BTW, if I were you I'd change my screenname if it's in homage to Reagan. He too would be considered fringe by today's Republican party
This is unlikely based on what you are saying here.
although most ardent Republicans seem to have never bothered to read it
Almost every ex-president has said things like that, few if any have meant it.
or you wouldn't place such an importance on the party instead of the philosophy
Conservatism strives for the realization of the principles of natural law that our republic was founded upon, not just the "limited smaller government" you claim in post #93. Achieving this political end requires organization.
BTW, if I were you I'd change my screenname if it's in homage to Reagan. He too would be considered fringe by today's Republican party
The Republican party was founded primarily to use federal law against barbaric state governments. The ultimate exercise in big government, the U.S. Civil War, was a Republican effort to uphold a generous definition of the conservative values put forth in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. President Reagan lived out this ideal by dramatically increasing the size of the federal government in order to defeat an objectively evil regime. You can read on my personal page how President Reagan also attempted to intervene in a case surprisingly similar to to Terri Schiavo's. President Bush and the Republican congressional leaders merely upheld this conservative tradition. Your simplistic understandings of philosophy and history aren't serving you well.