Posted on 11/19/2006 2:39:53 AM PST by Tom D.
Perhaps if he champions the President his cronies on the cruise will crucify him?
Knowing right from wrong has nothing to do with being a "Fundivangelist Social Con."
That's me.
If we don't win the war, we won't be pleased with the public spending, education, or much else.
Not to worry, though; we'll be too busy paying the dhimmi tax and watching the beheadings of infidels and apostates and prostitutes (i.e. women who dared go outside without their masters) to care.
Most of the time and on some issues. However, like our leader, peole and attitudes change.
Many who supported him have grown distant and not because of our (Conservative) position, philosophies or principles have changed, but "his" has.
I want the George Bush (BACK) I was so proud of on this day and made me wish I was 30 years younger again so I could have rushed to the recruiting station and reenlisted in the AF (which I spent 8 years, including 18 months in Nam)such was I moved when I saw and listened to him here:
"We heard you and listened to you Mr. President. You made us proud to be Americans and we realized that with your leadership, we would exact revenge on those who dared attack our Homeland and you made us want to follow you anywhere.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THESE PAST 5 YEARS??
WHY won't you hear our voices and listen to us, the Conservatives who help elect you and now are (apparently) without ANY leadership, ANYWHERE???"
PLEASE, please, don't succumb, cave, and give into the libs on anything and everything they want and PLEASE, reconsider your position on Border Security and Amnesty."
I don't think it's your imagination. I've noticed a change in tone, too. And as you say, with good reason.
This was an interesting analysis of an aspect I hadn't thought of before, that is, a division of the GOP into those particular two camps, the War Party and the Small Government Party. But I'd say that it is not new but has actually always been a constant in the GOP (people attracted by the idea of a strong national defense and people attracted by the idea of small government), although there have been different issues around which it has coalesced.
One of the features of the Small Government Party is a certain isolationist tendency, which, while it may sound good, is completely unrealistic for the US in today's world or any other. The War Party, having no concern for small government issues because it thinks small government might limit defense, attempts to conciliate the SGP by limiting wars so that it cannot be called imperialist or be accused of trying to spread US values beyond our borders. This leads to a tendency to fight half-hearted wars.
Practically as soon as we were a nation, we had to fight the Muslims (Barbary Coast pirates). But even in that case, we did what we are doing here: we didn't entirely defeat them. We knocked them back enough to get them to leave us alone.
The only people we thoroughly defeated were the Germans, and that was under a Democrat president. Curious issues to ponder.
I think Mr. Steyn's article is interesting, but I think he misses a few key points.
First, he implicitly assumes that the GOP is all that interested in conservatism. I disagree. The GOP, like the Democratic party, exists to get it's members elected to political office. Hard stop. Ideology is a secondary concern. To the extent that it's even considered.
The recent GOP leadership votes in both the U.S. House and the Senate underline this in bright red. Particularly in the House. GOP representatives had the opportunity to embark on a fresh start and elect a bona fide conservative as their majority leader. They instead picked a defensive strategy and business as usual. And the margin by which they picked that course of action speaks volumes.
Second, Mr. Steyn didn't consider the structural problems that the GOP is facing at the ballot box by way of immigration. I found it interesting that hispanics broke 7-3 for Democrats in this last election. Given that some sort of amnesty deal and future citizenship is a pretty good bet at this point, that spells a structural disadvantage that GOP will be hard pressed to counter. Regardless of whether the GOP is able to pull various disparate factions together.
I don't think the GOP has a very good chance of regaining a majority in either the House of the Senate in 2008. The Presidency is very much in play, but that's about it. And after 2008, the structural advantages that the Democratic party has will really begin to kick in. Now of course the Democrats could always mess things up like they did in the early 90's with socialized medicine. But I don't think that likely. And waiting for the opposition to mess up is not exactly a strategy.
Lest you think I'm bearish on conservatism, I'm really not. I'm very optimistic about the future of conservatism. But not because of partisan politics.
Life is so much simpler when all one thinks deeply about is Brittany Spears.
Hey Steyn, how about sending your sons and daughters over to die just to mess with thugs' heads? Fight for utopia? Fight for mind games? How glib. Fortunately, Americans are naturally averse to sending ground troops anywhere just because the whim strikes a president. The burden is high for those who want wars, as it should be.
LOL! I'll have to try it sometime! (Well, maybe Tom Selleck . . .)
This is an excellent point.
Well, Japan too. But I take your point. The thing is (as I never learned in American history in high school or college) that in WWII, the left was more or less on America's side (fancy that!) because we were against Hitler, who committed the unforgivable sin of betraying the sainted "Uncle Joe."
You would be surprised how many people will look at you like youjust grew horns when you say something like that.
I believe the GOP leadership does not expect to win and probably does not want to win. They don't want to change so they have contented themselves to a minority party status. That is why they have a defensive stance and have signalled they will folow the Democrats' lead.
I've got a foot in both of these "camps". Though I tend to wonder, why couldn't isolationism work? After all we tended isolationist from 1848 - 1898 and then from 1899 - 1940. Of course we would need to boost some technology development a bit.
Steyn is right, with so many people not believing in value such as individual right to self-determination and such at home, it ispointless to pursue it abroad.
With more than a million Muslims here, many of whom would like to forcibly impose Islam on us, and 15-or-so million Hispanic immigrants, it's a bit late for isolationism. We imported trouble and now we have to fight the root causes of it.
If we had truly remained isolationist and had retreated to our side of the planet after World War II, Communism would have taken over much of the world. We would be entirely outnumbered and surrounded by Communist aggressor nations, people who were as hypnotized by their ideology as the Islamists are by theirs, and almost as determined to install it here.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
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