Redstate

your proposals are both conservative AND immediately achievable. For instance, stopping the national budget from growing (except for non-defense spending) would be a tremendous accomplishment, and would attract more attention to the conservative agenda as an EFFECTIVE and not just as a theoretically attractive political platform.

These ideas would definitely help us win back the middle of the country, and set the stage for more conservative accomplishments down the road.

"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher

This is very thoughtful, DMEaton, but two questions regarding your first point on national defense:

1. Are the majority of Americans now opposed to more defense spending and in favor of more diplomatic and "multilateral" approaches in foreign affairs? (The media claim they are. I am not sure, but it's quite possible that they are.)

2. If so, how do we win them back on these issues when the Iraq War is (unfortunately) so unpopular? Like it or not, the Defeatists have succeeded in persuading the majority of the country that we cannot make any more substantial progress in Iraq, and it looks more and more as if Bush has missed his chance (for over 3 years) to do more than the same failing strategy. Yes, he has just changed the strategy, and it just may work, but it could be too late.

So let me know your thoughts when you get a chance.
Thanks for a great blog.

i will be eager to hear about this in your next blog. i'm a bit surprised you haven't been given hell yet for saying this.

but maybe you're onto something....

"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher

The Democrats know this. If we get Iraq turned around in the next 12 months or so, the Democrats will get slaughtered in the 2008 elections. This is why they're trying to strangle the surge in its crib.

That's not to diminish your points at all, though; Iraq might control whether Republicans regain Congress in 2009, but your points would help ensure that Republicans stay in control of Congress in 2011, 2013 and the future.

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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

Your emphasis on the importance of the nation-state system shows me that you are a wise man. On a practical level we can and must exhibit the results of the UN, the Dems love for the UN and the appeasement emanating therefrom.

Quite frankly, the Dems in congress and their nominees help us every time they discuss the war, and defense and foreign policy generally. We have never elected an appeaser but the dems have been fooled again by the unique year 6 election in 2006 and their sycophant echo chamber in the MSM (plus the absence of Bill Clinton to shut them up) to think that America agrees with their McGovernism.

I think that the 2004 election fits history in that when war and national security are issues, we win, despite specifics on the particular war.

See 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 2004.

Dems won congressional elections throughout, but could never get their McGovernites in during war-time.

I look forward to your 4th, as I have been saying much the same thing.

And, while I am a Bible believing southern baptist pro life anti gay marriage evangelical, the war is the number 1 issue. And most southern evangelicals are war hawks who know that we can, if we must, fight the social issues w/o govt help.

In fact, we should declare victory for now on many fronts since we expect Roberts and Alito to solve most of the problems on the court.

more later on a Rudy book review tonight

again great work, and I am happy you are here
wee need you

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
Race 4 2008
The Minority Report

I eagerly await your next three installments. I hope you don't work at a university---the Kossacks will soon hunt you down. May I recommend adding lots of sandbags to the walls of your office. And don't forget overhead cover for your carrel in the library.

:)

"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)

Great start to what promises to be an interesting series. However, I do wish to split a hair or two with you on one of your points.

You write that the two simple ideas have to do with America's Place In The World and with Limiting Growth of Government. And yet, the idea itself doesn't speak of America's place in the world as much as it does about our relationship with international institutions:

Internationally it is important that we seek a secure world premised on the superiority of the nation-state system. International institutions are a helpful addition insofar as they provide a framework for different nations to coordinate their activities. However, international institutions should not take over the nation-state. Our liberties and interests are better guaranteed by our own representatives, responsible to us through regular elections, than by distant bureaucrats with the interests of other people at heart. We conservatives have something unique to offer in this regard because liberals are increasingly interested in abandoning the nation-state in favor of the UN, the ICC, and other international institutions that might have lofty goals but do not live up to their billing. By placing our reliance on our own tried and solid institutions, and on our proven allies, we can fulfill our goals in the world: remaining on offense against the Islamic Totalitarians and promoting free commerce and free institutions. International institutions may supplement our efforts, but only if they are understood as tools, useful so far as they achieve our ends. If we delegate our primary powers to an international institution, they will not be returned to us. We will hardly be able to limp forward. Thus disabled, our friends will soon turn to a stronger nation, and our enemies will look upon us with confidence and contempt.

Even in full agreement, I do not believe that it answers the fundamental question: Shall we lead, even the unwilling? Or shall we withdraw, and leave them to their own fate?

Throughout American history, insular isolationism has been a pretty strong thread in American political thought. Insulated by two oceans -- despite them being mere illusions in this day and age -- Americans have always preferred not to venture abroad. Only since World War 2 have we had a really robust interventionist foreign policy predicated on fighting international communism.

What I sense -- hence cannot prove or provide evidence for -- is that a large part of the American public is tired of being Globo-Cop for a world that won't take responsibility for itself. Israelis and Palestinians want to kill each other? Why is that my problem? Sunnis and Shi'a want to murder each other? Why should we intervene? You even hear voice among conservatives and Republicans who advise a course of withdrawal from the world rather than an imperial engagement.

So please, focus on that idea more squarely. What is America's proper role in this world we have today, beset with confident Islamist movements, resentful spoiled brat Europeans, and a Dragon flexing its wings in the East?

Your formulation simply charts a course for preserving our national self-interest in a world gone mad with global bureaucracy. It is essentially defensive. What of our "offense"?

When facing fascism, we offered not only guns and men against it, but an ideology of freedom and democracy as the better political system. Facing communism, we offered the ideology of freedom and capitalism as the better economic system. Facing Islamism, we offer platitudes about "freedom" and mealy-mouthed apologies to the likes of CAIR and nervous tics of obeisances to the gods of political correctness. This the American people also sense. The so-called theocratic Christo-Fascist Bush regime bends over backwards to be solicitous to the "religion of peace" while the average American wonders what is so peaceful about Islam in its current manifestation.

My own thinking has evolved much in recent months. One cannot fight Faith with Faithlessness. The secularization of our society, of our culture itself, makes us near-fatally weak when confronted with Real Belief. Consumer goods could bring down communism: we can provide it, you cannot. But it has no power against genuine religious faith, no matter how misdirected or ill-conceived.

Most of us conservatives, as people of faith ourselves, understand just how powerless material goods, new blue jeans, and Diet Coke are before genuine belief. The Liberal cannot understand; he can only sputter, "But how in the world could people... do that over a piece of myth..." and rationalize it away as desperate actions of desperately poor people. All the while ignoring the fact that Osama bin Laden is the scion of one of the wealthiest families in the world. All the while ignoring the fact that the 19 hijackers were well-educated men with bright futures. All the while ignoring the fact that the London bombers were middle-class English lads before they embraced jihad. We are not so blind.

So then... herein lies the challenge of America's role in the 21st century, the Age of Faith. What do we as a people, as a nation, as a culture believe strongly enough to die for? If the answer is "Nothing", then what shall we conservatives say about that?

-TS

"What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?" - Justice Antonin Scalia