Comments on: Does the conservative/libertarian blogosphere have any influence?

By: steveegg

steveegg — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:55:32 +0000

Bill,

You ignore the focus, both yours and Paul’s, on the one issue remaining that unites 80-90% of those right-of-center, one that Ronald Reagan understood. True, the rest of the country doesn’t agree with that 80-90% (and me). I would like to believe the “meek” foreign policy would work; the only problem is, 9/11 happened on “meek’s” watch, and that laid bare the necessity to end the dreams of the Islamists for a worldwide caliphate by every means available.

A lot of the Founding Fathers’ aversion to perpetual war was rooted in the fact that the European forefathers did not often fight wars to the point of unconditional surrender, and when they did, they almost invariably created the seeds for the next one with the terms enforced. Instead, they accepted a form of temporary “peace” that left the underlying causes of that war intact, and thus the next war was always only a few years down the road.

I could continue the epic discussion on warfare, but I have further points to make. My larger point was the popularity, or more-correctly, the lack thereof, of the view of the role of government, specifically in this case, the federal government. Many of the supporters of Thompson (including me) share a very limited, Constitutionally-defined role for government. Indeed, many of those supporters are those that are otherwise disaffected by politics.

That there are so few that see the need for that in the Republican Party primaries and caucuses, when that is what the Republican Party was known for, is what is distressing. Between Thompson and Paul, the war/anti-war crowd was fully-covered. Still, only 13.6% of all the voters in the Republican primaries/caucuses saw fit to vote for one of the two that could fairly claim to be a Constitutionalist.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:26:58 +0000

Interesting observations Steve.

I believe that bloggs will only gain credibility as time passes. It is still a new medium that has not been exploited to its fullest potential just yet.
We currently have a feature on “The Media’s Political Influence” (http://theissue.com/issue/9174.html) where some of the thoughts you brought up are again highlighted. Feel free to take a look and comment.

Cheers,
Robert
The Issue | http://www.TheIssue.com

By: bildanielson

bildanielson — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:41:57 +0000

Steve,
The support for Ron Paul is profoundly different than the rank and file, evangelical, big government (as long as our guy is pulling the lever) crop of people who call themselves Republicans. I, for one, no longer consider myself a Republican, notwithstanding the fact that my great great grandfather walked into that little white school house in Ripon and was part and parcel of the making of the party (Prof. Ed Daniels).

Ron Paul is a different bird; he is flying directly in the face of the aforementioned rank and file on one extremely touchy issue – Iraq and the whole Bush Doctrine idea – and the more intellectual issue of proper role of government. There is a profound disconnect with the rank and file who traditionally participate in caucus and primary voting, and Ron Paul’s message.

The vast majority of those who are activist enough to caucus and vote in primaries bought in hook, line and sinker to the NeoCon Bush Doctrine, and all it implies. They also clearly believe in the inherent virtue of government to the practical extent that individuals ought to be logically subordinated to the greater good. The facts of this can now not be denied – witness the plethora of “RINO’s.”

Blogging and internet support for Ron Paul clearly crossed party lines, old allegiances, and challenged the preconcieved notions of big government conservative, evangelically minded GOP cool-aid drinkers. Bloggers are first and foremost thinkers, writers, idea people. The doers come later, sometimes much much later. But there can be no “doers” without the ideas and philosophy to motivate them to action. And that is the real value that blogging can, and does, provide.

I would offer up that the notion of influence is really one of a third possibility. Bloggers have some influence, but immediate (historically instantaneous) influence is not, nor should be, the prime reason to engage in blogging. Blogs seem to work best when they understand this, and thereby illustrate big ideas and work to change the philosophy in the minds of those who are in the positions of political power, education, and other realms of intellectual/idea forming. This gives them credibility – others may not agree, but they do recognize the degree of honest thought when it is done without the rancor.

Changing minds….that takes time and hard intellectual work – such ideas ultimately get disseminated through educational mechanisms, word of mouth, political discourse, talk radio, msm programming, coffee shop and dinner party chatter, etc., etc. How a change in philosophical perspective changes in a society is a very complex issue, it doesn’t happen overnight. But it is what Ron Paul (and his supporters) is essentially pushing for.. That he has garnered measurable support is truly meaningful. The degree to which blogging had an influence, per se, on Ron Paul’s political future, one way or another, is far less important than the legacy of Paul’s ideas. This is why having him hang in the fray for a while will be of great value to America. America needs to hear what this guy has to say, because at the end of the day one has to be able to make an logical argument in opposition.

My view on Ron Paul is that he presents some extremely important views, particularly the Federal Reserve and its fundamental role of inflating money (all varieties), Constitutional issues, and what can best be described as the “vision of the founders,” not to mention being much closer to Ronald Reagan than any of the other GOP candidates.

It is utterly sad to see idiotic “monkey see, monkey do” type blogging of the Wigderson sort in his accusations of rascism against Ron Paul but this is more a reflection of the intellectual bankruptcy of some in the blog sphere – we do have a right to be an idiot…but to label someone as rascist who represents views so antithetical to rascism is really pathetic. So, in this way, and Widgerson is not unique, blogging has done more to damage Paul with ad hominem attacks and various unthinking comments than it has to engender wide spread support. Support, I should add, that ought to be there if you truly believe in limited government, lower taxation, and more individual liberty; the true tenets of the GOP…

By: Joey

Joey — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:41:35 +0000

Great point Steve. I’ve increasingly realized that we don’t impact the greater population as much as we like to think we do. In the blog world, we can have unfettered optimism. Then the polls come out and the results come in and when we lose, we’re shocked because we were so caught up in our world of optimism shared by everyone else in our world that we failed to realize that there’s another world out there that doesn’t know our world exists.

Okay, I’m done now. Steve already said it better than I could have anyway.

By: steveegg

steveegg — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:19:07 +0000

We have a fundamental difference in definition of “influence”. Your definition is an absolute, that is, did we change anybody’s mind. Mine is more of an effective, that is, did we change enough minds to alter the effective results. That is where we singularily failed in this election cycle.

As for Paul, he was out of it the moment he became the peace-activist candidate. He was unable to top 13% in any contest, and that 13% was in a state where only he, Mitt Romney and Duncan Hunter did anything beyond token campaigning. Indeed, Paul finished behind every candidate that did more than token campaigning (other than Hunter) in every single state thus far.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:31:27 +0000

I think you’re off in your point that we don’t have influence because of the percentage that two particular candidates received in the polls.

Its not a valid statement, because in all likelyhood, they would have received EVEN LESS support than they did were it not for our efforts. So while our influence may not be as much as we’d like, it is certainly present. And Ron Paul ain’t out of it yet.

The question is how to increase our influence even more.

By: Does the blogosphere have any influence? « Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:17:19 +0000

Edited (6:17 pm 1/23/2008, steveegg) – Somehow the pingback feature did not include the right text, though the link is right

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