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Posted at 6:03am on Jun. 5, 2008 Pssst! Hey, Fredheads - over here for a confab

By E Pluribus Unum

IT'S TIME TO TAKE A HARD LOOK AT BOTH THE LONG WAR AND THE SHORT WAR, THEN DO THE RIGHT THING

File under: Fredheads | powwow in the rebel camp | don't hate us because Fred is beautiful

Note to all: This diary is not technically a closed meeting. But if you're not one of the Fredheads or our adjuncts -- in short, people with strong conservative principles who have on that basis had a good bit of difficulty warming up to McCain -- this ain’t for you, and I would GREATLY appreciate it if you just move along, or read it and save your ammo for another day.

This discussion has to happen inside the rebel camp, rebel to rebel. We've heard what you have to say, now let us talk amongst ourselves. I asked nicely, but this ain't another Olive Branch. Don't mistake this for a dialog between Fredheads and anybody else. Savvy?

So, my fellow Fredheads, let's have that heart-to-heart, shall we?

Posted in 2008 | conservatism | Fredheads — Comments (205) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:46pm on May 27, 2008 DeMint-headedness: putting Conservative principles over policies

By E Pluribus Unum

CART BEFORE HORSE AIN'T WORKING: SO JUST FOR KICKS, LET'S TRY IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND, SHALL WE?

File under : Republicans | try political courage, you might like it | DeMint | Conservative principles win

For anybody not aware of who Senator Jim Demint is, let me first bop you upside the head for being an ignorant cretin and a sorry excuse for a Republican. Second, let me give a brief introduction: DeMint is a champion of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and has more than once stuck his neck out in politically risky moves that show his conservative bark ain't NOTHING compared to his conservative bite. He is a :

-- noted FisCon : slowed down the bipartisan Katrina pork-fest, and CFG loves him;
-- noted SoCon : family man and Christian, noted abortion opponent;
-- noted Milcon : has actively said that cut-n-run talk from Congressional Dems has caused troop deaths, and co-introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008, which would shut down all federal funds going to Berkeley, CA after the fiasco about the Marine Recruitment Center.

This dude is the real deal, on all three legs of the conservative stool. Now you have no excuse : you know who he is, and by all means study him - the more you see, the more conservative he looks. So let's give a listen, shall we?

Posted in conservatism | Conservative Principles win | Jim DeMint | Republicans — Comments (59) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:24am on May 23, 2008 Ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more.

By Paul J Cella

At the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan was introduced to thunderous cheers. What happened next is the stuff of legend.

Dylan came out, backed a blues band, and plunged right into a raw, blazing, hard blues rendition of “Maggie’s Farm” — a song that has about as much in common with standard folk music as chalk does cheese. There were boos, jeers, astonishment, and outrage. Pete Seeger is said to have threatened to take an axe to the sound equipment. Dylan fed off the audience’s mixed, but very vocal reaction. (Around 3:00 to 3:40 in the video below shows him answering the jeers with defiance and amusement.) “Like a Rolling Stone” was also in the set. Then later, after more commotion and confusion, Dylan returned, all by himself, to play an acoustic set — which concluded with a haunting version of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”

The episode is commonly acknowledged to signify Dylan’s declaration of independence from the moribund protest movement of the folk singers. Folk music had jumped the shark, and Dylan was not going to let these ragged commies go home from their folk festival unconfronted with that fact.

In our day of farm bill outrage, moribund movements, and a crying need for Conservatives to declare independence from the GOP leadership that is careening toward oblivion, this 1965 episode seems to me somehow apposite.

Open thread.

Posted in 1965 | Bob Dylan | Congress | conservatism | GOP | Maggie's Farm | Newport Folk Festival — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:37am on May 9, 2008 Fred-headedness 2 – Conservatism School Back in Session:

By E Pluribus Unum

RUSSELL KIRK DESCRIBES CORE CONSERVATIVE VALUES IN THE TRADITION OF EDMUND BURKE, ALEXANDER HAMILTON, WM F BUCKLEY, AND GOLDWATER. CONSERVATISM IS, QUITE LITERALLY, WHATEVER HE SAYS IT IS.

File under: conservatism | Russell Kirk | don't hate Fred because he's beautiful | dyslexics untie!
Third in a series.

Republicans need to embrace America’s conservative roots which made her great in the first place

Here’s a question for ya. Why do REPUBLICANS need to embrace conservatism? Why do I say that? Shouldn’t DEMOCRATS also embrace conservatism? Shouldn’t Martians, tall people, and people who love horses also embrace conservatism (that’s for you, C)?

In point of fact, yes. EVERYBODY should embrace conservatism. But we are Republicans, and operating the political machinery of the nation to benefit the nation is our business. We’re smart, realistic, handsome (or beautiful), we shop at Home Depot, and we love America better than we love political power. The Dems can say those things too, but they are lying when they do so. So let’s start with us, and we’ll get to the others as time allows.

Follow me to school...

Posted in conservatism | don't hate Fred because he's beautiful | dyslexics untie! | Republicans | Russell Kirk — Comments (157) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:36pm on May 7, 2008 The Next Big Thing for the Right?

By Bluey

Conservatives and Republicans have whined for the past year about their disadvantage vs. the left's activism, fundraising and journalism websites. I've monitored it closely on blogs and heard about it during countless panel discussions. There has been continuous talk about how to grow, adapt and change.

That discussion has revealed the monumental challenges facing the right -- both online and offline. There's frustration with the non-existent "Republican brand" and resistance among many conservatives to embrace technology. I've witnessed these challenges up close both on Capitol Hill and in my job at The Heritage Foundation, a 35-year-old institution that is (slowly) trying to strengthen its footing in the digital world.

Changes are happening all around, including here at RedState. As Erick reported earlier today, this site will undergo its own restructuring as part of version 3.0. The new RedState will fill important voids on the right, particularly at the state and local level, one of the fastest growing areas for citizen journalism.

Posted in conservatism | fundraising | Online Activism | politics | Technology | Technology — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:04am on Apr. 4, 2008 Up From Mediocrity

William F. Buckley Jr. was a hero of mine.

By Kevin Holtsberry

Today in New York City a memorial service is being held to honor one of my heroes: William F. Buckley Jr. In remembrance of this occasion I wanted to try and put down some of my thoughts about how this great man impacted my life.

WFB - to use the shorthand - and I had little in common on the surface. He was a wealthy, Ivy League educated, world traveler with roots in the South and East Coast. I was born and raised in the Midwest in a Middle Class family, attended a small liberal arts college, and my only foreign travel was a trip to France in grad school.

He loved classical music and I barely know the difference between Bach and Beethoven. He loved to sail and sailed around the world. I have been a on a sail boat probably twice in my whole life. He was a master of the English language. I struggled with dyslexia as a child and still struggle with spelling and grammar. He was a lifelong Catholic and I am an evangelical protestant who grew up in small Bible churches.

In short, he was a sophisticated, highly intelligent, famous, and impactful person. I am not.

But it was his greatness - his goodness, his fundamental rightness - that called me to strive to be better, to know more, to communicate better, to make an impact.

For more keep reading.

Posted in conservatism | History | National Review | William F. Buckley — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:27pm on Feb. 27, 2008 William F. Buckley Jr. Goes Home

A Man in Full

By Ben Domenech

More than any writer, more than any thinker, more than any intellectual, William F. Buckley Jr. made the modern conservative movement what it is today.

There will never be another like him. We mourn losing him with the entire National Review family. Yet we can take comfort in knowing that in this world, he lived a life without equal - and thus could be called home to the next with no regrets.

What I would give to hear whatever witty line he kept in his back pocket for greeting Saint Peter.

RIP.

More below the fold.

Posted in conservatism | National Review | Republicans | WFB — Comments (47)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:16pm on Jan. 25, 2008 I am no longer a RiNO

By Neil Stevens

For the record, I no longer consider myself a RiNO. I will vote for the nominees of the Republican party* all the way down the ticket automatically. That's my new policy.

This is a major change for me. I've always considered voting for another party to be a reasonable message-sending approach. but I was misguided: my thought processes hinged on the assumption that the Republican party is truly and rightfully Reaganite. But that is not the case, so I have to adapt.

Posted in conservatism | Conservatives | Republicans | RINOs | Ronald Reagan — Comments (152) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:27pm on Jan. 23, 2008 Ideas Don't Run For President; People Do

A Timeless Truth. Repeat As Often As Needed.

By Dan McLaughlin

With the failure of the Fred Thompson campaign, there has been predictable and understandable wailing and gnashing of teeth in conservative quarters about the state of the GOP and what this all means for the future of conservative ideas. Fred ran as a full-scale, across-the-board movement conservative, and he went nowhere. Among the four remaining major candidates, we have two who are genuine conservatives on some core issues but basically apostates on others (Rudy and Huck), a moderate who is generally if not as dramatically out of step on a large number of issues (McCain), and one candidate (Romney) whose positions have changed so much from his past positions and record that nobody really knows for certain how trustworthy he might be if he actually won the general election. Conservatives are asking: has our party abandoned us? Have GOP voters rejected our ideas?

No, it has not, and they have not. Remember Article II, Section 1 of our Constitution: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." President, singular, individual. Flesh-and-blood human. That's who holds the job, that's who gets elected to the job. No perfect vessel, no incarnation of ideas. And that fact must be repeated again and again until people understand that winning and losing elections and choosing leaders is about picking the right person from the available choices. Ideas don't run for president, people do.

We got the field we started with because these were the men who were willing to ask for the job and able to raise the minimum amount of money and signatures and staff to initiate a campaign. That limited our options to the people who had - or thought they had - the qualifications and the right political moment to run in 2008, not some other year. We got the field we have now because along the way, some of the contenders failed to promote themselves well, or made a bad impression, or ran out of money, or found better things to do with their time. That leaves the four men who remain, plus of course Ron Paul. We have no choice but to take each them as a whole - platform and record, experience and character, skills and resources. And it is just one of those remaining men, as a whole, with whom we will go forth to battle in November.

An awful lot of angst could be avoided by remembering this simple truth. And an awful lot can yet be spared if the folks who live in this big and querelous tent we call a political party - which we would all like and hope to see function as a majority party - would remind themselves of it: we have been asked to choose among men, not ideas. While our choices certainly reflect our view of the ideas each man champions, it is deeply mistaken to read the choice of one man over another as the final and definitive statement of what ideas we truly support. I, for one, as a Republican would like to know that the candidate we settle on - or settle for - has more people behind him than just the ones who agree with every one of his ideas.

Read On...

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | conservatism | Fred Thompson | Libertarians | Ron Paul | Schism — Comments (54)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:23pm on Jan. 20, 2008 The irony of Bob Dylan.

By Paul J Cella

Whaddya say we talk about something unrelated to the primaries? I say we try it. Anyone with me, clear your minds of all that compelling tomfoolery and read on.

Posted in Barry Goldwater | Bob Dylan | conservatism | Culture | J. H. Kunstler — Comments (15)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:00pm on Jan. 2, 2008 Conservatism Wins. Fred Thompson for President

He’s the Man with the Conservative Plans

By Mark I

For most of this primary election season, I have found myself very sympathetic to the arguments expressed here. National security is certainly a prevailing concern in this presidential election, more so probably even than in 2004. But just as central to this election from a Republican Party perspective is the nature of the Party in the post-Bush era. If Republicans want the party to remain a majority party, as I believe it still is, they must remain true to the conservative principles upon which five of the last seven presidential elections have been won.

There is only one candidate running that has demonstrated a consistent dedication to conservative principles of federalism, smaller government, family values, the rule of law, and the proper exercise of the role of the three branches of government. That candidate is Sen. Fred Thompson, and I am proud to offer my endorsement of his campaign.

Read on…

Posted in 2008 | conservatism | Fred Thompson | Presidential Primary | Principles | Republicans — Comments (70)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:57pm on Dec. 8, 2007 Huckabee and small-government.

By Paul J Cella

I’m pretty much in agreement with Josh Trevino on Mike Huckabee. The criticism of him on small-government grounds has solid merit, alright, but what of it?

We’re nearing the end of two terms of big government Republicanism from George W. Bush, which was basically advertised as such from the beginning, and during most of which time small-government criticism was muted. I can remember contending against No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bill years ago, in the online presence of many good small-government men, to no avail. They stonefaced me. Back in about 2003 I even repeated a traditional Republican argument about how war, according to an old saw, “is the health of the State.”

The context of that 2003 argument might be worth revisiting:

Posted in 2008 | conservatism | Mike Huckabee | the state — Comments (38)/ Email this page » / Read More »