Hoosiers should offer an award for information leading to the recovery of their "
presidential material" governor's spine.
Daniels: Appease Democrats, Drop Union Bill. UPDATE: Daniels Says, Legislators Running Away Is A "Perfectly Legitimate Part Of The Process"
S. T. Karnick says:
Pascal, Gov. Daniels’ position on this is emblematic of the difference between a conservative and a true, principled reformer. A conservative will always back down when pressed, because order is so important to them. What we need today are true classical liberals who will fight for the reforms they believe in.
You’ll get no argument from me on that score Sam. I’ve noted how Conservatives suffer from the problem of allegiance to two masters. “Do I stand firm for tradition, or do I protect the status quo?”
As the status quo was moved Left by progressive incremental compromises, conservatives have been dragged off their principle moorings. So now those who have the most to lose worry more about protecting their positions than our collective posterity.
Principle versus the pragmatic? Ask Cicero which prevailed 2050 years ago.
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Respectfully disagree, at least in part. Going by the corrupted versions of what we have to deal with, those of us who would consider themselves "conservative" and or "constitutionalists" (originalists) would in fact follow the lead of the Wisconsin Governor. That would be working toward a smaller government foot print. (In his case, a smaller public sector union being less effective in dipping into the public trough, thus saving the citizens of Wisconsin from having to fork over an ever increasing amount of their income.)
ReplyDeleteThat the Governor of Indiana appears to be (at least in this case) getting dangerously close to becoming a SKUNC makes one wonder if he really was a "conservative" (again, using the word in modern day context) to begin with.
In a more charitable light, perhaps he is just following what our last "real" President put out there (one of the things about Bush which bugged me to no end). That would be "compassionate conservatism". It will past the time, if there ever was a "time" to begin with, that we needed to feel compassionate about those across the aisle.
Either you are working toward bettering the country, or you are all about bettering yourself or some other individual or group, there is no middle ground. (This applies to all public officials, from all parties.) In this case, it appears Daniels is all about bettering his chances (by attempting to broaden his appeal/base) for a run at the oval office, in placating the tardy members of the Indiana legislative body.
Guy, based upon what I know of you, I think you'd agree in total. I think it's the labels that get in our way, and not much else.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's my inability to be clear in my efforts to show that, if a label can have a split personality, "conservative" has it.
1) In Sam's case, he has long been pounding the idea that classical liberal should be the preferred label of the principled conservative. Too many conservatives have no idea what he means and being called any kind of liberal is upsetting. I agree with Sam in many aspects despite the fact that he's reluctant to aid me in stripping away the label "progressive" from the Incremental power-grabbing Statists. He thinks they should be left to stew in it (so to speak), and (paraphrasing) "besides, progressive sounds too much like efforst to perfect humanity, so let them have it."
2) You may recall that I've brought up the "don't rock the boat" inclination of some conservatives before. Even some of my best friends tend to go there. They're lying to themselves if they think this latest onslaught to our liberties is gonna simply die back. They still believe that they can do what they've been doing and the monster will eat them last, so to speak, forgetting Niemöller's warning "Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."
3) I guess what I'm saying is that you are in actuality quite close to what Sam is talking about. I've personally given up a lot simply for the principles involved. The status quo conservatives won't do that; it is they who become SKUNCs and even outright turncoats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU-8Uz_nMaQ
ReplyDeleteIt's time to give up the modern doublespeak. The people who self-identify as "Liberal" currently are just about anything but. Same holds for those who self-identify as "Conservative" currently. The sooner we reject NewSpeak, and use the proper terms, the better.