Or, the courage of ruling class Republican cowards vs tea partiers and a diversity-challenged conservative conference.
One man with courage can make a majority, but it’s usually constituted by a plurality of cowards. Witness President Barack Obama’s bold sequester threats against the salaries of White House janitors who clean up the messes of sequester-proof Sperlings, Lews, Hillarys and Obamas that make the messes.
The populist Old Hickory founder of Obama’s Party must have been prompted to roll over in his grave due to the Democrats’ latest attacks on the poor and working class they claim to champion, while yet marveling at their leader’s courage to impoverish (via payroll tax hikes, energy inflation and jobless “recoveries” unworthy of the name, etc) the very voters that make up their electoral majorities, but I digress.
Our purpose here is to replace the wars in GOP Capitol cloakroom caucuses and political action meetings with civil tolerance and diversity. Yes, this tea partier-Southern Baptist-social conservative Republican deigns to so instruct our fellow Party of Lincolnites in Washington, D.C.
Are we a huge (pardon the pun) fan of New Jersey’s governor? Not really. Do we favor GOProud’s gay marriage agenda? Not hardly. Do we understand the House Majority Leader’s fear of offending a Fluked-up female electorate? Yes.
But, do any Republicans believe that fear-driven tactics and policies can pave the way for a 2015 GOP takeover of the U.S. Senate and a 2017 presidential inauguration of a member of the grand old party? And even if it could, what good would majorities so constituted wrought? More Medicare RX entitlement and Department of Education expansions? Could anyone imagine Republican majorities, achieved by trashing the constitution, having the guts to resort to Roberts Rules of Order to repeal Obamacare as the Alabama state legislature just enacted historic school voucher tax credits or as Michigan’s so instituted right-to-work? Not likely, especially as we hear rumors that only tea partier conservatives favor de-funding it in end-of-March budget negotiations.
It was reported last week that in a battle over the “rule” to bring the Senate-passed renewal of the Violence Against Women Act to the floor of the House:
House majority leader Eric Cantor [R-Va] is increasingly frustrated with a group of House Republicans who are working against the leadership, and he’s not afraid of voicing his dismay. In a closed-door conference meeting on Wednesday, Cantor told one GOP member that if they blocked the Senate-passed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) from coming to the floor, they’d cause ‘civil war’ in the ranks.
Cantor’s comment irked some Republican aides, who told National Review Online that such strong language is inappropriate. In recent days, some conservatives have been upset about the Senate’s version of VAWA, saying that parts of the bill are unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Cantor’s warning may have had an effect. When the bill came to the floor on Wednesday, only nine Republicans voted against the rule to take up the bill.
DeVine Law understands that Cantor speaks only of the rule, and not votes on the VAWA bill proper, but when someone threatens civil war if their opponents vote their consciences, the first shot of a war has already been fired by those making such threats. DeVine Law also agrees with Ronald Reagan, who said:
The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.
Hence the scratching of our head until it bled when we learned that this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has excluded the gay conservative group GOProud and declined to invite New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
This South Carolina gamecock, roosted atop Stone Mountain of Georgia since the Summer of 2001, regularly defends the prosecution of those that harm hens in their houses. Not once have we, nor any state prosecutor of whom we are aware, been hampered in those efforts by the absence of a federal district attorney, FBI agent or a U.S. Constitutional amendment conferring concurrent jurisdiction over assaults and batteries confined within a single state’s boundary lines.
The VAWA was originally passed in 1994 by Democratic Party majorities and their last president keen on shoring up a well-deserved criminal-coddling image. Sadly, the new Republican congressional majorities elected the next year aided and abetted President Bill Clinton in this anti-federalist trend by making the possession of an ounce of marijuana a federal offense. Much as President George Bush and such GOP majorities renewed oppressive (and likely unconstitutional) Section 5 Voting Rights Act pre-clearances that Attorney General Eric Holder used to delay the requirement of photo-voter IDs in several states (like those mandated for years in Rhode Island and Indiana), and to perpetuate the notion of an ongoing Jim Crow South, past the last election.
It shouldn’t be tantamount to firing on a federal fort (pictured) to seek to arrest the further destruction of the First and Tenth Amendments. Social conservatives are often (wrongfully) accused of wanting Big Brother in people’s bedrooms (babies are delivered in maternity rooms); but what nook and cranny of any room of one’s house does Barack not now occupy? One can’t even learn what picture the Academy deems best without having school lunch monitor Michelle and her entourage invade one’s living room late at night, but again, I digress.
One has to wonder if fear of “adult children” and their parents with health insurance covering such basement dwellers, that can vote, will also bring warnings against Fort Sumter-like bombers that would dare not vote to fund Obamacare later this month or who demand the building of a border fence Obama can’t tear down before agreeing to another amnesty for future Democrat voters.
Conservatives, libertarians, Paulistas and other informed voters desirous of pursuits of happiness more bountiful that successful trips to the Food Stamp office, must understand that the first step in the removal from office of the Democrats that tripled Bush’s deficits is to fashion a Reagan-like takeover of the only other vehicle available for short- and medium-term political change: The Republican Party.
This won’t happen by labeling those that wish to constrain the federal government to its Article I, Section 8 enumerated powers as enemy combatants; nor by relegating fiscally conservative gays and Chris Christie to pride parades or post-hurricane photo ops in garden states. We aren’t going to get Virginians, Floridians and Buckeyes to reject the Cult of Obama with little CPAC tents, nor will we motivate the base by genuflecting at every Constitution-shredding bill that Harry Reid sends over.
Couldn’t our GOP House write “rules” for Senate-passed bills pandering to their Left, only after the Democratic Senate lets at least one of our House budget resolutions reach the senate floor? One would think.
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
