How Much Capitulation is Enough? - Granite Grok

How Much Capitulation is Enough?

Freedom_hating RINOSocial media runneth over with discussion on the matter of Democrat elected Speaker Jasper (R- Hudson) and yes, the importance of getting along to get ahead.  Getting things done.  The need to accept things as they are is more important than sticking to principle–if sticking to principles rocks the boat.

Without burdening you with a dissertation on what they might mean by ‘get along’ and ‘get ahead’ and what “things” will get “done,” let me instead ask this.

How much capitulation is enough?

If you ask an actual Democrat how much revenue, taxation, regulation, interference, and so on is needed before they have achieved the perfect relationship between the government and their people, they have no answer.  They have no answer because there can never be enough.  So, on the topic of capitulating to the Left’s ideological theft of the NH House majority, stolen from the people and handed to moderate Republicans who are prone to advancing the left’s agenda, how much of that is enough?

Can I get an idea of just how far you’d like me to compromise until I am allowed to object without you calling me divisive?

Republicans, where do you draw the line?  How much capitulation can you tolerate?  How much capitulation to the opposition, on policy, on rights, on any device by which the definition of a Republican is measured?

How far must a ‘Republican’ whittle away at our first, second, fourth, ninth or tenth amendment rights (not to disregard any of the others) before we can feel threatened?  What volume of action is required before we are permitted to observe (with your support) that when they say ‘Get ahead’  they are not referring to us, or our children, our town, or anything but government, the administrative state, and most importantly themselves?

What straw is your last straw?  How many massive expansions of the entitlement state do you require?   Is there an amount of speech you can do without after which you will say “no more” assuming you still can?  How malleable is the inalienable right to self-defense?  Can you draw us a line, even a fuzzy dotted line?  What percentage of other people’s wages is the state entitled to take and for what purposes?

What will you stand for?

Maybe the Republicans could write a list, some sort of “platform” with ideas, so voters would have a sense of where these creatures stand.  Wouldn’t that be great?  Then everyone could get a sense for what those politicians or bureaucrats are prepared to take from you.  And you could compare that to the actions of elected ‘Republicans’ to see how close or far away they were.

Wait!?  That won’t work, will it?  Anyone who dares point at some metric (particularly when it is being ignored) would be labeled as intolerant, extremist, and divisive, even if it was the bilge at the bottom of some RINO watering hole.

Metrics would invite micro-aggressions, and conveniently for the left, make it harder to hide Democrats under that big-tent-thing they and their enablers on the right insist we have while Democrat ideological diversity could be stuffed into a very small shoe box set atop a large pile of other people’s money, guarded by an army of union thugs, and the users of very pointy pencils each with their own taxpayer funded SWAT teams.

So what are we to do?   If it walks like a Democrat and talks like a Democrat but registers as a Republican we’re to treat the Donkey like a kitten?

Meow, let’s expand Medicaid Meow.  That snowflake just took some of my free speech rights and placed them at the far end of a bureaucratic obstacle course.  Isn’t that so cute!?  And the best part is, I won’t even know I’ve “broken” that law until someone fines me or files a lawsuit because I (and at least one or more friends) have embarrassed them or shown them to be an ideological fraud.  Thank you, RINO’s.  You truly do care…

…about power and influence and your own incumbency.

If all the Republicans in elected office were there to protect our rights, and voted that way, then we’d only have Democrats to talk about.   Republicans would advertise every flanking maneuver by the progressives against free speech or the right to self-defense or any other violation of our constitutional rights, and we’d stand tall beside them in opposition until they stopped it.

Local businesses and charities would get priority over expanding the administrative state and public unions.

Efficiency and transparency would take precedence over creeping rules and regulations.

Education would be a choice made by parents and students in a mobile ‘marketplace’ where competition and excellence define success instead of  unions and progressives continually redefining success downward and intimidating anyone who dare question their methods or ‘results’.

Instead of one thousand bills every session, we’d have a few hundred, most of them peeling away the onion and returning power back to the towns, the counties, and the people (in one short session in the first year) instead of building walls of commissions and bureaucrats to protect a political establishment that needs two years to debate and discuss how to get more and more of our money with which to micro-manage every conceivable aspect of our daily lives.

And we had a platform we could point to in New Hampshire for most of that, but power has made the pointing an act of division and its defense an act of treason against what has become the status quo–a growing government coin, one side painted blue, the other a washed out shade of red, that will keep getting larger until it can no longer be flipped, or flipping it will no longer matter.

Democrats are electing house leadership under a Republican majority with the help of the party machine, unions, and monied incumbents in elected office.

State Government is no longer about choosing representatives to protect the rights of citizens as enshrined in our founding documents.  It has become an exercise in power and influence for the benefit of a few, all with increasingly similar goals.

As Ian Underwood said, and I’m paraphrasing, if those in power can’t be bothered to follow the laws set in place to limit them as members of government, why should we follow any law they pass to limit us?

How much capitulation is enough?

I suspect the answer from the moderate right to the question of how much is enough is no different than that from the progressive left.  They have no idea. There is no end to the interference nor to the plunder of our substance and the Republican party machinists are disinclined to do more than white-wash the fences these moderates jumped long ago because they were already on the other side.

To that I offer this…

[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

This was not written for you to interpret, it was written for us to interpret.  Keep that in mind.

No, I am not calling for a revolution.  Not the sort you imagine.   Our Democrat ‘friends’ will want to presume it is no different than their own variety of revolution–the riots in the streets, breaking laws, making others miserable, intimidation, theft, murder, the destruction of other people’s property; the cracking of institutional eggs to make their collectivist omelet.

No riots, but we will resist the perversion of our party and our government with renewed enthusiasm.  We will defend principles while you defend ignoring them.

We will seek redress, but with free speech and assembly, and we will use those resources to influence hearts and minds, resistance to which will be duly noted as we proceed to the next election.

Your objection to our objections is (of course always) welcome, but before you plant your flag in a hill of beans (be you politician, activist, voter, or other) try to find an answer to that awkward question: How much capitulation is enough?

How many of our rights or how much of each are we to sacrifice before the moderate right is satisfied?  How much of our paychecks will they need to sate that thirst for just a little bit more government; a little bit more oversight; a few more boondoggles; more concessions to the Feds; a bit more capitulation, and so on.

The inability to find an answer is an answer.

The truth is that to all Democrats and increasingly moderate Republicans, it is not a destination so much as a journey.  They don’t know when or if they will ever find a limit to their own power, but should they claim to we have every right to believe it transitory, temporary, an obstacle waiting on enough words piled high enough to climb over.

To them, there is no such thing as “enough.”  That is why constitutions were created in the first place.

That is why we will resist.  We are all that remains.

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