L.A. Liberty

Thoughts On Last Night

Maybe it’s the Strauss taking hold, but I couldn’t help but feel grudging admiration for some of the speeches last night. There was a sense of responsibility that was starkly absent from last week’s convention — and it reflects a party that feels the pain of power.

It also demonstrates that there is no substitute for action — and that willful inaction is poison in our polity. Take a look at three things last night featured.

The Affordable Care Act? Unpopular on many fronts, yet good luck bashing it when people can stand up and speak truthfully to the fact that it will provide them access to life saving care.

The Stimulus? Great to critique in the abstract, but without it, few economists believe we’d be in this stable (if unsatisfactory and precarious) position today.

The Auto-Bailout? Perhaps not a good decision in terms of basic economic principles (Ford is doing just fine, by the way), but guess who wins Ohio because the bailout succeeded?

That’s how you win. No need to focus on memes, silly quotes that strip context, and fearmongering.

I am a conservative. I will vote for Mitt in November. He’s the correct choice.

But good lord, GOP, learn that politics is more than a protest movement.

The saddest part is the base so extreme that the nominee, who has lived life as a pragmatist, has been consigned to being the standard bearer against his own sensibility.

You mean people like giveaways, and those who are on the receiving end will have nice things to say about it?

And those same recipients ignore how the inevitable economic repercussions of such unsustainable giveaways will be paid?

And corporations/unions like it when they are released of the consequences of poor business decisions and irresponsible behavior?

And economists who gain (professionally and financially) by espousing a school that excuses political power grabs will also support the policies?

Shocker.

You’re right, though: this is exactly what’s popular. Of course, what’s popular is not always right. And this illustrates exactly why politics is disgusting. As Bastiat said, it “is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.”

All state action rests on coercive force, on aggression. Nothing is more deplorable than people who serve as cheerleaders for this aggression because they happen to like some of the results by some of the current overlords while conveniently overlooking or disregarding the victims of the preceding hostility.

Ironic that those who tend to condemn selfishness promote it in its most base form: the state.

G.K. Chesterton once said, “Only a live fish can swim against the current, the dead go with it.” Nothing could be more apt for a populace who embrace a status quo that ultimately serves the interests of the powerful and connected above all others.

Posted September 5, 2012 at 10:14am in ∆ riposte jgreendc politics | comments || home