Compassionate Conservatism Revisited?

As gubernatorial races approach in New Jersey and Virginia, Republicans are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the beginning of a comeback. Delivering one or both of the governorships into GOP hands may be an early sign that Americans are not receptive to the change of Barack Obama’s status quo-ism.

This prospect can be very enticing. There is some speculation that Sarah Palin might run for office again. Her endorsement of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd district may make the difference in the 2009 special election. So too might Arlen Specter be sent packing and Chris “Countrywide” Dodd might finally pay for that sweetheart mortgage.

While extricating those suits from their seats might be attractive, one has to wonder what the Republicans have to offer the country other than the “R”’s beside their names.

One potential sleeper contest in 2010 is the Florida senate race. Charlie Crist, global warming-monger and stimulus money beggar, has announced that he will not seek another term as governor so he can run for the senate seat vacated by Mel Martinez. Crist is the favorite in both the primary and the general election, but he faces a challenge from a former underling, one-time Florida Speaker of the House Marco Rubio.

Rubio’s positives make him popular among the grassroots activists. He is a Fair Taxer, supporting a national sales tax instead of the income tax, a solution that fellow anti-IRSites like myself fear might only rearrange a problem instead of solving it. He favors a balanced budget amendment, a position sure to make conservatives swoon in reaction to President Obama’s ridiculous spending habits.

The benefit of Marco Rubio is that he is of Cuban ancestry. The media and haughty liberals never shirk an opportunity to remind the GOP that they are the “Old White Guy Party.” Rubio’s Hispanic heritage automatically catapults him to the front of the line of Republican examples of diversity where he can sit with Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, and Bobby Jindal.

National Review placed the 38-year-old on the cover of its September 7 issue claiming “Yes, He Can” and that the party’s conservative activists need to get behind this “true conservative.”

Whether young Rubio is a “true conservative” or not is a sub question to the earlier one of what the Republicans have to offer: What does a “true conservative” have to offer during the Obama regnancy? What is “conservative” in the post-Bush era?

In a National Review Online interview with the insurgent, Rubio “counts former Gov. Jeb Bush as one of his most important political mentors” and the former governor has since endorsed Rubio as has son, Jeb Jr.

Not one to beat a dead elephant, but conservatives ought to ask themselves one of these days, What exactly has the Bush family done for conservative causes? Break promises not to raise taxes? Take turns invading Iraq? Spent like there was no tomorrow and completely nullifying any good tax cuts could do? Of course Jeb is his own man, but there are many sins of the father and brother for which he must atone.

One of the other GOP veterans who has hitched himself to the Rubio wagon is Mike Huckabee, who is reciprocating the endorsement Rubio made for him in 2008. When asked why he supported Huckabee, who had difficulty attracting much support outside single issue social conservatives, Rubio said,

“Two things I like about Mike Huckabee: One was his support of the Fair Tax . . . Second, I thought that of all the candidates, he did the best job of connecting how the people’s social and moral well-being cannot be separated from their economic well-being.” (emphasis mine)

“the people’s social and moral well-being cannot be separated from their economic well-being.”

Translation: excessive domestic spending known during the Bush years as Compassionate Conservatism.

Toeing both sides of a fine line to appease immigration restrictionists in the party as well as the open borders crowd, Rubio concedes that “On immigration, [Retiring Republican Senator Mel Martinez] voted for a package I probably would not have voted for . . .” (emphasis mine)

Rubio also chooses to toe both sides when it comes to the biggest fiasco of the generation, the Iraq War. Here he takes Jonah Goldberg’s Orwellian position on Iraq: it was a mistake but it was not wrong:

“Obviously, the Iraq War has had the chilling effect of making us question all intelligence findings now. . . . I think that there is some credence, in hindsight, to the notion that the real battlefield was in Afghanistan all along. . . .

“But understand at the same time, we were being told that Iraq was on the verge of gaining a nuclear capability. . . . So it’s impossible to sit here and give a fair analysis in hindsight.”

Translation: OK, maybe the Iraq War wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe. But who are we to say it was a mistake? It was just a war. No reason to worry about responsibility for it.

So for all the talk about the Republican Party getting its act together and finally getting back to its conservative principles, if it ever really had them, the "conservatism" during the Obama dispensation looks eerily similar to the one during the days of the Bush regime.

Mushy immigration rhetoric, government taking an active role in the people’s “well-being” and a persistent refusal to criticize GOP foreign policy, Rubio is probably better than Charlie Crist, but might we entertain the possibility that there might be a better potential standard-bearer?

Holocausts are Easy to Come By

When Florida Congressman Alan Grayson called America’s level of uninsured people a “holocaust,” he did more than touch a few nerves.

Taking the inability or unwillingness of millions of Americans without health insurance and planting in many the imagery of the systematic deaths of over 10 million people in the 1940s, Congressman Grayson made a statement that was far beyond the line. However, considering the rhetoric used in modern politics, it is hardly a surprising analogy.

Coupled with these terms are always the inevitable parallels to World War II. “The Good War” is always selected as the morality tale on behalf of every modern day intervention, be it domestic or foreign. For example, Moammar Gaddhafi, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein have all been tagged “the second Hitler” making Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at least the fifth Hitler by this count.

All of these criminals have been labeled a “Hitler” at one point or another and, of course, “second Holocaust” usually follows shortly thereafter.

These images to World War II, Hitler, and the Holocaust are always convenient in making a political point, often out of desperation. No one in polite society would say that they disagree with the outcome of World War II, think Hitler was just misunderstood, or that the Holocaust was a good event that should be commemorated on the church calendar. No. Those three are the greatest consensuses in the western world.

Since nobody thinks the Holocaust was good, who would dare oppose anything when the alternative would be a “holocaust”? Don’t want a holocaust? Well, we’d better pass this health care legislation. Don’t want a holocaust? We’d better take out Saddam Hussein. Don’t want a second Holocaust? Then you know what we should do with Ahmadeinjad.

Likewise, recent news that the Iranians have an underground nuclear facility near the city of Qom, southwest of Tehran, has elicited the usual catcalls of “appeasement” and the necessity of regime change or sanctions in Iran.

Not satisfied with only having wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, neoconservatives and warmongers in both parties are anxious to begin the bombing of Iran over weapons no one can say with any certainty that they have.

A lot of people were convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could hit either the U.S. or Israel. Nothing of the sort was found and Iraq proved to be far weaker that we suspected. As for Israel, their actions in Lebanon in 2006 and Palestine last year should prove that they are more than capable of defending themselves. Plus, whether Iran would be able to hit Israel should be immaterial to America. Israel’s security is Israel’s responsibility.

But it’s the specter of “holocaust” that is meant to fill Americans’ minds with images of destruction, carnage, and total death, whether there is evidence to justify the illustration or not.

The same is true with Congressman Grayson. There is no evidence to suggest that unless there is a “public option” or universal health care that people will just die by the thousands. Likewise, there is no evidence that Iran is using this new facility in Qom to build a bomb to drop on Israel. But the holocaust plea is issued when its users know their case is weak.

The public option and the road to universal health care in the short term is dying. Countless charges of racism against opponents of government sponsored health care have rendered any hope of meaningful or bipartisan reform moot. Eight years in Afghanistan with no end in sight and numbers turning against the enterprise make it difficult for President Obama to answer his general’s plea to plunge America further into the Afghan malaise. That same war-weary population is not willing to militarily engage Iran unless they know that THIS one is a genuine threat to us. So far it has not been demonstrated.

But this phenomenon ably demonstrates the bankruptcy of America’s two-party system and their collective pandering to the lowest common denominator. Every dying political cause can be reduced to Hitler, the Holocaust, or World War II. It’s time for Americans to awaken and see that instead of facing a holocaust around every corner, the problem is the politicians who talk down to Americans by using these references to scare them into total dependence.

It is insulting and demeaning to a free people.

Are they Demanding Democracy?

Watching coverage of the Iranian election protests, one could easily conclude that the mobs are conducting their own Tiananmen Square, demanding fundamental freedoms from an oppressive regime.

But is this conclusion accurate? Is that what the protesters are demanding? Are they clamoring for free speech and due process? Did our invasion-turned-democratic experiment in Iraq finally catch on to the point that Iranians now get that Western-style freedom is a good thing and are ready to throw their Islamic backwardness aside? Did the Iranians begin saying to themselves, “Hey, it turns out this is a repressive regime that steals elections and abuses women! Let’s revolt and demand our freedoms!”? Or could it be that they are just storming against a regime they believe stole an election from their preferred candidate?

It is tempting for Americans to witness demonstrations such as these and assume that they are being done on behalf of freedom and democracy as we think of it. We as Americans need to be careful when interpreting events from halfway across the globe. When we see people protesting against the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, many of us are assuming that since Ahmadinejad is the latest reincarnation of Hitler, these people must be demanding a bill of rights.

To be sure, the American media have wasted no time in telling everyone that Ahmadinejad had his reelection stolen for him. They also wasted no time in reminding everyone that he was an Iranian Revolution rebel of 1979 and may have even taken part in the abduction of 52 Americans in that same year. Couple that with his oft-cited remarks on Israel and everyone is told that the world’s largest rodent needs to be stopped, even if it requires the U.S. government’s favorite course of action: military intervention followed by regime change. Based on that logic, anybody would be better than Adolf Jr. and that man was obviously Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Well, maybe.

The vanquished candidate, Mousavi, was portrayed as a reform-minded pro-American democrat. If he was in fact a reform candidate of any caliber, it was perhaps only because he appeared saner than his rival. Like Ahmadinejad, Mousavi also has ties to the Iranian Revolution and served as prime minister shortly after the shah made his expeditious getaway. Like Ahmadinejad, Mousavi not only sees a nuclear program as Iran’s right, but he was the instigator of the program (and agrees with Ahmadinejad about that Holocaust-denial thingy). But unlike Ahmadinejad, Mousavi was the prime minister of Iran who may very well have ordered the attack on American marines in Beirut.

Knowing this, does it really matter who honestly prevailed in that election?

If Ahmadinejad is Hitler, then Mousavi may just be Mussoulini. And if those simplistic and cartoonish characterizations are true, would this be worth embroiling the United States?

So what is the point of President Obama making any sort of statement of solidarity with the protesters? Again, we don’t know if they’re demanding their Western-style freedoms or if they’re just enraged that their guy lost and think the Ayatollah Khamenei stole it.

Importantly, making any sort of statement, benign or bombastic, could have backlash against the people we want to help and inadvertently empower the current regime.

Why is that? Are those Iranians too stupid to figure out that they should have freedoms like Americans?

Well, the consequences could be dire; for thirty years, America has been seen as their enemy. Four years ago Ahmadinejad was elected after Iranians witnessed the United States invade two of Iran’s neighbors. And if Obama actually talked tough, it would be all the reason the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad need to remind the masses that America continues to be aggressive against Iran. There is no easier avenue through which to consolidate power than under an emergency, or the pretense of one. Just ask Rahm Emanuel.

Making a statement of any belligerence will condemn the protesters to the mercy of the Ayatollah. For decades, the Iranians have been taught that America is their enemy. If we give the protesters the perception that they are pro-American by actively stating our support for them, it will make an already oppressive regime murderous as they will have carte blanche to treat the protesters as though they are American poodles and, ergo, enemies of the regime.

With the perception Iranians have of America, one that is probably shared by more than a few of the protesters, we shouldn’t expect any statement from the United States to benefit the protesters any more than George W. Bush’s endorsement helped John McCain. And no amount of narcissistic posturing about human rights will save a single protestor from the brutality of the Iranian regime.

Also, to show solidarity presupposes that who wins elections in Iran is any business of the United States in the first place.

Another thing to consider is if there is some sort of U.S. involvement in this mess, do we KNOW that the protestors are going to greet us as their liberators? Or are we prepared to demonstrate to the world that we have really learned nothing from our Iraqi boondoggle?

On this occasion, the proper course for the United States should be to stay home and watch. Why stir the pot if the alternative, Mousavi, might not be any better in practice than Ahmadinejad? And whether Mousavi or Ahmadinejad is the titular ruler in Iran is no choice worth making and it is not worth a single American life.

Let us not confuse anti-government sentiment with pro-American and pro-democratic zeal.