Our essay entitled “Bad Numbers for Progressives” generated two email responses. First, GD writes in with an embarrassing confession (for him, of course):

Dread, awesome, etc. etc.,

I would propose that at least 10% in the “independent or moderate” category are Libertarians, like me, who insist on pissing away their votes on un-electable constitutional-ists. Since, by its very nature, libertarianism is fairly conservative, I would say this 10% come mostly from the “independents who are really closeted conservatives” category. This renders the math as 33% liberal and 56% conservative, and then roughly 11% vote-pissers like myself.

Don’t get me wrong, if I (and probably most libertarians) lived in a state where it might even remotely matter how I voted for President, I would probably vote Republican. But it doesn’t, so I vote on principle.

Hoping you don’t make clean the Augean stables… again,
GD

The Czar stands by his claim that folks like GD either do not vote (or throw away their vote on ‘Puter-like third-party whackos (like his brother Krizz), which is pretty much the same thing—actually, no, it is the same thing), or they vote Republican. Hard to see a Libertarian casting a vote for a pro-Liberal candidate, so the numbers remain where we put them.

Meanwhile, RC writes in with something that hits the nail on the head. And we love to hit nails on heads here. Actually, we are always happy to hit anything on the head with hammers. But we digress.

Your Czarnessness,

You said “The Gallup poll may not spell out the renaissance of American conservativism, but the numbers are indeed in there.” As I have pointed out elsewhere, if you look at something that has a velocity of 100 fps in one direction, and you apply an acceleration of 1fps in the opposite direction, after one second, you’re still going in the original direction.

While I would love to see the federal government shrunk drastically, and I wish the debt ceiling bill had done a lot more towards that goal, I realize that this is simply one of the first steps in that direction. By way of comparison, in 1998, things looked bad for gun owners, but ten years later, the Assault Weapons Ban was long gone. I’m sure you’ve seen that animated gif showing the progression (heh) of concealed carry rights in the several states, too, and that illustrates the same thing.

RC is, in the Czar’s opinion, highly representative of most conservatives: the debt deal was not all that great, but not only was it better than nothing, it was a surprising start—especially when it looked like we were going to get nothing.

Political realities exist, and one fair complaint against the Tea Party is that it takes time to turn a battleship. Perhaps it was naïveté, but simply voting in fiscal conservatives to the House in 2010 was not going to transform us into a Coolidge Era model of balanced budgets and less regulation.

Yes, there were distasteful things in the agreement. No, it was ridiculously far from perfect. But as has been pointed out by others, a small group of voices in the House managed to hold back the President and the Senate. Pretty remarkable. That is remarkable for 2011.

If you want change, we are going to wait for 2012. Only then will we see what sort of backbone the People have.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.