{"id":2827,"date":"2012-04-08T00:30:43","date_gmt":"2012-04-08T07:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2012\/04\/08\/pleasantville\/"},"modified":"2012-05-01T19:00:51","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T02:00:51","slug":"pleasantville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2012\/04\/pleasantville\/","title":{"rendered":"Pleasantville"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Let me be fair.\u00a0 The pot luck was to die for.\u00a0 Seriously!\u00a0 Those conservatives can cook.\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to be late to dinner to an Elbert County Republican Party pot luck.\u00a0 Metli\u2019s 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.\u00a0 Totally memorable.<\/p>\n

It was the aperitif repartee\u2019 that was a hard to swallow.\u00a0 The most popular dish on that section of the menu was the saut\u00e9ed self-aggrandizement with generous portions dished out by too many and force fed to all.<\/p>\n

The RINOs are way out of the closet now.\u00a0 In the spirit of a gay pride parade down San Francisco\u2019s Market Street in their cowboy chaps and bare bottoms, the RINOs proudly strutted their stuff in front of the speechless conservatives in the room.\u00a0 They invested the most banal of points with gold somnambulant tones covering over all attempts at substantive discussion like an oily slick on water.<\/p>\n

A couple of the newly elected Committeepeople attempted to bring the room \u2018round to an actual political debate on the merits of the recent majority-approved Republican Platform, but there would be little of that this night.\u00a0 This night was all about process – counting Republican beans.\u00a0 The clear message from the RINO camp was they don\u2019t need no stinkin\u2019 messages, or at least none they care to share with actual Republicans.\u00a0 Like Dilbert\u2019s information preventers, their job in this Central Committee cradle of Republicanism is to spin loyal Republican energy into a muddy concoction of uninteresting drivel.<\/p>\n

True conservative Republicans new to this shadow play came ill equipped to play the game at this level.\u00a0 They no doubt brought preconceptions drawn from arcane motivations like Republican values, free markets, liberty, statesmanship and fighting the good fight.\u00a0 How could they know that the first battle would be against ostensible allies from their own tribe!\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The hard truth is that as a Central Committee of RINO leftists and conservative Republicans, we should not be getting along that well.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Progenitors of gnomes and sprites tend to be wealthier, often childless, ideologues without many of the concerns of the common man.<\/p>\n

It’s Republicans who actually create economic conditions for\u00a0 common men to make a living, thrive, and improve their station.\u00a0 RINOs and leftists subsidize poverty, prevent growth, and want us to return to a state of nature.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 control at the end of the day.\u00a0 Compromise?\u00a0 Ha!\u00a0 Who do they think they\u2019re kidding?\u00a0 Non-RINOs aren\u2019t worthy of compromise.\u00a0 They\u2019re not even worthy of substantive speech.\u00a0 Let\u2019s eat their food, spin them a few meaningless yarns, and get out of this basement.\u00a0 The parade is moving on.<\/p>\n

But outside the hallowed halls of the Republican Central Committee, RINOs are nothin’ but message.\u00a0 The following list is from a demonstration at a 2007 commissioner’s meeting.\u00a0 The specific meeting is unimportant because the script never changes much for this bunch.<\/p>\n

The following are the bullet points from the public comment speakers:<\/p>\n