Mark Steyn on The Corner:
[T]he difference between the US constitution and the proposed EU constitution is that the latter boils down to: "We the people agree to leave it to you the people who know better than the people."Agreed--but Steyn underestimates how many Americans want to be ruled by a bureaucratic elite rather than by popular sovereignty.
MORE:
Assistant Village Idiot in comments:
[W]e have to accept that a certain large percentage of Americans actually want someone else to "take care of all the details for them" and not be bothered. They want someone else to take the risks and responsibilities. We are no longer in the age of Reagan - which is why we're not electing any.MORE & MORE:
From Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club:
Europe and America will meet such fates as they choose. However long they’ve lived in liberty; however ancient their constitutional guarantees, they can choose unfreedom in a moment. One day they may decide they have a right to choose dependency; to choose slavery. No regrets now.
2 comments:
I have come to believe this is truer than I once thought - certainly truer than I hoped. We believe that "being and American" has something to do with wanting freedom, because that is what we have historically been, and conservatives think, what has been one of our best qualities.
A lot of Americans still want that, of course. Also, there are many others who have narrowed their primary definition of freedom to be about sexual matters - they still want freedom in some sense - and then those who have been buffaloed by the popular culture.
But we have to accept that a certain large percentage of Americans actually want someone else to "take care of all the details for them" and not be bothered. They want someone else to take the risks and responsibilities. We are no longer in the age of Reagan - which is why we're not electing any.
It is a sad commentary, but one conservatives have to come to grips with.
> We are no longer in the age of Reagan - which is why we're not electing any.
I think you confuse what the GOP leaders are working towards vs. what the rest of us want. In justification of this:
1) I suggest to you that the backlash in 2006 was far less about the Iraq War, and far more about the abysmal failure of the GOP to uphold ANYTHING of the Contract with America than is generally acknowledged. Really. Think about that.
2) If the GOP keeps pushing and backing right-centrist candidates (as much because the Dems have so utterly abandoned the center), like, say, McCain, then who the hell else are the GOP voters going to elect? What, a conservative is going to vote for Obama? That's not even rational as a protest vote. And that's the problem -- the usual resoponse to "you're drifting off-base you idiot leaders!" is to vote for the other party. But in good conscience, can ANYONE support the far left Dems? Even briefly? It's really hard to justify even a protest vote for the Dems.
3) I think the lackluster interest in McCain -- and the subsequent massive groundswell of support for the very Reaganesque Palin -- shows what the real underlying base thinks and wants.
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