Barring some BIG or BREAKING news, this will be the last post of 2012.
Thanks to all of you for reading, commenting, spreading the links, and creating what I’m convinced is the best online community.
Next year should be, ahem, interesting.
We have been going through a thought process here as to where to take Legal Insurrection and College Insurrection. While that process is not yet completed, suffice it to say we’re not complacent or planning on pulling back. I’d welcome your thoughts in that regard.
I received an email today from a Cornell undergraduate student which lifted my spirits:
Dear Professor,
It was with great joy that I found your blog last night. You are a breath of fresh air on this campus. Thank you very much for sharing your opinions and please keep up the good fight! Perhaps I will run into you one day on the Hill.
That’s why we fight. Not for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.
Happy New Year to you all.
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Into the breach! Reload!
Happy New Years Insurrectionists. Raises glass to toast Professor and the Insurrection Contributors for fighting the good fight every day. Raises glass again to toast the wonderful people who comment, tweet and retweet insightful and witty bits of wisdom to add to the experience. It is indeed an amazing online community.
Cheers 🙂
Happy New Year! Alright Jacobson let’s get after them in ’13. Be cheerful everyone if anything it aggravates the hell out of them.
Until big pharma sees fit to produce Valium in salt lick form, this blog is our only prayer for sanity for the next four years.
I’ll voice what I fear is a minority view.
The Left ran a brilliant campaign while we were clueless, smug, or in denial. However, they had such a bad hand to play that their efforts would have been inadequate without our incompetence. They won. We lost.
The last bit of political capital created by Ronald Reagan is gone. His lessons and example, especially his optimism, remain but we’re starting from scratch.
Caveats: Don’t whine. Don’t dis the voters. Don’t bash the Left to the point of self-distraction. Don’t form a circular firing squad. Don’t blame RINOs for everything. Eschew magical thinking and respect data.
Suggested priorities: As Newt said on Meet the Press, we must reconnect with the life situations of typical Americans, and not by haranguing them. Post-Reagan conservatives have been terrible at coalition politics, which they urgently need to learn: the point is to get our way on essentials while keeping partners/voters better off within the coalition than outside. The conservative coalition should be renegotiated with win-win’s in mind (not winner take all), and the GOP coalition should be renegotiated similarly.
These priorities are less exhilarating than mocking the Left or bashing RINOs, but IMO they are necessary if conservatism is to recover its place as America’s political baseline.
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Previously, here and there at LI, I’ve posted specific ideas, but I’ve intentionally left them out of this post.
Happy New Year.
“Why we fight…” – I think that would be a very good theme. For the older generation, they’ll ‘get’ it.
For the younger generations (who we’re really fighting for) – they need to understand that we’re on their side, even when they’re not.
“Why we fight…” – with examples. As Newt said – connect with people. With examples. That’s where Obama is so brilliant – he can use an anecdote and a photo-op to avoid talking about a catastrophe. We need to fight back with anecdotes and examples.
A good New Year to all and a great big thanks to Prof. Jacobson. I shall lift a glass in his honor at 12 o’clock sharp.
My resolution: I will keep up working toward breaking the regressive propaganda machine.
I challenge everyone to join me in this. Work in your own sphere of influence, you know it best. Don’t let any regressive propaganda article, op-ed, comment go unchallenged. Show our silent supporters that they are not alone! Show our enemy that their days of acting with impunity are over! Recruit everyone you can. Take over the narrative. Be sneaky, be remorseless, make them hate us. Internalize Alinsky!
Forward!
As a high school graduate I consider my small monthly donation to this blog tuition for an unaccredited law course, with a bonus minor in Rock-n-roll.
I hope everyone here has an unexpectedly fantastic 2013. My resolution is to hector & cajole liberals who should have paid more attention in history class.
Happy New Year to all conservative compatriots.
Was Hillary injured during a secret trip to Iran? The EUTIMES reports a rumor circulating in Moscow.
EUTimes is an iffy source at best.
Good Professor,
“The Legal Insurrection” has supplanted “The National Review” as my go-to place to stand athwart history and kick it in the nuts.
Happy New Year!
LI is cruiseless.
Go to bed already, you bunch of drunkies!
Six more months and we should see a drunken Professor swinging from a chandelier at the LI summer convention in Las Vegas.
And remember: Whatever happens at the LI summer convention in Vegas, stays plastered all over the internet for eternity!!
I’m still pushing for Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Happy New Year. I miss Guy Lumbardo.
Happy New Year, Professor & all! (Not a drinker, Luke. lol My dogs dragged me out of bed. Into the rain. ergh…glub glub) Little monsters.
Dear Prof. Jacobson, as you ask for input, here’s a very rough not very well thought out rambling response. I write with great enthusiasm and gratitude for both LI and CI … and am thinking of how to move the influence of the blogs onto another playing field.
I am mostly a libertarian, but often vote using a modified Buckley principle – choose the most electable Constitutional candidate.
I don’t want to throw my lot in with republicans because the GOP is not libertarian. (The Democrat Party is beneath consideration.)
I’m not in agreement with conservatives, either, if they seek to dictate social mores through the law.
It seems the most feasible course is to influence the Republican Party? But with a Constitutional platform.
This platform should be drafted. Could be an internet exercise or via conventions.
Major venue for activating the platform – the college campus. Ideal recruitment is via a Speakers Bureau targeted to campuses with student recruitment booths set up.
Maybe recruit bloggers as speakers? Particularly bloggers who want to sell books. Smart PR with good book sales stats could get this working? Wouldn’t it be great to have Mark Steyn come to Cornell? Get townies there too and sell hundreds of books?
Maybe I should stop there. As a first target — a Campus Speakers Bureau for Bloggers. Of course we want the Constitutionally inclined … and bloggers who want to increase influence and sell books.
A PR Bureau for Bloggers. Maybe such firms exist? But always influence can be increased.
Back to the larger scheme: other Speakers — Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Dennis Miller, etc. George Will giving his inspiring speech on religion and politics. (See at
http://rap.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/George-Will-lecture-text.pdf )
Local politicians, authors, educators, too. Debates can be set up for maximum promotional value.
Some professors are Constitutionally inclined. They could be vetted/recruited as advisers.
Articulate students (debate team stars) trained for a Student Speakers Bureau.
Training manuals written for trainers. Trainers recruited. Manuals revised as techniques work in various venues.
The idea is to grow a movement that will work for Constitutional goals. Even if there are only 100 students in 2014 and we all go to say Massachusetts to work for the most electable Constitutional candidate for US Senate. Or to the election where we are most likely to have influence. I know from experience if you with presence work for a candidate and your guy wins (plus a few other things are helpful) he’ll work with you in voting and in various helpful ways.
There are a lot of pieces left out of this … headquarters, money raising, etc.
I think too of an activist legal constituency where the volunteers work for lawyers (e.g. research) handling important Constitutional issues. This kind of thing must exist?
Some campus group that might start at Cornell? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist there as a few years ago I went to a Libertarian Party meeting in Ithaca and the Cornell student Libertarian was there. The only one, per his story.
(I’m a Tea Partier. But I don’t think the Tea Party at this point in time will work on a campus.)
Again, first draft, not very well thought out. But some way to move people with ideas that aren’t currently reaching them. If some of these activities/organizations exist, please post references. I’m happy to throw my lot in with something good already going on.