Not long ago here in the basement of the Lions Hall I sat many Wednesday evenings listening to the penumbral emanations from the infiltration of country-in-county no-growth western Elbert County RINOs into Republican Central Committee meetings. More than a decade later, the names have changed but the game remains eerily familiar — hardball politics in the softball park of our dearly beloved local Republican Party.
Last Wednesday the Republican Committeepeople got to witness ersatz heroes of the party spend the better part of two hours converting oxygen to carbon dioxide while mouthing insignificant bromides about how well we all get along with each other and how pleasant and positive life can be in a happy Republican political universe.
Let me be fair. The pot luck was to die for. Seriously! Those conservatives can cook. You don’t want to be late to dinner to an Elbert County Republican Party pot luck. Metli’s brisket fell apart in my mouth in a swirl of all things good about beef, and Scoggin’s cream puffs melted away on my palate into sweet nothingness. Totally memorable.
It was the aperitif repartee’ that was a hard to swallow. The most popular dish on that section of the menu was the sautéed self-aggrandizement with generous portions dished out by too many and force fed to all.
The RINOs are way out of the closet now. In the spirit of a gay pride parade down San Francisco’s Market Street in their cowboy chaps and bare bottoms, the RINOs proudly strutted their stuff in front of the speechless conservatives in the room. They invested the most banal of points with gold somnambulant tones covering over all attempts at substantive discussion like an oily slick on water.
A couple of the newly elected Committeepeople attempted to bring the room ‘round to an actual political debate on the merits of the recent majority-approved Republican Platform, but there would be little of that this night. This night was all about process – counting Republican beans. The clear message from the RINO camp was they don’t need no stinkin’ messages, or at least none they care to share with actual Republicans. Like Dilbert’s information preventers, their job in this Central Committee cradle of Republicanism is to spin loyal Republican energy into a muddy concoction of uninteresting drivel.
True conservative Republicans new to this shadow play came ill equipped to play the game at this level. They no doubt brought preconceptions drawn from arcane motivations like Republican values, free markets, liberty, statesmanship and fighting the good fight. How could they know that the first battle would be against ostensible allies from their own tribe! They did not expect to take friendly fire on their first night and as a result fell into a dull stupor as the RINOs drove the Central Committee bus into an embankment.
The hard truth is that as a Central Committee of RINO leftists and conservative Republicans, we should not be getting along that well. In the name of the Republican Party, some Committeepeople actually want the forceful hand of government zoning to do their bidding to preserve Elbert County for the gnomes, sprites, woodland game and prairie chickens who rightfully belong in this earthly paradise. To those RINOs, the rest of us mud clods can only despoil all that is good in the world by chasing a few bucks to put bread on the table for our too numerous resource consuming heathen human offspring.
Real Republicans are preservation minded too, it’s just that they understand that man and the things that men do to derive economic benefit from the world are value-adding enterprises absolutely necessary for a healthy society. Progenitors of gnomes and sprites tend to be wealthier, often childless, ideologues without many of the concerns of the common man.
It’s Republicans who actually create economic conditions for common men to make a living, thrive, and improve their station. RINOs and leftists subsidize poverty, prevent growth, and want us to return to a state of nature. Redistribution is a no-growth philosophy, and like a cancer, it would be self-limiting and pass out of this world if powerful leftists stopped using it to buy votes and hold power.
As Thomas Sowell said, we have a conflict of visions, and in the spirit of Saul Alinsky, the RINOs will use any means possible to see theirs’ control at the end of the day. Compromise? Ha! Who do they think they’re kidding? Non-RINOs aren’t worthy of compromise. They’re not even worthy of substantive speech. Let’s eat their food, spin them a few meaningless yarns, and get out of this basement. The parade is moving on.
But outside the hallowed halls of the Republican Central Committee, RINOs are nothin’ but message. The following list is from a demonstration at a 2007 commissioner’s meeting. The specific meeting is unimportant because the script never changes much for this bunch.
The following are the bullet points from the public comment speakers:
- the Planning Commission meeting violated the County’s meeting time rule
- the BOCC Meeting was not properly continued
- Aquifers inadequate
- Increased traffic on County roads.
- Maintain Elbert County as rural
- Reduced property values
- Adequate number of houses in Elbert County
- Number of home foreclosures in Elbert County & State of Colorado
- Negative impact on wildlife.
- Density is not in compliance with the Master Plan
- Elbert County should be maintained as agricultural
- Health concerns on the reuse of water for irrigation purposes
- the 300 year water plan and five acre home sites should remain in place
- concern over the water staying in Elbert County
- roads must be improved before new homes are constructed
- lack of adequate law enforcement
- lack of adequate road maintenance now without additional roads
- where is the sewer effluent discharged
- concerned about the preble’s meadow jumping mouse habitat
- open space being used for equestrian trails and open to the public
- the development violates the Master Plan
- is affordable and/or low income housing being considered
- developer has not completed the last density bonus as approved
- do not need the commercial parcels as proposed
- concerned over lack of trails and accessibility to open space
- concerned about the purchase of water from ACWWA
- concerned about the overcrowding in schools presently
- concerned about the PIF proposal
- concerned about IREA transmission lines
- is a new jail to be constructed on one of the parcels
- location of electric station and towers for the development
The next time you meet a RINO in mantra mode, ask them when the last time was that they succeeded in creating a utopia, because they certainly don’t hold back in imposing utopian standards on entrepreneurs and capitalists. The irony here is that entrepreneurs and capitalists cause economic betterment, improved standards of living and future beneficial opportunities for society despite the utopians, while the groups that espouse utopia as an attainable condition make matters worse and then blame it on the entrepreneurs and capitalists!
In future Republican Central Committee meetings, true conservatives should set fire to that oily RINO slick. We’re not there to all just get along. We’re there to uphold a conservative world view. It is what motivates us and without it, the bean counting will get old fast.
Leftists can always go sell their utopian dreams to the Democrats. If they’re going to call themselves Republicans, however, they should get an ear full of Republican philosophy at every ECRCC meeting. The Central Committee might be a sterile Pleasantville backwater to RINOs, but to conservatives it means something more important and we’d better start using our scarce meeting time to talk about it.