Aside from the possibility of total annihilation due to global thermonuclear war, the United States is at its most fragile point in its entire history. This vulnerability is largely due to its dependence on the infrastructure of computer technology powered by the electrical grid. As we have seen in the recent super-storm, hurricane Sandy, when the power went out, many people were reduced to living in the dark and scrounging up what food and blankets they could for weeks. They were without power, without gasoline, and without transportation. They were miles from the nearest food supplies and electricity. From what I read, the response was far from immediate. Now imagine this situation hitting the entire Eastern Seaboard at one time, extending 300 miles inland to middle of the Appalachians. Power gone with not only no way to call in extra power crews, but no way to communicate and coordinate with them. But this time, the problem is not downed power lines, but every transformer blown and no way to replace them. Imagine food stores empty and no deliveries available or planned for weeks. Surely there would be a FEMA response, but the need would be so overwhelming that whatever resources FEMA had would be drained in a week. Sound impossible? Sound horrific and unimaginable? Here are several very possible scenarios that could cause just such a collapse of the United States in a matter of hours.
After this I saw another angel …he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! ..Since in her heart she says, ‘A queen I sit, I am no widow, mourning I shall never see,’ so shall her plagues come in a single day, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she shall be burned with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and were wanton with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning; they will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas! alas! thou great city, thou mighty city, Babylon! In one hour has thy judgment come.” And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more… The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, “Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, bedecked with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! In one hour all this wealth has been laid waste….Alas, alas, for the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth! In one hour she has been laid waste.” -Revelation 18:1-19
The mechanism for a 400 km high-altitude burst EMP: gamma rays hit the atmosphere between 20-40 km altitude, ejecting electrons which are then deflected sideways by the Earth’s magnetic field. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Scenario 1 (Likelihood:low. Preparedness:none. Popular expectation: unthinkable): Electro Magnetic Pulse weapon. For the military, Boeing has recently developed a missile call CHAMP that has the ability to knock out computers and electronics. Although CHAMP is a directed energy weapon, an undirected EMP weapon would knock out all electronics for thousands of miles if detonated in the atmosphere. We face two crazy rogue states that seem to have no instinct for self-preservation, both of which are developing nuclear bombs and long-range missiles: Iran and North Korea. Iran has a submarine that can legally be in waters just over 200 miles offshore. Even with its questionable missile technology, if it were to launch an EMP weapon and disrupt only the Eastern Seaboard, the economic and infrastructure devastation would be extreme. (Similarly, N. Korea has developed a missile that can reach the West Coast.) The government estimates that it would take from 1 to 3 years to replace the transformers, electronics, and communications systems. Imagine the entire East Coast without power for 3 years. Not only would the electrical grid be down, but cars and trucks would be knocked out as well. Modern autos are dependent upon internal computers, which would be overloaded and fried by an EMP burst. Computers, by which every transaction in grocery stores and gas stations are made, would be out of commission, even if you could find a way to pump what little remaining fuel there is in the tanks. Water filtration and the water pumping stations gone offline. No tap water, no clean drinking water.
In the 1970’s, during the first oil embargo against the United States, people were beating each other up in gas lines. Imagine millions of people starving, hungry and without food, roaming the streets and fanning out into the countryside (those that could make it that far) in search of food. Many will be armed. The rest will want to be.
In the 1940’s and 50’s, the electrical grid of the US was not connected, so knocking out one locality did not extend the damage beyond the affected area. Since the 1960’s, greater and great connectivity has been established, leading to the potential for larger blackouts, as happened most recently in 2003, in which large parts of the N.E. were knocked out by a tree that downed a single powerline. If an overload to the circuits were created by an EMP pulse on either coast, the blackout might well extend half way across the nation. Finally, a single blast in the upper atmosphere above Kansas would knock out the entire nation’s computer electronics, transportation, and electrical supply.
Another consequence of an attack on the electrical supply, which would probably knock out large portions of the internet as well and all the computers connected to it, is that our country now depends upon “just in time” delivery of goods. Inventory, stored in centralized warehouses, is shipped as needed to places all over the country. But if orders cannot be processed because the computer and the telecommunications systems are down, nothing can be shipped even if the goods are available.
Compare this situation to the 1940’s. Phones were used, and that would still be a problem, but factories were set up in various parts of the country, controlled by manual labor, not computers. The electric company’s power went only as far as the last utility poll. Steel mills operated by coal delivered by trains. Combustion engines did not depend upon computers, and even burned out distributor caps and wires could be easily replaced. There was also no possibility of an EMP attack at that time. But even if there had been, the recovery time would have been much shorter due to the state of technology. We were not dependent upon computers but the US Post Office, and most of our engine power was based upon simple, mechanical function. Cars did not even start to get computer circuits until the mid-70’s. What I’m saying is that it would be easier to recover from an attack years ago, when we were more decentralized and less dependent upon the power grid, electronics, and computers.
Scenario 2 (Likelihood:High. Preparedness:Developing. Popular expectation: unthinkable): Crippling cyber attack on electrical grid and/or internet. There are already hackers trying to break into our electrical grid, and some have succeeded. Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs have put out papers outlining the dangers and highlighting the real possibility of future successful attacks. Iran, and supposedly unofficial hackers in China, are playing cat-and-mouse games, trying to infiltrate everything from our military systems to banking systems, to the electrical grid, to nuclear power plants. As evidenced by the Suxtnet worm attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, government sponsored hackers are creating a new front in counter terrorism and counter espionage. The threat is so real that the Joint Chiefs have defined some types of cyber attacks as an act of war. If there were a successful attack on our electrical grid and/or nuclear power plants by cyber warfare, the results to the US would be the same as outlined in an EMP attack, perhaps more short-lived only if these outages do not result in overloaded equipment failures creating transformer burnouts. However, one nuclear plant going into overload would have a devastating impact on the economy.
In scenario 2, I want to focus on the economic impact of a successful attack on the banking system or the internet itself. While we know Iran and Islamic terrorists have a desire to bring down our entire system, the Chinese have the expertise to do so. I suspect that due to their production and supply of most of our critical computer parts, they have already embedded back doors and sleeper codes into most of our relays, switches and control boards. Let us just speculate that China’s designs on Japan’s territorial islands and the oil fields in the Philippines becomes more aggressive, leading to a confrontation and perhaps a war. Our allegiance to our allies puts us in a very difficult situation: first of all the Chinese own a lot of our debt; second, they manufacture a lot of our supplies, including our military goods (made in Taiwan, but infiltrated by Mainland spies for sure.) Perhaps they even have electronic codes to cause our jet fighters’ computers and missile guidance systems to malfunction. But even if they don’t, they do have thousands of paid hackers intent on disrupting everything from communications to infrastructure, and could conceivably bring down the internet and the functioning of the banking system. Say the attack is limited to a total disruption of the internet through an overload of relay switches and internet hubs. Even if the government can shut it down in a matter of hours, they have to keep it off. The banking system has records backups, supposedly in secure locations. However, what happens when ATM’s no longer work, sales transactions by credit card cannot be made, and gas cannot be pumped out of the ground. Even if this attack only lasts for a few weeks, all the problems of on time deliveries and food shortages apply. Panic. Stock market crash, and a broken economic system follow. A run on banks might occur, except a bank holiday is declared, so you can’t get your money out; or only a small portion per day. But by then it will be too late. International commerce will have ground to a halt. The entire internet system of buying and selling will be disrupted, and the dollar will have collapsed as nations withdraw their currency from our system and no longer will buy our bonds.
Scenario 3 (Likelihood:nearly inevitable. Preparedness:none. Popular expectation: head-in-the-sand denials.): Banking collapse and/or US bankruptcy. This scenario is probable, but not necessarily in the immediate near term. The US dollar’s strength depends upon the full faith and confidence of the world in the US government. Since we seem to lack the political will to cut expenditures, raise revenues, reform the tax code, and remove unneeded subsidies, we are headed for a fiscal implosion. Government estimates of the long-term liability of the unfunded pension plans and public debt (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) are headed towards the $60 trillion-dollar range in years to come. That means eventual inflation and the inability of the government to meet these expected obligations without perhaps crippling taxes, which then in turn may drive down tax revenues due to lowered productivity. I don’t want to debate the political side of this issue or dispute CBO predictions (which all depend upon assumptions fed to them by politicians), but simply to point out that a person living well beyond his means, unable to pay his credit card bill, will eventually be shut off from more credit as the lender sees his credit risk as too great. When the other nations see that we are no longer credit worthy, we will have the economic equivalent of a cardiac infarction – a heart attack.
Aside from the unsustainable debt accumulation, there is another potential cause for an economic meltdown: the Black Swan event. The Black Swan is the unexpected and unanticipated event that no one predicted and for which no one prepared. In short, it is when the unthinkable happens. 9/11 was a Black Swan that no one anticipated. These are things that no one wants to think about because the consequences are too devastating to imagine. Here are some potential Grey Swans (the ones we can anticipate aren’t black swans 🙂
When the dog bites, when the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember
my favorite things
and then I don’t feel so bad! – My Favorite Things
Julie Andrews sang of her favorite things as a way of forgetting about the bad things. But it is the really bad things you don’t want to think about that could ruin your day. In sum, our nation’s reliance upon technology, electricity, computers and the internet puts us in the most vulnerable position we have ever been in as a nation, where a single critical event could turn our happy masses into starving mobs. Political chaos, economic collapse, mass starvation, and a government unable to cope with the nationwide extent of the problem, would turn us very quickly into a Third World country from which there would be no easy recovery, and perhaps where Americans would turn on each other in a scramble for food and water that would scar the psyche of every one left on earth. It would be far worse in the cities, where there is no place to grow food or get clean water, and where the trek alone of hundreds of miles would probably cause the death of millions.
We have watched these shows on television about pretended apocalypses, but even without thermonuclear war or backpack nukes, the infrastructure of the United States is so fragile and the threats already so real, that one brazen attack by a deluded adversary could bring the whole system down. After all, wasn’t economic devastation Osama Bin Laden’s real objective?
Boy, talk about the height of hypocrisy! All the left-wing companies that poured money into President Obama’s campaign for re-election are avoiding federal taxes by funneling their profits offshore to low tax havens like Bermuda. I thought they loved the Democrat platform of higher taxes on the rich and taxing corporations for their “fair share.” But it seems it is okay to tax small business profits, but when it comes to large corporations, they seem to be buying their special favors with large donations:
| University of California | $1,092,906 |
| Microsoft Corp | $761,343 |
| Google Inc | $737,055 |
| Harvard University | $602,992 |
Google was a huge Obama supporter. Yet why are they acting exactly like Romney and Bain Capital if what Romney was doing was so wrong? Did they callously donate just so that could use that influence to avoid inquiries into their tax avoidance schemes?
If taxes are so right, then Google also ought to pay up, just like they want the little guy making $250,000 to do. My point? You can stir up emotions and think you are voting to help the common man, but the whole system is still rigged by powerful special interests and large corporations, using their money to buy influence and power, and it has nothing to do with justice or “fairness” for the middle class. At least the Republicans are honest about it; while the Democrats just act like Republicans but pretend to be all in for the common man.
(fear) the Fiscal Cliff… (Photo credit: MyEyeSees)
Politics aside, (mostly ?), going over the Fiscal Cliff may not be such a bad idea. Obviously the President is ready to do so, and has said as much, through Tim Geithner. Why would the President want to do that? Because after taxes go up, it is easier to propose a reduction in taxes for some as part of a deal, rather than raising them. After the Cliff, taxes will go up on everyone, and then any proposed tax decreases, if only on the middle class, would be a step forward.
The Cliff also forces entitlement and defense cuts, which are impossible to pass positively with normal legislation. But by enforcing those cuts, every new budget would have to work from this lowered baseline. Just passing a stop-gap fiscal measure will apparently to nothing to cut either defense or entitlements. There is a “no cost benefit” for both Democrat and Republican for passively allowing cuts to entitlements. Since anyone who proposes cuts to Social Security or Medicare immediately becomes the target of the left, neither Democrat or Republican can afford the consequence. Every time Republicans have tried, they have lost big time: in 2006 and 2012. Entitlements are the Democrats’ bread and butter and can’t ever vote for any cuts. So, if Obama starts with the cuts and then proposes raises to spending, if not the full raises in the current system, he looks like a hero. Plus, he can blame the Republicans for any fallout.
If the Cliff happens, the President thinks he will have more leverage and can blame Republicans for tax increases on the middle class and a slowing economy. It is a win-win for him… that is, unless of course, the economy completely implodes and causes a depression, for which he will try to blame Republicans, but such a course may end up backfiring. The fact that he wouldn’t compromise may come back to bite him. If there is no recovery and we are thrown into another four years of crises, it may be hard to pin the blame on the House of Representatives. Of course, with all the help the pandering media is sure to give him, he may succeed. After all, finding a scapegoat for all the world’s evils is a proven political strategy. Just ask Adolph.
On the positive side, if the Cliff happens, the rich are taxed more, along with the middle class, entitlements and defense are cut, and austerity is forced upon us, and it seems like a better place to start balancing the budget than just extending current spending and tax rates with patchwork agreements. The course of extending the current system will only ensure unsustainable, unbalanced budgets for years to come, leading to eventual inflation or economic collapse.
I previously wrote an article detailing the potentially disastrous consequences for Special Education students using a merit pay system. I wanted to post a short followup to that article, since it is again being discussed in the media.
I want to address something that is rarely discussed and is probably a social taboo: the welfare system and single parenthood, which both create problems for a viable educational system. Politicians talk as if throwing more money at education will fix the educational system, but that philosophy fails to address the underlying societal ills that are causing the disintegration of system in the first place. My wife has told me of many students whose greatest ambition is to get to reach 16, have babies and go on welfare “like my mother.” They say, “I don’t need to study, because I won’t need to.” I don’t know how many of you think that this is a very disturbing situation, but I certainly do. And it reveals an underlying breakdown of the society as a whole. The encouragement to single parenthood, through the welfare system without a work-fare requirement, is creating an entire class of dependents in society. It encourages a complete abandonment of personal responsibility, and it destroys the incentive for education and achievement. Why work when everything you need is provided for you?
The main reason merit pay for teachers is a bad idea is that it provides absolutely zero consideration for parental irresponsibility. Thirty years ago, parents were expected to help children with homework, add discipline to correct misbehavior, and they generally supported teachers and the school system with just punishments and consequences for misbehaviors like lying, cheating, stealing, talking back and disrespecting authority. Today, as I stated before, parents have said to my wife, a teacher, that they shouldn’t have to do homework with their children because “that’s your job,” meaning “the teacher’s.” With no reinforcement at home, no practice, no discipline, how can you even hope to measure a teacher’s performance?
This situation brings me to the broader consideration of the divorce culture, where up to 50% of marriages end in divorce. Many studies show that divorce and pervasive single parenthood increase poverty and other attendant social ills. Fatherless children produce a society of children raising children. Having never had parental guidance, they do not know how to guide their own children. Teen pregnancy, with its lack of proper guidance and direction, becomes endemic… or should I say, pandemic. Yet no one considers that the moral and social breakdown of the society as a whole will put stresses upon the educational system of the United States, leading to lower and lower performance no matter how much money is thrown at the system. Using merit pay as a means of pacifying the faltering conscience of the American public is merely putting a band-aid on a 6″ knife wound to the gut of American culture. What we are witnessing is a social disintegration brought about by a rejection of traditional family and moral values, encouraged by a welfare system that has no accountability, and the abandonment of personal responsibility made possible by political pandering; all leading to the desire to blame or burden, in this case, teachers for our social ills and make them responsible for our betterment. The problem is that they cannot do it alone, even if they are the best teachers on earth. Teachers cannot fix what is wrong with us as a people. They do not have the resources or the power to make adults behave like responsible adults.
As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Related Article: Principals revolt against merit pay based upon abstract standards
English: Peter F. Rothermel’s “Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses”, a painting of Patrick Henry’s “If this be treason, make the most of it!” speech against the Stamp Act of 1765 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Republicans were soundly beaten in the last election with the marketing campaign strategies of the Obama administration. Fiscal Conservatism, limited government, and individual liberty, in the freedom from government mandates, all lost in the battle for the hearts of the majority of the American people. Now the Obama Machine is setting up to blame the Republicans for the fiscal cliff if they do not surrender everything: higher taxes on the middle class (Yes Virginia, $250,000 – $500,000 is now the middle to upper middle depending on where you live.), no real spending cuts on entitlements, and no real progress on reducing the unsustainable national debt. The Machine plans to blame the Republicans for a shattered economy for refusing to cave on all these issues and just do what the President wants. He is already out campaigning on these issues. You would think that if the Republicans had any hope for the future, they would just yield on taxes and give the President everything he wants. He would then, indeed, totally own the economy and its consequences.
However, there are times when you are pushed to the wall and you have nothing to lose, and it is a mistake for an attacker to think he has the upper hand. If your wife and children were being attacked by a street gang, you may have no hope of winning a fight, but by God, it would be better to die in their defense than watch idly and helplessly from the sidelines. The Democrats don’t understand that they have pushed Republicans to the wall. The Republican cause is lost. They have nothing more to lose except their principles, for which it is better to die nobly than to surrender. It is better to die for what you believe than be a slave for the rest of your life. If the economy crashes and the Republicans are blamed, so be it. But if the Republicans hope to come out of this battle with one ounce of respect, they had better go down fighting rather than give up.
Chuck Schumer proposed a compromise that the Republicans could possibly live with: taxing millionaires and up a bit more, but it seems this administration wants all or nothing, which is really the stance of an emperor and not a president. He is willing to go over the cliff, if it works for some long term political advantage. If the Republicans do surrender on all these issues, we really are a one party State and not a democracy.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!
Patrick Henry
US orator, patriot, & politician in American Revolution (1736 – 1799)
The President wants to tax the rich so that they pay their “fair share.”
The problem I believe is that many people no longer think $250,000 a year is rich. The cost of living in NYC or D.C. or San Francisco, with minimum housing at $500k, is just really overwhelming. A decent house (or a postage stamp in San Francisco for $500k), 2 cars, student loan debt, or tuition, and what’s left?
Plus, it seems that all the proposed tax increases on the “rich” will only run the government for 8 days. That does nothing to tackle the $16 trillion debt.
Just saying… you can stir up the spirit of envy and use emotion to paint the mildly successful as the “evil rich who aren’t paying their fair share.” But that doesn’t solve the deficit problem.
Comparison of inflation of college tuition and fees, medical costs, and cost of living from 1978 to 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(Update) Apparently, the copyright issue stated below is only a rumor. The real issue to the changes of Facebook Policy are privacy issues.
Facebook has created user backlash with its new “WE OWN EVERYTHING YOU POST” policies. I suspect many people will be dropping Facebook. Consider how all business pages’ content will now be owned and distributed by Facebook. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, or should I say, Mark “Sucker” BORG… “You will be assimilated” ?
In response, please post the following message on your Facebook pages:
In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, posts, commentary, illustrations, comics, paintings, photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).
For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!
By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punishable by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).
Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws. Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.
Recent Facebook Policy Concerns in the News:
In the previous article, I noted that the big loser in Tuesday’s election was fiscal conservatism based upon the fact that the Democrat strategy of class warfare against the rich was the resounding winner. But there was another loser in this fight: social conservatives. It is clear that the majority of Americans considered economic self-interest more important than any traditional moral, social or religious value. People were more willing to vote against the rich than to consider any moral issue. If social conservatives are indeed a majority, they are not principled enough to put those values ahead of self-interest, or are not so committed to those values that they will make them primary in their decisions. Consider what values the Democrat Party espoused:
English: Sarah Palin addressing the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Democrat views were supported by the majority vote. Now, even if the majority didn’t believe in all those things, they did not consider these issues important enough to change their vote or overrule their economic self-interest.
What I am saying is that in the political arena at least, social conservatives have lost the battle for the culture. They are not winning issues. They are in the minority. Their hope for political reform is now pretty much dead. Their hope for natural remedies is evaporating.
I think conservative Christians feel pretty much defeated right now. I was reminded by a friend of the disciples’ reaction to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. The disciples had been expecting Jesus to be a political and military Messiah who would “redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). Jesus had gained great popularity with the people. He was challenging the corrupt politicians and religious leaders of his day. He was on a roll, but then in the night, he was captured and tried in secret, handed over to the Romans and put to death on Passover. The disciples felt lost, and they felt like they had lost. Their hope in Jesus had been crushed and Jesus had been executed. Their Messiah was dead. They were wandering in a wilderness of sadness and sorrow. Jesus had told them that his kingdom was not of this world, but they didn’t understand that. They looked for an earthly kingdom of righteousness and liberation from Roman oppressors. When Jesus was resurrected, their view of victory changed, but they still had to live under Roman oppression, many dying for their faith, without ever having a hope of transforming or changing the culture at large. That is where social conservatives find themselves now… a minority in a secular culture, as unable to reform the nation as early Christians were in ancient Rome.
True social conservatives are committed to their faith and values, no matter what the cost and no matter if they are victorious or not. They will not betray their core beliefs or compromise on essential moral values. So, in essence, they are excluded from the political process by the establishment Republicans who want to use them for political gain but not embrace their moral agenda. For the Republican Party, it is a lose lose situation. If the Party continues to appoint morally indifferent, supposedly “centrist”, candidates whose only interest is economics, they will lose the social conservatives, and lose elections. However, as things stand, they are so opposed to social conservatives, that they are loath to nominate anyone with true socially conservative values. The establishment will seek to destroy them. Witness what happened to Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum. Sarah was hated as much by establishment Republicans as she was by Leftist Democrats, and they were glad she was destroyed. Santorum fared little better. But apparently from these election results, fiscal conservatism itself is also a losing proposition. The American populace is now firmly socialist.
The Republican establishment has a vision of prosperity without a moral foundation; a secular Tower of Babel. But without a moral foundation, covetousness, envy, and class warfare are acceptable attitudes that justify government intervention by any means necessary, and so undermine any claim to the justice of fiscal conservatism.
It says in Proverbs (14:34) that “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any land.” It is a mistake to think you can build a secure and prosperous nation without God. There is an inevitable consequence for ignoring God’s law.
“As nations cannot be punished or rewarded in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects Providence punished National sins by National calamities.” – George Mason
Hello Sandy and Katrina! What is next?
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan
One thing is clear in the election results from Tuesday: fiscal conservatism is the big loser. Class warfare against the rich, represented in the popular mind individually by Romney and by corporations in Bain Capital, worked. The idea that fiscal conservatism is a winning agenda is dead. Taxing the rich to pay for more benefits for the poor is the idea that won. The Blue Blood Republicans, the “moderates,” are fond of naming the religious right and social values voters as the “problem” for the Republican party, and if they could just get rid of these “Christians,” and vote purely on economic issues, they would win elections hands down.
Well, that isn’t true. Surely there were many votes cast against Romney by radical feminists and homosexual marriage advocates, but they are Democrats anyway from way back. But what really lost was the failure of the message of fiscal restraint and smaller government. The people voted for socialized medicine and higher taxes on the “rich.” They voted for benefits.
The other message is also clear: socially conservative voters were not convinced that Romney shared their values, and they had no enthusiasm for him. They did not turn out. The base did not go all in for Romney. The fact that Republican turn out for Romney was even less than for John McCain tells you something about the failure of the Blue Blood strategy. The moderates alienated their socially conservative base; and they thought they could win without them, going centrist and after the independents. They picked a safe, moderate, middle of the road candidate, whose wavering on every fiscal and social issue allowed him to be painted with whatever brush the Democrats wanted to use on him. What they did though is convince the social conservative voter of Romney’s insincerity.
Now many socially conservative voters voted against Obama, but many stayed home, not wanting just to settle for the lesser of two evils. Perhaps his Mormonism was a factor, but I think it was deeper. It was his flip-flopping on every social and fiscal issue just to get elected that caused the principled conservatives to drop out.
My prediction is that over the next four years the Republican Party will split. The Ron Paul coalition will have had it with both the failure and the compromise of the moderate, secular, Republicans. There are probably a lot more populist Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats that are also socially conservative than there are economic conservatives. I believe that if the Blue Bloods start blaming the social conservatives for this loss, the Ron Paul constituency will be done with the Republicans once and for all. After all, why keep voting for the same Party than attacks your values and then proceeds to lose elections? If the Republican party then decides to endorse homosexuality, abortion, and illegal immigration to “expand” the base, they will lose what is left of the social conservatives. Fiscal conservatism alone is not a winning platform, as well demonstrated by the results of this election.
The Eclectic Rant 