Handicapping The Syphilitic Camel Race

The closer we come to the elections, the more I alternate between rage and sheer unremitting depression.  This post is as much as anything a way to organize my thoughts.

There is no doubt that this year of all years we are faced with not just a very weak field, but a field that makes us wonder what we’ve done to deserve Biblical proportion retribution.

First we have an incumbent that has people making bumperstickers for Sweet Meteor of Death in 2012, and whom – to be absolutely and frankly open about it – we can’t trust for another four years, even with a legislative body of the opposite party to keep him in check.  He doesn’t understand US and who we are, and he wants to make us into what we’re not.  (Every guy/girl who has had a bad boyfriend/girlfriend knows what this is like.  And where it leads.  Which might explain some of what’s going on in the country.  We’re all having collective nervous breakdowns.  Of course, this is the wrong way to go.  The right thing to do is toss the bastard out of our house and change the locks.  Cutting the crotch out of all his fancy pants is entirely optional, but think how much fun it would be. )  There is a point from which there’s no return, and we don’t have Greece’s tourism industry, nor are we small enough to borrow so much money from another country that we can’t help but float.  Also people WILL envy us for our size and riches, regardless of what we do, and only we can defend ourselves.

Second we have the Republican candidates and…  Where IS my single malt?  This can’t be written about sober.

All the candidates left in the race are a variant of statist.  Now, I know the other small l libertarians who haunt the comments are going to tell me that’s always true with either party.  Look, guys, level up right?  Yeah, you’re right, but guess what?  It’s true for anyone who runs for power in ANY party, including Libertarian.  (Wanna discuss Harry Brown and the debacle involving that, anyone?)  ANYONE who runs for office – except those who run and pray they lose, and yes there are some – do it for the power.  They can know about it, or they can lie to themselves.  It’s still true.  Running for president, even in a quixotic campaign, e.g. LP, takes time, effort, and a lot of money.  The people who put themselves through it are people who want it.

I still say we’d do best picking from the phone directory.  But that’s neither here nor there.

Remember that thing about government being a necessary evil?  Yeah, so are the people who administer it.

The thing is, there are LEVELS of statism.  I know Eric is not fond of Reagan because of the drug war, and I’m not even going to dispute that – though I’d like to point out if they’d confined themselves to propaganda and dopy (eh) commercials, it wouldn’t have been so bad.  My generation made fun of “this is your brain on drugs” but drug use also fell sharply.  And I’m not going to argue with you on whether or not drug use is a good thing, either.  As someone who can induce a dream-state in herself at will (WHAT do you think novelists do?  Well, many of us, anyway) and who had to fight the temptation to live immersed in it – in order to have a life at all – I can tell you it is a great way to waste your life.  While I don’t recognize “society’s demands” on an individual I also hate waste.

However, Reagan, in other realms, managed to do away with a lot of regulation.  And the screaming fits on the left that he’d impose his religion on the nation turned out to be unfounded.  And yeah, he ramped up the military – I’m not going to apologize for being a SMALL l libertarian here either – Ron Paul’s idea of foreign policy is insane.  It depends on the idea of EVERYONE being rational actors.  They’re not.  In fact, if the world nations resembled a kindergarten class, it would be one in which half the kids are insane and the other half suicidal.  In those circumstances, you need to be ready to defend yourself.  (Now I think about it, my elementary school class was not much different.  By twenty most of the boys had served jail sentences.  Never mind.  Possibly has something to do with my learning to fight before I learned the multiplication tables.)  Is it possible to defend yourself from every possible threat?  Is it possible to make the world safe for democracy?  Probably not.  The degree to which we should intervene in other countries affairs is open for debate and my own opinions would horrify ninety percent of the people.  But the point is, war has two sides, and only one needs to be the aggressor.  We need to defend ourselves.  LITTLE kids in the class can get away with hiding in a corner.  The tallest, biggest kid has to fight or be pounded.

Enough of that.  We could debate the fine points of liberty versus militarization, but that’s not even the beginning of what is threatening us right now.

The flavor of statist we face today is the type who thinks that government was created to make the world better/or everyone better/or to serve others.  Kind of like a charitable organization with nuclear weapons.  (I have this theory they do that to compensate for their desire for power – to tell themselves they’re good people despite all of that.)

And all three of the plausible Republican candidates left are statist.

Romney is a throw-back statist, of the sort that were the core of the Republican party in the seventies.  I meet a lot of people like this, who still consider themselves “Republican” but voted for Obama and think that the Republican party has gone “Too far right.”  Like Romney they think we need to have universal health care, just differently tweaked.  And they think it’s the job of government to “serve” someone or other.  Look, kids, in the seventies, Republicans here were sort of like “right wing” in Europe.  Their motto was “Yes, socialism, but slower.”

I’d do Romney the justice of believing he is well intentioned.  I THINK he believes he is well intentioned.  But I think, mostly, he’s moved by a desire for power and a certainty he has in some indefinable way “earned” it.  His actions seem to show this.

Next comes Gingrich, and while I FULLY believe he was drummed out on trumped-up charges, or at least charges that would take out most of the house and senate if they applied equally to both sides, that doesn’t make him a good choice.  In fact, the chip on the shoulder from that incident makes him a terrifying choice.

First of all, he is my sort of people.  No, that doesn’t mean I like him or I believe as he does.  I mean, he’s the sort of person who runs in my circles.  In fact, he wrote a science fiction book for a house I write for.  And see, people like me, who write about entire different societies and who create worlds in their heads, get to the point they have to remind themselves the world OUTSIDE their heads really exists AND that just because we can create beautiful stuff inside our head, we don’t control the OUTSIDE.  We already have someone like that in power.  The fact that Gingrich’s mental map is from the OTHER SIDE (and not that far to the other side) doesn’t make him better.

And then we have Santorum.  HOW did he even end up being considered a credible candidate?  No, I don’t object to his occasional eructations on morality though, for the love of heaven, is a scold any better because he preaches traditional morality than because he preaches Gaia and the need to redistribute?  WHY?  And looking at the whole rattling of cage bars from the left, do you believe he could survive his foot-in-mouth disease enough to be elected?  Let’s remember that American women are all too easily convinced that abortion is a sacrament and that Republicans want to steal their ladyparts.  BUT the worst part of Santorum is that he DOES think government is a charitable organization with an army.  He’s already made anti-capitalist noises.  I know a lot of people like him, too.  Pious Catholics, who believe because their intentions are good, it’s okay to take from Peter to make Paul happier.  They’re the people who talk about serving the “disadvantaged” and therefore put soup kitchens in the middle of a downtown area, then tell us that the violent vagrants they attract “Shouldn’t” make the shops close down, and that their job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  I don’t know if Santorum has ever said this, but I’d almost bet if he hasn’t he will.  It’s in his mind set, and he doesn’t realize those scriptures lead to Lenin and Marx, not to heaven.

So… how did we get here?  Is this really the best the Republican field has to offer?

It’s… complicated.

First of all, yes, to an extent this is the best.  This is generational.  Again, the republicans who are now in the generation to run for office were of the “country club” or “Socialism but slower” school.  If you read the literature of the time, this is part of what we as a society – and to an extent worldwide – believed and thought, then.  That society could be perfected and improved.  That man was infinitely moldable.  Some of the ideas that created the statist monsters of mid-twentieth century were still around when these people went through elementary.  We’re al time travelers, filled with old as well as new ideas.

Second, to another extent, of course it isn’t.  There are people who are far better but they’re not running.  Some never ran.  I think this is because the smarter people who could run know the next president is sort of a sacrifice.  We’re killing him so the crops will grow again.  Oh, not literally (I hope) but in effect.  With what’s about to hit us in the field of economics, the best the next president can hope for is squeaking a second term by the skin of his teeth AND being remembered with admiration in a hundred years.  But the next president is going to have to cut all goodies drastically and p*ss off everyone.  And we’re going to make him eat live toads for it for the remainder of his natural life.  (Metaphorically speaking, I hope.  Poor toads.)

The other part of this is that even from the somewhat lackluster field that ran, Romney has been weeding all plausible candidates.  It turned out the best way to get some “horrible secret” to come out about you (say, that there was a slur painted at the bottom of a rock in TX that you might or might not have seen twenty years ago) and to get the media howling how bad you were at debates (yeah, a few moments of confusion.  Has anyone seen Obama away from a teleprompter?) was to have your numbers threaten Romney’s.  Funny how that works, eh?

And this is why we’re left with Santorum and Gingrich, whom Romney never thought could threaten him, until they were the only ones left.  And now he can’t get rid of them because the people just DON’T want HIM.

That’s why people are voting for Santorum, too, without looking at his statist “social justice side of Catholicism” record or the fact that ninety percent of what comes out of his mouth would offend even him if he thought about it.

They’re voting for him because the base isn’t stupid.  Well, not as stupid as the party men think the base is.  Santorum is their rebellion vote.  Like most mass rebellions it’s ill considered and a little insane, but in a way you can’t blame the people engaging in it.  They’re mad as hell.

They have reason to be mad as hell.  Last cycle they had to swallow McCain who had INSULTED them to their faces before.  And now the same people who pushed McCain are pushing Romney.  (I read Commentary Blog for their Middle East news, but had to give it a rest six months ago, because of the rah rah Romney faction.  There’s only so much dramamine in the world.)  Or were.  Now they seem to be getting a little scared. TOO LATE they’re getting scared. And the base saw very clearly the maneuvers to push anyone who could have threatened Romney out of the way.  So, they’re voting for the candidate that scares them least.

To be honest, I’m not sure they’re wrong.  Santorum scares the heck out of me and I don’t think he could win the election – then again there are days I think MY CAT could win – but, crazy though he is, he’s not…  Well… he’s not a very forceful personality.  There’s an even chance that surrounded by sane people he’d get pushed into sanity.  And there is the huge advantage that the media would be on him like flies on sh*t.  They would be just as bad on Gingrich, of course.  But Gingrich is a forceful personality and he’s so sharp he cuts himself.  He might find ways to evade the media scrutiny and implement some of his “cleverer” ideas.  And G-d deliver us from clever ideas.

As for Romney – I’d like to think that his being this dirty in the primaries means that he will be equally combative, underhanded and dirty in the election.  I don’t for a moment believe it.  It is the characteristic of the country-club “socialism but slower” Republican that they always suspect the left holds the moral high ground.  As such, they tend to kow tow.  They also want to be loved by the media, and can never fully GET it when the media turns on them.  And he’s already demonstrated the political savvy of a turkey in a rainstorm, by snubbing the tea party.

The other reason Santorum is ahead is the ginned up contraceptives controversy.  If I really thought that Obama was a political genius – I don’t, but I’m not sure his handlers aren’t – I’d think it was created for the express purpose of getting Santorum ahead.  Picking a fight with the Catholic church – where, yes, most of the people use contraception BUT believe it’s a sin, and want the church untainted by that sin [this too is complicated] – sends a lot of nominally conservative but really democrat-voting people into the Republican primaries wherever they can still change registration or where primaries are open.  And they will FLOCK to Santorum.

Does this mean he’s the one I support? – oh, good gracious no.

Of the syphilitic camels left in the field, the one I support is Romney.  I support him in full anger at what he’s done, and at the fact that he’s brought us here and fully aware his nomination will probably destroy the Republican party (the other two will just change the Republican party in a way we don’t need.  We don’t need the Communists on one side [according to Heinlein, they started infiltrating the Democrats in the 30s and trust me from someone who’s seen communists in action – they’re now fully in control of everything that matters in the party] and the Legions of Righteousness on the other.  We must try to have at least one party where, occasionally, a less statist man gets through.)  I support him knowing that the term ahead is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy as president.

I simply think given a fiscally conservative Congress, he might not screw up too badly.  And who knows, he might get so scared when he’s elected that he surprises himself – and us – by being a great president.  Hey, miracles happen.  Romney is the one left I – personally – think will do the least damage.

But I will tell you, friends, at this point to tell which Republican will do the least damage, you need a high-resolution electronic microscope.  I don’t despise anyone who thinks one of the other two moral midgets is better.  At this point we’re not even weighing grains of sand, but particles of dust.

And that brings us to yet another way we got here.  The media.  Look, guys, let’s level up, okay? You need to stop listening to the media.  Not just the MSM either, but the social media.  We’re all social animals, so this is very, very difficult.  But you need to give up on your leftist friends thinking you’re cool.  They’re a religion, of sorts, parroting stuff received from on high.

The other way it’s very, very difficult is that we’re genuine revolutionaries.  The problem with revolutionaries is that they’re purists, every one of them.  They want the perfect candidate, the knight sans peur et san reproche.

Under normal circumstances, that’s not so bad.  But it is when you’re on the wrong side of a media so supine that they willingly connived to hide all of Obama’s dubious associations, and that they have – as we’ve found out – become part of organizations designed to all echo the same message.  It’s not hard for them to find a flaw in even the best candidate.  Look, yeah, Reagan defeated the USSR and ended the cold war.  He also pulled us out of the European model where the difference was fast socialism or slow socialism.  BUT he started the war on drugs.  This was horrible.  But it was the best we could do at the time.

SOMETIMES you need to proceed inch by inch and on your belly.  Marching shoulder by shoulder in spiffy uniforms will only get you shot.

There is no PERFECT candidate.  There never will be.  The left understands this.  Do you hear them complaining about Obama’s ridiculous vacations?  His stuttering when off teleprompter?  The complete eff up he’s made of the economy?  Even if the media reveals that stuff – and they don’t by and large – they shush the media.  We?  We discard candidates because of the spec of dust in their eye, while we suffer under rulers blinded by tree trunks in both eyes.

The media are not ineffective.  THEY’RE ON THE OTHER SIDE.  Learn that.

And who are “we” whom I talk about?  Oh, that’s complicated too.  I’m a small l libertarian, shading to Heinleinian Rational Anarchist, but look here, I can do business (to quote Wyoming Knott in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) with anyone vaguely on our side: Randians, big L libertarians, many republicans, and the crotchety old man out back who just wants to cling to his guns and religion.  I’m of the “I want the government to leave me the heck alone” faction.  I don’t need to be on the right side of social media (except insofar as my professional presence.  Which is why I don’t talk politics on Face Book or my other blog.  Because I ain’t going to convince them if I alienate them.) They can howl the candidate I support is the devil.  He probably is, but he’s a lesser demon, unlike the others, who are princes of hell.  I’m cool with that.

Do I like what we’re faced with?  Oh Lord – I did say I’m oscillating between despair and anger, didn’t I?  BUT I understand how we got here.  And, as my friend Jerry Pournelle (who is considerably to the right of me, but who is an honorable and intelligent man) says “Despair is a sin and it might be needless.”

One thing we do know.  We can’t endure another four years of the current “regime.”  Emboldened by not having to stand election again, they will go off the rails even more than they already have.

So, your choice is Obama, a syphilitic camel, or the sweet meteor of death.  And you know those damn meteors never show up when you want them to.

Voting for ANYONE but the syphilitic camel will only get Obama reelected, and, as we all know Obama Must Go (the true meaning of OMG.)  IF what you wish is AT BEST civil war or a military coup and at worst to become Zimbabwe, by all means carry on.  Perhaps 250 years of self government and individual liberty is the best we can hope for.

But in MY world we elect the Anyone But Obama.  And then we deal with him.  The poor SOB is already going to have the press crawling up orifices he didn’t even know he had.  Add to this that he’ll have us, too, looking at everything he does under the microscope, and ready to take to the streets at his first wobble.  And that the press won’t cover for him as they cover for the present incumbent…  He won’t have a CHANCE to be crooked.

You know and I know the moment Obama is out of office, the statistics stop being cooked, and we see the economy for what it is.  You know and I know the moment Obama is out of office, the press will wake up to how grave our financial situation is.  AND sad to say, this is to the good.

So, bring on the clowns… er… the syphilitic camels.  We’ll elect one of them and make him rue the day he was born!


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10 responses to “Handicapping The Syphilitic Camel Race”

  1. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    I was talking with my 92 yo mom last night (a life long Democrat) and she says this is the worst Republican field she has ever seen. She kinda likes Paul on domestic policy but agrees with me that on foreign policy he is insane.

    I did tell her that Obama was a stone communist. She found that hard to believe. She had seen no evidence of that. Because her eyesight has been bad for years she is stuck in the MSM bubble. She also does not do computers. Despite the fact that I have been a mover in the computer revolution since 1975. But that is to the good. She is a reliable indicator of what the MSM is pushing.

    I still haven’t made up my mind about November.

    In this election I have no anchor. I don’t even have a reliable sail to keep me pointing into the wind. So I’m boxing the compass.

  2. […] has a new Insider report. Let me give you a bit of the flavor which echoes Sarah’s most recent screed. UlsterMan: The RedState story? On Santorum’s big government – his less than conservative […]

  3. joshua Avatar

    I know it’s only a minor point, but I disagree that “if the world nations resembled a kindergarten class, it would be one in which half the kids are insane and the other half suicidal.” I would say it’s one in which 90% are sane and 10% are insane/suicidal, yet the biggest kid is blowing money paying for bodyguards for the rest of the sane kids so they can afford to experiment with socialism. Besides, the chance that Paul would actually be able to close all our bases is MUCH smaller than the chance that the other 3 (4 w/ O) will increase statism.

  4. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    …the one I support is Romney…fully aware his nomination will probably destroy the Republican party…

    It will be the nail in the coffin. But as Joan of Argghh said in 2008, it is already dead, as is conservatism.

    http://primordialslack.com/?p=585

    Or as she so aptly puts it: the GOP…it IS the left…in drag.

  5. […] Of the syphilitic camels left in the field, the one I support is Romney. — Classical Values […]

  6. Joan of Argghh! Avatar

    A lovely rant, for sure. But this bit stood out:

    a field that makes us wonder what we’ve done to deserve Biblical proportion retribution

    See? We can’t help but mix our politics with a little somma-somma because our received cultural religion is, for good (as in proven Christian tenets), or evil (as in “kill the infidels”) destined to define what we value.

    When corporately we ceased to value human life, the vacuum was filled, and is being filled, by all sorts of ideologies that seek to help us understand fully to what ends such a blithe approach to Life will lead.

    See: whirlwind, i.e., reaping what is sown

  7. […] “Is this really the best the Republican field has to offer?” asks Sarah Hoyt, and then answers: It’s … complicated. […]

  8. Mark Alger Avatar

    Can’t disagree with your reasoning, just the conclusion. Here’s my syllogism:

    Conservatism (with or without the libertarian spice) is the majority position in the country. The left will lose. Make your choice from the Party on the Right.

    Romney is not known to be a reliable conservative. (Romneycare being only the most notable reason for doubt.)

    Of the two syphlitic camels remaining, both have reliable conservative credentials, but Newt sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and is known to at least consider CAGW to be a valid theory.

    Therefor the least objectionable and probably most-electable camel is Santorum.

    I say this despite leaning toward Newt for his willingness to Bring It to the Left.

    Shorter version: socialized medicine is a game-ender. We must kill it and bury it at the crossroads with a spike through its heart or the country is over. Romney talks a good game, but still: Romneycare. It makes the whole election a single-issue matter.

    M

  9. A_Nobody Avatar
    A_Nobody

    I pretty well agree with Sarah but I see this as a speedy degradation of America under Obozo or a slower decline under the auspices of the lame Republican choices. My choice is lame over incompetent in hopes we can survive another term in which we hopefully can get a grip on the insanity before destruction.

  10. DiogenesLamp Avatar
    DiogenesLamp

    They all Suck! A pox on all their houses! Not sure i’m going to bother voting this year. If this is what we get, perhaps we need four more years of Obama to finish the job.