For those who believe that conservatives should simply fall in line and vote for anyone with an R trailing their name on the ballot, I offer a different view.
If you’re a conservative, don’t do it.
Any honest and objective observer can see that the government has grown and grown and grown over the decades with both Republicans and Democrats in power—note I said Republican, not conservative.
Why should one expect different results when doing so again? We need conservatives in office, not Big Governementers. R or D it doesn’t matter, it will result in more of the same.
Government will grow as it has in the past. The debt will increase as it has over the decades (especially with the socialist in the White House). The government will continue to slither its repugnant tentacles into every crevice of our lives, further and further, soiling and deteriorating more and more of your private liberty as it has over the decades. I’ve b%tched about this here, here, and here among others.
Now, take a look at a fresh reminder (reported just yesterday) of what happens when simply voting for an R and not a strong conservative who’s willing to stand up and fight for the conservative principles and not curl cravenly into a fetal position (which do you think describes Brown and Havenbagger?).
Note: Senator Coburn is a conservative.
From TheDC (emphasis mine):
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said Thursday that Congress lied to the American people about the amount of spending placed in the recent continuing resolution passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last week
Coburn said that lawmakers from both parties, including Republican House Speaker John Boehner, lied about the amount of spending in the resolution because it far exceeds the amount promised in the two-year federal budget bill passed at the end of 2013.
Coburn, who is retiring when his term is up after the 2016 elections, cut loose in an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.
“The reason Americans have such poor view of Washington is because we’re dishonest with the American public in what we do,” Coburn told Ingraham. “In the continuing resolution […] we’re $47 billion above what we said we would be [in the Ryan-Murray bill].”
“So we’ve been lied to about how this will all be funded?” Ingraham asked.
“Absolutely. The whole [continuing resolution] was a lie, in terms of the numbers associated with it,” Coburn replied. “Remember that started in House, that bill came from the House. That wasn’t Senators manipulating that; that was a Republican House manipulating it.”
“So why does John Boehner perpetuate the lie along with Democrats?” Ingraham followed up.
“I don’t know. The fact is career politicians do not want to make hard choices,” Coburn said. “And we’ll never get the public support to make the tough decisions we need unless we’re honest with them about the severity of the problems that we face. And it’s so easy to spend 46 billion dollars more than what you said you were going to spend because the people that are going to suffer from us over spending are not here today– they are the generation M and younger, who are going to pay off this 46 billion that we lied about in this bill.”
If you’re truly a conservative who believes in limited government, rule of law, and tradition, then continuing to vote for craven politicians with a tenuous grasp of those principles and a firmer clutch on their own self-preservation as they see it is foolish. You’re lying to yourself if you think they’ll be different and harming the country the process.
Think Havenbagger or Brown are different?
I don’t.
