Redstate

I suspect public education remains popular in this county, and the GOP is trying to win elections, not advance an ideological agenda.

Query: Suppose coopting public education is the best way to destroy it, i.e., by pushing through vouchers and means-testing. Is it acceptable to have this platform, then, or, more honestly, to endorse the platform?

It won many elections with "abolish the Dept. of Ed." in the platform. Words matter. This is what the GOP is saying to itself -- saying emphatically.

As to your query: I suppose there would have to be some disingenuousness if the party were really committed to destroying public education. But, well, if they are thus committed, I'm a donut.

Nice turn on the donut phrase.

They won Congressional elections. Admittedly, my knowledge of the Party platform in 1980-1992 is sparse, at best, but I don't remember an abolish-the-DOE plank.

The problema with the DOE argument are (1) that people get all squishy over education (especially for "the children"); (2) that people see no reason why the Feds shouldn't send money along (and either don't know about or don't care about the strings that come with that money); (3) that Americans generally like teachers, and still see them as embattled and underpaid; and (4) the public doesn't have nearly the same problem with public education that some conservatives (including yours truly) have with it. Middle class folks aren't gonna riot over lousy schools any time soon. Trust me: I live in Florida, with some unbelievably bad schools, and no one seems to much care.

Perversely, this is something we need to sell to poorer Americans first, then show the middle class why we're doing it.

I'm with you on this in many ways. Two years ago, I would have been yelling to the sky, "KHAAAANNN!!"

I mean, "WHHYYY?!!"

But then some Domenech guy made a point about politics being like football, and how a Hail Mary is wonderful, but it usually ends in an incompletion or a turnover, and how running between the tackles is more effective in the long run.

That I'm not impressed with how they shot down the attempt to change it from "public education" to an anodyne "education," apparently for fear of sounding "exclusionary." That's either stupid, dishonest, or both.

. . . but why not just be mealy-mouthed about public education, instead of raving about it like a NEA convention?

We are Wiley Coyote, always overengineering our way off the cliff.

We are a football team running double-reverse-flea-flickers, that invariably turn into fumbles or interceptions.

We are the Party of Barry Goldwater, always saying something silly and outrageous, just for effect.

We are the Party that, despite our best minds yelling otherwise, internalizes that the New York Times is the American political center, and that is always surprised when the base stops voting for us afterward.

This is precisely what Republican politicians love to do: Sound so warm and cuddly that they make a mockery of first principles. Then they alienate folks like you and wonder what happened.

Glad to have that cleared up.

...1995.  I believe it was the demagoguery of the democrats in that year, against every conceivable reform advanced by the new GOP copngressional majority, that pushed the party in the direction of embrace where public education and the DO(A)E are concerned.  

  I won't pretend to mastery of the public psychology at work here, but here in the Philadelphia suburbs, parents labour under the delusion that the public schools are centers of learning and intellectual excellence, whereas the reality is that they suffer from the same grade inflation and mediocrity as all too many other public schools.  Mediocrity appears as excellence by comparison to the black hole of urban public education.  Try explaining to these parents, on the basis of the evidence, that their children are not nearly so well educated as they believe, and that their children are still educated into a sort of philistinism, and they react viscerally: they have moved to the region, both parents work in order to pay the 30-year mortgage on the McMansion, and they simply cannot assimilate the possibility that they have mortgaged the future on an illusion.  

   Philosophy and evidence count for very little indeed against hard economic and sociological realities.  The GOP has become the right wing of liberalism because, on this issue at least, the American people are liberal.

...that has won six of the last nine Presidential elections (ie, the post-Goldwater ones), so clearly there's something about this strategy that works.  And would that alienated base really wanted our recent Presidents to have been Humphrey, McGovern, Carter (twice), Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton (twice) and Gore?  :)

It's called "playing to the center".

Look it up in the Clinton playbook.

center but never manage to drag it to the right, its still liberalism.

And a complete schmuck as a Senator. Let's just say that I perceive McCain as a perfect replacement, and that I didn't compliment anyone in the first part of this sentence.

It's a lousy way to energize the base, which is why Clinton always had fodder for his.

Old liberalism is actually the new reaction.  Look who's manning the barricades of the MSM.  They have owned that property for years.  Who cares who won the last (blank) pres elections,  The differences at the top have become negligible.  Those who supported the Clintons are now pushing Bush.  Effectivly, they run both parties.  They have a lunatic fringe on the left - Moorites, and a marginalized majority on the right - us [I'm being inclusive].  When are you wankers gonna realize that?  The Democrats abandoned real conservatives to court union activists and social "progressives" (we can witness the former Soviet Union to see where that "progress" goes)  Now the Repubs are doing the same.

It's time to jerk on the choke collar - Dump Bush.  Or at least threaten to before our voice is completely eliminated from the two party monopoly.  The fast horse the swift vet issue, and all it stands for.  And it's OUR horse.  Who cares what W thinks, I bet he'd grovel to Soros if the situation arose.  Think I'm wrong?  Look at the differences in the expansion of fed gov't under the past four presidents.  The carnival is rigged.  

Revolt.  Now.  

At what point in government expansion does government become tyranny?  Conservatives have been watching those goalposts move for seventy years.  The precise difference between a big government Republican and a big government Democrat is?  

In answer to your 2nd ?.  None.

Let me know how it feels to be a party of one.

Let's face it, the Bush Republican party is incoherent.  It is for massive national security spending, expanded social welfare programs, generous  corporate welfare, and preemptive wars while supporting significant tax cuts (the part I like) and claiming to be the party of limited government.  I doesn't add up and it generally doesn't make much sense.

I find surprisingly that the Clinton/Kerry Democrats have a much more coherent governing philosophy, albeit generally unappealing to me.  They are for expanded social welfare programs, more caution internationally, and higher taxes. It adds up and makes some sense even if I basically don't like it that much. The Bush Republicans stopped making sense some time ago.

Who else have you been arguing with just today, Tommy boy?  If politics is the art of the possible, I'm just talking about a window of opportunity to jerk the 'conservative' party back to the right. (how I do hate those directional labels - they're contrived, belittling and inaccurate)  

Kerry's dead.  The swifties did it.  In spite of the RNC and Bush.  Now it's time to use the sword on "liberalism's right wing" (to steal a phrase).  Or haven't you the stomach, Thomas?

Pistols at dawn?

(1) My point wasn't that you're the only one; my point is that politics is an ugly, nasty process where you actually have to accept the fact that millions of other people (called "voters") sometimes have ideas and priorities different from, and even contrasting or opposing, yours. If you join a political party, you have to accept that the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. Do I like giving the NEA a boost? Read the above comments for a better idea. Am I resigned to the fact that Bush cannot or will not do everything I want, so long as the important things are done? You betcha. I'd nominate Keyes were it possible, and were he at all electable. I believe I count all of three issues on which he and I disagree (of course, we're both Papists, so that helps). Keyes won't win. Bush will. Suck it up.

(1a) I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to yank the party rightward; I wouldn't have accepted the founders' (over)gracious to join this site if I felt that way. By all means, do. But carping about imperfection and calling for "revolt" are not the ways to effect that change.

(2) I lose track of everyone with whom I've argued today. I'm a lawyer. I argue with gas pumps, if no humans are around.

(3) Well, more accurately, those labels are leftovers from the early French Revolution -- which is, admittedly, a different, but at least equally good, reason to abandon them.

(4) When they say politics is the art of the possible, I would suggest it should mean something other than what you mean.

(5) Kerry's dead because he's the worst candidate in modern Presidential history. He has three left feet. He's completely without a touch with the common human, let alone any sense for how he actually sounds. His death is self-inflicted.

(6) Should we excise Moe from the party, because he's not as hard as I am about abortion? Me, because I think federalism is a good thing, but doesn't in itself trump other issues? I have plenty of stomach for casting folks into the outer darkness, neighbor, but that doesn't mean I think it's the smart thing to do. (I seem to even remember posting something to this effect, once...)

Bottom line: Bush isn't perfect. The GOP isn't perfect. But they're better -- by far -- than any of the alternatives, and worth a nip and a tuck, rather than a wholesale revolution.

But still a lawyer.  Alas.  So it's fettucine at dusk.  But you still didn't speak to my heart premise - conservatives seizing the initiative and smacking down the left-leaners.  I have fair instincts and there is a moment here, courtesy of the SVFT and the blogosphere, for a stroke.  But the window will close.  If enough conservatives will scream loud enough, the cigar smokers in the RNC, who dissed us in the convention lineup, might just repent - or at least throw us a bone.  Something, say, allow a Keyes to speak.  Or a Coburn.

It is possible, if the Repubs keep the tin ear, for a new movement to form.  Seriously.  The Reagan democrats had a place to go.  Will the Swiftvet repubs?  Perot was kingmaker for Clinton, Nader was death for Gore.  How about a J.C. Watts negotiating with Rove/Bush about party direction?  Can't you see, Gehazi? There are more with us than with them.

Old formula:

Kill off Department of Education,

privatize school systems

New formula:

Create uniform standards for measurement federally

Push vouchers and choice throughout the system and drain the bad schools of students until they close down for lack of demand

The truth is that the old formula was tried and was, objectively a miserable failure because it was unimplementable. Any Republican ticket that seriously considered doing it was either saddled with a enough checks that it didn't happen (Reagan) or they simply weren't elected.

Those who are against this new formula are cheating if they want to go back to the failed formula of the past. They have to come up with a new formula that beats this one.

Frankly, I see some ways to improve it, but they come down the road. For now, this education policy has the advantage of  transitioning us to a place where more small government reform is possible.

Exposing the current failures is important and we shouldn't minimize the transition contributions that this President is providing. He's not going to get us to education nirvana but four more years of this is going to get us to a point where children are going to be better off and further reformers will be able to take the system even further.

Can private organizations provide public education? Liberals don't think so but conservatives should.

I sympathize completely; I just disagree with the means.

I'm 28, but still (barely) flexible enough to turn cartwheels. I would gladly do so if Jindal made the speakers' lineup, or Coburn, or Cain, or DeMint. I am more than slightly irked that none of these fine fellows have prominent speaking roles at the convention -- Jindal especially represents the next wave of conservative Republicans.

But the thing is, Bush is a fairly conservative fellow. He's effected more conservative change in his time than Reagan did in two terms. Read that story I linked to above: I have not consumed the Bush Kool-aid. But for all that, the Republican party is demonstrably more conservative than it was just ten years ago, and even more conservative than it was halfway through Reagan's terms. Because there are more of us than them, and because this yields success -- we're winning now much more than when the Rockefeller Republicans were in charge -- this means the Party will naturally continue to slowly veer right.

But is this the time to seize the initiative? With the usual parade of joker Republicans (where's Kevin Phillips these days, anyway?) complaining that the far-far-far-right has seized the Party, that Bush is a neocon plant, etc., making the Convention more of a pain in the butt than it should be; with the election season really heating up; and with Kerry slowly (but efficiently) self-destructing -- the last thing the Bushies are likely to get enthused about, and be at all receptive to, is an in-base revolt. I think we'd ultimately do more harm than good. Anyway, from what I've seen, the great political movements may be born in Presidential election years, but they solidify in mid-terms.

The other point I offer is more or less pragmatic: How many self-identified conservatives in this country would dump Bush overboard if it came to that? He's running with something like 90% in-party approval. If you would kill the king, be very sure that you can finish the job. I have no desire to toss the most effective conservative in a generation overboard, and I suspect most conservatives agree with me, so long as he hits the big targets. Which he's doing, by the way.

Like I said, I'm sympathetic. I just don't think it would work, or that it's even a good idea in the long run.

If you could go back in time and bring a conservative and liberal from, say, 1950 who do you think would be happier with how the country has turned out?

I say the liberal.

I think you're quite correct; we won the above two by a lot (yet another pair of examples of how y'all are the Party and Philosophy of following along after and eventually deciding that we're right).  

Bush must be brought back to true, limited-government conservatism.  If you are in a Red State, then consider giving your vote to Badnarik, the libertarian candidate, so that Bush's 2nd term can be based on principle rather than neocon fanaticism.

So that we don't need a government any more.

Remember, for the good of the GOP: Vote the Michael/Uriel ticket in 2004.

Y'all are the ones on the tail end of at least one.

I think the conservative from 1950 would be cheered to see that your reflexive love of the Soviets bore no fruit; that the worst excesses of your worldview died or are dying; and that the Democrats are the minority party in this country.

Lord knows, that all makes me happy.

say the "old formula" has been tried and failed yet follow that with:

Any Republican ticket that seriously considered doing it was either saddled with a enough checks that it didn't happen (Reagan) or they simply weren't elected.

Sounds to me like you're saying it was never tried.

Anyways, rather than thinking of them as two dictinct formulas, the "old" is the strategic goal and the "new" is a tactical means to achieve it.  Wait long enough and you may just be posting that both suceeded brilliantly.  Or not.

"....your reflexive love of the Soviets."  

Seek professional help.

There is momentum here, and attitude.  It's gonna take Bush to victory and then be wasted.  Conservatives have a moment and that moment is NOW.  The RNC machine is gonna lift it's skirts and embrace it openly, then move on to the next john.  What conservatives lack is a LEADER, a voice, that leader is not GWB.  He is sympathetic, but not blown-in-the-glass.  He needs to be influenced.  Gingrich blew up.  Billy Graham is done.  Dobson's tiring, fed up with the dog and ponies.  There are leaders out there, don't expect the MSM to help us in their ascendance.  They'll dissemble and obfuscate and smear, then follow grudgingly because of profit motive.  The new media MUST use it's newly found power.  That means even the power to anoint.  This country is far more conservative than we've been led to believe.  If we don't flex, we atrophy.

Revolt, or for God's sake, at least threaten to.  

Your selective historical amnesia is almost as impressive as your inability to marshal a coherent argument.

Now shoo, before Ashcroft pins down your location through GPS and picks you up. Make sure you put your tinfoil hat on first, so that Karl Rove can't isolate what few, stray brainwaves you have.

Maybe our strategy for the past 50 years is standing athwart history yelling, "Stop!"  Now we have to put the gears in reverse, put in metrics for reversal, and monitor the reversal.  People who think themselves conservatives have been dragged so far left over the years, they are now, unknowingly, liberals.  Some are opportunists.  Some have lost the will to fight and have become fat, lazy and sloppy.  Some are confused.

And public education has made the entire population ignorant.  Their heads are filled with trash and distorted history.  Public education is a propaganda mill for whoever is in charge of the industry.  It has uprooted traditional communities, and turned them into Mickey Mouse, mass cultured, clones of the Yankee Northeast.  It breeds teenage peer groups whereby children rebel against their parents, and are lead astray on paths to destruction through deracination.  They become cut off from their roots of family and tradition.  Then, as now, they are sitting targets for the electoral propaganda structure of our government in decadence.  Such people (us) are fed images and hypnotic music through television; this tells them what to think and how to vote.  Whoever has the most money for the biggest propaganda campaign wins elections and controls the country.  

So, this public education nonsense is all part of our American mob rule.  If the mob rules, naturally, both parties want control over the minds of the mob through public education.