Presidential Propaganda

Instead of watching President Obama’s speech last night, I indulged in over 180 minutes of English Premier League soccer on Setanta Sports.  The two games were on replay from the weekend, but it was fresh for me.  I watched two of the “big four”, Arsenal and Chelsea, struggle against lesser opponents, Tottenham and Hull City.  Both games ended in nil-nil ties. 

After enjoying this luxury, I turned to the news and caught an illustrative clip from the press conference.  The president made the frightening claim that only Government can heal the economic crisis that we are now experiencing.  Mr. Obama revealed his ideology.  Suddenly the two sides of the debate became clear: either you are in the current political majority and you believe in the ability of the collectivist public sector to correct, guide, and control economics, or you are the political underdog: an independent conservative with faith in self and the community of selves who need freedom to achieve–not overseers. 

May I liken the situation to the struggle of the Hull City Tigers against the megalithic Blues.  The Republican Party currently has received the benefit of failure: failure to live up to its best ideals and failure to win reelection.  This breeds a need for reevaluation.  We must become like Hull, determine to get out of the second tier, fight with passion against those who assume their own superiority, and never give up.  Retrench in what is right and oppose all measures which threaten the core values of conservative America. 

If the Republican party does this consistently, they may lose a vote, but they will win a moral victory for the base, and this is what wins elections.  Worse case scenario: they grind out a nil-nil tie and government goes into grid-lock.  But this in itself is a conservative victory, for, unlike our president, true Republicans do not believe that government is the only answer to a fiscal crisis.  Quite the contrary, with Ronald Reagan, we believe that government is the problem.