Cocktail Republicans Need to Go Found a New RINO Party with Romney at Head?

New York Times columnist David Brooks has a tendency to upset a lot of conservatives because he takes positions that are usually more moderated. And his reasoning in making a case for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney seems to be an instance of just that, pragmatism trumping ideology.

On Friday’s airing of “NewsHour” on PBS, Brooks explained that while the country is clamoring for a GOP presidential nominee like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, his nomination might not be the wisest thing for the country.

“Yes, I mean as Mark [Shields] says, [Christie] has this phenomenal, rare skill of talking about wonky issues in a normal way and that is just not something that comes along every day,” Brooks said. “And so he has that skill. But to follow Mark’s metaphor, I agree the Republican primary electorate wants the guy with the leather jacket. But I think the country wants the guy from the rotary club. I think they want the Mitt Romney guy, because we are in a very scary period.”

Brooks warned that if crisis strikes, an aggressive individual like Christie would be less effective than the more moderated Romney.

“I expect, before the election, there is going to be more bad news from Europe or somewhere else. And my presumption is, on elections, people always vote for the candidate who seems safer and more orderly,” Brooks continued. “Obama seemed more orderly than McCain after the financial meltdown. Bush seemed more orderly. Whether they are really going to want somebody like Chris Christie, who is rambunctious and big and not exactly orderly, I`m not convinced. I think the Republicans should be pretty happy with Romney.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/01/david-brooks-insists-republicans-should-be-pretty-happy-with-romney/#ixzz1Zcvu4hap

On the orderly class, Plato, "Statesman"

STRANGER: The difference between the two classes is often a trivial concern; but in a state, and when affecting really important matters, becomes of all disorders the most hateful.

YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?

STRANGER: To nothing short of the whole regulation of human life. For the orderly class are always ready to lead a peaceful life, quietly doing their own business; this is their manner of behaving with all men at home, and they are equally ready to find some way of keeping the peace with foreign States. And on account of this fondness of theirs for peace, which is often out of season where their influence prevails, they become by degrees unwarlike, and bring up their young men to be like themselves; they are at the mercy of their enemies; whence in a few years they and their children and the whole city often pass imperceptibly from the condition of freemen into that of slaves.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What a cruel fate!

STRANGER: And now think of what happens with the more courageous natures. Are they not always inciting their country to go to war, owing to their excessive love of the military life? they raise up enemies against themselves many and mighty, and either utterly ruin their native-land or enslave and subject it to its foes?

YOUNG SOCRATES: That, again, is true.

STRANGER: Must we not admit, then, that where these two classes exist, they always feel the greatest antipathy and antagonism towards one another?

YOUNG SOCRATES: We cannot deny it.

STRANGER: And returning to the enquiry with which we began, have we not found that considerable portions of virtue are at variance with one another, and give rise to a similar opposition in the characters who are endowed with them?

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: Let us consider a further point.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?

STRANGER: I want to know, whether any constructive art will make any, even the most trivial thing, out of bad and good materials indifferently, if this can be helped? does not all art rather reject the bad as far as possible, and accept the good and fit materials, and from these elements, whether like or unlike, gathering them all into one, work out some nature or idea?

YOUNG SOCRATES: To, be sure.

STRANGER: Then the true and natural art of statesmanship will never allow any State to be formed by a combination of good and bad men, if this can be avoided; but will begin by testing human natures in play, and after testing them, will entrust them to proper teachers who are the ministers of her purposes—she will herself give orders, and maintain authority; just as the art of weaving continually gives orders and maintains authority over the carders and all the others who prepare the material for the work, commanding the subsidiary arts to execute the works which she deems necessary for making the web.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.

Weaving the Republican peplos is never an easy task. It can be as difficult as Athena's defeat of Enceladus in the battle against the Gigantes.

Is Fear the Heart of Love?

...topic from Death Cab for Cutie, "I will follow you into the dark."

For there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there anything?' 'Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing.' 'Then,' she said, 'the simple truth is, that men love the good.' 'Yes,' I said. 'To which must be added that they love the possession of the good?' 'Yes, that must be added.' 'And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?' 'That must be added too.' 'Then love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?' 'That is most true.'

- Plato, "Symposium"
But isn't there a fear of separation from it as well?

Taqiyya's Western Faces