Hennessy's View

Some St. Louis area conservatives cheered Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) elevation to the Number 5 leadership position in the Senate Republican caucus.

I didn’t. At least not politically. I like Senator Blunt personally, so I’m happy in that respect. But I’m not happy for the reasons some others are.

First, as I told Jo Mannies of the St. Louis Beacon, internal party stuff isn’t really a Tea Party matter. Leadership in the Senate’s GOP caucus is for Republican Senators to worry about.

More importantly, I’m a little disturbed about the expressed reason for the local happiness.

It seems some conservatives are eager for Senator Blunt to use his new power to channel more pork to the area. 

I don’t really understand how that’s conservative.  I thought we were trying to reduce the size and scope of government.  I thought our goal was to get Washington out of the business of picking winners and losers. 

When a Senator transfers money from one state to benefit another state, it’s socialism.

When a Senator writes regulations to help one business over another business, it’s corporatism, another word for fascism.

When a Senator bring home the bacon by borrowing from my future grandchildren, it’s generational theft.

Conservatives who protest wealth transfer though welfare payments to poor people can’t cheer wealth transfer to corporations.  Well, they can, but there’s a word for what that would make them.

The most difficult aspect of conservatism is eschewing short-term personal gain when it conflicts with the lawful role of government and good morals. On this point, I am far from perfect.  But I’m getting better at recognizing and correcting my own hypocrisy.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Request:  If you read a blog post on Hennessy’s View that seems to be rooting for America to fail or suffer in order that Obama take the blame, please e-mail me (bill-at–hennessysview–dot–com) and comment.  I’m a hot-head, and I might not catch myself.

The United States and every country on earth is in a perilous position right now.  The world economy is on the brink of depression.  Bad business practices driven by even worse government policies and regulations have destroyed $ trillions in wealth and left us on a narrow, swampy peninsula between deflation and hyperinflation.

We have, for good or ill, elected a young and inexperienced president.  That man’s past rhetoric was clearly Marxist.  But his post-election appointments and words seem closer to those of George Bush than of Gus Hall.  We can work to win back Congress and the White House without destroying the country in the process.

Here’s a few recommendations:

• Praise Obama’s rightward tacks more than you attack his leftist moves
• Look for people or businesses in your area who need help and help them if you can
• State the positive results of conservative governance more often than you assail the consequences of liberal error
• Wave to drivers of cars with Obama stickers, even as you pass them to expose your McCain-Palin tags
• Write letters to the editor, blog comments, and blog posts complimenting Obama’s good judgment, but always identify yourself as a conservative Republican who work for his defeat in 2012

All of us are saying goodbye to co-workers let go because of the economy.  The way out of this mess is lower taxes, less government, and graceful ends for companies that can’t make it.  Each of these right actions carries with it painful consequences for some of us.  We can and must make these changes to our national direction.  But we can and should make them without being asses.

We all know how painful and maddening it was to hear Democrats and liberals cheer American casualties in Iraq and fantasize about the assassination of a Republican president.  While we might not go so far, why take the chance?  Let’s sell our superior system of economics and limited government.  The deficincies of their alternative will be undeniably obvious soon enough.

Popularity: 1% [?]