The Top 40

The reason has been painfully evident for many years. The Republican Party strives to be Democrat-Lite (all the corruption, 1/3 less obvious) in the endlessly futile hope that one day the media will like them, too.

Perhaps as soon as the 2016 election cycle, we may see a merger of the Demo-publican party in a fight against the Tea Party.

Perhaps as soon as the 2016 election cycle, we may see a merger of the Demo-publican party in a fight against the Tea Party.

We may be seeing that now.

I have to ask again with some exasperation, why aren't Republicans making a case for the essential morality of capitalism?

Because they don't believe in it.

The Republican Party is morphing into something like the "conservative" or "right" parties of Europe. They have no intention of reducing the size and scope of government, since that would necessarily lessen their own power. They merely argue that they can administer the welfare state better than the Democrats.

How did I get to be Anonymous all of a sudden? That happened a couple of days ago, too.

So we're associating 'mergers and acquisitions' with capitalism, is that the hill we want to defend.

One of the psychological maladies of the liberal is malignant envy. This manifests itself in a desire to punish those the liberal envy, even to the detriment of liberals themselves. Think ex-wife during a bitter divorce. They literally would rather destroy the economy while punishing the wealthy than tone down their envy and harness the wealthy to help the poor.

Conservatives version of envy is beneficial envy. You mean I can work hard enough to make hat much money? Show me how and get out of the way.

Sultan Knish has a wonderful article about the need for revolutionaries in the Republican party:

"Politics is based around a consensus. The left does not operate on a consensus, it is a revolutionary movement and it works by subverting the consensus and presenting its revolutionary position as the new consensus. All that is left for the politicians then is to affirm the new consensus. This has happened over and over again in the lifetimes of even the youngest person reading this article and the process has been accelerating lately because it is a revolutionary process.

There are two types of conservative politicians: Gatekeepers and revolutionaries. The gatekeepers are consensus builders, they talk a great deal about traditional values, and are elected to keep change out. This defensive strategy is a dead end because the real changes are happening outside the direct purview of the gatekeepers, who usually lack the imagination and courage to do anything about them. When the left pushes hard enough, the gatekeepers fold and add the new order of things into their panoply of American values"

Capitalism up to a point. As Jerry Pournelle, not noted for being leftwing, is fond of saying; completely laissez-faire capitalism would lead to human flesh on sale in the marketplace. And, incidentally, it did although way back before the American Civil War the flesh was still alive.

Capitalism needs to be controlled. How much - that's the issue.