By any objective standard, there’s undoubtedly a growing and determined initiative to disarm American citizens. Restrictions, taxes, regulations, and outright prohibitions continue to form a more strangling grip on the firearms industry. Those of us who value firearms for professional, sporting, enthusiast and defensive purposes naturally see the benefits of rallying to a unified cause whereby strength in numbers means a louder voice and more resources to fuel the message. For more than a century the National Rifle Association has been an effective advocate of the second amendment, but in recent years, their lack of sound, explicit principles has become abundantly clear, and will inevitably undermine their essential purpose - it already has.

Individual Rights and America

America’s founding essence is individual freedom. As correctly and explicitly prescribed in the Declaration of Independence, freedom is achieved by establishing a government that protects individual rights to life, liberty and property.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Of course, one’s right to life is the bedrock to any political right regardless of context, but without freedom and property, one really doesn’t maintain the means to sustain his life. Without freedom to think and act, one cannot take the steps necessary to gain knowledge or earn a living. Without rightfully possessing the results of such thought and action in the form of property, one cannot survive in a self-sufficient manner.

Maintenance of each of these rights logically necessitates the sovereignty of the others. If you encroach upon one, you encroach upon them all.

Does The NRA Understand Rights?

Last year, I contacted the NRA-ILA challenging their position in the Florida HB 503 decision. This case centered on an Employer in Florida who prohibited the possession of firearms by employees on company grounds. The NRA, in an astonishingly short sighted manner, sided with the employees, and against the employer - the property owner.

According to the NRA, the employer’s property rights - to determine particular policies which pertain to their legal property - were trumped by the employee’s right to life. Not only is their position presented in an anti-business hue ( phrases such as “Big Business”, “corporate giants” ) that Karl Marx would find comforting, such a stance ignores three crucial facts:

1) No individual has the right to be on the private property of others without prior consent and compliance with any predefined, mutually agreed upon terms. Those who violate this principle are trespassing.

2) Employees of a business are subject to contractual terms which may or may not subject their presence to a particular set of stipulations. An individual seeking employment with a particular employer is free to accept such stipulations, negotiate the terms accordingly, or choose to seek employment elsewhere.

3) Most importantly, the right to property is a fundamental prerequisite to the right to bear arms - arms being a specific type of property - and as indicated above, any movement that undermines property rights also erodes the right to life and liberty.

The NRA-ILA politely rejected my arguments, insisting that the employee’s right to life trumps any trespassing, contractual, or property owner restrictions - a tremendous evasion of the voluntary aspect of employment and the sanctity of property rights.

At Least They’re Consistent

I still get NRA notifications and in just a few minutes browsing the NRA-ILA I stumbled on yet another stance by this “defender of rights” which displays ignorance of the concept of rights.

This time the position is that renters should be immune to a landlords restrictions regarding firearms on leased property. From the NRA’s “Outrage Of The Week” notification:

This week’s second outrage (read about the first outrage of the week here) comes to us via Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper (D), who recently issued an official opinion that landlords can prohibit law-abiding tenants from possessing their legally-owned firearms within the leased premises of their rented apartments, even if the tenants have a valid carry permit!

…

Denying law-abiding citizens their right to self-defense in their home is simply outrageous, not to mention unfair [to whom?] and possible dangerous. [emphasis and comments added]

The error in this statement should be obvious - it’s not their home. They’re renters… leasing property owned by another individual. As such, just as in the case with employers and employees, renters are subject to mutually agreed upon contractual terms. They can accept those terms, negotiate those terms, or seek housing elsewhere. Concerning fairness, denying a landlord the right to determine their own lease stipulations would be unfair.

Without Principles, Crusades are Futile

Many people don’t appreciate my criticism of the NRA, either siding explicitly with their position or citing my observations as insignificant tradeoffs in the quest to defend the right to bear arms.

Why abstain supporting 90% of a cause over 10% that you disagree with?

My response is that adherence to fundamental principles is a vital necessity and that these errors cannot be taken lightly. That 10% strikes a root that will utterly annihilate any benefit from the remaining 90%. What good is the right to bear arms if the abolition of property rights leads to a total destruction of the firearms industry and eventually a total economic collapse? At that point, we’ll have neither rights nor guns.

Property rights are under attack from every conceivable angle in America, the two cases above included. This country cannot exist once they are destroyed. To the extent the sanctity of property rights are encroached upon, this country slides immeasurably closer to oppressive tyranny. The essence of any variant of collectivism (Socialism, Fascism, or Communism) is the obliteration of property rights in favor of collective ownership of resources. We must salvage and protect property rights at any opportunity, not toss them aside in a hypnotic “right to bear arms” stupor.

This latest issue reaffirms the NRA’s lack of principles. Without a principled ideology, any movement is destined for inconsistency and failure. I hate to say it, but with friends like the NRA, who needs enemies? They’re unwittingly aiding the cause of the groups seeking to drag America into stagnant misery.

I should be clear - the NRA has promoted and prevailed many just causes, but regardless of their achievements, even monumental ones, negligence in the realm of fundamental principles will absolutely offset and undermine their stated mission.

You can fix every shingle on a roof but if you ignore (and exacerbate) the tremendous crack in the home’s foundation your shingles are irrelevant.

Individual Rights and The Proper Role of Government

Until the NRA adopts a rational and consistent defense of the fundamental rights to life, liberty and property, they cannot be effective defenders of any other implementation of those rights - especially the 2nd amendment which relies on all three.

The purpose of Government is not to force employers or landlords to adopt rational gun policies (which can only be done by effectively communicating a rational philosophy), but to protect our fundamental rights from encroachment by force or fraud. Objective law is based on a standard to punish and preclude forceful encroachment of individual rights (life, liberty, and property); in the above cases, neither employers nor landlords were forcefully violating the rights of others. Until the NRA abstains from promoting legislation that violates this prescription, they are helping to destroy America - regardless of how honest their intentions.

I urge any of you who support the NRA to voice your concern about this blatant and potentially devastating inconsistency in their advocacy. Until they rectify such a tremendous contradiction, they cannot be justly considered as true allies of freedom or Capitalism.

I certainly hope they refine their course; we desperately need a unified voice in defense of our rights - including the second amendment.

Imprisoned over orchids…

The subtitle of the article above laments the festering state of American jurisprudence stemming from lack of an objective standard of law.

Needed: A ‘clean line’ to determine lawfulness

That ‘clean line’ to determine lawfulness is individual rights. Objective law is based on a standard to punish and preclude forceful encroachment of individual rights (life, liberty, and property). If that standard is abandoned, there is no logical limit to what can be criminalized - the result is mob rule.

A mob fueled by pragmatism can rationalize prosecution for just about anything.

Our country is the final stages of a tremendous mistake - one that will have adverse effects on every person you know. Acting as if human lives are disposable and that economic laws are pliable, so many are willing to give in to consensus and experiment with Government run health care. It can’t hurt to try right?

This is a deadly pragmatic notion that must be rejected. Not even a single right or life is properly available for sacrificial experimentation. Even if dissecting one human being would save the lives of billions, doing so is immoral. If one man’s rights are violated, so all men have suffered injustice.

For America to endure we must return to nothing less than a free-market in health care.

Politicians are masters at muddying the water in order to aid their efforts. The more they obfuscate and complicate the issue, the more likely citizens are to give-up and give in to what appears to be the superior insights and motives of our leaders. Throw in some hollow rhetoric and spike the potion with the moral tint of altruism and consensus will stomp over an endless sea of corpses. However, If one peers through all the emotional fog, the entire conversation is revealed to be senseless. To make the case much clearer, I’ll frame the principles in an analogous market less prone to emotional fraying.

This not-so-hypothetical market is comprised of a fictitious entity called “Technicare” - a taxpayer funded program to assist a segment of the population with their electrical appliance needs - and a retailer, in this example I chose Wal-Mart, arguably the most highly qualified bastion of efficiency and value.

Like all cases of market dysfunction throughout history, the cause is unnatural economic forces. Essentially, the only force capable of wide scale economic influence is Government. Economics is an elegantly simple system governed by principles that endure time and scale. Producers produce goods that consumers consume according to the standards and prices that both parties agree on voluntarily. That’s it. These fundamentals are absolute and unforgiving, and when any component of the preceding summary is acted against, the market becomes dysfunctional. If producers ability to produce is either enhanced or hampered, if consumers ability to consume is enhanced or hampered, or if the voluntary prerogatives of either are restricted to any extent, the result is some degree of market dysfunction.

Our Heath Care market is one that’s clobbered with regulatory assault from every angle. Each of the components prescribed above are unnaturally manipulated by Government. Government meddling inevitably serves to reduce competition, and decrease purchasing power, the two elements that form the lifeblood of a growing and prosperous economic system.

There are far too many instances to cover exhaustively, but fortunately a principled examination of only a few will clearly illustrate the negative impact that is universally achieved by market intervention. We’ll start by considering an element that achieves tremendous competitive detriment and has no logical justification - The Certificate of Need.

From the NCSL site:

Certificate of Need (C.O.N.) programs are aimed at restraining health care facility costs and allowing coordinated planning of new services and construction. Laws authorizing such programs are one mechanism by which state governments seek to reduce overall health and medical costs.

The basic assumption underlying CON regulation is that excess capacity (in the form of facility overbuilding) directly results in health care price inflation. When a hospital cannot fill its beds, fixed costs must be met through higher charges for the beds that are used. Bigger institutions have bigger costs, so CON supporters say it makes sense to limit facilities to building only enough capacity to meet actual needs.

Profit is determined by the difference in revenue from a unit of work in relation to the unit’s associated costs. Profit increases by either charging a higher price per unit to consumers or establishing a lower cost per unit for producers - by higher prices or by lower costs. Competition amongst market players urges them to offer services at the lowest possible price, thus their opportunity to increase profit will be naturally determined by their ability to operate at the lowest possible cost, as opposed to selling at a higher, less competitive price. Competition is a necessity.

By hindering the competitive aspect of the market, the CON hurdle is actually prone to a rise in costs precisely because mitigates (or eliminates) external pressure to compete on price. Additionally, the process is tedious, timely and expensive. For productive endeavors, time is money, and this process equates to an atrociously misdirected waste of capital.

The other fallacy used to justify this process is that investors would risk such vast amounts of money as typically involved without doing the proper market research to justify the expense. Like in so many other cases, and for obvious reasons, bureaucrats just can’t grasp the concept of personal responsibility. Unlike moochers wasting handout money, when an individual is spending his own earned resources, he’d best be, and typically is, mindful of how he does so. Successful investors seeking a profitable avenue for their capital do not need parental guidance.

Let’s consider this absurdity in our fictitious market:

• How would the “Certificate of Need” process and burden, including all the inherent political wrangling, affect an aspiring Wal-Mart store?
• Would the associated cost cause their prices to increase or decrease?
• Would that money be more appropriately invested in real estate, infrastructure and inventory, or as the cost of asking permission to do business when and where they see fit?
• On what logical grounds should they have to ask permission?
• By what right could some authoritative body decline their request?
• By what right does anyone or any entity have such authority in a country founded on individual rights?
• Whose right to what would be in jeopardy of encroachment by a lack of oversight for this new entity?

Consider Technicare’s impact throughout the rest of Wal-mart’s business model:

• Once the tedious CON process is complete and business is booming, how would Wal-Mart compensate for selling televisions to Technicare customers for an amount that’s significantly reduced - possibly below cost?
• Would these customers tend to spend more or less if given a Technicare credit card for which they have no financial responsibility?
• How would this consumption impact the individuals who are liable for the Technicare expenditures?
• How about if Technicare was granted the authority to determine what Wal-Mart could charge non-Technicare customers for televisions, how would this affect these customers if the pricing was at or below cost?
• By what right should Technicare posses such authority?

If Technicare was expanded to include storage media:

• Would this amplify or negate the existing affects of the program on Wal-Mart?
• How about if the storage media market was regulated by Technicare’s parent company GovCo. so that the media could be adequately tested, which led to drastically increased research manufacturing and legal costs and the time to market for a new product was a number of years. Would this impact the cost of storage media for all consumers?
• What if Wal-Mart was also regulated on how much they could charge Technicare customers for storage media?
• What if they had to sell below cost? What would this do to the costs of storage media for non-Technicare customers?

If Wal-Mart were forced by law to give away products at no charge:

• How would the rest of their business model be impacted?
• Would they continue operating at a loss?
• Would this raise or lower costs to the remainder of their customer base?

If Wal-Mart’s prices increased drastically over time due to the mandates of Technicare:

• How would the “Certificate of Need” process and burden, including all the inherent political wrangling, affect an aspiring competitor?
• Would it make market entry easier or more difficult?
• Would this affect lead Wal-Mart to be more or less responsive to its customers?
• Would such market-entry overhead inspire entrepreneurial interest?

Given the above scenario and the obvious answers and established patterns:

• On why logical grounds would some suggest granting Technicare/GovCo drastically increased, if not exhaustive, control of Wal-Mart operations, accounting and pricing?
• What would the expected results entail?
• As non-Technicare customers lose purchasing power as a result from both having to fund Technicare and having to endure higher prices as a result of Technicare, what changes would be more likely to repair the situation?
• What if Technicare decides to restrict all customers from shopping anywhere besides this new WalTech-GovCo?
• By what right could they?
• Wouldn’t this be a coercive monopoly?
• What would that mean?

With “solutions” like these, who needs problems? Is this issue really as complex as so portrayed by the media and politicians?

Socialization proponents consistently offer supposed aspects of the health care market that exempt it from economic laws due to some disadvantage faced by consumers. Regardless of the specifics, for each such claim we should ask “Why is this, and what are the repercussions?”

My point in general is that the “whys” are far more important than their corresponding repercussions. If a patient has a rash it could be a sign of a number of things, such as poison ivy, a food allergy, an infectious disease like measles, or a skin infection. Treating the symptoms without accurately identifying the cause could leave the patient worse off. Making assumptions on faulty or unrefined premises is a recipe for failure.

I’ve yet to hear a valid claim of “market-dysfunction” (if you will) that is actually more in substance than an acknowledgment of reality, e.g., individuals have varying financial means, or an example of a symptom caused by an existing economically unnatural force in the system, e.g., how Medicare rates affect private insurance premiums.

The former family of claims, in the context of “what should be done?” should properly be answered “whatever motivated individuals choose to do with their own resources.” The charge of “not providing unlimited free service to all who’d consume it” is no more valid a charge of dysfunction than criticizing a rock for not spurting pop-tarts on whim. Demanding a breach of reality in the form of non-causal action is irrational.

If the same question is posed in the context of the second category above, the answer should be “identify and remove the source of the issue.” - which arguably is in all cases, Government intervention.

Despite all the attempts to complicate this issue, it really is as simple as the answers above. Unless and until that is, as I mentioned previously, ulterior motives come into consideration. As soon as the rights of producers and consumers to contract freely are inhibited to any extent, the only possible result is a distortion in the market that will exponentially correlate to the extent of the inhibition.

Individuals thrive under, and have a right to, freedom. Innovation, value and efficiency are the result of freedom. Regulations, on the other hand, reduce freedom - which results in inefficiency, shortages, escalating prices and general stagnation. History illustrates this condition quite well.

Patients have the right to choose from whom, for what, and at what price they consume medical services. Likewise, providers have the right to choose from whom, for what, and at what price they provide their expertise.

This is the only moral and practical relationship between patients and providers.

A diligent consideration of any elements of the market that affect these mutual rights, including their cause, will very accurately highlight what needs to change for the market to operate normally. Increase freedom and all the positive dynamics of this and any other market will prevail.

Again, history unequivocally supports this fact.

To concretize - a free-market in health care, just like every other field throughout history - would result in the best service at the lowest price, according to the discretion of the consumers and producers involved.

There’s nothing unique about the health care market that should exempt it from basic economics. Providers gain expertise in medical services that individuals would consume based on supply and demand.

Only third-party involvement by force can disrupt economic laws and patterns. If one detects a flaw or undesirable pattern, prudence suggests one identify any source of unnatural tampering. Any market traits, e.g., “Forty-plus million uninsured”, could either be symptoms of an illegitimate disruption, or merely factual attributes representing reality. If one were to consider the statistic in slightly different terms, say “Forty-plus million individuals can’t own a 42 inch widescreen television”, then the issue becomes less clouded by by emotion. The facts illustrate that five years ago, indeed a large percentage of individuals couldn’t afford a 42″ television. However, the market (a relatively free one) has responded to demand and now a 42″ television is much more affordable. These principles work regardless if the market is for widgets, televisions, mobile phone service, wellness physicals or CT scans. Where the conversation veers drastically off course is when egalitarian politics come into play. If authentic rights are to be subsumed by artificial privileges, some external force must attempt to usurp economic reality. For every ‘yin’ of Government intervention, there’s a corresponding ‘yang’ of market disturbance. These ‘yangs’ reverberate through the system and their effects continue to amplify until very serious results surface. The system we have now is a result of 50+ years of intense ‘yin’ing. What, other than a tremendously distorted market, could we expect? And, exactly why would we propose more intervention as the solution?

So long as consumers are left free to consume (by their own means) and producers are left free to offer services (as they see fit), the market will perform and innovate like any other.

The government depriving people of opportunities and choice regarding their livelihood is not the solution to the problem of the government stifling competition with distorted economic forces. The solution is to get the government out of health care altogether.

Supplemental Ammunition:
I highly recommend Paul Hsieh’s work demolishing the case for socialized medicine:

FAQ On Free Market Health Insurance

Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care

Moral Health Care vs. Universal Health Care

Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America

A parable depicting the rise of tyranny being cloaked in supposed benevolence - should sound very familiar. Source unknown.

A chemistry professor at a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ‘Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’ The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.

You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.

Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms — just a little at a time.

Tack one more nail in the American coffin. The rights-trampling frenzy continues with restaurant and bar owners being the latest victim burnt on the collectivist mob-rule stake as The People’s Republic of North Carolina has finally passed their precious smoking ban.

A similar attempt failed a few years back, but the statist yearning to rule by force is insatiable. This debate emphasizes the typical degree of concrete-bound, irrational thinking that consumes most of our population. If we were to extract the essentials from the average opinion supporting this law, we’d discover a criteria template that could justify any law imaginable. However, when the facts are considered, the silly, evil, and obtuse nature of this law is abundantly clear.

Relevant Facts:

1. Freedom: In a rational, civilized society, individuals are free to choose which establishments they patronize. Virtually all supposed justifications for this pathetic abuse of power evade or ignore this fact completely.

2. Property Rights: In a rational, civilized society, property owners are free to determine their own smoking policies. This is the core issue at hand.

3. Role of Government: In a rational, civilized society, the proper role of Government is to protect individual rights from forceful encroachment. Instead, this law relies on initiation of force by Government.

4. Objective Law: In a rational, civilized society, laws and legal enforcement thereof should be based on rights. If an action doesn’t forcefully encroach on an individual’s right to life, liberty or property, or doesn’t objectively convey intent to do so, it shouldn’t be illegal. Whenever considering any law or regulation, justice demands we ask “whose right to what is being forcefully violated?”, and if there is no clear and objective answer, then justice is not the motive at hand. In this context, where smoking is permitted by the owner and other individuals are free to leave, no one’s rights are forcefully violated.

Irrelevant Misconceptions:

“The issue is smokers vs. non-smokers…”

This issue is about the rights of property owners. The owner of a restaurant or bar has the right to determine his own policies regarding smoking. This law imposes on the property owner, not the customers. See #2.

“When you serve the public you forfeit your property rights.”


Perhaps in a collectivized, mob-rule nation ignorant of the concept of rights, but not in a free country. Individuals conducting commerce are traders - not servants. They are offering a value in the form of a product or service that other traders can choose to consume or not, depending on whether they find the value offered as beneficial in proportion to the cost. These two individuals, the traders, are the only two who should rightly decide on the details pertaining to their barter. If a consumer is unhappy with the product or service offered they are free to seek consumption elsewhere, and the seller must adjust his offering to remain in business. The only proper function of Government in the barter is to enforce contractual obligations breached by force or fraud. Any other Government intervention in this voluntary transaction is illegitimate and a violation of one or both of the trader’s rights. Only the competition of a free-market can rightly and justly promote change in the seller’s offering. In a rational and just society, this rule applies to any and every aspect of the business and barter. The fact that we’ve set precedent for such encroachment with OSHA, FDA, zoning, wage and countless other regulations does not justify yet another blatant disregard for the sanctity of property rights. See #1-4.


“Smokers don’t have the right to smoke anywhere they choose.”

This is correct, but the decision to allow or prohibit smoking is up to the property owner and no one else. See #2.

“Do you smokers have the RIGHT to harm other people just because you think it’s ok to smoke around them?”

Of course not, there is no such thing as a right to harm others, but this question evades the fact that the “victim” is free to leave an environment where conditions (including second-hand smoke, noise, temperature, food quality etc.) aren’t suitable. See #1.

“This ban is guarding the public safety.”

See #1 and #4.

“It’s a darn shame that a law had to be passed to prevent the inconsiderate nicotine addicts from spreading their disease and stench while ruining ones meal.”

If their lack of consideration offends you, you’re free to leave. See #1 and #4.




“Studies show that {insert any fact supporting the negative impacts of second-hand smoke} is harmful.”


See #1.

“An owner that accepts non-smokers does not reserve the right or choice to put the life of the non-smokers family in danger of death due to lung cancer to satisfy the addiction of a smoker.”

Their lives are only in danger if they choose to be present in such conditions. See #1.

These are only a handful of the common justifications used by advocates. As I hear new ones I’ll add them to the list along with a proper debunking.

Conclusions:

There is no just basis to support a smoking ban on private property - only emotion-driven rationalizations that undermine the rule of law, and scoff at the American essence. Objective law requires for an individual’s rights to be forcefully violated. So long as one’s presence in such establishment is voluntary, force is absent, and any legal intervention represents an injustice.

If all private restaurants and bars closed their doors (the appropriate response to this and any other meddling in business), how many days before this fascist tripe would be repealed? The first day they’d call their bluff. The second day they’d call an emergency session with expedited Governor sign-off so all the statist thugs in Raleigh would have a place to grab lunch, and this wretched idea would never be brought up again.

Do I look forward to the first Sunday morning I enjoy a completely smoke-free breakfast at Cracker Barrel? You bet I do. But, for that reality to come into fruition through an anti-American, rights-stomping, emotion-driven law is hideous. I’d rather endure smoky meals for the rest of my life to hang on to the smell of freedom than condone such a contemptible mob-rule measure. Precisely because this is happening in America, the first nation founded on justice and freedom, we truly are in the golden age of injustice.

There was a point in my life where her writing was almost therapeutic, but disgusted sympathy is the only response I can muster to this luke-warm call to arms by Peggy Noonan.

Like a basketball team which never identifies which goal to shoot for, or a football team who narrows it down to a only a few plays in the huddle, conservatives have no unified goals or principles. Philosophy drives ideas and any group based on an alleged ideology void of explicit principles will be ineffective. Noonan understands that unity within her party is non-existent and makes an attempt to define some basic tenets. Just like other pragmatists, the prescription is a call to abandon principles.

The poles that keep up the tent are the party’s essential beliefs. Republicans over the next few years should define what each of their tent poles stands for—a strong defense being an obvious pole, a less demanding and intrusive government being another, a natural affection and respect for tradition and for life being a third—and how many poles there are.

I can’t argue with the first, which is about the only position of the right that stands to reason. After the first, however, we get the same vague, implicit notions that the republicans have coasted on for decades.

Less demanding and intrusive? In what manner should we seek less demands and fewer intrusions? Should a proper government in a free society be demanding at all? Less intrusive? Should it be intrusive at all? In what way might it rightfully intrude?

Affection for tradition? To what aspects and to what extent? The American tradition imparts a shift to statism, should that pattern be upheld?

Respect for life? Absolutely, but in what sense? I can only guess this means violating the rights of women to their own lives by banning abortion.

In summary, here we see the same worn-out bromides that have defined the right for the last 50 years:

• The mixed economy is proper, so long as men can still produce.
• Uphold the status quo, whatever that might be.
• Tie it all up with theocratic underpinnings.

Noonan, like the troops she’s trying to rouse, shares the same moral base as the left - altruism. Hers is only decorated by trivial subtleties, tinted by religion, and hued by an implicit “common sense” provided by a foggy understanding of how freedom equals prosperity.

The ground is shifting. It’s hard to get your footing in an earthquake. As Republicans on the Hill try, they must also try to steady their party. It needs a greater sense of realism about its predicament. It needs less enforcement and more encouragement. It needs to inspire the young and the politically unformed not with bloodlust but with ideas.

Right, but which ideas? There’s not a single mention of the proper role of Government, individual rights, or any supposed alliance with the founding principles of this nation.

A great party allows everyone in, and allows prospective members to self-define. If they say they’re Republicans, they should be welcomed and helped to find a place where they fit. A great party has a lot of such places. A great party is expansive. A great party has [to] give. [emphasis and edits mine]

Abandon principles (which have yet to be defined), be flexible, give in, cooperate, compromise - the only thing that matters is what group one professes to belong to. So long as the jersey has an ‘R’ on it, they’re on the team!

By her prescription, not only will the conservatives remain pathetic in the defense of rights, freedom and Capitalism, they’ll continue to shift further towards the statism of the left - leaving America to choose only between two variants of the same collectivist nightmare.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more eloquent tribute to the superficial nature and impotence of the republican party.