In the spirit of this holiday, I suggest the following list of resolutions for Republicans for 2013.<\/p>\n
Republicans must resolve to:<\/p>\n
(1). Acknowledge that your party is not<\/em> a \u201cconservative\u201d party.\u00a0 Recognize, and then admit, that it is a neoconservative <\/em>party.<\/p>\n (2). Come to terms with the fact that neoconservatism is almost as antithetical to genuine conservatism as is welfare-liberalism, socialism, and, in short, full-blown leftism.\u00a0 And then realize that this is because neoconservatism is but another species of the latter.<\/p>\n (3). Disavow anyone among your ranks who prides himself upon being, say, a \u201cKennedy Democrat,\u201d or a \u201cScoop Jackson Democrat.\u201d\u00a0 You should resolve to disavow such a person just as quickly as you should disavow a self-declared \u201cconservative\u201d who regards The Weekly Standard <\/em>and Commentary <\/em>as \u201cconservative\u201d publications.\u00a0 Fortunately, these are two birds for which you will need only one stone, for it is a certainty that anyone who professes to be a Democrat in the mold of JFK or Scoop Jackson will <\/em>think of these publications as conservative in nature.<\/p>\n (4). See \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio and Fox News for what they are.\u00a0 If <\/em>Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O\u2019Reilly, and others really are \u201calternative media\u201d voices, as they are forever assuring us, this is only because they are an acceptable <\/em>alternative.\u00a0 And they are an acceptable alternative only because they are a scripted <\/em>alternative.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Our \u201cconservative alternative media\u201d unfailingly adheres to the Politically Correct script.\u00a0 This is why the left has succeeded in not only maintaining, but actually strengthening <\/em>its hold over our culture <\/em>during just that period that our \u201calternative media\u201d has exploded.<\/p>\n (5). Abandon all cult-like worship of all politicians\u2014particularly those at the national level.\u00a0 Few things are as inimical to liberty as this.\u00a0 Republicans seem to have a glimmer of this insight whenever they speak to the phenomenon that Sean Hannity routinely refers to as \u201cObamamania.\u201d\u00a0 Yet when it comes to the boulder in their own collective eye, they are oblivious.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yes, the elevation of Barack Hussein Obama to the stature of a deity is both idolatrous and dangerous.\u00a0 However, it is no less idolatrous or dangerous when Ronald Wilson Reagan <\/em>is immortalized.\u00a0 For that matter, it is equally idolatrous and dangerous to deify Abraham Lincoln\u00a0and even\u00a0\u201cthe Founders.\u201d<\/p>\n This brings us to our next resolution.<\/p>\n (6). Eschew the deification of all politicians, certainly, but especially those who have championed, not just \u201cBig\u201d government, but Gargantuan Government.\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, it is without exaggeration that Republicans can be said to worship <\/em>Lincoln.\u00a0 Our 16th<\/sup> president they have canonized as a saint.\u00a0 Yet there is no figure in American history who has done more to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d the relationship between the citizen and the government than \u201cHonest Abe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Via four long years of the bloodiest war Americans, to the present day, had ever seen, Lincoln succeeded in revoking the Founders\u2019 vision of a federalized, constitutional government rooted in states\u2019 rights.\u00a0 He was the stuff of which the anti-Federalists\u2019 (and many of the Federalists\u2019) nightmares were made.\u00a0Lincoln established the precedent for the ever growing consolidation of authority and power that continues to unfold at neck-breaking speed today.<\/p>\n Stop worshipping Lincoln and start realizing that he was as\u00a0perilous a threat\u00a0to liberty\u00a0that America has ever faced.<\/p>\n (7). Drop all talk of \u201cthe Reagan Revolution.\u201d This is closely related to the last resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n There was no revolution.\u00a0 Federal debts and deficits ballooned under Reagan. No department, no program, <\/em>was eliminated.\u00a0 Taxes were cut, yes, but so too were they increased, and they were increased more frequently, and far more significantly, than they were reduced.<\/p>\n Reagan talked a good game\u2014a great game, actually.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t walk so well.<\/p>\n In practice, Reagan was every much a champion of Gargantuan Government as the Democrats with whom (he all too infrequently) did battle.<\/p>\n (8). Continuing this same theme, repent of the cover that you ran for George W. Bush throughout his presidency.\u00a0<\/p>\n Any politician <\/em>who refers to himself as a \u201ccompassionate conservative\u201d is neither compassionate nor conservative.\u00a0 Government exists to see to it that justice is done.\u00a0 Compassion is for individuals to dispense.\u00a0 Bush was as gargantuan a spender of tax monies as any politician has ever been.\u00a0 He increased <\/em>the size and scope of the federal government.<\/p>\n Obama is our president today because Bush was our president yesterday.<\/p>\n (9). Concede the glaring inconsistency of simultaneously advocating \u201climited government\u201d while calling for a larger <\/em>military.\u00a0 In other words, recognize that the military is <\/em>government, that the larger the military, the larger the government.<\/p>\n If you are in favor of a smaller, less intrusive government, then you must favor a smaller, or at least not a larger, military.\u00a0 If, on the other hand, you favor a larger military, then you favor a larger, not a smaller, government.<\/p>\n (10). Call out, by name, <\/em>those self-declared \u201cconservatives\u201d who actually threaten the cause of liberty.\u00a0 Even if this proves to be an endless task, which it undoubtedly will, it is a task that needs to be fulfilled.<\/p>\n Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the spirit of this holiday, I suggest the following list of resolutions for Republicans for 2013. Republicans must resolve to: (1). Acknowledge that your party is not a \u201cconservative\u201d party.\u00a0 Recognize, and then admit, that it is a neoconservative party. (2). Come to terms with the fact that neoconservatism is almost as antithetical to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n