To George (referring to "The Case for Conservativism" and "Democrats Prosperity Problem")
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060802397.html
http://tinyurl.com/39hqah
We democrats and "Democrats" have no problem with acknowledging that Bush's policies have been very good at getting the overall economy roaring and enriching a few people mightily. Democrats won't acknowledge a thing that is a lie for many people and that is tenuous and probably not sustainable for the rest. Workers are watching their jobs head south and it worries them. We have a system where we have to import workers while a permanent underclass lives beneath our streets. The semblance of freedom without the franchise of participation in the marketplace is a bitter thing to experience. I admit this is conservatism. Not everyone has a job, but those of us who do are enjoying our guilty prosperity. I am rather conservative about that myself. I want to help people by throwing down a rope not by jumping into the pit with them. But I can't rag about it. I don't say the "economy is not growing." It's just not growing everywhere for everyone. Like you said "conservatives feel rather "sanguine" about this. It doesn't bother you. It does bother me.
All democrats are for maximum freedom for individuals, but we aren't for the freedom to lie, cheat, defraud and convert common property to private property at public expense. If it is bad to despise the rent seeking welfare of "welfare mothers" it is worse to watch the rent seeking kleptocracy of large companies, and insider business-politicos. What is conservative about rent seeking kleptocracy?
How much money just "disappeared" into the hands of contractors and the occupation authority in Baghdad? How are we going to pay for the abuses we've seen in contracting, procurement and boondoggles over the next period? All financed with borrowings. Since when is it a conservative value to turn defense contractors into a smaller and smaller cabal of monopolies. What is conservative about Halliburton or Brown and Root?
We have to note that this "prosperity" is at the expense of borrowings that were possible because of low interest rates and we'll have to pay those bills at higher interest rates at a later date, while someone else clips coupons from money he was given and then bought treasury bonds with. And we note that the one who will get the blame for this will be some hapless Democrat is in office. Thanks for nothing. What is conservative about deficit spending?
Why has "Energy Independence" been a rhetorical lie since the beginning of the Reagan Administration when he quietly demolished efforts to gain solar capabilities for this country? What gives with an energy policy designed to eventually break our electrical grid, the pockets of the middle class and our ability to afford cars. Enron may be gone, but the policies that created Enron live on. I know this first hand -- I live in Maryland. Nothing like being conned and then left with the bill to make people a bit sore. I'm not innocent, I bought the premise of de-regulation because I thought that the de-regulators were going to introduce genuine competition. But I've still been conned -- because that was a lie. What is conservative about the big lie? What was conservative about Enron or letting Big Oil set energy policy without debate from other views?
How long will it be before the judicial branch powers and capabilities granted to the executive to torture, ignore due process, and secretly detain people, begin to be applied to more US citizens? American's have been asleep in front of the TV. I wonder what they'll do when the lights go out and the power outages start. I suspect that is when people will wake up to what has been going on all around them and wonder when they gave the Executive the power to build the apparatus of "Big Brother." What is conservative about "Big Brother?" Do you like the prospect that the Next President will be able to have a complete dossier on you and your every private conversation and you won't even be able to see a copy or challenge any mistakes because it is "secret"?
You say conservatives favor freedom, but what movement is behind Guantanamo? You say that liberals efforts to level the playing field and promote greater access to the economy for more people promotes big government. But don't conservative led efforts to box people in, control and impose morality on people directly lead to a police state mentality? Listen to Giuliani, is this the kind of society where Freedom is the highest value? Freedom for who? For everyone? It doesn't look like it from a country with among the highest incarceration rates in the World. Sure "freedom is on the March -- on the march into the Gates of Guantanamo Bay and the new buildings being built all over the country to be used once the precedents being set there are established and tested.
And finally George, what is "conservative" about all this. Since when has the constitution been optional? Since when were Keynesian policies and boondoggle defense spending Conservative values? Since when were conservatives for the legalized cycle of corruption that is our current Campaign Contribution System (with or without McCain/Feingold)? Since when did bribery and advertising/ spinning/ propaganda become a Republican Value? And what happened to the notions of individualism and the independent thinking and broad view that I used to see in your columns?
Chris Holte
Posted by cholte at June 10, 2007 12:29 PM