The debate about where the Republican Party goes from here is underway.  Some say that we should de-emphasize moral conservatism in favor of fiscal conservatism.  Others suggest the way to expand the tent is to de-emphasize both and submit to the "new reality" of our evolution into European-style fiscal and social policy.  The remaining option is to continue the "compassionate conservatism" of Bush, in which we maintain what morally conservative policies we can while being fiscally accommodating so as not to appear heartless--not a viable option given that we've lost two elections in a row on that plan.  Anything other than rebuilding on the foundation of fiscal and moral conservatism will end in failure because like bricks and mortar, one can't stand without the other.

Moral conservatism is the foundation upon which Republican principles are built.  What is fiscal conservatism without it?  How you handle money is a reflection of your morality.  Covetousness is the lifeblood of the consumer culture.  Marketing firms go to great lengths to convince us that we must have the latest, greatest, "new and improved" product today, for just ten easy payments of $19.99.  Billy Mays wouldn't be annoying us daily on television (in HD, no less) if the pitches didn't work.  Companies have made it easy for us to indulge ourselves by creating financing plans, credit cards, and the now infamous interest-only option ARM.  Thirty years of debt and leverage came to its logical conclusion this year as it all came down amidst a hearty cry of "Jenga!!!"  Now we see the government encouraging us to go back out and do more of what nearly blew up our economy in order to keep our economy from blowing up, and if we won't, they will!

An unexpected misfortune can strike anyone, but if you look at people in financial hardship in general, you will find one or more moral failings.  After all, anyone can find a roach in his house, but whether or not it becomes an infestation depends on the hygiene habits of the homeowner.  When you look at the lives of those in financial distress, you can often find plenty of roach food.  Single parenthood is the big financial killer.  Sometimes that happens through divorce, which is a moral failure of at least one party in the marriage.  Many times it's through carelessness that a woman finds herself pregnant and unmarried.  The government's foray into welfare programs had a tendency to aggravate this problem by providing a financial disincentive for the man involved to do the responsible thing.  In two-parent households, financial hardship is often associated with some kind of addictive behavior.  Alcohol, drugs and gambling are expensive hobbies and they tend to prevent career advancement, unless "prison laundry supervisor" is something you want on a resume.  Where single parenthood or addiction aren't present, any financial hardship not the result of pure, bad luck is the result of self-indulgence.  Tens of thousands of dollars worth of credit card bills don't just happen on their own.  That kind of professional indebtedness requires a lot of trips to the mall.  Bass boats and expensive SUVs don't just randomly park themselves in people's driveways.  People don't fall asleep in a trailer one night and wake up in a $500,000 McMansion.  Although, that could have happened with the right mortgage broker during the last couple years of the housing boom!  Financial roaches feast on bad decisions and anyone sitting in a 4,000 square-foot bad decision with rooms and a garage filled with more bad decisions all bought on credit is an infestation waiting to happen.

The predicament of the government is far worse.  The scale of the debt is practically unmanageable.  A typical consumer may have made five to ten years worth of bad decisions to build up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, but the government has had fifty years worth of bad decisions and now has over $10 trillion worth of roach food sitting around.  This year, the lights got turned on and the roaches scurried everywhere.  Rather than calling the exterminator, i.e., slashing spending and selling assets, their solution is to create additional roach food and distribute it into the world economy, hoping that enough roaches will scurry out of the kitchen in pursuit of it to make life tolerable for a while longer.  How much longer?  As long as foreign central banks are willing to fill their cupboards with it.

It is said somewhere that we get the government we deserve.  If we have a government "of the people," then it's only natural to expect our representatives to reflect the moral failures of the population.  The more morally lax the population becomes, the more government will spend more than it has and print or tax its way to making up the difference.  To give up moral conservatism is to give up fiscal conservatism, but how do Republicans regain power in a society that seems to be growing more morally permissive?  It is unlikely that simply trying to intellectually convince voters to become morally conservative will work on its own.  Life itself has a way of bringing about such change.  The addict doesn't change until faced with the painful outcome of the addiction.  A severe recession, or worse, can sear the psyche of a generation, doing what all the preaching in the world cannot, assuming government doesn't short-circuit the learning process in its misguided benevolence.  Many people will come out the other side with a new-found appreciation for conservative principles.  The Republican Party must be there waiting for them as the party of both moral and fiscal conservatism.

It's a staple of addiction programs that people often come to a "rock-bottom" moment before getting on the road to recovery.  Perhaps they lose the house, kill someone while driving drunk, get busted performing a lewd act in a dingy public restroom or, God forbid, even vote for Al Franken!  If he loses, they'll never see just how low they've sunk and they will go on to commit some other horror.  Most people have a low opinion of Congress, but they need something tangible on which to focus their dislike--a monster, if you will.  What could be a better monster than Frankensenator?  He is mean, dark, and as humorless as a re-animated corpse.  Sending him to Washington would surely be a rock-bottom political moment.

And so it begins.  Democrats are preparing to double down on the bailout of GM, Ford, and Chrysler.  Is it really so bad if these companies go bankrupt?  Will Toyota get money, too, if their condition deteriorates?  After all, they do build cars in America, too.  Bankruptcy is what these companies may really need to burn out their financial dead wood and rebuild in an economically sustainable way.  When the Japanese economy collapsed in the 1990s, there was a continuous effort to preserve insolvent banks and companies, which created zombie corporations that ate cash, rather than brains.  If the Big Three are preserved in their current state by successive government bailouts, they will never attain a corporate structure that can be competitive in this century.  They have cancer and the government is giving them palliative care.  It's time to give them a big dose of chemo and radiation and finally kill the cancer so that they can return to good health.

"Daniel answered and said: "Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.  He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding..." (Dan 2:20-21, ESV)

"The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men." (Dan 4:17, ESV)

"It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me." (Jer. 27:5, ESV)

Many Christians, particularly those who would call themselves "evangelical," have been praying that John McCain would win the election.  Well, it wasn't even close.  McCain was certainly not one of the favorites of the evangelicals during the primaries and the fact that such a prayer even happened is a funny twist of Providence.  If you'll remember, his campaign was practically bankrupt late last year.  He benefited from the campaign flops by Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson and the "friendly fire" Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee expended on each other.  He has always been a survivor.  If anyone were to look for a life story of someone who was destined to be President and do something pivotal in history, McCain's would make a great script.  Surviving shoot-downs, accidents, and the Hanoi Hilton to come home and build a long Senate career and then finally survive a difficult primary in order to run against a compelling, but unknown, opponent is the stuff of movies.

On the other side, the Invisible Hand seems to be at work in Barack Obama's rise.  Until 2004, he was a young, Illinois state senator.  He would have likely stayed such, but the Republican favored to win the US Senate seat from Illinois had a nasty divorce and ended up dropping out, leaving the Republicans without a credible candidate.  The election was a cakewalk for Obama.  Along comes the 2008 primary and like McCain, Obama starts out way behind.  He certainly piqued the interest of many, but he was so young and nobody could possibly defeat the well-oiled machine of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  It turned out that the machine had a factory defect--Bill Clinton.  His mouth, combined with losses on Super Tuesday gave Obama the traction he needed to hang onto a lead to the end and slay the Clinton dragon.

And so we got through the conventions with two candidates who could claim that the Invisible Hand was guiding them to the Presidency.  Then a meteor hit Wall Street and trillions of dollars in assets went to money heaven, or in the case of the lower-rated assets, money hell.  McCain was successfully tacking against a headwind of negative sentiment for Republicans, but got swamped by the rogue wave on Wall Street and foundered.  The glimmer of a miracle appeared in the last weeks, but it was not to be, and he went to the bottom with all hands aboard.  So, if God has ordained Obama to be the President, to what purpose?  He does nothing without some greater purpose in mind.  We shall see in the coming years whether that purpose was for good or ill.