PAUL RYAN AND THE BATTLESHIP WISCONSIN

Mitt Romney’s introduction of Paul Ryan as his running mate occurred in an appropriate setting. The location was Norfolk, Virginia, and the retired battleship Wisconsin was in the background. Once the premier naval weapon, battleships are long past their heyday. In the 21st Century, battleships are an anachronism.

And that’s what the philosophy, intellectual underpinnings, worldview, economic predilections, and general outlook of today’s Republican Party, and conservatives, are: anachronisms. No one expressed it better than William F. Buckley, Jr. did in launching the conservative journal National Review in 1955: standing “athwart history, yelling Stop.”

So vote for Mitt and Paul. Return the nation to the past. Launch more battleships. Never mind that the Information Age is rendering pure Capitalism quaint, pure Socialism a chimera, the past just history. Don’t look forward; it’s too frightening. Grasp the past. Yes, that’s an ideal campaign slogan: Grasp the Past! Mitt and Paul, Back to the Future!