Rick Perry: A Compassionate Crook?

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Immigration, family rights, secession, and lies...

"Let me start off by saying that I’m not a Romney man. It seems to me that the media and even leading conservatives are making the mistake in turning this Republican primary into nothing more than a battle between Romney and Perry. This is wrong not simply because it excludes a pretty good field of candidates, but because it allows this race to be characterized as a race between a pragmatic moderate (Romney) and a Tea Party conservative (Perry). The problem with this thinking is that Perry’s not only the opposite of what the Tea Party movement supports, but also not a representation of conservative values.

Let me start by saying that I realize there’s bad blood between Perry and Bachmann. Both candidates are trying to court the Tea Party vote. Sadly, Rick Perry supporters jumped on the Perry bandwagon without knowing anything about hm, in part due to media hype and sensationalism, making them just as guilty in supporting an unvetted candidate as the Obama supporters of 2008. Nobody actually bothered to learn about Perry’s record or his past statements. People focused on how many jobs were created in Texas and nothing more.

Since his campaign began and he overshadowed Bachmann, Perry has been revealed to be the opposite of a Tea Party candidate. The Tea Party arose out of a distrust of government innovation, and a distrust of career politicians. Perry is the definition of a career politician, so much so that he switched parties because it was politically convenient. He abused his power as Governor of Texas, and lined the pockets of his friends. And let me just say that despite gaffs by Bachmann, Perry has consistently made a fool of himself; from supporting secession to calling the Fed chairman a traitor to his poor performance in debates to his outright lies about his reasons for supporting bad policies (like saying he supported an executive order to treat 12-year-old girls for STD-induced cancer because a cancer victim lobbied him, when in fact he didn’t even meet said woman until after the fact).

Is Perry really a conservative’s conservative? First off, let me say that in the party of Lincoln, secession should not even be a topic of discussion. Democrats supported slavery, secession, and segregation for a century and after Republicans did all the work of ending those things Democrats were able to turn around and act like they opposed those things the whole time in order to court black voters and demonize Republicans. Do we really want a man who fondly reflects on historically inaccurate portrayals of Texas’ “right” to leave the Union to be a face of the conservative movement or the GOP? The myth that Republicans and Democrats “switched” magically so all the racists and Dixiecrats are really conservative Republicans is so common to hear from leftists that think they know history; do we really need to give legitimacy to historically revisionist claims? Surely not. But that’s not Perry’s biggest problem.

Next, let’s look at his crony capitalism and weakness on illegal immigration. Rick Perry said that he was wrong for not consulting the Texas legislature before issuing an executive order mandating vaccinations of HPV for 12-year-old girls. Personally, there’s nothing more tiring than seeing Perry supporters bashing Bachmann online and seeing Fox News pundits like The Five’s Eric Bolling acting like whiny crybaby apologists for Perry’s abuse of power. What so-called conservatives don’t seem to get over the outrage over Perry’s executive order isn’t that he issued it without consulting the legislature, but that he issued it at all. Perry apologists seem to make the leap in logic that as long as the legislature supported state-mandated vaccinations, then it’s ok. Whatever happened to the belief in personal responsibility? This isn’t smallpox, it’s a cancer resulting from sexual activity, and Perry supporters basically invalidate their criticism of Romney’s healthcare mandate by supporting Perry’s vaccination mandate.

The truth is Perry didn’t actually apologize for what he did or admit he was wrong for using the state to push vaccinations; he only said he went about implementing it the wrong way. But of course he still did it out of the goodness of his heart, right? The facts show that he actually acted in the interest of cronyism and lined the pockets of his buddies in the drug business by pushing their product. Of course he’d never admit to that so he tried to mask his corruption with the pro-life banner, which I’ll get to later. But the fact is that we conservatives need to actually pay attention to what candidates do and support, and instead of swallowing whatever they feed us we should take everything with a grain of salt and a handful of skepticism. Perry still defends his action of using the state to decide health issues for citizens — children even, only admitting that how he went about using the state was wrong. It’s not the state’s role, it’s the role of families and their doctors, something both Romney and Perry failed to understand before running for president and running from their own history. And instead of reminding us that parents had an opt-out option, Perry sycophants need to ask themselves why parents should have even had to make such a choice to begin with.

And then there’s immigration. Conservatives believe in a pluralistic society, and as such any and all forms of multiculturalism are an assault on American society and the belief in integration. Amnesty and state socialism for illegal aliens and their children are not just wrong morally and counter to the belief in the rule of law, it’s fundamentally in opposition to the need to protect and defend American sovereignty. It’s immoral to take wealth from law-abiding citizens to rain wealth and benefits onto criminal aliens, it’s a slap in the face to families and individuals that wait patiently in line for their chance to come here legally, and it’s a signal to those who are in essence invaders that they can molest our borders and undermine our laws and in doing so only expect a handshake and a welfare check paired with college tuition. Perry refuses to support protecting our border and building a fence, and continues to use the same old tired logic of the left in this country that fences don’t work and that illegals will just find ladders to use. All the evidence has shown the contrary in areas where fences are built, and yet Perry refuses to do anything that he thinks might lose Hispanic votes.

And lastly, every time Perry makes a fool of himself, he’s got a convenient excuse. If he performs badly at a debate, he was just tired. Personally I find that his slow, turtle-paced answers to questions makes George W. Bush look like William F. Buckley. But that’s superficial, and he has legitimately evaded criticism and dodged his record consistently by trying to hide behind the same “compassionate conservative” mantra that drove so many of us conservatives crazy during George W. Bush’s tenure. He lied in the last debate about supporting state-mandated vaccinations after being lobbied by a cancer victim suffering from HPV. He did meet with said woman, but it was after he issued his executive order. Before that twisting of the truth he continued to coat himself in pro-life rhetoric to deflect Bachmann’s criticism of Perry, which had appealed to the audience’s opposition to subverting families and parents through the state, by trying to turn it into an issue of life and death. It wasn’t life and death, it was about corporatism and cronyism and Perry’s total disregard for the limits of government.

But a quid pro quo from drug companies wasn’t the only thing he’s tried to cover up with an appeal to life and moral obligation. As mentioned before, he’s supporting benefits for illegal aliens in Texas. He’s especially come under fire for granting in-state tuition to the children of illegal aliens. Now I could go on about the intent of the 14th Amendment, but the fact is that the children of illegals are not US citizens and are just as illegal. And instead of having integrity and standing up for American sovereignty, Perry gave funding to illegals for college on the taxpayer’s dime. And his justification was that we’re heartless if we don’t supporting state benefits for invaders because those poor kids are the real victims. I’m personally tired of politicians from either party telling me I don’t have a heart for supporting bad policies. Democrats use the race card any chance they get when they can’t win an argument, and Republicans since Bush have championed the “compassionate conservative” label so that they could win an argument. I hate the implication that being compassionate and being conservative are mutually exclusive. Conservatives seek to stop illegal immigration and stop giving benefits that encourage illegals to come here, and we do this because we’re compassionate towards our taxpayers and compassionate to legal immigrants.

Perry is just a stale politician. He supported Al Gore and then switched to being a Republican in Texas out of convenience. He’s abused his power to enrich his corporate pals and get campaign cash in return, and in doing so violated 12-year-old girls and undermined the authority of parents and families. He supported Obama-esque policies to “spread the wealth around” for illegal aliens, and in doing so picked the pockets of taxpayers and slapped legal immigrants in the face. He has, despite all the criticism Bachmann has received from Perry supporters, made a continuous fool of himself as a result of everything from his debate performances to public comments he’s made, and each time he finds a convenient excuse. When he’s arguing with Santorum, Texas can handle its border. When he wants to win favor with conservatives, he yells at Obama over how badly the situation is on the border.

And I resent the idea that Perry is under attack over nothing, and I wish his supporters would stop acting like sycophants and making excuses for their man, and actually start coming to terms with who the man is. He came in late and all anybody knew about him was that he supposedly made a bunch of jobs in Texas and that he was the ultimate Tea Party conservative. What has slowly come out is that he’s just a career politician, a corporatist crook and a phony conservative. This is what we conservatives hated about the election of Obama. When we don’t vet our candidates we’re just as guilty as Obama supporters that carried a Chicago thug into the White House thinking they’d get hope and change. We conservatives are supposed to be reserved, humble. Perry unfortunately galvanized many conservatives who were desperate for a perfect candidate, and said conservatives unfortunately gave up on examining the candidates we already had in exchange for a Republican version of Obama the Great.

And let me also say, we don’t need to deify candidates like the leftists do. No candidate is above criticism, and no candidate is perfect. What I wish conservatives, and even the media (including Fox News), would stop doing is treating this as a popularity contest and stop focusing on two bad frontrunners when we have plenty of good candidates in the race. Ron Paul is a Libertarian in Republican clothing, Huntsman is a left-leaning moderate, Romney is a right-leaning moderate, and Perry is a crook with no true political allegiance. We otherwise have four distinctly conservative candidates in Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Michelle Bachmann. Instead of waiting for a political messiah, we conservatives should look at some pretty good candidates that are already in the field."

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