Seizing The Opportunity Presented To The Right

If one looks closely, the years directly ahead are going to present the Right with opportunities to knock back Leftism in America for decades. But it will be crucial for the Right to win some key debates.

Already the fault lines and chinks in the Left's armor begin to present themselves. And some of them won't even require much effort to exploit. The Left holds the seeds of its own destruction within itself, as does most any ideology, really.

The Republicans grew to power under the conservative mantle of freedom, strength and free markets. Once in DC they used that strength and freedom to indulge in corruption, seeking more power only for themselves, until finally breaking whatever faith in them they enjoyed with the same people who put them there in the first place. And in some cases free market capitalism gave way to greed.

At his first press conference, Obama called himself a "mutt." The AP headline brags, it shows his "ease" discussing race. Of course, were it a white American using the expression prior to November 4, it would have been denounced as racism, would it not? My point isn't to complain about some double-standard. The point is, that double-standard, long an effective weapon of the Left, is going to go away.

Coupled to that, just how effective is the Left going to be able to argue that America is a racist country, or that blacks need such a significant leg-up through government intervention and programs now that a black man has become President?

They'll try to advance the argument, certainly. But it won't track with many Americans who more often believe their eyes, than they do their ears. And that is only one weapon the Left is going to see stripped away in the days to come.

In California, blacks and the gay community are literally at one another's throats.

No more Mr. Nice Gay?

While unfortunate, for the first time it begins to point out the "values" problem the black community, containing a high number of church going folk, has experienced within the Liberal coalition. That's been conveniently swept under the rug for years and years. Now, with more and more blacks entering the middle and upper middle class everyday, with a black man the sitting President, blacks should indeed feel liberated. And one form of liberation will prove to be its traditional over-dependence on the Democrats. The things they vote on are already beginning to change and will continue to become more diverse. That's real freedom in democratic America.

Without their lock on the black community, it's doubtful that the Democrat Party would have won a national election over the last forty years.

And then there is the broader issue of statism versus individual freedom and true power of choice as something other than a convenient slogan that's been misused and exploited by the abortion lobby so effectively in recent years.

Due to the significant nature of our current economic crisis many decisions now coming before our government and the American people are going to force important public debates. There will be complex as well as fine points on policy and approach to getting us from where we are to where we need to go. And underlying almost if not every aspect of those debates will be the over-arching theme of the individual versus the state.

We may characterize younger generations as "more liberal." True. But what they still love like most Americans is freedom and opportunity.

Once the Right musters itself from its post-election stupor, it must be prepared to fight and win these coming debates. If we can do that along with exploiting the many fault lines of liberalism, only now beginning to show, we can set neo-liberalism back in America to square one.

Yes, the times ahead will be tough ones. But as in all tough times, they are not without opportunities and silver linings along the way.

Comments

[jharp]

Good thinking. Use religious bigotry to build the republican base.

How'd that work out the past few years?

And you wonder why the GOP is the minority party. Hate is not a sound foundation to build on.

[Dan Riehl]

I don't know, jharp. I think exploiting the Left's hate for religion in a judeo-christian nation is a pretty sound approach, myself. ; )

[jharp]

The left doesn't hate religion. We just want them to leave us alone and not spend tax dollars to spread Christianity.

And we don't want their religious beliefs enacted into law.

The left stands firmly behind religious freedom. All religions. Every one of them. And the right to not have a religion as well.

[jharp]

And by the way Dan, this prop 8 passage thing is really heating up.

However, it appears the Mormons are going to bear the brunt of the consequences.

I have a feeling it is going to get quite ugly for the bigots. It'll be fun to watch.

[jharp]

"Of the $600,000 anti-gay bigots had in hand to try to ban gay marriage in Alaska in October 1998, $500,000 came from one big lump sum donation from the Mormon Church. That's 83% of the entire hateful campaign financed by the Mormon Church."

[Mr. Stuck]

Boy, the wheels are grinding back into action. Shorter
Riehl- Smear smarter, Not harder. You go on main lining that Wingnut Fairy Dust and maybe someday it'll start to work. In the Meatime, the rest of us will be building a better Middle Class.

[Blacque Jacques Shellacque]

"Hate is not a sound foundation to build on."

Judging from the past eight years, and the recent election, a person could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

[expat]

I don't think Dan is trying to push gay hatred. The issue is whether the radical gay activists represent the views of black families. Many activists seem more concerned with their agenda than, say, considering the age at which kids should be exposed to the full LGBT curriculum. And I bet a lot of black families would not be happy that their 15-year-old daughter could be pressured into having an abortion without their knowledge. It would be great to have blacks participate in values discussions. If conservatives would reach out to listen to them, it would enrich conservative positions.

BTW, values do not necessarily arise from the pulpit of a megachurch. Life experience and cultural heritage are involved.

[Mark Turner]

I expect that Obama will have a one-term presidency unless something extraordinary happens in his favor regarding the economy. The GOP, however, needs to learn from the lessons of this election cycle, and come back with a coherent, clear, compelling vision of why they would be a better choice for America. Also, the GOP needs to bear in mind - and ultimately debunk -- any attempted assertions by Obama and his supporters to pin any failures/shortcomings of his administration entirely on the GOP. The Dems now run the entire show; we shouldn't let them get away with blaming the GOP/Bush if their plans don't work out, and we shouldn't let them take all the credit for positive outcomes originated from Bush, GOP-sponsored legislation, etc.

[man_in_tx]

jharp farts: "I have a feeling it is going to get quite ugly for the bigots. It'll be fun to watch."

Hey, jharp, one thing that the Prop 8 victory demonstrates is that Gays are pervs who are slaves to their little heads and will not submit to law and order if it means less access to same-sex orgasms. Please notice that when the California Supreme Court arbitrarily imposed homosexual marriage (something that a fiction) on the people of California, the Christians, Roman Catholics, and Mormons did not fill the streets with vulgar protests and threaten gays.

Bottom line: Homosexuality is perversion and toleration of anyone claiming the right to indoctrinate our children in this perversion will be the downfall of this society.

[davis,br]

"Hate is not a sound foundation to build on." jharp | Sat Nov 08, 2008 @12:58 PM
"...it is going to get quite ugly for the bigots. It'll be fun to watch." jharp|Sat Nov 08, 2008 @01:28 PM

Do you *ever* reflect upon what you write jharp?

Hmm ...or more likely this is just a symptom of the most severe case of cognitive dissonance I've come across. (And watching the Left, that's saying a lot.) Yeah. That it.

Dude. Get help. You're in serious need of a therapist. Or hell, maybe a puppy.

[M. Simon]

We have two big spending parties. One is culturally "leave us alone" the other is "we know what is good for you".

Guess who gets my support? I do not support the Culture War - just in case you need a clue.

[M. Simon]

BTW the public school movement began as a plot by socons to indoctrinate newly arrived Catholics.

And now some one else has taken over the indoctrination machine.

Most unfortunate.

Evil intent begets evil results.

[MarkJ]

jharp,

"The left doesn't hate religion. We just want them to leave us alone and not spend tax dollars to spread Christianity.

And we don't want their religious beliefs enacted into law.

The left stands firmly behind religious freedom. All religions. Every one of them. And the right to not have a religion as well."

As they said in Spanish, everything you said above is "mierda del toro." Once again, you don't get it: your ideology is now a de facto religion. It has its own commandments, its martyrs, its saints, its sinners, its mythology, and even its own sacred, inviolable texts. Don't believe me? Walk into a Berkeley coffee shop, scream, "Che Guevara was a murderer, a liar, and a thief!" and then watch the hilarity ensue.

Your ideology is now a religion and you're either incomprehensibly stupid or lying if you claim that it's not trying to impose itself on the rest of us. Got that, tovarisch?

[davis,br]

...really, I think it's just an extreme manifestation of cognitive dissonance ...'e can't help himself.

[Philip McDaniel]

“...really, I think it's just an extreme manifestation of cognitive dissonance ...'e can't help himself.”

That, more or less, was the conclusion I had come to…on the other hand maybe the tension comes from his holding ‘one’ thought at a time.

[Tennwriter]

There is one party that knows whats best for us in matters of religion and money...Democrats. The false comparison of Dems as freedom lovers in terms of social issues, and Reps as good on economic issues needs to go.

Right now, we have totalitarians on the Left, and the clueless on the Right. We need to get back to the Standard Conservative who is strong on values, national defense, and fiscal responsibility.

The Party of Honest Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan needs to ride again.

[templar knight]

I don't know so much about the party of Honest Abe Lincoln, but I'll take the Party of Reagan any day. But let's not beat ourselves up too much, gentlemen. The excesses of the Bush years were bound to catch up to us. Although a strong President in many ways, Bush was never able to say no to anything, and let the Democrats, and RINOs for that matter, increase domestic spending dramatically while he tried to fight two wars on the cheap. If he had studied history, he would have known better than to start another war prior to winning one he was already involved in.

The good news is that the far Left is in charge, and they won't be able to contain themselves, but will try to force the most outlandish schemes of the far Left onto the American people, which will not prove popular. If we play our cards right, our comeback will begin in earnest in two years.