Maybe Conservative Principles Need Re-Evaluation

Today at Townhall.com, in an article entitled Spare Me the Principles Lecture. Kurt Schichter makes the point that if our principles become a suicide pact in which we are doomed to death and destruction by those who have no principles, maybe we should re-evaluate them.

First, the “If it’s wrong for them to do it to us, then it’s wrong if we do it to them” formulation is less a principle than a tired cliché. This minor disruption was a tactic; shouting was a tool. It is moral for the good guys – and we are the good guys – to use tactics and tools against an enemy that are immoral when they do it. It was immoral for the Nazis to bomb London; it was moral for us to bomb Nazis. Of course every tactic and tool is not acceptable, but the guys who stormed Omaha Beach did not “become what they were fighting” because they used the same tools and tactics as the enemy.

Second, this sort of performance art is so harmless that the cost/benefit calculus weighs in favor of tolerating such occasional inconveniences. That’s not to say we should not impose higher costs on them – we disapprove of the firing of people for what they say, but Kathy Griffin’s defenestration was a sacrifice worth making to demonstrate the costs of liberal misbehavior. This is crucial. They must pay a cost for establishing their new rules.

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Finally, if our principles are worth having, they are worth fighting for in a way that might conceivably lead to success. One of the folks telling me how wrong and unconservative I am for finding it amusing – a patriot, though wrong – also mentioned that he had been fighting for free speech on campus and in the culture for 20 years. Hmmm. I’ve been fighting for them for 30 years, ever since my dean at UCSD called me in to yell at me because I wrote that the student government was composed of leftist dweebs. Shouldn’t the fact that we have spent decades using the same tactics and losing indicate that maybe we ought to try something new?

Make no mistake that Trump was not my first choice, nor my second or third, for that matter. However, Trump was far superior to the woman Schlichter calls "Felonia von Pantsuit." He has done several things so far that are in line with movement conservatives' agenda. If conservatives felt the need to let Obama have his way, they why don't they also support letting Trump have his? Where is the full throated cheer for Trump?

Over at the Christian Mercenary, T. L. Davis writes:

Now, whether it is the media clamoring for Trump's assassination, or the leftists judges ruling unconstitutionally to deny Trump the power of the presidency, or the collectivists of both parties trying to challenge every action of the president and pursuing impeachment options, it is all designed simply to deny a legally elected president the power of the presidency. They don't mind if he holds the office, or lives in the White House, what they will not allow is for him to fulfill executive duties.

This is treason, but it is much more than that, it is the initial stages of a civil war, because if they think they are going to be able to run Trump out of town on a rail with no consequences they are sadly and destructively mistaken. These are actions being taken against the system, not just Trump. They have a narrow focus on a single man, but they forget that Trump has millions and millions of followers and even more that recognize this violation of civil society as treasonous and who will join with the Trumpsters, whether they ever agreed with him or not, because it is a very dangerous precedent that cannot be allowed to succeed.

Those whom we elect must be allowed to fulfill their duties, or there is no use in voting.

Of course that is the outcome Leftist elites most desire: that conservatives realize that there is no use in voting, stay home, and the Left can continue with it transformation of the country. The Left thinks that all the actual street fighting will be done by rent-a-mobs and union thugs.  But they may be sadly mistaken, for if it comes to that, they may find themselves to be targets as well.  Such is the effect of targeting Republican Congressmen, and then justifying that act.  Having sowed the wind, they may well reap the whirlwind.  Or, as T. L. Davis writes:

Take all of the legitimate means of change off the table and there remains only one possible solution: war.