SMALL GOVERNMENT CONSERVATIVES - GOODBYE TO ALL THAT!
If we are going to say, "Goodbye to All That", please let's include ALL of it, not just two people, the Clintons (and the competence of their political network), but also the Gingrichs, the Reeds, and the Norquists ... and maybe even, the George Wills.
George Will conjures something called "fusion" (that I've never heard a living Republican talk about, have you?), while dismissing the notion of a Republican establishment (who have no "voice" since 1966, who knew?).
Maybe, just maybe, what Huckabee and Edwards tap into is a nascent sense that "small government conservative" is just code for "prostitute of the public interest".
George Will might want to check into that, too.
When you look with the mind's eye, perhaps you just see what you want, eh?George Will might want to check into that, too.
Then there is this slice-of-life, from the erudite Will, dismissing the haystack life experiences and view of Huckabee and Edwards equally with the psychological hobbles of Nixon and Johnson.
I was just noticing how often GOPers - like Tancredo - are prone to telling-you-how-it-is, just before they advantage themselves and demand that you congratulate them for their leadership. Check out the "iron law":
The way to achieve Edwards's and Huckabee's populist goal of reducing the role of "special interests," meaning money, in government is to reduce the role of government in distributing money. But populists want to sharply increase that role by expanding the regulatory state's reach and enlarging its agenda of determining the distribution of wealth. Populists, who are slow learners, cannot comprehend this iron law: Concentrate power in Washington, and you increase the power of interests whose representatives are concentrated there.
Conservatives, who almost invariably have their conclusions before their arguments, cannot comprehend that "free markets" do not produce freedom, necessarily.
Even on the smallest scale, markets cannot develop without regulation. Look at eBay. Even they have to have extensive buyer protection and trust programs, including "dispute resolution" with many sellers finding it necessary to offer 'buyer insurance' programs against both failure and fraud.
Pick almost any other topic of broader import.
- Against every advice from the public, the GOP's FCC Chairman just pushed through a relaxation of the media ownership rules in the country, on December 18, 2007, setting the stage for ... well, look up your history.
- A lot of people understand what is going on with the sale of beach-front spectrum to one or two large 'carriers', including issues of net-neutrality and the fact that we overpay so severely in this country for basic internet access versus our European counterparts.
- The FERC and it's involvement with Enron's DeLay and "small government" Bush? Who paid for that?
Maybe, just maybe, what Huckabee and Edwards tap into is a nascent sense that "small government conservative" is just code word for "prostitute of the public interest". George Will might want to check into that, too.
He may find that there is a "reality" in which he is a "villain" too.
