I got them again. Yes the so-called, self-professed conservatives, who are really just a conglomerate of pseudo-conservative moderates who do not want to be called the liberals that they are, sure as shooting did not like my article last week. In that article I knocked Representative Paul Ryan[1] off the perch upon which they had tried to place him.
I got them again. Yes the so-called, self-professed conservatives, who are really just a conglomerate of pseudo-conservative moderates who do not want to be called the liberals that they are, sure as shooting did not like my article last week. In that article I knocked Representative Paul Ryan[1] off the perch upon which they had tried to place him. Like a mundane and repetitive soap opera, the moderates predictably howled and moan that I dared to dissect his plan and tell the truth about it. I think I will call this new daytime drama, As The Pseudo-Conservatives Wail.
Yes, I invited the GOP partisans who, like their Democrat counterparts, cannot form a thought on their own, and can only regurgitate vacuous non-arguments when they don’t like the truth, to attack me. And attack me they did. But why? Simply because I pointed out how Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal still adds trillions in debt over the next decade on top of the fourteen plus trillion dollars we already are in the hole. Shhh, that's supposed to be a secret, so don't tell anyone.
The summary of all the arguments, made by Republican partisans, against my article were as follows:
1) “Well smart guy, what’s YOUR plan?”
2) “It’s better than what Democrats plan!”
3) “At least Mr. Ryan is trying to do something!”
4) “You obviously are not a conservative! Because you’re helping Obama!”
Liberals, of course, attacked me for attacking the Democrats and President Obama in the article. But that was to be expected as well.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that no, so-called, conservative who levied their cannons at me disputed any of the facts of the article. Nope, they accepted the fact that trillions would be added to the debt with Paul Ryan’s proposal. So what their complaints basically came down to was that I was trying to have a real “adult conversation” on the issue. You know, the conversation that people like Mr. Ryan and all these folks who support him claim to want? But when that “adult conversation” means telling the truth, which is that Ryan’s plan does not solve the major problem facing America, it immediately turns into the same juvenile conversation we have been having for years. And self-professed conservatives show their liberal, progressive stripes telling me how we cannot cut out the unconstitutional spending fully, how people would be hurt if we did what really needed to be done, yadda yadda yadda.
Let’s look at each of these arguments.
Yeah, Well What’s YOUR Plan?
When it comes to all the vacuous arguments, this one was by far the most common complaint levied against me. I wrote an article. I discussed a particular issue. That issue was how Paul Ryan’s budget proposal was not serious. I showed why it was not serious. That was, simply, the context of this article.
I could have added pages and pages of discussion about what needed to be done to have a meaningful reduction in our federal deficit. But then it would not have been an article. It would have been a pamphlet; something I have released several of discussing serious issues like true meaning of the General Welfare Clause [2] and also the reasoning behind why liberty is superior to tyranny as well as the potential outcome if America does not turn away from tyranny [3].
Those were pages and pages long. But why should I do that with regards to this issue when I have talked about what needs done already? Just one example was my series of articles entitled Five Unthinkable Options [4]. In five consecutive articles I already used real world numbers, discussed logical reasons as to why certain things must be done, and the consequences of not doing them.
These articles are not hard to find. Several of them are among the top ten articles viewed on my personal website, Liberty Reborn. Links to them are displayed on every page of under the header in the sidebar “HOT! HOT! HOT!” In fact, if you Google “Five Unthinkable Options” nearly all the top results (as of Wednesday April 20th, 2011) are to parts of that series on sites like Canada Free Press, Liberty Reborn (again, my site) and others. Portions of my series even ranks higher in Google for that term than the Wikiquote page for The Simpson’s Movie. That movie was what I based the premise of the article on and from the quote by the character Russ Cargill in that very popular piece of cinema.
So do not try that, “so what’s your plan?” line with me or my readers. It does not fly and you only look ignorant when you use it.
It’s Better Than Obama’s Plan!
Lot of people tried this line of attack on my article to. When posted in comments sections on sites who published my work it was usually followed or proceeded by some other frivolous comment urging others to therefore reject my rejection of the Ryan Plan because, “we have to do something!”
But I addressed this in my article. I admitted it was better than Obama’s even more asinine plan. “The Ryan budget is of course better than anything that President Obama can muster. He is a Marxist after all. Careless, rampant spending of everyone else's money is engrained in his DNA,” I said. But I also pointed out the reality of Ryan’s plan in my closing arguments. “[Republicans] tell us bluntly if we put our trust in them they are not willing to stop the car. Oh no. They are only willing to slow the car up to forty miles per hour. But the cliff still looms before us.”
A car wreck is still a car wreck. And when we are talking about driving off a cliff, as we are here, whether it is the Ryan Plan or the Obama Plan, no one is going to walk away from this one.
How Can You Attack Mr. Ryan For Trying To Do Something?
Ah, yes, the old canard of sure, what is being done is dumb but at least we are doing something! Do you people making this argument realize how stupid you sound? Or is the light you believe to be emanating from around Paul Ryan blinding you so badly that this sort of drive actually sounds like a good argument?
This is the argument liberals always make. They made it for TARP, the auto bailout, the mortgage/bank bailout and on and on and on. At least, they said, they were “doing something.” It did not matter that what they were doing was dumb beyond all belief however. It did not matter that they were adding to the already unsustainable deficit, mortgaging our children’s future and spending money we did not have. Oh no. They were “doing something.”
Please.
You know, lots of people do lots of things every day. It does not however make what they do good.
You Cad! You’re A Liberal In Disguise!
Oh yes, I have heard this so many times over the past week. But it still makes me laugh raucously every time this comment pops into my email inbox. Indeed, so this theory goes, I, despite years and years of a track record of unequivocally right leaning, Constitution supporting, limited government loving commentary published on conservative and libertarian websites the world over, am really a liberal plant Hell bent on getting President Obama re-elected by secretly, “waging an unabashedly dishonest smear campaign against Paul Ryan and the Republican Party.” Yes, that is an actual quote from one deranged reader.
Forget all the times I have hacked apart President Obama’s sick, liberal agenda. Forget all the times I that shredded former (thank God) Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Forget my relentless assault on all things liberal consistently week after week. Forget me supporting and voting for Alan Keyes in the last election cycle for President. No, forget all this. Now I am a “liberal plant”. I could provide footnotes and links to all these things, but I would just suggest that, if you doubt this to be true, to visit Liberty Reborn and peruse the site for an hour or two.
This sort of complaint is not new however. During the last presidential election cycle, when I leveled by cannons at Senator John McCain, in my famous, pre Tea Party piece called This Is My Hill [5], I got the same objection. No one ever disagreed with me that McCain’s liberal tendencies I pointed out were indeed liberal tendencies though. Nope. It was just GOP partisans attacking me for hurting McCain’s chances at hoodwinking conservatives into thinking that old John was one of them.
I also got this same complaint when I attacked former President George W. Bush for his grand stupidity known as the Toxic Assets Relief Program which was nothing but an unconstitutional act of grandiose stupidity by a man who leaned left more than any Republican hack would care to admit. And I also got it when I dared to say that Sarah Palin would be nothing more than a stop gap if elected [6].
Here is how this statement actually translates from gobbledygook to English. What people who say this really mean is, “You’re right. I cannot debate you on the facts. I’m not really a conservative though even though I proclaim to be one. I love the GOP blindly like liberals love the Democratic Party without question.”
Yep. It’s been a fun week. I love my job. Especially when I expose all you pseudo-conservative moderates as the liberal leaning fools you are who think that deficit spending is ok as long as Republicans are proposing it.
It’s been a week now. Got any new, frivolous complaints about me or my article that you want to level at me?
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com
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