Saturday, September 10, 2005

Compassionate Conservative

What is a “Compassionate Conservative” anyway? I’m a conservative, but I don’t think I can be filed under “Compassionate Conservative” .

Back in the “day”, there was an expression I thought was extremely truthful. It went something lie this: “There is nothing so dangerous as a liberal with a guilt complex”. Well, I think that ought to be revised. Remove the word "Liberal" and replace it with "Compassionate Conservative".

Now... let me see if I understand what a Compassionate Conservative is, or... is supposed to be. If it means that I, as a conservative, must see to the support of an entire segment of American society who believe themselves, somehow, wronged by American society and are entitled to become wards of the government, as a right… then no, I’m not a Compassionate Conservative.

If making sure that same group of people have rights equal to the rest of us and have opportunities for education and the right to vie in the market place for jobs, right alongside everybody else, then I am a Compassionate Conservative.

I don’t like to be called a Compassionate Conservative. Not that I think there is any chance of that happening. I have been called a lot of things on this site, the most recent of which was “evil”. That’s fine. I’m a Republican and we Republicans have become accustomed to the Left’s name calling. Name-calling is what impotent people do. It’s all they have left. So, it doesn’t matter.

I voted for the Compassionate Conservative in the Whitehouse... twice. If he were able to run again, I’d vote for him again. But I would insist that he stop the spending. The Administration, and the Congress, are spending money like drunken sailors, like there is no tomorrow. We have to stop it. We have to get the hemorrhage of money from the coffers of the US stopped.

It is no longer enough to reduce the rate of the increase in the nation’s budget, it is now necessary that we actually begin to cut funding for the various agencies until there is "zero" rate of increase. Then... we look for ways to reduce it even more.

Compassionate Conservatism can’t do that. Liberalism can’t do that. It will take a hard-nosed businessman, or businesswoman, to do that. I don’t see a man, or a woman, in either the Republican or Democrat parties capable of making the hard choices and saving our treasury from exsanguinating.

Only a few months are left before the flat out, full voiced, campaign for the US Presidency begins. The Left never stopped their campaign. So the right will need to do some catching up, but when one considers the messages, from both camps, catching up will not be a problem for Republicans.

The candidate, I’m hoping for, has yet to announce, publicly, his intention to run. But, he’s out there, making “the rounds”, quietly drumming up support, even today.

Here it is, only 10 months since our last Presidential election, and we are at it again.


“Longstreet”

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