Real Conservatives are Dismayed by the Republican House

Rod Dreher at the American Conservative:

When I think of the Republican Party, I don’t think of principled conservative legislators who are men and women of vision strategy. I think of ideologues who are prepared to wreck things to get their way. . . . They are a barking-mad pack of ideologues, is what they are.

Dreher cites one of Russell Kirk's canons of conservative thought:

Conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. . . . The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery. 

And then asks:

What are the probable long-run consequences of shutting the US Government down over Obamacare? Do the Congressional Republicans care? Do they care what kind of damage they are doing to the ability of Congress to legislate effectively on all kinds of matters? The damage they are doing to the economic stability of the United States? . . . I can’t see any good coming out of this, at least any good that stands to outweigh the bad.

But not everybody gets it. Republican hack Marc Thiessen has a column in the Post arguing that the Republicans are making a mistake by threatening a government shutdown, because nobody cares enough to make that a dangerous threat. Instead, they should threaten something much worse:

While Obama can let the government close and blame the GOP, he cannot allow the United States to default.  . . . the effects of default would be “catastrophic,” resulting in the “loss of millions of American jobs,” and would have an economic impact “potentially much more harmful than the effects of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.” Obama will not permit an economic crisis worse than 2008-09 and the “loss of millions of American jobs” on his watch. He has no choice but to negotiate with GOP leaders and cut a deal to avoid a government default.

That's some prudent thinking for you.