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Originally Posted by 70Chip
I've always thought that Patton speech was illuminating in the context of this war. Good post.
And Beem, I still believe that removing Sadam was the right thing to do. Mike Brown was perfectly competent to handle the hurricanes that ravaged Florida in 2004. New Orleans was, is, and probably always will be a hopeless cesspool of corruption and vice. If I may quote the great Kid Rock, "People get what they deserve."
I defend this administration because I don't believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good. The Democrats are going to take over and run thing for good long while. They just made a transgendered something or other the police chief of San Fransisco. These are their values. This is what matters to them. No conservative in his right mind should acquiesce to the acendency of such a worldview so that his ideological purity can be maintained. Politics is about compromise. I accept Bush and all his failings becauseI honestly believe the alternative would have been and will be catastrophic.
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At first, I was optimistic when the Republicans were in control of everything. Finally, I thought, for the first time ever, we get a chance to see what conservatism can do for the country with a majority in all three branches of government, slim as it might be. Six or seven years later, the best we have to show for it are tax cuts (which will not be made permanent) and Roberts and Alito. That's it. Contrast that record with what might have been done if the Democrats had complete control. Scary.
As I look back, it actually might have been better if Kerry had won in '04, or even Al Gore in 2000. At least there would have been a determined group of Republicans in Congress standing guard to check whatever harmful socialist policies Kerry or Gore would have given us. Instead, they went along with the socialist-lite policies of Bush. There was a dreadful "team" mentality which permeated government, and Republicans cast aside their conservative principles because the man in the executive branch shared the same letter "R" after his name that they did. More sickening was the blind loyalty shown by guys like Limbaugh, Hannity, Fred Barnes and other supposedly conservative icons despite the Rockafeller-Republican results Bush and his band of buffoons were able to produce.
Then there's the war. You and I will part ways with this one. I've always been of the non-interventionist nature. The same principle of getting the government out of the lives of the American people should be applied to the internal affairs of other nations. For some reason, today's 'conservatives' have lost that outlook. Was Saddam a horrible person? Yes. But so what? When did it become the duty of American troops to oust dictators of other nations especially when our national interests weren't close to being harmed? Just as you believe this government shouldn't enable the poor by shoveling money in their face which only further fosters dependency, the same should be held for the oppressed people caught in despotic regimes across the globe. Those people are responsible for themselves. And not you nor I or any other American has an obligation or a responsibility for them.
I've never understood why that conservative tradition doesn't hold in both domestic and foreign policies.
"No conservative in his right mind should acquiesce to the acendency of such a worldview so that his ideological purity can be maintained. Politics is about compromise."
What Bush has done isn't the same as compromising -- it has been outright major steps backward into the pit of socialism. No conservative in his right mind to acquiesce to this brand of "compassionate conservatism". And it's not idealogical purity we're talking about here. Why is it that when one complains that his principles aren't even being strived for, someone else chastises that person for expecting ideological purity? We're not even CLOSE to that -- in fact, we're moving in the opposite direction.
Wow. I've gone on and on here. Looks like you've struck a nerve!