Debt Ceiling? Default? Immigration Reform? Rejecting Liberals’ Premises
Can someone tell me why conservative politicians seem to be incapable of challenging their opponents? Some conservative media people are good at it, but the politicians always appear intimidated. I’ve heard Rush Limbaugh tell us that we must not accept the premise. Liberal “journalists” and politicians typically frame the debate with a false premise. That is, they incorrectly state the facts of the debate. Just as typically, the sheepish Republican politician will apologize and attempt to extract themselves from quicksand.
The most recent display of this discouraging phenomenon is occurring with the debate over raising the debt ceiling. President Obama and his minions are deliberately fear mongering and threatening in an attempt to create a crisis that does not exist. Obama is deliberately attempting to spook the stock market and threatening social security recipients with non-payment. On CNN this Sunday, Treasury Secretary Lew said, “There is no option that prevents us from being in default if we don’t have enough cash to pay our bills.” Obama equates a failure to raise the borrowing limit with a default on the nation’s debt obligations.
Sadly, few major media journalists challenge this premise (I must credit Chris Wallace and George Will for doing so) and I have yet to hear one Republican politician challenge it. In fact, the government has enough current revenue to cover all of its mandatory spending, including payments on the debt. The Republicans are proposing legislation, the Full Faith and Credit Act, which would remove the prospect of default. But, you won’t hear a single Republican politician discussing this on major television news shows. News of it comes to news nerds like me through the alternative media and the internet. The typical Republican politician on the news shows sheepishly attempts to avoid the question when asked if he is willing to let the government default.
It won’t end with the debt ceiling debate. Liberals will employ the same tried and true tactics when the “immigration reform” debate begins. The premise goes like this: “We can’t deport eleven million ‘undocumented Americans’, so therefore, we must provide them with a path to citizenship.” First fact: they are not Americans. Secondly, they are not “undocumented”, they didn’t lose their papers. They snuck in illegally. No serious person is advocating a government enforcement action to deport eleven million people. Rather, enforcement of existing law and employment verification measures would assure an orderly self- deportation process making an amnesty program unnecessary. But, once again, you’ll see the Republicans squirming.
We’ve seen the tactic used to impose a totalitarian bureaucracy on the American people in the form of the EPA. They’ve been allowed to destroy an entire industry without a single yelp from the Republican “leadership”. We allowed Al Gore to scare us with a load of hocus pocus fudged data. The false premise: human produced CO2 causes global warming. The facts: the climate is cooling and increased CO2 levels follow warming trends instead of causing them. Climate change is caused by the sun. But we are going to pay enormously for this hoax and no Republican (Inhofe excepted) challenged it.
So why do these Republicans always cower before their liberal opponents? I think they are afraid of the media because they don’t trust the people. They don’t think that we’re smart enough to understand the details. I think part of Ronald Reagan’s greatness was that he had a basic trust in “we the people.” He was never afraid to take his case to the people and we usually understood. I remember him displaying his spending charts in a televised speech explaining the difference between cuts in the rate of spending growth versus real spending. There isn’t a Republican on the scene today that dares to proclaim the truth that nothing is really being cut! The liberals are still using the “Draconian cuts” premise and getting away with it.
There is another false premise that is often heard. It says that a conservative and/ or third party can’t win. Last week I wrote about dumping the GOP. This week, Senate Republicans trashed the only conservative champions we have in Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. They did it in a closed session and then leaked their shameless attacks to the media. Will Cruz and Lee wake up and realize that with friends like that they don’t need enemies? Will they bolt and form a new party? We can only hope.
This debt ceiling debate won’t end well. I heard Mark Levin discussing it this week. He predicts that Obama is deliberately forcing this crisis in order to further expand his power beyond constitutional limits and that he will continue borrowing beyond the legal limit with his false premise as an excuse. We will have a true dictator.
Image: Author: Official Navy Page from United States of America MC1 Jose Lopez/U.S. Navy; source: U.S. and Royal Thai Sailors participate in the tug-o-war during Sports Day at Nong Prue Municipality Sports Field; Public domain
