Conservative Policy: Be What Barack’s Not

Opposing whatever Barack Obama wants counts as an idea.  Tending to think the answer to anything he says is “No” is a magnificent concept on par with the invention of the George Foreman Grill or the football-shaped sausage.  Those who want the precise converse of the president’s agenda aren’t just being reactionary grumps, either, although some of us consider that label a compliment.  His antagonists are complicity giving support to a clear alternative, namely shrinking the government to a Founding Fathers-approved size.

The president’s political opponents shouldn’t bother to play nice.  While Republicans were polite enough to hang out with him at their retreat, it’s still unwise to wager he’s sincere about bipartisanship (h/t Michelle Oddis).  They’d be better off treating him like a weirdo junior high kid who has sardines in his lunch bag: based upon his strange tendencies, GOP members should accordingly pick their cafeteria table by how far it is away from him.

His hollow charm will eventually stop enticing all but the most hardened leftists and naïve political outsiders.  For one, most people had to recognize that Obama’s amusing claim at the Republican bash that he’s not an ideologue indicates he may not know what the word means.  The dictionary-based trouble is reminiscent of his weak grasp on the definition of “stimulus.”

The natural response to someone consistently gives bad directions is to simply head the other way from where he points.  When Obama proposes anything, it’s entirely prudent to engage in a knee-jerk reaction that manifests itself as a shaking head.  That may sound both reactionary and oversimplified.  But his policy suggestion track record means assuming he’s likely incorrect is simply a time-saver.

Obama keeps proving that disagreement with his judgment pans out.  For one, conservatives should definitely fold their arms and look cross every time the president requests cash for clunkers, banks, junky car manufacturers, bird-shredding intermittent windmills, tuition, mortgages, perfectly good refrigerators, or any other boondoggle of a folly that Washington’s ruling party thinks will supernaturally incite prosperity.

By obstructing such federal financial chicanery, the right will essentially be standing for restraint.  After all, we have to pay off the deficit someday unless the president plans on never answering his home phone again.  At the present rate, the entire burden will be foisted upon the four or five millionaires left in America by 2042.   As foes to his classless class warfare, Obamafoes are also standing up to his concept of the government as a kindly, sentient ATM that constantly refills itself thanks to some voodoo charm.

Being anti-stimulus is additionally a stance in itself.  If the White House floats another spending plan to conquer the recession by fixing roads ahead of schedule, his foes merely need to point out how pork gets funded.  The answer, namely that it’s either taken from taxpayers, borrowed from other nations, or printed by a government that’s unable to resist temptation, points out the strategy’s inherent futility on its own.

As a result, conservatives are implicitly positioning themselves against letting an entity that’s not quite known for innovative efficiency try to fix the economy.  Besides, unemployment’s still in double digits after the first stimulus; we simply can’t take any more assistance, or we’ll all be jobless and in debt as deep as Washington’s.

Further, standing against any effort to get more sick people on the government drip is also a plan on its own.  Democraticare epitomizes the difference between how a concept is supposed to work and how it would actually work.  “Coverage for all” sounds nice until we face skyrocketing costs paired with systematic abuse of ghettoized care.  The difference between the scheme and reality is similar to, oh, how community organizing sounds uplifting in theory and leads to pompous blowhards wasting tax dollars while fostering dependency in practice.

Obama may act like alternative solutions to health care’s woes are as rare as accepted advice from Joe Biden.  But dissidents of course have plenty of health care improvements in mind.  It’s certainly wise for right-leaners to propose fixes such as letting insurers compete anywhere while extending coverage tax breaks to everyone.  But pushing back against rationing subpar health care is a robust opening statement.

Stridently opposing tax hikes on any level is also a negative standpoint that’s positive.  We just want to stop the economic drag before it starts.  If increasing cigarette taxes is supposed to get people to stop smoking, does raising income taxes encourage people to stop working?  That’s frequently the outcome regardless of intent.  Conservatives believe capitalist pigs should be allowed to create and/or save their own jobs.

Therefore, their answer to questions about how to remedy shaky markets is to trust the people while having our leaders stand down.  Stepping out of enterprise’s way is a plan for the government that’s far superior to having a governmental plan.

The standard can be applied to straying Republicans, too.  While many liberals turned bashing George W. Bush into a lifestyle, they’d be horrified to realize he occasionally backed their policies on isolationist tariffs, disturbingly high federal spending, appeasing illegal immigrants, and making TARP happen.  Similarly, they never recognize how many on the right were dismayed by his big-government tendencies.  We merely wanted him to actually be a conservative.  The same concerns apply exponentially to his successor, namely the one who doesn’t get why his thoroughly divisive, European lite, university lecturer-style politics have failed to unite us.

Those on the right can’t be accused of failing to offer an alternative.  In truth, saying “No” to both future increases in the government’s size and its present scope is a bold philosophy.  The stance’s obvious corollary is that conservatives favor returning power to individual citizens.  A lefty president backed by congressional majorities has shown the worthlessness of incessant national scheming.  It turns out both George Costanza and Peter Gibbons (decidedly NSFW) are great political philosophers: it’s a worthwhile goal to do nothing.

Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in Western New York.  He blogs at http://thebuffalobean.com and tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.

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