Wednesday, December 12, 2012

December 12, 2012


HUMAN EVENTS
The Winter of Conservative Discontent
by Pat Buchanan
December 11, 2012

As the white flag rises above Republican redoubts, offering a surrender on taxes, the mind goes back to what seemed a worse time for conservatives: December 1964.

Barry Goldwater had suffered a defeat not seen since Alf Landon. Republicans held less than one-third of the House and Senate and only 17 governorships. The Warren Court was remaking America.

In the arts, academic and entertainment communities, and national press corps, conservatives were rarely seen or heard. It was Liberalism’s Hour, with America awash in misty memories of Camelot and great expectations of the Great Society to come in 1965.

That year, however, saw escalation in Vietnam, campus protests, and civil disobedience against the war. That August, there exploded the worst race riot in memory in the Watts section of Los Angeles, with arson, looting, the beating of whites, and sniper attacks on cops and firemen.

A year after LBJ’s triumph, black militants and white radicals were savaging the Liberal Establishment from the left, while Gov. George Wallace had come north in 1964 to win a third of the vote in the major Democratic primaries with an assault from the populist right.

Below the surface, the Democratic Party was disintegrating on ethnic, cultural and political lines. Law and order and Vietnam were the issues. Richard Nixon would see the opening and seize the opportunity to dismantle FDR’s coalition and cobble together his New Majority.


Today, the GOP strength in the House, Senate and governorships is far greater than anything Republicans had in the 1960s. The difference is that, then, we could visualize a new majority of centrist Republicans, Goldwater conservatives, Northern Catholic ethnics and Southern Protestant Democrats.

And we could see the issues that might bring them into the tent: a new Supreme Court, law and order, peace with honor in Vietnam.

When the Liberal Establishment collapsed during the 1960s, unable to end the war in Vietnam or the war in the streets, national leadership passed to the party of Nixon and Ronald Reagan. From 1968 to 1988, the GOP won five of six presidential elections, two of them in 49-state landslides.

The crisis of the GOP today is demographic, cultural and political.

Demographically, people of color are nearing 40 percent of the U.S. population and 30 percent of the electorate. These folks — 85 to 90 percent of all immigrants, legal and illegal — are growing in number. And in 2012, people of color voted for Obama 4 to 1.


The GOP trump card — we are the party of Reagan, who led us to victory in the Cold War — ceased to work 20 years ago. Then, George H.W. Bush, a war hero who had presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet Empire, the victor of Desert Storm, won 38 percent of the vote against a draft-evader named Bill Clinton.

Culturally, the causes of the 1960s’ revolutions — no-fault divorce, legalized drugs, “reproductive rights,” teenage access to birth control, gay rights and gay marriage — have either been embraced or become acceptable to most of America’s young.

As a result of the sexual revolution promoted by the counterculture of the 1960s, the dominant culture today, 40 percent of all births in the United States are now to single moms.

With no husband, these women look to government to help feed, house, educate, medicate and provide income support for themselves and their children. For sustenance and the survival of their families, they depend on that same Big Government that Republicans denounce at their rallies.

As to the GOP’s strongest appeal — we are the party that will cut taxes — half the country does not pay income taxes, and the GOP is about to surrender to Obama even on the tax front.

Republicans stand for bringing entitlements under control. But the primary beneficiaries of the big entitlements, Social Security and Medicare, are seniors, the party’s most reliable voting bloc.

On foreign policy, the most visible Republican spokesmen are Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Both were unhappy with the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. Both want to intervene in Syria and Iran.

What does America want? To come home and do our nation-building here in the United States.

The bedrock values of Reagan — work, family, faith — still hold an appeal for tens of millions. But the faith of our fathers is dying, the family is crumbling, and work is less desirable when the social welfare state offers a cushioned existence for life.

Conservatives need to rediscover what they wish to conserve and how, in a climate every bit as hostile as 1964 — then await the moment when the country turns again to an alternative.

As it will. For our economic course is unsustainable. And our regnant elite are more arrogant than the establishment of the 1960s, though less able to satisfy the clamors of their bawling constituencies for more and more from a country that is approaching an end of its tolerance and an inevitable crash.

Read more: http://goo.gl/Kn3sa


REDSTATE
Obama Uncensored & Unions Unleashed: Despite Violent Union Protests, Michigan Gets The Right-To-Work
December 11, 2012

Barely one week ago, the unthinkable was merely a rumor. However, yesterday, the unthinkable happened as Michigan became the 24th state in the nation to enact Right-to-Work legislation, giving workers the choice on whether to pay a union in their unionized workplaces or not. No longer will unions be able to have Michigan workers fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees.

To be sure, unions are not taking the assault on their financial coffers lying down.

As a result of Tuesday’s impending legislation, unions occupied Michigan’s state capitol on Tuesday, assaulting Steven Crowder who was standing near Americans for Prosperity’s pro-Right-to-Work tent before a union mob tore the tent down.

Here is footage shot from inside the tent as union protesters tore the tent down with people still inside:



While 82% of Michiganders are union free, as a sign of union displeasure, Teamsters boss Hoffa predicted that Michigan would now be torn apart in a “civil war” as union-bought Democrat Douglas Geiss predicted “there will be blood.”

Although unsuccessful, Barack Obama weighed into the Michigan fight on Monday–picking up the false union talking points as he bashed Right-to-Work laws to UAW workers at a Detroit plant.

“I’ve just got to say this,” Obama said at the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant in Michigan before a small crowd of workers. “What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions. We shouldn’t be doing that.

“You know, these so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics,” Obama added to applause and cheers from the crowd. “What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”

To be clear: Right-to-Work legislation does not impede a union’s right to bargain for anything.

What Right-to-Work legislation does do, however, is strip unions of the ability to have workers fired through so-called “Union (income) Security” clauses if they refuse to pay union dues.

Prior to his re-election, Obama refused to weigh into state issues such as Michigan’s Right-to-Work fight.
  • During the union siege on Wisconsin over Scott Walker’s collective bargaining reform, Obama was MIA.
  • During Ohio’s attempt to reform its collective bargaining laws, Obama was similarly silent.
  • Earlier this year, when Indiana became the nation’s 23rd Right-to-Work state, not a word was uttered by Obama.
Why?

Very simply, because Obama and his campaign needed to woo workers in Right-to-Work states like Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia in order to ensure his re-election.

Obama & Co. knew that Obama’s expressing opposition to Right-to-Work laws like that expressed on Monday would hinder his chances of winning Right-to-Work states on November 6th.

Now, with no elections to win in the future, Obama is unrestrained in showing just how far he may go working to appease his union bosses–and we should expect more of the same in the future.

As union bosses are now exploring their options to overturn Michigan’s new law, including by possible lawsuit, Michigan finally has a chance of shedding its well-deserved reputation of being a union-controlled bastion of job destruction.

Only time will tell if Michigan can overcome the union assaults that are sure to come.

Read more: http://goo.gl/Tk0Nx

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