Big Government
Glenn Greenwald on the GOP and Tea:
There’s a major political fraud underway: the GOP is once again donning their libertarian, limited-government masks in order to re-invent itself and, more important, to co-opt the energy and passion of the Ron-Paul-faction that spawned and sustains the “tea party” movement. The Party that spat contempt at Paul during the Bush years and was diametrically opposed to most of his platform now pretends to share his views. Standard-issue Republicans and Ron Paul libertarians are as incompatible as two factions can be
I’m not certain I disagree. One of the largest expansions of government occurred under Bush, with Republicans cheerleading the way. Now, they seem upset that it’s not their big government.
Prior to that, a big government expansion occurred under Reagan. So take those limited government quotes with a grain of salt about the size of a Hyundai.
February 24th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Wait…Greenwald thinks that the millions of people who’ve participated in the Tea Party movement are Paulbots? Really?
Republicans “spat contempt at Paul during the Bush years” because he’s a truther and wanted to pull out of Iraq regardless of consequence. Most of the fervent Paul supporters I know wanted those things as well. I seriously doubt if one polled a Tea Party Protest one would find a significant number of people with those views.
February 24th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Paul is not a truther, but yeah the iraq war stuff is true. He’s much better than the other options out there.
February 24th, 2010 at 11:57 am
It really makes little difference if the Republicans are faking it or not with their new libertarian ways.
2 reasons:
1.) The other party doesn’t even attempt to be libertarian in any way. They have evolved into full bore statists. At least the Republicans nod at libertarian beliefs once in awhile.
and the major reason
2.) Republican victories this year will bring the country back to divided government and that is the best way to ensure that little to nothing gets done as far as expanding government. At this point, that’s probably the best we can hope for.
February 24th, 2010 at 11:59 am
It seems like the best we can hope for any more is gridlock.
February 24th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Reagans spending happened under a democrat controlled congress, where Bushs occurred with a boat load of republicans in the congress… Reagan had to c@ompromise to get things done….Bush has no excuse…IMHO.
February 24th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Which is why I vote Libertarian and work with the local Libertarian party to try to get some candidates into state positions.
February 24th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
@Yosemite Sam – “The other party doesn’t even attempt to be libertarian…At least the Republicans nod at libertarian beliefs once in a while.”
So you’re willing to believe someone who’s lying to you as long as they’re saying what you want to hear?
“Republican victories…will bring the country back to divided government…”
Forget divided government, I want GOOD government and we’ll never have that if we keep voting for Democrats and Republicans. Vote libertarian!!
February 24th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
“Forget divided government, I want GOOD government and we’ll never have that if we keep voting for Democrats and Republicans. Vote libertarian!!”
Won’t do much if there isn’t a viable Libertarian Candidate to vote for.
I never understood the whole preference for “perfection” rather than a conceivable incremental victory. Sure I’d love to see Penn Jillette in the white house, and Teller as Veep (making political speeches!), but I don’t see that happening. Honestly unless there is somebody really incredible warming up in the bullpen I haven’t seen, we’ll have yet another John McCain type statist republican vs Barry O….or quite possibly Hillary Clinton fresh from getting some primary payback.
I’d love to see otherwise, but we’ll likely get a “Conservative” Statist with a healthy side of Jesus on the R-side.
If I’m right our BEST hope is what Yosemite Sam predicts, and that’s divided and gridlocked government.
February 24th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
We need more than just 2 parties 3 would be good but more would be better. I do not like the fact that most party members do not vote what they want but what the party demands. The bluenose dems and anti-abortion dems prove that. These people would not vote the way they did if there was not a proverbial gun to their collective heads. The more parties the less likely overtly bad laws are to get in. Our laws should not be made just to make some politician feel better or look good. Coherent, logical thought is needed to make law. I cannot vote libertarian. Too many things they do make little sense. One reason support for them is so weak is that too many emotionally charged words blur the lines of their beliefs. Voters do not vote for what they cannot understand. Not simple enough. Have you listened to Ron Paul’s speeches. They leave me trying to figure what the point was. We need far more then what libertarians give. The more parties you have the more extremism in any fashion is diluted. When we have republicans in control they go extreme, when we have democrats in control they go extreme and when they are equal we have a stalemate and nothing gets done. Republicans are the decaff version of libertarians. We need more than that to fix the problems of this country. We need something that kicks like cuban coffee. Seems the tea party is failing to do that though. Maybe some of that fervor can survive to become a party of its own.
February 24th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
There are good Republicans and bad Republicans. Don’t listen to a single word they say, but look instead at their records.
Words aren’t worth squat, as we’ve seen time and time and time again.
We TRIED electing run-of-the-mill Republicans. We did it THEIR WAY. Bush 43 had both houses of Congress, and look where it got us. Don’t fall for that again. They need to learn a tough lesson. You’d think they’d have learned it already, but alas, no.
The party leadership is broken. So it needs to be fixed.
February 24th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Libertarians need to changde the rfepublican party instead of rising a third party that itself can be corrupted… gun nuts and the relious cons changed the democrats… we can win back the republicans…imho
February 24th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
I am not a McCain supporter, but does anyone here think that we’d be spending as much as we are now if McCain had been elected? Of course not. Does anyone seriously think we’d be as far down the statist road as we are now if McCain had been elected? Of course not. Yes, many Republicans suck, but not nearly as much, or as hard, or as consistently as do the Dems. Bush was a penny-pincher compared to Obama!
February 24th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Scott Brown + Jobs Bill = Enough said.
February 25th, 2010 at 11:23 am
On the jobs bill:
the senate bill is 15 bil. the House bill 150 bil. If you pay attention to the decimals, RINOs are bad, but Dems are 10 times worse.
From NRO Online
‘Sell-Out’ Scott [Michael Graham]
That’s what some of my callers and fellow conservatives are calling Scott Brown here in Massachusetts, along with “Benedict” Brown. Scott replacing Ted Kennedy, they say, is “going from a wino to a RINO.”
Really?
As I point out in my Boston Herald column today:
Brown ran as the 41st vote against Obamacare, and he won going away. He ran against Washington’s arrogance toward the voters and its cluelessness about us and our priorities.
As a result, Obamacare is all but dead, and the only vehicle left is the reconciliation trick that, if Congress used it, would prove to swing voters that liberal arrogance has no limits. It would be a Pyrrhic victory at best.
All this came from electing Scott Brown, and I’m supposed to declare him apostate over a lousy $15 billion? I know that sounds like a lot of money, but let me put that in perspective.
Obama’s health care plan is likely to cost at least $1.5 trillion, and perhaps much more. If Brown casts the one vote that stops the disaster in its tracks, he could cast that same $15 billion vote 150 more times, and we’d still be even.
That’s how much Scott Brown is worth, in real dollars.
February 25th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
@Weer’d Beard (cool handle by the way) – “I never understood the whole preference for ‘perfection’ rather than a conceivable incremental victory.”
If we don’t strive for perfection then we’ll be left to rot in the cesspool of mediocrity. And Republicans and Democrats are poised to push us right in. We are past the point where incremental victories will work. It’s time to shock our country back into coherence.
@John – I agree with you that the more political parties we have in government, the more diverse array of ideas we will have. However, libertarians want you to keep your money and live your life as you wish as long as you don’t interfere with the rights of others who are doing the same. How is this NOT simple?
And for those who are giving Scott Brown a pass because at least he didn’t vote for a more costly bill, I ask you: Where did your principles go? You say you want to cut government spending yet you defend a congressman who went against what you wanted. Americans spend too much of their lives tolerating a wasteful and corrupt government when $15 billion is an acceptable amount of spending, in one bill none the less.
February 25th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Scott Brown is a perfect example of what the original post is about: Republicans pretending to stand for smaller government. It’s great that he’ll vote against some gargantuan healthcare bill, but just like Bush, he’ll have no qualms about increasing spending elsewhere when he sees fit. You could most certainly say they’re the lesser of two evils, but that will earn you another Bush presidency. And so the cycle will continue and you’re still being played like a fiddle.
February 25th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Yes, keep your principles, vote for third party candidates, and elect more Obamas. Stay virtuous while the country gets flushed down the toilet.
The lesser of two evils IS less evil than the greater of two evils.
Wasting 1.5 trillion is worst than wasting 15 billion. But if those are your only realistic choices, which would you choose?
Now we can debate whether those are the only two realistic choices…but I think they often are.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
@TIm – I will live and die by my principles. But in 20 years, when our country has been bankrupted financially and our rights are regulated and suppressed by the government, I will be able to look my children in the eye and tell them, with all sincerity, that I tried to stop it. I will tell them that despite my views being unpopular, I tried to educate as many people as I could. I will tell them that I did not allow cowardice to cast my vote for me but stood as a proud American in the voting booth and did not accept evil as a choice, but voted for the principled, libertarian candidate.
What can you tell your kids?
March 1st, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Tim- I voted for the lesser of the two evils, twice, and I still saw the country get flushed down the toilet.
That a Republican is the lesser evil compared to a Democrat (and/or vice versa) is probably the leading argument that perpetuates the current two-party system. And it’s a fallacious one. It’s a trap. Both are for increased government control and regulation in your life- how they go about it is their only distinction.