Tag: politics

GOP pursues strategic suicide

Any party that is dumb enough to bank on that elusive conservative Hispanic vote deserves what it will get:

Republican opposition to legalizing the status of millions of illegal immigrants is crumbling in the nation’s capital as leading lawmakers in the party scramble to halt eroding support among Hispanic voters — a shift that is providing strong momentum for an overhaul of immigration laws.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Tea Party Republican, on Tuesday became the latest to embrace a more welcoming approach, declaring to the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants that if they want to work in America, “then we will find a place for you.”

While he never uttered the word “citizenship” and said a secure border must come first, Mr. Paul strongly implied that citizenship would eventually be available to them.

It’s disappointing, but hardly surprising, that Mr. Paul’s conventional, (and in this case, erroneous), libertarian instincts would get the better of his economic and nationalist sensibilities.  America doesn’t need 11 million illegal immigrants working.  It doesn’t need 30 million legal immigrants working, for that matter.  Those who think they do clearly don’t understand supply, demand, and the consequences of increasing supply with regards to price.

One would think that Republicans would learn to rethink their actions any time the New York Times lines up behind them, but apparently one of the key aspects of being a Republican is never remembering what happened last time.

“His new message follows the publication
on Monday of a blistering report from the Republican National Committee
that urged the party’s members to champion an immigration overhaul that
Hispanics can embrace or risk seeing the party shrinking “to its core
constituencies only.””

Ronald Reagan once noted that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left him.  The Republican Party is now in the process of abandoning its core constituencies in favor of an imaginary and alien one.

Rabbit Rules of Order

Larry Correia engages in a long dance with liberals and in the process illustrates why it is a mistake to pay attention to their inevitable and invariably one-sided appeals to etiquette:

Here, let me break this down for you.  Not just this thread, but any thread where you argue with liberals.

Liberal 1: Attack, ATTACK! Attack, attack, attack! ATTACK!
Liberal 2: ATTACK! ATTACK!
Conservative: Defend.
Liberal 1: So rude!
Liberal 2: Yes, very rude. 

Larry Correia I
do believe she started it, thought Brad was full of it, and then asked
for examples. Provided. She didn’t think there was any bias, and now
several of us are demonstrating that is incorrect.
Or are you just going to do another hit and run, like whatserface? If
you don’t know much about the target, ridicule and attack. Claim your
moral superiority and call it a day?

As for my rudeness, oh well. I guess that is what happens after years
of being called a racist, sexist, wymyn hating, child killer, corporate
shill of the military industrial complex. So put your big girl panties
on and deal with it. :)

Cenate Pruitt (p.s. anyone who nonironically uses the phrase “political correctness” needs to be sent to a reeducation camp.)

I’m going out on a limb and guessing he doesn’t realize the
last US president to put people in camps was liberal icon, FDR, but hey,
whatever.

Remember, their entire game is not to prove that they are right. This is why they will blithely ignore the fact that you’ve conclusively proven their statements to be wrong and claim the irrelevance of the very point upon which they’d previously based their entire argument. It is to force you to back down and apologize, which, according to the Rabbit Rules of Order, means that you lost.

This is why, if you want to shut them up, all you have to do is a) force them to admit that they are wrong, or b) insist that they apologize for something.  They will usually vanish rather than do either, because, by the Rabbit Rules, either of those things is tantamount to losing.  Actually being wrong doesn’t matter because their is no objective reality; their concept of reality is entirely social and subjective.

And Larry, if you happen to see this, shoot me an email, please….

Who needs tokens?

Instapundit notes that Barack Obama’s cabinet is unexpectedly short on African descent:

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY WE’D HAVE A LILY-WHITE CABINET. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! CBC leader concerned Obama has named no blacks to new Cabinet. “Attorney General Eric Holder, appointed in Obama’s first term, remains the Obama administration’s only black Cabinet-level appointee. According to a Politics365 analysis released last week, that’s the fewest by any president over the last 38 years.”

Hey, if you’re the token, what need have you for other tokens?

Mailvox: Republican hatred of Ron Paul

Stickwick wonders why conservatives react in such a stereotypically liberal manner to Ron Paul:

I have a question about the conservative perception of Ron Paul. Rachel Lucas seems like a reasonable right-of-center person whose political views are moving towards libertarianism. In fact, she now refers to herself as a libertarian. However, she still hangs on to the idea of American interventionism. In a recent post she criticizes McCain for his criticism of Rand Paul and for his overly-interventionist policy, but agrees with Ace that *some* interventionism is necessary:

I don’t agree with it, but at least their position is stated reasonably. What I find odd is how her commenters are using this as an opportunity to dump all over Ron Paul. Here’s a typical example:

“For the record, I cannot STAND Ron Paul. Fiscally he makes sense, but in every other conceivable way he’s a senile, batshit crazy old fuck.”

Why do some right-of-center people get so vitriolic about Ron Paul? They go right past “I strongly disagree with his ideas on foreign policy,” and straight to “crazy old fuck.” This is exactly the sort of thing they denounce when the left gets personal in its attacks or calls right-of-center ideology a “mental disorder.”

Why do conservatives call Ron Paul crazy instead of just disagreeing with him? Would you shed some light on this?

It’s not at all hard to understand why so many conservatives hate Ron Paul with all the fury of a thousand suns.  The reason is that he shames them for their hypocrisy.  He reveals the inconsistency in their non-conservatism.  He forces them to confront the fact that they are not the proponents of small government and liberty they believe themselves to be.

Big government, international interventionist, and monetarist “conservatives” hate Ron Paul for exactly the same reason the Pharisees and Sadducees hated Jesus Christ.  Because he exposes their intrinsically false nature to themselves.  And the reason they dismiss him as crazy instead of responding rationally to the arguments he presents is because they know they cannot do so without losing.

Can’t say we weren’t warned

Some find significance in symbols:

Oh, dear. This is probably not the symbolism the White House wanted.

Hours after CIA Director John Brennan took the oath of office—behind closed doors, far away from the press, perhaps befitting his status as America’s top spy—the White House took pains to emphasize the symbolism of the ceremony.

“There’s one piece of this that I wanted to note for you,” spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at their daily briefing. “Director Brennan was sworn in with his hand on an original draft of the Constitution that had George Washington’s personal handwriting and annotations on it, dating from 1787.”

Earnest said Brennan had asked for a document from the National Archives that would demonstrate the U.S. is a nation of laws.

“Director Brennan told the president that he made the request to the archives because he wanted to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law as he took the oath of office as director of the CIA,” Earnest said.

The Constitution itself went into effect in 1789. But troublemaking blogger Marcy Wheeler points out that what was missing from the Constitution in 1787 is also quite symbolic: The Bill of Rights, which did not officially go into effect until December 1791 after ratification by states. (Caution: Marcy’s post has some strong language.)

That means: No freedom of speech and of the press, no right to bear arms, no Fourth Amendment ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures,” and no right to a jury trial.

How … symbolic?

It could be.  I find it more intriguing that Obama took both his oaths of office in private ceremonies after the first, public one was fluffed.

Kicking it old school

I have to admit, I rather like the cut of Paul the Younger’s jib:

In a rare, traditional filibuster, Sen. Rand Paul vowed to speak on the Senate floor “as long as it takes” to draw attention to his concerns about the Obama administration’s policy regarding the targeted killing of American terrorism suspects.

The Kentucky Republican took to the floor before noon Wednesday to block an expected vote on the nomination of John Brennan to lead the CIA, with aides saying he could continue for hours. Paul, beginning his remarks, said he would continue “until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important.”

“Are we so complacent with our rights that we would allow a president to say he might kill Americans?” Paul asked. “No one person, no one politician should be allowed … to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything we fundamentally believe in our country.”

Paul is absolutely right.  And it does not speak well of the Republican Party that so few of his fellow Senators are joining him in taking what should be the obvious position that the President of the United States cannot simply murder any American he wants whenever he wishes, without trial, sentencing, or even a warrant.

The Suicide Party

“Stupid Party” no longer suffices to do justice to the Republican Party and its determined efforts to demographically extinguish itself.  Steve Sailer points to the obvious problem:

 I recently asked if anybody has checked whether Hispanic voters, the majority of whom are of Mexican background, actually like Senator Marco Rubio (R-CUBA).  A reader points me to this December survey by Public Policy Polling of 700 registered voters, showing approval ratings for potential 2016 candidates. Among the 90 or so Hispanic voters surveyed, only 24% were favorable toward Rubio, while 42% said they were were unfavorable.

First, it should be noted that the Great Brown Republican Hope isn’t even eligible to be president.  Second, as Sailer notes, Hispanics aren’t even favorably inclined towards the guy anyhow.  Third, either Republicans embrace their observable identity as the White party and start running on racial and national policies or they are going to be supplanted by a party who will.

Playing the Hey, We Got One Too game with a Black or Hispanic candidate has never worked for Republicans and there is no reason to believe it is going to work in 2016.  If Republicans wish to pursue the minority vote, there is a much more effective way to go about winning it.  Simply take whatever spending the Democrat proposes and quintuple it every single time.  If Democrats pledge $100 billion for Head Start, pledge $500 billion, with $100 billion earmarked for Black children, $100 billion for Hispanics, and another $100 billion for illegals of all nations.

Seriously.  We all know the Republican Party sold out whatever republican principles it had long ago, so they should just stop pretending and go about nakedly pursuing power in an honest and straightforward manner.

Rushmore isn’t enough

Al Sharpton on the pressing debate of the day:

Last month, MSNBC’s Al Sharpton conducted a spirited debate about whether Obama belongs on Mount Rushmore or instead deserves a separate monument to his greatness (just weeks before replacing frequent Obama critic Cenk Uygur as MSNBC host, Sharpton publicly vowed never to criticize Barack Obama under any circumstances: a vow he has faithfully maintained). Earlier that day on the same network, a solemn discussion was held, in response to complaints from MSNBC viewers, about whether it is permissible to ever allow Barack Obama’s name to pass through one’s lips without prefacing it with an honorific such as “President” or “the Honorable” or perhaps “His Excellency” (that really did happen).

I would absolutely love to see Obama added to Mount Rushmore.  The ears alone would be hysterical.  Given that the great destroyer of American liberty is already up there, it seems only fitting that the penultimate consequence of his actions should be memorialized in stone there as well.

However,  I don’t think Mount Rushmore is sufficient memorial for Barack Soetoro-Soebarkah-Obama.  I think he merits a “Chairman Mao” style statue of the sort that the Chinese carved for Martin Luther King.  The bigger, the better.  I want future generations to be able to see precisely how far the nation descended before its final collapse.  Ideally, it would be atop a square platform decorated by a carved frieze featuring 1) the Folsom Street Fair, 2) a squad of female Marines going into action, 3) an image of 9/11, and 4) Mexicans crossing the border.

Fewer whites = more polarized politics

As is so often the case with the left-liberal failure to accurately predict the consequences of their policies, America’s increased diversity and vibrancy is not going reduce racial tensions and polarization, but increase them.

Now, as you get further down, you see outliers, where the GOP’s share of the white vote is far higher than the GOP’s overall performance: for example, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. These are states typically in the Deep South, with large black populations. Obviously, there’s a strong degree of white solidarity to keep blacks from taking over the state.

For example, Mississippi went for Romney 56-44—and the way he won was by getting 88 percent of the white vote. Why did he get 88 percent of the white vote? Well, Mississippi has the largest black population of any state and according to this Reuters-Ipsos poll, blacks in Mississippi voted 100 percent for Obama (sample size = 38)

This is what “diversity” gets you in the long run. Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore says, in a multicultural democracy, everybody ends up voting on race.

But probably the two most interesting states that Romney won are not in the Deep South: Texas (76 percent of white vote) and Arizona (66 percent).

Texas is not really an old Deep South state by any means.  It has had a huge influx of Americans from all over the country since oil was first discovered in 1901, and it has its own culture. It shows the possibilities of what a state could do in terms of going heavily toward Republicans as a bloc vote: 76 percent is a pretty amazing number, but that’s what it took to keep rapidly-Hispanicizing Texas handily Republican.

If whites in Texas don’t vote consistently Republican, then the state, with its 38 Electoral Votes, will go Democratic in some future presidential election. And that would end the chances of the Republican Party as we know it ever regaining the White House.

So, GOP, you better hurry up and put all those illegal aliens in Texas on the path to citizenship!

Not being a Republican, I’m not at all concerned about Republican electoral prospects.  But it is worth noting that many Democrats like McRapey who have already fled their vibrant former neighborhoods for white strongholds are soon going to find themselves voting for what has effectively become the White Party whether they like it or not, not out of racial solidarity or because they have learned a strange new respect for Republican Party policies, but because the Everybody Else Party is going to abandon its feigned interest in equality as soon as the Latinos, Blacks, and Asians realize they have the numbers to quit playing poor helpless minority with the white left-liberals who previously dominated it.

It should be very interesting to see if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee for 2016 or if she is again shouldered aside by a minority flag-bearer.  If that happens, we can be fairly certain that we will have seen the last white Democratic presidential nominee.

Rubio will kill the Republican Party

If, that is, he manages to convert enough of the rank-and-file to buy into the Bush strategy based on the conservative Latino voter and support his pro-immigration policies.  A veteran GOP operative explains why Marco Rubio is not the Great Brown Hope for the Republican Party:

“Let me tell you something. The Hispanic voters in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico don’t give a damn about Marco Rubio, the Tea Party Cuban-American from Florida. You know what? We won the Cuban vote! And it’s because younger Cubans are behaving differently than their parents. It’s probably my favorite stat of the whole campaign. So this notion that Marco Rubio is going to heal their problems — it’s not even sophomoric; it’s juvenile! And by the way: the bigger problem they’ve got with Latinos isn’t immigration. It’s their economic policies and health care. The group that supported the president’s health care bill the most? Latinos.”

However, it is absolutely absurd to think that it is only the GOP’s economic policies that are the primary problem, although they are not popular.  Immigration is destroying it because the USA has been invaded by millions of people who vote to the left side of the political spectrum.  The Republican Party isn’t competitive in Detroit or Los Angeles, and it isn’t going to be competitive anywhere that follows the demographic lead of those two cities.

Which, in this case, happens to be the entire nation.

Rubio isn’t going to save the Republican Party.  He is much more likely to finish it off for good with the help of Barack Obama.