March 25, 2009

The Creep Factor - Democrats

When it comes to politics, there's something that describes one possible way that things change called the creep factor. You might have thought, based on the title that this post was going to be about Rahm Emmanuel. In a way you would be right. The creep factor I'm referring to, is the idea that the unhealthy specter of socialism in America can be advanced in many way, one of which involves the slow creep of incremental progress.

This is something that involves taking control of the media over time so that you have the biggest and most megaphones to blast your message over top of, and eventually to the exclusion of a conservative counterpart. It involves taking over the educational institutions so that you can teach the young your doctrines. It involves implementing things like Card Check, and the Fairness Doctrine and naturalizing illegal immigrants. These are big things but they are developed and achieved over time, in small incremental steps. For example, the current spate of everything on the table - Fairness, Card Check, Health Care, etc. represents an all topics approach to the achieving of a socialist agenda. But is it really, what the Obama administration is going after?

First Rahm's take on how to advance the 'cause';



and Obama's take;



Do they expect to win every battle because of the crisis situation? Probably not, but if they put 7 agenda items on the table and 6 of them fail, they still get one victory. It's a creep further down the path towards socialism. Republicans can claim 6 of 7 victories in defeating the other ideas, but at the end of the score sheet, there's 0 steps towards free market capitalism and individual liberty and 1 step towards something more socialist. I'm not sure how you keep score, but in my books those 6 victories amount to a loss.

Many conservatives, especially when it comes to voting, tend to swing for the fences. If it's not a home run, then I'm not interested. You saw that in a depressed turnout for John McCain in 2008. Yes, he didn't hold enough conservative values to energize conservatives, consequently he had no chance of winning. Granted at best he would have been a mediocre President from a conservative viewpoint, but did anyone really want the alternative they got?

The point is the return towards conservatism in the United States will be a slow road. The gains made between 1994 and 2004 were unfortunately wasted. President Bush swung for the fences on Social Security reform, and struck out. Conservatives abandoned their principles in favor of pork and re-election. Things, just went awry.

People on the right though often expect that instant success when in reality, smaller gains are probably the better way to go. That is not to suggest abandoning our principles to achieve power. Far from it. Abandoning the principles is the last thing conservatives need to do. They represent the ideals we need to work towards.

However, we need to look at making gains where we can, and take the long view. The goal is conservatism, but the path there is made up of base hit singles, not home runs. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito were singles. As conservatives we should be aware that pitching and fundamentals win ball games, not flash, not long balls.

There are things working in favor of conservatives in this regard, we do tend to play well on defense. If we can prevent 6 of the 7 (that's a made up number by the way, it's probably 67 items on the Obama wish list) things from happening, we can always make up that deficit in our half of the inning (come 2012).

And an even bigger factor in our favor is that, despite the potential slow march approach socialist often take, President Obama may in fact be swinging for the fences himself (instead of taking the slow creep approach), and in that case, the possibility of a strikeout is very, very real. And even if he's trying to propose 6 things so he can get 1 through, we can still work towards winning things back starting in 2010. I for one am not one to believe that once a program is put in place it irrefutably cannot be undone. True, it ain't easy, but let's just look at it in terms of baby steps.

Finally, I apologize for mixing in a baseball metaphor with a creeping doom of socialism metaphor. That's what happens when you blog in stream-of-consciousness mode.

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