The Thoughtful Republican
Sick and tired of the invective, the idiocy, and
the rejection of American ideals by today’s GOP.
The Thoughtful RepublicanSick and tired of the invective, the idiocy, and
the rejection of American ideals by today’s GOP.
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I’ve been catching up on some political blogs. One of those is samizdata.net, which is a UK-based conservative blog. It’s interesting to get a view from outside the country once in a while, though it does tend towards lots of buzzwords and borders on hardlining.
Recently, Johnathan Pearce took Andrew Sullivan to task for his support for Senator Obama. Pearce seems to understand that all three candidates are in favor (sorry, favour) of big government; what he doesn’t seem to grasp is that while the Democratic Party tends to err on the side of big government, the Republicans are supposed to err on the side of smaller government, but are instead acting in a ridiculously hypocritical manner that betrays a number of their basic ideals. In so doing, he misses the point: Malkin et al are not actually Republican supporters—they are supporters of the modern GOP, which is a very different animal indeed.
What baffles me more is Pearce’s assertion that Sullivan has not made more about why all three candidates are, in effect, big-government candidates. Sullivan has been making the point pretty consistently over the last few years. He isn’t voting for Obama because Obama supports big government—he’s voting for Obama because Obama supports ethical, open, responsible, sensible, intelligent government, which is pretty much everything the modern GOP takes a firm stand against.
He’s right: Republicans want to vote for Republicans. In lieu of that, we’re willing to risk having Big Government win for a while until such time as the GOP pulls its head out of wherever it’s lodged itself this week, this month, this year, this decade, or until such time as a new Republican party comes about. Given how things are going, it could be a while.
In the meantime, if it costs me more in taxes to have a government with some slight sense of ethically and fiduciarily responsible conduct, so be it.
That’s the choice facing all Republicans these days. Pity there’s so few of us left.
