Saturday, August 13, 2011

A Fresh Perspective: The Conservative Case For Recalling Walker

Here's a view you don't hear often.

7 comments:

  1. First, I hope you are not saying that Palmeri is a conservative because that is laughable at best. If I recall correctly, he was a Green Party / Democratic supporter in the past. He supported Doyle over Mark Green in 06. A statement from his assembly run "My campaign stands for social justice, environmentalism, nonviolence" while honorable stands are hardly a conservative platform. Then the final nail in the coffin is that he is a college professor.

    If you are going to quote conservatives, please quote solidly conservative voices like John McCain or Tim Pawlenty.

    If you want, I could make a liberal/progressive case stating what Walker did was cutting edge and needed in our state. However, that does not make my opinion a liberal case for praising Scott Walker.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh I know. And he gets such BRILLIANT commenters over there too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for sharing. Excellent blog and folllow up comments!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The headline reflects the article.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cutting edge? Walker isn't dealing with technology. Cutting edge union busting? Isn't cutting edge anything supposed to bring about some good for humanity. What Walker did is more akin to a cut that fouled the state with his vengeful and corporate tainted odor. Yet we don't have to ask who did it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. His comments on the Recalls, just below the article posted here, mirror my own:

    "When the recall drive started, I honestly thought the Democrats would take at least 4, and possibly all 6 of the contests. I also thought they would win most of them by wide margins. So what happened?"

    [...] but I think at root the problem was ineffective Democratic messaging.

    [..] "An independent voter WILL vote to recall, in my judgement, when it can be shown that the elected representative did not meet his or her responsibility to REPRESENT constituents. A representative refusing to represent is most certainly exercising misconduct in office. This is especially true for state and federal elected officials, who are confronted with legislation that is often the product of narrow lobbies (e.g. ALEC) whose interests conflict with the representatives' constituents."

    [..]"In short, when Democratic advertising started to critique the Republicans for their votes, they took the focus off of the Republicans' heavy handed governing procedures. Those procedures showed open contempt for some pretty basic rules of republicanism, and should be opposed by all civic minded people regardless of party or platform."

    ReplyDelete
  7. Palmieri teaches rhetoric, so he knows how to frame an argument from a point of view that is not necessarily his own. He is not claiming to be a conservative himself, but he lays out a conservative argument for recalling Walker.

    Conservatives are supposed to uphold existing institutions, respect precedent, and push for incremental changes when they are needed. As Palmieri points out, these Republicans have ignored precedent, upended institutions, and pushed for radical change is policies that needed adjustment at most.

    Even if Palmieri isn't a conservative himself, it's fair to point out that Walker and his minions aren't acting like conservatives, either.

    ReplyDelete