Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Underpants Gnomes and the election of 2012

There's quite a lot of crackle on the wireless from folks who are saying that I should vote for their tribe, because the alternative is the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Tribe.  Rich Lowry is simply the latest of many of these.  It's the Underpants Gnomes electoral strategy:
  1. ZOMG teh ebil Democrats will take your guns!!eleventy!
  2. ??
  3. Vote Republican!
Ooooh kaaay.  Let's ignore for the nonce that the conservatives at National Review have no use for guns and never have.  Let's look at those same Republicans that Mr. Lowry says are our salvation:
What could congressional Republicans do to stop the auto bailouts? Nothing. The Libya War? Nothing. The Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing? Nothing. They objected to the administration’s dithering on the Keystone pipeline, so they included a requirement that President Obama make a decision in an unrelated piece of must-pass legislation. He escaped this clever trap — by rejecting the pipeline.
What's the common theme here?  That Republicans are helpless.  But it's worse than that - the theme is that Republicans refuse to use the Congressional power they have.

Auto bailouts?  Don't fund them,  Libya war?  Don't fund it.  Pipeline?  Run against every Democrat in sight on this issue, by forcing them to vote for or against a pipeline authorization every week until the election.

Of course the Senate won't touch it, and the bill will die.  It will put every Democrat in the House on the hot seat, having to choose between supporting their President or voting for a very popular program.  Guess which way they'll go, and guess who's look like a chump.

Fast and Furious?  Defund it.  Find out anything else the ATF is doing along these lines, and defund it.  Refuse to include it in the budget or in continuing resolutions.

The Republicans entirely control the Power of the Purse, and they refuse to use it to rein in Obama.

And yet we're supposed to believe that somehow putting a sad sack Republican in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will make things different?  Please.

And so, I'm back to my argument that re-electing Obama, and letting him boil the frog fast (because he will be in a hurry in the last of his terms) is the best approach.  It will galvanize the country, or more properly will continue to galvanize the country.  Gun Control is dead, because the People have come to oppose it by a super majority.  That's why Eric Holder has resorted to subterfuge, but that just feeds the opposition.  The Catholic Bishops have discovered to their horror that the Crocodile won't eat them last.  While Rush Limbaugh blew his response, this issue won't go away, and will gather strength as moderates increasingly get a queasy feeling in their stomachs about the Administration.

We're seeing push back, but it's not coming from the Republicans.  It's coming from the People.  Another Obama term will increase the push back from the People, and the ham-fisted Administration has quite a good chance of discrediting Progressivism for a generation by a continual and increasingly perceived as illegitimate push for unpopular central control.

Now, I may be wrong, and the Republican Party is actually a mighty champion locked in hand-to-hand combat to save the Republic.  If so, please clue me in, because I must have missed it.

17 comments:

bluesun said...

Amen. That's been bothering me for the past two years...

Brandoch Daha said...

Not-quite-platonically-ideally-awful SCOTUS appointees, who at least MAY not be anti-2A.

Shit sandwich with a side of cartridge box, or without? Shitty choice, but not a hard one.

And don't blame the GOP. Blame the voters. They get what they vote for.

Divemedic said...

Don't forget that it was Bush 41 that initiated the ban on the importation of "assault weapons" in 1989.

parascribe said...

Blame the voters? I disagree. The system is well and truly f*cked. I don't think we can vote our way out. Not to sound tinfoilish, but we didn't actually vote our way into this mess. We rationalized two many lesser evil choices into a status quo quagmire of no choice at all. (Clearly I mean "we" the last couple of generations of voters and not "we" the denizens of the net with all the answers.) Bring on the frog legs, reality looms and we're all gonna get a bite.

wolfwalker said...

"Gun Control is dead, because the People have come to oppose it by a super majority."

I'm a bit surprised by this, Borepatch. You of all people should understand that no progressive program is ever dead. Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again. Current gun-control plans take three forms:

1) turn public opinion against guns again by means of programs like Fast and Furious

2) get an international agreement on gun control under the auspices of the UN, which would have the force of a constitutional amendment if it was ratified.

3) put a fifth anti-gun justice on the Supreme Court, giving them a majority to overrule Heller and related cases.

Remember, the fascists care nothing for the will of the people, except when it serves their purposes.

Borepatch said...

Wolfwalker, your point is a good one, but the Progressives are far out "in front of" the population. The more they push, the further away from the People they get.

This isn't about guns. This is about discrediting the Progressive agenda. That's well under way.

It's been said that when your enemy is destroying himself, don't get in his way. So it is with the Obama Administration and the Progressives. They're digging their own grave.

TJP said...

There was another president back in the 80s who bombed Libya, bailed out the auto industry and spread the burden of debt with inflation. I believe he was reelected for a second term. Americans love that kind of shit.

I'll be damned if I can tell you who will be the top Republican contender, but I'm fairly certain who will be in the White House next year.

Anonymous said...

I have to vote for the Not-Barak because it affects my State more than anything. And to discredit and help un-seat the pseudo-progressive agenda-driven Socialists, the the Nexus of Grotesque and the Axis of Asshollery, the Pelosi/Boxer/Feinstein/Waxmann California Collectivist Contingent from power - HERE in California.
It's a long road but we have to drive a stake in the heart of the Progressive Beast and eviscerate it's belly-full of feed, to spill it's waste upon the ground and fertilize the tree of Freedom. Losing in DC weakens their financial hold on California.

bruce said...

I have to agree for the most part. There is no great leader to save us. There is only the hope that a good man might become great. An unlikely scenario. One that I have to insist on.
Part of the trouble with keeping the big O. is you create the illusion that he deserved reelection and that he has a mandate for his policies. So you are hoping the worthless congress will fight him?????

Borepatch said...

So you are hoping the worthless congress will fight him?????

Bruce, if they won't, I want to know it. Now.

Lawrence Person said...

The Republican Party is not without its flaws, most serious of which is the remnant of old school establishment Republicans who are willing to keep the tax-and-spend gravy train running still in positions of power in Washington. The Tea Party is changing that.

But there is a difference between the two parties. Many, in fact, but let's focus on one:

Replace Reagan with Carter/Mondale
Replace Bush41 with Dukakis
Replace Bush43 with Gore

End result: Heller never, ever happens; it's just "Assault Weapons Bans" and 2nd-Amendment-as-a-collective-militia-right-only as far as the eye can see, because the judges that wrote the Heller decision are, at best, writing in obscure journals from second-tier law colleges because none of them ever came within sniffing distance of a federal judgeship.

That's one big difference there. And there are many others.

Ken said...

Actually, gun control is dead because it is no longer possible to enforce in an age when a body can print him an AR lower iffen he has a mind to do.

But that's a side issue. My answer to the "Vote for Mittens or the Republic Gets It" argument is that if Mittens is the best offer, maybe the Republic deserves it.

That said, if he actually did put Rand Paul on the ticket and give Treasury to the wookie (for whom I voted), I'd consider it.

Atom Smasher said...

Presidential choices cannot, by definition, be about what you want. They are about what you can get. I've said it before and I will again - it's the choice between a .22 in the ass and a .45 in the chest. Neither is fun, but one almost certainly kill you and one almost certainly won't.

I'm truly unable to understand the position of "there is no difference between them" - there are always differences if you look hard enough.

Anonymous said...

You make alot of sense BP and I won't argue one stitch of it. But consider this:

Which 'tribe' will be more likely to turn away from these self destructive initiatives as the consequences for them rapidly worsen?

If you vote for Obama and his 'going out in a blaze of idiocy' - you commit yourself to doing just that. Are you really sure that is what you want to do?

Second - which tribe is a libertarian like yourself more likely to influence in the tough days ahead?

I am a hardcore conservative and I know my tribe has it's faults but I can't blame you for wanting to hang seperately at all. I personally will not commit Obamacide - too much of an optemist I guess.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't mind hanging together at all if the men on the gallows next to mine were of the calibre of Mr. Franklin.

But as they are Mr. Obama, and his ilk, I'd much rather hang separately.

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

"So you are hoping the worthless congress will fight him?????"

They're more likely to fight him than they are to fight anyone with an "R" behind his name.

They're oppose Obama's plans on general principle. It may just be the principle of "He's got the wrong letter after his name," but that's better than the equally 'principled' cooperation they would provide a Republican president.

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

Argh. Last paragraph, first word "They're = They'll"

Prufreeding iz gud.