Rhoads, Hsieh, and Cushman on Midterm Elections

I came across three very good articles on the topic of Tuesday’s Republican victory (or to be more precise, I should call it Tuesday’s Democratic defeat).

In the first article, Jared Rhoads reported that he voted against Democrats across the board:

Since I am emphatically not a registered member of the Republican party, allow me briefly to explain.

My votes were cast with one goal in mind: to stem the tide toward statism and in so doing buy more time for rational ideas to take hold in the culture. On the surface, that means limited government, lower taxes, lower spending, and less regulation. More deeply, it means individual rights.[1]

In another article, Paul Hsieh advises the Republicans to understand what swept them into office. Their victory is decidedly not a mandate to compromise and deliver “ObamaLite”:

The 2010 vote was a powerful message from Americans rejecting the socialist policies of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid -- including the bailouts, the out-of-control federal spending, the higher taxes, and the nationalized health care scheme.

Voters elected Republicans to halt and reverse these policies -- not compromise to pass watered-down versions of those same bad ideas.[2]

Nor is the victory a green light to impose “social conservative” values:

The Republicans’ electoral rebound has been driven by millions of independent voters like the Colorado small businessman Ron Vaughn, who told the New York Times, “I want the Democrats out of my pocket and Republicans out of my bedroom.”[2]

Finally, at American Thinker, Charlotte Cushman urges the Republicans not to compromise with the Democrats to “find common ground” with policies that are disastrous for America:

We have been taught than compromising is a virtue, that in any conflict, we must concede things to the other side. . .

Finding common ground means that both sides agree on some fundamental principles. By compromising with Obama we would be saying that we agree with some aspects of Socialism. No we don’t. There is no common ground between an ideology of slavery and the ideology of freedom. Rush Limbaugh said the meaning of the election was “No, we don’t want to ‘work together,’ and the American people did not say they want to work with you. The American people said yesterday they want to stop you!”[3]

With an entirely secular meaning, I say, “Amen!”

NOTES

1. Jared Rhoads, “A Republican voter . . . ,” 2 Nov 2010, http://lucidicus.org/editorials.php?nav=20101102a.

2. Paul Hsieh, “GOP: Dance With The One Who Brung You,” 3 Nov 2010, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gop-dance-with-the-one-who-brung-you/?singlepage=true.

3. Charlotte Cushman, “No More Goodie Two-Shoes,” 4 Nov 2010, http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/no_more_goodie_twoshoes.html.