angrydragon
01-15-2008, 01:57 PM
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjlkOTQ2NjUwOThkYjQ2YTk4MjQyOTAxNmE0YzdmZGE=
Fred and Ron [John Derbyshire]
A reader urges me to support Fred Thompson:
Mr. Derbyshire Ron Paul and Thompson are the only two conservative candidates. Thompson beats Paul in two critical ways:
1. At first blush Paul seems like the only honest candidate. But on closer inspection, he is unserious his candidacy is a feel-good game. Not only is it not about winning the Presidency, at its heart it is not even about promoting the cause of small government. Paul loves playing the daring hero, and loves the feeling of an excitingly radical idea. For him, an idea like abolishing the IRS is measured less by its real current potential as a cause, and more by how over-the-top daring it is. If he wasn't an economic libertarian, he might be promoting some radically unorthodox pseudo-scientific theory, such as the earth being hollow. I didnt connect all the dots until I saw a video of him with Leno the other day, and saw his facial expressions. Yes it is nice to dream about living in a small-government never-never land, and I would gladly give a limb or two to live in one. But Paul is not a real candidate, and his isn't even a real political movement. Paul may have stolen your heart (he had a good piece of mine for a while also), but I think your head was right at the beginning.
2. In the last NC poll, Thompson is only two or three points behind both Romney and Huckabee. If youve been following TV coverage, you know that only the top two or three candidates have much visibility at all now, aside from debates. If Thompson can rise a couple of more points, then there will still be a conservative candidate in the running after SC. I live in Ohio. I want at least a chance to vote for a conservative candidate when my turn comes.
I don't know, I take the naοve point of view that you support the candidate whose principles are closest to your own, and whose record suggests sufficiently strong will to stick to those principles, and sufficient ability to act on them. Since Paul is promoting a passive style of federal government i.e. masterly inaction, leaving the country to run itself so far as possible the last doesn't really apply. On the second, Paul's record is hard to beat for consistency (though the standard here is a political one, i.e. low). And on the candidate debates I've watched, or read transcripts of, Paul is the one I most agree with. I can't see that I need justify myself any further than that.
My reader's aspersions on Paul sound a lot like the ones I recall hearing about Ronald Reagan during the first presidential election I witnessed from American soil, in 1976. An office colleague he was a recent refugee from Eastern Europe was hot for Reagan. Everyone else, Democrat and Republican alike, laughed at this guy. "Not a real candidate " etc., etc. Uh-huh.
My problem with Thompson is on the issues. His positions, when they are not ones I frankly disagree with ("I am committed to A larger, more capable, and more modern military " Eleven carrier strike groups not enough, Fred? How many, then?) are woolly, seeded with trouble-generating cant ("The United States is a nation of immigrants " No, we are a settler nation, which at various times has opened itself to immigration, and at other times, not) and vague, improbable, let's-not-be-too-hasty concessions to really bad aspects of the status quo ("I am committed to Giving parents more choices in education and schools less bureaucracy." So why not disestablish the Department of Education?)
Fred's a good man, and yes, has a clearly conservative broad outlook. If I can't get a Paul-Thompson ticket, I'll settle for Thompson-Paul, or even Thompson-Giuliani. When a dysfunctional federal government generates systemic problems, though and there are some doozies just over the horizon you need systemic solutions. I believe that in current circumstances, that means a withdrawal of federal power from areas where it never had any proper business being, and a return to a strict reading of the federal Constitution. I see the same belief in Paul. I don't see it Fred.
Fred and Ron [John Derbyshire]
A reader urges me to support Fred Thompson:
Mr. Derbyshire Ron Paul and Thompson are the only two conservative candidates. Thompson beats Paul in two critical ways:
1. At first blush Paul seems like the only honest candidate. But on closer inspection, he is unserious his candidacy is a feel-good game. Not only is it not about winning the Presidency, at its heart it is not even about promoting the cause of small government. Paul loves playing the daring hero, and loves the feeling of an excitingly radical idea. For him, an idea like abolishing the IRS is measured less by its real current potential as a cause, and more by how over-the-top daring it is. If he wasn't an economic libertarian, he might be promoting some radically unorthodox pseudo-scientific theory, such as the earth being hollow. I didnt connect all the dots until I saw a video of him with Leno the other day, and saw his facial expressions. Yes it is nice to dream about living in a small-government never-never land, and I would gladly give a limb or two to live in one. But Paul is not a real candidate, and his isn't even a real political movement. Paul may have stolen your heart (he had a good piece of mine for a while also), but I think your head was right at the beginning.
2. In the last NC poll, Thompson is only two or three points behind both Romney and Huckabee. If youve been following TV coverage, you know that only the top two or three candidates have much visibility at all now, aside from debates. If Thompson can rise a couple of more points, then there will still be a conservative candidate in the running after SC. I live in Ohio. I want at least a chance to vote for a conservative candidate when my turn comes.
I don't know, I take the naοve point of view that you support the candidate whose principles are closest to your own, and whose record suggests sufficiently strong will to stick to those principles, and sufficient ability to act on them. Since Paul is promoting a passive style of federal government i.e. masterly inaction, leaving the country to run itself so far as possible the last doesn't really apply. On the second, Paul's record is hard to beat for consistency (though the standard here is a political one, i.e. low). And on the candidate debates I've watched, or read transcripts of, Paul is the one I most agree with. I can't see that I need justify myself any further than that.
My reader's aspersions on Paul sound a lot like the ones I recall hearing about Ronald Reagan during the first presidential election I witnessed from American soil, in 1976. An office colleague he was a recent refugee from Eastern Europe was hot for Reagan. Everyone else, Democrat and Republican alike, laughed at this guy. "Not a real candidate " etc., etc. Uh-huh.
My problem with Thompson is on the issues. His positions, when they are not ones I frankly disagree with ("I am committed to A larger, more capable, and more modern military " Eleven carrier strike groups not enough, Fred? How many, then?) are woolly, seeded with trouble-generating cant ("The United States is a nation of immigrants " No, we are a settler nation, which at various times has opened itself to immigration, and at other times, not) and vague, improbable, let's-not-be-too-hasty concessions to really bad aspects of the status quo ("I am committed to Giving parents more choices in education and schools less bureaucracy." So why not disestablish the Department of Education?)
Fred's a good man, and yes, has a clearly conservative broad outlook. If I can't get a Paul-Thompson ticket, I'll settle for Thompson-Paul, or even Thompson-Giuliani. When a dysfunctional federal government generates systemic problems, though and there are some doozies just over the horizon you need systemic solutions. I believe that in current circumstances, that means a withdrawal of federal power from areas where it never had any proper business being, and a return to a strict reading of the federal Constitution. I see the same belief in Paul. I don't see it Fred.