David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

May 13, 2009

GOP, This Really Isn’t That Hard: Simple Principles, Clearly Stated

“You can't beat something with nothing.”

So goes the old saying. And nothing is what the Republican Party stands for right now. They're a veritable Seinfeld. Their motto might as well be P.J. O'Rourke's classic quote: “Republicans – We're Just Like the Democrats, Only Not Quite As Much.” Except he meant that as a sarcastic one-liner, not as a serious suggestion.

The only way the GOP will begin to end its wandering in the political wilderness is to provide an alternative to the infinite government control the Democrats are determined to visit upon us all. This is more than merely saying “no” all the time, though that is a good start and a necessary foundation.

The goal must be to challenge liberal premises. Liberal premises necessarily lead to liberal policies. If the GOP continues to concede them out of the gate, they will have no hope of fashioning a convincing argument for conservative policy. At the same time, this cannot be wonk-ish. The only thing that has a chance of cutting through the biased media's propagandizing for the Democrats will be simple reasoning. Conciseness is of the essence.

Therefore, the logic should work like this: Say “no,” dispute and/or demonstrate the faultyness of the liberal premise, and offer a conservative alternative. This is not difficult, and we should have no fear in embracing the task. In many cases, liberal over-reach has all but placed the baseball on a tee for us to swing at.

For example: Global warming. Our line should be that even if the wrongful diagnosis were correct, the proposed treatment of “cap and trade” is utterly unconstitutional and would be catastrophically disastrous beyond all measure. That it's a hoax perpetrated solely to justify unthinkable intrusion on individual personal liberty makes it all the worse, but that's mostly beside the point for our immediate purposes.

Conservatives should easily be able to appeal to anyone's desire to choose their own toilet capacity, shower-head flow, light bulb type, TV type or vehicle color (or vehicle at all), and not have Rep. Henry "Nosferatu" Waxman and the enviro-wackos dictate all that to them – and have no problem whatsoever pointing out the evil insanity of such flagrant totalitarianism.

Similarly, it should be easy to torch the liberal lunacy that one can ban coal, oil and nuclear power and yet still create enough electricity from solar and wind to supply current usage plus the enormous increase in demand required by the electric vehicle fleet they'd force upon us. This is to modern living standards what bleeding with leeches once was to medicine.
 

Then follow with the conservative alternative: We have a plentiful supply of domestic energy resources, which can be retrieved with minimal to no environmental impact, and Democrats are putting it all off limits. Let's go get it. And when it comes to personal choices in domestic hardware, government should butt the hell out.

National defense is even easier. Cutting the military, letting terrorists go free, kissing our enemies' butts and apologizing to everyone is no way to keep anyone safe. Naïvely thinking you can make people like you, and projecting an image of abject weakness, is in fact the best way to ensure we're attacked again. The alternative? Having the strongest military possible, killing terrorists, making our enemies fear rather than like us, and letting our “friends” know that America isn't co-dependent on their approval.

Taxes are the easiest of all – “no” to hikes, “yes” to tax cuts, because it’s your money and not the government's. If President Obama wants domestic business to stay, cut the world's second highest corporate income tax instead of further punishing those who leave, which will only hasten their departure and make America ever less competitive in comparison to the rest of the world. (Not to mention that this mostly gets passed on to consumers in higher prices, so he's entirely missing his target anyway.)

These are softballs lobbed up to the plate that should be swung at with Ruthian clouts and smacked out of the park with ease. Dispute the liberal premise, offer the conservative alternative and let the listener complete the logic for himself.

But there are three pre-requisites for all the above: Belief, patience and courage.

Belief, in that far too many GOP higher-ups don't really believe in conservatism. One only diligently goes to the mat for that which one truly and fully believes in one's heart. By definition, no Republican In Name Only can effectively do this. And I doubt any will.

Patience, in that it will take much sowing before we see much reaping. But, like the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin, each soul gained is priceless. We should take more joy in each one won to conservatism than in 99 who need no such convincing.

And courage, in that we have seen what has been visited upon those whom the left cannot defeat via their usual methods and who thus pose a real threat to their power and hegemony – Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, George W. Bush vis-a-vis Florida 2000, Sarah Palin and, most recently (of all people), Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA: A ferocious hate belched up seemingly from deep within the bowels of hell itself. If any of us reach that point of real success, we too will need courage to withstand such an inevitable and withering assault.

As the Founders pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor in order to bequeath us this Republic, so too must we pledge ours if we are to keep it.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column # DKK178. Request permission to publish here.