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Ringing in a Conservative Year
· Sunday, January 1, 2012
WASHINGTON -- Although they have become prone to apocalyptic forebodings about the fragility of the nation's institutions and traditions under the current president, conservatives should stride confidently into 2012. This is not because they are certain, or even likely, to defeat Barack Obama this year. Rather, it is because, if they emancipate themselves from their unconservative fixation on the presidency, they will see events unfolding in their favor. And when Congress is controlled by one party, as it might be a year from now, it can stymie an overreaching executive.
In 2011, for the first time in 62 years, America was a net exporter of petroleum products. For the foreseeable future, a specter is haunting progressivism, the specter of abundance. Because progressivism exists to justify a few people bossing around most people, and because progressives believe that only government's energy should flow unimpeded, they crave energy scarcities as an excuse for rationing -- by them -- that produces ever-more-minute government supervision of Americans' behavior.
Imagine what a horror 2011 was for progressives as Americans began to comprehend their stunning abundance of fossil fuels -- beyond their two centuries' supply of coal. Progressives responded with attempts to impede development of the vast proven reserves of natural gas and oil here and in Canada. They bent the willowy Obama to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from Canadian tar sands; they raised environmental objections to new techniques for extracting gas and "tight" oil from shale formations.
An all-purpose rationale for rationing in its many permutations has been the progressives' preferred apocalypse, the fear of climate change. But environmentalism as the thin end of an enormous wedge of regulation and redistribution is a spent force. How many Americans noticed that the latest United Nations climate change confabulation occurred in December in Durban, South Africa?
The futility of this nullity signaled the end -- probably for decades, if not forever -- of a trivial pursuit that began 14 years ago with the Kyoto Protocol that the U.S. Senate would not even bring to a vote. The pursuit was for a 194-nation consensus obligating a few nations to transfer enormous wealth to many other nations' governments, to be politically distributed by them, with the supposed effect of ending global warming, if such proves to be.
Meanwhile, back in the nation that probably would have ponied up the largest portion of this money, sales of the electric-powered Chevrolet Volt were falling short of General Motors' goals even before reports about fire hazards in crash tests. And a Wall Street Journal headline proclaimed: "Americans Embrace SUVs Again."
Because of the Energy Department's myriad scandals and other misadventures as a venture capital firm (Solyndra, Beacon Power Corp., etc.), it is probable that 2011 will be remembered as the high-water mark of industrial policy. This is another way in which events are draining the Obama presidency of some of its power for mischief. If in November Republicans capture the Senate, which must confirm many senior officials of the executive branch and agencies, only weakness of Republican will can enable, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board to continue being unconstrained instruments of presidential decrees.
Political logic suggests that this year Obama will try to rekindle the love of young voters with some forgiveness of student debts. But one-third of students do not borrow to pay college tuition. The average debt for those who do borrow to attend a four-year public institution is $22,000 and the average difference between the per-year earnings of college graduates and those with only a high school diploma is ... $22,000.
It will be interesting to see how such a bailout of young and privileged borrowers will appeal to voters, who will begin to be heard from in Iowa. Before this year is many months old, discerning conservatives may decide that Obama probably has been rescued by the Republican nominating electorate and hence it is time to begin focusing on two things other than the 2012 presidential election. One is capturing the Senate. The other is preparing the ground for a better presidential nomination competition in 2016.
In any case, nothing that happens this November will bring an apocalypse. America had 43 presidencies before the current one and will have many more than that after the end of this one in 2013 or 2017. Decades hence, it will look like most others, a pebble in the river of American history.
(c) 2012, Washington Post Writers Group
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TruthInAction
Oil exports? You, sir, respectfully, have lost it.
The past two years have set a course of bankrupting the USA fiscally and attitudinally. If we don't elect new kind of leadership, we'll get more of this bunch of power mongers. The entire system is rife with corruption.
We need to rein in the whole bunch of 'em.
Posted January 1, 2012 at 4:18:44 AM
Charles
Mr. Will writes well but he lives either in an ivory tower or with his head in the sand. This Administration has purposefully set out to bring Socialism to every aspect of this Country's economy and social structure. It is achieving its goals. We are on a course that cannot be reversed absent a full scale revolution. Cars and student loans are grains in the sand. We are $15T in debt and counting. Read Mark Steyn, not George Will.
Posted January 1, 2012 at 8:53:56 AM
Tex Horn
This is just more trivial BS from a Washington insider, a representative of the Washington establishment. Sorry, George, but you know it's true.
Posted January 1, 2012 at 11:19:35 AM
Army Officer (Ret)
Every four years since I started following politics as a child I've heard the same refrain, "This is the most important election in our lifetimes."
Every. Single. Time.
From both sides.
But they can't ALL be the most important. It's nice to see a widely-respected conservative like George Will finally inject some perspective into the discussion. The left was wrong when they foolishly thought voting for Obama would cause prosperity to fall from the skies and peace to break out all over. Conservatives are only slightly less prone to hyperventilating in my observation.
He's also correct to note that defeat of Obama is not a shoe-in. If I could foretell the future I would be a little surprised to see a Republican being sworn in as President next January.
Here's the deal, though: it really doesn't matter who the President is next year. In fact this may be the LEAST important election in our lifetimes. Why? Here's why: we're going down hard. 2012 is likely to be the year when the bottom falls out from under the economy. It will probably start in Europe when the Germans decide they can no longer drain their citizens for the sake of their neighbor's social experiments. Once the first domino falls Europe will collapse like a house of cards. Within six months the U.S. will have been dragged under as well, and when the U.S. sovereign debt gets piled onto the end of the Euro, even a staunch Tea Party president and solid conservative control of both houses won't be able to prevent the meltdown.
I don't like setting dates, and I hope we can pull back from the precipice in 2012, but the end result will be the same either way, and it will almost certainly be before the next Presidential election, no matter who is in the Oval Office. It's not IF - it's WHEN.
Happy New Year. /sigh
Posted January 1, 2012 at 11:38:28 AM
Howard Last
How does anyone expect a Conservative Year when most of the Republican candidates for President are RINO's and the Republican Leadership (still an oxymoron) is wannabe democraps?
Tex, you got it right.
Posted January 1, 2012 at 12:51:19 PM
Alexander Dembski
Howard Last and Tex Horn, I fear you are correct. I would prefer ARMY OFFICE(ret) (Who's opinion I greatly respect) to be calling it right this time. At least we are all on the same side (that of Constitutional Government). Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Posted January 1, 2012 at 8:10:40 PM
Big Mike
George
I am so disappointed in your article!!!!
Get out of town...go to South anything and you will see that we are prospering on every front.
That pile of yankees depending on government and unions should be a thing of the past that we should all be able to spot and bring to a halt.
Castro and his crowd were the last socialists to ruin a paradise. Get tough in the beginning or you won't have a chance later.
Posted January 2, 2012 at 12:04:14 PM
brhamlin
This is a request for information. As an old Marine with an intelligence MOS, my job was to know the enemy. If any of you readers of GW know of a liberal/progressive/socialist website such as might be the equivalent of Patriot Post, would you please post it here? I have searched for years but have found none. I do however strongly suspect that such a one is out there. To be sure, I find individual articles on such curious leanings scattered about, yet no single site. I even asked a good friend, who is such a liberal-freak that I had to ask her to shut up on one visit to my house so that I could enjoy the World Series. To her that event was somehow an affront to the well-being of the world; something about a bunch of pricey athletes on the field while vendors in the stands worked for peanuts. All she could suggest was the New York Times. But the NYT does sports very well, so something was amiss there.
Thank you.
Posted January 2, 2012 at 1:47:56 PM
Richard Ryan
Why on God`s green Earth would we be exporting even one gallon of petroleum product when we import hundreds of millions of barrels of oil yearly? Mr.Will`s editorial makes absolutely no sense, as usual.Our legislative branch of government needs to get some balls and tell the executive branch that the Keystone pipeline construction will start immediately.The obstructionist BS coming out of the White House needs to be stopped immediately!
Richard Ryan
Lamar,Missouri - Birthplace of Harry S Truman
Posted January 2, 2012 at 1:57:21 PM
mmccrindle
"...a pebble in the river of American history."
George, I don't think so.
Obozo has made the last several Democrap President's look benign. His agenda certainly is more extreme. The damage more severe and far reaching.
It is true that socialism has been creeping into our country for the last 100yrs, but todays leftist are proud to extol the new rights of man. I'm not talking inalienable rights bestowed by God - todays liberal is souless - I'm refering to the lefts total list of our rights: the right of healthcare, education, shelter, food, everything-under-the-sun-and-your-neighbors-too rights. THAT'S RIGHT! ALL OF OUR RIGHTS NOW COME FROM GOVERNMENT!!!
I know there is some confusion by these leftists that all of that stuff isn't in the Constitution, but since when did anything about the Constitution even begin to ring in to a leftist.
Obozo seems to have been able to thwart or totally ignore the Constitution over and over again - and no one seems to care!
MSM or suposed conservative writer's don't seem to be doing any type of questioning or even exposing blatent BS like SOLYNDRA or FAST & FURIOUS.
I sure do hope the Republicans get the Senate but we need to get back to the FUNDAMENTALS of the CONSTITUTION.
Take any association, agency, law, entitlement, freebie, pork BS and everything else that can't be found in the Constitution and END THEM.
Our Country would be hale and hardy in less than a year. And if our leaders can't get it done - fire them. If it takes another revolution so be it.
Posted January 2, 2012 at 3:56:07 PM
JJStryder
I cannot discern whether George has a calm clear-eyed view of the future or is blind as a bat.
Posted January 3, 2012 at 9:15:18 AM