Iron Lady Of The Conservative Movement Is Dead At 87

April 8, 2013 2 Comments

Margaret Thatcher is dead today at the age of 87. Like with all people, especially public figures, I hope that she knew Jesus Christ before she died. Otherwise she will not be resting in any peace. Having said that, in remembering her life she is the most important British Prime Minister since Churchill. She lead Britain during the economically prosperous 80′s in much the same way as Ronald Reagan did here in the United States. Nick named the Iron Lady, she stood up for conservative principles and battled communists and assorted left-wing fascists the world over. (think the Falkland Islands)

Thatcher teamed with Ronald Reagan to actively oppose Communism. When she took control of the British government in 1979 the Soviet Union was still in existence and eastern Europe was still enslaved behind the iron curtain. Thatcher joined with Reagan in engaging the Soviets and while Reagan was ultimately responsible for bringing the Soviet Union to its knees, Thatcher was right behind him. But for Reagan and Thatcher, the Soviet Union would still exist and eastern Europe would still be in communist slavery. It was only because of the support of Reagan and Thatcher that gave the people of the east hope. Without American and British support, the people of eastern Europe would never have risen up against their communist overlords.

For those of us in the conservative movement, Thatcher’s passing is almost as significant as Reagan’s was. Obviously for our British conservative friends the two will be flip flopped. Thatcher was important for the conservative movement because she paved the way for Reagan. She began Britain’s economic turnaround before Reagan came to office. She cut taxes and paved the way for prosperity for her country in the 80′s and 90′s. Like with Reagan, she could have cut government more and it’s unfortunate that she didn’t. But what she and Reagan did was give a voice to the conservative majorities in both countries. They put conservative principles into action and it led to prosperity.

Both Britain and the US could stand for a little dose of Thatcher these days. Big government liberalism hasn’t led to prosperity. It’s only led to prolonged recession. Most Britain’s cannot look back and say that in economic terms they are better off today than in the 80′s. We Americans could say the same thing. Thatcher cut taxes and in doing so she unleashed prosperity for over a decade. She championed freedom and free markets both in her nation and around the world. The world is better off, at least in terms of freedom, than it was before she took office.

Thatcher’s death is an end of an era for the conservative movement. We in the US have already tried to move on from Reagan. It appears we have a number of conservatives who could adequately take his place on the national stage. No doubt there are conservatives in Britain capable of continuing forward with Thatcher’s conservative outlook. The era of the conservative return to power may be over but the torch is being carried on. We would be wise to renew our interest in the conservative principles of Thatcher and Reagan and apply them to the world we face today. Rather than looking for the next Thatcher or Reagan, which we will never be able to do, we must look to their conservative principles. Thatcher’s death perhaps gives us the opportunity to do so while we remember her extraordinary live.

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What Will Obama’s Legacy Be?

March 7, 2013 3 Comments

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker has an interesting piece about the powerless President Obama. The President last week complained that he doesn’t have a secret formula to force Boehner and the Republicans to see he’s right. This despite the fact that Obama is convinced all reasonable people see things his way. Lizza notes that Obama is one of the few President’s to publicly whine about their power limits. Lizza’s thesis is that in order for a President to be truly successful, he needs to have his party in control of Congress. Otherwise the government is divided and divided government leads to a weak President.

In some respects Lizza is right. Obama has become increasingly powerless against a united Republican opposition. He couldn’t work out a sequestration deal and odds are he’s going to have a hard time getting much of anything passed in the next couple years. The administration has so much as admitted they’re campaigning for 2014, hoping to win back a Democrat House majority. What we’re likely to see in 2013 and 2014 is an administration talking about building bridges with the GOP while refusing to actually sit down and negotiate any deals. When negotiation does take place, Obama will refuse a deal and try to paint the GOP as extreme. It’s all a rouse, he wants no deal because no deal aids the Democrats midterm election arguments.

Lizza’s argument fails because there are two President’s in recent memory who worked with opposition Congress’s and got part of their agenda passed. Reagan worked with a full Democrat Congress for six years and a Democrat House for eight. He negotiated with Congress. He won tax cuts and military spending increases, he gave up cuts to social programs in exchange. Clinton worked with a Republican majority for six years, he won a welfare reform battle where he co-opted the issue winning the reform plan he wanted. In both cases the President worked with and negotiated with Congress. They didn’t get everything they wanted but they got something done.

Obama was elected in 2008 claiming to be post-partisan. In his first week in office he declared that he had won and refused to listen to Republicans concerning the Stimulus bill. He set the tone for his Presidency, he likely had no clue the GOP would win the House in 2010. It’s very en vogue to blame gridlock in Washington on extreme partisanship.The reality is that Democrats and Republicans have been at each others throats in DC for 150 years. There was plenty of partisan rancor when Reagan and Clinton were in the White House. Recall Clinton was impeached while Reagan was subjected to Iran-Contra hearings.

Yet Reagan and Clinton were able to work with an opposition Congress and Obama has not been able to. The media won’t ever put the blame on Obama, they wonder why he can’t just lock them in a room and force Congress to negotiate. However blame certainly can be laid at the steps of the White House. This is a President who spent two years shutting the GOP out, now he wants something from them. That isn’t how it works in politics. You never shut out the opposition, you never get so arrogant as to think you or your party will never lose. A good President understand that he never knows what the future will bring and it’s best to keep as many political doors open as possible.

Obama expects everyone to cater to him because he’s the President. From day one he’s had a very elementary school view of the Presidency. He won’t work with Republicans because Republicans won’t give in to his every demand. When he gets Republicans to agree to something, he suddenly wants more like he did during the 2011 debt ceiling negotiation that gave us sequestration. Obama wants it all, he is unwilling to seriously negotiate. That’s on him, it isn’t on a suddenly united GOP front. When and if the Democrats fail to retake the House next year, the majority of Obama’s Presidency will have been spent on minor squabbles with the House. That will this President’s legacy. If that comes true, it will be on the President alone. The buck stops at the Oval Office.

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Is The GOP Too Extreme For Reagan?

June 18, 2012 Leave a comment

The Democrats have spent the better part of the last 50 years calling Republicans extreme. It’s expected that Democrats attack Republicans, accusing them of waging war on women, children, the elderly and anyone not earning over $250,000 a year. The Democrats are good at name calling, it masks the weakness of their arguments. Our ears perk up though when Republicans start calling our party extreme and not just turncoats and RINO’s like Joe Scarborough and David Brooks.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush claims Ronald Reagan is too moderate for today’s GOP. The left-wing media ran with the story last week, which isn’t a shock at all. The media loves infighting in the Republican Party, especially when it involves a Bush. In order to believe Jeb Bush and the liberal media, we have to suspend all logic and critical thinking skills. What Jeb said simply isn’t true and we can see it in the history of the Republican Party dating from 1980. In fact, we could even go back to Barry Goldwater in 1964, after all deep in your heart you know he was right.

If Reagan is too moderate to get the GOP nomination today, then we must be nominating even more conservative candidates for the White House. We’re in the process of nominating Mitt Romney, a man who a decade ago called himself a progressive. He’s a man whose belief in the conservative cause seems to have begun around six years ago when he ran for President. He didn’t run Massachusetts as a flaming liberal but he hardly ran the state like a bona fide conservative. At best Romney was a moderate governor who perhaps became more conservative during his four years in that office by becoming pro-life. But if Jeb Bush is right, Mitt Romney must be to the right of Reagan. That would be news to Reagan, not to mention Romney.

In 2008 our party nominated John McCain for President. McCain is a lifelong moderate who has always been more comfortable working with liberals against conservatives. He’s the author of McCain-Feingold which unconstitutionally limited speech. He barely qualifies as pro-life and hasn’t met a tax he wouldn’t like to raise. McCain is a media darling, largely because he’s so critical of conservative Republicans. Jeb Bush seems to think McCain is to the right of Reagan, it’s a comical fantasy that even McCain wouldn’t truly buy.

George W. Bush is as close to Reagan the party has nominated since 1984. He lowered taxes, though not to Reagan’s level. He did have a strong interventionist foreign policy, not unlike Reagan’s though with clearly different enemies. Where they differ is that Reagan didn’t come into office proposing massive government programs such as the Prescription Drug law Bush supported. Reagan went along with domestic spending increases to get military spending increases which he used to destroy the Soviet Union. Bush is more moderate than Reagan was but he’s nowhere near as liberal as McCain or Romney.

Bob Dole was a moderate, just like Jeb Bush’s father. Dole never advanced conservatism during his years in the Senate. He ran a dreadful campaign largely because he couldn’t distinguish himself from Clinton. Bush 41 ran as a Reagan conservative and governed as the moderate he ran as in 1980 against Reagan. He broke his promise not to raise taxes and got snookered by the Democrats who never cut spending in an equal amount. These guys are to the right of Reagan? Hardly.

Looking at Congress, are we to pretend that John Boehner is to the right of Reagan? He isn’t even to the right of Newt Gingrich when Gingrich was Speaker. Surely Dennis Hastert isn’t an extreme right-winger. In the Senate, Bob Dole led the party from the mid 80′s to the mid 90′s followed by Trent Lott, Bill Frist and Mitch McConnell. These guys are extremists? Jeb Bush is either living in a fantasy land or he’s been hanging out in the Florida sun for too long.

Since 1980 the Republican Party hasn’t nominated a Presidential candidate more conservative than Ronald Reagan. Surely no one believes Mitt Romney is to Reagan’s right. If we look at leadership in the House and Senate, is there any of them since the 80′s to Reagan’s right? The notion that the GOP has become an “extreme” party is the figment of the left-wing media’s imagination. The Republican Party hasn’t become extreme, we don’t nominate candidates more conservative than Reagan. If Reagan cannot get the nomination in 2012, perhaps it’s because we’ve become too moderate a party that cannot stomach a conservative. But of course you won’t hear moderates like Jeb Bush say that and you can bet the media will never say it.

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Romney More Like Progressive Nixon Than Conservative Reagan

June 10, 2011 4 Comments

Mitt Romney is the 2012 version of Richard Nixon. Not the tricky Dick of Watergate or the paranoid of the media and “enemies” Richard Nixon. But rather Mitt Romney is the modern version of progressive Richard Nixon. Nixon was never a conservative and in fact came from the progressive wing of the Republican Party. It wasn’t until Ronald Reagan in 1980 that the GOP became the conservative party that it is today. Prior to that progressives dominated the GOP just like they did the Democrat Party. Nixon comes out of that progressive tradition.

During Nixon’s six years as President he created the EPA, created and enforced wage and price controls and did absolutely nothing to scale back President Johnson’s Great Society welfare programs. He also didn’t do anything on tax cuts and in some cases he raised taxes. As I said, Nixon wasn’t a conservative. The results of his Presidency have been disastrous for the nation, even today. And of course I’m not even talking about Watergate. The EPA costs businesses billions of dollars and costs Americans thousands of jobs. Wage and price controls destroyed the economy into the 80′s and played a key role in destroying Jimmy Carter’s Presidency. (Carter ended up nailing his own coffin shut but Nixon’s policies certainly hurt him)

Mitt Romney isn’t a conservative. He’s talked about cutting taxes but other than that is there any solid conservative position that he holds? He’s flip flopped on abortion, so he doesn’t even have that issue to hang his hat on. He’s responsible for Romneycare in Massachussetts, which like Obamacare is a disaster. He believes in man made global warming/climate change and wants to use government to “fix” it. As Governor of Massachusetts he did little to curb regulations. This guy isn’t a conservative, he’s a progressive from the Nixon wing of the GOP.

How can we nominate a man who cannot even attack Obamacare without being charged as a hypocrite? How can we nominate a man who is just as far left on global warming as Obama is? Obama will have a field day with Romney in the debates when these issues come up. Romney stands with Obama more than he stands with conservatives. Supporting a few tax cuts doesn’t make someone a conservative. Even JFK cut taxes, he was hardly a conservative though. There has to be more to conservative philosophy than tax cuts. Surely big government health care programs, radical environmentalist regulations and the like don’t fit the conservative billing. Romney’s policies are much closer to Nixon’s than they are to Reagan’s or to general conservative philosophy.

The media doesn’t completely hate Mitt Romney, which ought to be a warning signal for conservatives. The left-wing mainstream press will turn on Romney if he gets the nomination but until then they have nothing but glowing things to say about him. That’s because he’s more like them than he is like the Tea Party. All of the conservative candidates are being attacked by the press, including a certain woman who isn’t even in the race. Sarah Palin was attacked for her Paul Revere comment three straight days on NBC’s Nightly News. If that isn’t over the top bias, I don’t know what is. In any event, Palin, Bachmann, Gingrich, and Pawlentey have all come under attack by the mainstream press but not Romney.

We Republicans need to nominate a real conservative this time around. We haven’t since 1984 when Reagan was nominated for re-election. Both Bush’s, Dole and McCain were all from the progressive wing of the party. In varying degrees of course, Dole and McCain more so than President Bush, 43. But they still all came from that wing of the party.

The problem for conservatives is that we’re split up between several candidates and the progressives are locked behind Romney. We need some attrition in our ranks and perhaps Gingrich’s recent troubles will remove one conservative from the ballot. What we cannot do is allow a progressive like Romney to win the nomination. A Romney victory will set conservative, Tea Party politics back 40 years.

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Thoughts On Reagan and His Strange Birthday Celebration

February 7, 2011 Leave a comment

Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s birth. There were celebrations held this weekend in all sorts of Republican quarters, including a celebration at the Reagan Library. I have to be honest, I found it all rather disturbing as it bordered on worship. Reagan was a Christian, the last thing he would have wanted is a worship service in his name held at his library. The library service was held at a time when most churches hold Sunday services, which I found to be disrespectful to both Jesus and Reagan. Beyond that, it seems odd to me that we’re celebrating the birthday of a man who is no longer with us. I can understand having a celebration if Reagan were alive, but he isn’t and it seems a little contrived to celebrate his 100th birthday.

I watched a portion of the Reagan library event. Half of the time it seemed as though the speakers wanted to get down on their knees and worship the man. Other times I was left waiting to see when they were going to put a paper party hat on Nancy and roll out a jelly bean cake. It was a strange scene indeed. Worse, the camera kept panning to smug Ron Reagan Jr. who is a disgrace to his father’s name. I never did see his loyal son Michael Reagan, I have no idea if he was even there. Maybe they sat him as far away from Ron as possible.

Reagan has been in the news a lot lately. Obama is apparently trying to channel Reagan’s optimism in his speeches. It’s as though the liberals believe that Reagan’s optimism concerning the future of America was just a character the old actor was playing. Reagan’s optimism wasn’t an act meant to fool the American people, it was genuine and real. If it was not genuine and real, the public wouldn’t have bought it for eight years. Obama’s recent spout of American optimism appears contrived, he doesn’t sound like he believes it. The public might buy it for a few weeks or months but he’s going to have a hard time selling American optimism over the long haul if he doesn’t really believe it.

On another front, the left is attacking Reagan by accusing him of being a liberal. Peggy Noonan does a good job debunking such nonsense. Reagan did not cut spending as much as I would have liked. He didn’t cut regulations as much as I would have liked and he didn’t cut taxes as much as I would have liked. But he did cut some regulations and he did cut some taxes. His foreign policy ended the Cold War. Reagan’s hatred of war and his fear of nuclear war fueled his peace through strength policy. Let’s not lie about the man’s legacy by calling him a liberal.

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Obama’s Attempt to Channel Reagan Hollow and Empty

January 27, 2011 Leave a comment

Newsweek has a new article out declaring that Ronald Reagan is the new inspiration over at the White House. The Obama administration seems to believe that if only they talked more like Reagan and used his soaring, positive rhetoric then Obama will just as popular as the Gipper. In looking to channel Reagan, the Obama administration not only proves that they just don’t get it but they also prove that they really believe the American electorate is stupid.

Reagan’s positive speeches are good because Reagan actually believed what he was saying. When Reagan spoke of American exceptionalism, he actually meant it. Obama seems to think that if he can just act positive like Reagan did, he can be as popular. But that’s not how it works. Reagan didn’t act positive in public because it made him popular, he spoke positively about American because he actually believed what he was saying. He wasn’t seeking to fool anyone or hide his true feelings. He was quite open about them and like it or not most of his feelings about America were positive.

You see, contrary to liberal orthodoxy Ronald Reagan wasn’t playing the role of Ronald Reagan when he was President. In other words, Reagan wasn’t just playing another character in order to dupe the American public. The left, and clearly the Obama administration, seem to think that Reagan was just playing another role. If Obama can tap into that role and simply change the outcome to a more liberal, pro-government outcome then they think they’ve got something.

They truly believe that Reagan was popular only because of his soaring pro-America rhetoric. It had nothing to do with his policies and the fact that most Americans agreed with them. It was only the rhetoric and his ability to convey his policy in such a rosy way that made Reagan popular, or so goes the liberal line. They think the American public is full of morons who can be told anything and will accept it so long as it’s presented in just the right way. In that the left is sadly mistaken. The American public is not stupid and I suspect they’ll see right through Obama’s attempt to be the liberal Reagan.

In Obama’s two years as President and his year campaigning for the White House, he never led on that he was the fawning pro-America type. In fact, just last year he marginalized the idea of American exceptionalism by suggesting that every nation believes its exceptional. He’s never been one to gush over the military either.

If Obama believes that by merely uttering words that sound as though they favor American exceptionalism or the military or the founders he can win the hearts of Americans I think he’s going to find out he’s wrong. A President actually has to believe what he’s saying, otherwise he comes across as a liar or a salesman. There was no real heart in Obama’s State of the Union speech the other night. I suspect because he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying. He doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism and gushing over the military was never going to be something he does well. A President can’t channel the idea of Reagan unless he really believes in what Reagan stood for. If there’s no true, heart felt belief behind the rhetoric, it’s just empty words. I think the public is going to see this more and more with Obama. He’ll try to sound like Reagan over the next few months but it will all be very hollow and empty.

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Freedom In Decline Throughout The World

January 14, 2011 Leave a comment

Freedom is on the decline worldwide according to Freedom House. Around 25 countries showed significant declines in freedom, including China and Venezuela. China has cracked down considerably on ‘dissidents,’ including Christians and freedom seekers. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez recently suspended the nation’s Congress and has near dictatorial powers these days. In Russia the current regime is cracking down on freedom and is slowly returning to Soviet era policies on freedom.

Iraq and Afghanistan may be more free today in the Islamic world but Lebanon is on the brink of collapse, Egypt continues to crack down on Christians and others while Iran continues to push back against those seeking freedom.

Freedom is given to us by our creator and it is only tyrannical regimes that deny freedom to its people. Sadly, freedom is on the decline throughout the world and tyranny is on the increase. The United States has since its founding been the one nation that has stood for freedom. We have been an inspiration and a goal for freedom seekers throughout the world. Talk to anyone from Eastern Europe who lived during the repressive Communist era and they’ll tell you that they looked to the United States for inspiration, they looked to us for support.

While we in the United States aren’t seeing our freedom ripped away over night by dictators and we don’t jail dissidents, our freedom is slowly eroding. Obamacare seeks to force all Americans to buy health insurance or face a fine. That is the antithesis of freedom. Taxes continue going up, if not at the Federal level than at the state level. Regulations continue to take freedom away from American citizens as the government dictates what kind of lightbulbs we may buy beginning next year. The EPA is set to declare Carbon Dioxide a pollutant, thus allowing them to strip citizens and businesses of freedom. Meanwhile some members of Congress are proposing measures to strip us of gun rights and others are proposing certain speech codes.

Freedom is not something that we maintain simply by birthright. It’s something that must be fought for throughout our lives. The United States remains the freest nation on Earth but we cannot rest on that fact. We must continue to fight for our freedom, we must continue to check our government when they attempt to strip us of our freedom. The United States remains an inspiration to freedom fighters throughout the world. But as Ronald Reagan said if freedom dies here there is no where else to turn in the world.

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