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Monday, April 01, 2019

Kurt Schlichter: The Conservative Case For Conservatism

A so-called "conservative" arguing about making Puerto Rico a state gets slapped down by Schlichter:
The article’s sub-headline gives away the game: “Besides being the right thing to do, it could reawaken Americans to the necessity of our Constitution’s federalist principles.” Now, the federalist principles stuff is just silly. That federalism is good does not somehow translate into it being a good idea to take a long-term possession with a different culture, relative poverty, and substantial corruption, and make it a state. Economically, it would be a liability, not an asset. Moreover, a good bunch of Puerto Ricans do not want federalism, or any other -ism associated with the US of A. They want independence, and they have shot up the House of Representatives, bombed New York City, and tried to off Harry Truman to make their point. Why again do we want to pay two new Democrat senators to buy ourselves an insurrection?

But the really bad part of the argument is that first part: It’s “the right thing to do.”

No, no it’s not. Stop that. That’s of a kind with the “BUT OUR PRINCIPLES!” ploy we’ve seen so often lately – a good rule of thumb is that anyone who starts babbling about “principles” is trying to shaft you. You will inevitably observe that these often newly-discovered “principles” always apply to decrease your power, your rights and your wealth, yet never, ever, apply to the hustlers who are demanding that you observe them.

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