You Say You Want a Revolution

[Valin]

PJ Media:

Michael Walsh

1/10/13

 

When my friend Hugh Hewitt starts bashing the Republican “leadership” as spineless jellyfish largely AWOL on the most important issues of the day, you know we have reached a crisis point:

 

The Speaker’s and Leader’s staffs, however, don’t show any obvious signs of understanding the new media order or the relentlessness of the president’s program. The president or Vice President Biden uses every day to push their agenda forward and belittle or divide the GOP. Every day. Yesterday the Obama machine, supported by its permanent allies in the Manhattan-Beltway media elite, acted to get the focus off the Hagel and Lew nominations and the Holder hold-over and they used Joe Biden and his “executive order” on guns to do so. Today will see a different part of the carnival throwing up different aspects of stories or new story lines altogether.

 

Yesterday, as the day before and the day before that, there was no sign of any GOP leader anywhere, on the nominations, on the “executive order” on guns, on the key nominations. No appearances. No statements. Just crickets.

 

Those crickets would be the American people, just itching for a fight with Obama and the Democrats but finding no one to lead them. If the conservative ranks seem dispirited in the wake of the last election, it’s not because we lost — it’s because we didn’t fight. Didn’t pay the slightest attention to Churchill:

 

(Snip)

 

*I hate to break the news to you, but it’s probably already too late for the GOP adequately to prepare for the 2016 campaign. A mobile media pushback team needs to be in place now, to even begin to neutralize the Democrat-Media Complex, that revolving door of Harvard grads who rotate between the MSM and the leftosphere, and whatever Democratic administration is currently in power. Those seething donors, played for fools yet again by Karl Rove and the krack kadres of GOP kampaign konsultants, need to channel their anger and their cash elsewhere.

 

Otherwise, go ahead: nominate Jeb Bush, let him campaign vigorously in Ohio and Florida, and see how well that turns out.

 

 

* Don't know it really is to late for we the great unwashed, but I suspect it is for a large number of the party "leadership".

[SrWoodchuck]

I'm not sick.....but I feel like heaving. Shortly after that feeling ebbs...I get pissed.

 

I used to have more alternatives than those two feelings. It's just a relentless & helpless feeling that we are all disenfranchised as American citizens....by the oiliest, most venal creatures ever to waste oxygen....aided & abetted by a media that licks the boots of those smelly critters....and defenseless because our conservative representatives are half in the bag for the usurpers....or don't have the intellect to use the tools that still remain to them under the Constitution. They have ceded the only things that they have left...the courts & the "power of the purse" in a time when we still have a slim majority on the Supremes......WAKE THE HELL UP!

[SrWoodchuck]

H/T:God is Great...Beer is Good...People are Crazy

[nickydog]

What does that say on her hat? That's the second time I've seen that.

[SrWoodchuck]

What does that say on her hat? That's the second time I've seen that.

Molon Labe....Greek for "Come & Take Them." Leonidas, the King of Sparta, gave that as a reply, when ordered by Persian King Xerxes, to "Give up your weapons." That was the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans died, killing 20,000 Persians.

 

Go here for a pic of the Leonidas monument with the words underneath:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Leonidas_monument.jpg

[Valin]

5 Who Could Lead the Republican Party in 2013

EDWARD MORRISSEY, The Fiscal Times

January 9, 2013

 

 

 

Another New Year has arrived, and with it the requisite resolutions for improvement in the coming twelve months. Many of us promise to eat right and exercise more. Most of us probably plan to exercise more spending discipline, too, although that hasn’t translated into political efforts over the last several decades.

 

One has to wonder what the Republican Party’s New Year resolutions might be. The GOP had a bad 2012, losing the presidential election against an incumbent who looked vulnerable – and who garnered less support in his re-election than in 2008. Republicans lost seats in the Senate, even though they had a numerical advantage from the Democrats’ 2006 gains. They kept the House, but Republicans lost ground despite an advantage from the reapportionment and redistricting that took place between their midterm victory in 2010 and the 2012 election. In all, 2012 was not quite as bad as 2008, but still a year whose passing Republicans will hardly lament.

 

In all three cases, specific causes and candidate issues contributed to the national defeat, but the issue goes deeper as well. It goes to the identity of the party, and the agenda it represents. To some extent, both major political parties have this problem; tension between factions comes naturally with big tents in politics. Republicans seemed especially incoherent between the Tea Party midterms and the presidential cycle, however.

 

(Snip)

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

I don't know about The Big Man, he has not done himself any good nationally speaking in the last couple of months.

[Draggingtree]

5 Who Could Lead the Republican Party in 2013

EDWARD MORRISSEY, The Fiscal Times

January 9, 2013

 

 

 

Another New Year has arrived, and with it the requisite resolutions for improvement in the coming twelve months. Many of us promise to eat right and exercise more. Most of us probably plan to exercise more spending discipline, too, although that hasn't translated into political efforts over the last several decades.

 

One has to wonder what the Republican Party's New Year resolutions might be. The GOP had a bad 2012, losing the presidential election against an incumbent who looked vulnerable and who garnered less support in his re-election than in 2008. Republicans lost seats in the Senate, even though they had a numerical advantage from the Democrats' 2006 gains. They kept the House, but Republicans lost ground despite an advantage from the reapportionment and redistricting that took place between their midterm victory in 2010 and the 2012 election. In all, 2012 was not quite as bad as 2008, but still a year whose passing Republicans will hardly lament.

 

In all three cases, specific causes and candidate issues contributed to the national defeat, but the issue goes deeper as well. It goes to the identity of the party, and the agenda it represents. To some extent, both major political parties have this problem; tension between factions comes naturally with big tents in politics. Republicans seemed especially incoherent between the Tea Party midterms and the presidential cycle, however.

 

(Snip)

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

I don't know about The Big Man, he has not done himself any good nationally speaking in the last couple of months.

The Big Man as you called him, as for as I am conserned he out

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

I'm a fan of Christie, by that I mean his style, of speaking and what he says.

 

 

 

But since Sandy.......? He's got some real fences to mend. Assuming he want to be on the national scene.

[nickydog]

What does that say on her hat? That's the second time I've seen that.

Molon Labe....Greek for "Come & Take Them." Leonidas, the King of Sparta, gave that as a reply, when ordered by Persian King Xerxes, to "Give up your weapons." That was the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans died, killing 20,000 Persians.

 

Go here for a pic of the Leonidas monument with the words underneath:

 

http://upload.wikime...as_monument.jpg

 

Thank you very much, @SrWoodchuck.

 

The only Leonidas I knew was the wonderful chocolate we would buy in Brussels, at least as good as that other more well-known brand, the name of which has temporarily flitted out of my brain.

 

Godiva. Had to look it up -- it was driving me crazy.

Edited January 11, 2013 by nickydog

[Valin]

 

Thank you very much, @SrWoodchuck.

 

The only Leonidas I knew was the wonderful chocolate we would buy in Brussels, at least as good as that other more well-known brand, the name of which has temporarily flitted out of my brain.

 

Godiva. Had to look it up -- it was driving me crazy.

 

http://youtu.be/1Q8MF6I9Tw4

 

 

‘300’ — Fact or Fiction

by Victor Davis Hanson

March 28, 2007

 

Crowds are flocking to see the film "300" about the ancient Spartans' last stand at the pass at Thermopylae against an invading Persian army. Yet many critics, in panning "300," have alleged that the film is essentially historically inaccurate. Are they right?

 

Here are some answers. But first two qualifiers. I wrote an introduction to a book about the making of "300" after being shown a rough cut of the movie in October. And, second, remember that "300" does not claim to follow exactly ancient accounts of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Instead, it is an impressionistic take on a graphic novel by Frank Miller, intended to entertain and shock first, and instruct second.

 

Indeed, at the real battle, there weren't rhinoceroses or elephants in the Persian army. Their king, Xerxes, was bearded and sat on a throne high above the battle; he wasn't, as in the movie, bald and sexually ambiguous, and he didn't prance around the killing field. And neither the traitor Ephialtes nor the Spartan overseers, the Ephors, were grotesquely deformed.

 

When the Greeks were surrounded on the battle's last day, there were 700 Thespians and another 400 Thebans who fought alongside the 300 Spartans under King Leonidas. But these non-Spartans are scarcely prominent in the movie.

 

Still, the main story line mostly conveys the message of Thermopylae.

 

(Snip)

[SrWoodchuck]

@Valin! Yes, there was poetic license in the movie....Leonidas most probably looked nothing like Gerard Butler, either. It is also thought that the Spartans chose to stay, to allow the main force of Greeks a chance to retreat, and the traitor that showed the Persians the pass over the mountain....ended some of those plans. Leonidas was said to have been convinced that he would die....based on the Oracle saying that a Spartan King would die, if they went to battle.....but who knows?

 

Found this @ KnuckleDraggin':

 

These are the times that try men's souls

 

 

 

 

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

 

Thomas Paine

December 23, 1776

 

 

2013 finds America full circle from where our Founding Fathers began. Tyranny has raised its ugly head in the form of a President who would be King. The stark reality that our Constitution no longer is relevant to those who hold the highest office in the land puts into perspective what the Founding Fathers must have pondered leading up decision to fight the American Revolution. They and their fellow colonists had a decision to make. Would they live under the yoke of tyranny and slavery or fight for the chance to live as free men? A decision that millions of American patriots are contemplating this very moment.

 

Undoubtedly, colonial Americans were torn and divided. Some wanted freedom from England, others wanted to remain subject to English crown. Others probably didn’t care. Much like the divided America we find ourselves in today. We have enjoyed the freedoms and liberties that built this once-great nation. And we have watched those liberties usurped by tyrannous men piece by piece over the past decades.

 

Today, the Vice President of the United States said the President would take executive action on gun control. He didn’t say the President would try to pass legislation through Congress. He said the President was considering exercising executive orders. The President is not allowed unlimited power to unilaterally issue mandates that circumvent the Congress, but he has and does. With little or no resistance from Congress. If the Constitution is no longer followed by those who have sworn to protect it, what do we have?

 

Tyranny.

 

Obama’s designs on taking our guns is no surprise. While supporters couch their desires for taking our guns behind public safety, nothing is further from the truth. Their aims are to disarm the American populace because we can never be completely controlled when we can shoot back. I’m convinced Obama’s gun control desires are not his ideas. His statist puppet masters have long sought to disarm the American populace. Obama’s attempts are merely the most overt we have seen. For the past four years, gun purchases have been at all-time highs as Americans knew where Obama was going if reelected. After the November election, gun sales have been at a fever pitch as American prepared themselves for what was to come. It has come.

 

It is here.

 

Everyone who loves liberty and what we once knew America to be has had the time to ask themselves what they are prepared to do and what the price of their actions may be? Do we fully realize what we may lose or do we just bluster on internet blogs? We know what is coming from our adversaries. We know their capabilities and desires. I hope I am wrong but I believe we shall soon have to make the decision to live as slaves or fight and possibly die as free men. AWD made that decision a long time ago.

 

The dream and light of America will live as long as it burns bright in the hearts of those who love freedom. We have fought wars, internally and externally, to extend the blessings of liberty for future generations. I am not prepared to allow the likes of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the other corruptocrats to take the very freedoms from me they have sworn to uphold.

 

They must be made to realize the whirlwind they will reap by trying to seize our Constitutionally-protected firearms. The statists may not believe in the 2nd Amendment or even the Constitution but a whole hell of a lot of us do in this great land and will fight to continue living under its blessings.

 

I don’t want to say too much tonight. I feel much like an athlete before the biggest game of their life. Or perhaps the way a soldier feels before going into combat. I feel like something terrible yet exciting awaits us over the hill. I am comforted in speaking with a lot of my friends and acquaintances that we are prepared to do what we must do. That alone should say enough.

 

I will end this with my favorite quote from the Founding Fathers. Samuel Adams owned the tavern from where the Sons of Liberty raided the English ships in Boston Harbor. Have you ever heard or read something and wished you had said it? Samuel Adams is that guy for me. Here are the words he spoke at the Pennsylvania State House in 1776:

 

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!”

 

Molon Labe

 

awd

 

Submitted by WiscoDave

[Valin]

@Valin! Yes, there was poetic license in the movie....Leonidas most probably looked nothing like Gerard Butler, either. It is also thought that the Spartans chose to stay, to allow the main force of Greeks a chance to retreat, and the traitor that showed the Persians the pass over the mountain....ended some of those plans. Leonidas was said to have been convinced that he would die....based on the Oracle saying that a Spartan King would die, if they went to battle.....but who knows?

 

 

In the Bonus part of the DVD VDH says if the Greeks of the time were making a movie about Thermopylae it would probably look like The 300.

 

One of the things I found most interesting was how women were treated in Sparta. Women had the most power and influence in Sparta.

[SrWoodchuck]

@Valin!

 

One of the things I found most interesting was how women were treated in Sparta. Women had the most power and influence in Sparta.

 

Yes, they were tough specimens, too. "With your shield or on it..." the words a Spartan mother told her son going to battle. They practiced a pure form of euthanasia, though.....killing any child born with a defect. They didn't treat their slaves particularly well....and their religious beliefs were the antithesis of Christianity....worshiping the "Snake in the Garden" and proudly believing themselves to be descendants of Cain. Still manly men & strong women.....and we live in part, by their political ideals.

[Valin]

@Valin!

 

One of the things I found most interesting was how women were treated in Sparta. Women had the most power and influence in Sparta.

 

Yes, they were tough specimens, too. "With your shield or on it..." the words a Spartan mother told her son going to battle. They practiced a pure form of euthanasia, though.....killing any child born with a defect. They didn't treat their slaves particularly well....and their religious beliefs were the antithesis of Christianity....worshiping the "Snake in the Garden" and proudly believing themselves to be descendants of Cain. Still manly men & strong women.....and we live in part, by their political ideals.

 

Actually they believed they were descended from Hercules. Their kings (there were two always from the same two families) had to be able to trace their linage back too Hercules.

[Valin]

@SrWoodchuck

 

If you are interested

 

Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Donald Kagan

This is an introductory course in Greek history tracing the development of Greek civilization as manifested in political, intellectual, and creative achievements from the Bronze Age to the end of the classical period. Students read original sources in translation as well as the works of modern scholars.

[SrWoodchuck]

I read a great book, "The Parthenon Code, Mankind's History in Marble" by Robert Bowie Johnson, and his very believable account [ great pictures & everything ] uses ancient & modern theory to construct the theory that I suggested above. There are equal & opposite characters for their Kain [Cain]-driven religion of myth, as the same characters in our Judeo-Christian belief system. Herakles was Nimrod [of Genesis] in the Bible. While Nimrod descended from Noah [great-great-grandson?]....Noah's opposite in Greek mythology, was Nereus. Herakles final labor was to return to the serpent's "Tree of Knowledge" in the Garden of [Eden] Hesperides and retrieve sacred apples for Athena. He had to force Nereus [Greek Noah] to give him the directions to the Garden. Greek hero/god Ares, replaced Seth [Adam & Eve's son after Abel was killed & Cain fled]. Greeks had man-centered religion...replacing the God-centered religion of Noah.

 

You might like it....I really enjoyed it, and it helps place my own faith in line with my beliefs & Bible history.

 

http://www.amazon.co...y/dp/0970543832

 

 

BTW: It can still be ordered brand new [unread] from Amazon for $ 6.33 (shipping included)

[Valin]

As enjoyable talking about Ancient Greece is...Back to the topic...

 

The GOP House and Senate Leadership as Leaders of the Opposition

Hugh Hewitt

1/10/13

 

(Snip)

 

The Speaker’s and Leader’s staffs, however, don’t show any obvious signs of understanding the new media order or the relentlessness of the president’s program. The president or Vice President Biden uses every day to push their agenda forward and belittle or divide the GOP. Every day. Yesterday the Obama machine, supported by its permanent allies in the Manhattan-Beltway media elite, acted to get the focus off the Hagel and Lew nominations and the Holder hold-over and they used Joe Biden and his “executive order” on guns to do so. Today will see a different part of the carnival throwing up different aspects of stories or new story lines altogether.

 

(Snip)

 

Far more preferable to either one or two is a third strategy of every day pushing the key arguments forward, and right now the key arguments are (1) that the debt ceiling won’t be raised without entitlement reform and (2) that Chuck Hagel is opposed by the GOP for the job of SecDef. This approach ignores what the president wants to talk about and instead talks about the GOP's agenda, for the time being the debt ceiling/entitlement reform nexus and defeating the Hagel nomination.

 

(Snip)

 

There are thus a dozen potential voices and a dozen different platforms available to the GOP –every day—and the technology to take an appearance on one and push it out through all of media using Twitter and blog support. Taking the audio and video of a single appearance and pushing it out to all of the platforms and a dozen media centers is elementary media and message management --and never done by the GOP staff.

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

 

[Valin]

Republican Establishment Declares War on GOP Voters

A Commentary By Scott Rasmussen

1/11/13

 

Official Washington hailed the deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff as a significant bipartisan accomplishment. However, voters around the country viewed the deal in very partisan terms: Seven out of 10 Democrats approved of it, while seven out of 10 Republicans disapproved.

 

ust a few days after reaching that agreement, an inside-the-Beltway publication reported another area of bipartisan agreement. Politico explained that while Washington Democrats have always viewed GOP voters as a problem, Washington Republicans "in many a post-election soul-searching session" have come to agree. More precisely, the article said the party's Election 2012 failures have "brought forth one principal conclusion from establishment Republicans: They have a primary problem."

 

As seen from the halls of power, the problem is that Republican voters think it's OK to replace incumbent senators and congressman who don't represent the views of their constituents. In 2012, for example, Republican voters in Indiana dumped longtime Sen. Richard Lugar in a primary battle.

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

January 14, 2013

We Await our Caesar

 

By Tom Hoffman

Civilized cultures are mortal; they have a predetermined life span just like an organism. There are numerous examples from antiquity whose skeletal remains are still with us. Each example represents a unique metaphysical enterprise that has expired. We can only imagine what the lives of the peoples were like and wonder at the remnants of the once vibrant cityscapes. The civilization into which we were all born, which has shaped our world view, was itself born on European soil around the turn of the first millennium. snip

We now wait for our Caesar. With the inevitable continuation of the current rate of corruption and decay it is only a matter of time before the groundwork is complete and our Caesar takes center stage. As our government continues to purge its ranks of all strong and noble men in favor the weak and decadent in order to pillage the treasury at will, it unwittingly clears the deck of all worthy opposition to a ruthless dictator. This dictator, as did Caesar, will usher in the final end to Western Civilization. He will be followed by others increasingly brutish and cruel as was Caesar. http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/we_await_our_caesar.html

[Valin]

The Republican war on Republicans

Jazz Shaw

1/12/13

 

The endless navel gazing following significant GOP losses in the last election is far from over, and not all of it is pointless. We have people talking about significant policy changes in the platform to make the Republican brand more salable in national races, as well as ideas geared toward expanding the tent and bringing in a more diverse voter base. But Scott Rasmussen has a new editorial out this week where he believes he’s identified another issue to be tackled. There are, as he states rather directly, a number of “establishment GOP” types in D.C. who seem to have determined that the big problem with the Republican Party is all of those Republican voters.

 

(Snip)

 

Scott goes on to say that observers are noticing a growing inclination in beltway GOP power centers to circle the wagons and make it harder for the unwashed masses to mount primary challenges to their media tested selections and proven winners. And I agree with his assessment that this is a fine strategy if your only concern is winning. But at what cost?

 

Before we get too carried away, let’s not throw the whole “winning” baby out with the bathwater here. If you don’t win, you don’t get to govern. But if your base feels that you’ve lost sight of your principles in the effort to win, they won’t turn out for you and the process becomes a self-defeating death spiral. By the same token, as difficult as it may be for some folks to accept, it is undeniable that the professional political class – or “the elite” as so many of you like to say – bring some important skills to the table.

 

(Snip)

 

Tying these points together, D.C. Republican leaders can still hold on to their power and influence if they listen to those they are ostensibly leading and then use the tools at their disposal to work with grass roots activists rather than against them. If the voters are unhappy with an incumbent, fine. Don’t just fight them by backing the incumbent with unlimited money and then act sullen toward the challenger if they win. The better course is to get to work vetting the potential choices being put forth by the grass roots, pointing out lethal flaws if they exist and helping them identify challengers who are both ideologically palatable to the base and electable in the general race. It means not simply tamping down the impulse to keep fighting to the death for the status quo, but also demonstrating the strength to stand up to activists who are making untenable choices and saying, “Look, we hear you. But that’s not going to work. Let’s find someone who will.”

[Draggingtree]

It Can't Happen Here

 

 

By Robert R. Owens · January 11, 2013

 

Revolutions happened in other countries. The USSR, their satellite countries in Eastern Europe and Asia, African countries, and of course those banana republics somewhere down south, but one thing is for sure, it can't happen here. Following in the footsteps of giants who have used these prophetic words of Sinclair Lewis I want to examine how it did happen here.

 

In the America of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, in the America we inherited from our forefathers we knew that there could never be a revolution. We had the Constitution with its checks and balances, its separation of powers, and its Bill of Rights. These were rock solid, carved in stone, and strong enough to preserve the Republic and safe guard the freedom of its people.

 

Besides, the American people would not stand for some wannabe dictator and his brown, black or whatever color shirt followers marching through the streets and into the White House. The sons of the Pioneers wouldn't sit still for any attempt to curtail limited government, personal freedom, or economic opportunity. No way! No how! Others might accept censorship, surveillance, and rigged elections, but not us, not Americans. We had fought wars to defend our independence, wars to defeat totalitarianism; we had even fought wars to spread freedom. No, we wouldn't quietly allow homegrown tyrants to grasp the levers of power.

 

How they changed it brings us to the question, "How do we change it back?"

http://patriotpost.us/commentary/16245

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

Rigged Elections? Why that's just crazy talk....unless you're talking about evil racist right wingers stealing elections.

[Draggingtree]

@Draggingtree

 

Rigged Elections? Why that's just crazy talk....unless you're talking about evil racist right wingers stealing elections.

you mean those evil voter I.D. laws passed by those right wingers

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

Rigged Elections? Why that's just crazy talk....unless you're talking about evil racist right wingers stealing elections.

you mean those evil voter I.D. laws passed by those right wingers

 

Its blatant racism...at least to those of us who attuned to the dog whistles coming from the Right Wing Noise Machine.

[Valin]

What Is the Future of Conservatism?

MARK STEYN

 

Not to be too pedantic, but for there to be a “future of conservatism in America” there first has to be a future in America. And that’s a more open question than my more optimistic comrades like to admit. The Brokest Nation in History has just told the rest of the world that it is incapable of serious course correction–and around the planet prudent friends and enemies will begin planning for a post-American order. So at some point reality will intervene–either in the form of total societal collapse or, one hopes, something marginally less convulsive. The first responsibility of conservatives between now and 2016 is to have an adult conversation with the citizenry–the one that Mitt Romney chose to eschew in favor of vague jobs promises punctuated by bold assertions that “I believe in America.” So what? What matters is whether reality still believes in America.

 

And, when reality strikes, will Americans turn to conservatism? The evidence from November is not reassuring. Romney dusted off the old surefire winner–”Ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago?”–and took it to read: “The economy’s dead. Vote Mitt.” A decisive chunk of lower-middle-class America agreed with him on the first part, and acted on its logic: “You’re right. So I’m voting for the party of endlessly extended unemployment insurance, universal food stamps, and increased Social Security disability enrollment.” If 1.7 percent growth is the new normal, this constituency will metastasize. As his post-mortem observations to donors confirmed, Romney’s leaked “47 percent” aside is indicative of the way he thinks, and not a small thing. Indeed, it’s a betrayal of core conservative morality: from “Teach a man to fish” to “There’s no point even bothering to try to teach 47 percent to fish.” I was born a subject of Her Canadian Majesty and, even in a parliamentary system, it would not be regarded as healthy for the Queen’s Prime Minister to think like this. In a republic in which the head of government is also head of state, it’s simply unbecoming. The next guy has to be running as president of all Americans, even the deadbeats.

 

That means an end to the consultant-driven, small-ball model of Republican strategy. The Democrats used their brutal Romney-gives-you-cancer/ Ryan-offs-your-granny advertising in Ohio as bad cop to the good cop of Obama’s cultural cool. The trouble for conservatives is we have no good cop. That’s to say, we have no positive presence in the broader cultural space where real people actually live. We have all the talk-radio shows and cable networks we need, and the rest of the country is happy to leave us walled up in those redoubts. But culture trumps politics, and not just in the movies and pop songs, grade schools and mainline churches, but increasingly in the boardrooms, too. Instead of giving your hard-earned dollars to help drag some finger-in-the-windy squish with an R after his name over the finish line every other November, conservatives need to start fighting on the turf that matters. We risk winding up like the Shakers–dependent on conversion while eschewing all effective means thereof.

 

(Snip)