If there is one thing that drives me nuts, it is the term RINO and its callous use by people who claim they love America, but clearly cannot stand Americans.
RINO for those who don’t know its meaning stands for Republican in Name Only and is used as a derisive term for anyone who has not bought into the current Republican orthodoxy as epitomized by Saint Sarah. Over at Playground Politics, the Recess Supervisor has captured the feeling of frustration that has driven us past the end of toleration any more:
Of course, there are also no Republicans who support gay marriage or oppose the teaching of creationism. Because those folks aren’t really Republicans, they’re just RINOs – God-hating RINOs who are trying to ruin America……
There was a time when a real conservative, someone who believed in government staying out of people’s lives, would’ve opposed amendments that discriminate against homosexuals because it was government intruding into things it didn’t need to intrude in. Remember that even the political messiah of social conservatives, Ronald Reagan, publicly opposed a California ballot initiative in 1978 that would have prevented homosexuals from teaching in public schools.
But sadly, what President Bush has taught these people is that they should depend on the federal government to legislate their own religious mores as matters of public policy. So now, we get gay marriage amendments, and ridiculous faith-based initiatives, and Terri Schiavo, and abstinence-only sex education, and school boards trying to teach creationism in science class. Remember back when this insanity wasn’t the defining characteristic of the Republican Party? I do. It wasn’t so long ago.
To social conservatives, the power of government used to be something to fear, to oppose. Now, it’s just something to be used to bludgeon others into submission. Their belief in limited government is conveniently set aside whenever government can help them get what they want. They are every bit as, if not more activist than the very people they profess to be saving America from – and the hypocrisy is nauseating.
That, by the way, is exactly the same thing so may people criticize the other side for. And that’s why so many of the things that gets the right so excited, Ayers, ACORN, Obama’s aunt, Joe the Plumber, have had ZERO traction with the majority of the American electorate. Because its just minor distractions from what is in fact the real problem that needs to be dealt with:
Republican President George W. Bush has not been a conservative at all, either in domestic policy or in foreign policy. He invaded Iraq on the basis of abstract theory, the very thing Burke warned against. Bush aimed to turn Iraq into a democracy, “a beacon of liberty in the Middle East,” as he explained in a radio address in April 2006.
I do not recall any “conservative” publication mentioning those now memorable words “Sunni,” “Shia,” or “Kurds.” Burke would have been appalled at the blindness to history and to social facts that characterized the writing of those so-called conservatives.
Obama did understand. In his now famous 2002 speech, while he was still a state senator in Illinois, he said: “I know that a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, of undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without international support will fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I’m not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”
Burke would have agreed entirely, and admired the cogency of so few words. And one thing I know is that both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed. Both were prudential and successful conservatives. But all the organs of the conservative movement followed Bush over the cliff—as did John McCain.
Sometimes the village has to be totally destroyed in order to rebuild it. If the polls are right-that will be the case with the Republican party come Wednesday:
Sadly, the party of William F. Buckley, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich is dead. And what is left in its wake are a bunch of anti-intellectual populists who will pander to downtrodden voters by attempting to exploit their worst fears (Obama “pals around” with terrorists… one party rule will be disastrous…). There is no positive message. There is no Contract with America. There are no ideas. Just fear.
And American voters aren’t buying it anymore.