Posted on 10/14/2006 3:14:12 PM PDT by Paul Ross
GOP needs tough love, not abandonment
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By Star Parker, World Net Daily, October 14, 2006
A survey just released by the Pew Center shows that 51 percent of Democrats are enthusiastic about voting in 2006 as opposed to 33 percent of Republicans. This is almost a mirror image of what the picture looked like in 1994.
A Pew Center poll also shows a precipitous drop in support for Republicans and the Bush administration among white evangelicals. It's now a little over 50 percent, whereas in 2004 it was closer to 75 percent.
Given the realities staring us in the face, none of this is a surprise. I know that these polls reflect the facts accurately just from reading my mail.
Republicans and conservatives are fed up with their party and their representatives. But can it be that anything is better than what we now have?
I've gotten letters telling me that I've sold out, because I've written that we should not abandon the Republican Party because at least there is a chance of fixing it. What do we gain by allowing Democrats, who are wrong on everything, to regain power, just to express anger at wayward Republicans?
I'm as mad as everyone else. In fact, I think I've been madder – and mad longer – than everyone else.
I've been arguing for years that although the current administration pays lip service to traditional values, it has missed the central point that limited government is the other side of the same coin as traditional values.
Big government and a moral, traditional and genuinely free society simply cannot go together. It's worth remembering the observation of British historian Lord Acton that "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The correlation between the amount of power that we put in the hands of politicians and the tendency of those politicians to become corrupt is a human reality, not a partisan one. We can expect it from Republicans as well as Democrats.
Given the failure of the current Republican regime to limit government and to actually find reasons to grow it, what we're seeing today should come as no surprise.
Nevertheless, I still will argue that we shouldn't take our eye off the ball. Conservatives need to stay focused on what we, and all Americans, need – traditional values and limited government – and continue to push positively toward this end. Despair is no answer and will only make things work.
With all the comparisons to 1994, it shouldn't be forgotten that Republicans ran in 1994 on a positive agenda – the Contract with America. Americans voted for something in '94.
I'm adding nothing new to point out that there is no Democratic agenda in 2006. There are only Democrats looking for power and trying to grab it by taking advantage of Republican incompetence. Unfortunately, not a challenge.
We ought to think back further than 1994 and go back to 1976 when Jimmy Carter was elected president. There are a lot of similarities between what is happening now and the picture then.
The country was still traumatized by the aftermath of the Vietnam War, by having a president resign as result of the Watergate scandal, and what was then called the "energy crisis."
Carter was elected to bring fresh air to Washington. He sold himself as a man of the people who would bring decency back to Washington. Fed up Americans voted for him in hope that he would indeed bring back the fresh air that they wanted to breathe.
Unfortunately, like all so-called populists, what Carter really believed in was government and not people. To deal with our energy problems, he created a new Department of Energy. To deal with our education problems, he created a new Department of Education.
Four years later, we had double-digit inflation, 20 percent interest rates, a doubling of energy prices and Americans held hostage in Iran.
The country had to go through even greater trauma than it was in before the 1976 election to open the door for the Reagan era four years later.
Do we have to go through this again? Is the only path to electing Republicans who really believe in traditional values and limited government to throw out the current rascals, lock, stock and barrel, and elect Democrats who will show us how bad things really can get?
There is no question that current Republican leadership has lowered the bar, but let's not forgot just how free this country is. We ultimately get the leadership that we want and are willing to tolerate.
I think conservatives let our elected Republican officials off too easy these past years by tolerating an excessive growth of government that itself was symptomatic that there was a problem.
The answer is to get refocused, clarify our principles and fix the party.
The question is if we'll have to do it sitting on the sidelines while the Democrats turn what is bad into what is worse.
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After the election can we spank them and take away their golf time?
" Big government and a moral, traditional and genuinely free society simply cannot go together."
Yup. The fact that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is still in existence is proof enough that Republicans are no better than Democrats vis a vis big government. If I vote, it will be on the national security issue. The republicans have thrown all the others overboard attempting to hang onto power by bribery. Didn't work.
L
I would really like to do more.
Yup. The fact that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting [fill in blank of worthless Federal spending, from the Dept Education, DOE, to CPB & NPR, and National Endowment for the Arts, etc ] _____________ is still in existence is proof enough that Republicans RINO/BUSH-BOTs are no better than Democrats vis a vis big government.
We have been screaming at the GOP at the tops of our lungs for 6 years and while they have become more and more deaf. The answer is to throw a majority of the Republicans out and get fresh blood.
Anyone remember the "Contract with America?"
It doesn't look like the President or most of the GOP members of Congress do.
P.S. I tried as hard as I could to tell everyone that Bush wasn't the conservative that we really wanted but few listened.
That would be a really impressive statement if you could support it with a list of the "fresh blood" lining up to replace Republicans you'd like to through out.
"They are all a disgraceful and embarrassing bunch of reprobates who deserve neither our respect, nor our vote."
I will be voting for my Coloradan "disgraceful reprobates" on November 7, as I will always stand in the way of traitorous Socialists who wish to assume power in my country.
"What do we gain by allowing Democrats, who are wrong on everything, to regain power, just to express anger at wayward Republicans? "
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Exactly!
Get out and vote straight Republican. Don't help the Dems take over and destroy the country!
The last time the Dems took over the House, they kept it for 40 years.
So what did the Dems do that you like so much, that you want to put them in charge of the US?!
"I will always stand in the way of traitorous Socialists who wish to assume power in my country"
We had forty years of Democrat Congresses imposing socialist economic schemes on this country.
How many of those schemes have been rolled back since 2000? I'd say none. How many have experienced decreased funding? I'd say none.
I've never seen Republicans more energized to get out and vote. All of the Christian conservatives I know were talking about not voting this year to teach Republicans a lesson until la cage aux Foley broke and they figure out it was intended to make them stay home because the dims assumed that they could manipulate "those moronic Christians." Now they're organization busses to get folks to the polls.
In California ... CALIFORNIA ... the Los Angeles Times ... THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ... (OK, I'm sorry, I'll stop that... anyway, where was I, Oh yeah)
In California the Los Angeles Times and SF Chronicle/Examiner are running stories about how Phil Angelides is such a bad candidate for governor that Democrats aren't going to turn out to vote and Republicans may sweep in the same fashion they did in 1994. Drive by media is beginning to run more articles about Republican dirty tricks and vote fraud (mostly evoting machine tampering stories) and the AP is lamenting how good Republicans are at getting their voters out. They don't really seem convinced that they're going to win, despite their "brave words" and are setting up excuses for failure, maybe even excuses for challenging the results or threatening violence if they lose.
How many more liberals have been added to the Supreme Court?
How many more liberals have been added to the Supreme Court?
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