Inagua1970

Inagua1970

82p

106 comments posted · 1 followers · following 0

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - Iran Passes the Point ... · 0 replies · +2 points

Sorry, I mistakenly posted on the wrong thread. I was reacting to Tobin's post about Rational (non-Cruz) Republicans. My bad.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - Iran Passes the Point ... · 2 replies · 0 points

Tobin is upset that some conservatives refuse to quietly acquiesce in the continued growth of the federal government. When Tobin calls Mitch McConnell a "genuine conservative," some of us remember that McConnell voted for Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, the Bush Stimulus, TARP, and the Auto Loans, all of which we consider deeply un-conservative expansion of the federal government. Tobin apparently considers these policies to be conservative. He is wrong.

He is also wrong about the Buckley Rule, which he incorrectly restates as "conservatives should always back the most electable conservative, not the most right-wing candidate." The Buckley Rule actually posited that conservatives should support "the rightwardmost viable candidate." There is a huge difference between electable and viable. Buckley himself ran for mayor of New York knowing he was not electable. But he was viable. This is a distinction that even a faux-conservative like Tobin should be able to grasp.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - The Tea Party Mindset · 0 replies · +2 points

Tom - When you say, "most people aren't going to get subsidies," I suspect that you are referring to those people that currently purchase individual health insurance. And that is where we differ, I think. I do not consider these people to be in Obamacare because they will not be purchasing their health insurance from an Obamacare Exchange unless they qualify for an subsidy.

Perhaps if I had phrased it as, "the majority of people who will purchase health insurance from an Obamacare Exchange will be subsidized, then you might agree with me."

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - The Tea Party Mindset · 2 replies · +8 points

Tom - The people who get the subsidies, which will be most of the people who sign up, will almost certainly become very fond of Obamacare. Consider people up to eight years over voting age whose parents have insurance; people who get a sudden serious illness; and a family of four earning $90,000; they all get subsidies. Plus anyone willing to provide the Exchanges with earnings information that might not be completely accurate.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - The Tea Party Mindset · 1 reply · +9 points

PDQ - We disagree only on the definition of existential, which I take more literally than you do. Otherwise, I agree with every word of your post.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - Tea Party Despair and ... · 1 reply · +11 points

Tobin fears that "the Republican Party won’t be able to stop the liberal’s next move." And he is right because the liberal's next move will be "Comprehensive Immigration Reform," which will add millions of low skilled workers and reliable Democratic voters to an economy that needs neither. And one of the reasons is will be difficult to stop is because RINOs like Tobin support it.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - The Tea Party Mindset · 3 replies · +20 points

Yes, Mr. Wehner, some of us really do believe that America is approaching a tipping point. The number of independent, self-reliant citizens is shrinking, and the number of government dependent residents is increasing. And Obamacare will exacerbate this trend.

You are correct that this is not an existential threat. It is nothing like the Great Depression, WWII, or Communism. But it is the slow acceptance of the creation of a European style welfare state, which some of us consider deeply sad. We consider it sad because we care about ordinary citizens, and we know that it is ordinary citizens who suffer the most from the low growth and high unemployment that the Welfare State produces. Surely you know that the standard of living for the average, ordinary European is far below that of the average, ordinary American. Are you willing to stand by while America moves in this direction? What, specifically, do you propose to do about the growth of the Entitlement and Regulatory State?

And, by the way, adding large numbers of low skilled workers, which is what Comprehensive Immigration Reform will do, will not help average, ordinary American citizens. Most of them do not benefit directly from cheap house cleaning, child care, or lawn maintenance. Some Americans still do these chores themselves. Do you personally know any of them?

But government policy is not the determinant factor in quality of life; human ingenuity is. And human ingenuity has given us the cheapest and best food in human history; dependable automobiles at reasonable prices; air conditioning; flat screen TVs; smart phones; good clothing at cheap prices, etc. People like Norman Borlaug and Sam Walton and many unrecognized engineers and computer geeks will continue to make life better despite our poor public policy decisions.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - Who Lost the Shutdown ... · 0 replies · +2 points

Charleston - The results of the next few elections can be predicted with great certainty because of the demographics of our persistent tribal voting patterns: the Democrats have a near lock on the Presidency, and the Republicans are a regional and Congressional Party only.

Nationally the Democrats will pretty much always get a solid majority consisting of 95+% of Blacks; 70+% of Hispanics; 70-ish% of Asians; 70-ish% of Jews; and 40% of White Christians. 

But because many of these Democratic voters cluster together, they have a lock on only about 45% of the Congressional districts. Republicans will continue to control the House, and the Senate will see-saw.

The best the Republicans can hope to do is run some states well, which they do; and to slow the growth of the Entitlement State, which they do poorly, in part because of tacit collusion (Bush) and in part because of lack of unity (the Shutdown setback.)

Republicans will have very little input into foreign policy, although a unified objection to a nuclear Iran might exert some influence on Obama and Kerry, whose Iran actions so far frankly terrify me.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - Who Lost the Shutdown ... · 1 reply · +5 points

BDZ - To continue your sports metaphor, team mates should work together while the ball is in play. Federae is correct that if Republicans had held together and all said, "Obama shut down the government rather than apply Obamacare to Congress," the result of PR battle over the Shutdown might have been better for Republicans. McCain calling Cruz a wacko bird and Tobin criticizing the Shutdown Caucus while the ball was in play was not good team work.

Contrast McCain's and Tobin's behavior with the Tea Party types who warned that Romney might not be the best candidate to carry an anti-Obamacare message, but worked and voted for Romney after he became the candidate.

10 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - The GOP Chooses Surren... · 1 reply · +8 points

As Tobin points out, Obama wanted a Shutdown. And a Shutdown was inevitable because no sane Republican could ever give Obama what he demanded, unlimited spending and borrowing power. So the question facing Republicans was how to frame the argument. And this was the failure. The Republicans never came up with a simple, unified message to rally public support.

Two Congressmen, Sean Duffy and Tom Cotton basically said, in effect, "all we are asking is that Congress live under the laws it enacts for ordinary citizens, and that Congress treat ordinary citizens as it does Big Business." This message might have had a chance of gaining public support if the Republicans had all adopted it.

It was the lack of a unified message, plus the criticism without even the suggestion of an alternative policy by RINOs like Tobin that produced this defeat.