Is Suicide the Conservative Alternative?

Is Suicide the Conservative Alternative?

Philip V. Brennan
Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006

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The other day I watched a panel discussion about the forthcoming congressional elections. The panel's conclusions ranged from Bob Novak's grim report that some believe the GOP could lose as many as 30 House seats in November to John Fund's suggestion that all is not lost (maybe), to Human Events' John Gizzi's fear that Republicans will sit out the election to National Review Kate O'Beirne's less gloomy outlook.

All, however, agreed that the key to this election is Republican turnout.

If GOP voters, angered with their party's failure to live up to conservative principles, elect to stay home, Election Day in November will be an absolute disaster.

Most of the pessimists — and that includes just about every political guru around — insist that Republicans will sit it out, thus handing control of the House at the very least, and maybe even the Senate, to the Democrats. I'll accept that view only if Republican voters prove to be either politically suicidal of just plain stupid.

The concept that it's a good idea to wreak vengeance on the Republican Party by standing aside and allowing Democrats, who will proceed to wreak havoc on the nation, to take over Capitol Hill, is nothing less than a death wish that borders on insanity.

Getting even with congressional Republicans for failing to live up to your expectations by throwing them out of office is on a par with killing yourself to get even with your doctor because he failed to cure you of a bad cold while you are still suffering from a chronic disease that requires constant medical care.

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The mood among conservative GOP voters may be sour, bitter, and resentful, but I can't believe that when Election Day rolls around and they recognize the consequences of staying home and handing the Congress over to the thoroughly demented Democratic Party, they won't bestir themselves to go out and cast their votes for their Republican incumbents or candidates, even if they have to hold their noses while they mark their ballots.

It is, after all, better than the alternative which is just plain unthinkable.

Think about it.

As the results in the recent Connecticut primary once again proved, the Democratic Party is in the hands of its now totally deranged, MoveOn.org wacko-left wing.

Democrat Chairman Howard Dean made that clear when he pronounced the leftist victor Ned Lamont the party's man of the future. The Party is now so far left that that they even dumped a certified liberal such as Joe Lieberman who votes slavishly for every item in their leftist agenda, for apparently not being liberal enough on the Iraq war.

What rational, sane, intelligent conservative Republican would want to see a congress that from day one would set out to destroy everything they stand for and for which they have fought so hard? We have an economy that is thriving, and it's booming thanks to the Bush tax cuts that took money from the spendthrift federal government and gave it back to the people who earned it and know best how to spend it.

A record number of taxpayers received and average of $2,100 tax refunds on their 2003 tax returns. They spent it, pouring billions into the economy which then took off like a rocket. The Democrats want that money back. They think it belongs to them.

Those tax cuts helped to create millions of new jobs, spark the establishment of job-creating new businesses and put more spending money in taxpayer's pockets. (And even vastly increased federal tax revenues along the way.)

All that would go into the trash can once Democrats got back in office and raised taxes, as they promise to do. Give them a full term on Capitol Hill and the economy could take a nose dive, unemployment skyrocket and scores of small businesses go under, driven down by new taxes and the kind of strangling government regulations Democrats just love to hang around our necks. Any new jobs would be with the government.

Look at the record:

Doctors are being driven out of practice by out-of-control trial lawyers feasting on huge jury awards in malpractice lawsuits. Health-care costs have skyrocketed as a result and some areas of the nation are without doctors who have been driven out of practice because of malpractice insurance premiums they can no longer afford to pay. But Democrats in Congress have steadfastly resisted tort reforms meant to end this shameful exploitation of the legal system by greedy trial lawyers.

After all, there's all those millions the trial lawyers give to the Democrat campaign treasuries.

The Social Security system, while sound at the moment, faces a crisis. Yet Democrats refused even to consider taking steps to save it from impending insolvency.

In 1950 there were 16 workers to support every single Social Security beneficiary. Today it's just 3.3 workers supporting every beneficiary. Under the current system, today's 30-year-old worker will face a 27 percent benefit cut upon normal retirement age.

In 2017, 11 years from now, the government will begin to pay out more in Social Security benefits than it collects in payroll taxes — and shortfalls will continue to balloon with each passing year.

In less than 20 years the government will face having to come up with an extra $200 billion annually year to keep the system afloat. By 2033, that annual shortfall will be more than $300 billion a year — money that will have to be raised by huge tax increases. By 2041, when workers now in their mid-20s begin to retire, the system will go bankrupt — unless we act now to save it. Yet Democrats refuse to act, preferring to keep Social Security as a political issue they can exploit by misrepresenting GOP efforts to save the system.

Many Democrats want to cut and run in Iraq before the job is done. Others want a time table, establishing a date certain for withdrawal of U.S. troops; in effect telling the insurgents they need only to hang in there until that date certain, after which they can move in and take over and create a chaotic situation in the entire area.

They have also made it plain that they will attempt to de-fund the troops, thus forcing their withdrawal, exactly as they did during the Vietnam War, condemning millions to death or the slave camps.

Democrats have repeatedly attacked the administration's national security programs, which have kept the United States safe since 9/11. They can be expected to gut those programs once in power and hamper the commander-in-chief's authority to ensure our safety, thereby exposing Americans to increased threats here at home.

Here's some of what allowing Democrats to control the House would mean:

Ultra-liberal Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would become Speaker, putting her third in line to assume the presidency in the event of the deaths of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. President Pelosi?

Pelosi has also promised to harass the administration with countless investigations and subpoenas.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., would become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, allowing him the opportunity to launch an impeachment investigation against the president, thus tying the hands of the commander in chief in the middle of a war.

Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., impeached and convicted as a federal judge for corruption and perjury and removed from office, would become chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which has direct oversight of the programs and activities of the intelligence community that relate to U.S. homeland security and to counterterrorism, including capabilities.

That would be an unlikely promotion for the man who, not so long ago, was known mainly for the fact that he was one of only six judges in the history of the United States to be removed from office by the Senate.

Should the Democrats take control of the Senate, or even come close, it would doom the chances of the approval of conservative nominees to the federal courts. Should a vacancy occur on the U.S. Supreme Court no nominee not backed by the ACLU and committed to reversing the trends of judicial activism could hope to win approval.

Putting congressional Democrats in charge would mean handing the power of the federal government over to the big money special interests that dominate the Democratic Party.

The teachers unions, the abortion Industry, the labor union bosses, the trial lawyers of America, and the ACLU would be running things behind the scenes on Capitol Hill.

America is currently watching the sheer insanity of Democrats attacking one of the nation's most popular institutions - Wal-Mart, where 127 million people shop every week while enjoying the lowest possible prices.

This stand puts them at odds with the very people they hope to herd to the polls — middle class Americans. And why would they do such a crazy thing? Well they do it because big labor demands it. Big labor hates Wal-Mart and pours millions into Democratic campaign coffers. Big labor provides workers at the grass roots during elections.

What big labor wants, big labor gets from the Democrats.

Talk radio, which has liberated Americans from the liberal's absolute monopoly over the flow of news and information, would be rendered powerless when the Democrats make good on their promise to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine which would gag talk-show hosts and destroy their freedom to tell the truth on the air.

You could say goodbye to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Mike Reagan, Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, and Laura Ingraham. CBS, NBC, and ABC would be back in the saddle.

In short, under the Democrats, conservative Republicans' worst nightmare would become a lethal reality. The Democrat's socialist agenda, which they keep under wraps during elections, would prevail.

Only Republicans willing to see the Congress of the United States turned over a party now controlled by left-wing lunatics could stand by and allow that to happen simply to satisfy a desire to get even with the GOP for not doing everything they should have done to control illegal immigration and out-of-control government spending. And if they think things are bad now, wait until Speaker Pelosi takes charge in the House and Senator Harry Reid gets to run the Senate.

Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I think when the chips are down, the majority of conservative Republicans will swallow their resentment and go to the polls in great numbers and vote to keep the barbarians from taking over and once again pillaging the United States of America. And don't forget, Karl Rove is at work, quietly doing what needs to be done to get our folks to the polls.

Oh how sweet that would be.

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s.

He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

E-mail Phil.

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