Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Conservative Despair: GET OVER IT!!!

This article by David Frum, former Bush-43 staffer, is an excellent perspective on the realities we're likely to face in the next 4 years.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/opinion/frum-conservatives-despair/index.html

I realize that most of the clinically depressed conservative-politics denizens of the 24HCF will reject Frum's thesis out of hand because it was posted by CNN. Too bad, I can't fix your brain unless you come to see me and allow me to prescribe you drugs, and even then, you may be beyond help.

But for those who are able to let down the hammers of their temple-aimed revolvers long enough to read the article, I suggest that you pay close attention to the part I've highlighted in bold. Therein lies the key to a lasting resurgence of conservatism in the United States.




Washington (CNN) -- The mood among American conservatives is now one of apocalyptic despair.

Having convinced themselves that this election arrayed freedom against tyranny, they now must wonder: Did their country just democratically vote in favor of tyranny?

On Fox News election night, BIll O'Reilly explained the meaning of the election: the "white establishment" was now outnumbered by minorities. "The demographic are changing. It's not a traditional America anymore." And these untraditional Americans "want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it, and he ran on it."

O'Reilly's analysis is echoed across the conservative blogosphere. The (non-white) takers now outnumber the (white) makers. They will use their majority to pillage the makers and redistribute to the takers. In the process, they will destroy the sources of the country's wealth and end the American experiment forever.

You'll hear O'Reilly's view echoed wherever conservatives express themselves.

Happily, the view is wrong, and in every respect.

America is not a society divided between "makers" and "takers." Instead, almost all of us proceed through a life cycle where we sometimes make and sometimes take as we pass from schooling to employment to retirement.

The line between "making" and "taking" is not a racial line. The biggest government program we have, Medicare, benefits a population that is 85% white.

President Barack Obama was not re-elected by people who want to "take." The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

The United States did not vote for socialism. It could not do so, because neither party offers socialism. Both parties champion a free enterprise economy cushioned by a certain amount of social insurance. The Democrats (mostly) want more social insurance, the Republicans want less. National politics is a contest to move the line of scrimmage, in a game where there's no such thing as a forward pass, only a straight charge ahead at the defensive line. To gain three yards is a big play.

Obama's second term agenda

Whatever you think of the Obama record, it's worth keeping in mind that by any measure, free enterprise has been winning the game for a long, long time to this point.

Compare the United States of 2012 to the United States of 1962. Leave aside the obvious points about segregation and discrimination, and look only at the economy.

In 1962, the government regulated the price and route of every airplane, every freight train, every truck and every merchant ship in the United States. The government regulated the price of natural gas. It regulated the interest on every checking account and the commission on every purchase or sale of stock. Owning a gold bar was a serious crime that could be prosecuted under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The top rate of income tax was 91%.

It was illegal to own a telephone. Phones had to be rented from the giant government-regulated monopoly that controlled all telecommunications in the United States. All young men were subject to the military draft and could escape only if they entered a government-approved graduate course of study. The great concern of students of American society -- of liberals such as David Riesman, of conservatives such as Russell Kirk, and of radicals such as Dwight Macdonald -- was the country's stultifying, crushing conformity.

Even if you look only at the experiences of white heterosexual men, the United States of 2012 is a freer country in almost every way than the United States of 1962.

Obama has changes in mind that conservatives and Republicans will oppose. He will want to raise taxes, he will want to sustain social spending at a permanently higher level, he has in mind new regulations over health care, energy production and banking. He'll win some, he'll lose some. To the extent that his wins prove injurious, future Republican Congresses and administrations will struggle to undo them. That's politics: a contest that never ends, and in which the only certainty is the certainty of constant change.

The Republican challenge next is to reassemble a new coalition for limited government and private enterprise. That coalition must include Americans of all ethnicities. To assume from the start that only certain ethnicities will contribute, and that others aspire only to grab, is not only ugly prejudice; it is also self-destructive delusion.

People of all backgrounds want to create, save and contribute to society. A party of the center-right should make them all feel at home, regardless of how they pronounce their last name, the complexion of their skin or the way in which they express love and build family.

The Roman Catholic Church deems despair a mortal sin. To abandon hope is to reject the reality of goodness and to forswear future action. The United States is a great and good country, and it remains great and good even when we do not get all our own way politically. The United States is a tolerant and free country, which means that there are no "tipping points" beyond which it becomes impossible to correct mistakes.

Fifty years ago, Marxism was still a live intellectual force in British universities. Marxists taught that human society must inevitably evolve into a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. The great British conservative historian Hugh Trevor-Roper scoffed at this arrogance. He said, "When radicals scream that victory is indubitably theirs, sensible conservatives knock them on the nose. It is only very feeble conservatives who take such words as true and run round crying for the last sacraments."

We need more sensible conservatives. As for the feeble conservatives, they should take a couple of aspirin and then stay quietly indoors until the temper has subsided and they are ready to say and do something useful again.

LMAO...


Good luck with all that... Conservatives are dinosaurs, and definitely in the minority...

No despair here - just facing reality; we're now a socialist nation.. How's that worked out for every other country?

I never knew 'freer' was a word. I would have used 'more free'.

Learn something new every day.

Travis

This conservatives' despair lasted about 2 days and was then replaced with fierce determination and grim resolution. I refuse to let the election results feed on my will to enjoy life to the best of my ability.

Am I worried about our future? Hell yes, but I'll face each challenge as it comes the best way I know how.

Fug a bunch of moronic liberals.

I'm getting a can before they're illegal.


Travis

Thank you Doc. Good article.




I do believe our country will continue to decline under the weight of our government but I don't share the same opinion of my fellow Libertarians on the speed of the decline. I also don't buy into what I perceive to be the irrational fear of both sides of the isle that electing one side will push us at any noticeably faster of a clip into the abyss.


I just know for myself, I'll never let a political party or politicians dictate my happiness or curb my dreams. I'll work around the constraints placed on me and give government a big middle finger as I live how I want to the best of my abilities.

There are great big freaking racks around Freer (Texas) Travis.

PS. Calm down, Travis- White tail deer racks.

I'm rejecting Frum's analysis out of hand, but not just because it was presented by CNN. David Frum is an idiot. He states as fact all the things we know to be false. He ascribes good where evil exists, and pushes a Pollyanna world view that is patently wrong.


that is fundamentally wrong. There are HUGE benefits arising out of membership in select sub groups of Americans.
It is only going to get worse, so far as 'white people' goes.
The 'recipient class', largely black, hispanic, female and uneducated, does not pass through stages of making and employment. Those folks by pass those steps, and proceed directly to 'taking'
The trick now, is to, on an individual basis, do what we can to lessen the impact on us as persons.
The government is indeed, the enemy. Our fellow Americans are truly the enemy.

Political pundits are now psychologists, as they need to create a vision different then all the other pundit/psychologists to sale their wares.

Reality is simple until the next reality replaces it... most keep a fairly even keel and the minority will cry to any that will listen.

Kent

I am now like the country folk I saw in RSVN, leave me and my rice paddy alone & I won't say anything!

I'm in total agreement with your thoughts of late.

A week before the election it wasn't all doom and gloom but one or two days after suddenly we're a socialist country composed of takers.

BS!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Hussein won by the narrowest of margins and his ilk can be defeated in coming elections. Nothing is set in stone.

I got to shoot a couple different .22 semi-auto pistols with cans back in October. Pretty fun, but not as quiet as I expected. Still a worthy goal, though. I really like the thought of one screwed onto the end of my HB 10/22.

I don't like the $200 bucks in fees plus the 3-4 hundred bucks that both of my buddies each paid for theirs.

But I always prounounced that like fear. "FREAR".

I read the word freer to read 'free-er'.


Travis

Cans are fun? Thanks and GFY Captain Obvious.

This one is for my American Rifle. Little more expensiver. But at least I'll feel more freer.


Travis

If I could afford a good can and the tax it would live it's life on the dangerous end of an AR with a 300 Blackout upper.

A great post on how best to deal with this Gotterdamerung. As for Frum's piece, I have to respectfully disagree. It's a different country. Since the 1970s 85% of immigrants to this country have been from the Third World and uneducated. If you take a look at the Cuban Migration, there is for the most part, a distinct difference between those who came over before 1980 (political migration where the gaining country gets the cream of the crop for obvious reasons) and after (economic). Sure there were many (still are) that come over for "freedon", but let's face it after Mariel, the majority came over for economic gain. The Cuban vote this time around while still heavily Republican, clearly shows an inexorable shift to the democraps.

If I could afford a jet it would be p i m p. And I would shoot at birds with a suppressed machine gun.

In the scheme of life, one could take otu a part time job to get teh 1200 or so it costs for a can.... and another 600 or so for the upper....

It all depends on whats important in ones life. Doesn't make anything out there cheap or unaffordable, its all simple priorities.

Yeah.... how'd that work out for them?

Interesting article Doc. I do feel that seeing the takers/makers thing in the stark ethnic contrast that many here seem to espouse is utterly wrong.

Like it or not, a Republican Party built around angry, white, racist, warmongering, Bible-thumping males is an anachronism that has thankfully run it's course. I too welcome with wide-open arms a resurgence as a fiscally responsible Party focused on the business of business.

However the most pressing issue bar none is getting the finance sector's dick out of our collective asses, while our politicians stand by with tubs of AstroGlide. Pardon moi French.

LMAO.. And your arms will remain wide-open, and rather empty...

The takers don't want 'fiscal responsibility'.. They just want more of whatever YOU have earned..