The Political Spectrum

Is it time for a revolution?  Ace of Spades thinks so.  And he’s not alone.
No, I’m not talking about the bloody overthrow of the bourgeoisie.  Ace wonders whether the Republican party needs new blood to come in and put an end to the wreckless spending.  For, as he puts it, “Hey, let's admit it. When Republicans took over as a governing majority, they began acting like a governing majority...”  

There used to be this notion that went ‘round about small-government conservatism.  Then in the late nineties a man came along and changed small-government to “compassionate.”  And it was precisely for this reason that I voted for John McCain in the 2000 New York state Republican presidential primary.  Okay, maybe I was wrong then, but George W. Bush has done little to allay my fears since taking office.  

Oh, sure, the President is not solely to blame.  After an initial charge in the aftermath of the Gingrich revolution, the Congressional Republicans got comfortable.  Scaling back government suddenly became passé. While all members of Congress share in the blame, the undoubted king of pork is Don Young.  And as Michelle Malkin relates, he seems to be in no mood to change the environment.  In response to a reporter’s question about cutting projects from the recently passed highway bill in order to pay for some of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, Captain Tin Ear had this to say:

No! That money is not there! That money is for transportation! That is not added pork. See, that’s why the whole media — Wall Street Journal, yourself, respectfully, you know, Sam Donaldson — don’t know what the hell you are talking about. This is grandstanding by individuals that don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ll go back to that. It’s ignorance and stupidity.  

With Republicans like these who needs Democrats?

There is a movement under foot to pressure Congress to ends its porky ways.  Truth Laid Bear has led a project titled “Pork Busters” that is designed to commit members to sacrifice some of their pet pork projects in order to restore some measure of fiscal responsibility.  The only member of Congress to answer the call thus far: noted arch-conservative Nancy Pelosi.  

National Review Online has also called upon the President and Congress to take some responsible measures, paramount being cutbacks in corporate welfare.  The House’s Republican Study Committee says that we can save $5 billion in the next fiscal year and $50 billion over the next decade through the elimination of such largesse.  The RSC has proposed other cuts that add up to $1.2 trillion over the next decade.  But will anyone listen?

Jonah Goldberg is not so optimistic, and I have to say that I share his gloominess.  Oddly enough this gloom is in the midst of our mutual expectation that we are only at the beginning of a prolonged era of Republican dominance in government.  The far-left has the Democratic party in a vice-grip, and it ain’t letting go anytime soon.  As Goldberg observes, the most responsible Democrats appear to be moderate Republicans like Arlen Specter.

Sadly Republican governance does not equal conservative governance, and Goldberg ends on this gloomy note:
In other words, my real fear is that this is as good as it gets. Conservatives may have to look forward to years of incremental victories, less-than-incremental setbacks, cronyism, hypocrisy, rent-seeking, and the sort of pragmatic compromise which inevitably grinds down intellectual joy and entrepreneurialism. This isn’t because Republicans are worse than Democrats (by any historical measure Democrats have been vastly more corrupt than Republicans — though Republicans are better at getting caught). It’s because that’s the nature of the beast.
Running things is better than the alternative, but some days that just doesn’t feel like it’s good enough.

So what are conservatives to do?  Vote Democrat?  Err, no.  Good God, no.  I could down a bottle of Jack like John Belushi in Animal House and still have enough sense on Election Day to not do that. Vote for a third party?  Seems sensible, but the voices of those alien creatures from The Simpsons start ringing in my ears.  “Go ahead, throw your vote away.”  I think this is an issue worth exploring in greater detail on another day, but I tend to like the two-party system.  I like it even more in the wake of the German fiasco.  Of course not all multi-party systems are so bad.  We could adopt the French multi-party system, which is basically a one-party system with various shades of Gaullism occupying the political spectrum.  Oh joy.

Now I’m depressed.  Our choices seem to be: be more like Germany, be more like France, or more compassionate (read big-government) conservatism.  Suddenly it is now Belushi’s voice that is in my head at the current moment.  “My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.”