There are 44 comments.

1. Member
   @BereketKelile

   

   10:35 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 29, 2013

   Monty Adams Don Tillman: Peter at 8:10 I thought you were about to get scriptural with us. · 12 minutes ago

   I was thinking the same thing. For a second I thought I clicked on one of my posts.

2. Member
   @Sabrdance

   10:45 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 29, 2013

   Rob’s post 1964 history was a mess.  I shall have to dust off my volumes on Southern Politics next week, I guess.  I considered his arguments about Goldwater far more persuasive before he elaborated on them.

   At the end, Rob and Lileks talk about marriage as a socially defined term -such that people can describe themselves as married to their work, or Married to the Mob.

   Please tell me we have not reached the point where there is such a loss of civilization and creativity that we cannot even understand a metaphor.

   Please?

   Have we all become the caricature of the Fundamentalist who cannot read anything without thinking it must be only the literal text and nothing else?

   Sowell is right.  Well -I’ve been saying this for a while anyway.  We’re doomed.

3. Inactive
   @DanielHalbach

   10:53 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 29, 2013

   For the second week in a row a Robinson/Long rumble grabs the attention away from a great guest (at least here in the comments).  Last week it was Fouad Ajami; this week it’s Thomas Sowell.  (John Yoo is no slouch either.)

   Maybe I’m just nurturing false expectations.  I guess I can go to Uncommon Knowledge to get unfettered Ajami, Sowell, or Yoo.  But only 5 or 10 minutes of the guest out of 70 minutes of podcasting is just a tease.

   Of course, I’ll keep tuning in regardless because I’m hooked on the cyber -lattes.

4. Member
   @DonTillman

   

   11:51 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 29, 2013

   Peter at 8:10:

   Uh, okay, however, when you say to me, “let’s begin by figuring out how to become a majority party”, it almost immediately follows from that that the correct thing to do is to sit down with a bunch of polling data and figure out positions that would appeal to the majority.  And that exercise leads to perdition.

   Woah, hold on Peter, that doesn’t follow at all. And just considering that as your go-to choice means that something is terribly wrong.

   The way to become the majority party is to simply present the horrible, awful results of the policies of the left. That’s all there is to it.  If Mitt Romney had campaigned on a platform of “Do you really want the entire nation to be Detroit?”, he would have won handily.

5. Inactive
   @PeabodyHere

   1:01 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

   Just started listening to this and I am about 15 minutes in.  Of course, Rob is unfortunately correct that the Democrats got a lot of huge things done in the past 50 years resulting in the culture getting more and more liberal and government getting larger and larger.  During the same period, conservatives have had relatively few small victories.  

   Conservatives have been successful, at times, in merely slowing down our inevitable slide toward socialism and the welfare state.

6. Coolidge
   @Rightfromthestart

   2:44 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

   Peabody Here: Just started listening to this and I am about 15 minutes in.  Of course, Rob is unfortunately correct that the Democrats got a lot of huge things done in the past 50 years resulting in the culture getting more and more liberal and government getting larger and larger.  During the same period, conservatives have had relatively few small victories.   Conservatives have been successful, at times, in merely slowing down our inevitable slide toward socialism and the welfare state. · 1 hour ago

   I must quote the great Derb : ‘Our victories are few and fleeting, while theirs are many and permanent.   

7. Inactive
   @PeabodyHere

   4:20 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

   Rightfromthestart Peabody Here: Just started listening to this and I am about 15 minutes in.  Of course, Rob is unfortunately correct that the Democrats got a lot of huge things done in the past 50 years resulting in the culture getting more and more liberal and government getting larger and larger.  During the same period, conservatives have had relatively few small victories.   Conservatives have been successful, at times, in merely slowing down our inevitable slide toward socialism and the welfare state. · 1 hour ago I must quote the great Derb : ‘Our victories are few and fleeting, while theirs are many and permanent.    · 1 hour ago

   Also to quote Derb: ” We’re doomed…doomed.”

8. Inactive
   @MrDart

   4:44 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

   As much as I love Sam Moore and Dave Prater I must point out that the definitive version of Sweet Soul Music was performed by Arthur Conley. Conley co-wrote the song with the incomparable Otis Redding and it was a smash for Arthur on both the pop and R&B charts in the US in 1967. (Recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Studios in Alabama.)

   Interestingly, after a threatened lawsuit from Sam Cooke’s business manager, Mr. Cooke got a posthumous writing credit on Sweet Soul Music since the melody (and more) was a total lift of  his song, Yeah Man.

   Unlike Sam & Dave, Arthur Conley only had a couple of hits and his biggest by far was Sweet Soul Music.  I just wanted to give him his due.

   Now back to the regularly scheduled program.

9. Member
   @

   5:05 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

   Thanks, Terry. I too love the Conley version of the song. Probably should have used that one. 

10. Podcaster
    @EJHill

    6:18 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

    This is a classic Chicken and Egg argument. Power or Principle, what comes first? If you don’t have the power, your principles are just nice talking points. But without principle, having the power is another slot on your résumé. Lawyer, check. State official, check. Senator, check. President, check. Nice library and pension, name in the history books, check. Accomplished nothing else, check.

    Culturally almost half of this country is isolated. The left has reached a zenith in their incrementalism. Their ultimate goals can not be achieved in a recognizable America. Therefore the “fundamental transformation” promised in ’08 can only be achieved through more regulation, more dependency, and more importantly, the complete marginalization of religious belief. Hence, even as the economy limped along and unemployment remained high, sex, and the role of the state in sanctioning it and paying for its consequences were the primary issues driven by the media and the Democrats.

    The center will no longer hold and neither will the country. I still predict that the United States will cease to exist, if not by the end of my lifetime, then certainly the lives of my children. Two or three countries will arise from its ashes.

11. Member
    @DonTillman

    

    9:10 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

    At 31:20 Rob dutifully poses Bereket’s question about becoming a conservative.   And Thomas Sowell answers:

    I was a Marxist throughout my twenties.  I was a Marxist both before I taok Milton Friedman’s course in Chicago, and after I took Milton Friedman’s course in Chicago.  What turned me around was one summer, working as an economic intern in government.  And once I saw the government from the inside I realized this is not where it’s at.

    (I love the way he inserted the phrase “not where it’s at”, effectively carbon-dating with a historical artifact.)

    Hmm, if only more people knew how government really worked… hey!

    Rob, how about a sitcom featuring a gifted hopeful young black man working as an economic intern at a government agency, and the hijinx ensue.  

12. Member
    @DuaneOyen

    

    11:43 AM EDT ⋅ Mar 30, 2013

    Peter, may I offer one objection/challenge to your statement about Rand Paul, Cruz, Barasso, etc.?

    I don’t consider it a brilliant and eye-opening electoral achievement to win a Senate seat as a conservative in Texas, Utah, or Wyoming.  When Rand Paul or Ted Cruz runs and wins state-wide in Ohio or Virginia on the same platform as they used in Texas and Utah, I will grovel at their feet seeking advice.  But I do not see how their current positions or accomplishments tell us anything whatever about how to win a national election. 

    The guys to listen to are Scott Walker and Marco Rubio.  And neither one always sounds like Rand Paul or Mike Lee.

13. Member
    @HartmannvonAue

    8:25 AM EDT ⋅ Apr 1, 2013

    Another couple of points: The last time the Republicans took the White House they did not run a RINO squish, they ran an unabashedly pro-life social conservative. Not coincidentally, that was the last time I saw voting lines around the block in my highly conservative district. The magnitude of Romney’s loss would entirely be made up if the Bush voters from 04 had flocked to the polls. Romney gave them no reason for them to. Ditto McCain in 08. He had a great pro-life voting record but he did not capitalise on it at all in the election. And, no, the Democrats from the 60s to now did not “stand for nothing”. Their ideological commitment is part of the reason they are successful- they brook no dissent within their party and they make dissenters pay a price (look for the pro-life Democrats today….). Sorry, Rob, you turn the Republicans into diet, de-caf Democrats and they will fail. Or to paraphrase Ross Douthat, eject the SoCons, all 30 million of them, and replace them with….what?

14. Member
    @HartmannvonAue

    8:43 AM EDT ⋅ Apr 1, 2013

    Which is to say, Thomas Sowell is right ( sentence I have intoned about 1,000,000 times in my life).