Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: MicroBalrog on November 10, 2012, 04:17:53 AM
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http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2012/nov/09/mitt-romney-conservatives-can-still-win
Republican congressional candidates ran successfully on anti-corporatist and anti-elitist platforms. Mitt Romney, by contrast, supported the bailouts, and seemed a throwback to the preppy, northeastern, unsuccessful GOP of the mid-20th century. Like so many European rightists, he seemed to smile upon crony capitalism. As in Europe, voters were unimpressed.
Here's the main deal:
A free-market candidate can win if he's honestly free-market, and anti-elitist. Let's turn class warfare around on its users.
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Romney and his handlers were a throwback to the Nixon administration. So called conservatives that were in reality a leftists and statist (I repeat myself) as democrats. Conservatives hated it then and they evidently hated it now as evidenced by the noshow of something like 3 million republicans at the polls.
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The libertarian model is finished at the national level under the current circumstances. I say this as a staunch believer in this as a philosophy. Unless and until there is a major, extinction level event (metaphorically speaking), the belief in laissez-faire capitalism and the supremacy of the individual is as dead as chivalry.
We are outnumbered by the FSA, and have lost the culture war. An overwhelming majority, including a majority of nominal republicans, believe its okay to rob Peter to pay Paul. Once you accept that idea, the justification for doing so becomes easier and easier. I recall the Hillary/Obama debate scene in which O was perfectly happy to accept a diminished income from capital gains taxes in the pursuit of "fairness".
The hope you seem to offer in the premise of your question distracts me from the energy I spend in preparing my self and my heirs for the new reality.
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The wording has to be changed.
If you are offering an ideology by which rich and middle-class people (and for most listeners, rich people are The Other, and many suspect that 'middle-class' is just republican code for 'rich) can keep their suits and ties while the poor peopl get thrown off welfare, yes, I agree with you it's morally right - but it's not what you should pitch it as.
How about: "Why would you accept billionaires and millionaires using their money and lobbyists to enact regulations that keep the poor and middle-class down? Liberal billionaires want to tell you how much soda to drink, corporate lobbyists want to keep regulations complex and expensive to keep poor folks down and to keep prices high, Big Agra receives billions of dollars of regulations at the expense of poor folks' taxes! I, Republican Candidate Joe Texan, promise you to always stand against these elitists!"
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In that same vein, I think we could be a lot further along, if instead of saying "redistribution of wealth," all those pundits had said "redistribution of money" or "income" or "property." The one gives the impression that only the wealthy are losing their stuff. But virtually everyone has some money or income or property to lose.
Or maybe we should just say "taking your stuff."
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"Libertarianism" is an academic ideal. Where we need to pitch our last defense is the protection of Constitutional liberties that protect the individual's inalienable rights. We need to make clear to Everyman that we are talking about his enslavement on every level. It's really pretty simple, but apparently too simple for Romney to have articulated.