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May 31, 2013 07:28 AM UTC

Media Omission: Founder of Black Tea Party group gives State GOP Chair "Almost Human" honors

  • 88 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Sort of fascinating – promoted by Colorado Pols)

There’s a talk-radio show in Colorado Springs called “Black, White, and Right.”

"Black" because one of the show’s hosts is the African-American founder of Rocky Mountain Black Tea Party, which has the tough job making the conservatism more appealing to African-Americans.

"White" because one of the co-hosts is a white guy, Robert Blaha, who challenged Rep. Doug Lamborn in last year’s congressional primary in Colorado Springs.

"Right" because both of the show’s hosts are righties. (Note that the show was not called, “Black, White, and Correct.”)

Each week, the hosts name someone as “almost human,” kind of like Westword's "Schmuck of the Week" or Colorado Inside Out's "Disgrace of the Week."

This past Saturday on "Black, White, and Right," Blaha's "Almost Human" was a woman in Florida who's under federal indictment after using embezzled money to throw a birthday party for her boss.

But the African-American host, Derrick Wilburn, surprised me by picking "The Republicans" generally, and State Republican Chairman Ryan Call in particular, for “Almost Human” honors.

Wilburn feels unloved by Call, as you’ll see below, but as a connoisseur of conservative talk radio, I have to say that his attack on Call was so authentic and raw that I recommend it to all of you. 

Read it below if you want, but listening here is better.

Blaha: This is dark! This is just dark!!

Wilburn: I’m in a bad mood! I’ve had it up to here. Our state chairman embodies “The Republicans,” whoever that is.

Blaha: OK.

Wilburn: I formed the Rocky Mountain Black Tea Party. It’s been almost two and a half years, and we’ve had monthly, on-the-ground meetings every single month for two and a half years. except once, we got snowed out, this year, March. You know. You come to our meetings. We get 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 people sometimes. We had 600 once.

Ryan Call has never set foot in one of our meetings, ever! [We’ve met] every month for two-and-a-half years in Colorado Springs, every month for a year in Denver. He’s been to one meeting, when he was the invited guest speaker. He knows what I’m trying to do. He’s heard my presentation, as you have, and the plan we’re putting forth to reach out to minorities.

[Call] invites me to come to this meeting with Reince Priebus. Reince Priebus comes to town, and there is a small, unannounced, closed-door meeting.

Blaha: Who, by the way, is the head of the Republican Party for the United States.

Wilburn: He flies in for meeting with about 35 or 40 of us. He has a hard exit. He’s got to leave at 3:30 to catch a flight.

Ryan Call goes around the room, gives the microphone to every white elected official in the state, and lets them go off for as long as they want to. [BigMedia emphasis]

Gives me the microphone at 3:29 and thirty seconds. Thirty seconds left in the meeting, and says 'I’m sorry,' and I get thirty seconds to speak to the man.

I get to speak at the State Central Committee meeting. I get invited to speak. The guy who's trying to reach out to the young people, whom we know we all need. He puts us up there last! And puts the Doug Lamborns of the world up there first!

These people don’t get it! They're almost human. And if we don’t get rid of some of ‘em and replace them with people who do [get it], we’re in a world of hurt.

Blaha: You got to your point. Well, let me make my point to your point: The permanent political class has got to go, folks!

Ryan Call did not return an email seeking comment, but I'm guessing he'd say he understands that the GOP needs to diversify. But Wilburn's comments make you wonder what he's doing about it, when reality pops up and he has to make actual decisions that affect African-Americans, Hispanics, women, young people, etc.

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88 thoughts on “Media Omission: Founder of Black Tea Party group gives State GOP Chair “Almost Human” honors”

  1. Let's ask the White Folks and Establishment how we can talk to them black folks and yunguns inthe room, then we'll check in and makes sure their ready to follow the white folk into the Big New Tent of GOP diverse inclusion. 

  3. Wilburn is a nice guy, but he isn't an elected official.   That is the likely reason for the "mere" (quite a bit actually) 30 seconds to presumably ask a question when elected officials got more. 

    1. Yep.  30 seconds (with no response time) is plenty  to ask one of those folks their 'opinion'…  Now, how is Reince's $10 million outreach going again? 

    2. In this context, Wilburn was the most important person there. That's the problem. The GOP only cares about African Americans to the point where they can point to people like Wilburn and say "See? We're reaching out." Which will satisfy all the white cons who aren't racist, but certainly not any black people who might actually be thinking about voting Republican.

      Right now, the party is focused on Hispanics because of their supposed conservatism and status as America's fastest growing demographic. It's to that extent only that guys like Rubio are rising stars. They believe that minorities and women vote for minorities and women, so they find compliant minorities and women to fill out token leadership positions. But behind the scenes, where the real decisions are made, it's still old white guys in charge and they're grooming younger white guys to take the mantle. Not racial minorites, and not women.

      Wilburn's anecdote is simply evidence of this. He and Blaha can talk about "the permanent political class" and sound like modern-day Bolsheviks in the process, but that's just scraps tossed to the teabaggers who imagine themselves in rebellion. But nothing is going to change there, and these guys are not going to do a single practical thing to try to affect that change either.

      1. Outreach is a tricky thing.  Just because somebody is a member of a group that you want to reach out to does not necessarily mean that they are representative of it. 

        1. so, they're still searching for that person who is representative of African American cons in CO? How much you want to bet they pick an athlete?

        2. Outreach is also tricky when a party has no genuine interest in that group's interests, just their votes.

          Anyway, I'm not sure why you chose to say what you said here. I suppose that, as a black Republican, Wilburn doesn't represent most African Americans. But he is the most visible representative of conservative African Americans in this state, and if you meant to imply that he doesn't even represent that group, you must have someone else in mind who does.

          1. I don't know the reasoning used to limit Wilburn to 30 seconds for what I assume was a question, but my point was that there are probably good reasons for it.  Not saying I'd make the same decision myself though if I were in Call's shoes, partly for the rationale you and others have raised. 

              1. I don't agree with Elliot, but I have family members who are Republicans (I know, I know…he's a "Libertarian") and it's not an easy thing to be, right now.  And defend the party, while not defending the indefensible things they do, leads to a lot of, "I don't know the reasoning" and "Not saying I'd make the same decision".

                It's a step up from ArapaGoebbels and Libby/Moderatus, isn't it?

                  1. Don't concur. I think Elliot disagrees with several (if not many) things the GOP is doing right now, but he's not willling to overtly disagree with them and have it bite him on the backside if he ever runs for office.

                    1. I think Elliot disagrees with several (if not many) things the GOP is doing right now, but he's not willling to overtly disagree with them and have it bite him on the backside if he ever runs for office

                      Which is why I say style.  If it isn't accompanied by a willingness to own the disagreement, for whatever reason, it has no substance in a practical sense.

                      Semantics, perhaps. I also think that EF is well meaning but I believe that what matters in who we are is our actions, what we say and do, and that we don't get extra credit for being better than what those demonstrate because we have good excuses.

                       

              2. Aristotle,
                I'm going to assume again that Wilburn was given 30 seconds during Q & A.  If so, here is some context: I'm not sure how Q & A goes at liberal grassroots type events but at conservative grassroots events there is a bit of a problem of people "speechifying" when they are supposed to be asking questions….where instead of a question, the person would give a multi-minute solioquy expounding on all sorts of things marginally related to the presentation at issue.  

                And to be fair, I've been accused of doing similar stuff myself:
                http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2010/08/video-and-audio-proof-tancredo-lied-or-is-just-extremely-forgetful/

                http://www.latinorebels.com/2013/01/23/colorado-congressman-tom-tancredo-believes-romney-got-40-of-latino-vote-in-arizona/

                So maybe there was a worry there that Wilburn might go off on a multi minute monologue.  I don't know.  As I said, I probably would have handled it differently, but I don't think the handling here was motivated by race. 

                 

                1. Maybe it wasn't motivated by race. Hell, I'll even give you "Probably not". But dammit, it sure looks bad, especially when you're making a big deal about "reaching out".   The GOP has done so much to disenfranchise women and minorities that they have to start taking some extreme measures if they're truly going to fix their party.  This isn't just a matter of the pendulum swinging back and forth from Left to Right…this is about the changing demographic in this country, and their refusal to acknowledge it.

                2. Wilbur says:

                  Ryan Call goes around the room, gives the microphone to every white elected official in the state, and lets them go off for as long as they want to. [Big Media emphasis]

                  It doesn't sound like a Q&A with restrictions to me. It's possible that they just gave the elected officials greater priority, which would make sense if election strategy and messaging was the topic at hand. But it still raises the question as to why they invited Wilbur to this, especially when Call doesn't meet with the Black Tea Party other than when he's invited to speak.

                3. Yet you offer no reasons for any of your assumptions.  You present nothing so much as a determination to look on the bright side based on  wishful thinking because the more plausible explanations, more plausible because of pervasive patterns of statements and actions over long periods if time, including dogged attempts at voter suppression and the clear intent of such memes as "takers vs makers", "urban voters" the "47%" and the like are distasteful to you. 

                  Admirable that you find those explanations distasteful but you might ask yourself why Republicans so often put you in the position of feeling the need to defend actions and statements that you would "handle differently" based exclusively on hopeful assumptions that they can't be what  they look like just because you feel something in your heart about what must be, or not be, the intention. That's a sweet and generous approach but not one likely to lead to sound conclusions.

                   

                  1. My assumptions here (what I think was Ryan's logic and the idea that 30 seconds likely related to a Q & A) are based around my experience in right-wing type stuff.   

                    1. I guess, then, we disagree on the nature of the content of that "right wing stuff", which I think is the real issue here.

        3. Seems to me, Elliot, that a fellow who holds a position as founder and chair of a group generally represents it. Whether or not the GOP wants to reach out to blacks generally (which they claim to wish to do), if they want to speak specifically to black conservatives in the Rocky Mountain region, this seems like the best possible representative.

          1. I've listened to Wilburn on a few things and I am not sure whether you can definatively conclude he has/represents a model to follow for outreach.  

            A good guy though from what I have seen.  

          2. I should have added that Wilburn has recently formed the American Conservatives of Color, presumbably to broaden beyond blacks.

            I got the sense that he's feeling rejected and ignored generally. The poo bah meetings were an example, but his real concern seemed to be that his grassroots organizing wasn't being valued enough by the CO GOP establishment.

            1. I have had the sense that he is not being given his desired level of attention/deference too….but I think (pure speculation) that the reasoning is the GOP doesn't want to be seen as astroturfing.  My sense (I haven't checked this so verify) is that many RMBTP and ACC members are not of minority status, thus there could be the risk that Wilburn's groups – if raised to front and center status – could get the whole party called out for tokenism outreach. 

              That's just a guess.  I could be completely wrong there. 

                  1. Sure would, if you paid lip service to "black conservatives" but just used them as mouthpieces rather than listening. But if your crew actually listened to them and brought them into the party, along with women, youth, etc., and was willing to change some of the party dogma accordingly, we might have to get busy trying to win elections and wouldn't have the spare time to try to cast it as tokenism. 

                    1. What dogma (beyond immigration/personhood stuff) do you think the GOP has to change for outreach purposes?

                    2. EF: What dogma (beyond immigration/personhood stuff) do you think the GOP has to change for outreach purposes?

                      Is that a real question?

                       

                    3. @ Elliott re dogma. Well there are these attacks on "entitlements", but only those that serve people not those that serve giant corporations. Like anyone middle class or below there are real concerns about SS, medicare, food stamps, medicaid, etc

                      I for one have had opportunity to "pander" and won't do it. I seek to find what the needs are that are not being addressed and determine if or how govt might help

                    8. ClubTwitty, 
                      I don't have easy access to audio while at the office.  As for your points, there is a fine line between reexamining your views (and discarding the unnecessary which is also unpopular) and making yourself into something you are not. 

                      With the understanding/assumption that you all mostly disagree with the overall GOP platform, my question was what portions of it do you think are not only unpopular but also unnecessary (notwithstanding point that you disagree with said views in first place)

            2. @Jason I wonder if the reason for the new group is that the tea baggers are too extreme and may even be getting rejected by R. And, he may be preparing to abandon the first group in favor of the second

        4. Just because somebody is a member of a group that you want to reach out to does not necessarily mean that they are representative of it.

          Sure, that's true. But the fact that every Republican elected official in the room was white shows they sure as hell were not representative of the "group that you want to reach out to." The fail is not because outreach is tricky. The fail is in the reality of what the Republican party has become.

           

    3. Elected or not, giving him an opportunity to speak would have demonstrated the kind of out reach they're always yammering about. Of course this is the party that has House panels with no women addressing reproductive choice so the blindness is no surprise.

       It just reinforces the common and apparently accurate belief that the GOP has so written off the "urban" voter that they simply have no interest in making the slightest effort, even for an African American who comes to them wanting to help with the pretty thankless task of bringing more African Americans over to a conservative view.

    4. Thanks, EF, for sticking around to engage.  You seem to be the only remaining rightie willing to do anything but drop a meme and disappear.

      1. I'll stick around on this one and pop in from time to time, but on a few threads I'm not going to engage or to limit my engagement due to prior stuff we have discussed.  Maybe one day PCG can organize a coffee or happy hour and we can talk about it in person to clear the air. 

  5. As someone with some experience at outreach, I would actually design an 'outreach' event IN CONJUNCTION WITH whatever group of folks I was trying to outreach to, and probably put one of them up on stage with me, or at least have them introduce me, including giving them the chance to introduce the topic.  Sure, you have to give up a little control…but that's what real outreach is.  Just looking for the right black person that is going to say what you want is not really outreach, it’s an attempt to create a patina of such and nothing more. 

    1. " Just looking for the right black person that is going to say what you want is not really outreach, it’s an attempt to create a patina of such and nothing more. "

      Agreed.

    2. For sure. After all, there are already a small minority of African Americans who are  on board with the GOP message. It's not as if 100% are Democrats or voted for Obama. But "outreach" only to them doesn't expand anything. The unwillingness to do more than that is probably why the GOP has written them off and focused on voter suppression instead.

      1. Agree with this portion:

        After all, there are already a small minority of African Americans who are  on board with the GOP message. It's not as if 100% are Democrats or voted for Obama. But "outreach" only to them doesn't expand anything.

        1. If Blue Cat and EF can achieve agrement on a significant point, then maybve a viable two state solution is possible after all! smiley Kerry should get right on it!

        2. @EF If your club is unwilling to change in a manner that accomodates minorities and women, if it insists on being far right or farther right then that club will die. Your club only represent the wealthy. Some who think they might luck into wealth vote with you and some who are just dumb and prejudiced. Thoughtful folks concerned with the welfare of people and real freedom can not do it

          1. Ok – I'm going to be playing a little of devil's advocate here.  I don't necessarily agree/disagree with all/some of this. 

            The GOP isn't anti-woman.  It is pro-individual rights.  Now the question of where rights attach is not a matter of imposing morality any more than decreeing murder is wrong is a matter of imposing morality.  It might seem easy to say "abandon the rights from conception POV" – but that would be like telling Abraham Lincoln to abandon his idea that slaves are people. 

            As for party of the wealthy – the GOP isn't about favoring the wealthy – it is about, again, individual rights.  From the point of view of the right, favoring individual rights results in increased aggregate prosperity for the population.  Now, it won't be an ideal Rawlsian society (some isolated cases who are the poorest maybe worse off), but a proper use of the "veil of ignorance" – where one isn't overly risk averse, would lead one to prefer a GOP economic society to a Dem economic society. 

            re: immigrant – ok, that is too much devil's advocate for me so I'll stop.

            Speaking for myself, I think again we have to distinguish between what is unpopular and what is unpopular + unnecessary for GOP core principles/ideas.  I here what you are saying on unpopularity of a lot of these things, but that doesn't mean the GOP should necessarily abandon them. 

            1. Uh-oh.  I have read a Theory of Justice and wrote a critique of the absurdity of it all–viel of ignorance indeed–when I was working on my Masters. But since you like abstract ideas that fall apart when put up against reality, I am not shocked you reference Rawls.  But I think that the American Taliban wing of your party might disagree on the morality part.    Should I dig up some Santorum quotes…?

               

                1. Here's a thought experiment: imagine we are pygmy goats isolated on an island in one of the archipelagos of Indonesia.  But we don’t know we are pygmy goats, and we are presented with a dilemma.  Only we don’t really understand it’s a dilemma because it is only a dilemma for pygmy goats on isolated islands in the Indian Ocean—that is it is only a dilemma in reality for particular beings, not in our ignorant state behind a philosopher’s pretend veil (reality, here, being our absurd made-up condition of pygmy goatness but I digress) .  What is the solution to the dilemma?    

                  1. Disclosure: John Rawls is significantly responsible for my gaining a new appreciation of philosphy…but not necessarily a better one.

                     

                    1. Damn.  Now I can't stop.  Make it stop.

                      …

                      Disinterest (or 'non-interest') is a terrible foundation for ethics, IMO.  There is no state of Rawlsian ignorance; it’s an absurd construct which has as its real purpose a very practical outcome: tenure. 

                      Neutrality in the framework of applying justice, the legal context, is to be cherished for sure–but even here it’s a little silly to imagine we arrive there by having engaged in this thought experiment even tacitly, that removes ourselves from our perspective.  I understand the historical underpinnings, political liberalism in that sense, but I think my critique remains unchanged: Rawl's construct is an artifact of privilege, nothing but post hoc fabrication to ease conscience (and help maintain tenure at the university).

                    2. I think Rawls is overly risk averse.  If I have two societies – one where I have a 99.999% chance of being a millionaire and a .001% chance of being homeless; and the second where I have a 100% chance of being homeless but with a cardboard box for shelter, I'm going to choose the first society.  As would just about everybody else.

            3. How about you just narrow it down to a list of the things you do agree with? That way, we know what argument you're making legitimately, and want us to take seriously.  You won't have to say what you specifically disagree with…..

  6. With the understanding/assumption that you all mostly disagree with the overall GOP platform, my question was what portions of it do you think are not only unpopular but also unnecessary (notwithstanding point that you disagree with said views in first place)

    Your base does not seem too interested in outreach.  Outreach does mean you give up some control, and perhaps, adjust your psotions and even–at some point–your core beliefs.  Or not, and face the electoral consequences brought on by demographic realities.  But with the well-shared belief among your party's base that ALL Democrats and particularly their non-white compoent parts are 'takers' (too many to list, starting with the top of your last [failed] presidential ticket; that women who want birth control covered by their insurance are 'sluts' that ought to make sex videos for rightwingers to watch (Rush); and that supporting marriage equality will lead to sheep-fucking (Gomert among others); I remain skeptical of your ability to get there.  Otherwise putting some folks that look a little differnt than old, white and male is, essentially, tokenism or will always appear as such.  IMO. 

    1. Sorry for all the miz-spellings.  I am too lazy to keep copying and pasting my comments into a program that actually includes a spell check function–invented I believe in the 1980s…

  7. @EF Everyone here believes in individual rights. You know that. Because I beleve that we have an obligation to provide health care for all (among many other things) and because I believe it is appropriate to insist that every person should pay for it is in no way a diminution of my belief in individual rights.

    Libertarians, tea baggers and GOP have no greater claim to a belief in individual rights than I

    1. I think the vision of individual rights, and the deference that should be accorded to them, is different on the right v. the left. 

      1. @ EF 40+ years ago or so the US adopted the Clean Air Act. Prior to that and even after that for some time many if not most rural residents, at that time more than 50% of the population, burned all of their trash. Individuals had to give up that "right" as well as assume some expense to dispose of trash. We're all better off for the imposition.

        But, it was fun getting to burn trash as a kid

      3. Like reproductive rights?  Equal rights for those who wish to marry someone of the same gender because of their intrinsic orientation? How about the imposition of laws requiring gun ownership? The right to be free of  specific religious doctrine being imposed on our children in science classes public schools?

        I just don't see the contemporary right as more devoted to individual rights than the left. The right simply has its own ideas of what rights should be imposed or withheld and, if anything, righties seem to be more insistent that the full power of the government should be wielded in extremely intrusive ways in our personal and spiritual lives.

        1. Of late the right has embraced an idea of 'rights' that seems–to me–untethered from reality.  I give Elliot props for striking a more classical liberal/libertarian point-of-view, which at least benefits from some consistency, but its still a philosophy that misses the mark in my estimation.  By no small degree. 

          1. My side of the aisle is pretty big these days on the idea of "natural rights" which I think is pretty ridiculous.  I debated Prof. Krannawitter on this about a month ago.  His argument basically boiled down to the idea that rights "naturally" existed because either (a) man is special; (b) man thinks; (c) rights serve some utilitarian purpose.  

            I didn't find any of those arguments on why rights would exist naturally persuasive.  

        2. I don't see the classic right as more devoted, either. It's trendy to speak of figures like Nixon and Reagan being unwelcome in today's GOP, but they both springboarded into the presidency from the Red Scare, the greatest attack on individual rights in American history.

          1. I cut my earliest political chops during the Reagan years.  I don't mistake Reagan for other than what he was.  I appreciate that ArapaGoof has the idealized portrait of him as his avatar, though, do the point you raise about Reagan being too left for today’s GOP—with AGoof right up their spouting the looniest of the latest talking points IN A LANDSLIDE!

            I see Elliot, on the other hand, as a 'classical' liberal in the philosophical sense, which is quite conservative, radically 'individual rights' based, more akin to today's political Libertarianism.  Many in that niche of his party have made their peace with the wingnuts in order to secure wealth and status, and so bite their tongues at the Theocrats, Neocons, and Know Nothings. 

            Thus megalomaniacal posers can step into the breach, and spin enough TP paranoid/populist bs to step up on the crazy pedestal for a little while.  But only for a little while by all appearances.

            In many ways the demise of the GOP rests with its more sensible members, many of whom have already fled of course,

            for not being able to exert any control. 

            https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTb9bInG5TYjwuGOeA9-NUVr7UpcU9lkqirKa2Cna0ee6RlLUpg

            Or that's my arm chair take on it.  

             

      4. (not talking about how rights are derived – as that is a distinct issue. instead I'm talking about what the rights are.  the view of rights that I (and the non-social conservative) portion of the right generally takes is that the non-initiation of force is a useful guidepost for determining whether an action is appropriate or not….i.e. that the government should generally butt out of telling people what to do unless those people are using force/threatening/defrauding another.  not only does this differ from the idea of appropriate sphere of gov't from the so-con right (which is much about an idea of using gov't to promote virtue) but it also differs much from the idea of rights on the progressive left.  I think if you really get down to brass tacks, the progressive left and the so-con right both want to have a gov't that promotes "virtue" – but instead differ on what that "virtue" would be) 

        1. I disagree that the primary purpose of government is to protect individual rights.  Safeguarding rights is certainly a function of government, but primarily government is a cooperative effort.  That's the point. 

          1. And that is where we disagree.  Which is fine – we do have elections to try to enact our beliefs and recently my side has lost quite a bit.  But when trying to give advice to what the GOP should abandon as unnecessary to win those elections, the above general belief is not one that is negotiable. 

            1. I know.  That's why I started by saying…"I disagree…"

              Good luck.  I think most people view the value of the Fire Dept in terms of other than 'it protects my assets' although of course that's part of it.  But its more.  I don't have any kids in school, but I still think we ought to be paying teachers more.  Crazy, huh? 

              1. It still leaves my question though – what part of dogma – beyond which I placed above (count it as "necessary"), do you think the GOP has that is both unpopular and also unnecessary?

                1. I answered it indirectly, that being pushed by the Theocrats, Neocons, and Know Nothings.  I disagree with your part of it too, as noted above, but I think for outreach purposes I would start there, esp. with the 1st and 3rd, but definitely not neglecting the second. 

                2. Whatever your dogma is, Eliot, it does not seem to be precisely the same as the dogma of the political right as expressed through today's GOP or the candidates supported most often by self identified conservatives and self identified Tea party members.

                  So what are we supposed to be debating here? Your personal interpretation of conservative and/or Tea Party dogma or what we see promoted by the contemporary GOP and self identified Tea Party members, such as Michele Bachmann who claims to head the Tea Party caucus in the House? 

                  Whether or not we agree with Eliot Fladen on this or that issue is an entirely separate matter from whether or not we agree with the policies promoted by the contemporary self identified right. 

                  I don't agree with either very often but the discussion of one is certainly not the same as the discussion of the other.  The problem with discussing this type of question with you is that your arguments so often shift from one of those arenas to the other,  from a voice speaking only for yourself to one supposedly speaking for the right (such as when you define right vs left values while actually speaking specifically of  EF vs non-EF values), apples and oranges style.  It creates quite a muddle and, perhaps not coincidentally, offers you many opportunities for avoiding points made by your opponents about the one by offering points germaine only to the other.

        2. You give yourself and your side of the aisle too much credit, vis-a-vis environmental regulation.

          Should the government butt out of telling poluters how to run their businesses, or should it protect the individual right of people to breathe clean air and drink clean water?

          The dogma your side needs to lose is that the "free market" can solve all problems, 

          1. I think most on the right will acknowledge that non-attenuated externalities are ok to have regulation on – there is probably going to be disagreement with the left though on the form/degree needed.

            1. Make polluters pay.

              Many on the (intellectual/academic) right do 'acknowledge' externalities.  So what.  Its whether your party actually ever puts policy in place that recognize those, rather than shifting such externalities away from your funders onto the shoulders of the planet, its people, consumers and the American taxpayers. 

              The point is, all your abstract thinking does not reflect where the 'grand' old party is at.  Your vision does not describe the Senate Minority Leader, Speaker Boehner or Leader Cantor.  It does not describe Rand Paul or John McCain.

              Maybe your ideas are great ideas (I don't think so) but until you purge the nutcases and their (you seem to think illegitimate) 'dogma,' your ideas won't matter.  That's where you need to start, probably not here trying to demonstrate that theoreticians in the right actually acknowledge non-attenuated externalities…

              (I think Americans reject your ideas too, but if you care about the future of your party I would not keep blinders on pretending that your party is really slaked on such pure conservative notions…)

  8. Rights premised on simplistic notions of not hitting my nose when you swing your hand, or on whether 99.9999% or 100% of some theoretical population would behave a certain way in order to distribute a certain asset differently, I think miss the point.  In every way.  To the extent that people on the right now actually believe in fiction writers weaving boring tales of vengeful capitalists leaving the country for the wild abandons of the Western Slope, and hold her up as hero as did your last VP candidate, or whatever silly does-not-really-comport-with-realty utopian vision you want to portray; where rights flow from abstract agreements that the privileged hope might mollify the rest as they former wallow in abundance and the latter do with less and less; I don’t think that’s working any more.  You might want to rethink what ‘outreach’ means. 

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