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November 17, 2006Defining the Bush ConservativeAJ Strata has a must-read piece up. I hope he is wrong about what he sees as a coming split between conservative factions, but I must say what he has written (brilliantly) is everything I support and have supported these past few years. And yeah, to me, it still sounds like classical liberalism. Maybe AJ has defined the place where stands the liberals who were chased out of the Democrat party over the past decade or so, and have never quite known what to call ourselves: Bush Conservatives, like Bush himself, are for lower taxes and focused government (someplace between liberals and libertarians is the proper role of government). They are not for destroying the public education system, they are for making it work. And they understand private school access is one option. They understand that a prescription drug benefit for Medicare/Medicaid will reduce overall costs and provide a respectable end of life for our seniors who came before us. Yes, it costs a lot to care for our elderly. But it doesn’t represent big government. It represents a big heart. I am not for throwing money away. The prescription drug benefit was a nice optimizing solution to a broken system. It was consumer driven (which is why the liberals should not be allowed to go in and insert bureacratic price controls) and it will save money that was being wasted in emergency room treatments for normal problems. You’ll want to read the whole thing. I’d say if the conservatives do split, it may well be on the immigration issue. A while back I wrote this here: 70 or 80 years ago, my own ancestors were coming in, legally, and learned to hang drywall and fix automobiles and fight fires. Yes, they were legal…the nation had well-run, functional programs to handle a huge influx. Had such a program not been in place, they would have come, anyway…and they would have been illegal! I wonder why it is that we do not, today have a well-run, functional immigration program to handle the huge influx of people who wish to live here. Why aren’t we WORKING on creating such a program? Why isn’t that part of any immigration bill - the reform of the INS? We’re going to need our immigrants as the boomers retire and weigh heavy on our SocSec system and their children barely reproduce at replacement levels. Why can’t we bring back the idea of Ellis Island - create an Ellis Island West, so to speak which would prevent the “illegality” of our immigrants. That might be helpful, you know? Make ‘em legal, get ‘em paying taxes…Sure, some people called my grandfather a “filthy wop” and my other grandfather a “lazy mick” and they bitched because the carousel at Coney Island suddenly played Italian hurdy-gurdy instead of genteel songs from the gay 90’s, but everyone adjusted. The nation grew stronger Meanwhile, it’s back to work for me. Related: http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/11/17/defining-the-bush-conservative/trackback/ 10 Responses to “Defining the Bush Conservative” |
November 17th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
Are you a “Bush Conservative”?
“Bush Conservative” is the new, not-nearly-as-pejorative name for what is refered to in the literature as “Bushbotism”. One of the chief symptoms of this affliction is a very strong ability to believe strongly in an…
November 17th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
That is me in a nutshell. I also believe its the average Catholic mass going voter too. It is the demographic of many evanglicals around me in my neck of the woods that used to vote democrat also.
THere are people in the Republican party that are running in 08 on this platform. However I wonder if their voice will be allowed to be heard by either the conservative alt media or the MSM
November 17th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
I read that post by AJ and I agree with him. As for the immigration issue, the only thing the hardliners accomplished for the Republicans in that last election was a huge loss of hispanic voters..they went straight to the Democrats while a majority of other voters states that they preferred comprehensive immigration reform to enformcent only. If the conservatives continue to make this an issue, it will cost them votes. I am sure Bush knew that. But that did not keep a lot of them from turning on him where this issue is concerned.And it cost the party.
November 17th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
[...] Defining the Bush Conservative [...]
November 17th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
What is the USA trying to fix with immigration? What is its purpose? How can we make it work for the future of our country? After having a successful immigration plan which absorbed about 200,000 people legally per year over about 60 years and blending these people into our country, we changed and began allowing over a milion a year in both legally and mostly illegally. Mexico is the prime country involved in these numbers and Mexico is far from the poorest country in the world, only closer. The only true solution to this problem is finding a way to keep these people where they are and NAFTA was supposed to begin this process. It has failed miserably. The cost of this immigration and the results to our country have been devestating in cost and stability in our society. There has been a lot of discussion about how many are here and working, but the real issue is how many are here with no skills and on the dole in some way either by jail, welfare type programs, healthcare, etc. We are talking about billions upon billions of dollars and we are dealing with immigration that in large part are not people coming here to ever truly blend in and pledge allegiance to our country. On top of that, there is clear evidence that we have a huge hole in our security and today do not know who are why many are in our country. The top five countries who have people here illgally outside of Mexico are all countries who export terror and who by and large have populations that hate the USA. Giving people citizenship path makes policing them even harder because in doing so you give them rights they have not earned. I wish we had leadership focused on what was good for our country rather than leaders trying to figure out how to stay in power. If they are not careful, we all will find ourselves in trouble. I strongly urge everyone to stay on this issue and to read the book by Mark Steyn, America Alone. Time is running out on our future as we continue down the road with leadership from both parties in the tank. The only salvation for the Republicans is that the Dems smell worse in every one of these areas.
November 19th, 2006 at 11:23 am
I guess I’m somewhere in-between, wanting a border fence of some kind along with a guest-worker program. I do not believe the two are mutually exclusive and my motivation for the former is security.
November 20th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Anchoress, you need to understand our current situation better. We are letting in more people today, legally, than we did during the Ellis Island era. We are letting in more people per year than we ever have during our history. And that doesn’t count the millions, MILLIONS of illegals. In 1965, the continuing curse, Ted Kennedy, put forward an immigration bill that he promised would not turn our cities into 3rd world enclaves of under-educated, unemployed foreigners. And here we are in 2006 with whole swaths of our major cities where all the signage is in Spanish, where any restaurant or construction site you go to is, hopefully, bilingual.
The millions of people who pour across our border each year are not coming here to become Americans, as your ancestors did, they are coming here to make America a literal “New Mexico”.
Search “Aztlan” on the web. Go check out the MECHA web sites.
And even if you throw all that away, even if you want to open up all of America to all of Latin America out of the goodness of your heart, you have to acknowledge the security situation.
When a torrent of millions is pouring across our border it is far too easy for terrorists to pour across with them. That is why the border must be secured, to stop the next Mohammad Atta.
It is not an Ellis Island issue, it is a 9/11 issue.
“Comprehensive Reform” is a red-herring to make sure nothing is done to stop the flow. The flow must be stopped first, then, and only then, can we talk about coming to an understanding on reasonable and proper immigration reform.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I appreciate the instruction l4n3 but you know, I’ve never said the wall shouldn’t be built. I’ve never said it shouldn’t be enforced. There is a huge difference between “stoppping the flow” while designing some meaningful and effective (and enforce-able) reform than “stopping the flow” and then “shipping them all back,” which is the unreasonable and hard-line alternative I see all too often from the far right on this issue. I am not wholly ignorant on this issue, nor am I a rose-colored glasses sort, but I do believe in being realistic and remembering that we are dealing with HUMAN BEINGS, here. I don’t think the conclusions I draw on immigration are vastly different than most of the country’s.
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It IS to an extent, a 9/11 issue, but 9/11 should never be an excuse for forgeting that the people we are dealing with were loved into being by the same God who loved your kids and mine into being. Keeping that in mind has also made Iraq more difficult to contain - that’s just the way it is when you have to deal with the reality that “the enemy” is also “the human being.” “Bomb them all” and “ship them all back” sound great in theory. You still have to answer to God for it, and perhaps that’s why every other president has failed on this issue, and I guess it’s just our bad luck, then, that we have a president who cares about his - and the nation’s - soul, isn’t it?
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And it damn well IS an “Ellis Island” issue. Ellis Island and the immigration policies of that time were created to address a pressing need and that’s something no legislative body or exec. officer has been willing to do. This situation would not now be so grave if every - EVERY president of the last 30 years, including REAGAN, hadn’t punted the ball down the field.
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President Bush is finally - FINALLY - going to do something, and it is better than nothing - moreover it is a START, and a humane, manageable one. The far right won’t take it - they’d rather have nothing “on principle” and wait for the day the rest of the country will come around to see the extreme solution as the only one left.
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Reagan said there were conservatives who would never understand that you take 75% and walk away a winner and go back for 75% more another time. He was right.
November 20th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
I am a Bush conservative too. I was appalled by the NRO guys this last year over Dubai Ports, Harriet Meiers, immigration, prescription drug benefits, etc., etc. And they are so so critical over Iraq. Although they are not as bad as Bill Crystal regarding Iraq. I have disdain for pseudohawks who have turned viciously on Bush after being in the forefront promoting going in to Iraq. But let there not be instant victory and: look out!! They join the chorus of Bush bashers. Worse yet are the whining Republicans in Congress “blaming” Bush for their losses this election, not their own corruption, pork barrel spending, weak leadership, do-nothing lack of results, and really lousy campaigns. Oh no, not their fault at all. It is, say it loudly all together, Bush’s fault!!
November 21st, 2006 at 9:37 am
[...] In the meantime, while I rant, The Anchoress links to AJ Strata and muses on what’s to come for Bush Conservatives. Not just conservatives, or Republicans, or both or neither. AJ writes about many issues that define us (read the whole thing and bookmark it-it’s like a conservative manifesto of sorts), but in relation to this post, this one item alone sums it all up. Bush Conservatives do not see failure in Iraq, they see the long hard, generational fight we were warned was coming. Bush conservatives will not ally with liberals to find an exit and let the terrorists follow our troops home. Bush Conservatives do not blame Bush for Al Qaeda’s tenacity. We salute Bush for his tenacity. [...]