Dubya Tries to Hop on Tea Party Bandwagon

2 12 2010

As the Tea Party has been gathering steam, people from all over are cramming in to see if they can catch a piece of the pie.  And the pie gets bigger by the minute – with four Senate seats – those of Rand Paul (KY), Pat Toomey (PE), Marc Rubio (FL) and Mike Lee (UT) – being claimed by the Tea Party movement.  There is even talk of a Tea Party Caucus in the Senate and House during the next congressional cycle.  Former President George W. Bush has been trying to capitalize on the political success of the movement like any other.  It may seem odd that he would do that, given that his two constitutionally legal terms of office are over and he cannot rise any farther than he has been in the past.  But his brother Jeb is now being speculated about as a potential Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential election.  Now George seems to be trying to mobilize Tea Party support for his Jeb’s run to follow in his footsteps.

The Tea Party movement and its members would have to have really short memories if they were to follow the former president’s lead and throw their support behind another Bush.  It is important to remember that the Tea Party originally rose in response to cronyism overspending by the BUSH Administration which has been expanded and continued by the Obama Administration.  It is easy to forget – with all the attention centered around Obama – that Bush was the original target of the movement.  The Tea Party will only get behind candidates true to their values and RINOs like Bush will not qualify.  Sure, the Tea Party was largely behind Scott Brown here in Massachusetts and he’s a centrist on fiscal issues, but he was the best the Tea Party could settle for in the bluest state in the nation.  Let’s not forget that George Bush snubbed now Senator-Elect Marc Rubio when he was running in the primary against establishment candidate Charlie Crist.  Now Bush is playing like he knew the Tea Party was the real deal all along.

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Categories : News, Politicians, Tea Party Movement

Judge Napolitano’s Major Fail

1 12 2010

Fox news commentator Judge Napolitano has recently committed political suicide by publicly associating himself with ridiculous 9/11 conspiracy theories.  He said in an interview that he questions what has come to be established as the obvious truth and Common Sense of the matter.

 

“I think 20 years from now, people will look at 9/11 the way they look at the assassination of JFK today,” he added, in an interview with radio host Alex Jones. “It couldn’t possibly have been done the way the government told us.”

 

I was surprised to hear that Fox, which typically holds a center-right tendency, will not be taking any action in response to these surprising comments.  I was personally shocked to hear these anti-Common Sense remarks coming from a man who has at times acted like a Common Sense warrior in the past.  I even own one of his books.  He has such a down-to-earth and vast knowledge of history, our Constitution and the way that the law should properly be carried out based on the principles the country was founded on.  He may not have directly stated that he believed 9/11 was an inside job but this is still too much of a step over the edge.  When he hints at lending undeserved credibility to crackpot conspiracy junk, he not only diminishes his own credibility but also the credibility of the other ideas he promotes as an individual.  The Common Sense warrior becomes a Common Sense liability and stands counterproductive to the spirit of what he champions.  I used to admire him a lot and now I need to be ashamed of that.

It is a shame that the Tea Party and the Campaign for Liberty find themselves infiltrated with conspiracy theorists and other fringe elements.  The traditionalist position stands against the tyranny of the status quo and that makes the position of liberty seem like that of an outsider sometimes.  This creates temptation to ally with others who feel like outsiders to build a stronger force.  9/11 Truthers are treated as fringe outsiders by the elite – and rightfully so, unlike the Tea Party movement.  However, they also have an anti-big government, anti-establishment streak to their rhetoric which deludes some into believing that the Truthers and the Tea Party should be allies.  All too many Tea Partiers carelessly accept them into their ranks and weaken the viability of their own positions.  It reinforces the fringe image of their platform propogated by elitists, propaganda artists and Big Media.  People like Judge Napolitano cripple themselves through such pandering.

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The Ideological Evolution of the Republican Party

15 02 2010

Politics can be an immensely complicated subject and in the American political system there is only room for two parties to exist in the long-run.  Therefore, each of the two parties is highly factionalized, with each individual member agreeing with anywhere from fifty-one to ninety-nine percent of the party platform.  The Republican Party has had the dominant school of thought within itself shift so many times that the old school adherents may barely recognize it anymore.  Republican politicians can be identified by their place on the political spectrum as “Rockefeller Republicans,” neoconservatives, theoconservatives, paleoconservatives, libertarians, neolibertarians, paleolibertarians, Independent Republicans, etc.  From the 1930s to the 1970s the country as a whole was largely Democratic and the moderate wing of the party had the most sway.  These are known as liberal/moderate Republicans or the more old-fashioned name:  Rockefeller Republicans after Nelson Rockefeller.

The Rockefeller Republicans had been the preferred faction of the party for many years – in every presidential election from 1928 to 1976 with the sole exception of 1964, the party nominated a moderate-to-liberal candidate.  With Ronald Reagan’s ascent in 1980, that began to change.  Slowly new political forces came forward and the ideology of the party became less rigid.  In 1994 Republican Minority Whip Newt Gingrich unveiled the famous Contract with America, which reflected the sentiment of the election season which gave the party both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.  The 1994 “Republican Revolution” was largely led by younger members of the party.  Many old timers who served during the Rockefeller Era were critical, believing the Contract to be too ambitious.  That may seem ironic since a lot of conservatives today view the Contract as a failure.  I can understand such arguments – a lot of the promises were broken and starting in the early 2000s the Republicans started growing the size of government, with the original sentiment of the Contract in the past.  However, the Contract was not a failure from the very beginning. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : History, Israel-Palestine Conflict, Neocon-Theocon Hegemony, Obama Administration, Sovereignty, States, Taxes and Spending, Theory, War on Drugs

It’s Planting A Seed, Not Giving A Shot

18 10 2009

There was a recent exchange between Glenn Back and Law Professors Duncan Hollis and Chris Borgen.  The topic was Harold Koh – one of Obama’s new appointees who has advocated using international law as a precedent for interpreting American law.  Glenn Beck pointed out that if we cede our sovereingty to an international body, our Constitution is dead.  Law professors Hollis and Borgen interjected, pointing out that Koh only advocated looking at decisions in other countries for educational expertise.  Well, first off, America has been doing this for 233 years, I think we have our own educational expertise.  Secondly, while Hollis and Borgen are probably right in the short-run, Beck is right in the long-run, which is what actually matters.  Accepting Koh’s philosophy is like planing a seed, not giving a shot.  If you give a shot to someone, it is a one time stimulant.  If you plant a seed, it will grow and grow to something far bigger and harder to escape then what you had originally.

In other words, if we start using foreign law as an “educational basis,” we run the risk of allowing too much foreign law into our own, which would contribute to the decline of the American Constitution and the American sovereign nation.  Koh advocates that we see ourselves not as a unique free nation, but as part of a global human rights movement.  Koh may be reframing our law in order to further his anti-freedom agenda regarding gun rights.  He has advocated a global regulatory agency to outlaw all firearms, something which international agencies from other countries who lack understanding in the gun issue as we do.  Other countries have gotten better over time and good for them but America remains the first and the best.  If we allow foreign influence into our law precedent than we are merely watering ourselves down.  And besides, our Constitution was crafted by geniuses and we would do best to preserve it so we can enjoy such freedom as long as possible.  If any manipulative interpretation is made, from foreign law or not, it spells our demise.  A living Constitution is a dead Constitution.


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