Hey maybe somebody gets it – or maybe not

There might be hope yet. Or maybe not.

After the first heady rush of having overcome the Senate Sixty by one vote in a special election, saner voices on the Right are cautioning against the Republican Party regressing to the Big Government kleptocracy they embraced in the 90s, squandering yet another chance presented to them on a silver platter.

On Michelle Malkin’s website you’ll find, “Conservatives: Beware of McCain Regressions Syndrome.”
“Savor the irony: After a career spent bashing the right flank of the party, Sen. McCain is now clinging to its coattails to save his incumbent hide.

And pay attention to the hidden, more troubling irony: While he runs to the right to protect his seat, McCain’s political machine is working across the country to install liberal and establishment Republicans to secure his legacy.”

Uber right-wing economics writer Lawrence Kudlow asks, “Are Republicans Listening to the Scott Brown Message?”

“Sen. Scott Brown’s epic victory in Massachusetts on Tuesday night dealt a crushing blow to Obamacare, cap-and-trade, card check (and other union favors), and most importantly, all the tax hikes that are lingering on the table. But does Washington really understand the Scott Brown message?

And that leads to the next question. Are the Republicans listening? Do they really understand why Scott Brown was victorious? If they do, why aren’t members of the Republican leadership loudly campaigning for an end to tax hikes, just like Scott Brown?”

Kudlow goes on to say: “A recent Washington Post poll showed that by 58 to 38 percent, voters want smaller government and fewer government services. This, too, should be the Republican congressional message.”

Amen!

A little background. I joined the Libertarian Party within a year of its founding. I was the first libertarian to run for office in Oklahoma. I knew founder Dave Nolan slightly. I haven’t heard from him in years and my strong impression was that he was somewhat disenchanted with what he’d wrought.

Thirty-eight years and a fair amount of money later, the LP has seen vote totals decline from a high in 1980. Once lauding itself as “the third-largest party” in America, a verbal slight-of-hand if there ever was one, it is now the fifth.

Though there has been some progress in getting people elected to local offices, when libertarians have been effective at all, it’s been to split the conservative vote and get further-left politicians elected.

That’s not my idea of progress.

Worse, there has been no attempt to use the power of being a “spoiler” to any effect, i.e. quite frankly – blackmail. As in “We’ll stay out of this race in return for your support for….”

Worse still, it has become a haven for bright-but-terminally-nerdy utopians who on some level don’t really seem to want the movement to grow. If you’re a big fish in a little pond, perhaps you really don’t want the pond to get bigger.

Worst of all, the party for a while fell into the hands of a clique who disregarded party rules, handed out high-paid jobs to cronies, ultmately bankrupting the party and leaving it with a crippling debt load.

In short, they behaved just like any other politicians.

There is something in the structure of the Constitution that seems to allow two major parties, and that’s it. The replacement of one of the two parties by an up-and-comer has happened precisely once in our history, when Lincoln led the Republicans to victory.

This was immediately followed by the Civil War, which ought to tell us something. Don’t ask me what.

European parliamentary systems are different. England has three viable parties with representation in the Mother of Parliaments. Other countries have several, sometimes getting to an unwieldy number that paralyzes their governments. Not altogether a bad thing sometimes…

But we’ve got the system we’ve got, and over the years I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion libertarians, libertarian-conservatives, classical liberals, and whatever the hell you call yourselves, if you love liberty we are going to have to 1) work within one – or both, of the major parties, and 2) enter into ad hoc alliances on specific issues with people who have other goals we don’t much like.

Right now, majority opinion seems to be for smaller government. Not nearly as small as I think it should be, and of course everybody has a different idea of what part should be cut or shrunk.

The Left, whose consistent goal has always been totalitarian, seems to have overplayed its hand. As long as they counted on a Fabian strategy they could count on a steady progress towards the Total State they dream of.

But now when their goal seemed within easy reach, when they controlled the Democratic Party and large majorities in congress, they lunged for the brass ring and in doing so they’ve revealed themselves for what they are. Oops!

If they’d waited a little longer, after their control of education created a generation incapable of critical thinking and utterly ignorant of history…

Perhaps they thought they had already.

So where do we go from here?

I don’t have a plan. Given the fluidity of the situation, I’d be a fool to express any certainty right now. But I will recommend one action, we must loudly and consistently let the Republicans know WE DON’T TRUST YOU, NOT WORTH A DAMN!

You want to get returned to power? Earn it.

We want our freedom to speak our minds without having to look over our shoulders. We want our children to grow up educated as we choose. We want to keep our money. We want our country to welcome people who share our ideals and want to live like we do.

We want to be at least as free as we’ve been.

Maybe some politicians are getting it. And maybe they’re just waiting for the furor to die down before they stick their snouts in the trough again.