Lots of disappointment around the blogosphere this morning, in the wake of the results coming out of SC. I’m thinking there is more angst about how well McCain and Huckabee are doing, rather than how weakly Fred did (in a state he’s said for weeks he was counting on to show well). I think the American voter is asking for something, and all I can say is “be careful what you ask for…”
Bill Quick at Daily Pundit had this to say, and more (go read it all)
In essence, the GOP has rejected the one real conservative in the race, and will now pick from a NYC moderate, a “maverick” RINO, a budding populist theocrat, and a Massachusetts country club Republican in the Rockefeller/First Bush vein.
None of them can be trusted very much on any of the issues I care about, from immigration, to liberty, to the Second Amendment, to a lessening of federal power, or to federalism itself. They are all, to a moderate or greater extent, wedded to statism, and I think it has now become quite clear that the GOP, once, but no longer, the party of conservatism, small government, and liberty, is now just another statist gang like their counterparts who are very slightly across the left/right divide from them.
Over at Traction Control, it reads like this
It appears that I, in my support of Fred Thompson, have misjudged the American people.
And I think there is a clue in that. The American people right now are less like the freedom and liberty loving, hard-working folks we would hope them to be, and more like the fat couch potato watching “Dances with Sluts”, only looking away long enough to complain, or belch out another “gimme something”. The first group of folks will certainly listen to a candidate speaking about lower taxes, cutting spending, smaller government, and more liberty, and they would be willing to decide the issues based on who had the most practical propositions for accomplishing those goals. But the second one doesn’t want that because it looks like work. Rather, that second “citizen” wants free health care, cheap gas, a guaranteed job with a big retirement package, free education for the kiddies, and no consequences for bad behavior. It matters little to him that none of those things are the province of government, or that in order to provide those things said government must wreak havoc on the lives and liberties of all of his neighbors. “What’s in it for me?” and “who’s going to give it to me?”… that is where the American population is today.
The media can pontificate all it wants about Bush’s failures, his stubbornness and arrogance as being the cause. The blogosphere can argue about campaign tactics, dirty tricks, and flip-flopping all it wants. But the state of the National elections can be explained more easily by looking at the American people than at the candidates. The American people aren’t deciding this election based on ideals and principles, they are deciding this race based on what feels good.
It’ll feel good to vote for the first black guy. It’ll feel good to vote for the first woman. It’ll feel good voting for a preacher. It’ll feel good voting for someone who is going to give me everything I wanted and believe I deserve. I know that’s too simple an explanation for most of you… but the American people are pretty simple-minded right now, and they’re going to vote for what they want.
When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Benjamin Franklin
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January 20th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I was thing along those same lines, but I didn’t have the citation handy.
Here it is:
About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.”
“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.”
“From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years”
“During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage
January 20th, 2008 at 9:34 am
It’s called the the tragedy of the commons. In essence, it boils down to individuals making the decision to improve their own personal lot at the expensive of the general condition. Thus, a voter who votes a “gimme” ticket for himself gets all the personal benefit, but the cost - say, higher taxes - is spread over everybody, not just himself. So it is rational in some sense for him to vote that way. But by pursuing such a “rational” voting strategy, he will eventually slaughter the entire Golden Goose of the Republic.
It is also the primary reason why democracies have been relatively short-lived over the history of human governance.
January 20th, 2008 at 10:31 am
thank you gentlemen for stopping by, I appreciate it.
while most of the blog comments seem to be my guy vs your guy (LGF and HA being prime examples of this), very few are sounding the alarm about the outright pandering to the populist majority right now. and not just the candidates, if you hadn’t noticed, as evidenced by Ahnold apologizing for “naive ideals and goals”, and Bush and Bernanke and the donks trying to give away the farm under the guise of “stimulating the economy…
I’m working through “A Patriot’s History of the united States” right now. One thing that it, and the Franklin quote I used this morning tell me is that “twas ever thus” in the United States. The struggle for truth anf freedom and liberty has never ceased in 230 or so years. Voting for the R because it’s an R isn’t an option anymore, but neither is digging a hole to crawl into. The system works, by God’s grace if you will, and laying down will never be an option. But as Rush has said, sometimes you need to go through a Carter to get to a Reagan. I ’spect this is one of those “sometimes”.