Unconventional Wisdom

Pictures here found via The State of.

The Disturbed Republic’s 5th anniversary observance for the victims of Communism. Via Instapundit.

Hat-tip InstaPundit and a quote from Reason…

It might sound odd coming from a libertarian, but I wish the Pelosi-Reid Democrats had more in common with Franklin Roosevelt. Not the Franklin Roosevelt who occupied the White House from 1933 to 1945, but the Franklin Roosevelt who aspired to the White House in the election of 1932. The Democratic platform of that year is a remarkable document, considering the way the party’s candidate went on to govern. It isn’t a libertarian manifesto—it endorses several subsidies and regulations—but it hardly embraces the enormous expansion in federal power that FDR would achieve. The very first plank calls for “an immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagance to accomplish a saving of not less than twenty-five per cent in the cost of the Federal Government.” (It also asks “the states to make a zealous effort to achieve a proportionate result.”) Subsequent planks demand a balanced budget, a low tariff, the repeal of Prohibition, “a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards,” “no interference in the internal affairs of other nations,” and “the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest.” The document concludes with a quote from Andrew Jackson: “equal rights to all; special privilege to none.” It sounds more like Ron Paul than Pelosi.

Here’s more…

Seventy-six years after Roosevelt’s first presidential victory, we’re again faced with the task of weighing a candidate’s campaign promises and wondering what, if anything, they tell us about how the politician would actually govern. This isn’t simply a matter of avoiding ill-informed projection, though both Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have a talent for attracting supporters whose views are diametrically opposed to the stated opinions of their candidate. Nor is it just a matter of sussing out dishonesty, though that’s obviously a part of the equation as well: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has lied brazenly about everything from NAFTA to Tuzla, and it’s hard to believe she’s being upfront about her views on Iraq.

The truth is, would-be presidents don’t always care about the issues that turn out to be most important. How did Bush flip his foreign policy views so easily? By not having strong convictions on global affairs in the first place, allowing neoconservative advisers to fill the void after the 9/11 attacks. It’s easy to imagine, say, John McCain doing something similar during an economic crisis, given that he has already radically reinvented his economic philosophy twice in the last decade, shifting leftwards in 2000 and back to the right in 2008.

Come 2012, President Obama might be explaining why he is sending more troops to Tehran; or President McCain could be preparing emergency legislation to nationalize the banks. If so, our leader’s former self will join Bush the humble non-interventionist and Roosevelt the budget hawk on the fringes of the nation’s memory. A candidate’s campaign persona: There’s the true Forgotten Man.

I like this. So very funny. Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, & JFK has renewed respect from me.

Analysis of the election of 2006 from The American Culture…

Tuesday’s elections were, as widely expected, a solid thrashing for the Republican Party. But the real loser was classical liberalism. And the winner was conservatism.

Republicans lost fewer House and Senate seats than was expected earlier in the year, dropping about the average amount lost in a President’s sixth year. They have lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives and very possibly the Senate, as we await likely recounts in races in Virginia and Montana—states that had trended Republican in recent years.

Very tellingly, Republicans lost three House seats in Indiana, where blue-collar voters, who normally provide a good harvest for Republicans, were concerned about the state’s necessary economic transformation into a modern knowledge economy. Part of that change involved moving to Daylight Saving Time, which Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels pushed for and which caused huge resentment among conservative voters. In addition, Libertarian candidates took away enough normally Republican votes to turn the tide to the Democrats in the three races where Democrats took Republican seats. These were most certainly votes against the War in Iraq.

The point is, in Indiana as elsewhere, conservatism trended toward the Democrats, as voters sought economic security and reacted strongly against the Republicans’ classical liberal vision of a free economy and assertive foreign policy. (Classical liberalism, for those not fully familiar with the term, is the philosophy behind Reaganism: limited government—with the superior competence in governing that it brings—economic freedom, strong defense of the national interest in international affairs, and local control over social issues.)

That, I think, is what happened around the nation: classical liberalism lost big.

But the movement lost because the Republicans failed to govern as classical liberals. Instead, in the economic sphere they ran up huge, unnecessary budget deficits attributable solely to massive spending increases. Small government went out the window as the Republicans massively increased federal control over elementary and secondary schools and passed numerous constraints on political freedom in the Homeland Security Act and the McCain-Feingold restrictions on political speech.

In the foreign policy sphere, Republicans failed to get it done in Iraq and stood idly by while Osama bin Laden laughed at us from his bunker in Pakistan or wherever he is now and Iran and North Korea worked to develop nuclear weapons. And in immigration policy, Republicans embarrassed themselves with an ineffectual, risibly symbolic bill to build a fence along the Mexican border.

In addition, the Republicans threw away their reputation for competence and the value of limited goverment with their inept response to the Katrina disaster. In this as in all other cases, the U.S. press were openly hostile toward the Republicans and sided with their critics, but the Republicans gave them plenty of ammunition.

A lesson that no political party should ever forget especially if they are actually in power.

There’s bound to be a 2008 political angle to this. I hear Obama didn’t make it to Memphis, I also heard that Michelle was attempting to raise money on the 40th anniversary. Now to find some credible articles on this.