by Linda Morgan
As goes Energy, so goes the country.
“The worse, the better,†Vladimir Lenin is said to have observed. What Lenin meant was that the worse social conditions became in Russia, the more likely he and the Bolsheviks could foment a communist revolution. President Barrack Obama’s White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently updated Lenin’s maxim, saying, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.â€Last Friday, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives took those maxims to heart when they pushed through their 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act by a vote 219 to 212. The bill is supposed to address the twin crises of economic recession and climate change by creating millions of new “green†jobs. Instead of an old-fashioned Soviet-style five-year plan, ACES can be thought of as 50-year plan to radically transform how Americans produce and use energy.
…Well, look, Ron Bailey, this entire administration seems to me to emulate the tactics of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, in all things, not just energy… and in my view we’ve not seen nearly the worst of it yet. (A Depressing thought as we come to July 4th, isn’t it?)
So why should Energy be any different? Energy, after all, is the key to our country and it’s prosperity. Which of course was why I raised such holy hell when the first thing Obama did upon being sworn in was to reverse President Bush’s sign off on offshore drilling. That action is the major reason oil prices have better than doubled in the last 6 months.
The question that Ron asks, though, seems to me pertinent:
Will Americans tolerate such sweeping interventions into their lives and workplaces?
…
The 1994 mid-term election became a referendum on [...]
by Art Smith
We are thinking heavily here about how to present a systematic approach to understanding what we call "Conservatism". Just this week, a fellow Iowa blogger Albert Bregar penned his thoughts at Red County Polk County and Iowa Defense Alliance.
Albert provides an excellent start with a view to how many of us think about defining the way conservatives see the world today (okay, such a view would include "Ronald Reagan came back for more"). We will certainly start looking around blogdom and start collecting a list of such statements as "Smaller Government" and build them into a resource.
But in stating the conservative view of today's world, we do limit ourselves to more of a statement of "how does conservative thinking apply to today's issues". What I hope we may eventually find is more of a basis for conservative thought. It's great to say [...]
by Art Smith
Conservatives have lost our political credibility. We have totally squandered opportunity after opportunity over the years because self-interest and ambition have eroded the integrity of Conservative politicians along with Liberal ones. And blind political stupidity in the Republican Party created a mess of alienated constituencies, including African Americans. P.J. O'Rourke wrote in The Weekly Standard (aptly titled "We Blew It"):
An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble.
O'Rourke goes on to[...]
by Linda Morgan
You’re going to hear quite a bit from the left over ‘the death of conservatism’ over the next few weeks. But they’ve got it wrong. I say, what we’ve got is the death of compromised conservatism as espoused by George W Bush, his father, GHW Bush, and by more recently, John McCain.
This morning, we see a post from Helen Valois at Renew America, who calls this ‘conservative conservatism’. I can quibble with the name she chooses, but not her meaning…
What is conservative conservatism? It is a commitment to playing a good defense (or rather — except for the one, brief, shining moment of Governor Palin’s acceptance speech — a pretty flawed defense) when your opponents have gone decisively on the offensive. It is that which John McCain quintessentially represents — the recalcitrant[...]
by Art Smith
Democrats for decades have been struggling with the inner turmoil of diverse political positions which have kept their party from setting a course that all Democrats can get behind. And this partly why that party has bled so many conservative Democrats to vote for...
