No one really expected this election to be about social conservatism, but there’s not much left to distinguish between the candidates. To simplify things, look at the candidates in terms of being in favor of (1) small government, (2) fiscal conservatism, and (3) social conservatism. There is a large overlap between 1 and 2, but taming the deficit and debt are not synonymous with shrinking government (i.e., the Democrats preferred method of balancing the budget by raising taxes to ridiculous levels). I also omitted foreign policy because there is little if any real difference between the three main contenders.*

I’m pretty confident claiming that primary voters are most anxious about government overreach and/or the scary levels of debt we are racking up. If there were a candidate that were strong on these issues, with no glaring weaknesses in other areas, he or she would be the prohibitive favorite at this point.

Romney’s problem? Romneycare and the rest of his record as governor of Massachusetts. His business background doesn’t make up for his refusal to back off the mandate. And while he gives the impression that he would be a capable administrator of the government we have, what we need is a gardener to radically prune away the deadwood.

Gingrich is more complicated. His record as Speaker is largely positive, but even more than Romney he seems to regard government as the source of solutions rather than the problem. His grandiose but ever-changing visions are valuable as a movement leader, but not as chief executive.

Based on his Senate record, Santorum might have even less credibility than either Gingrich or Romney at claiming to be a fiscal or small-government conservative. So why is he leading? Because he is the only one that is a credible social conservative. Gingrich’s history of infidelity makes him suspect regardless of his voting record. Romney seems admirable on a personal level, but his serial flip-flops, especially on abortion, make it impossible to have confidence he will govern according to his values (whatever they may be).

To condense all of the above into a single sentence, Santorum is the only candidate voters can feel confident is, and will be, reliably conservative in any particular fashion. The fact that his reliability lies in social conservatism isn’t exciting to the libertarian-leaning members of the base or more strategically focused establishment, but none of his competitors seem reliable on any important issues. To wrap up with a cliché, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Okay, I lied, that wasn’t the end.  I just want to note that Santorum is not my personal choice.  I currently, very unenthusiastically, lean toward choosing Romney, with Santorum a close second.  After the last three years, proven executive competence would be a refreshing change, even without deeply held, ‘severely conservative’ guiding principles.

* Yes, I’m ignoring Ron Paul. However well he does, he is not a serious contender or serious candidate. He also fails in the areas I mention above (he talks a good fiscal and small-government game, but his addiction to pork makes even this hard to take seriously).

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

About all I can say is that I go back and forth between dreading a Romney win and being resigned to it.  I have been interested in the others at various times, but they all disappoint.

Bachmann seems to believe all the right things, but has too big a problem with reality.  By that, I mean she says what she wants without worrying much about whether or not it’s true.  Witness her Perry/Gardasil ‘retarded’ attack.  This is not an isolated event, either, but rather her standard modus operandi.  And that’s without even scratching her record, which aside from speeches is exceedingly thin.  A conservative version of Obama would be better than the real thing, but not by much I fear.

Cain was the first candidate I was interested in.  His comments about not appointing Muslims in his administration were a bit worrying, but could be explained.  Having no clue about the Right of Return was simply dumbfounding though.  It betrayed a complete ignorance of American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East.  How could someone even seek the job of president, let alone expect to be elected, without knowing something so basic?  I like him, and want to be able to support him, but his recent comments about trading the prisoners at Gitmo like the Israelis did for Gilad Shalit — even though he walked them back — show that he still has no clue about foreign policy.  This election will be about domestic issues, but the rest of the world is not going to go away just because we are focusing inward.

I was interested in Cain, but actually excited about Perry.  For a couple weeks.  It’s not that his debate performances have been so bad.  Or even the “heartless” immigration comment, since illegal immigration is way down in my list of policy priorities.  The biggest single thing has been the repeated promises of an upcoming economic plan, with no actual plan yet in evidence.  None of these is a deal breaker, but all of them added up give the impression that he just isn’t any good at campaigning nationally, and maybe even doesn’t grasp national issues.  Fair or not, Perry has made himself the reincarnation of George W. Bush, without the skill at campaigning.  To the extent that I currently have a preference, though, I’d say Perry was it, simply because of his strong record as an executive.

That leaves Romney as the one most likely to get the nomination nod, in my opinion.  Like Cain, he has successful executive experience in the business world.  Like Perry, he has experience as a governor.  Unlike Perry, however, his record has almost nothing but warning signs for conservatives.  He is smart and capable and polished, but I can’t help but feel that he has no actual principles.  (Not personally, because he seems to be a very moral and upstanding man personally, but politically he is a weasel.)  Maybe a competent manager is what we need after four years of Obama, but I think we need more than that.

It’s not just Obama that is wrong with the economy and country today, although he and the congressional Democrats have done everything in their power to make it worse.  It goes back to at least George W. Bush and his compassionate conservatism.  We need to get away from the notion that government is able to actually solve anything at all, especially at the federal level.

The Tea Party members and sympathizers in Congress are important, and if they continue to shape the debate then all might be well.  But it would be better to have a president lead that debate, rather than be led by it.  I don’t have a great deal of confidence in any of our current choices in that respect, but probably least in Romney.  He may be our best bet, but that doesn’t automatically make it a good bet.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

h/t The Jawa Report

NOTE: Clicking the photo will bring up the full size version in this window, which is VERY LARGE (in Firefox; may open a new window in IE) – to close it, scroll to the lower right corner of the picture and click the ‘x.’

(Originally posted this day last year (9/11/09).)

BUMPED (9/10/11)

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Whether or not a person thinks 9/11 should be remembered and commemorated makes a pretty good litmus test I think — not of a person’s politics, but of their character.  If someone spouts some variation on the theme that we should ‘put it behind us,’ then I can be pretty sure that person is shallow and self-centered, unable or unwilling to accept that life and reality are bigger than any one person or poisonous, delusional notion of universal peace and brotherhood.

Bad things happen, and they happen to good people.

Bad people are out there — genuinely bad, not just ‘misunderstood.’

Evil exists.

On this day more than any other, for Americans, it is impossible to both be honest and to embrace moral equivalence.  The people that are annoyed by the remembrances and want to ‘move on’ should look deep inside themselves and ask themselves why.

—

As an aside, but not unrelated, I highly recommend this look back at that day by New Yorker Allahpundit, now writing for Hot Air, as compiled from his Twitter stream by Andy Levy.

UPDATE (9/11/2010):  Sticky for the day.

BUMPED (9/10/11; originally posted 9/11/09)

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Was this a wise thing to say?  Probably not, but primarily because of all the fuss and bother that the media is using to try to focus negative attention on Perry.

The bias and hypocrisy of the media in hyperventilating over rhetoric that is, at worst, comparable to all of the “terrorist,” “hostage taker,” etc. from Democrats is  . . . well, expected.  But there is a key distinction that I have not seen anyone make yet.  All of the Democrat rhetoric aimed at the Tea Party and House Republicans was about being thuggish and violent.  Perry’s statements, even taken literally, focus on someone working against the interests of the U.S.  It may not be a meaningful distinction in the broader scope of things, but in my opinion shows a much different set of priorities.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

However, if our politicians and diplomats had steel in their spines, the aid would be made contingent on genuine cooperation. Don’t cut them off, but dial it back to get their attention. Explain that they will only get, say, half until or unless they get serious about dealing with the terrorist sympathizers in official positions. If they make progress, some of the aid is restored. If they fail to do enough, it is dialed back even further. Right now there is little incentive for the secular authorities to do much because they know that in spite of any condemnations or hot air we will keep playing ball. The prospect of losing billions of dollars ought to serve as a wake up call.

And if that isn’t enough to get them to act, then we know nothing will.

If they decide that attacking a few convoys (or letting it happen) when the money slows down will make us think again . . . well, that’s where the steel comes in. We don’t want to be at war with Pakistan, but if we aren’t willing to back up our words then we need to just shut up and stop griping about what they do with our money. It’s extortion, and the only way to beat it is to be willing to call their bluff. And it is a bluff, because as much as we want to avoid outright war they want it even more. The Islamists may want to fight us on general principle, but the rest know it would be national suicide.

The carrot-and-stick approach may be a cliche, but it’s been around long enough to become one precisely because it works. And it is clear that a carrot-only approach is not working.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Which of these is bigotry:  (1) condemning the loonies of Westboro Baptist Church, or (2) painting all Christians as holding those hateful beliefs?

Because number 2 is the same as what you are doing if you claim that being against murderous, repressive Islamists is “Islamophobic” or otherwise bigoted toward Muslims in general.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Before I was a lawyer, I was a 37F in the U.S. Army Reserve (the ‘F’ is pronounced phonetically as ‘foxtrot’).  The military occupation specialty code 37F is a Psychological Operations Specialist.  If you watch many war movies, you may be familiar with the term PSYOPS — that’s Psychological Operations.

Although the word itself is never used because of its negative connotations (‘product’ is the euphemism), one of the responsibilities of a PSYOPS specialist is to create and disseminate propaganda.

Despite what you may think, the best propaganda is completely true (one reason the more neutral term ‘product’ is preferable).  It’s very rare that a mission requires you to lie, but even such ‘black’ propaganda is most effective where (1) it is based as closely as possible on the truth, and (2) the parts that are untrue can’t be easily verified.

It makes sense if you think about it.  If you try to convince enemy soldiers that the moon is actually an enormous space station from which we can shoot at them with lasers, they’re not going to believe that message or much of anything else you try to tell them.  But if, say, you know that there will be a heavy fog that night, and tell them that their own superiors are gassing them with drugs to make them keep fighting, and they’ll be gassed that night . . . well, it’s still far-fetched, but you might create some doubts when that fog starts rolling in.

What the media is doing is closer to the first example.  Partisans who are eager to believe the worst about anyone who disagrees with them aside, the media’s failure to show any actual facts connecting any ‘hateful rhetoric’ to Loughner is fatal to their argument.  They are trying to build off small nuggets of truth, such as Palin’s targeting map, but the stretching to connect to the shooting is too easily proven false.

Telling the big lie over and over will probably always sway some people, but the Internet has destroyed the monopoly on information dissemination.  More and more people see that the big lie is a big lie.  Told by big liars.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

A legal brief, if you are not familiar with legal terminology, is a piece of persuasive writing that educates the judge on the relevant law and presents your arguments to the court.  When you start writing a brief, you have a very definite goal:  persuading the judge that the law and facts show your client is right and the other party is wrong.  To do that, you find all of the facts and all of the law that support your position, but you can’t stop there.  If there are facts that contradict your position and law that undermines it, you can’t ignore them.  You have to rebut them, find a way to argue they don’t matter, or you have to change your argument.

In the recent media frenzy blaming (explicitly and implicitly) Palin, the Tea Party, and generally anyone who disagrees with the liberal media for the killings in Tucson, I’ve been struck by how the liberal media has approached the story.  It’s not just that they are seeking partisan advantage — that is almost a given — but their utter disregard to the facts.  As John Fricke writes for American Thinker:

“Why” is no longer a question to most of the media.  The media knows “why.”  It just needs backing to say it.  Put it this way: when a reporter goes on a story, he/she is not seeking to ask questions that will provide a story; he/she is seeking answers to questions that will fill the story he/she has already chosen to write.

The media are writing their brief to reach the conclusion that prominent conservatives are guilty (I don’t necessarily agree with Fricke’s assertion that the true target is ‘white men,’ but that’s a separate discussion).  They are doing all they can to persuade the public that the killer, Loughner, was influenced by the “rhetoric” of Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, etc.

What they aren’t doing to any significant degree is even acknowledging  all the counter-arguments.

Whatever flaws there may be in our legal system, the fact that it is based on confrontation between the parties means that one side cannot simply make things up.  If I wrote a brief the way the media has approached this story, I would get called on it by opposing council.  I would lose all credibility with the court with regard to my arguments in this case, and maybe future cases, as well as probably being sanctioned by the court with respect to the case and also by the bar with respect to my license.

The dishonesty of lawyers is a standing joke, but the people who call themselves journalists make the shadiest of ambulance chasers look like paragons by comparison.

There’s an old joke for lawyers that if the law is against you, you pound on the facts.  If the facts are against you, you pound on the law.  And if both are against you, you pound on the table.

The media has been doing nothing but pounding on the table.  If that were all, it would be business as usual.  Instead, they try some sort of Jedi mind trick to pretend that they’re the ones with the facts and law behind them while their opponents are the ones pounding on the table.  These are not the droids you are looking for.  Don’t trust your own senses, let us define your truth.

There’s a word for when someone lies and lies and lies, trying to promote a narrative with no regard to facts.

Propaganda.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

There’s not much doubt that trying to get at least some mileage out of the lame-duck session is on Democrats’ radar.  In response, right-leaning pundits, politicians, and various organizations are calling for Democrats to pledge that they will not pass any major legislation during the lame-duck session.  I get the politics of this — forcing incumbents to take a stand on these issues before the election, or look like they have no regard for their voters — but it is meaningless in the long run.

There is no reason to stop calling for these pledges if they’re useful politics, but they are meaningless.  There is no way to enforce them, and what repercussions are there for someone that has already been voted out of office?

What needs to happen is for anyone and everyone with an audience to call on Obama for pledge to veto any major legislation that comes out of the lame-duck session.  This pledge is different, for several reasons.  First, if he actually took such a pledge, that bare fact would make attempts to do anything in the lame-duck session far less likely.  The threat of a veto, however unlikely in practice, would position Congress as not only working against the will of the people, but against their own president as well.  A soon-to-be unemployed representative may not care about the former if he has a cushy lobbying job set up, but the latter might give him pause.

Second, this pledge would have teeth.  A politician that is never going to have to face voters again can afford to give them the middle finger, but Obama will still be in office after the lame ducks have flown.  He will have to face the polls, thoughts of his legacy, and an impending election that will be more and more on people’s minds as the Republican primary heats up next year.

The main effect of calls for a pledge to veto lame duck bills, though, would be to make Obama own anything that comes out of that session.  He likes to hide behind Congress (and his attorney general, military commanders, etc.), so it is important that people focus on his actions, not those of the outgoing (hopefully) Speaker of the House.  If he sees that he will get the full blame for the passage of any unpopular bills, he may be less likely to push for action during the lame duck session.   Even if that doesn’t make him hesitate, he will own the negative consequences and publicity.

Keep hammering vulnerable members of Congress, by all means, but every call for restraint to a Democratic Senator or Representative should be coupled with a call for a veto from Obama.

UPDATE (7/24):

Why are people still asking for members of Congress to make this pledge?  It’s utterly meaningless.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.