HOW THE REPUBLICANS SHOULD WIN THE ELECTION
AND WHY THEY WON'T

By: Roderick T. Beaman

This country is The Titanic with the bow beginning to list. The passengers in the luxury suites have begun their moves into the lifeboats while those in steerage are still in their rooms, placidly going about their business while the orchestra continues playing. They’ll probably have to abandon ship but, even though the lifeboats may be strained and some damages will occur in the evacuation, everyone can get out intact if they’re told the truth. The Republicans have a golden opportunity but they’re dropping the ball as they have so many times before. 

The debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Cong. Paul Ryan was an abject lesson in the sad state of public debate. Martha Raddatz, was showered with roses for her moderation duties, despite allowing Biden to continually interrupt Ryan, by some counts, 80 times. She should have slapped him down but, by another count, interrupted him herself, six times. Must be the media’s idea of fairness. 

But, once again the Republican was handed a golden opportunity to open up the avenue that must be taken to save this country. When Joe Biden, he of the smug smirk and dazzling dentures, brought up the Barack Obama bailout of GM that Mitt Romney opposed, Ryan could have landed a Mike Tyson uppercut and initiated a long overdue discussion of the policies that have gotten us into this entire mess. 

Ryan could have responded that the bailout was just a payoff to the union gangsters and goons that the Democrats have been playing footsy with since FDR and who have had undue influence on the national debate since. But no, he sidestepped it all. 

It also could have been the beginning of the long overdue debate on income taxes themselves and their philosophical significance in a free, non-slave society as well as Social Security, the Federal Reserve and the entire matter of a federal role in government that has given us the New Deal and Great Society. Ryan, with a little maneuvering could have really gotten down to philosophic brass tacks in a coup de grace with a discussion of the Seventeenth Amendment that has eliminated the representation of the states in Washington,D.C. and what that means for federalism. All of these things could have been fodder for an enlightening evening but heaven forbid, not on Ryan’s watch nor for that matter on any Republican’s watch. 

For his part, Mitt Romney has decried the excessive financial regulation typified by Dodd-Frank but conceded that some regulation is necessary. Oh really, Mr. Governor but where does your regulation end? It’s been a tried and true recipe for endless government expansion; when the next problem emerges, and there always are problems, then emit the screams for more regulation. That’s how Dodd-Frank came about in the first place and you want to continue it? 

And what about a debate on the question of constitutional justification for any interference in the marketplace? The truly free market has no place for government regulation of business. 

If either of them really had imagination and testosterone, he’d have handed copies of the ten planks in Karl Marx’s program for the communization of society to everyone there and then asked Obama or Biden to announce which ones he’d reject. It could have opened a far too long closed file on the real nature of communism, not the convenient fantasy of looming, sneering evil we’ve programmed into our minds. The discussion would tear off the nanny state mask we’ve allowed our peculiar American socialist version to wear. 

What does all of this portend for the future of constitutional government in this country? It’s obvious that Romney & Ryan, just like the rest of the Republicans, have no intent of challenging the very large federal presence in our lives which is what we really need. 

I waited for sixteen years from Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan for a supposedly true conservative to take the reins in Washington,D.C. Reagan went to that infernal rathole vowing to end the departments of Energy & Education which had just been established by James Carter. Today, those original bureaucrats have long since retired on fat pensions paid by guess whom? All Reagan actually did was slow the rate of growth of the cancer that afflicts this country. It's obvious that we can't even achieve a trimming so rather than the nice guy approach, someone has to go in there with a meat cleaver, not a pair of scissors for a trimming. The time for being nice is over and Romney and Ryan are 'nice guys' meaning they play the game.