Republicans seemed to have learned from most of the Bush failures in the policy regard-namely the failure of amnesty, No Child Left Behind, compassionate conservatism big goverment and the like (save foreign policy). But Republicans seem, though i pray otherwise, to have not learned perhaps the most important and seemingly the most glaring lesson/failure of the Bush years which lays not in the arena of policy but of image. Bush gave the GOP a image that made it a laughing stock for nearly a decade on the Daily Show and Colbert Report and in a myraid of SNL sketches.
We all know what that image is, it's of the provincial hillybilly, the uncultured fratboy, and an assortment of other things we find banal and embarrsing about red state America.
Anyone under a certain age knows this sterotype of the GOP well which in part exsplains why a impulsive senile war hero in his 70's would make the election losing mistake of picking a female version of Bush to be his running mate in the most recent election. Sara Palin makes one cringe in exactly the way Bush did for eight years and she does so by the same means: her jumbled sentences, her displays of bone crushing idiocy, her especially annoying regional accent. As Bush jr. reminded one of a zealous Texan frat boy who might be able to run a baseball team but never a nation, Sara Palin reminds one not of a potential Vice President but of your long lost soccer mom Aunt from the suburbs who possess the hugs of a sweet heart but not the mind of anyone who should be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.
It should have been quite clear to any Republican that Palin would not only hurt McCain's campaign but that worse her nomination would reinforce the worst sterotypes of the GOP. She said to Americans that the Republican Party doesn't give a damn about competence or intellect. I hope Palin has ruined herself already beyond the point of serious consideration for 2012 or any other potential role in the GOP's future but I'm not sure her recent PR follies come as a (silent) relief to my fellow travelers in the GOP and beyond Sara it isn't clear if the GOP realizes the imperative that the Republican nominee in 2012 be not just, not-Bush, but anti-Bush, not just not dumb but undeniably intellegent, persuasive, informed, cultured, etc.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
A Victory for School choice in LA
I'd always seen the opening for Republicans to rally minoriy support via the school choice/charter school issue but i never thought it would happen. I thought the parents would be too disintrested, I didn't think there was anything but left wing community organizers in the ghettos. It's not perefect but it's a hell of an improvement, the almost entirely black and hispanic mothers came out to defeat the teachers union and bring more choices and charters to the LA unified school district (one of America's worst):
http://www.youtube.com/user/ReasonTV#p/u/36/5V3nRmJz5Ok
It's a great video because as you can see the only people who came out to speak against more school choice where the teachers union while all the actual parents came out for more choice. It illustratous the divide students education vs. the teachers Unions intrests. The Democrats who are the supposed defenders of children as the vulnerables they are, support the Teachers unions and the Republicans support the students.
I hope someone in the GOP is aware of this victory for school choice in LA, for it indicates that the GOP needs to abandon it's pussyfooting and reclaim the mantle of school choice. It's one of the best arguments the right has. However when we let it fall by the wayside when we select a Bush or a McCain or a Palin. "No Child Left Behind" is so dumb and let's Democrats do what they should never be able to do which is beat Republicans on education. We should be trouncing the left on education but because we abandon school choice in favor of adopting the left's view of education which is no school choice and focus on the worst students and impose fake standards we can't talk about what a failure the public school monopoly has been for so long. Bush couldn't talk about how all the extra money we've poured into public schools has resulted in nothing except lower scores because he wanted higher funding. Republicans need to say it loud and proud: we have tried the public school monopoly for 50 years, we've more doubled funding of schools and the scores have gotten worse, charter schools ave delivered better results at half the price of public schools, it's clear the problem isn't lack of money but lack of compeition. But even if the public schools weren't so horrendous, this is America, parents desereve to send there children to the school best suited for there child. The public schools have no price for failure and thus they don't improve, they don't really ever listen to parents, they don't evolve, grow more efficient and innovative, they don't cause they don't hve to, there jobs are essentially safe forever unlike any other business a public school that does a scandalous job does not fail because the chidlren can't leave for better schools.
"No Child Left Behind" is just like the Bush doctrine for the GOP, they're both hugely un-conservative, if not downright liberal policys. They are also similiar it that they both squander two great oppurtinitys for conservatives in the areas of education and foreign policy (namely the great school choice arguing and on the foreign policy front, being the party of national intrest and prudent restraint from policing the world). They are both productive of a conservative imposter and a dim wit who couldn't, it seems, think seriously about issues. The worst part is that, republicans a intensly loyal bunch couldn't help but stay loyal to Bush far too long, some still are mindless doing so today. They got behind his liberal foreign and educational policy and now are in limbo, not sure wheather to drop the charade and speak the conservative truth about the need to leave pointless wars of charity in Iraq and Afganistan and the imperavtive to end "No Child Left Behind" and grant parents the right of choice. But like sheep so many Republicans go on FOX and denounce the President not for being to hawkish about a pointless war not in our intrests but denounce him for not wanting to stay another 5 years in wars we don't have the money to fight. The Republicans have a real oppyurtinity as the LA victory for choice shows on school choice and even larger opening for gains if they become once again the party of restraint and national intrest on foreign policy rather than the default hawkish party that possesos liberal wilsonian dreams of a world democratic revoultion by war. The Republicans need to drop "The war on terror" phrase too. The worst scenario i think possible besides the GOP picking Palin in 2012 is the possibility that the GOP pick a Rudy Giullani type who thinks the countrys still in 2002 and only talks about "the war on terror" and his "faith". The Repiublican need to wake up and realize the American people don't wnat to hear of terrorism more than health care and other issues. And they are correct as well, cause terrorism is low on the list of issues facing us. It's been nearly a decade since 9/11 and we haven't been hit.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ReasonTV#p/u/36/5V3nRmJz5Ok
It's a great video because as you can see the only people who came out to speak against more school choice where the teachers union while all the actual parents came out for more choice. It illustratous the divide students education vs. the teachers Unions intrests. The Democrats who are the supposed defenders of children as the vulnerables they are, support the Teachers unions and the Republicans support the students.
I hope someone in the GOP is aware of this victory for school choice in LA, for it indicates that the GOP needs to abandon it's pussyfooting and reclaim the mantle of school choice. It's one of the best arguments the right has. However when we let it fall by the wayside when we select a Bush or a McCain or a Palin. "No Child Left Behind" is so dumb and let's Democrats do what they should never be able to do which is beat Republicans on education. We should be trouncing the left on education but because we abandon school choice in favor of adopting the left's view of education which is no school choice and focus on the worst students and impose fake standards we can't talk about what a failure the public school monopoly has been for so long. Bush couldn't talk about how all the extra money we've poured into public schools has resulted in nothing except lower scores because he wanted higher funding. Republicans need to say it loud and proud: we have tried the public school monopoly for 50 years, we've more doubled funding of schools and the scores have gotten worse, charter schools ave delivered better results at half the price of public schools, it's clear the problem isn't lack of money but lack of compeition. But even if the public schools weren't so horrendous, this is America, parents desereve to send there children to the school best suited for there child. The public schools have no price for failure and thus they don't improve, they don't really ever listen to parents, they don't evolve, grow more efficient and innovative, they don't cause they don't hve to, there jobs are essentially safe forever unlike any other business a public school that does a scandalous job does not fail because the chidlren can't leave for better schools.
"No Child Left Behind" is just like the Bush doctrine for the GOP, they're both hugely un-conservative, if not downright liberal policys. They are also similiar it that they both squander two great oppurtinitys for conservatives in the areas of education and foreign policy (namely the great school choice arguing and on the foreign policy front, being the party of national intrest and prudent restraint from policing the world). They are both productive of a conservative imposter and a dim wit who couldn't, it seems, think seriously about issues. The worst part is that, republicans a intensly loyal bunch couldn't help but stay loyal to Bush far too long, some still are mindless doing so today. They got behind his liberal foreign and educational policy and now are in limbo, not sure wheather to drop the charade and speak the conservative truth about the need to leave pointless wars of charity in Iraq and Afganistan and the imperavtive to end "No Child Left Behind" and grant parents the right of choice. But like sheep so many Republicans go on FOX and denounce the President not for being to hawkish about a pointless war not in our intrests but denounce him for not wanting to stay another 5 years in wars we don't have the money to fight. The Republicans have a real oppyurtinity as the LA victory for choice shows on school choice and even larger opening for gains if they become once again the party of restraint and national intrest on foreign policy rather than the default hawkish party that possesos liberal wilsonian dreams of a world democratic revoultion by war. The Republicans need to drop "The war on terror" phrase too. The worst scenario i think possible besides the GOP picking Palin in 2012 is the possibility that the GOP pick a Rudy Giullani type who thinks the countrys still in 2002 and only talks about "the war on terror" and his "faith". The Repiublican need to wake up and realize the American people don't wnat to hear of terrorism more than health care and other issues. And they are correct as well, cause terrorism is low on the list of issues facing us. It's been nearly a decade since 9/11 and we haven't been hit.
New liberal bills on the horizon suggest we no longer have a Constution
http://www.youtube.com/user/ReasonTV#p/u/46/TsKGt6NO-mw
The Democrats will soon, it appears, be pushing for a cadre of bills which only further confirm my view that today's left pretty much doesn't give a damn about the Constuition. One of the bills would create a new goverment agency: The Consumer Protection Agency. Another would actual have the Goverment (in other words, Nancy Pelosi) assume dictorial rule over the entire private sector, with the power to make Sears sell a certain product or make Morgan Stanley phrase a contract a certain way and the like. The other bills which are discussed in the Reason.tv link above have to do with potential new regulatory bills over the finicial sector which are less easy to summarize but definitly is, as with seemingly every item on the current liberal wishlist, a bit more than eyebrow raising.
My question is: Isn't this plan to force companys to sell certain products and to offer certain deals and how to write contracts flagrantly unconstinual?
I would think that this is not far from being taken to the Supreme Court if the bill passes but they don't discuss any potential Constuitional issues in the Reason.tv video. Have we gotten to the point where such a obviously unconstinual bill doesn't make poltical denizens of D.C. even blink?
All i know is that anybody who could propose a bill that would allow the goverment to force Wal-Mart to sell a Chanel purse that Nancy Pelosi likes alot does not either care about the Constuition or doesn't know anything about the Constuition.
Which reminds me of another unconstuitional liberal dream bill, what ever happened to the un-Fairness doctrine? Is it slated for next year on the Democratic agenda or doesn't have any support or merely not enough?
The Democrats will soon, it appears, be pushing for a cadre of bills which only further confirm my view that today's left pretty much doesn't give a damn about the Constuition. One of the bills would create a new goverment agency: The Consumer Protection Agency. Another would actual have the Goverment (in other words, Nancy Pelosi) assume dictorial rule over the entire private sector, with the power to make Sears sell a certain product or make Morgan Stanley phrase a contract a certain way and the like. The other bills which are discussed in the Reason.tv link above have to do with potential new regulatory bills over the finicial sector which are less easy to summarize but definitly is, as with seemingly every item on the current liberal wishlist, a bit more than eyebrow raising.
My question is: Isn't this plan to force companys to sell certain products and to offer certain deals and how to write contracts flagrantly unconstinual?
I would think that this is not far from being taken to the Supreme Court if the bill passes but they don't discuss any potential Constuitional issues in the Reason.tv video. Have we gotten to the point where such a obviously unconstinual bill doesn't make poltical denizens of D.C. even blink?
All i know is that anybody who could propose a bill that would allow the goverment to force Wal-Mart to sell a Chanel purse that Nancy Pelosi likes alot does not either care about the Constuition or doesn't know anything about the Constuition.
Which reminds me of another unconstuitional liberal dream bill, what ever happened to the un-Fairness doctrine? Is it slated for next year on the Democratic agenda or doesn't have any support or merely not enough?
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