I did come upon this idea indipendently about a half-moth ago. Strangely enough, F.A. Hayek wrote a book which dedicates some number of pages to my very idea, which I guess is not my own idea after all. Here is a short book review of F.A. Hayek's book, The Constitution of Liberty: "Hayek defends classical liberalism, which he distinguishes from European-style “conservatism.” Europe’s political rivalry was between Socialistic centralizers and “conservatives” who resist change, but are gradually pulled in the Socialistic direction. Europe’s classical liberals, by contrast, sought change in the direction of liberty. “There is nothing corresponding to this conflict in the history of the United States,” wrote Hayek, “because what in Europe was called ‘liberalism’ was here the common tradition on which the American polity had been built, thus the defender of American tradition was a liberal in the European sense.” Critics might argue that in recent years the Republican Party has become “conservative” in the Hayekian sense, being incrementally dragged toward socialism by U.S.-style “liberals.”"
That review came from here:
Getting back to Hayek's and my idea, I would also like to point out that my analogy is about the only thing unique to my idea, as far as I know.
I do find it interesting how offensive conservatives find an accusations, or at least those on radio. I don't know why, but when a liberal or a libertarian calls a main-stream conservative talk-show, they host uses, for about half-a paragraph, soft ad hominem attacks based on the assumption that the caller is a left-winger of the sort that adore Nancy "Schmancy" Pelosi. After that short tyrade, the host will then go on to explain the conservative message, as it is called, and then the caller might hang up or continue to talk until a commercial break. I do not mean to disparage such talk-show hosts in general, rather I wish to point out the use of fallacy in argument against anyone showing partial deviation from conservatism. That in no way means that the talk-show hosts would foment violence, that is the sole tactic of big-government advocates.
It is because of the desire to retain the border-line status-quo of legislation that makes me not want to accept the title of conservative. I would gladly accept any one of the titles of Libertarian, Republican, republican, Tea-Partier, tax-protester, Catholic, or even survivalist. I would gladly choose between the Libertarian or Republican party, advocate republican government, participate in a tea-party rally, and protest increasing taxes. I am a a cradle-Catholic, so I already have that. However, the survivalist title would brand me as a Glenn Beck supporter, becuase, for some reason, all Republicans who advocate for having a month worth of extra food means that I listen to Glenn Beck via his Insider whatchamacallit. I do occasionally listen to this radio show through my car radio, but mostly because he and his comrades with mics are hilarious. Glenn Beck is much easier to on the ears than Hannity or Levin, but that is only because Beck relies very much so on humor.
I have nothing against conservatives, as they are the only leading political coalition that actually oppose Democrats. I am not, however, very thrilled with the Republican party, because it fails regularly to follows their principles as laid out on their website. That being said, state Republicans tend to do a much better job than their national counter-parts.
To connect my idea with national politics lately, lets look at just this last decade. First, the Republicans rightful allowed the Clinton ban on semi-automatic firearms to sunset. Second, the Republicans lead the charge against that pervert Iraqi tyrant, So damn Insane. Third, the Republicans decreased taxes significantly at a national level. Fourth, Bush kicked some serious arse in Iraq and Afghanistan, replacing their governments with legitimate government, similar in structure to American government. These are the good things that the Repbulicans did.
The Republicans, however, di not do so well in other areas, as is evidenced by the fact that a swath of Republicans were replaced by Democrats midway through Bush's last term as President. The Republicans actually legalized warrant-less wiretapping for the FBI and CIA, a heinous offense against the 4th Amendment and 5th Amendment to the US Constitution. The Republicans started our current string of bail outs by passing the TARP bill, which is being spent on new pork-barreling, and which allowed a section of our economy to not have to act responsibly until Obama entered office. The Republicans did nothing to actually scale back the size of government, particularly by eliminating the IRS, DoE, and the EPA. Those three agencies ought to have been eliminated from existence as soon as the majority switched in favor of conservatives. Lastly, the Republicans expanded the welfare state, by expanding Medicare, to I believe it is called Medicare part D.
Don't get me wrong, I would much rather have Republicans in the majority, because when Democrats get in office Ruby Ridge and Waco incident happen. Further, I would have no sympathy for Democrats that lose their job as Congressman, come these next few elections.
I must stress that is was not necessarily the fault of Republicans in Congress that Obam was elected. Rather, it was the fault of Republicans at the national level choosing McCain over Thompson and Huckabee. Palin was a good move, but a better move would have been to switch them making Palin President and McCain Vice-president, thoguh that might not have worked at any rate due to Liberal TV news.
I hope I offended someone with the above, because, otherwise, I would just be preaching to the quire.
I hope you burned some plastic or otherwise polluted the environment for Earth Day, because we ahve to make up for Dallas ISD using hybrid buses instead of natural gas buses.
Have a good weekend and don't do bet on anything predicted, you might win,
Joe from Texas
