Republicans know what to conserve

"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" So said Abraham Lincoln.Those words are from his Cooper Institute Address on February 27, 1860, in the City of New York, one of Lincoln's most important stepping stones to the Republican presidential nomination and ultimately the Presidency.

The Republican Party had been formed in 1854 in opposition to the plan of the Democratic Party to spread slavery into the western territories. It did so on the basis of the principle enshrined in the Declaration of Independence "that all men are created equal." That principle was, and is, revolutionary in its conception and its application.

It is no small thing to proclaim the equality of all human beings when the existence of oppressive governments and rigid class structures in so much of the world would suggest otherwise. Kings and nobles, warlords and priests, have ground down the liberties of the human race for thousands of years. Yet the human mind can look upon this condition and conceive of the freedom of man based on his natural faculties rather than his political situation.

These comments may seem odd and maybe even ironic as Republicans have been understood as more conservative than the Democrats, their chief rivals for public office. But what is conservative about a principle which has been responsible for overturning monarchies and aristocracies, beginning with British colonial rule in North America, next bringing about the abolition of chattel slavery in the United States, and finally defeating totalitarian regimes in the 20^th century?

Even the most revolutionary regimes are established to last, so their future is always more conservative than their past. The United States is a democratic republic which has survived for more than two centuries. Yet because it is a nation founded in revolutionary principles it has undergone considerable reform, the chief cause of its periodic upheavals and wars.

The current challenge is the threat of socialism at home and terrorism and despotism abroad. The Republican party seeks to conserve our constitutional form of government and our free way of life, to be sure, but its principles are as revolutionary as they ever were. Freedom and equality need a stable and energetic government for their security, even as they are a reproach to governments that overreach.

Just now the Democrat party is actually the more conservative of the two parties as its leaders wish to preserve and extend the modern welfare state. Not satisfied with a federal government that manages the retirement and health care of the elderly, Democrats today seek to usurp all private alternatives in the most expensive federal program yet, universal health care (AKA socialized medicine).

Republicans long ago reconciled themselves to the modern welfare state, but fear its tendency to undermine personal initiative, encourage public dependency and transfer wealth from working to non-working people. They understand that today’s health care crisis is mainly caused by a government/private network which shifts the burden of costs from the consumer to third parties, continually driving up costs and limiting availability.

The purpose of our form of government is to secure everyone’s rights, not to assume the responsibilities which rightfully belong to each of us. Republicans know that America’s combination of freedom with responsibility is revolutionary but wish to conserve it against reactionary and elitist Democrat attempts to turn back the clock to the feudal era, when the common people depended upon the generosity of their supposed "betters."

As revolutionary as free enterprise is in the world, it is the "tried and true" method for promoting prosperity and enhancing human dignity. Democrats believe that the cure for the evils of the welfare state is more of the same. Popular majorities are perpetually tempted to use their political power to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor, but the Republican party exists to conserve the free institutions which enable people to prosper without recourse to socialism.

The federal government is now so big–and so costly ($3 trillion annual budget, $10 trillion national debt)–that it may require more than just a holding action to avoid despotism. The Republicans need to "think anew and act anew" (Abraham Lincoln’s phrase) in order to conserve freedom and equality. John McCain’s proposal to encourage individuals, through federal income tax credits, to pay for their health care is a good start.

What we need is the return of limited government and free enterprise, a radical undertaking given the formidable obstacles that stand in the way. But just as Republicans pledged themselves to the ultimate extinction of slavery, so they now would be wise to aim at the withering away of the welfare state. Therein lies the return of our liberty.

Disgustingly cheerful, still

Time for another few thoughts of glee. It has been a beautiful morning. I want to sing along with the cast of Oklahoma! My permasmile turned on full blast, I will never turn it off. (Unless the batteries run out) 1. McCain proceeds unto his doom, doom. Two more weeks of impending doom.

2. Likewise the GOP. It now abides in rigor mortis while preparing for actual decomposition.

3. What shall it fertilize?

4. McCain's loss must not be blamed on Palin. Keep an eye out for those who will attempt such.

5. Does anyone now know what "Conservatism" means? Well... How'd things slip away? Perhaps Neoconservatism has proved fatal to Conservatism.

6. Christopher Buckley has just been purged from National Review. Thus enhancing NR's irrelevance.

7. Not that Christopher didn't deserve it, after endorsing Obama and all.

8. Buckley Junior recently wrote: "Eight years of 'conservative' government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance."

9. Ouch. WFB couldn't have said it better himself. And he surely would have tried.

10. Interesting question: If WFB had supported Buchanan in 92 and 96, where would the conservative movement be today? And the nation?

11. Colin Powell endorses Obama at a key juncture. Why? Powell will forever seethe over his February 2003 UN speech which started the Iraq War. A bold betrayal written for him by key Neocons: Scooter Libby, Douglas Feith, John Hannah, William Luti. Powell had deep misgivings beforehand, but ultimately decided to "trust" and do his "duty." Turned out the whole heap of "evidence" was false. Whoops on all counts.

12. As for the markets... There are no guides for the road ahead. No signs, no taillights. Maybe even no pavement. Hence Norman's permasmile!

Well chaps, so much for today's inspiration. Remember, the thoughts make the man -- Let us keep on the sunny side!

Respectfully Yours, Norman Vincent Peale

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But Dave Crater begs to differ...

Norman, Norman. Sigh. Your basic instincts have always been good, but you continue to disappoint in some aspects of your conscious judgment. When you are slightly to the left of Colin Powell on national security, perhaps second thoughts are in order. And when glee is your reaction at the demise of the world's strongest conservative party, perhaps third and fourth thoughts are in order.

4. Agreed. Many will dish blame everywhere but where it belongs, including Palin and other Christian social conservatives. One can hear it now: "the GOP needs to abandon these social cavemen that are holding it back and focus on issues that Americans really care about" blah blah blah.

5. Perhaps the failure to observe and follow conservatism, particularly by "conservative" intellectuals like Peale or Christopher Buckley, and by actual policy makers like GWB and John McCain, has been fatal to conservatism.

6-9. Quoting as authority on conservatism someone who has endorsed Obama -as I say, poor judgment, Amigo.

Reach him at crater@wilberforcecenter.org

Bunyan replies to Peale

Editor: Answering Dose 1 below, Crater signed this one John Bunyan, identifying with the author of "Pilgrim's Progress." Dave Crater writes:

Interesting you should take Dr. Peale as your namesake - there is the "power of positive thinking" irony in your note of course, but more substantively there is the hollowing out of Christian faith in the 20th century in which Dr. Peale was at the center.

It is that hollowing out which has been bearing bitter fruits like our current ones for about a century now - where faith in God becomes merely "positive thinking," belief in free markets and property rights becomes merely welfare state "capitalism;" where a government that tries to play God then plays the savior from the economic disasters it causes; where economic and financial understanding becomes merely "monetarism" or "Keynesianism" or, as Larry Kudlow wrote this morning, "we need government to act in order to fix the free market"; where genuine compassion and private generosity become merely taxation and wealth redistribution; where personal responsibility and moral hazard get pushed off to a later date when we've solved the latest crisis caused by the dearth of those very values; when political statesmanship becomes merely Barney Frank; and where republicanism and Republicanism become merely John McCain.

We'll never get the politics right until we get right who God is - hint: He's not in Washington - but from a political standpoint, "neoconservatism," a modern incarnation of the classical principles of conservative thought, has been more observed by the Bush administration in passing and in the breach than in the observance. It is the answer, not the problem.

Responses to your notes:

1. Agreed. The race is over.

2. Ditto. Perhaps now we can stop the empty cheerleading among the GOP political classes? McCain is pathetic - there is no other word for it.

3. GWB as right as ever on Iraq and history will remember him so. GWB as wrong as Hoover on financial crisis, what causes it, what fixes it, and what economic leadership is, and history will remember his $700 billion bailout as simply another weak capitulation to 20th-century statism.

4. GWB indeed a shell - the kind of shell that has taken a steady beating for doing what is right (Iraq), then instead of permanently choosing the right side of the street and building on this foreign policy conservatism a coherent and courageous set of socially and economically conservative initiatives, a la Reagan building himself and the nation a genuine legacy in exchange for the unavoidable public relations beating in the media, he routinely sells out to welfare state expansion and economic statism, trying like McCain to drive in the middle of the street and getting himself hit by traffic going in both directions. He, the nation, and the GOP have suffered inordinately as a result.

5. Agreed, though few will understand where they actually went wrong. See aforementioned dearth of economic understanding rooted in dearth of spiritual understanding.

6. Those who maintain traditional Christian faith sleep peacefully amidst the confusion, for the Almighty is still in His temple. Psalm 2 comes to mind: "Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing?"

7. We should align with traditional (i.e., true) faith and classical (i.e., true) political conservatism. That means no more John McCains, Bob Doles, or Gerald Fords - how much mediocrity do we have to endure before we recognize what it looks like?

8. "A bit more deflation"? Deflation ended 5 years ago. Commodities are at twice their historic levels - we are well into a period of inflation.

Early Debate Returns: Bad for McCain

I watched the debate tonight with growing frustration at John McCain's failure to attack Obama squarely on his confiscatory economic policies. I've finally come to the conclusion that John McCain is unable (or unwilling) to promote the kind of conservative economic message that I think much of this country is wanting to hear.  Instead, he's splitting hairs with Barack Obama on the economy -- and losing in the process. I'm always interested in the views of Steven Hayes at the Weekly Standard -- he's a smart, reasonable writer who I read frequently.  His review of the debate is that Obama won. Here's part of what he had to say:

"John McCain had a very strong debate tonight. It’s too bad for him that it came on a night when Barack Obama was nearly flawless.

The debate began with questions on the economy and for thirty minutes Obama answered those questions with the kind of substance that I suspect anxious voters wanted to hear and with exactly the right tone – empathic, aggravated and determined. Most important, he spoke to voters in their own language. In his first answer, in response to a question about things the government can do to help average Americans through these tough economic times, Obama spoke of a $400,000 junket that AIG executives took after the government bailed them out. “Treasury should get that money back,” he said, “and those executives should be fired.” Sure, a little demagoguery. But it’s exactly the kind of story – in a debate that included back-and-forth accusations and lots of statistics – that voters will remember and talk about tomorrow with their neighbors.

McCain took that first question and he turned immediately to energy. “Americans are angry, they’re upset and they’re a little fearful. And it’s our job to fix the problem. Now, I have a plan to fix this problem and it’s got to do with energy independence.  It didn’t work. Two months ago, when gas prices were nearing $5 and the cost of oil dominated the headlines, the McCain campaign deftly used anxieties about energy as a proxy for anxieties about the economy. So when McCain proposed to lift the ban on offshore drilling, voters responded positively and the polling reflected their enthusiasm."

This is what I was afraid of: McCain being unable to clearly articulate why Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress is a danger to our economy. The reflexive return of McCain and Palin to the energy issue is a comfort zone and understandable -- but not good enough in this economy. McCain seems unable to explain to the American people that Obama's tax policies and his liberal record will be a poison pill to an economy that needs liquidity. It needs low taxes to fuel growth -- something that simply isn't possible with Obama's tax-and-spend plan.

Even worse, McCain's populist instincts are taking him down the wrong path. Rather than returning to a free-market solution to what should be a free market problem, his instinct is to increase regulation and government control -- exactly what Obama and the Democrats want to do. He again misses a chance at differentiation. Here's Hayes again:

"But while energy issues remain important and cannot be separated from the broader economic picture, the convulsions in world markets over the past two weeks and the need for a $700 billion federal bailout have rendered worries about gas prices and energy independence to second-tier status. It’s not that these issues don’t matter, it’s just that they matter less now than they did over the summer. He later broadened his answer to include spending, tax cuts and his jaw-dropping plan to have the federal government buy up “the bad home loan mortgages in America” to “let people make those payments and stay in their homes.” So bigger government is bad, quasi-governmental entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “ignited” the current economic crisis, too much government spending is leaving us broke and we want the U.S. Treasury to renegotiate individual home mortgages? Seriously? No thanks."

No thanks is right. The correct and powerful answer here is to reignite the economy through lower taxes to stimulate jobs and growth so people can pay their mortgages -- NOT to have the government take over that role. This mess in the housing market is partly an issue of personal behavior -- not simply predatory lending. I, for one, am not interested in my tax dollars going to bail out people who made bad decisions. I think many Americans would agree with that. Unfortunately, McCain's instincts don't lead him down that path. He's still in the "Wall Street greed" mode.

I hate to throw in the towel here, but...it is now clear that the issues that many conservatives have with McCain are legitimate and real. That despite his great personal story, his maverick personality often betrays a message that would greatly appeal to a great swath of America. He's actually give people less of a choice by co-opting the position of Obama on so many issues.

My guess is that the polls are not going to be good for McCain after this performance tonight. In a debate where he really needed to help himself, I'm afraid he's come up short.

We'll see.

The Howard Beal election

It's hard to turn on the TV these days. The news and images from Washington are like a train wreck. The height of hypocrisy: the crooks who made this mess posturing for a bailout on the backs of the taxpayer... looking stern and serious while they sit in gilded offices paid for by the investment banks and mortgage firms -- those that provided them with cheap loans to their poor constituents, while profiting handsomely from complex, opaque financial instruments that no one understands. While Washington slept the market ran wild, fueled by impossibly cheap money and overabundant credit. The Wall Street Journal ran a picture of J.P. Morgan the other day. He looks like a banker: stern, serious, practical. I wonder if he'd have given people $400,000 stated income loans; not a piece of paper to prove their earning or their ability to pay it back. That's what we did in the hyper-fueled lending world of Freddie and Fannie. You need to buy a house. Can't afford it? No problem, we'll cover you. Can you imagine J.P. Morgan doing anything so stupid?

And now comes the final indignity: the "bail out". The House yesterday decided not to pass a $700 billion bailout bill. They did so to prove that we are still a free market. They did so to save their reelection chances. They did so to protest the Bush Administration and their total mishandling of this crisis from start to finish. Whatever the reason: it failed. And rightly so.Does anyone really think that the Bush, Paulson or Bernanke have any idea what is really going on here? Fortune Magazine reported last week that the $700 billion number that Paulson chose has no analysis behind it:

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Wow. How comforting is that? We know that markets operate on psychology, and that the large number is designed to provide confidence in the market that the government has a big enough solution to take care of the problem. I understand that.

But I also understand something that George W. Bush and his team have never understood: this is also a political issue during a presidential election. The Bush Administration remains totally tone deaf to the concerns of the American people. While the $700 billion number may calm financial markets, it has shocked, dismayed and infuriated the American taxpayer.

Hello? Is anyone out there? Does George Bush really want Barack Obama to become president? It sure looks that way.

In fact, Bush's handling of this issue looks a lot like the war in Iraq before General Petraeus went to Baghdad. It looks incompetent, poorly planned and poorly executed. It looks just like the mess that Gens. Casey and Abizaid got us into, with American soldiers dying daily amid violence and chaos on the television. Total mis-management. The American people lost confidence in Donald Rumsfeld in 2004. And what did the President do? He held his course, kept Rummy on and took a beating in the 2006 midterm elections. Bush was shocked to take such a shellacking. He didn't understand the level of discontent among the voters then -- and he doesn't understand it now. Americans in vast numbers are angry at Washington. Mad as hell, as Howard Beale famously yelled out the window in the movie Network. And they aren't going to take it anymore.

[photopress:180px_Network12_1.jpg,full,pp_image]

Who will pay the ultimate price for this debacle? John McCain. He's been swallowed whole by this mess and his campaign will never recover. Yes, he miscalculated -- the whole "suspending his campaign" gambit backfired. Frankly, his instincts on the bailout were wrong; his behavior showed him as a legislator. A compromiser. Not as an executive who had to make a tough call in a crisis. He temporized and vacillated.

In fact, McCain missed a golden opportunity: He could have taken the momentum and initiative away from Obama and come out forcefully against the bailout from the beginning. He could have stood up in the debate and said:

I'm against this because I don't believe in taxpayers footing the bill for what is essentially a $700 billion entitlement program. Yes, I know the situation is serious and that we need to provide relief to the credit markets. But there is a better, less-intrusive way to do this: change the "market-based" accounting rules so that firms can revalue their portfolios to something that reflects their true intrinsic value. Provide loans and guarantees that the firms will pay interest on, etc. etc. etc.

But McCain didn't do that. He didn't see the opportunity for bold action and decisive decision-making. He could have put Obama in a corner. And with public opinion running 2:1 against the bailout, the polls would have been on his side.

In the end, this is the kind of crisis that either makes or breaks a candidate. The odds were against McCain from the beginning, but his handling of this issue has fallen short. He was dealt a bad hand by Bush and his bumbling lieutenants; in this case, running against Bush would have been smart for McCain. But it was the kind of "game changing" opportunity that comes about only once in a campaign. If you seize it, you win. If you don't, you lose.

So far, McCain hasn't seized it, and unless Palin pulls out a miracle against Biden and McCain can rally in the last two debates, the Republicans will lose on November 4.