One of my e-mail correspondents sent me an e-mail bemoaning the turn to hard social conservatism of the Republican Party. He was also regretting that he supported so many Republicans who have now turned on the Tea Party (he also worries that the Tea Party may be turning into a socon movement rather than sticking strictly to fiscal conservatism) . So I decided to do what I could to buck him up.
Here is my reply. With a few added notes in brackets [ ].And amended for the sake of the privacy of my correspondent:
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I feel like a fucking dupe.
Aren’t we all? It is like any revolution. The old order gets shaken up and no one knows what will replace it. A new birth of liberty or just a different kind of totalitarianism.
Maybe it is time to form some groups of our own – may I suggest: LiberTea? Kinda catchy don’t you think?
BTW O’Donnell was a member of the Delaware Republican establishment until she had a chance of winning. [note: O’Donnell may be a socon with libertarian political beliefs. Kinda like Palin.]
For the most part I run on hope (well I do have my bad weeks) and I do believe I can change some minds at the margins. So I keep hammering away at the same old themes. You never know who may have missed my last polemic. In advertising most advertisers give up on a winning idea when the advertiser gets bored of it. Well before the audience gets tired. I try to avoid that mistake.
We are at war with the statists of the right and left. So what do we have? I’d say at this point maybe 10% to 20%. Not enough to move things yet. But more than enough to work with.
Just remember Captain Jones. His ship is sinking. When he fires his guns more of his crew die than he kills of his enemies. So what is his reply when the opposing Captain asks, “Have you struck?” And of course his reply has gone down in history (maybe not exact), “I have not yet begun to fight”. He maneuvers his ship into close quarters, grappling the opposing ship, and the Marines in the foretops clear the decks of the opposing Captain’s ship and they board. After a bloody hand to hand fight he takes the Serapis and watches his ship sink. Victorious.
In battles things often look darkest when you are close to victory. Both sides are exhausted. The side that can at that point surge wins.
We are (IMO) far from that point. But we are wearing them down.
It has taken us 40 years to come even close to ending the drug war. But victory is in sight. Once that blows up in the faces of the statists they will have a lot of answering to do. “Don’t give up the ship”.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
I Feel Like A F**king Dupe
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4 responses to “I Feel Like A F**king Dupe”
You got this right. We have lost so much and with all movements, in this case statists, it was and is always done at the margin, it will take a lot of work to 1) make J6P understand that he has been screwed by these folks with one government power grab after another, 2) show J6P that by downsizing government things will slowly get better. The economy is not understood by most. If you have run a business and met a payroll you get it…you know that too much government destroys things…first at the margin…then completely. Folks have got to move back to the right or we are finished. It will take time but the smart ones will get it, the others will follow. We just need to keep the pressure up.
I was just thinking about where my rant came from and remembered Edward G. Robinson in Destroyer.
If you watch the movie I think you will find that my rant is modeled on the one Edward G. gave in that movie. Paul Jones was the subject of his rant too.
I was lucky to be born in ’44 and when TV came around they played a LOT of the WW2 movies.
So credit where due.
It is very encouraging to learn about O’Donnell’s views on the drug war. She may very well not be a statist social conservative, but a personal social conservative.
Her personal views only interest me to the extent they might influence policy decisions. If she opposes masturbation, porn, or homosexuality, it doesn’t concern me unless she wants laws passed reflecting her views.
Nor am I threatened by the religious belief that is wrong to break the Sabbath or make graven images; it’s when they want such religious law enacted that freedom is threatened.
I was just reading a great book about Franklin (The First American), and it claimed that the Jones quote “I have not yet begun to fight” is not correct, and was remembered that way long after the fact by a single eyewitness. Other eyewitnesses at the time gave another quote, along the lines of “I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike!”