Following the forum, several members of the public stayed for the monthly meeting of the Santa Barbara County Republican Central Committee.  After some Committee business was taken care of, candidates were given the opportunity to present themselves and field questions.  The Committee then held votes on possible recommendations for endorsements.  Robin Walter won recommendation for endorsement as unopposed Republican candidate for the 35th Assembly District.  Chris Mitchum, along with Maldonado campaign manager Brandon Gesicki, fielded questions during a spirited session which was capped by the Committee’s vote to recommend Chris Mitchum for endorsement for Republican candidate for California’s newly drawn 24th Congressional District.  Congratulations Chris and Robin!

For those of you accustomed to “endorsements”, in this post-Prop 14 world, County Republican Central Committees can now only vote to “recommend” a candidate to the California Republican Party (CRP), which then votes to make “endorsements”, or not.  On Sunday, March 11th, the CRP endorsed local candidates Mike Stoker for Senate District 19, and incumbent Katcho Achadjian for Assembly District 33.  The CRP made no endorsement for the 24th Congressional race or for the 35th Assembly District.  For the complete list of CRP endorsements, click here.

The results of the forum’s straw poll:

Presidential Race:

Romney         28

Paul                10

Gingrich         9

Santorum        8

Sarah Palin (write in)   2

24th Congressional Race:

Mitchum            39

Maldonado        12

Watson (write in)      3

What drives the heart and soul of conservatism in the United States today?  Does the conservatism of today hold the same values and revere the same principles that it did fifty or a hundred years ago, and how does it mesh with the founding principles of our country?  And how did a small group of intellectuals and policy strategists manage to dominate the American political Right over the past several decades?  The answers to these questions can be found by dissecting that dominant force behind much of conservative politics today: Neoconservatism.  As C. Bradley Thompson, the main author of this book and Professor of Political Science at Clemson University, states in his introduction, his own schooling and associations with many behind the intellectual framework of neoconservatism give his writing the weight of an insider breaking ranks.  Thompson’s stated purpose is to write about America’s direction and what he perceives as a threat posed by the ascendancy of neoconservatism.  The title is therefore ironic, and plays off the title of an essay “Socialism: An Obituary for an Idea” by the late Irving Kristol, the most famous and influential neoconservative (and father to Bill Kristol, well known pundit and The Weekly Standard publisher).

Thompson’s dissection of neoconservatism necessarily begins with an examination of the 20th century philosopher Leo Strauss, who lies at the heart of neoconservative thought, and follows with Strauss’ influential interpretation of classical philosophy, particularly that of Plato and Macchiavelli.  The book marks neoconservatism’s birth as the intellectual encounter between Irving Kristol and Leo Strauss, but the book is much more about the philosophy and methods of thought of the neoconservatives than an historical account of the movement.  Nevertheless, many readers will be surprised to learn that neoconservatism’s intellectual forebears can be traced back to Trotskyite leftists and Weimar nihilists, and that many influential neoconservatives of today were disenchanted liberals of the Great Society programs of the 1960s.  As Irving Kristol once said, a neoconservative is “a liberal who has been mugged by reality”.

Unlike describing a constituency or a political party, identifying and explaining neoconservatism is an attempt to hit a moving target. Thompson does this admirably, although some of the tour he leads through classical philosophy and Strauss’s interpretation of it gets deeper than some readers may tolerate. The neoconservative movement eschews first principles, and tends to “pick and choose their principles from a wide variety of intellectual, political, and religious traditions”.  As an intellectual movement, the contradictions within neoconservatism would suggest that it is an unserious stew of academic musings, and that its disdain of first principles equates to having no defining principles at all.  But as Thompson states, his purpose is to untangle and reconstruct neoconservatism, a complex political philosophy that he likens to a “Faberge egg that contains multiple layers, some of which are intentionally hidden”.

The hidden philosophical framework of neoconservatism contrasts with its contrived rhetoric designed to appeal to the public at large. There is a divide between boots-on-the-ground conservatism and the intellectual movement of neoconservatism, although the two are inextricably linked.  Imagine how many red-staters are somewhat or totally unaware of the very word.  But that’s the point, and perhaps why many neoconservatives reject the label of neoconservative.  “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” as the Wizard said to Dorothy and her friends.  Traditional American ideals are trumpeted, but carefully rebranded and repackaged, so as to hide the contempt that neoconservatives have for concepts of individual liberty that Enlightenment thought manifested in the early American Republic. The book is full of direct quotes from  neoconservative heavyweights such as Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and David Brooks.  Some of these quotes will be a gut punch to the reader who may hold these individuals as guiding lights of the American Right.

Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, contributed to the foreign policy chapters of the book.  Foreign policy has been fertile ground for the neoconservatives, and where they see glorious opportunities to do big things.  Greatness can be found in foreign policy adventures sanctioned in the name of national defense and justified morally by the belief that anything in the American best interest is by definition morally just.  A “benevolent hegemony” becomes the extension of the idea that there are things greater than ourselves, and that we should sacrifice for the greater good. For neoconservative statecraft, nothing is better than the fear or reality of an external threat to the promotion of individual virtues, social cohesion, and national identity.

That our country was founded on the idea of natural rights of the individual with a constitution to protect those rights from the tyranny of the majority is a roadblock to the neoconservative preference for a type of governance that our Founders specifically warned us about. Their preferred idea of freedom best applies to the “collective self” rather than the individual.  This is an important book to help the reader, particularly the reader who characterizes himself or herself as conservative, to again ask that question that we have heard frequently in this campaign season: “What is the proper role of government?” It is vital to understand the dominant force of neoconservatism and how it has shaped the role of our American government, a government our Founders would barely recognize.

-Douglas J. Mackenzie, MD

Source: Pastor Louie's Sheperd's Blog -http://louiemonteith.blogspot.com/2010/11/shepherd-to-sheep-president-abraham.html

Happy Thanksgiving!

Few holidays are as uniquely American has Thanksgiving, and fewer yet as untainted in its remembrance, celebration, and evocative imagery. It is the embodiment of everything America was built on – survival, family, charity, faith, bounty, and most importantly humble thanks. Even the poorest American has so much to be thankful for. It becomes easy to forget those blessings with so much bad news around us. But even in today’s world with all of its turmoil, we give Thanks for these remarkable and blessed days in which we live.

Join me in giving thanks this season – First and foremost, to God for the bounty of America and the blessings of Liberty which we all enjoy. Second, to our fighting men and women in the Armed Services, past and present, who’s sacrifice has guaranteed that Liberty, at a price we can never repay. Lastly, let us give thanks to the Founding Fathers, who in their inspired collaboration conceived a Nation founded upon principles never before seen in the history of the World or replicated since; the idea that “We the People” rule.

The establishment of the fourth Thursday in November was proclaimed by the first great Republican champion and President, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln understood the roots of American greatness; he himself was the epitome of American Exceptionalism. Virtually unschooled and raised in a broken family living in the wilderness, he rose to become an American President, and one of the most articulate orators in our entire history, who’s words are like imperishable music to the American ear.

Our great nation has never been as perilously close to dissolving at any point of our history – save Lincoln’s. So as we struggle and look dourly at our own future, look back, and see a man with the weight of a shattered nation, a civil war, and economic calamity on his shoulders. No one had greater reason to look angrily upon his future and curse his fate. Yet for all his dark days, he still found within himself the thanks for the blessings bestowed upon us, and the continued courage that would hold the nation together until the Civil War’s end.

Below is his proclamation:

October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

~ A. Lincoln

So Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and warm wishes through the rest of the season.

Who to vote for?  Let’s keep the current City Council members up for re-election:  Francisco, Self, and Rowse.  They’ve managed to keep expenditures under control.  Others vying for their seats have been less than truthful about previous City Councils and their own fiscal (mis)management.  Take a look at this breakdown of City revenues and expenditures, and figure it out for yourself.  Let’s not go back to the wasteful spending of a few years ago!

For more information on the individual campaigns, visit their websites:

www.dalefrancisco.com

www.michaelself2011.com

www.randyrowse2011.com