what you would do as President as solutions to these problems. Would you cut departments? If so, which ones, and how? Would you actually cut actual spending, or more of the baseline bulltwaddle we’re used to from DC? If so, how?
• Entitlements: I need to know exactly how you plan to deal with the Entitlements Crisis. Romney’s attacks on Perry are silly; it’s time to step up and tell us what you plan to do on SS, Medicare, and Medicaid.
• Taxes: Cain has the 999 plan, but I’d like to see details — is it really revenue neutral? How will he prevent it from becoming the 29-29-29 plan? Perry needs to step up here — yes, Texas has a great record. But how will he cut taxes, and which ones? Romney has released a detailed plan, so I’ll give him credit on that.
• Foreign Policy: Romney so far has done the best job on this as well; Perry and Cain both need to go a bit beyond just rhetoric about strong America.
• Homeland Defense & Anti-Terrorism: I’d like to know more from each candidate about their views on the TSA, on enhanced interrogations, on targeted killings (whether by drone or by SEAL Team Six), and intelligence (e.g., Patriot Act).
• Border control & illegal immigration: Pretty obvious. Perry caught a ton of heat for his “heartless” comment; I think that was a bit of a distraction. All three have said they’re all about securing the border — great, can we see some plans in writing please, with numbers if possible?
• Economy and Jobs: All three are running on a platform of jobs, jobs, jobs. I’d like to get more detail. In particular, when Cain and Perry talk about reducing regulation… which ones and how?
• Federalism & Judges: Perry is the strongest here, having written a book about Federalism. But I’d like to know more detail, especially from Cain and Romney. Closely related is the issue of judges — of course all of them will say they will appoint strong Constitutionalists, so give me some names. Who are the judges you really admire who are not currently on the Supreme Court that you’d consider appointing?
• ADVISORS: This is of particular importance to me. One of the biggest failings of the Obama Administration is that Obama has surrounded himself with advisors who are (a) blind ideologues, (b) flat out incompetent, or (c) both. People like Van Jones and Samantha Powers. Plus, Obama thinks of himself as smarter, better, and wiser than anyone else, despite the fact that the job is bigger than any one individual. So I’d like to see who these guys have assembled around them for policy advice.

I’m sure others have their substantive issues.

Change The Format of Discussion?

I know the standard modus operandi of political campaigning is stump speeches, meet and greets, and televised “debates” which are anything but debates.

In the Internet era, I really hope the campaigns would consider going beyond these silly conventions. Why not hold a virtual “town hall” directly with the public, a la a radio call-in talk show? Call screeners and web watchers can easily pick out questions and tweets from the audience, while streaming the whole thing live on the Web. Have a four hour conversation with potential primary voters about issues, answer their questions, deal with their criticisms, etc.

Why not have a two hour sit down around a table, with the candidates asking each other questions, a la a real debate/conversation, and stream that live over the Web. There is no reason to be so beholden to broadcast channels, involving talking heads from CNN or Fox News. Go direct to the public; the media can’t help but follow.

This way, I sincerely hope the GOP primary this season can be a far richer, far more involved discussion and debate on the big issues, instead of sniping on fringe bits here and there, and personalized attacks about some gotcha thing from the past. We deserve grownups having grownup conversations, first with us, and then once we select the nominee, with the American people.

-TS

I’ve heard Rick Perry be called an amnesty-loving liberal, Romney called an Obama clone, Cain called a traitor, among other things. Can we please cut it out?

I’m in the tank for Cain; I’ve admitted it. But I’m also rather fond of Perry. And I don’t mind most of the other candidates. Even the ones I do mind, like say Ron Paul or Huntsman, I think are good men of good will who would be better than anybody the Dems put forth.

So first, take a deep breath, calm down, and work on that unity thing a bit.

But more importantly, if you are a partisan for your candidate, you might consider the fact that you’re hurting your Chosen One when you go stark raving mad off the rails.

I mean, repeatedly calling Cain a TRAITOR doesn’t make him a traitor; it makes you look like an unhinged lunatic. And by extension, rational people might question why your guy needs such over-the-top demonization to win. Hyperventilating that Romney is Obama-lite doesn’t make Romney into Obama; it just makes it look like you don’t have a real argument against Romney’s positions or candidacy.

Seems to me, I’m preparing myself to hear from the Left, the MSM, the Democrats and their minions that whoever we select as our nominee will be painted as everything from a racist (even if he’s a black man who grew up during the Jim Crow era), a sexist (even if she’s a self-made successful tax attorney, mother, and Congresswoman), dumbass (even if he’s got a Ph.D. and has taught college classes), and whatever else they can come up with in their sick twisted projecting minds. I consider that the reason is because their guy — Obama — is a lightweight incompetent who has been exposed as an ideologue who doesn’t know squat about running a corner deli, nevermind the world’s single greatest hyperpower.

I did not think I’d have to confront the same within the GOP, within the conservative movement, as desperate people who apparently can’t just argue for their guy, or argue against another candidate like rational beings, have to go for personal attacks, ad hominem smears, and the like.

Cut it out, please? It’s unbecoming. It’s uncivil. And worst of all, if you care about your guy’s chances, it’s making your candidate look bad. Like s/he can’t win without resorting to such tactics.

So feel free to disregard this whole line of thinking as partisan pap designed to push my candidate of choice. Although, keep in mind that I want Cain to be your second choice, if he can’t be your first, as I’m sure your first is still infinitely better than Obama.

In any event, there is a criticism of Cain that has been leveled throughout Redstate that I find… baffling. So this is my problem with the people who have a problem with Cain’s 999 plan.

You can find quotes in comments throughout this site, but the essential criticism is something like this:

I like the 999 Plan in theory. But there’s no way I’d support a national sales tax AND an income tax, because we just can’t trust politicians not to raise taxes on us. It might start as a 9-9-9 plan, but will end up as a 29-29-29 plan in short order.

An entirely sensible position, to distrust politicians. At the same time, there are a few things really… off… about this particular line of criticism.

If You Assume The Policy Will Be Corrupted…

First of all, if the base assumption is that no matter how great an idea might be, DC politicians will find a way to corrupt it… why is the 999 plan singled out for special treatment? What makes anyone think that Romney’s 87-page PDF Economic Plan won’t also be instantly corrupted and changed? Or the FairTax that many people are gung-ho for, claiming that it is superior to the 999 plan. Superior how, if the assumption is that Congresscritters will instantly transform it into a basket of giveaways and boondoggles? Or even a Flat Tax?

If the starting point of evaluating any policy proposal or plan is that Congress will get in there and mess it up, I honestly don’t see any reason to support any candidate on the basis of any issue. Because we’d have to assume that his/her great idea would just be transformed into a steaming pile of dung by Congress.

Which Leads To… Vigilance of the People

One particularly amazing critique of the 999 Plan theorized that we’d have President Cain coupled to a Democrat Congress, which would then result in the 999 plan becoming the 90-90-90 plan out of the gate. C’mon people; are we seriously contemplating that we’d all go to work trying to get the GOP nominee elected President, but skip out on all of the other races such that we’d end up with a GOP President and a Dem Congress?

The larger point — one which I’ve raised — is that the only way that the 999 plan (or any other plan on any other issue) is not transmogrified into some atrocity is the vigilance of the electorate. There is simply no way to trust a politician — no matter whom, no matter what — to do the right thing time and again. Absolute the only way we as a nation can defend our rights, get the policies we want, and prevent corruption by politicians is to be vigilant against such things and to keep up the pressure on all of them to do the right thing.

I’ve always thought that the Tea Party movement was a Great Awakening of sorts that signified that at least a very large part of the population had turned the corner on the vigilance issue. People who had never paid attention to politics suddenly became activists. Folks who had tuned out the Clinton years, the Bush years, even the Reagan and Carter years suddenly educated themselves on the issues, took to the streets, organized, and started to make their desires known.

The critique of 999 plan on “implementation” grounds simply assumes that these people — you and me — would work our tails off to win the election in 2012, and then go back to sleep. “Whew, we got Cain/Perry/Romney/Whomever into the White House! Our job is done here!”

If that’s true, then we’re all wasting our time. I like Cain; I trust Cain; I want President Cain. But I do NOT trust him enough to lay it all down after the election and go back to watching American Idol. No, sorry. I’ll trust him, but will stay on top of what he actually does once in office to make sure that he does what he promised, that his 999 plan doesn’t transmogrify into something bizarre, and so on and so forth. As Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify.”

Isn’t this the lesson of the past 40-50 years? That if we the people tune out government, bad things happen? And we find ourselves suddenly wondering, “How the hell did we get here?” Corruption, like rust, starts off small and hard to notice. And like rust, we can’t wait until the damn thing has taken over half of the car before working on it.

To paraphrase Milton Friedman, it isn’t so much that we need to elect the right people, but that we need to make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. By extension, we need to make it politically painful for even the right people to do the wrong thing. And the only way to create that environment is through vigilance.

No one told me this was going to be easy.

Which Leads To… Why Cain Is Great

Surprise! Well, not really, I’m sure.

I’m likely not paying enough attention to all the other candidates, but I have to say, of all of the people in the race today, only Cain gives me the impression that he gets this crucial fact about the relationship between government and the governed: vigilance.

Watch this video of Cain speaking to supporters in Orlando before the Florida Straw Poll. It’s a homemade video so the sound and camera work aren’t the best, but you can still hear him clearly. Notice how he talks about needing the people to apply the heat so that Congress will see the light. Now watch this homemade video from Smart Girl Summit 2011, where he lays out how exactly he’s going to get his 999 plan implemented. (Yes, the sound and picture are not great.) He makes it plain that he’s going to explain the plan to the American people, and that the American people will be the ones demanding that their elected representatives do the right thing.

“All I can do is tee it up, and make sure y’all understand it…. If people understand it, they will support it and demand it.”

This is exactly the stance of a consumer-oriented business executive. When you’re selling burgers and pizza to average Americans, you can’t dictate to them what they should want. You have to listen to what consumers want, create that product or service, explain through advertising and marketing that what you’ve got is what they want, and then hope they demand your product.

Even before he ran, for example at the 2009 Redstate Gathering, Herman Cain has been hammering home to those of us in the room our need to be Informed, be Involved, and be Inspired. Not just for a year or two, but forever.

So many of the other candidates seem to me to be saying, “Listen, elect me and I’ll make sure these problems go away. You can relax, once I’m in office.” It is the approach of the professional elite, like my accountant: Hire me, and you won’t have to worry about complicated IRS tax rules, because I’ll take care of it for you; because I know more than you do — I’m an expert. And why not? Romney is an incredibly smart private equity investment operators. Bachmann was an accomplished tax lawyer. Paul is a medical doctor. Gingrich has been Speaker of the House, and has a Ph.D. in history. Their professional lives revolved around other elites, or in being the expert who takes care of a client.

None of them ever had to organize, mobilize, inspire, and somehow get a large group of average Americans to believe in a vision, to carry out tasks, and to work together to succeed. Cain did just that in his business career, most of which was spent in the fast food industry. Think it’s hard to organize activists and voters? Imagine how hard it was to organize Burger King workers and to get them to move in the right direction, together, as a company.

It’s one reason why I believe in the Cain candidacy: the guy isn’t running to give us anything; he’s running to make us demand things we want.

Criticize The Plan On Its Own Merits

Bottomline is that I would appreciate any criticism of any plan — whether it’s Cain’s 999 plan, or Romney’s detailed plan, or any other plan that candidates will put forth — on its own merits. We can’t have the central criticism of a plan be, “Well, that plan wouldn’t allow me to go back to dreamland where I don’t have to worry what the politicians are up to.”

For example, you could reasonably argue that the 999 plan’s national sales tax component would create a larger bureaucracy. You could argue that regressive taxation is immoral (the Lib/Prog position). You could maybe argue that corporations don’t deserve tax breaks. Whatever you want to argue is fine, but let’s have it be on the substance of the plan on its own merits, rather than on whether Congress will corrupt the hell out of it or not.

That isn’t fair. And it betrays a lack of commitment to pay the price for liberty: vigilance, eternal vigilance.

No matter who is in office.

-TS

Then… the primary season began in earnest, and Cain made a couple of major missteps. His comments about the right of communities to deny Muslims from building a mosque, betraying a woefully inadequate understanding of the First Amendment, was the proverbial nail in the coffin for me. (Note that the link above is not from some frothing-at-the-mouth Lefty site who’d claim the sky is red if a Republican said it was blue; it’s from Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment site – hardly a den of the Unreality Based Community that is the modern Left.)

Combined with all of the pundits — including our very own Erick Erickson — essentially writing Cain off as a “really great guy, but one who can’t win”, I was persuaded. Like many of you, I hoped for a Mitch Daniels candidacy, a Paul Ryan candidacy, a Chris Christie run, and when Rick Perry entered the race, I thought I had found my guy.

Then a strange thing happened.

Cain somehow kept coming back into my consciousness. I blame the “debates” (which I put in quotes since the modern political debate is anything but an actual debate in the style of Lincoln and Douglas) for much of it. The guy just plain old made sense so much of the time. And unlike the unbelievably smooth Romney, the incredibly oleaginous Huntsman, even the seemingly-speaking-with-a-permanent-frown Santorum… Cain appeared to be saying what he meant, what he actually believed (damn the consequences), and in many cases, actually answering the question.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt Cain that the other candidates — Ron Paul with his crazy-uncle antics, Michele Bachmann taking a starring turn as The Woman With Plastic Hair And Even Most Plastic Speaking Style, and Rick “I Crammed Really Hard Last Night” Perry — simply did not do themselves any favors in recent months.

Cain’s win in the Florida GOP Straw Poll last week was the last… ahem… straw. Byron York of the Washington Examiner had a great article on why Cain won. Money graf:

What had happened? In the days before the vote, nearly all the delegates who voted for Cain either said or heard someone else say this: “I love Herman Cain, but he can’t get elected.” The assumption that Cain can’t win the Republican nomination was a serious obstacle in their minds. But at some point late Friday and early Saturday, the delegates overcame that obstacle. Some concluded that since they had heard so many people speak well of Cain, he could indeed win, if everyone who liked him would actually vote for him. Others remained skeptical of Cain’s ultimate chances but decided to send the message that they would choose candidates based on conservative principles, and not on perceived electability.

Once the delegates got over the can’t-get-elected hurdle, a close contest became a landslide for Herman Cain. [Emphasis added]

Think about this.

It was Michele Bachmann who said on stage during the Orlando debate that this year, in this election cycle, with such a weak opponent in President Obama, we conservatives don’t have to settle. She urged us all to follow our hearts, follow our principles, and select the candidate we most want.

Well, the candidate I most want is Herman Cain. Sorry, Michele — I’m sure that’s not what you had in mind.

But if I’m not going to worry about “electability” in thinking of Bachmann, of Santorum, of anyone else… then why would I choose anyone but the guy I think is exactly who we need in 2012 to turn the country around?

And you know what? I’m not alone. I think Cain can win. And this is his victory scenario.

Cain Is the Consensus Candidate

Now, I’m not suggesting that Redstate is anything even close to representative of the GOP primary voter. Redstate tends to draw the really engaged, fanatical activists of the GOP base. And of course, no one would consider an online poll to be anything other than a test for the Ron Paul people to swarm to victory. And yet…

I saw this call for a Redstate Primary Preference Poll. I took it. Then I saw the results. I’m positive these results will change dramatically, but as of the time of this writing, here’s the big takeaway for me.

Only three candidates won the “Top Three Choices” poll — meaning, since you have to choose your first choice, then your second, then your third, and so on down the line, I looked at the people who won at least one of those three rounds. The way I figure, if you’re not in the top three choices, you really don’t have much of a chance.

Those three are Ron Paul (first choice round winner), Herman Cain (second round), and Newt Gingrich (third round).

I use editorial privilege (this being my diary) to throw out Ron Paul, attributing it to the unusually organized and charged Paulites in our midst. And I put in Rick Perry. What I get if I do that is this:

• 58.7% of the respondents (remember, not representative, not scientific) have Cain as their #1, #2, or #3 choice.
• 41.3% have Perry in the Top Three
• 26.7% have Gingrich in the Top Three.

Romney is way behind at 16%. Bachmann is at 19.4%. I conclude that they’re no longer in the running, at least for the hearts and minds of the engaged, activist base.

Think about that: two out of three respondents have Cain as the #1, #2, or #3 choice. That’s almost 20 points higher than the next highest guy, Perry.

Meanwhile, as the last few weeks and the last couple of debates have shown us, everybody and his cousin are taki

But one exchange last night that really caught my eye, and left something memorable was the attack on Perry by… well… everyone on stage on the issue of the Texas law that provides in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants. Rick Perry did a particular poor job of defending his position on this, but at the same time, watching the glee and gusto with which Romney (ROMNEY! of all people), Santorum, and others went after Perry makes me wonder what the hell they’re thinking.

What Perry Should Have Said

There is no doubt in my mind that Rick Perry was over-prepped. At times he looked like a particular dumb student trying to remember the answers to a test for which he had crammed the night before. His answers to the in-state tuition issue were incoherent at times, and he did not advance his candidacy at all with his failure to explain the overall position vis-a-vis illegal immigration.

The first point he should have made, with force and clarity, is that no matter what you might think of the Texas law, it’s a Texas issue, dammit, and Texans can decide through its legislature how Texans want to handle public universities. If you don’t like our policies, go the hell to your own state university. Refer back to the 10th Amendment, which is one of his signature positions. He did say 181 members of Texas legislature with only 4 dissents, but that left it open to Santorum’s attack. He needed to repeat this point again: it’s a TEXAS issue. If TEXANS want to “subsidize” illegals for TEXAS universities, then that’s our business.

The second point he should have made is that the problem with illegal immigration is the ILLEGAL part, not the IMMIGRATION part. This is perhaps a too-subtle point, but it needs to be made somehow, by somebody, and who better than the governor of a large border state with hundreds of years of free movement between Mexico and Texas? He made the point about the children of illegals who came here through no choice of their own, but that was lost in all the “magnet” talk and “subsidy” talk. The point he needed to make is that what he and the Republicans and even the wider conservative movement want is to enforce our laws, not to vilify immigrants. (I’d like to address this one in greater depth below, so hold on to any critical response.)

The third point he should have made, particularly against Romney’s (ROMNEY??? REALLY???) whole “it’s a $100K subsidy” line of attack, is that if students living in Massachusetts want the in-state tuition, all they have to do is become a resident of Texas. (See here for details) He could have expanded that line into a positive, “We want people coming to Texas, to become Texans, to add to our economy in Texas, to join our Texas community.”

The Problem With Illegal Immigration

My larger point is that the GOP (and by extension, the conservative movement) appears to be moving towards a position that is both (a) politically improvident, and (b) morally out of character. I base this on the fact that Perry was booed last night by the attendees, and that wide swaths of the base think of him as being “weak on immigration”.

I really would like to believe that our party, and our conservative movement, agrees with me that the problem with illegal immigration is the “illegal” part, not the “immigration” part. Sen. Marco Rubio is a clear example of immigrants not only adding to the richness of this country, but in some ways, understanding even better than “natives” what is so special and so unique about the United States. We give a lot of lip service to the idea — on both the Left and the Right — that United States is a “nation of immigrants”.

Stories about hardworking immigrants coming to this country with nothing to end up being pillars of their local communities abound, not because they’re just useful tales to be told on the campaign trail by one politician or another, but because they are true. That America is the land of opportunity is proven day in and day out by millions of immigrants.

The problem then is not immigrants, but how they got here.

If they got here legally, following the rules, then we all should (and most of time, do) celebrate them, welcome them into the American society, and give them all sorts of opportunities for a better life for themselves and their children. And in return, immigrants enrich all of us, quite literally in many cases, by starting businesses, improving neighborhoods, buying homes here, and undertaking their unique American journey.

Yes, we can have debates about how we as a society have lost our way culturally thanks to the multiculturalism infecting our media, our academy, and our government. We can and should talk about things like English as the national language (and I say this as an immigrant who didn’t know any English landing on these shores). We can and should talk about how American history is taught, how we apparently do not value American values enough to ask newcomers to adopt those same values, and so forth. We can and should discuss how many immigrants we want, under what circumstances, and for what reasons.

But in that discussion, I believe the average American of whatever political stripe believes something like the following:

1. We will not accept bad guys, and have the right to make life miserable for them.
2. We will not tolerate freeloaders who come here just to have access to all sorts of social safety net goodies.
3. But we do want the honest folks who are just seeking a better life to be able to come here, add to our society, and make something of themselves. In fact, we admire those folks quite a bit, and often look to them for inspiration on how hard we ourselves should be working to succeed.
4. Folks who are getting all worked up about the honest immigrants are, in fact, heartless — as Perry said last night.

There is, I believe, a sort of hierarchy of dislike when it comes to illegal immigrants in the American subconsciousness. At the top of that list are the criminals, gangsters, and bad elements. But we’d hate those people even if they came to the country legally. Bad people are bad people, period, whatever their immigration status.

Second on the list are the freeloaders.

Third on the list may be the ‘cultural imperialists’ who come to America just to make money, but never, ever intend to become an American. I can personally attest that Asian communities are most susceptible to this sort of immigrant (whether legal or illegal) who come here to make money, to create a better life for their families, and so on, but have a visceral disdain for “American culture” or “American values”.

Somewhere near the very bottom of the list has got to be the children of immigrants who had absolutely no choice whether to come here or not. They were brought here by their parents. They did the best they could to adjust to a new situation — like my kids are adjusting to being in Texas instead of New Jersey — and grew up as they could.

Of all of the people to target, does it really make sense to target these kids? To tell them that despite the fact that you had nothing to do with the lawbreaking, despite the fact that if you’ve actually gotten to the point where you want to be applying to attend college where you grew up, where you went to school, despite all of that… we’re going to vilify them of all people?

Yeah, sorry, that is heartless.

The Uniqueness That May Be Texas

As a new immigrant to Texas from New Jersey (and yes, that’s how I feel the move is for someone who spent his formative years in the Northeast liberal elite enclaves), one major difference I noticed right away is how much more ‘integration’ there is in Texas between “Americans” and “Mexicans”. There are Mexican-Americans in Texas whose families have lived in Texas for generations, but are from the border areas where commerce, culture, trade, and influences overlap. There is, in fact, a reason why the cuisine known as “Tex-Mex” exists.

And one thing I’ve become fairly aware of is that there is a uniqueness to Texas. There is an indescribable Texan identity, a Texan culture, that overlays everything and everyone. You could be the descendant of original Mayflower pilgrims, but if you come into Texas from Massachusetts… you lack that Texan identity, that Texan “thing” which sets you apart from your neighbors.

As a result, where in places like New Jersey or Pennsylvania, there are real cultural differences between the mainstream “Anglo” community and the ethnic communities, in Texas, there is a sense of a Texan identity/culture that goes on top of the ethno-cultural differences.

I could very easily see how the people of Texas, through their legislature, could make the determination that the kids who grew up in Texas, went to Texas schools, love Texas high school football, root for the Dallas Cowboys, love the rodeo, go fishing and hunting, and so on and so forth are fellow TEXANS… even if their parents came here illegally. I could understand that. I could very easily understand how out of 181 legislators, only 4 opposed the law in question.

Of course, after Perry’s performance, and given the importance of the illegal immigration issue, I’m now sure that this particular Texas law would be demagogued to death by all of the other candidates. That is truly unfortunate.

Because in a real way, that law provides a way to thread the narrow path between the Scylla of Open Borders crowd and the Charybdis of anti-immigrant nativists. It is a way to showcase that as a party, as a movement, what we want is the enforcement of our laws first and foremost, control over our borders second, and all of it tempered with the understanding that immigrants are not to blame.

I hope Perry will get his story and his message straight. But more than that, I hope we all in the base come to understand the distinction and come to agree that we can be strongly for enforcement, that we can demand our borders be controlled, that we implement programs (like e-Verify) that combats illegal activities… while we can also be strongly pro-immigrant, and celebrate those who actually want to become an American.

If the kid who wants to go to UT Austin, who went to high school in Texas, who was brought here by his parents, is not one of those people who actually want to become an American if given the chance… then I don’t know who is.

To take away the opportunity for that kid to become a fully functioning American, out from under the shadows… well, that is heartless.

-TS

I won’t be going, since I’m nowhere near NYC these days, but the email caught my interest for a copule of reasons. Here is the email below; see if you can catch the WTF moment.

NYU School of Law invites you to the eighteenth Annual Rose Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence Lecture to be presented by Debbie Almontaser. Her lecture is titled, “Arab Culture and Islam: Challenges in Diversity Education.” Ms. Almontaser is the founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, the first public school in the country to offer a curriculum emphasizing the study of the Arabic language and culture. She is a 20-year veteran of the NYC public school system, where she has taught special education, inclusion, trained teachers in literacy, and served as a multicultural specialist and diversity advisor and trainer.

The NYC Board of Education did announce in April that the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a publicly funded school in New York City, will be shut down for the prosaic reason that it couldn’t attract too many students. But not to worry; the school itself — and all those teachers union jobs — will continue as a high school, rather than as a middle school.

The whole controversy around a taxpayer funded school focusing on Arab culture — that is inseparable from the religion which has formed that culture — has quieted down, if not completely disappeared. Hence, I suppose it’s time for Ms. Almontaser to go speak to a bunch of wealthy lawyer-types to decry the institutional racism, xenophobia, and anti-Arab bias that have conspired together to bring down the gem of NYC’s public school system.

That is, of course, her right. And it is the right of NYU to sponsor and host such a lecture.

Those aren’t the WTF moments.

The WTF moment for me was:

She is a 20-year veteran of the NYC public school system, where she has taught special education, inclusion, trained teachers in literacy, and served as a multicultural specialist and diversity advisor and trainer.

WIN THE FUTURE??? Did I read that right? Maybe the PR flacks wrote that wrong? Did that just say this woman had a 20 year career in the NYC public school system training teachers in literacy (among other useful things, of course, like teaching “inclusion” whatever that means)?

I suppose it’s the business of New Yorkers to hire whomever they’d like to be teachers in their public schools, but hiring people who can’t read to teach your youngsters to read, write, and do arithmetic is probably… counterproductive, I’m thinking. But hey, may they have joy of such a system.

Not a WTF moment, but a “Hey, I’m really curious moment”, comes immediately after. Seeing as how Ms. Almontaser is a multicultural specialist and diversity advisor… and an observant Muslim by the looks of it… and she works in NYC… how does she manage the inclusion of gays, Jews, and Muslims in the same school? Because whatever that doctrinal interpretation of Islam is, we should export it to Iraq and Afghanistan immediately and fervently.

If she could only explain how she teaches observant Muslim boys to value the diversity of having a gay Jewish classmate, I say she should be strongly considered for a high-level State Department job.

Hmm… maybe I will attend that lecture after all…

I was pleasantly surprise to see a podcast on Ricochet.com featuring two of my favorite political figures on the Right: Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. Of course, like many of you, I immediately downloaded it and listened to it on a recent flight. Made the unfriendly skies seem just a little brighter. [If you're not a member of Ricochet, consider joining. It's an interesting site, made more for intellectual discussion than for encouraging action like Redstate is, but interesting and useful nonetheless.]

But… there is something here I must question, nay criticize, and ask a larger question on.

During the podcast, Sen. Rubio said that the reason why we need to enact these urgent spending reforms, and to defeat Obamacare, was so that we can save the entitlement programs like Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Rep. Ryan readily agreed.

“We want to save Medicare and Social Security,” said Rubio. “We don’t want to get rid of them. We want to save these programs.”

Is this really the state of the art for conservative thought in America today? That we are engaged in a fight for the future of the country… so that we can preserve entitlement programs?

Mark Steyn is fond of making the point that big government creates small individuals. The fires of London showed us all the logical end point of the liberal philosophy which says that a proper role of government is to provide payments to its citizens. He’s also fond of pointing out that in European social democracies, there are only two sides of the same liberal party, both claiming to be able to manage the entitlement state a little better than the other guy.

Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio are two of our brightest starts; they will be the leaders of the next generation of conservatives. If even these guys have bought into the idea that the federal government should provide healthcare and retirement benefits to its citizens… then all that we are doing is to claim that we’re better managers of the entitlement state, that we are in fact the defenders of the entitlement state.

I can’t accept this. Perhaps Ryan and Rubio are playing hide the ball, and talking about defending Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in order to slowly transition the nation to a place where individual citizens make arrangements for their own health, retirement, housing, etc. without the government playing any role: even that of giving them money they can invest into health insurance. They are politicians after all, and recognize that they can’t get very far publicly stating that they want to kill entitlements altogether.

Sen. Rubio, I’m sorry but I do want to get rid of those programs. I’m willing to entertain the notion that in the short-term, we have to reform the entitlements simply to avoid bankruptcy, and that politically, eliminating Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid is a non-starter. And half a loaf is better than none at all.

But if conservative ideals of individual liberty coupled to individual responsibility mean anything at all, surely they mean that we do in fact want these programs to get eliminated if we had that kind of power. The socialists rammed through their fondest wish — nationalized healthcare — when they finally got the power in DC. If conservatives should one day get the 60 votes in the Senate, the White House, and the House… should we not be talking about ramming through our fondest wish: the dismantlement of the entitlement state?

We cannot afford the Republican Party to become a “we can manage things better than the Democrats” party. We must have one of the two major parties actually stand up and fight for the idea that Americans do not need a handout from the government, that they can easily arrange for their own healthcare, their own retirement, and their own unemployment benefits if given the power to do so, and the clear awareness that they must do so.

-TS

[Crossposted on Ricochet]

Throughout Redstate 2011 in Charleston, I heard one elected official after another, from Haley Barbour to Rick Scott, as well as candidate after candidate, state something that is extremely appealing to the activist base:

They told us we couldn’t do it, that we had no chance. But here we are.

The “they” here is everyone from the Establishment GOP to the left, the media, the intellectuals, the election professionals, and everyone else. But the Class of 2010 in Congress and in our Statehouses is mostly a group of principled conservatives who “couldn’t win” but somehow did.

At the same time, I heard one speaker after another say that 2012 is The Most Important Election In Our Lifetime, Perhaps Ever. I’ve heard many of us say that this is the one election we simply must win, or the Republic is finished.

Well, I have a question for Redstate: given the importance of 2012, are you willing to support a candidate who perhaps shouldn’t win, but could?

The obvious example, I think, is Romney. He could win, and if it were Obama vs. Romney, he’s quite likely to win. But I don’t think Romney should win. Pawlenty was a guy who perhaps should win, but obviously could not win, not even the Iowa straw poll.

We all hope that Perry is our standardbearer who both could win and should win. But let’s just assume for the sake of discussion that something emerges in the next few months that makes Romney a far more attractive candidate than Perry in the general.

Is 2012 such an important battle for the country that we perhaps should focus more on electability than on demanding a record of principled conservatism?

For myself, I think I’d rather lose with a principled candidate, flying the conservative banner high, than win with a compromiser who will grow once in office. But then again, I’m one of those radical Tea Party terrorist types, eager to administer purity tests. I just wanted to know what others thought about this election.

-TS

It has been 10 months since my last diary here at Redstate, and frankly, almost a year since I’ve been actively engaged. There are many reasons and even more excuses, but in retrospect, they are just that: excuses.

Last year, when I attended the Redstate Gathering in Austin, I went as an aspiring activist, wanting to do more than just write blogposts from time to time. This year, I came to Redstate Gathering as a penitent, looking to be recharged, re-energized, and re-inspired. Thanks to Erick, the staff at Redstate, and the volunteers, I came away from the second day with just that.

This wasn’t chicken soup for the soul, but Red Bull. Time to wake up. Time to put away excuses, time to stop bemoaning not having time and to start finding some time to do whatever it is I can do. For just that, the trip was worthwhile.

But there is something else as well.

As all of you know, Redstate has grown in influence and stature way past being just a blog. It isn’t a typical political blog or online community that is but an echo-chamber of committed people talking to each other. It is a political power influencing national elections and historical events. We all may look back on today and realize that the fact that Rick Perry chose to announce his candidacy at Redstate Gathering instead of at the Iowa State Fair was a historical moment signifying an incredible shift of power from the old to the new.

At the same time, I don’t believe that Redstate gained this power under Erick’s leadership because of our superior blogging skills. Or because of excellent diaries. Or anything of the sort. I do not believe Redstate gained the power because the people of Redstate spend all their time just writing posts, diaries, and bashing Obama. No, Redstate became influential because the people who write, who read, who comment went out and translated thoughts and blogposts and information into action.

Whether that action was donating to candidates (like Nikki Haley, who mentioned in every speech that it was financial support from Redstate community that saved her campaign in its darkest hour), or organizing precincts, or taking over the GOP from within, the people of Redstate went out and did stuff.

So will I. I don’t yet know exactly what, since I’m a new resident of Houston, but I will. High on my list is to explore what I can do locally at the precinct level. And right behind that will be to do what I can for Ted Cruz, candidate for the Senate.

But what of online? Is there a point to continue blogging, putting up diaries, writing here or elsewhere, or any such thing?

I think I have found one answer. And I will be exploring it going forward.

Politics, it is said, is the art of the possible. Compromise is inevitable. Even as Tea Party candidates swear up and down that they will stand on principle, even as good-hearted men and women go to do battle with the right ideals, I know that they will need to compromise. I know that in order to get things done, sometimes, they have to accept a good-enough solution rather than hold out for the perfect one.

But online commentator types like me are not politicians. I am not bound by their need to compromise, by their need to do what is possible. Nor are any of you. So we push for “extremist” positions. We push for policies that are incredibly naive, impossible to achieve, and incompatible with political reality.

And that creates the operational space for the doers to compromise just a little less, to push the needle ever so slightly towards our side. This is, I think, the proper role of the online activist community: to create enough space for the policymakers to maneuver ever so closer to the ideal, while knowing that we will never achieve the ideal itself.

For example, in the Balanced Budget Amendment discussion today, I realized that the goal of setting a cap on federal spending at roughly 18% or so is highly desirable. I asked why not push for total repeal of the New Deal and the Administrative State that FDR’s brainchild brought us, and cap spending at pre-WW II/New Deal levels. The answer, of course, is that such a thing is politically impossible.

Yet, if the most “right wing” position is to settle for 18% of GDP, and the most “left wing” position is to push for roughly 45% of GDP (where some European nations are), it seems to me that the compromise position is well north of 18%. So, no thanks. I’ll push for 5% of GDP, the Left can push for 45% of GDP, and maybe that will give enough room for the good guys to go in and negotiate for 20% of GDP as a compromise.

Maybe if I’m crying full-throated to eliminate the Dept of Education completely, it’ll give some maneuvering room for our guys to cut its budget by 30% without coming off as “extremists” since they can always point to people like me as the real extremists. I’m okay with that. And back in the real world, I can always work to get guys who want to cut the DoE budget by 30% with boots on the ground and financial support.

Yeah, I’m feeling inspired again. Feeling energized again. Feeling… not quite forgiven, but at least with an idea that it isn’t too late to get back in the fight.

Oh yeah, and I’m coming out of the closet. I think I’ve kept the political persona separate from my personal/business persona for too long. For some good reasons, maybe, but… meh… what’s the point of hiding when staring armageddon in the face?

For anyone who cares, I’m on Twitter as @robhahn. And you can find me on Facebook as Robert Hahn. All of my political personas are going away after this weekend. Whatever consequences come, so be it.

Thanks again, Redstate.

And given the historic victory by the Tea Parties and the GOP on Tuesday night, there has been and will be far more said about the sweeping wins at the Federal, state and local levels by people who are far more in touch than I am.  So with 2010 behind us, and having shifted the goals to 2012, let me suggest the one thing I’d love to see in two years’ time: Tea Party Democrats.

First, watch this video (if you can stomach it) of Andrew Cuomo’s acceptance speech from Monday night:

Start around 4:40 to about 5:15.

I had no idea that Andrew Cuomo was a Tea Party candidate….

Granted, the hypocrisy of someone who starts off thanking the various labor unions, then says what the people of NY want is a government not beholden to special interests and lobby groups is breathtaking.  And granted, the man most likely means none of what he says about controlling spending and lowering taxes… but the important thing is that Andrew Cuomo, in New York of all places, felt that he had to at least pay lip service to such things.

I am a conservative, and I am a Republican.  But before either of those things, I am an American.  The current situation, where the Tea Party is firmly equated with the GOP is not, I think, good for the country in the long run.  As much as I’d like to see the Democrats in their current incarnation defeated and destroyed, we live in a two-party system, and there are millions and millions of people who will remain Democrats in 2012, 2014, 2016, and beyond.

Because I am a conservative, I do not regard my political opponents as “enemies” or as evildoers.  I believe that many of them, most of them, love the country as much as I do, and that reasonable people can disagree.

For these reasons, what I’d love to see for 2012 is a real Tea Party resurgence within the Democratic Party — just as the Tea Partiers have made enormous strides in the past couple of years within the GOP.  Even if the impact of such a movement within the Dems is simply to force the statist candidates of the left to pay lip service to smaller government and lower spending, such a move allows those who truly mean it on the Right to make real changes.

The Tea Party movement began as a non-partisan effort; so many of them chose the GOP as the vehicle/organization through which to work.  As many, including the newly elected Senator from FL, have pointed out, this is a second chance for the GOP; screw up this opportunity, and there will be a third party in America.  But before we get to that point, I’d love for the sanity wing of the Democratic party to wake up and start embracing the core message of the Tea Parties in earnest: stop the spending.

Even if we sweep in 2012 with the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and all of the state legislatures, I’d like to see a real fiscal conservative movement within the Democratic party to make it possible for the country to start walking back from the edge of the cliff.  Just as, once upon a time, both Democrats and Republicans were united against international communism (let’s remember the policies of JFK and Lyndon Johnson), perhaps in the futre, both Democrats and Republicans can be united against government spending and over-reach, even as they disagree on other substantive issues.

-TS

American independence was not won on July 4th, 1776; it was, rather, won on September 3, 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed.  One could argue that American independence was won for all practical purposes on October 19th of 1781 when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington after getting soundly defeated in the Battle of Yorktown.

In between July 4, 1776 and September 3, 1783 lies 2,615 days.  Seven years of war and struggle, of starvation, of want, of death.

Yesterday, my family and I visited a couple of historic sites in Morristown, NJ where Washington had his winter headquarters in 1777.  Not oft told is the fact that because of Washington’s army camping in Morristown in an age without sanitation, one out of four citizens of Morristown died of smallpox and dysentery.  Just a few thousand strong, facing the well-trained, well-organized military of the greatest empire the world had known then, with its ranks ravaged by disease, lack of supplies, and lack of real military training… one could only imagine the desperation that must have gripped those men every day.

Later, we visited Jockey Hollow, where the Continental Army spent the winter of 1779.  Some 13,000 men spent a miserable, freezing winter in a series of 14′x16′ wooden huts, often packing twelve men into one hut.  As one website about Jockey Hollow asks:

Walk up one day in January and imagine staying there until it gets warm enough sometime in April to take off your down jacket. Imagine standing there without your shoes on, without even one of the huts on top of the hill for retreat from the incessant cold. Try to conceive of something important enough to keep you on that hill for the rest of the winter.

Indeed.  Try to conceive of something important enough to keep you on that hill for the rest of the winter.

Some two hundred and thirty four years later, living as we do in the very lap of luxury, touring the sites of the Revolutionary War in the air-conditioned comfort of our advanced automobiles, it seems to me that we Americans celebrate the wrong Independence Day.  Seen in the rearview mirror of so many years, it seems almost as if Independence were a simple thing indeed: get some guys together in a hall in Philadelphia, have one of them write up a great, noble-sounding document, and everyone signs it and heads home.  Next thing we know, we’ve got TV shows on the History Channel that we ignore in favor of American Idol.  What’s the big deal?  It’s a time for fireworks and cookouts!

After all, isn’t declaring independence the main thing?  Who indeed could refuse American independence when faced with such ringing words as:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Those truths may be self-evident, and all men may be endowed by their Creators with certain unalienable rights, but still 13,000 men froze in a harsh New Jersey winter, and thousands and thousands died on battlefields, in their homes from disease, and suffered tragedy upon tragedy to prove those self-evident truths.

It seems that even self-evident truths require men willing to risk it all, willing to stand guard in freezing cold, willing to say that proving the truth is important enough to stay on that hill.  Even unalienable rights must be defended over 2,615 days of the cold of winter, the heat of summer, disease, hunger, fatigue, death, and war by men and women willing to say proving self-evident truths and defending unalienable rights are important enough to keep them on that frozen hill for the rest of winter.

Does it not say something of us, of Americans, that we celebrate the day when we declared our Independence, rather than the day when we finally won it?  Koreans, for example, celebrate August 15th as independence day, rather than March 1 when Korean independence from Japanese rule was declared.  What does it say about us?

I think it says two things about us.  First, that we celebrate merely the declaration suggests that we take far too lightly the sacrifice of patriots who secured our unalienable rights for us, and proved self-evident truths.  It suggests that we think too little of the 2,615 days of action between the words “we are free” of the Declaration and “yes, you are” of the Treaty of Paris.

But second, that we celebrate the declaration also says that Americans by their very nature are people who back up their words with action.  In some respects, that our Independence Day is July 4th shows American confidence.  The important step was making the decision, not realizing the dream.  For we are a hopeful people, an optimistic people, who may be slow to anger, not easily provoked, but once decided, impossible to deter.

That is how I choose to interpret this day.  Even as we face assaults both direct and insidious on our freedoms, on those self-evident truths, on our unalienable rights from enemies within and without, I believe that the American will has yet to be tested.  Some of us have started to say the words in gatherings, protests, tea party gatherings, in back rooms as precinct captains… but as yet, we Americans have not declared that the encroachments on our life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by our own government, by our own modern-day King Georges, shall not stand.

But we shall.  We must.  And whether that struggle takes four months or four years or seven years or seventy, as an American, I believe that we will accomplish what we declare.  That is who we are.

Between July 4, 1776 and September 3, 1783 were 2,615 days.  Happy Independence Day.

-TS

Requires the act to be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizens.

Wow.  You can just feel the hatred, can’t you?

And now we know that President Obama plans to bring a lawsuit against Arizona to deter the racist Klansmen in control of the state from enforcing SB1070, which would force police officers and government employees in Arizona to help enforce Federal immigration law.  We can’t have that now.  It violates the doctrine of pre-emption for one thing, and the Supremacy Clause prohibits it.

Apparently, a better example to follow is the City of Philadelphia, whose mayor and police chief recently announced that Brotherly Love extends to those unfortunate “undocumented workers” who happen to find themselves somehow in their metropolis.  In fact, Philadelphia is so loving and so concerned about the poor undocumented workers that it will stop sharing arrest data with los Federales:

Philadelphia is expected to end the arrangement that permits federal immigration agents to scrutinize the city’s computerized list of arrests, including country of origin and other data, Everett Gillison, the deputy mayor for public safety, said Sunday.

So it is that in the City of Brotherly Love, an undocumented worker may get arrested for some crime or another (“minor crimes” according to the unnamed immigrant advocates in the news story) without fear of deportation.  Whew!  Civil rights has been saved again!  Of course, arrest data might include more serious crimes, but that’s no reason to violate a citizen’s, oops, I meant currently undocumented but future citizen’s civil rights.  Because deportation — the penalty for the original law broken (that being the Federal immigration laws) — is too harsh a punishment for a “minor crime”.  The “minor crime” overwrites the original crime, you see?  Don’t you?

As of yet, there is no report that the Obama Administration will bring a lawsuit against Philadelphia for upsetting its “carefully balanced” immigration policy through its act of refusal to cooperate with Federal authorities.  It appears that at least according to the Obama Administration (and “immigrant advocates”), the Supremacy Clause only works to strike down enforcement of laws that the Federal Government is supposed to enforce.  But if a municipality refuses to work within the scheme of Federal regulation, then the Supremacy Clause is entirely silent.

What lesson might be drawn from these seemingly related developments?  I draw two.

First, asking the Government workers to, you know, do the job for which they are paid — like enforcing laws they are hired to enforce — immediately triggers the Supremacy Clause.  But refusing to cooperate with them so that they can’t actually do their job is A-OK re: pre-emption.

Second, Arizona should immediately replace SB1070 with a far simpler law: When a person is found to be on Arizona soil illegally, he or she should be sent immediately to Philadelphia.

In other words, instead of trying to assist the Federal ICE people to do their jobs, Arizona should assist the City of Philadelphia in its efforts to prevent the Federal Government from doing its job.  I’m sure the suffering undocumented workers would be glad to be out of the racist hellhole that is Arizona, and the loving people of the City of Brotherly Love would, I’m sure, be happy to welcome them with open arms… and protection from the evil Federales.

Everyone, I’m sure, will be happy with this arrangement.  The illegals, I mean, “undocumented future Americans” will be out of a shameful racist environment.  The citizens of Philadelphia can feel great about themselves for upholding the principles of civil rights.  Federal ICE agents can continue to draw a salary for not doing the work they were hired to do.  Arizona can stop inflicting the horrific penalty of deportation, unless of course you think that being sent to Philly is punishment….  And the White House can relax, knowing that Arizona, far from violating the Supremacy Clause, is cooperating with Philadelphia to subvert the entire immigration scheme.

-TS

Nonetheless, I wasn’t quite aware of how bad things were “out there” until I happened upon a bunch of blogs written by out-of-work JD’s who are facing a mountain of debt, zero job prospects, and no way out except for leaving the country for good.  Here’s but a small sampling: Exposing the Law School Scam, But I Did Everything Right, Jobless Juris Doctor, Children of Debt, and others.  Granted, many of these blogs and their commentators have the whiny tone of those who feel entitled to something more, something better, than they got as the economy cratered.  Maybe some of them were bamboozled by the legal-industrial complex, and deserve everything they get.  I find it somewhat difficult to summon up a lot of outrage and sympathy on behalf of these unemployed lawyers, given that I’m still carrying six-figure debt from my stint at law school.

But I happened to have read those while I was thinking about another group of the heavily indebted: homeowners.  Not just the irresponsible, sub-prime, interest-only no-doc loan borrowing fools who thought they would just cash in while the real estate bubble was in full effect, only to find themselves holding the bag, in debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars they could never pay back, with a house worth half what they paid — but the responsible ones, who borrowed so-called prime mortgages, 30-year fixed deals, only to get hit with the double whammy of declining home values and unemployment, are also starting to get hammered.

There are now companies who advise homeowners to go into strategic default on mortgages.  Respected people, like Roger Lowenstein, are taking the position that strategic default (in which a homeowner is able to pay the mortgage that is more than the house is worth, but chooses not to) is the rational thing to do for many homeowners.

The unemployed JD’s (and others who have made poor choices and taken on massive education debt on the promise that education leads to higher incomes) would love to strategically default on their debt.  Actually, they’d love to default, period, on their debt and start over.  Unfortunately for them, that is not possible.  Student loans, you see, are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.  The only option for someone unemployed, but carrying massive educational debt, is to flee the United States.

Debt, and how to deal with it, may be one of the central struggles of our time.  The conservatives have focused for the most part on government debt, which surpassed $13 trillion for the first time in June of 2010.  But when it comes to personal debt, conservatives (and Republicans) have tended to take the position that repaying debt is a moral issue, and have taken a hardline stance against debtors.

The Response Thus Far from the Right: Repayment of Debt Is a Moral Imperative

A good example, from the standpoint of ideology, is this great article from Luigi Zingales, the Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, in the City Journal.  (I have rarely found anything in that fine publication with which to disagree, and this article is only a partial exception.)  Zingales takes the position that strategic default is a menace that threatens the foundation of the financial system:

Undermining the social norm to repay mortgages, as Lowenstein and White do, is thus a very bad idea. You might just as well say that when a theater is going up in flames, it’s “rational” to trample other people in rushing to the exits.

Accordingly, Republicans in Congress have tended to be hostile to legislation that would make it easier on debtors.  For example, House Republicans have introduced (and passed in the House) legislation that would penalize strategic defaulters:

The language prohibits the FHA from “newly [insuring] any mortgage under this title that is secured by a 1- to 4-family dwelling unless the mortgagee has determined, in accordance with such standards and requirements established by the Secretary, that the mortgagor under such mortgage has not previously engaged in any strategic default with respect to any residential mortgage loan.” It says that the FHA needs to figure out what an “intentional default” is in the first place.

With all due respect, I think this is bad politics.  I also think it goes against a fundamental American value enshrined not only in the Anglo-American tradition, but in the history of the nation.  I believe conservatives (and by extension Republicans) should take the position that what is needed is not moralizing to debtors (no matter how stupid their individual decisions may have been), but restoring the bankruptcy code to its original intent: providing a fresh start for individuals and companies.

A Brief History of American Bankruptcy Law

A blogpost is no place for a thorough review of the history of the bankruptcy law of the United States.  Those interested might start with Debt’s Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America.  The opening paragraph of the book is worth quoting in this context:

Bankruptcy law in the United States is unique in the world.  Perhaps most startling to outsiders is that individuals and businesses in the United States do not seem to view bankruptcy as the absolute last resort, as an outcome to be avoided at all costs.  No one wants to wind up in bankruptcy, of course, but many U.S. debtors treat it as a means to another, healthier end, not as the End.

The way I learned about bankruptcy, in law school, Americans from the earliest Colonial days were inimical to how English law treated debtors.  Indeed, many of the early Americans had personal experiences with debtor’s prisons, having been drawn mostly from the lower classes.  America represented a fresh new start for them, fraught with peril, but nonetheless, an opportunity for a man to start a new life.  That spirit of a “new start” infused the American bankruptcy laws from the very start.  It is no coincidence that one of the enumerated powers of Congress in the Constitution was “To establish… uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States” (Article 1, Section 8).

The first Bankruptcy Code was promulgated in 1800, not too long after the establishment of the United States itself, and the current Code was enacted in 1978, although amended numerous times thereafter.  And the purpose of bankruptcy has been articulated a number of times by the Supreme Court to be to allow a fresh start for debtors:

The central purpose of the [Bankruptcy] Code is to provide a procedure by which certain insolvent debtors can reorder their affairs, make peace with their creditors, and enjoy ‘a new opportunity in life with a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of preexisting debt. (Grogan v. Garner, 111 S.Ct. 654.)

To be sure, there is the idea that only “honest debtors” should find relief through bankruptcy, but I regard that as meaning those debtors who did not engage in fraud or crimes to get into debt.  The stupid debtor may nonetheless be an honest one.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was, in my view, a mistake by the Republican-controlled 109th Congress and President George W. Bush.  The stated legislative purpose was to make it more difficult for debtors to get relief through bankruptcy:

Most people think it should be more difficult for people to file for bankruptcy. Americans have had enough; they are tired of paying for high rollers who game the current system and its loopholes to get out of paying their fair share.

With all due respect to Sen. Grassley (which, in my case, is precious little), I disagree.  I don’t believe that most people in 2005 thought it should be more difficult for people to file for bankruptcy.  In any event, I do not believe that most people in 2010 think it should be more difficult to file for bankruptcy, and to have debts discharged.

The Politics of Debt

Those of us active in the conservative movement know full well that the media’s portrayal of the Republican Party as the party of fat cats and Wall Street is simply wrong.  (Well, I’d actually say that it’s a lie perpetrated by the Propaganda Wing of the Democratic Party, but that might be, er, inflammatory.)  We know, for example, that Goldman Sachs donates primarily to the Democratic Party with 75% of the contributions going to Democrats in 2008.

But legislation like BAPCPA and the new anti-strategic default law makes it far too easy to paint the GOP as the party of bankers, credit card companies, and mortgage lenders.  In the current economic environment, I believe that is unwise.

The mortgage industry, based on the two pseudo-governmental companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is more or less a creation of the Left, with the willing assistance by the corrupt Right who cared more about re-election and lining their pockets than standing on principles of fiscal responsibility.  So why are we now attempting to defend the indefensible?  Why are we now going on about the moral responsibility of the individual to pay his debts, when businesses and corporations routinely make business decisions to walk away from debt?  Lowenstein writes in the NY Times:

Businesses — in particular Wall Street banks — make such calculations routinely. Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said Morgan Stanley is immoral — perhaps because no one assumed it was moral to begin with. But the average American, as if sprung from some Franklinesque mythology, is supposed to honor his debts, or so says the mortgage industry as well as government officials. Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. declared that “any homeowner who can afford his mortgage payment but chooses to walk away from an underwater property is simply a speculator — and one who is not honoring his obligation.” (Paulson presumably was not so censorious of speculation during his 32-year career at Goldman Sachs.)

For Republicans (and conservatives) to be in the position of coming down hard on consumers, while ignoring the business decisions of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs is strange indeed.  One might even call it some sort of a political death-wish, especially in the era of Tea Party Power.

If repayment of debt to the bitter end were somehow part of the fabric of the United States, and was a bedrock principle of the republic, I would understand that we conservatives need to take a stand on principle.  But as the history of bankruptcy law suggests, there is no such moral principle in our tradition.  In fact, our history as a nation and as a people suggests precisely the opposite tradition: in America, you are allowed to start over, unencumbered by past mistakes.

This does not mean that the individual does not pay a price for those mistakes.  Bankruptcy is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.  It wrecks your credit for years on end.  You will find it more difficult to get a job, buy a car, get a credit card, and you can just forget about buying a house for a good long time.  You may have your wages garnished, get put on an allowance by a court-appointed trustee, and may end up losing most of your assets (if you had any).  The price for filing bankruptcy is high indeed.  But at least you get a fresh start.

Consider the economic prospects for the Millenials, the largest demographic group after the Boomers, and the ones most likely to set the longterm trends for politics in the United States.  Most of them self-identify (or at least did in 2008) as liberals.  They have been brainwashed by the leftist academy and the leftist celebrity-driven culture of the 20th and 21st century, and as a result, went for Obama by a 2-to-1 margin (66% voted for Obama) in 2008.  Little did they realize in 2008 that Obama-Reid-Pelosi policies, such as socialized medicine, takeover of industries, higher taxes, and the like would be financed largely by them.

To paraphrase Malcolm X, they’ve been had; they’ve been took; they’ve been bamboozled.  Some of them are waking up.  Consider some of the results of the National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll in January of 2010, as reported here:

• 46% say a four-year college degree is an economic burden.
• 45% percent favor a left-leaning agenda of investment in infrastructure, education and research (which means 55% do not)
• Only 39% would vote for Obama if the 2012 election were held today, with 50% voting for another candidate

I believe that personal debt, particularly student loans, will be an extremely hot topic for Millennials, along with fiscal policies.  The passion amongst this generation about the education bubble is intense, judging by the blogs and comments of the unemployed JD’s (and these are supposedly among the more successful of the Millenials, given that they finished college, studied enough to get into law school, then graduated with law degrees).

I believe that the conservative movement could find that the majority of Millenials are ready to get real, instead of continuing to dream on about hopeychangey fairy dust.  But not if we do not have a plan, a platform, and a set of principles about debt.  Continuing to insist that debt is a moral issue is not doing us any favors, and it goes against the traditions and principles of the United States.

Some Next Steps

First, I believe that Republicans should immediately push for eliminating the non-dischargeability of student loan debt through the Bankruptcy Code — a “reform” that was put into place in the 2005 BAPCPA act.  That piece of legislation is most firmly a Republican law.  It has our fingerprints all over it, and therefore, we should be the ones arguing for its repeal or reform.  Those Republicans who voted for it should simply say, “We made a mistake, and we’re going to fix it.”

Second, I believe that Republicans should back away from the anti-strategic default legislation.  Since that has already passed the House, it’s up to the Senate Republicans to defeat it, and convince their colleagues in the House that trying to punish debtors is neither smart nor principled.

Third, I believe that conservative intellectuals should immediately work on what would constitute a principled, free-market driven, Constitutionally faithful, and freedom-enhancing approach to debt.  Such an approach must balance the need for individuals to take responsibility for their mistakes, but also grant them some ability to have a fresh start in life.  Permanent debt-slavery, as is currently in place particularly for student loans, is not a conservative principle.

Based on those principles, the conservatives (and the GOP) should put together a legislative agenda that ensures penalties for nonpayment of debt, but affords a way out, some way of getting a fresh start.

What Say You?

I realize that some of these ideas may go against the grain of conservatives both here at Redstate, and elsewhere.  I know that most of us embrace the idea of personal responsibility, and repayment of debt is surely part of that.

Nonetheless, I also believe that urging for personal responsibility does not trump considerations of liberty; and oftentimes, liberty trumps personal responsibility.  A conservative might try to persuade people, for example, not to engage in extramarital affairs; but making infidelity an actual crime is, I believe, going a step too far for most conservatives.  Because liberty is our core value as Americans and as conservatives.

The current system for debtors is deeply inimical to liberty in a way that is inconsistent with American tradition.  We conservatives should claim the higher ground, deeply rooted in the American experience, American tradition, and even the Christian ideals that undergird our civics: that atonement, while painful, will lead to forgiveness.

Many thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to your thoughts.

-TS

What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men? For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and stronger and hardwired to fight for scarce resources, and that shows up now as a drive to win on Wall Street; women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more- nurturing and more-flexible behavior, ordaining them to domesticity. This kind of thinking frames our sense of the natural order. But what if men and women were fulfilling not biological imperatives but social roles, based on what was more efficient throughout a long era of human history? What if that era has now come to an end? More to the point, what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women?

What is fascinating is that in trying to answer those questions, Rosin’s article strikes a tone of uncertainty and fear, rather than triumphalism as one might expect from a bona fide contemporary feminist, a founder of DoubleX.  One result is that there is a debate on both the left and the right on whether Rosin is right, what the causes of the decline of men in the workforce and society might be, and what the consequences may be.

On the left, the criticism appears to be that Rosin is misinterpreting the evidence.  It’s not the end of men, you see, but the end of pernicious gender stereotypes:

It’s disappointing that, despite a history of sharp observations about gender and 5,000 words to work with, Rosin makes the same oversight as all of the other hand-wringing articles about the state of the American male. She thinks the problem is men; really, it’s traditional gender stereotypes. The narrow, toxic definition of masculinity perpetuated by Rosin and others — that men are brawn not brains, doers not feelers, earners not nurturers — is actually to blame for the crisis.

On the right, the response seems to be to focus on the consequences of the shift, and to criticize the policies that have led to the shift:

If boys are being conditioned to see themselves as academic failures and if the curricula tend to overemphasize subjects at which they are less adept, it should not be surprising to see them underrepresented in colleges and universities. Not because of any natural progression but because policies have been established to diminish them.

…

Are we really surprised that young men who are brought up without fathers in the new feminist dystopia are drawn to gangs and crime. We have seen exactly the same thing happen in the American inner cities over the past few decades. Single-parent families, headed by women, do not produce a cohort of healthy young males. See Kay Hymowitz‘ article here.

Such large questions as to whether masculinity and femininity are products of biological imperatives or social conditioning, and whether the consequences of an economy and a society that punishes ‘traditional’ masculinity are net positive or net negative cannot be answered one way or the other with any confidence.  One can, however, look at societies where such ideas have gone further.

Canary In The Coalmine: Sweden

Sweden is one such example.  Katrin Bennhold writes in the International Herald Tribune (a subsidiary of the New York Times), as part of a series called “The Female Factor”, that in Sweden, “men can have it all” and that as a result, a new definition of masculinity is emerging there:

In perhaps the most striking example of social engineering, a new definition of masculinity is emerging.

“Many men no longer want to be identified just by their jobs,” said Bengt Westerberg, who long opposed quotas but as deputy prime minister phased in a first month of paternity leave in 1995. “Many women now expect their husbands to take at least some time off with the children.”

Birgitta Ohlsson, European affairs minister, put it this way: “Machos with dinosaur values don’t make the top-10 lists of attractive men in women’s magazines anymore.” Ms. Ohlsson, who has lobbied European Union governments to pay more attention to fathers, is eight months pregnant, and her husband, a law professor, will take the leave when their child is born.

“Now men can have it all — a successful career and being a responsible daddy,” she added. “It’s a new kind of manly. It’s more wholesome.”

Sounds lovely.

Reading the whole article, I am struck by just how wonderful Sweden seems (or at the very least, just how wonderful Bennhold thinks Sweden seems) with its enlightened policies.  It is as if the former Vikings have created a Scandinavian utopia.

That the American Progressive currently in control of our government, our media, our educational system, and our cultural institutions admires the northern European social democracies cannot be doubted.  That many of their most contentious policies, such as government healthcare, environmental legislation, and the like, are aimed at emulating Sweden (and others like it) seems clear.  And from Bennhold’s article, I confess that living in such a society seems like a wonderful thing.

Except…

There are a couple of hints that not all is well in paradise — Bennhold even suggests some of them.

First, we get this throwaway sentence: “In this new world of the sexes, some women complain that Swedish men are too politically correct even to flirt in a bar.”  That’s… interesting.  Because at least in Portland, OR in the U.S. of A., that sort of political correctness is apparently a problem for women:

“There are so many shy guys,” Laura, 27, said. “And there’s a fine line between coming on too strong and helping them to overcome their shyness.”

Amy moved here from Iowa last year and says she doesn’t recall a man ever approaching her. Nina says Portland men are like the weather — soggy — and unwilling to go out on a limb.

“Men here don’t take initiative,” she said. “They don’t look at you twice or come up to you.”

Apparently, women — even liberated, high-achieving Swedish women and their kindred in spirit living in Portland — still want to be pursued and courted by men.

Second, it appears that not everyone has bought into the ideals of the New Swedish Man:

Among the self-employed, and in rural and immigrant communities, men are far less likely to take leave, said Nalin Pekgul, chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party’s women’s federation. In her Stockholm suburb, with a large immigrant population, traditional gender roles remain conspicuously intact.

The self-employed and immigrant communities aren’t into the new gender roles of Utopian Sweden you say?  One wonders why that might be, and further, one wonders whether there may be different reasons why the self-employed doesn’t take paternity leave vs. why immigrants don’t.

The self-employed, of course, do not enjoy the vast array of payments, benefits, government-enforced leave time, and the like.  If they don’t work, they don’t eat.

The immigrants — of whom we get no real detail from Bennhold — might have different ideas about masculinity and femininity that the average former-Viking.  And though the NY Times doesn’t want to dig much deeper, the Swedes apparently do:

From his party’s office in the basement of a Stockholm parking garage, Jimmie Akesson is running for Parliament, preaching sharp cuts in immigration and calling Islam the greatest threat to Swedish society.

That message until now has gained little traction in Sweden, but polls are predicting gains for Akesson’s far-right Sweden Democrats that could give them a king-maker role in national elections this year if neither mainstream bloc wins an outright majority.

One does get the impression that the Swedish men of say Malmo or Rinkeby (a suburb of Stockholm) aren’t likely to be the kind that Bennhold had in mind.  Given the differing birthrates between native-born Swedes and the foreign-born, mostly Muslim, immigrants, one wonders just how successful the ideas of the New Swedish Man would be in a generation or two.

Third, apparently Swedish businesses — particularly the small business — are having some ah… financial issues with social engineering of men:

Companies, facing high payroll taxes and women and men taking leave in unpredictable installments, can be less sure.

…

Small businesses find it particularly tricky to juggle absences, said Sofia Bergstrom, social insurance expert at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, which represents 60,000 companies. Worse than parental leave, she says, is the 120-day annual allowance for parents to tend to sick children, which is impossible to plan and which is suspected of being widely abused.

Nonetheless, the Swedes have apparently accepted the new way of doing business:

But in a sign that the broader cultural shift has acquired a dynamic of its own, a survey by Ms. Haas and Philip Hwang, a psychology professor at Goteborg University, shows that 41 percent of companies reported in 2006 that they had made a formal decision to encourage fathers to take parental leave, up from only 2 percent in 1993.

Or… have they?  Because buried within the story — another throwaway observation that a liberal wouldn’t notice — is this:

Taxes account for 47 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 27 percent in the United States and 40 percent in the European Union overall. The public sector, famous for family-friendly perks, employs one in three workers, including half of all working women. (Emphasis added)

One in three workers is employed by the government.  Nearly half of the GDP of Sweden is in the form of taxes.  What “product” is created by tax is not yet known to mankind, but there you have it.

So on the one hand, we have reports that Swedes are famously generous, love the socialist system, and companies are getting behind this new parental leave for men.  On the other hand, we have data that shows private employers hire only 2 out of 3 workers.  What is unknown is how many workers are employed by small businesses, rather than the giant conglomerates such as Ikea.

But Why Should We Care?

That’s all fine and good, but why should Americans care about Swedish manhood, Swedish immigration issues, and Swedish policies?  To me, the answer is again, buried in the NY Times article:

If the Social Democrats win Sweden’s election on Sept. 19, as opinion polls predict, they will double the nontransferable leave for each parent to four months, said Mona Sahlin, the party leader who would become Sweden’s first female prime minister.

Mrs. Sahlin, who had three children as a member of Parliament with her husband sharing the leave, knows that this measure is not necessarily popular.

“Sometimes politicians have to be ahead of public opinion,” she said, noting how controversial the initial daddy month was and how broadly it is now simply expected. (Emphasis added)

Did you get that?  Sometimes, politicians have to be ahead of public opinion.

A clearer statement of statist philosophy is difficult to find.  It’s one I’m familiar with, having been one until 9/11.  As Lenin’s vision of a communist revolution depended upon intellectuals who would educate the proletarian workers as to their true interests, ultimately becoming the political system of Party insiders and everyone else so richly mocked by Animal Farm, so does modern Progressivism rely upon and ultimately become a game of noblesse oblige wherein the enlightened leadership has to go ahead of the ignorant public.

The Progressive project is revealed, therefore, as being less of an exercise in government and politics, and more of a semi-religious movement that seeks to save men’s souls.  Christians once called it ‘evangelizing’; the NY Times calls it “social engineering”.  The end goal is the same: changing human nature to create a better world.

The difference between the Christian (particularly the Protestant) vision and the Progressive vision lies in two distinctions.  First, the Christian vision contains within it a sense of tragedy — the sinfulness, the fallibility of human beings, and the essential unchanging realities of a harsh here-and-now are never forgotten.  As Jesus says in Matthews 26:11, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”  Even as they struggle for a better world, Christians understand at their core that the mission is hopeless: the world is as it is, not as one would have it be.  Second, the Christian vision is fundamentally voluntary — yes, society should be changed for the better, but it is through changing an individual at a time that the Kingdom of God might come to be.  It cannot be doubted that Christians throughout the ages have fallen short of the fundamental understanding of free will, having instituted religious governments, persecutions, crimes of blasphemy, and the like where the power of the State was wedded to the power of the Church.  But as history has shown, within Christian understanding itself was the seed of human freedom and the recognition that the realm of government and the realm of spiritual should be separate: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

The Progressive vision admits no such tragedy as the fallen nature of Man.  Poverty is not an eternal condition, but a socio-economic injustice created by greed, fatcat bankers, and greedy corporations.  Violence is not inherent in man, but the result of a war-loving patriarchy with roots in barbarism.  Men are not men and women are not women, except through social gender roles, leaving aside the inconvenience of biology (which technology and social advancement make unimportant). Enlightenment would cure them all.  The optimism of the Progressive is, in some respects, to be admired.

Furthermore, the Progressive vision is less concerned about individual free will and far more interested in society as a whole.  Rather than changing society by changing one individual at a time, Progressives are more interested in top-down change.  Sweden is but an example:

Introducing “daddy leave” in 1995 had an immediate impact. No father was forced to stay home, but the family lost one month of subsidies if he did not. Soon more than eight in 10 men took leave. The addition of a second nontransferable father month in 2002 only marginally increased the number of men taking leave, but it more than doubled the amount of time they take.

Clearly, state money proved an incentive — and a strong argument with reluctant bosses.

Clearly.  Penalizing the non-compliant with the power of the State does in fact provide a strong argument.  I’d imagine there was also a fair amount of other incentives: regulations, possible litigation, negative publicity….  Ah, the nature of free will in Progressive society!

The Endgame & The Gods of Copybook Headings

There in Sweden, we see the endgame of Progressivism.  It is a Utopia, much beloved of the American Left.  Not only is it easier for women to work, make time for family, not only are men able to do the same, but are now expected to by society.  Being but an American, with a wife who has a career of her own, I find myself envying the Swedish Dads.  For him, there is not the constant struggle to figure out who can drive the kids to childcare, who will pick up, who can make time to take them to a doctor’s appointment, whose career should take a hit for the sake of the children… all of the problems of parenthood in 21st century America.

Undergirding such a wonderful society is a veritable web of governmental social services:

• 390 days of paid leave, usable by parents however they want to, up to the child’s eighth birthday
• Full-time preschool guaranteed at a maximum of about $150 a month and leave paid at 80 percent of salary up to $3,330 a month
• 120-days every year to take care of a sick child
• Completely free schooling for the children, including college

And so on.  Who wouldn’t love living in such a society?

Yet… and yet… one wonders if masculinity itself is subject to such redefinition by governmental policies, no matter how benevolent.  One wonders how long the Swedish Utopia can last with 47% of its GDP coming from taxation, and one of three employees working for the state, and a growing ‘immigrant’ population that doesn’t subscribe to the Progressive vision.  One wonders if men and women really are the same, except with different sex organs, and therefore the End of Men is really the End of Gender Stereotypes.  One wonders if men would indeed quiescently abandon thirty thousand years of tradition in exchange for 120 days of sick child care.  One wonders how the New Swedish Man might respond should he find that in fact, war is not obsolete, and Russia decides it would like some ports on the North Atlantic.

And I am reminded once again of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The Gods of the Copybook Headings:

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

…

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Or perhaps, as the Progressive so earnestly hopes, The Gods of the Copybook Headings have been slain.

These people in Sweden have some thoughts on that:

-TS

The Transformation of America to Europe project that the Left is currently slamming down our collective throats is a scary thing, to be sure.  The prospect of my children growing up not as freeborn citizens, but as dependent subjects of a benevolent mommy state chills my bones.  And thankfully, there is now a backlash against such enlargement of the government at the expense of individual freedom — as expressed by the Tea Parties among other things — that the socialist project may fail.

Nonetheless, while the domestic scenario is frightening, I have to confess that the foreign policy trends are absolutely terrifying.  Because there is nothing more frightening to me than a world without the American military and the will to use it.  I believe we may be witnessing the end of Pax Americana, and the 21st century may be drenched in blood — both ours and theirs — because of it.

Isolationism: The Natural American Way

Fact is, despite the shrill braying of the pacifist Left, Americans are a remarkably un-warlike people and the only empire that hasn’t shown much interest in imperialism.  Despite resounding victories over our foes in Germany and Japan in World War II, we not only failed to colonize those countries, not only failed to extract huge sums for reparations and the like, but gave them money, kept them alive, helped rebuild their industries and societies, and continue to this day to defend them against military threats.

For our sacrifices, our treasure, our blood, for our forebearance, we have reaped a harvest of resentment, anti-Americanism from our erstwhile allies, and hatred.  Many Americans — particularly those on the Right — are rightfully tired of the bitching and the whining from those we protect.

United States is Colonel Jessup, from a Few Good Men — a character the filmmaker would have us believe is a villain, but who ends up being the perfect stand-in for America the Superpower:

We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

In 2010, who would blame the American for feeling like Jessup towards the ungrateful, spoiled brats of Germany, of France, of Italy, of Spain, of Canada, of S. Korea…

In the aftermath of the recent Cheonan incident, the depths of American fatigue at being the world’s cop are becoming evident.  Otherwise intelligent, savvy people are looking at the situation, shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Why is that any of our problem?”  Despite S. Korea being an ally to whom the United States has a treaty obligation to defend.

And that cuts across party lines.  And even here on Redstates, it isn’t all that unusual to find otherwise staunch conservatives sounding isolationist notes.  I include myself in that number as I wonder (despite, by the way, being Korean-American) why our troops need to be garrisoned in a country whose wealth, technology, population, and industrial capacity all dwarf that of its principal foe to the north.  Especially when anti-Americanism runs high in the streets of Seoul.

Combine our natural inclination towards non-interference and isolationism with economic ruin at home, and more and more people from across the political spectrum are wondering why the United States has to be globo-cop.  Again, I count myself entirely sympathetic to that view.

If Not Us, Then Who?

Trouble is… as in the Cheonan incident, once one starts to look at what the consequences of an isolationist American foreign policy — and military policy — look like… the picture is frightening.

Were we to say to the Koreans, “Handle your own business; we’re outta here”, is there any doubt that South Korea would immediately switch its allegiance to China?  Is there any doubt that Japan, Taiwan, and Australia would face enormous pressure to fall into China’s sphere of influence, to fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of the United States from the Pacific?

In Iraq, in Afghanistan, where our troops are engaged in the incredibly difficult task (for which they were not designed) of simultaneously fighting a non-state paramilitary network and building two nations… should we decide that we are tired of sending our boys and girls to die on foreign soil at the cost of trillions of dollars… is there any doubt that both of those nations would devolve into outright anarchy, warlordism, tribal warfare, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in those failed states?

That we are taking such a naive approach to Iran, its support of known terrorist groups (like Hezbollah), and its pursuit of nuclear weapons is disturbing in and of itself.  But should we withdraw completely from the region, from Iraq, from Saudi Arabia, etc., taking the attitude that your problem is for you to fix… is there any doubt that the whole Middle East would be ablaze with internecine warfare for the next few decades?

The ungrateful socialist wretches of Europe might say they want the ugly Yankee to go home, but should we actually decide to do so… is there much doubt that the Russian bear stands poised and ready to extend its sphere of influence and domination far into Europe as we know it?  Would the Balkans really remain relatively stable as it is today if the American colossus decided that it had enough of the thankless task of keeping the peace?

As a child of American largesse — it was mostly American GI’s who bled and died in Inchon, in Chosin, and elsewhere that secured my freedoms — I can’t help but think how awful a world without American military power will be.  Tyranny, dictatorship, civil war, terror, murder and violence will become once again the lot of billions of people everywhere.

Granted, there is nothing that says that we Americans must continue to defend countries and nations that spit in our faces.  There is nothing that says that we must continue to bleed and pay taxes so that some Frenchman can retire with full pension at 60, thanks to the American security umbrella over him.

Nonetheless, the world without American power is a dark place indeed.

Moving Towards Netwar

Further complicating the picture is the fact that we may need to undergo a serious revision of our military doctrines and strategies.  For anyone interested in the subject, I can’t recommend this article in Foreign Policy highly enough.  John Arquilla is one of the most influential thinkers on the subject, and he has been working on the future of military conflict for nearly two decades now.

Basically, his points are:

1. The American military is fundamentally structured and operated to fight in big wars with big weapons and big divisions against big enemies.  It cannot deal with the kind of fourth-generation warfare that our enemies (both state and non-state) are waging against us.
2. The future of warfare lies in “many and small” units that are networked but autonomous; the Swarm instead of the Army.
3. If we do not make the necessary adjustments, our enemies will surely defeat us.

In his own words:

From the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to simmering crises with North Korea and Iran, and on to longer-range strategic concerns about East Asian and Central European security, the United States today is heavily invested in hard-power solutions. And it will continue to be. But if the radical adjustments in strategy, organization, and doctrine implied by the new rules of war are ignored, Americans will go on spending more and getting less when it comes to national defense. Networks will persist until they have the capability to land nuclear blows. Other countries will leapfrog ahead of the United States militarily, and concepts like “deterrence” and “containment” of aggression will blow away like leaves in the wind.

So it has always been. Every era of technological change has resulted in profound shifts in military and strategic affairs. History tells us that these developments were inevitable, but soldiers and statesmen were almost always too late in embracing them — and tragedies upon tragedies ensued. There is still time to be counted among the exceptions, like the Byzantines who, after the fall of Rome, radically redesigned their military and preserved their empire for another thousand years. The U.S. goal should be to join the ranks of those who, in their eras, caught glimpses of the future and acted in time to shape it, saving the world from darkness.

There is much to ponder here.

Not only do we face a potential failure of political will here at home for much more military engagement, part of the reason why we have such a failure of will is because our military infrastructure is not designed for the new ways of war.

Pax Americana is therefore dying a dual death: one, from the rightful anger and resentment of the American public to continue to sacrifice to keep the peace for others, and two, from a military that is too big and too slow to deal with the new threats.

Unthinkable Solution?

As a result, I end up at a place I never thought I would.  If the future of war is made of non-state actors, paramilitary forces, and irregular militaries (aka, “terrorists” or “freedom fighters” depending on your point of view)… is it unthinkable that we should develop our own such irregular forces?

Consider, if you will, the revival of an ancient tradition: the letters of marque and reprisal.  As it happens, the U.S. Constitution specifically delegates to Congress the ability to issue letters of marque:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.

Suppose that instead of using the official uniformed U.S. military, Congress were to grant modern day letters of marque and reprisal to various individuals, companies, paramilitary organizations, and the like to carry out certain principles of foreign policy.  For example, such a letter of marque might simply state that it is the policy and desire of the United States to effect a regime change in Iran.  An enterprising Somali pirate might decide that it would be more profitable to start attacking Iranian shipping vessels than those protected by the American Navy, especially since the pirates would be working in furtherance of American foreign policy goals.

Suppose that radical Islamic preachers begin to get assassinated in Beirut, in Karachi, in London, and elsewhere by private “terror groups” that share our views about the desirability of such radical clerics continuing to breath.

Suppose that a paramilitary organization somewhere in the North Korea-Chinese border start to kill North Korean officers, bomb government buildings, and generally destabilize that government.

Question is… is this something we could tolerate as a people?

The Left already considers our military to be a bunch of mercenaries anyhow, but there is something less-than-noble about using the tactics of our enemies against them.  Nonetheless, the prospect of a world where America simply doesn’t care about defending democracy, defending human rights, defending freedom is awful.  And rather than utilizing our big military designed to do big things, perhaps embracing the tactics of the enemy that work so well against us might be the way to fight this war.

But can we live with ourselves fighting those kinds of wars?  Can we still be the United States and be engaging in hundreds of little conflicts using private, paramilitary, civil, media, and other “many and small” centers of force?

I don’t know, but would love your thoughts.

-TS

PS: Yes, I realize that many laws would need to change in order to engage in these kinds of actions.  Assume that those laws are in fact changed, if we the people desire it to be so.

Foreigners should not be allowed to try to influence American elections.

Wow.  So he’s opposed to scenes like this one:

And this one:

After all, foreigners should not be allowed to try to influence American elections.  And the last I checked, if you were not a citizen, even if you are a legal immigrant, you are a foreigner without the right to vote.

I’m sure Markos will be putting out a post telling all these “immigrant activist” groups to butt the hell out of American electoral politics, or at least making sure that they remove foreign influence from amidst their ranks.  Only citizens should be able to join La Raza, only citizens should be members of MALDEF, and so on.

I await the revelation with baited breath.

-TS

PS: No, not really waiting with baited breath.

But… I have a slightly different view of these events.

In sports parlance, this is a must-win game for us.  There’s no doubt about that.  As eburke said:

Am I underestimating the lengths and depths that these enemies of freedom will go to enact the Holy Grail of socialism for which they have schemed and plotted for 70 years? Absolutely not. Do I understand that the stakes have never been higher; that the carrot of pork and the stick of broken body parts will be tough to overcome. You bet Nancy Pelosi’s botox-injected bottom I do.

I’m just saying “Screw ‘em!” If we lose this, then let’s lose kicking and screaming and punching and gouging right up until they close the vote on Sunday. Let us not get so caught up in their lies, deceit and utter lack of scruples that we become discouraged and give up the fight before the final blow has been struck.

At the same time, I would like to remind all of us that this is but one battle in the larger war against statism, socialism, and collectivism.  This is a war that has been going on at least since the Progressive era in the early 20th century (see, e.g., Liberal Fascism), and if we think of it in terms of Liberty vs. the would-be Kings, then from the dawn of human history.

Two implications arise from this thought.

If We Lose

First, should we lose this battle against socialized medicine, we cannot give up even then.  As I see it, the LibProgs would love nothing more than to make this monstrosity the killing blow against the forces of individual liberty.  The doomsayers even on our side would explain that once we have socialized medicine, the country is permanently on the path to socialism until we end up like Greece or the UK.

So if Pelosi, Reid and Obama somehow manage by hook or by crook or by wholly unconstitutional measures to get this bill passed, signed into “law”, and said law survives numerous legal challenges… they’d like us to believe that the game is over.  As Obama said during the Sham-Wow Summit, “The election is over, John.”  That is what they’d like us to believe.  We would get demoralized, withdraw from politics, move to Texas, and start stockpiling food and ammo.

I’d like to say, “NO” to that.  Even if we should lose, and lose kicking and screaming, and Sunday comes and the “historic vote” goes against us… it isn’t over.  Perhaps one chapter is over, and the passage of nationalized healthcare marks the end of the beginning, but I refuse to agree that it means the beginning of the end.

We will fight on, first to nullify, second to repeal.  We will remove every single “Yes” vote on the bill, replace those who may have been squishy in defending individual liberty, and build to win the next one.  And build and build to win the larger war.

If We Win

Second, should we win tomorrow, then like a great sports team, we’ll celebrate for a day or two… but then get back to work.  Even if we win this battle, the war is not over.  Let me say that again: even if we win this battle against socialized medicine, the war against statism is not over.

Our energies are directed against this monstrosity, and for good reason.  But even if we win, we simply cannot relax, cannot let our guard down, or slap each other on the back and go back to the “way things were”.  We now see very clearly what the Left in this country wants to accomplish.  We now see the depths to which they would sink in order to get their agenda imposed on us.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Like the nation’s War Against Islamists, and prior to that like our struggle against international Communism, this is a multi-generational war.  It will not end with a single battle, a clear declaration of victory or surrender, on either side.  The LibProgs will not surrender, acknowledge defeat, and become freedom-loving pro-market libertarians, because they lost one battle or another.  Neither can we.

The Long War

The Tea Parties and the other uprising by the average American are hopeful signs.  We have always known that the American people are mostly conservative-leaning, if almost entirely disconnected from politics.  It’s built in to our national character: the frontier spirit, the independence, the leave-me-alone attitude.  We now know that the Left has taken advantage of that to build a multi-generational capacity to implement their agenda: our schools, our churches, our media, our government institutions — they have all been penetrated and corrupted by the Left in systematic fashion.

The Long War for us then is simple: we win, they lose.  Just as in the War Against Islamists, we must fight against the ideology while we win on the ground.  We must contest and win every election, but start the war against the ideology of the Left: that the state is supreme, and the individual small; that the community trumps the personal; that the United States is a government that takes care of its denizens, rather than a people who have a government.  We must take the fight to their institutions, discredit their ideas, attack their ideology to show it for tyranny that it is, and never ever relax.

We have done this once already as a nation.  Our war against racial inequality began almost from the start of the Republic; it took hundreds of years, and we fought a Civil War partially to reaffirm the idea that the color of a man’s skin is not reason enough to enslave him.  We fought bloody battles in the streets against racist ideology that held blacks are inferior to whites.  And we fought battles in our institutions to reject and discredit the ideology of racism.

We might have gone too far in many cases in our zeal to stamp out the ideology of racial superiority, such that political correctness and the like are now new problems we need to correct.  But in the big picture, that is a war that we as a nation have won.  You cannot find anyone other than a fringe kook who believes that blacks are inferior to whites, that blacks shouldn’t be allowed to vote, and so on.

And disagree as I might with Barack Obama, the fact that the United States of America elected a black man to the highest office in the land is a clear sign that we, as a people, have won the war against racism.

We now need to win the war against statism.  It will take years, generations, perhaps even centuries.  We may have to fight bloody streetfights, as the Civil Rights Movement has had to do.  But that is the war.

The battle over Obamacare is a big one; we will fight like hell to win this one.  But that is a battle.

Win or lose, I submit to you that we are in a marathon, not a sprint.  That we are engaged in the Long War against tyranny and statism.  That we cannot give up if we lose, and we cannot relax if we win.

So gird up.  Prepare for the long haul.  Teach your children well, so that they might teach theirs.

-TS