NY-23 And The End Of The GOP
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Doug Hoffman, like his party, cannot see how damaging global capitalism and its wars are to the moral and social values that he rightly holds so dear. But the withdrawal of his GOP opponent is still an astonishing development. Could the next stage be the emergence in national politics of conservatives who can see the problem with capitalism and neoconservatism, from an explicitly conservative point of view? Could it? Could it really? Dare to dream, say I. Dare to dream. And TAC readers, dare to do.
After all, how is it that the GOP is no longer in a position even to contest NY-23? Undoubtedly because what was once, in many ways even as late as the Clinton years, the party of trade protection, immigration controls, and a strong defense capability used only with the utmost caution, is now none of those things.
Whoever wins in NY-23, the Republican Party has been supplanted.
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Capitalism has never started a war; all wars are results of socialist attitudes. Capitalism believes only in peaceful competition. How can you call yourself a conservative and not believe in Capitalism?
“Doug Hoffman, like his party, cannot see how damaging global capitalism and its wars are to the moral and social values that he rightly holds so dear.”
Who gave the communist the keys?
Michael is right: “Capitalism has never started a war.” There has never really been a truly “capitalist” society in world history, in which individuals are free to trade voluntarily, where contracts and associations are not violated by the state and are in fact none of the state’s business, and where the rights of the individual are protected under the rule of law. A main part of capitalism is the rule against aggression, and therefore it is not possible for an actual capitalist society to start a war.
Where there has ever been government, the rights of the individual are violated, associations and contracts are intruded on, and invasions of other nations occur. It was a belief in capitalism that guided the founding of our country and independence from the British tyrants, but the state of actual capitalism has never been realized.
Hmmm the Civil War was caused by socialism?
Or by competing interests of Northern industrial capitalism and the Southern slave-commodity system?
The Spanish-American War was caused by socialism?
Or a desire for new territories and markets, nakedly and shamelessly pushed and provoked by Hearst Publishing Press?
World War One was caused by socialism?
Right, all those munitions companies were state owned?! Oh and the states printed their own money too, right, they didn’t borrow it from international financiers who became mega-wealthy?
World War Two was caused by socialism?
Right, I remember how Hitler nationalised Krupp and Bayer, they didn’t have anything to do with the forced labour camps and death camps, and didn’t profit from these at all. And German business had no interest in Lebensraum, there were only honest capitalists who believed in a consensual, free trade agreement in those days.
And Korea? And Vietnam? And Iraq? Private firms certainly have not made scores of billions off of Iraq. Halliburton didn’t win no-bid contracts, despite its relationship with the Vice President.
Right, only the State and State institutions and employees can do bad things. Private companies only do good, happy things that are entirely consensual. They didn’t shoot each other in the streets of Moscow and Petersburg in the 90s over control of Russia’s natural resources. They don’t participate in bribing and blackmailing African politicians or in violence against troublemaking members of the public.
Or, at least, when they do, they are closet socialists, right?
And private companies and top-level capitalists are good conservatives. They love Christianity and family values and they are what are keeping our society together, despite a few powerless evil satanic Islamofascist commie-loving bureaucrats who want to change our way of life. They don’t promote and profit from the culture of death, they are forced to release gangsta rap and slutty music videos and anti-Christian propaganda by the State, right?
And modern-day corporations love national sovereignty and American values. All the problems with globalisation are due to Karl Marx’s cronies at the all-powerful UN, right? The corporations are forced to offshore their wealth.
Just like Goldman Sachs was just forced to issue subprime loans and overinvest in derivatives. They didn’t profit from it, support it, manipulate it, etc. Poor victims.
Grow up.
“There has never really been a truly ‘capitalist’ society in world history, in which individuals are free to trade voluntarily, where contracts and associations are not violated by the state and are in fact none of the state’s business, and where the rights of the individual are protected under the rule of law.”
True enough — because that’s not what “capitalism” means. The word was coined by Thackeray and popularized by Karl Marx. It refers to — it has ALWAYS referred to — a “state-regulated, mixed industrial economy.” The free market and laissez faire are not “capitalism.”
I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high of supplanting the Republicans.
What may very well take place, if Mr. Hoffman wins, is that he drops the “C” after his name and says “I’m a Republican again!” and caucuses with the GOP House members and basically acts as if though he was the party nominee all along. Ergo his “independence” was nothing more than a ploy to use the Conservative Party in New York as a club against the group of party leaders and insiders who passed over him in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with this and it’s something I’ve advocated in the past. However it would have been nice just to keep that C after his name to show his independence even when he crossed the Potomac.
If I was a moderate Republican I would be packing my bags already. What the party leadership did to Scoffazva, whether you agree with her or not, was pretty despicable and opportunistic. Given a chance to build a “big tent” Republicans closed shop quickly when their own hand picked candidate was going down and threw under the bus. Who’s to say the same might not happen to a Susan Collins or Olympia Snow one of these days? The only reason they stay Republican is because the party label doesn’t hurt them electorally in Maine. That may not be true in the future. And what person now would want to run a as “moderate” Republican in the first place after what the party did to Scoffazva?
Either way it really doesn’t matter. The party “moderates” lost their struggle a long, long time ago and only residual, historical loyalty keeps them around until they all die off and become a memory. The GOP is a party of the right. Even if there was a “conservative” third party it would look like, well, the current GOP with all the same factions and players. The only legitimate split would be the Ron Paul faction away from it, but that wing is simply too small to take flight on its own. For better or worse the struggle for the soul of the GOP is not one taking place between “moderates” and “conservatives.” That ended a long time ago. It’s between the different factions of the right, including ones that still hue to real conservatism, small as they may be right now.
The enemy is corporatism (and socialism) not free-market capitalism. The profit-motivated abuses people drag out as the foul results of capitalism are not the result of the free and voluntary exchange of private property. When the law– and the state that writes and enforces the law– are used to advance the interests of one person or group at the expense of the liberty of another person or group, you are not witnessing free-market capitalism. How many times do I have to read or hear or watch statements about the evils of capitalism which ignore that distinction?
I think it’s abundantly clear now. The only thing that separates the Thomases and David Lindsays of the world from the maniacal dictators is not the means, but the ends. Thomas and David Lindsay would happily rule a nation tyrannically, short-sightedly believing they can end all wars, restore justice to the economic process, and solve all other ills allegedly caused by free market capitalism.
For political commentators, their sense of human foible throughout history is simply nonexistent. History seems to teach them nothing. I feel that they should watch “The Obsolete Man” episode of the Twilight Zone, and reflect on the deeper implications of supreme, centralized authority. On another note, I personally find it confounding how ardent Catholics can place their faith in man-made institutions with monopoly power combined with the force of law.
Guess? None of this will even puncture their craniums. They simply don’t get it and probably never will.
People, rather than continually refute the obstinate, dark stubbornness of these people, devote your time to defeating their candidates instead.
William P,
Extremists like you think all regulation is dictatorship.
Once again you think the authority of a non-State entity is sacred and the authority of a State entity is to be feared.
Thomas,
Extremists like you think that more and more regulation is the only thing preventing anarchy and chaos.
Jack,
It is not the amount or quantity of regulation that matters, it is the value or quality of it.
The US economy has been vastly deregulated in many ways since the *conservative* 1950s. The banking sector has been deregulated with disastrous results. Much antitrust legislation has been repealed with disastrous results. The airlines have been largely deregulated with mixed results. The main disastrous deregulation, however, has involved no direct repeal of laws, but rather the adherence of the US to foreign trade organisations that render our quasi-democratically decided laws irrelevant or unenforceable (and all you monetarists and Austrian economists appear to cheer this on).
Environmental regulations have risen on the standard homeowner, ranch owner, farm-owner, and small businessman. This is also horrific, since the regulations are only rarely actually linked to true public concerns and more often serve to make life needlessly expensive so that people cannot advance themselves or compete with larger competitors. Don’t think that is an accident, either. This is regulation of a bad quality.
Overall, however, it is a serious problem for a society when economic entities can easily gain control over government and run it for their own private ends; when the economic arm can muscle down the political arm. At least the State pretends to have a social purpose, at least that is the propaganda it continues to instill in its servants. It is a disaster when organisations with no such pretence take control over society.
And yes, if you believe in no regulation over the economy (especially including the financial sector), then you, sir, are an extremist.
[...] David Lindsay claims that the rise of Doug Hoffman signals the fall of the GOP. [...]