You’re not Entitled to your own Facts
Over at American Thinker today, Kevin Tharp has a nice piece called The Forgotten 11th Commandment, referencing of course Ronald Reagan’s famous admonition to Republicans about remembering who is on your side.
Over the course of the last nine or so months, I have had many debates and discussions with other conservatives and Republicans about issues and candidates, many of which have become downright unpleasant. It seems just promoting your particular candidate or view is not sufficient for some people. Attacking you for not supporting their candidate or view is the rule of the day. I’m sure there are few of us who have not had our intelligence, our conservatism, our patriotism or even our humanity challenged because we do not support Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, or if you voiced support for anything John Boehner has done.
This approach is hurting us, in a number of different ways. Tearing-down our candidates will inevitably make the eventual nominee weaker, whoever it is. It drives wedges between, and creates ill-will among different constituencies. Perhaps worst is what it does to our reputation among independents, without whom we cannot ever win an election. Many independent voters are unengaged in politics and unaffiliated because they are so turned-off by the acrimony and confrontation of politics, and watching conservatives and Republicans go at each other from the sidelines helps to make the Democrats look more appealing by comparison. And ironically, this behavior winds up being self-marginalizing in the end.
America is a center-right country, and conservatives significantly outnumber liberals. We should be cleaning their clocks, election after election. Instead, we have a bonifide socialist in the White House, and a Democrat-held Senate. Our country has incrementally slid to the left over the past 60 or so years, and will continue to do so until we mend our ways.
Conservatives and Republicans need to learn we are all on the same side, and start treating each other like friends and allies. We need to understand that if we want to make America more conservative, we first must commit to making the Republican Party more conservative, and we can’t do that by withholding our active participation. The Republicans won’t become more conservative all by themselves! We need to accept that small, incremental wins on policies or elections are still wins, and stop denigrating them, or attacking our political leaders for not trying to get more. And we need to stop this madness of trying to destroy candidates and attack their supporters. If there is solid, rational criticism of a candidate or policy, by all means go to it, but trading in lies and innuendo, and deliberately trying to drum-up outrage will only hurt us all.
Decisions based on emotion are nearly always bad decisions. We need to set-aside our emotion, and especially our outrage, and use our common sense. Most of all, we have to remember who is on our side. Ronald Reagan was right about many things, but none moreso than his 11th Commandment. If we all start following it, we can take our country back.
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We know, with not a shadow of doubt, that liberty is the best—and the most moral—choice for society. We seek to expand human liberty. To defend the individual against the state. To inspire new cooperation between conservatives, libertarians, and all those devoted to this cause, and to bring about a new renaissance of liberty.
Greg, Once again you bring common sense to light. There are so many people I have talked to that share so many conservative values but won’t associate themselves with that “word”… many of them are democrats that are confused about what their party actually stands for these days.
I’ve been watching all the 2012 candiates and I will vote for the nominee. At the same time I worry about who that will be.
This is such an important election year and I have pulled away from severalco candiates because of the 11th commandment.
People are stirring up trouble in this election. Some have valid issues that I
share. But they’re not seeing the big picture.
As always I respect you and your insight greatly!
Tori @ToriDukes
I am struck by several inconsistencies in this article. One is, if the country is center right why the need to take it back, don’t you already have it? Another, and to the same point, is your statement the country has incrementally slid to the left over the past 60 or so years, if that is the case then you are right and wrong at the same time, that slide would make us center left and that may be the reason to want to take it back, but it can’t be both at the same time can it?
I actually believe the country is both center left and center right depending on the issue at hand. I believe we are socially center left, fiscally we are center right. Republicans will almost always win the fiscal conservative battles but lose the personal empowerment ones.
And in that regard republicans have tied their own hands. The republican base over the last 30 years has coalesced around the religious right. You can thank Reagan for giving them that voice. After breaking with the Birchers he brought them back in the fold and they’ve been gaining power over your party ever since.
I think the 11th commandant was wrong headed in the place, it gives the crazies equal standing with the sane. The only way for the republican party to save itself from itself is to engage in open fact based debate. If you want your country back you must first take your party back and that won’t happen behind closed doors.
When I say the country is center-right, I am refering to how it is constituted, not how it is governed. The point I’m making is, that while we’re a center-right country, our governance has been increasingly dominated by the left, and that we should be seeking to correct this. I don’t think that’s an inconsistency. Likewise when I say when we have slid to the left, I am refering to governance, not to the people.
If one looks at issue-based polling data, it’s pretty clear that Americans hold center-right views on social as well as fiscal issues. Look at attitudes toward abortion, gun control and same-sex marriage, just to name a few. The only “left-ish” issues I’m aware of that command broad public approval are entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, and ironically, these are the most dangerous, but that’s another topic.
While I agree wholeheartedly that we need first to take-back the Republican Party if we are going to take-back America, I think your notion that the party has “coalesced around the religious right” is certainly wrong. One of the great frustrations we are having in picking a candidate for the presidential nomination is not that the field is dominated by religious or social conservatives, but rather by “organizational Republicans” more concerned with the fortunes of the party and their positions within it than they are with principles and issues. Indeed, the biggest problem we are having is finding a candidate whose conservative credentials we trust.