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“The ‘Cap And Tax’ Dead End”
Sarah Palin put together a factual and well-reasoned editorial in today’s Washington Post.
HotAir followed with excellent analysis here.
As Indiana’s own popular and successful Republican governor noted in May, it’s not only an unnecessary waste of money to accomplish nothing, but it’s an exploitative, provincial policy that, if it benefits anyone at all, only does so to the richest (and “faltering”) coastal states, while hurting the people it supposedly helps.
No surprise the out of touch Statists running the Democrat party want it so badly.
Conservatives need to stop over-analyzing their own party — and mocking terminology of an essential conflict supported by the right — and band together to defeat the enemy within in 2010 and 2012. If not, we’re doomed, and it won’t matter whether Paleos, Neos, Libertarians or whomever had the better “conservative” ideas.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Conservatives don’t have a party of their own to “over-analyze.” Would that it were so, but there is no conservative party.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Ok, the Republican party or the ideology of conservativsm.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I understood what you were saying. You do realize that the Republican Party is not conservative and has been progressively drifting ever further from that state?
Plus, I could not disagree more about the general comment. There is something intrinsically conservative about looking back and assessing where one comes from, peering into the future and trying to make sure that one is still on the same track which has served one so well over the years. It is when we forage out into new untested territory that we deserve the label progressive. Conservatives conserve. One way they do that is by looking at the track they are laying to ensure that it is still headed in the same direction it was originally pointed. By that token, self-assessment, self-discipline, and self-correction are trademarks of conservatism. It is the single most glaring difference between the undisciplined, anything goes, “if it feels good do it” attitudes so prevalent with liberal progressives and conservatives. It is also when we adopt similar attitudes that we know that we have ceased to act conservatively. But, we will never know if we are developing those modes of thinking if we are constantly focused on our supposed foes. Introspection is not necessarily bad…especially when it is apparent that we have run off the tracks.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
By the way, the derision was directed at the silliness of having wars on nouns or tactics. We don’t fight concepts, i.e., “terror/terrorism,” we fight people. In 2001, we began a war (albeit without Congressional declaration) with the Talib regime of Afghanistan who were supporting and harboring like-minded rabid Islamists from the Arabian peninsula and elsewhere. We didn’t start a war on aerial sneak attacks in December of 1941. We declared a war on Japan, and hence, the other members of the Axis. It was statists like Lyndon Johnson (with his idiotic “war on poverty”) who came up with grammatical travesties like “wars on inanimate and/or intangible things.”
July 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Or, as a mostly-forgotten figure of conservatism past once put it, “words mean things.” “Ideas have consequences.” When one side adopts the tactics and rationales of the enemy, the enemy is winning.
A war on this particular direct object might very well spill over into a war on another convenient direct object without anyone noticing the difference, especially if the direct object is nebulous enough.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
“You do realize that the Republican Party is not conservative and has been progressively drifting ever further from that state?”
Semantics. It’s far more conservative than the Democrats, so there it is for now, ok?
It’s good to look back. I’m a historian after all. But I am not interested in attacking my own party and ignoring true evil out there here and abroad. We’re wasting time and not influencing anything anyway.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Semantics.
Okay, I suppose the one thing that matters is the party of the person who we wish to take to task.
For instance, one might (rightly) take Obama to task for his evil scheme to impoverish America through Cap and Trade. That bill’s clearly evil impact on Americans both now and in the future is unquestionable and likely to be far-reaching. Indeed, we will be able to label the subsequent global depression which results as Obama’s Depression.
On the other hand, if John McCain had won, after campaigning strongly in support of Cap and Trade, we would then embrace Cap and Trade as the enlightened path to energy independence and clean energy. We would simply chalk up the economic pain as the price of securing America’s future.
After all, there is no point in attacking one’s own when there are far more dangerous bugbears out there sporting D’s after their names. Is that about right?
July 14th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Mrs. Palin had a decent column. I find myself largely in agreement with the points she made. By way of contrast, Conor Clarke’s response at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish boiled down to “well, it’s only a trillion.” That and he isn’t sure we should reduce dependence on foreign oil, because, hey free trade is great and industrialization is the product of that, but how dare you impose a cost on society by consuming energy, you lummoxes in your houses with heat and refrigerators with actual food!
That said, how much “infighting” would you have engaged in, Doughboy, if your chosen candidate, McCain, had won and pushed for — wait for it — Cap and Trade, one of the issues for which he campaigned most vigorously? Or would you have towed the line because he was right on the real issue, NatSec? Because, after all, arguing against him would have been counterproductive, right?
July 14th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I think we did it again, Mike. You’ve got to learn to type faster.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
We need a tax code that rewards achievement and encourages investment for a successful economy. The Obama administration needs to enact policies that bring tax rates in line with our global competitors, but need some encouragement! The Friends of the U.S. Chamber supports these efforts. Sign the economic and tax policy petition at http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/takeaction/index.cfm?ID=42