It’s not about Rs vs. Ds. It’s statism vs. freedom.
[H]ow on earth could an Obama-liberal be one of the four Republican Leaders in the State House?
That’s a question longtime campaign consultant Carter Wrenn asked in a recent blog post. Carter sounds like a lot of people I hear these days. They equate being a Republican with being a conservative and opposing all things Democrat, Obama and big government. These days, being conservative and being Republican are far too often mutually exclusive.Consider this. The Ripon Society is a group of Republicans who want to rid the GOP of its conservative influence. They are what are commonly called “Rockefeller Republicans.” The group worked hard against GOP presidential nominees Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. Three sitting GOP member of North Carolina’s congressional delegation are on the board of advisors for The Ripon Society:
Senator Richard Burr, congressman Howard Coble, and congresswoman Renee Ellmers. The society’s platform sounds a lot like what you hear from liberal groups — support for “equitable” taxation, social “tolerance” and environmentalism.
In the GOP controlled NC General Assembly, we have alleged conservative GOP leaders voting in favor of environmental regulations that do NOTHING but jack up utility bills. Our friends over at The Carolina Plotthound took two leading legislators to task for supporting the regulations — comparing their positions to that of Big Barry hisself. THAT drew the ire of Carter Wrenn:
Back to 2007 a previous state legislature passed a bill to encourage companies to produce ‘renewable energy’ – like solar power – in North Carolina; hardly a word has been said about the bill for six years, until last week when State Representative Mike Hager stood up in a House Committee and announced that utility companies using solar power was adding millions of dollars to electric bills and he was going to put a stop to it by repealing that six-year-old bill.Those two words – renewable energy – reverberated across the Internet with the power of a magnet and hit a tribe of Johns right squarely between the eyes. Because the one person they knew who favored renewable energy was Barack Obama. And that’s all they needed to know. No sooner had Mike Hager sounded the war tocsin than a full-throated battle cry filled the air and charges flew about the evil of government subsidies and the worse evil of government interfering with the free market – which in a way didn’t add up because utility companies are monopolies and there is no free market for selling electricity.Then just when it looked like Representative Hager’s bill was sure to sail through that committee Ruth Samuelson stood up and politely said that it might be a good idea for legislators to stop and do a little research before voting.About an hour after that one Hun-like tribe put a picture of Samuelson and a picture of another Republican legislator on its website alongside a picture of Obama then added a headline over the pictures roaring: They voted with Obama!The way that tribe saw it Ruth Samuelson had gone over to the Dark Side or, worse, become a liberal – which didn’t add up either because how on earth could an Obama-liberal be one of the four Republican Leaders in the State House?So I looked up that 2007 bill and an odd fact popped up right away: George Bush was President when that bill passed. Then a second fact leaped off the page: The most rock-ribbed conservative in the legislature, Phil Berger, had voted for that bill. As had Thom Tillis, Tom Apodaca, Skip Stam, Robert Pittenger and just about every other Republican in the General Assembly.
So, that makes it acceptable — good policy — that so many prominent state House Republicans supported, and continue to support, costly environmental regulations?
Back to Congress. We have Renee Ellmers preaching the gospel of taxing Internet businesses BIG and small. We have Senator Burr voting with the Democrats on background checks for handgun purchases and for letting gays serve openly in the military AND for women in combat.
Back to Raleigh. We have a GOP governor and House speaker who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the fight against ObamaCare. Our GOP governor submitted a budget that spends $400 million more than Democrat Bev Perdue’s last submitted budget did. Nobody in DC or Raleigh is doing ANY serious championing of significant spending cuts.
In DC, there is a bipartisan effort to create a loophole in ObamaCare implementation for Congress and its staff. Richard Burr has been quoted fretting about how that leviathan will impact the letter-openers in his mailroom. How about the rest of us, Dick?
My point here is THIS: Believe it or not — listen up, Carter — liberalism and love of big government knows no bounds. That disease has thoroughly infected both parties. We’ve got an awful lot of GOP pols who talk the limited government game during campaign time, but jump gleefully headfirst into the spending spree once the session starts.
We basically have two rival cliques with the same endgame: controlling people and getting their hands on the tax dollars. Too many people settled down and stopped watching after 2010 — when the GOP won the NC legislature, the US House and improved its position in the Senate. With all of that new GOP blood, things have got to change for the better, right? RIGHT ????
These people have played us for fools. If we don’t recover the energy — the spirit — of 2009-2010, this country is FINISHED. Liberty and freedom-loving people need to stop it with the blind faith toward the GOP. Those people — the politicians — will bite your hand just as quick as the guys in the other party. We need to explain that we expect them to stay on the path of limited government — or we will go find a new team that WILL.
There…….Is……NO………Opposition………Party……..Any……..Longer……..hasn’t been one for sometime. The RNC and the DNC have morphed into one, the PRC (the Political Ruling Class)
To believe the Republican Party and that organization is the vehicle to carry conservatism, faith, and family, those days are long gone and OVER. It is now the era of the political ruling class vs the public and the public is getting clobbered thanks in part to the assumption that all things R equal righteous and all things D equal devil. Both are out to take more of your freedom and your money. Period.
The freedom loving public is treading water in the political tank circled by two sharks believing one shark will protect them from the other. It does not end well for the freedom loving public.
“Two words” from Agenda 21 community organizers Pat Mcrory and Thom Tillis on getting them elected to the majority with the assumption they would usher in a new era with no other qualifications then an R by their names.
“Thanks Suckers!”
Your article shows outstanding understanding of the political realities of the day, but your writing style leaves the reader confused for most of the article. After the tongue-in-cheek is removed, it is very good. Thanks
Amen brother!
Brits and Germans are being ripped off big time with much higher utility bills due to green mandates. North Carolinians do not need to be victimized by the green ideologues in the same way. Our citizens cannot afford being held hostage to the green ideology.
It looks like some Republican legislators may not have fully understood the issue in the past, but most of them do now. Ruth Samuelson seems to stand apart as a green ideologue, which says that all conservatives to work to make sure that her ambition to be speaker does not come to past.
As to Carter Wrenn’s positions, you not only need to factor in his past conservative political ties but that he now makes money as a strategist and publicist for various special interests. It is likely that his commenets referred to were actually carrying water for one or more of his paying clients.