FSU Contributor: Political Power, Part 20, Phase 3 by Reagan Renaissance 11/11/2004

POLITICAL POWER
Part 20 of a Series
Reagan Renaissance
November 11, 2004

This article is the first of a trilogy that will constitute Phase 3 of the Reagan Renaissance. By way of introduction to new readers and review for those following the series, please let me define for you the concept of this political effort identified as the Reagan Renaissance. It is my belief that the Renaissance itself is probably a decade or more away and the Renaissance will be contingent on the United State dealing rationally with the problems that socialism has imposed on our country. For now, the term Reagan Renaissance is a political effort that has definite goals that do not clearly align themselves with either of our two political parties, but the goals are more closely aligned with the traditional orientation of the Republican Party and diametrically opposed to the traditional orientation of the Democrats. The operative arm of the Reagan Renaissance will be the Reagan Wing of the Republican party. Our last article, Rove v W, provoked considerable criticism from both conservatives and Republicans as well insult and hysteria from Democrats. Here is a link to one of the emails that I received along with the reply. Assuming a successful launch of the Reagan Renaissance, the Reagan Wing will generate some angst from rank and file Republicans as well as from long term Republican officeholders. Do you remember the anxiety Reagan's Star Wars caused not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the ranks of the Democratic Party? By a curious parallel, the Reagan Wing may have a new secret technology. If successful, the new technology could play a significant role in this effort to end socialism and therefore be capable of creating not only anxiety in some Republican ranks, but also outright panic in the Democratic Party.

To understand the Reagan Wing and in turn the Reagan Renaissance it is necessary that we discuss political power, where it comes from, and how it is exercised.

Every day for eight years whenever you turned on a radio, TV or picked up a magazine or newspaper, you were bombarded with the fact that Bill Clinton was the most powerful man in the world. You don't hear that today. In fact you don't even hear Bill Clinton's name for days at a time and when you do hear it, it never has the tagline-most powerful man in the world. That tagline is now used when talking about George W. Bush, but it really doesn't apply to any particular man. The tagline goes with a particular office, President of the United States. There are a number of things that make the President of the United States, in fact, the most powerful man in the world. First in the minds of most would be his role as Commander in Chief of the US military, unquestionably the most powerful fighting force ever assembled, and in part because of the quantity and awesome character of the arsenal at its command. Next and not to be overlooked in its significance is the President's use of the bully pulpit, a speaker's platform powered in part by his role as Commander in Chief. But the bully pulpit has a subtle side that is its real source of power. Each American that votes for the President is delegating part of their own personal power to the President. In effect he is their personal delegate to act in their absence to the best of his judgment. There was a time when America was unchallenged as the richest nation on earth. I have not seen that claim recently and there are credible reasons to question whether it is still true. But as the richest nation, the United States could place commands on scarce resources that could not be matched by other nations. Between our unmatched military power and our wealth, clearly the people of the United States are the most powerful people in the world. One horsepower is a fair amount of power, but it pales in comparison to manpower that uses a human brain. On domestic issues, with our delegation of our individual power multiplied by millions, the President speaks for a majority (tens of millions) of Americans. And when it comes to dealing with foreign powers, the President gets the benefit of the doubt, and is even assigned the delegated power of those who voted against him because on foreign policy under the Constitution, the President, with a single voice speaks for every American, all 300 million of us, irregardless of how we voted. It is the office to which he has been elected that gives the power of the Presidency to a particular man, and that man can only exercise the power of the office as long as he holds it.

Still using illustrations, let's continue our discussion with Jessie Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition. To my knowledge Reverend Jackson, unlike the President, has never been elected to anything or held any publicly elected office. Yet Reverend Jackson exercises considerable political power because of his perceived ability to deliver a large block of votes from his coalition to the Democratic Party. In Jessie Jackson's case, one man means hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of votes. Reverend Jackson exercises political power in direct proportion to how many votes he can deliver to the Democratic Party. Votes matter.

Next let's look at George Soros. Soros contributes millions of dollars to the Democratic Party and its various associated groups every year. Soros exercises power directly in proportion to how much money he contributes and whether Democrats win office or not. Which is more important, money or votes? This is not an allegation, but rather a guess. If forced to guess, I would bet that the Reverend Jackson and/or his coalition or the coalition's affiliates get money from the Democratic Party or its associated groups (Money that came from George Soros?) and it might be possible that the amounts of money are in direct proportion to the perceived number of votes that he can deliver. Again, let me repeat: this is not an allegation, it is simply a reasonable speculation regarding what is possible. Money matters, but it is votes that count.

There is one more subtle and seldom thought of piece to the puzzle. Politicians are aware of this piece of the puzzle, but it is never discussed in public and for obvious reasons. Again by illustration, let's go back in time to Saddam's Iraq before the war. My guess is that there were hundreds, maybe thousands of Saddam's henchmen that could condemn people to death. No question, the ability to condemn a man to death gives one the ability to exercise power. But once somebody has publicly been condemned, my guess is that Saddam might have been the only person who could stay the condemned man's execution. The power to withhold death from the condemned man and grant life in it place is real power. To understand how that relates to political power in the United States and the Reagan Wing in particular, ask yourself how much power and sway would Jessie Jackson be able to exercise if he could withhold those votes from the Democratic Party or better yet, deliver them to the Republican Party? Dubya won re-election because Carl Rove figured out how to get the conservative base of the religious right to go to the polls and vote for the President. Estimates are that there were at least 4.5 million votes cast by the religious right, more than enough to determine the outcome of the election. But Carl Rove is the one who gets the credit and whatever political power that goes with it, not the 4.5 million voters from the religious right.

The seeds for my thoughts about the Reagan Wing came from an article that appeared at Free Republic several years ago. Please read these excerpts from the article because they are profoundly relevant.. By and large, conservatives are not joiners. Philosophically and intellectually, they are normally opposed to organizing and in fact tend to be contrarians unwilling to go along with the herd. It is natural for conservatives to be independent and not interested in what other people think let alone participating with others in a concerted action, even if it is in their own best interest. The Republican Party has no voting blocks comparable to the Democrat's labor unions, Rainbow Coalition, NAACP, gay and lesbian groups or government employees that now outnumber the manufacturing employees in the entire manufacturing sector of the United States. Rather than organize for power, conservatives simply stay home rather than vote. The few dissatisfied conservative groups that did form actually worked against their own goal by simply dividing and diluting their voting power into various splinter parties. They got the satisfaction of registering their protest, but the numbers were so small that nobody noticed or cared. There have been some efforts by the Christian Coalition and others, but conservatives who were not religious have shied away from these efforts and even within the CC there are factions that tend to follow one Christian leader while other factions tend to follow others. So far the right has not been able to put together an effective voting block. With your help and your use of email, forum groups and bulletin boards, the Reagan Wing is going to become an enormously important voting block. The Reagan Wing has the added potential to become the most efficient and the most effective conservative candidate recruiting tool ever devised. We will talk more in our next article about recruiting conservative candidates to run against not only Democrats, but also to run in Republican primaries against incumbent Republicans unwilling to support our conservative agenda.

Now it is time to look ahead to the 2006 and 2008 elections assuming the Reagan Wing of the Republican Party has enjoyed a successful launch thanks to your efforts. If you have not read My Vote is for Sale, please read it now before proceeding. If there were 4.5 million votes cast for Bush from the religious right, what would happen if we could organize just those votes into a conservative voting block based on a Contract with Congress? Carry your thinking a step farther. Newt Gingrich was the concept originator of the Contract with America and author of most of its provisions. Newt is one of the most astute political analysts in history and one of the better judges of what is and what isn't possible. It may go against the grain of the group, but remembering the effect of how much power the President has because of all those votes, envision that our group could agree to empower Newt to negotiate the specific parts of the Contract with Congress for the 2006 election. With Newt able to speak with a single voice to deliver or more importantly to withhold all of our 4.5 million votes, how far to the right could we shift the Republican delegation in Congress? To be perfectly honest, I have no idea.

Now let's add the money factor and some competition to the equation. Newt's political genus also fostered GOPAC. As spokesman for our 4.5 million group, what if Newt could tell the Congressional Republicans that members of our group were contributing $10 per year per member and that if they refused to vote for our Contract with Congress in 2006, then in 2008 we would use that $100 million dollars to run targeted candidates against them in the Republican primaries? First we offered the 4.5 million vote carrot, now we are adding a stick.

Family and friends will be gathering for the Holidays, not to mention the seasonal parties that occur at this time of year. Please give your family and friends the gift of the Reagan Renaissance or invite them to our party being hosted at Financial Sense Online. This is the gift that will keep on giving to your children and their children and generations of Americans yet to come. As Ronald Reagan said,

"This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

"The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing."

Author's Note
There is no Constitutional authority for socialism at the level of the federal government. Socialism is a failed economic model because under socialism, all of the incentives are backwards. Socialism is not compatible with capitalism because it undermines savings and investment. Every democracy in history has ended in bankruptcy or hyperinflation whenever the people learn to vote themselves benefits from the public treasury. Our republic has become a democracy by surrogates through "professional" politicians because we do not have term limits. Socialism is the economic equivalent of cancer. "Professional" politicians are the cause and the sole means of spread. Either Americans are going to voluntarily end socialism which would be the catalyst for launching the Reagan Renaissance or socialism is going to bring down the United States through bankruptcy or hyperinflation. Socialism needs to be ended quickly before the unfunded liabilities of the boomers begin to mature. It is time to go for the throat of the "professional" politicians before it's too late.

The count down for the Reagan Renaissance has begun. 10...9....8...the count down continues next week. The Reagan Wing's equivalent of Star Wars is in some respects analogous to a laser guided missile launcher. Please contact your friends, family and other interested parties. Leveraging the power of the internet will be a vital part of the rocket fuel needed to power our engines to overcome gravity and reach escape velocity. Please send your friends, family and people that you know that are conservative, or to anyone who wants to restore the Constitution's limits on government or to end socialism, this link to the Reagan Renaissance Archive. Please post links to the Reagan Renaissance Archive at internet forum groups, on internet bulletin boards, and internet newsgroups. How far and how wide you spread the word about the Reagan Renaissance will be a major determinate for its success. My thanks again to Financial Sense Online and the Puplavas for allowing me the opportunity to make these views publicly available.

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