I don’t link John Hawkins as much as I should since I’ve been crossposting at Right Wing News. Here’s a good one, where John offers up the Five annoying types of Republicans, over at Townhall. Those five are the sell outs, the purists, the appropriators (big spenders), bubbleheads, and compromisers. I’d suggest reading them all. Here’s the type that annoys me the most on the list
5) The Compromise Fetishists: There’s nothing wrong with compromise per se. Republicans should be willing to compromise with Democrats — if it’s on a bill that will make the country significantly better overall. How many bills are there fitting that description that have been passed in the last decade or so? Certainly no more than a handful — and none have been passed during the Obama Administration. That’s because “compromise” in D.C. usually starts with the idea that Democrats get 90% of what they want and then Republicans negotiate to see how badly they’re going to lose. Yet, we hear some Republicans lauding compromise like it’s a worthwhile goal in and of itself. A compromise on a bad bill isn’t a win. Did Republicans make a mistake by refusing to work with the Democrats on the stimulus or Obamacare? Should they have worked with Obama to raise taxes, pass comprehensive immigration reform, or to do another stimulus? Of course not! Half of stupid is still pretty stupid, stupid.
These are Republicans that can also be sell outs and anti-purists. They aren’t pure sell outs as positioned in the article, but they often spend lots of time going after Republicans and Conservatives (see Outside the Beltway). They aren’t necessarily performing as trained seals (see: Meghan McCain, John McCain, Kathleen Parker, Newt Gingrich, etc) in attempting to get liberals to love them, they just like going after Republicans who push Republican policy. And they tend to also get really upset when Conservatives push conservative notions, a kind of anti-purity, if you will.
Compromise for the sake of political expediency is an absurd notion, especially when Republicans get nothing out of it. See the times that Democrats have offer $3 in cuts at some unknown point down the road for every $1 in tax increases right now. Those cuts never happen.
Amen. Compromising just to get a bill passed to prevent blockages is not good for America. The best time America has seen is these last few years where very few new regulatory bills are getting passed in Congress. When gov’t is not trying hard to run over American’s rights and ability to work, America wins.