This has been crossposted at Carolina Politics Online

South Carolina Republicans aren’t planning a statewide meeting to get input into their national party platform, but the party still plans to welcome all suggestions submitted online.

The GOP is inviting people to create an account on the Web site, www.GOPPlatform2008.com, where they can then participate in polls and submit platform ideas.

State GOP Chairman Katon Dawson said the Internet outreach will improve the transparency of the platform process, and he hopes that it will give more people a sense that they own it.

The Post and Courier

They still don’t know???  For God’s sake conservatives have only been screaming about it for how many years now.  They want low taxes, low government spending, a truly free market (not this federally backed crap we have now that is failing), individual responsibility and personal freedom and liberty!  Basically, everything that neither the national party nor the South Carolina Republican Party stands for now, but lies to voters claiming they do!  The Republican Party is obviously run by blind and deaf gimps because this message has been out there from the grassroots for a hell of a long time.  It’s nothing new and the party clearly isn’t listening or simply doesn’t care because just yesterday 21 Republicans in the U.S. Senate and over 100 Republicans in the House voted against Bush’s veto of the Medicare bill that would have cut doctor’s payments with our tax dollars by 10%.  Medicare and Social Security are the two biggest entitlements that are going to bankrupt this country.

WASHINGTON - Tony Snow, a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush’s press secretary, died Saturday of colon cancer. He was 53.

“America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character,” President Bush said in a statement from Camp David, where he was spending the weekend. “It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work.”

Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program Fox News Sunday from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying “the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I’m ever going to have.”

Associated Press

I think a lot of us knew that when he stepped down as the White House Press Secretary the prognosis wasn’t good.  Tony Snow was a great reporter, not because of his conservative views, but because of his honesty.  He was a no-nonsense, no-spin reporter and gave you the facts the way they really were.  He didn’t spar with White House reporters as Daniel claims; he simply didn’t allow them to play their manipulative word games and inject their opinion as fact into their questioning like much of the liberal media today.  It was refreshing to have him at the White House because you knew he wasn’t going to be just another Bush mouthpiece.  He was going to give it to you straight.

Another great fighter for freedom and liberty has been lost today.

RALEIGH - Former U.S. Sen. Jesse A. Helms, the son of a Monroe police chief who rose to national prominence as one of the leading lions of the American right, died early this morning. He was 86.

During a political career that began with his election to the Raleigh City Council in the late 1950s and included 30 years in the U.S. Senate, Jesse Alexander Helms endeared himself to conservatives throughout the country.

Helms became known as “Senator No” for his constant battles against everything from increased government spending to civil rights legislation to communism to the National Endowment for the Arts. Helms was even willing to wage war against fellow Republicans if he felt they were straying from the conservative agenda, particularly in the area of foreign policy.

The News & Observer

Putting aside the racial issues associated with Helms, he was a model conservative for standing up to the excesses of government and for standing on principle.  He wasn’t even afraid to go after members of his own party, which I always found quite admirable.  I wish we could have more representatives in the GOP with his courage and character.

As the GOP in Congress appears about to be taking an “every man for himself” strategy for the fall elections, Gallup has just given the Republicans another gift (Americans Oppose Income Redistribution to Fix Economy). The results of this poll show that if the GOP ever gets back to preaching and adhering to the simple message that they used to have — one that they’ve previously ridden to victory on — they’d be shoe-ins in 2008. Whether or not the Republicans have cleaned their own house enough to take advantage of something like this remains to be seen.Barack Obama is running on an economic platform that promises to “restore fairness to the tax code”. On the same page of his campaign website that that quote came from, Obama also refers to Bush’s “Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class”. Put the two of them together and the message that Obama is sending to the public is that he wants to take money from the wealthy and give to the middle class - the very definition of the “Income Redistribution” that this Gallup poll measures public opinion on. Obama doesn’t even have to actively do much for this redistribution to happen - all he has to do is let the Bush tax cuts expire.The numbers in this poll are staggering. Overall, Americans are against the core principle behind Barack Obama’s domestic economic policy — income redistribution — by an astounding 84% to 13%. Republicans oppose it 90%-9%, Independents oppose it 85% to 13%, and even Democrats oppose it 77% to 19%.

American Thinker

It’s really no mystery why 1994 was the year that it was for the Republican Party.  Americans want less taxes.  They want less government.  They want people to be responsible for their actions and the Republican Party gave them that option that year and the voters ran with it.

Unless I’m mistaken, all of these results show support for - dare I say it - Reagan-brand conservatism. Even after all this time — after all the liberal garbage that the Democrats and the media relentlessly shove in our faces — when the public is faced with an economic crisis, Reagan’s conservative message of low taxes and limited government still wins.

So the question remains, why then are so many voters flocking to Barack Obama when he clearly doesn’t represent their beliefs?  I think the answer to that is simple.  The GOP no longer represents those beliefs either.  Bush flushed all our success down the toilet and the Congress joined in so it’s also no mystery why in the past couple of years people have been running from the GOP screaming.

Think about it.  In 1994 the Republicans promised to cut entitlement spending and they did.  Bush expanded entitlement spending by historical numbers.  Republicans promised a balanced budget and delivered.  In fact, the national debt was decreasing during the 1990s.  Bush has almost doubled the debt.  In 1994 Republicans promised less government and a more open government.  The Bush administration has grown government by record levels and has been one of the most secretive administrations in history while the GOP Congress during his administration has been rife with corruption.  Why would any rational thinking person want more of this?

Obama isn’t doing so well because Americans want to turn to Socialism as a cure.  He is simply the “anything but another Republican” candidate.  I don’t know what’s going to happen in November, but the odds are against McCain winning unless something really damning comes out against Obama.  What I do know is that the Republican Party needs to take advantage of the next few years and start pulling itself back together and rebranding themselves with that 1994 image that we all fell in love with.  People want fiscal conservatism and personal liberty.  They don’t want wreckless spending and gay marriage amendments.  The Republicans need to build again from the ground up in places that used to be fertile GOP territory, but now where scarcely a Republican can be found.  There is one Republican House member in all of New England and he is a poor example anyway.  They’re down to only a handful of Congressional seats in New York and California and the party hasn’t been competitive in Presidential races in those two states in 20 years.  They’re beginning to slip in the south and the west and starting to lose suburbia.

I have no doubt that if Obama wins he’ll be a one term wonder.  He’s going to completely bomb just like Carter did.  In fact, his administration won’t be any different than Carter’s other than Obama won’t have a retarded brother running around embarrassing him in public.  If the GOP can get its act together they can make some gains back in 2010 and then go for the full monty in ‘12, but it’s going to have to happen from the ground up.  The folks in leadership aren’t going to do it so it’s up to the people on the ground to start making the noise.

I wonder what this is all about?

Finally! I’ve been waiting for these. The annual ratings of the American Conservative Union are out for 2007. Who stood by principle? Who didn’t? Who may as well just become a Democrat? All that and more will be covered. Read on.

Starting with the Senate, there are five Republican Senators who scored a perfect 100 for 2007. I doubt any of these names will surprise you:

• John Barrasso (R-WY)
• Tom Coburn (R-OK)
• Jim DeMint (R-SC)
• James Inhofe (R-OK)
• Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

The lowest scoring Republican should also be of no surprise. That is Maine Senator Olympia Snowe who scored a 28. She actually scored lower than two Democrats. The highest scoring Democrat has changed this year. In years past it has always been Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) but he was beaten this year by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) who scored a 40. John McCain got an 80 for last year. And these so called moderate Democrats have turned out to be not so moderate. Bob Casey (D-PA) showed us how conservative he was with a rating of 8. John Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA) both scored a 16. Evan Bayh (D-IN) got a 12. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) also got an 8.

Presumptive Democrat Presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-IL) scored a 7 and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) scored a big fat ZERO.

In the House there were lots of hundreds! I guess being in the minority makes principle a priority again.

• Trent Franks (R-AZ-02)
• John Shadegg (R-AZ-03)
• Jeff Flake (R-AZ-06)
• John Doolittle (R-CA-04)
• George Radanovich (R-CA-19)
• Devin Nunes (R-CA-21)
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22)
• Ed Royce (R-CA-40)
• Gary Miller (R-CA-42)
• Duncan Hunter (R-CA-52)
• Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO-04)
• Doug Lamborn (R-CO-05)
• Tom Tancredo (R-CO-06)
• John Mica (R-FL-07)
• LynnWestmoreland (R-GA-03)
• Tom Price (R-GA-06)
• John Linder (R-GA-07)
• Nathan Deal (R-GA-09)
• Paul Broun (R-GA-10)
• Phil Gingrey (R-GA-11)
• Bill Sali (R-ID-01)
• Dennis Hastert (R-IL-14)
• Donald Manzullo (R-IL-16)
• Steve King (R-IA-05)
• Richard Baker (R-LA-06)
• Charles Boustany (R-LA-07)
• Tim Walberg (R-MI-07)
• Mike Rogers (R-MI-08)
• John Kline (R-MN-02)
• Michelle Bachmann (R-MN-06)
• Todd Akin (R-MO-02)
• ScottGarrett (R-NJ-05)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Steve Chabot (R-OH-01)
• Jim Jordan (R-OH-04)
• Robert Latta (R-OH-05)
• John Boehner (R-OH-08)
• John Sullivan (R-OK-01)
• Frank Lucas (R-OK-03)
• Tom Cole (R-OK-04)
• Mary Fallin (R-OK-05)
• Joe Pitts (R-PA-16)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• David Davis (R-TN-01)
• Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07)
• Louis Gohmert (R-TX-01)
• Sam Johnson (R-TX-03)
• Jeb Hensarling (R-TX-05)
• John Culberson (R-TX-07)
• Kevin Brady (R-TX-08)
• Mac Thornberry (R-TX-13)
• Randy Neugebauer (R-TX-19)
• Michael Burgess (R-TX-26)
• John Carter (R-TX-31)
• Rob Bishop (R-UT-01)
• Robert Wittman (R-VA-01)
• Thelma Drake (R-VA-01)
• Eric Cantor (R-VA-07)
• Doc Hastings (R-WA-04)
• Cathy McMorris (R-WA-05)
• Barbara Cubin (R-WY-AL)

The lowest scoring RINOs were Mike Castle (R-DE-AL) and Chris Shays (R-CT-04) both with a score of 20. The highest scoring Democrat was Gene Taylor (D-MS-04) with a score of 72. I also took interest in some of these supposed “conservative” Democrats that picked up many Republican seats in 2006. Heath Shuler (D-NC-11) got a 44. Nick Lampson (D-TX-22) scored a 20. Tim Mahoney (D-FL-16) scored a 16. Nancy Boyda (D-KS-02) got a 28. Joe Donnelly (IN-02) got a 44.

This isn’t on YouTube as far as I can see, and I can’t embed code for the site this video comes from, but you should go here and watch the entire excellent speech Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) gave today on the Senate floor.

Just reported a few minutes ago on The Corner.

Joshua Gross, former head of the South Carolina Club for Growth, and my co-worker on the Fred Thompson campaign, has returned to the world of blogging.

Check out his new blog The Columbia Conservative for any and all news on South Carolina politics and RINO hunting everywhere.

February 7th-9th at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. This will be the 6th consecutive CPAC I’ve attended, and the third time that SavetheGOP has had a place on Blog Row. Unfortunately, it looks like I’ll be alone in representing the blog this time around.

This year’s CPAC promises to be one of the best in a while. Following his famous snub of the conference last year, John McCain will apparently be in attendance. Even more surprising though, is that President Bush will speak to the attendees on Friday morning. This will be the first time a sitting American President has addressed CPAC since Ronald Reagan in 1988.

I will be very interested to see what type of reception both the President and Senator McCain receive from the attendees.

One final point. Following the outrage after her remarks last year, Ann Coulter will not be a featured speaker at this year’s CPAC for the first time I can remember. However, she will still be in attendance at a “Q&A” organized by YAF and a few other organizations that will not be part of the main program. I guess it’s a start.

John McCain will apparently attend CPAC next week. This is a tremendous move in the right direction for his campaign in its efforts to get the conservative base behind him.

But this will not be the first time McCain has attended CPAC. In 1974, Ronald Reagan gave the first of his many CPAC addresses, which is probably one of the finest speeches he ever gave in public life. But most importantly, it began with this:

There are three men here tonight I am very proud to introduce. It was a year ago this coming February when this country had its spirits lifted as they have never been lifted in many years. This happened when planes began landing on American soil and in the Philippines, bringing back men who had lived with honor for many miserable years in North Vietnam prisons. Three of those men are here tonight, John McCain, Bill Lawrence and Ed Martin. It is an honor to be here tonight. I am proud that you asked me and I feel more than a little humble in the presence of this distinguished company.

If John McCain leads by reminding CPAC attendees of this, then he will have the crowd from the moment his speech begins.

As RedState puts it, “The Craptacular Capitulation of a Lame Duck.”

WASHINGTON — President Bush is unlikely to defy Congress on spending billions of dollars earmarked for pet projects, but he will probably insist that lawmakers provide more justification for such earmarks in the future, administration officials said Monday. (story here)

Translation: “Don’t do it again! But I’m going to let you do it just this once…” (Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle snicker with glee)

Fiscal conservatives in Congress and budget watchdogs have been urging Mr. Bush to issue an executive order instructing agencies to disregard the many earmarks listed just in committee reports, not in the text of legislation.

More than 90 percent of earmarks are specified that way, not actually included in the texts. White House officials say such earmarks are not legally binding on the president.

Emphasis mine. The next logical step for a real conservative President would be to gut these non-binding earmarks, right? Well, yeah, but Bush isn’t exactly a conservative President.

Congressional leaders of both parties, who are scheduled to meet on Tuesday with the president, said Mr. Bush would provoke a huge outcry on Capitol Hill if he ignored those earmarks.

Waaaaah! We want our pork and we want it now!

Lawmakers, including the House Republican whip, Roy Blunt of Missouri, have cautioned the White House that a furor over earmarks could upend Mr. Bush’s hopes for cooperation with Congress on other issues, including efforts to revive the economy.

Moreover, Republicans shudder at the possibility that a Democratic president might reject all their earmarks.

Again, all emphases are mine. Heaven forbid a Democratic president striking favors earmarks from a bill! Why? Well, because there’s an “R” next to that legislator’s name!

So it goes. Fiscal conservatism, who needs it?

Fred Thompson was the ONLY candidate (well, serious candidate, Ron Paul did as well) to say outright that he would issue the executive order against these “air-dropped” earmarks.

Ridiculousness like this is why people like me aren’t taking the “but you’ll let Hillary win!!” line when it comes to the “Republican” candidates.

What’s the difference, honestly?

Sen. McCain will interfere in the market (and give taxpayer dollars to people who lose manufacturing jobs - so why would they look for another one?), be against tax reform, embrace Al Gore’s Global Warming Government Expansionist argument, and appoint judges who will side with him on McCain-Feingold - meaning not judges like Alito, Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas. He’ll close Guantanamo Bay and argue that intense interrogation of terrorists to save American lives is actually “torture.” Not to mention, he has a temper and a vindictiveness similar to that of the Clintons.

Gov. Romney still supports the federal “assault weapons” ban. He’s an advocate of government mandates for healthcare (see RomneyCare). He recently said he was disappointed that there wasn’t a federal program to help Detroit automakers, and basically pledged to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to “save” Detroit if he becomes President. Michigan voted for him, so they will expect results. He’s a friend of Ted Kennedy. I haven’t even touched his convenient “conversion” to social conservatism - he turns me off enough today with stuff he’s saying now, so his “change of heart” is just icing on the cake.

Huckabee? Do I really have to go to the John Edwards wannabe? Yeah, he’ll be a real strong advocate for fiscal conservatism and limited government, let me tell ya! (snark off). Not to mention he’s one of the most immature, unserious candidates on either side of the race.

If we’re going to give this country to statists, by all means do it under the Democratic banner, not the Republican one.

UPDATE: Stop The ACLU has more of this line of thinking, referencing Stephen Bainbridge and even Rush Limbaugh.

UPDATE II: The Club for Growth has more details on the fallout from this move by the Bush Administration, and a round-up of conservative response around the blogosphere and in the media.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin has an excellent round-up of McCain’s ridiculous position on illegal immigration, which I failed to mention originally.

After writing a comment listing my beef with Sen. McCain and Gov. Huckabee here, I found an article by Mark Levin at National Review Online reminding conservatives how much Sen. McCain has ticked off conservatives, lest we forget:

The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider:

McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

McCain-Reimportantion of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).

….
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.
McCain also led the Gang of 14, which prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.

Levin also takes on Sen. McCain’s “saving grace,” his defense strength, and points out significant flaws in his approach in this realm as well.

Conservatives beware. If nothing else, just remember how ticked off you were in 2007 about the Senate and President’s attempt to circumvent the clear wishes of the American people and pass a reckless “comprehensive” immigration bill, with McCain leading the charge.

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who helped broker a bipartisan immigration bill that went down to defeat this year despite President Bush’s support for it, will run to replace Lott as the Republicans’ vote-counting whip, said spokesman Ryan Patmintra.

While some might like to think that one of the freshman, like Coburn or DeMint, would be better for the position, the Senate is an old boys network. Some will cry foul over Kyl’s recent statements on immigration, but over his time in the Senate he has established himself as a pretty darn reliable conservative on everything from limited government to Supreme Court nominations. If he gets a challenger, it will probably be from an old bull who thinks he has accumulated enough owed favors to get the position, and that person would almost certainly not be even close to as friendly to the right as Kyl is.

Well here is a shocker, there IS a liberal media bias according to a recent study done by Harvard.

Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.

Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which “produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans.”

Of all media outlets newspapers were the worst.

The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.

Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. “Obama’s front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton’s was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative.”

In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative.

But, but Republicans have cable news…

The gap between Democrats and Republicans narrows on cable TV, but it’s there nonetheless. Stories about Democrats were positive in more than a third of the cases, while Republicans were portrayed favorably in fewer than 29%. Republican led in unfriendly stories 30.4% to 25.5%.

CNN was the most hostile toward Republicans, MSNBC, surprisingly, the most positive. MSNBC was also the most favorable toward Democrats (47.2%), Fox (36.8%) the most critical.

And what about talk radio?

Even talk radio, generally considered a bastion of conservatism, has been relatively rough on the GOP. On conservative shows, Obama got more favorable treatment (27.8%) than Rudy Giuliani (25%). Sen. John McCain got a 50% favorability rating while Mitt Romney led the three GOP candidates with 66.7%.

Conservatives know it is always a stacked deck going into an election year. Acting like Democrats only garners temporary media favor. In the long run conservatism can only win on the issues and avoiding the “game” of politics as the article puts it. Senator Fred Thompson is the only candidate taking this path.

Since last November’s elections gave Democrats control of Congress, DeMint has ascended from virtual obscurity to leader of the most conservative bloc of Senate Republicans.

That role was boosted this year when DeMint’s GOP peers chose him to head the Senate Steering Committee, a Republican caucus of conservative firebrands co-founded in 1974 by then-U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

DeMint’s “this is amnesty” dismissal of a bipartisan immigration bill in May ignited a nationwide conservative firestorm that burned his fellow S.C. Republican, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, discomfited other GOP senators — and led to the measure’s defeat.

Both before and since the immigration imbroglio, DeMint has angered veteran senators from both parties.

DeMint, 55, has blocked a series of spending bills in an effort to rid them of “earmarks” — funding for lawmakers’ pet projects, often inserted anonymously and at the very end of the legislative process.

“There’s some things that I feel like have to be done, and I’m not in the mood to wait until the next election,” DeMint said in an interview. “We as Republicans have to act like Republicans. Earmark reform is a key part of our agenda and needs to stay in the forefront.”

The National Journal, an influential political magazine in Washington, published a long cover story about DeMint last month.

Entitled “Hard Right,” the profile detailed how DeMint aides scrub virtually every piece of legislation moving through the Senate, looking for clauses that violate core conservative principles of small government, low taxes and free enterprise.

The State

There is a lot more in the article on the accomplishments Jim DeMint has made in just two and a half years in the Senate.  He sticks to what he knows is right and doesn’t take any crap from his phony “conservative” colleagues.  He is a model to every Republican in Washington and they would mold themselves in his image we would have no problem taking back Congress and keeping it for many prosperous decades to come.

Since quite a few of us on this blog are from or are blessed to live in Georgia I thought I would post this up. There is a new porkbusters blog specifically tailored to the state of Georgia and the hogs that inhabit Atlanta, www.gaporkbusters.org. It should be fun to watch the fat cats squirm in the coming months as their sweetheart deals and corruption is exposed.

Welcome to the Georgia Porkbusters!

The Porkbusters were started by Glenn Reynolds (aka the InstaPundit) and NZ Bear from Truth Laid Bear. You can read some of the history here.

The Georgia Porkbusters were created in 2007 in response to the Georgia House stuffing the 2007 Supplemental Budget with over $214 million in pork barrel spending. Our mission is to highlight how your money is wasted under the Gold Dome and who is responsible for the wasting.

The Porkbuster’s logo is copyright someone else. When I find out who they are I’ll credit them here.

The Club for Growth has organized a petition of 1028 economists that are united in their belief that new barriers to trade must not be enacted by this congress. They warn that new proposed tariffs imposed on our second largest trading partner China would have a ruinous effect on the economy not only of this country but of the entire world.

Why 1028 economists? Well that is the exact same number that signed a petition way back in 1930 to encourage President Hoover and congress not to enact the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. We all know how well that last petition worked out, let’s hope this country’s leaders have learned something in the last 77 years.

As an aside that is mostly relevant to Alex, Langley and myself two professors from Georgia Tech signed the petition: Li Haizheng and Christine Ries neither of whom I have heard of before, but will keep my eye out for from now on. As for the other alama maters of Save the GOP:

Drexel University: Bang Jeon and Joseph R. Mason
George Washington University: John Berthoud, Donald O. Parsons, Joseph Pelzman, Michael Wiseman, and Yang Jiawen

Some of the more prominent names to sign the petition include: Dick Armey, Daniel Drezner, Bryan Caplan & Arnold Kling, Mark Perry, Grover Norquist, Donald Luskin, John L. Barry, Eric Rasmusen, Don Boudreaux, Bill Conerly, Roy Cordato, Michael Cosgrove, Stephen Entin, David Gitlitz, John Goodman, Monty Graham, Wendy and Sen. Phil Gramm and their son Marshall Gramm, Robert Hall, Glenn Hubbard, Andrei Illarionov, Tim Kane, Raymond Keating, Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer, John Landon, Thomas Lenard, Philip Levy, Greg Mankiw, Lawrence McQuillan, Marc Miles, James Miller III, Adrian Moore, Ramon Myers, Richard Rahn, David Ranson, Michael Rizzo, Harvey Rosen, Paul Rubin, John Rutledge, Gary Shilling, George Shultz, Vlad Signorelli, John Silvia, David Tuerck, Richard Vedder, Alan Viard, Elizabeth Webbink, David Weiskopf, Brian Wesbury (PDF), Walter Williams, Richard Zecher, Benjamin Zycher, not to mention Nobel Laureates Finn Kydland, Edward Prescott, Thomas Schelling and Vernon Smith.

You may recognize some but not all of these names, but they are a mix of accomplished academics, think tank analysts, research consultants, investors, bloggers, free market advocates, businessmen, and former government officials who understand that when you artificially raise the price of the flow of goods between two countries you stifle economic growth in both lands.

Some interesting trivia emerged has I scanned over the list of economists who lent their names to the petition. Firstly, like I said before this was an eclectic mix of people, not merely economists at elite universities who are applying theory to a real world issue. This gives the petition more weight than if only professors had signed it, though their contribution was equally necessary.

Secondly, I was slightly surprised at the large number of economists with a Chinese or other East Asian background who had signed onto the free market statement. I wasn’t surprised that they existed, because Chinese and East Asian nationals, immigrants and Americans of such ancestry represent a large proportion of the modern academy both here and abroad. Nor was I surprised that they were willing to sign a petition supporting free trade, but the numbers were higher than I had expected.

The Chinese community in America generally leans left, though this is a difficult statement to support at times because Chinese-Americans have very diverse histories and therefore have divergent interests. In a casual count, out of the 1028 economists listed, 75 had a Chinese surname or first name (usually just married women in this case) which I counted as having some cultural affinity at some level to China and the Chinese world abroad. This does not of course include women who had a western first name before they were married so there might be a bit of an undercount but I feel it is better to lean to the side of caution in this case. This only represents 7% of the petitioners but for an academically slanted group to begin with that is surprising amount of free market support on this issue.

When all East Asians are considered, with some Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai names thrown in, the numbers are even higher, though the Chinese names represent the greatest among them. Out of the 1028 economists, a rough total of 101 were of East Asian origin or 9.8%. I don’t know if these numbers are in or out of the norm, but they are food for thought.

So why am I even talking about this? Because this issue has brought non-traditional conservatives to the “right” side of a free market issue. Now I don’t think a single one of these economists with an East Asian background signed the petition because China (and other parts of East Asia) loomed large as places that would be devastated by stiff tariffs. I think they signed it because they believed in what was written down and nothing more. But I do think that this petition is a microcosm of what is happening in the country as whole in terms of attitude adjustments that are made based on self-interest but end up helping the general good as Adam Smith explained in 1776. When a group of economists who are Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese nationals look at this issue, even if they do lean slightly left, they are strongly compelled to respect reality and not support a policy that shoots their other interests (in this case economic growth back home) in the foot. This is more an issue with the general population than a tiny slice of an even tinier slice of economists, but it is nice to see nonetheless.

Of late, I have found myself often in the midst of arguments amongst conservatives, libertarians, and other inhabitants of the centre-right cantina, and have found a recurring theme concerning what is the ultimate end of politics. The answer tends to be Liberty. That in our course of political events, we should seek to maximize liberty. Yet, I believe there is an undercurrent of disagreement here about what defines liberty. Certainly, we are not looking for some libertine oasis of do whatever you want, but rather we seek “The Good Life.” Which is to say some mixture of order and liberty that is most conducive to people leading The Good Life.

Libertine excesses were the French Revolution model, whereas the American Revolution was, at its heart, a conservative revolution designed to give the true vigorous liberty of rights and responsibilities. What say you STG readers about what is the highest end of politics?