Conservative Heritage Times

A week’s worth of recrimination after Romney’s defeat gave this writer a feeling of deja vu. Where did we here all the happy talk or wildly optimistic talk about the future Romney Administration.

And sure enough came this realization: It was Iraq all over again and it came largely from the same people.

Remember how the neocons and their fellow travelers in the media and other in the Bush II Administration talked of “cakewalks”  and turning Iraq into a full-blown western-style democracy and it was all going to be paid for by oil? In fact talk was so optimistic that there was little postwar planning as a result. The U.S. Military would rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, they would step aside as Iraqis allied with us took over and rebuilt the country on oil revenues.

Well, we know the rest of the story.  Saddam Hussein was taken out and the country he held together by terror and tyranny fell apart. Insurgencies from both Shiites and Sunnis appeared when none were anticipated, all the grandiose postwar plans were wrecked because of the violence and U.S. soldiers needlessly died and taxpayer money was needlessly wasted due to the incompetence of their leaders who knew nothing or next to nothing about the country they were invading. And when things go badly wrong the biggest supporters of the war lash out at those who incompetence cost them their “cakewalk.” Never do they look at themselves for blame, it’s always someone else’s fault: Rice, Rumsfeld, Bush II, Bremer, then generals, everyone else.

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Original video can be found here.

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This post is for our readers to get their election predictions on (virtual) paper, before the fact. Here is mine.

There is a very real possibility that Romney could win the popular vote, but lose the Electoral College. This is because Romney is likely to win a lot of Red States by huge margins, but lose Electoral College vote rich swing states by narrow margins. That said, and so Kirt doesn’t accuse me of equivocating, I predict Romney will win both the popular and the Electoral College vote. This is admittedly an easier prediction to make now than it was a couple of months ago, but I have been predicting a Romney victory all along. I know I have stated that in the comments somewhere, but I couldn’t find any on a quick look. If anyone can find a comment thread where I stated that then please post a link. The reason I have always believed Romney is going to win is because it seems to me that all the people who think Obama is going to win and even win easily are forgetting about 2010. Did the 2010 mid-term repudiation not happen? (I know, Clinton won in ’96 after the ’94 mid-term.)

As in 2010, all the late momentum has been going Romney’s way. He has been drawing huge crowds. I think he’ll win Ohio (he almost has to) and I could see him winning Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Iowa. Plus he will win Florida, Virginia, and Colorado fairly handily. (CO by the least.) North Carolina has never been in play this election.

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If there’s one man who unites all CHT regulars, it’s Pat Buchanan.

Falling in line behind Buchanan’s lead is the best argument I’ve seen for voting Romney. And Buchanan unequivocally commands, Vote Romney. Buchanan’s points:

* “[S]hould Barack Obama win, the centralization of power and control will continue beyond the point of no return.”
* Supreme Court nominees.
* Tax hikes without spending cuts.
* Romney said in the first debate: “Is the program so critical that it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?” He might uphold this, asking before each new program and reconsidering old.

-

I would add to this, NumbersUSA now grades Romney with B- vs. Obama’s F-. This isn’t mentioned by Buchanan perhaps because Romney hasn’t been ideal on immigration.

And on trade Obama originally ran on Protectionist Trade, that is until he won election. Then Obama quickly converted to Free Trade. Romney hints that he’s concerned America isn’t attracting enough business investment. Buchanan doesn’t mention this perhaps because of how strong the Free Trade ideology is among some of his otherwise supporters. Lowering taxes is one part of attracting investment, but raising protections is another. Both parts are needed for a sound recovery. The US can’t currently compete with foreign border-adjusted VAT which serve as an indirect trade tariff.

This post isn’t about my views. I’ve long admired Buchanan, so I post this out of respect for him.

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We at Conservative Heritage Times have been inspired by the TAC symposium to do one of our own, although one with more of a paleo edge. I’m actually not sure symposium is the best characterization of this. It is a virtual symposium I suppose. But I’m going with it because we are blatantly riffing (not ripping ) off TAC’s effort.

Not all the people here would be best described as paleoconservatives, and some would not claim that label, but the attempt was to try to get people who might be considered part of the paleo/traditionalist sphere. I asked CHT’s own contributors, plus people I know (both actually and virtually) whom I thought would represent a broad cross section of the paleo/traditionalist sphere, plus some of our regular commenters. Other of our regular commenters volunteered their services.

In order to avoid the appearance of favoritism, I have arranged the contributions in alphabetical order by first name. I am still expecting some more to roll in. They will be added in their appropriate alphabetical order as they do. Please check back frequently and please promote this on Facebook, Twitter, with you email contacts, etc. Thanks, enjoy and discuss. The endorsements commence below the fold. ~ Red

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I don’t mean to steal Sean’s thunder below, but I made this post for IPR and wanted to cross post it here. There are some additional links you should be aware of.

TAC has a “symposium” of multiple writers discussing whom they plan to vote for. Some endorse voting for one of the major party candidates and some endorse not voting, but several endorse third party votes or write-ins. Some of the writers include Andrew Bacevich, Justin Raimondo, Paul Gottfried and friend of this website Sean Scallon.

Daniel Larison has a separate endorsement here that wasn’t included in the symposium for some reason.

Samuel Goldman has a separate endorsement here because Hurricane Sandy precluded his participation in the symposium.

Here is a summary of the endorsements.

Johnson — 6 (Bandow, Brimelow, Galupo, Giraldi, Goldman, Kauffman, Larison if he could, Bovard if he doesn’t write in Ron Paul)

Romney — 4 (Coombs, Pinkerton, Tippins, Zmirak, Antle and Birzer leaning)

Obama — 4 (Bacevich, Hadar, McConnell, Millman, Giraldi in a pinch)

Goode — 1 (Scallon, Brimelow and Gottfried would if they could)

Rand Paul — 1 (McCarthy)

Hapsburg Monarch — 1 (Lind)

Not voting/ambivalent/unclear — 7 (Dreher, Dougherty, Gordon, Murphy, Raimondo [rooting for Obama], Richman, Russello, Beer, Sailer)

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Because both the candidates are interventionist clowns. Although it is telling that Romney toned down the usual chest thumping rhetoric that he normally feeds to his “conservative” audiences. I think Romney and his advisers know that that crap doesn’t sell to undecided voters. This is every so slightly hopeful.

Post your thoughts on the debate below.

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This debate is the best argument I’ve seen for voting third party. I’ll let our readers comment, but I have two observations. I could have a hundred, but have neither the time nor the inclination.

First, Romney bragged that as Governor of Massachusetts he engaged in brazen affirmative action for women. So affirmative action is conservative? Will there be any pushback from conservatives on this? If not, “conservatives” are worthless.

Second, America IS NOT a nation of immigrants! We are a nation of settlers. Any “conservative” who babbles such nonsense should be immediately excommunicated from the ranks. Not only is it trite and cliched, but it’s completely hostile to a conservative understanding.

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Editor’s note: A Facebook friend posted this. The original author is Emily Dorr. There are a few things here I might not put quite the same way, but I posted it primarily because the last paragraph is thought provoking. You have a lot of Christians making the case for Romney as you always have Christians making the case for flawed GOP nominees every four years, but you could also make a Christian case against Romney. I changed the punctuation slightly for consistency. ~ Red

If one knows about Mitt Romney’s multi-million dollar deal with the devil called Stericycle where he profited from selling butchered baby parts for money….

Or about his perverted classroom sex talk curriculum in Massachusetts.

Or his stance on sodomite marriage.

Or his stance on TARP.

Or his stance on unbiblical debts.

Or his opposition to an audit of the Federal Reserve.

Or his stance on homeschooling in Mass.

Or his stance on the role of government in business.

Or the absolute lunacy of his heretical faith.

Or the insanity that is his Romneycare.

Or his support of government bailouts with stolen tax dollars.

Or his backing of that madman Ben Bernanke.

Or his commitment to increase defense spending on our immoral and Godless wars.

Or his agreement with the idea of pre-emptive war, an unbiblical idea.

Or his rabid agreement to waging war on Iran.

Or his backing of the NDAA, which allows for a US citizen to be detained at any time, for any reason, with no trial, in a unknown location anywhere in the world, with no charges, and no notification to your family ….forever.

Or his stance on torture, which is even more perverse than Bush II.

Or his belief in the acceptability of ‘target killing’ US citizens with no charges or trial.

Or his pledge to cap carbon emissions in Obama style.

Or his belief in the tax-grabbing farce of global warming.

Or his support of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

If one knows about even a fraction of those things, and finds it in their conscience to still vote FOR him (in some play that they’re voting against something else)….then no, I don’t believe the Holy Spirit is working in them. Pragmatism, when applied to ethics, is sin. Perhaps, in 2016, Obama will run on the Republican ticket and they can run the devil himself on the Democrat ticket and we’ll all throng about our conservative hero, Obama, and thank the Lord we have such a principled leader compared to that old deluder, Satan.

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I ran across an ad for this website, Republicans Against Romney, on Facebook.

It’s criticism of Romney is heavily focused on the pro-life issue. The group is sponsored by American Right to Life which describes itself as “on the personhood wing of the pro-life movement.”

DENVER, Aug. 28, 2012 — “Mitt Romney is the architect of Obamacare,” said Jefferson George, the president of American Right To Life Action, a conservative 527 group. “Romney has already implemented what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton only dream of: homosexual marriage, tax-funded abortion on demand by health care reform with the individual mandate, robbing religious freedom from pro-life hospitals. The list is long. If anyone believed the ‘lesser of two evils’ con, they’d have to vote for Obama.”

Read more…

Crossposted at IPR.

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I’ll have more to say on Romney’s big foreign policy speech, but I want to post some reaction before it gets stale.

Daniel Larison

Daniel McCarthy

Reid Smith

Gene Healy (Cato)

Smith’s reaction is particularly interesting because he is posting at the American Spectator.

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Post your debate comments here. We already had someone mistakenly post a comment on an old primary debate thread. I haven’t watched the debate yet. I DVR’ed it, but the Facebook comments I have seen say Romney is doing well and Obama is struggling. Of course my Facebook friends are probably biased, but a lot of them are actually Ron Paul fans and don’t like Romney.

Addendum: Daniel Larison, who is normally very hard on Romney, even thinks Romney did well.

Romney critic Scott Galupo thinks Romney did well.

Ilana Mercer

Chris Matthews‘ leg is not tingling.

Daniel McCarthy

Rod Dreher: “Romney Stomped Obama”

Daily Mail

Pat Buchanan

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It’s not as bad as McCain’s Gulag of 2008 of the 2012 version of the Republican National Convention isn’t much better from a Ron Paul delegate. From the new rules passed which try to limit grassroots activism to the expulsion of legally elected delegates, Republicans have basically shown they don’t care if the millions of Ron Paul voters gathered over the past five years vote for Mitt in the fall or not.

If would not have cost Mitt or the RNC much if they had allowed the Paul delegates to be seated and his put in nomination (after all Mitt had over 2,000 delegates voting for him). Since the voting occurred on the first day of the convention instead of the third (and deliberately so) and out of prime-time, nothing more would be thought about and nothing said. Romney would have won anyway, the Paul delegates would been satisfied and the convention would go on to proceed as normal. That measures were taken not only to NOT give Ron Paul a moment in the sun but to make sure no such candidacy like his in the future can ever take place smacks one of paranoiac fear. For a party that backs devolving the power of the Federal government down to the state and local levels to concentrate its own power in Washington D.C. is truly an amazing admission of hypocrisy, their own views apparently not good enough to govern themselves.

These last few weeks and even moths have been a boon to Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson. By abandoning the GOP Presidential nomination race, knowing full well his candidacy would be smothered by Paul’s, Johnson has positioned himself to take up Paul’s mantle at least for the fall campaign (At least for half of Paul’s supporters. The other half will stay loyal to Rand and the GOP).

Of course it’s easy to say Johnson supporters will find out in early November what Paul supporters found out in late August, the system is rigged against you no matter which path you take. But Paul would have never have created a movement of millions of voters without at the very least competing in the Republican primaries of ’08 and 12 and Johnson may well carve out a niche for himself too this year. If he’s able to break the LP record for votes (held by Ed Clark 1980), if he’s able to get a decent percentage (5% would have them dancing in the aisles) and if his vote totals in states like Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire are big enough to cost Romney wins in those swing states, then he can make the plausible argument the LP has a potential future with young voters (presumably Paul’s voters) while GOP still has it’s generation problem.

Johnson’s numbers may well prove to be the most interesting thing to watch this November and if they turn out well for him then Mitt could will be muttering to himself on Election Night: “I should have let them have those Maine delegates.”

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Political conventions in this day and must be hell on reporters looking for actual news to write about instead of being on a week-long junket. But a enterprising political reporter (the exception being Dave Weigel, who will be too busy making love to Jesse Benton to report on anything useful) looking for a story at the upcoming GOP convention in Tampa (presuming it goes off with being disrupted by a hurricane) will find it covering the Ron Paul Movement because it will be in Tampa that movement will more than likely split itself in two.

The Republican Party establishment and the Romney campaign are doing their level best to keep out Paul delegates from the convention. That was to be expected. What was not expected was Romney Campaign being aided and abetted by the Paul Campaign. By agreeing to a deal to split the Louisiana delegations between Romney, Santorum and Paul instead the of the plurality Paul delegates would have had (and may well have been upheld by the RNC), the “official” Paul campaign took away the one state which would have given it the five states and or territories needed to nominate Paul from the floor of the convention (which would have given him an unscripted 15 minute speech as well). With the Paul campaign actively discouraging its delegates from trying to nominate Paul anyway and also look good for the cameras, it’s obvious that the game is up  as far as the campaign goes.

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Sorry. I couldn’t resist. HT to Harrison for pointing out the resemblance.

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Since there will be much discussion about Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate, I decided to created a thread specifically for reaction and links. Your reactions in the comments section. Links below. Expect more links to follow. I haven’t yet read all the links because the reaction is coming fast and furious, but they are from trusted sources.

Peter Brimelow of V-DARE

Rod Dreher

Daniel Larison here, here, here

James Antle

Tom Piatak

More from Larison here and here

Daniel McCarthy

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Poor Charles Johnson. He can never seem to get his panties out of a wad. Every non-conventional wisdom approved thought sends his little prissy self into hysterics. Now he’s pitching a hissy fit over the Root article we are discussing below.

In other news, the Sun rose in the East this morning.

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In his latest column, Wayne Allyn Root gives Romney the same advice I gave him last month. 

Romney should call a press conference and issue a challenge in front of the nation. He should agree to release more of his tax returns, only if Obama unseals his college records. Simple and straight-forward. Mitt should ask “What could possibly be so embarrassing in your college records from 29 years ago that you are afraid to let America’s voters see? If it’s THAT bad, maybe it’s something the voters ought to see.” Suddenly the tables are turned. Now Obama is on the defensive.

My bet is that Obama will never unseal his records because they contain information that could destroy his chances for re-election. Once this challenge is made public, my prediction is you’ll never hear about Mitt’s tax returns ever again.

Here is Root’s “gut.”

Here’s my gut belief: Obama got a leg up by being admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. But did his mother ever change him back to a U.S. citizen? When he returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii or as he neared college-age preparing to apply to schools, did he ever change his citizenship back? I’m betting not.

If you could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:

A)   He rarely ever attended class.

B)   His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.

C)   He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.

D)   He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid and scholarships given to a poor foreign students like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.

If you think I’m “fishing” then prove me wrong. Open up your records Mr. President. What are you afraid of?

First of all, I’m not sure you would know how frequently Obama attended class based on his records. Also, I wouldn’t have been as definitive as Root with my speculation. It is wise to be vague when you don’t know something for sure lest you look silly if you are proven wrong. That said, the possibility that Obama attended college as a foreign student has been much speculated on and is not really an at all implausible senario. At the time, Obama would not have known he would one day run for President. It would simply be something he would later need to cover up.

HT: IPR

Addendum: As you can see from the IPR post, Drudge linked to the Root article and the cosmotarian big babies over at Reason are predictably crying about conspiracy taint.

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President Obama attacks Mitt Romney for outsourcing jobs overseas while he was at Bain Capital. But when it comes to outsourcing, Romney may well be doing the same thing when it comes to his Presidency.

It is becoming apparent to some astute observers that Romney as President will be very much a figurehead in his own administration.  If A Romney victory leads to a Republican Congress, which is more than likely, then Congressional Leaders from Eric Cantor to Paul Ryan to Mitch McConnell will pretty much control domestic policy. Romney’s neocon and nationalist advisers will control foreign policy through State and Defense. And for for good measure the Netanyahu government has control of Romney’s Middle East policy as well. Thus you will probably get the Ryan Budget and a war with a Iran.

It will be Presidency with no President, well a President who looks good in front of the cameras. That’s always been one of Romney’s biggest political strengths, the fact that he “looks like a President”. So if he plays to his strength and says his line on cue and supports the party leaders in Congress, he need not do more than that and call it a day. As Grover Norquist himself said:

“All we have to do is replace Obama. … We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. ”

Wouldn’t being President prompt Romney to try to assert his powers? Not when it’s too politically risky to do so. Why upset the party factions needlessly when you have no strong convictions of your own?  And as we all know, Romney is quite a risk adverse man.

The Romney Administration will be the first outsourced Administration is U.S. history, its power and policies lying outside the White House.

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Below is the expanded version of my blog post. It is now up at EtherZone:

President Obama’s recent “you didn’t build that” comment has ignited quite a debate.  Interestingly, this debate has brought to the forefront the terminology and the idea of the “American System.” James Pinkerton covers the history of the “American System” well in this article fromThe American Conservative, although, as you will see, I do not totally agree with his take.

Those of us who have been involved in the renewed debate over the merits of Abraham Lincoln are well aware of the term “American System” as one of the chief criticisms of Lincoln by his new antagonists is that he essentially remained a Henry Clay style Whig intent on advancing Clay’s “American System” including federally subsidized “internal improvements” (infrastructure), which is why he could not afford to let the South leave. So I was a bit surprised that this terminology seemed new to so many people, but I guess if you have not been following the Lincoln debate it could be.

While as a partisan Southerner I do not concede that the debate about Lincoln was ever over, there has clearly been a recent upsurge in Lincoln revisionism. I would date this “renewed” debate to the publication of Thomas DiLorenzo’s first Lincoln book. Lincoln as Clay style Whig was one of DiLorenzo’s main themes.

Of course for conservatives and constitutionalist, Clay’s “American System” is un-American. (It is probably more accurate albeit less alliterative to call it un-Constitutional rather than un-American because violating the Constitution has unfortunately been a feature of American reality for quite some time now.) According to conservative minded constitutionalists, the Constitution is a document of “enumerated powers” so if the power is not enumerated the Federal Government does not have it. By this reading of the Constitution there should be virtually no federal spending on infrastructure. Roads and bridges are a state and local concern.

I concede that there is always the question of what was intended and authorized by the term “post roads” in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7), but the defenders of the interstate highway system did not even try to justify it on the basis of “post roads,” but rather they attempted to justify it on national defense grounds. Even if you allow for a liberal interpretation of what it means to “establish” post roads, the Federal Government does not have carte blanche authority to build infrastructure for the facilitation of enterprise which is what Clay’s “American System” envisioned.

Of course Romney will not make this constitutionalist argument. Instead he will continue to reinforce the impression that he is a Chamber of Commerce Republican and have his surrogates make vague insinuations that Obama is a collectivist or a socialist or whatever and does not respect entrepreneurs. (As Pinkerton points out, Obama is in fact an advocate of a “mixed economy,” but Republicans and movement conservative wags cannot effectively make this point because for so many of them their defense of “free-enterprise” is actually shilling for state corporatism gussied up with free-market platitudes. How can the same people who labeled Ron Paul a wacko for criticizing the Federal Reserve question the wisdom of Henry “Second Bank of the United States” Clay’s “American System?”) And a valuable opportunity to explain what the American System (constitutionally limited government) really is and should be will be lost.

Published originally at EtherZone.com

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