Yesterday's debate was a heated exchange between the two wings of the current Republican party. The first is that of American Exceptionalism, or the United States as the hegemonic imperialist who has the right and the duty to determine the course of events of the world. The second is the radical libertarianism of one candidate, Ron Paul, for which free market priority means eschewing the nationalism that is integral to the other groups world view.
This made for some lively television last night, a reality show with consequences. The first group is led by Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, both combining passion, conviction and erudition. Santorum, Perry, Bachman and Huntsman lack these essential political skills, as Perry humbly acknowledged. Romney and Mitt have close to identical policy positions, and similar high level political skills, yet Mitt is an outsider, both by his experience leading a liberal state, where the very success of being effective required consorting with the enemy and, of course, his religion.
Romney can only overcome this by being even more of the familiar fire and brimstone Elmer Gantry, flag and bible waving character than Gingrich. So, he strongly implies that he would retrieve the drone that landed in Iran by force, and to make sure we could always get what we wanted from any country, he would expand his military. He rattled off details of new weapons and troops that sounded like about a trillion or two over a decade, rather than the reduction that had been agreed on even by right wing hawk.
This was the opening for Ron Paul to ask, "How are we going to pay for this?" and then to respond to the threat by the other candidates to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities he pointed out that we made it through the cold war with tens of thousands of H bombs aimed at us, and you want to go to war for an imagined capacity of a country to maybe have an A bomb or two that won't be able to deliver.
One of the American Exceptional pair will win the nomination, and depending on events outside of the campaign one could become president and have a Congress to support him. And if it's Gingrich, he has said that he will take any federal court, district, appeals or even the Supreme Court--if it does things like tinker with "Under God." Romney, to his credit demurred on Gingrich's proposal to make the court subordinate to the elected branches, those made up of people are elected by good Christian Americans.
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This has been an accurate description of last night's debate, as I recounted to some friends this morning, most of them Republicans. As I described the promise by Ron Paul to immediately cut a trillion dollars the first year (not for a decade like most deficit discussions use) along with the jingoism of enlarging the military by the probable nominee, this thought congealed that there is only way that both of these could be achieved while also cutting the deficit, something both factions also promise. And so this solution, a final solution that would achieve the contradictory goals came to mind.
Here's what I see as shaping up if the economy continues to remain depressed, if street actions increase. If we increase military spending, with more troops as Romney proposes, it can only be paid for with major cuts in entitlements for those in need. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare will have to be slashed. If you think the occupy movement is growing now, just wait until Medicare is cut and those doctors who have done well decide to pack it in, leaving those that are left to exclude this group, as most already have for Medicaid.
Now here's the synthesis, the grand strategy that will be in place. This is facilitated by the provision in the Defense Bill that allows terrorists to be taken into military custody without trial for indefinite detention. Those old people, and poor people who will be without sufficient funds for survival may get so angry that they will defame this country, become anti-American, which is tantamount to being a terrorist based on the Bush principle of "if you're not with us, you are against us." And since we will have abolished entire appeal court districts such as the ninth circuit, and impeached judges who are not like Thomas, the most mentioned favorite among the candidates, there will be no one to counter this expanded use of this provision.
We will now have a use for the extra hundred thousand troops that Romney proposed last night. They will round up these roving terrorists and place them in military compounds, where without medical care they should not be a drain on the taxpayers for too long.
This is a way to make reduction of entitlements politically viable. Romney started last night's debates with this interesting words, "There are some Democrats who love America as Republicans do." That's verbatim. So those of you Democrats who love America have nothing to fear from these policies. The rest of you, well, Romney did outline some of the ways you can start to develop the patriotism that can restore America's greatness. It's not that hard, such as putting your hand to your heart when the National Anthem is played, and other signs that you accept the new order.
Or maybe this is all political hyperbole, something that Romney and Newt are just saying to get the nomination. Yeah, sure, this is just fear mongering, something that could never happen here.
Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.