The Midnight Hour

It doesn’t matter if you’ll seize our freedom and money like a foaming-at-the-mouth fascist…as long as you’ll stay the course in Iraq.  That is the message the Republican party of 2008 has sent to its possible presidential nominees this primary election season, and we’ve all heard it loud and clear.

The issue of the war has become the new political litmus test in the Republican party.  This is evidenced by the fact that the single candidate that espouses true conservative values, Rep. Ron Paul, is ostracized by his peers for stance on the war, even though his position is grounded in the Constitution.  No other candidate running for the Republican nomination supports the ideas of constitutionally limited government, low taxes, free markets, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty to the extent of Rep. Paul.  Sure, they all say they support those ideas, but you can find significant fault with each one when you compare his principles to traditional conservatism.

Furthermore, if you assume for a moment that, if elected, each candidate would do what his record shows he has done in the past rather than what he says today (Gasp!) then the problem becomes doubly worse.  Will Gov. Romney have another change of heart and become a Massachusetts liberal again?  Will Sen. McCain endorse amnesty for illegal immigrants again?  Will Mayor Giuliani prevent law abiding citizens from possessing handguns as he did in New York?  Will Gov. Huckabee raise taxes and increase the size of government again?  Surely not.

Why is all this so flabbergasting?  Because there is one candidate with a consistent and principled record of true conservative values: Rep. Paul.  Why is he not the clear GOP front-runner?  He wants to withdraw troops from Iraq.  That’s it.  His plans to reduce the size of government, lower our taxes, and protect our individual liberties are the things that conservative dreams are made of…but he wants to withdraw from Iraq, so he’s ostracized.  Try talking to self-professed GOP’ers in Alabama about Ron Paul as I have.  They love every single political principle he holds, save one: he doesn’t support the war.  Most often they won’t vote for him because of that stance alone.

How did the issue of staying in Iraq become so important to Republicans that it trumps every other domestic consideration?  I think most Republicans have become so entrenched in their position on the war that they blindly continue to follow that philosophy without reevaluating.  Additionally, many fall victim to the fallacy of sunk costs, and any poker player can tell you that’s a sure way to lose more money, and in this case—more lives.

For five years Republicans have been slugging it out with the Democrats over whether we should be in Iraq.  After five long years Republicans have learned to group people into one of two convenient categories: those that support continuing the war (good) and those who don’t (bad).  Now that someone has emerged with his own set of ideas they can’t quite place him on their political radar so they invoke the superior powers of the reptilian brain (of George Carlin lore) and fall back on the clear and simple division they know so well.

Taking that reasoning a step further, where’s the dividing line on how long one must think we should stay to pass the test?  Nobody seems to think we should stay there in large numbers forever—so how long?  Democrats generally want to complete withdrawal within about a year after inauguration, so I suppose that’s the lower limit that makes you “bad” to a Republican.  Is there an upper limit where you are then clearly defined as “good?”  Is the upper limit defined to be “until we’re done?” or perhaps, “until we achieve victory.”  In that case, is anyone willing to define “victory” in concrete, quantitative terms so that we can all know and measure what has to happen before leaving Iraq?

Speaking arbitrarily, if you think we should stay there more than a year but a maximum of three years, where does that put you on the pH scale?  Alkaline or acidic? Democrat or Republican?  Do you see where I’m taking this line of reasoning?  The Republican party has created a false dichotomy for its members where they must choose between one clearly defined answer that is unacceptable and another answer that isn’t clearly defined at all.

Even the great figures of conservative talk radio who study these topics for a living have bought into this litmus test.  Of course, they don’t present it as a litmus test.  They present it as being soft on national defense or soft on terrorism if you don’t support continuing the war.  There is no room in their red and blue vision for someone that thinks we should aggressively defend our country, but that Iraq is no longer the right place to do it.  They believe that if we don’t continue to fight the enemy in Iraq that the enemy will show up at our door here at home.  I can’t say that idea has no merit, but it’s still just an idea, because I’ve never seen any definitive evidence supporting it.  The evidence I saw while deployed to Iraq leads me to believe that the vast majority of the insurgency is comprised of common criminals who are looking to make a quick buck.  Most insurgents would have a hard time getting a cab from Fallujah to Ameriyah, much less getting onto a plane or ship and crossing the ocean to do harm to Americans.

Just a few days ago I heard Mark Levin complain of the lack of conservative values among the Republican cadre.  He went on to say that many listeners like to point out that Ron Paul is a Republican candidate and he supports traditional conservative values.  Mr. Levin said, and I quote verbatim “So what?”  He explained that if Ron Paul won’t “protect our country from terrorism” that Dr. Paul won’t get his vote.

Wow.

That summarizes my argument better than I ever could.  If an intelligent conservative thinker like Mark Levin will totally dismiss a candidate (“So what?”), no matter how appealing, no matter how principled, simply based on that candidate’s position on the war then what should I expect of the average voter?