An Open letter to Jim Robinson: Can the Bush-Bashers

Thats right dear. Gore would have pushed through a tax cut, pulled the USA out of the ICC, refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty, got the nation to call " a lump of cells " a baby,refused to allow UN money to be spent for world wide abortions,begun to pull our toops out of " peace keeping " missions, and been tireless in the war against terrorism.

How could I have been soooooooooooooooooooo blind to little Albert's Conservatism ?

I wonder when the big man himself will show up to put in his two cents?

Is that what you were hoping for....a missive from JimRob?

I am laughing so hard.

Most conservatives do not think being one means we have to allow people to walk into an airplane wearing C4 plastic explosives in their shoes, and we tend to look askance at those who try to define us in that manner.

Most conservatives do not think being one means we have to praise people who murder policemen, and we tend to look askance at those who try to define us in that manner.

Well now, if G. Bush is a pol, so are a whole lot of
the past presidential candidates! That is the fact. Besides,
Can't Bush have his own legacy? Does he have to do
everything R. Reagan did, the same way Reagan did it?
Come on, lets let G. Bush be G. Bush, and leave Ronald
Reagan his own legacy. It was a fine one, yes, but it was
his and his alone! Good Grief! Whatever will you people
do if/when another Clinton, (Hillary) gets in? Well unlike
you, I don't want to find out!

Yes Reagan voted for FDR 4 times. He said many times that FDR was his favorite president. That is why Reagan never seriously tackled Social security because he actually thought that other than WW2 that was FDR's greatest accomplishment. It was for that reason that the “far-right” never trusted him and never failed to question his “conservative” credentials. In a very real sense Ronald Reagan founded the “neo-con” movement.

You've been a great audience, but it's bedtime and I'm bushed.

The way to a conservative ascendancy is to change that morning polling data. That can only be achieved by releasing this country from the liberal death grip on information dissemination in the public and private domain while concurrently getting reasoned and viable conservative alternatives to the voters. As long as they control the sound bites and images that younger (education) and older (TV, news, movies, magazines, etc.) voters see, they will always have the upper hand and we will always be fighting for scraps from the occasional bone lady luck sends us.

Agreed, with this caveat...
While there's certainly bias, "they" don't control every soundbite now, and never have. Time and again our side fails to make the case.
How many times have facile lightweights like Barney Frank run circles around our guys because we're hesitant about engaging and defeating our opposition?

We kid's can't take back our government.

Bullshit.

If this keeps up, it seems some are trying to convince others that this moderately conservative man, a good man, is satan and that we are better off with algore.

I don't think anybody is calling him satan. Saying that some are trying to paint him as such is stirring up trouble in and of it's ownself ;-)

Nobody here believes we would have been better off with algore. You listen to what liberals wanted to do after 9/11, and had he been in office, you know it would have gotten passed. You know Feinstein would have her National Guard on the highways and bridges, you know they'd have their National IDs/papers. etc.

On the other hand. I can make a very very valid argument, that this country, as of June 6th, 2002, is more liberal than when George W. Bush took office, almost a year and a half ago. That's not saying we would have been better off with gore, which we wouldn't be.

I have a question for you. Many of us (myself included) are bolting from the GOP (the first time for me) and looking at voting third party Conservative candidates come the next Presidential election.

We know, out of the last 3 elections, that two have been decided by third party candidates (Perot 92, Nader 2000).

Let's say Bush loses by a slim margin, and he would have won had he not had those votes siphoned off to third party Conservative candidates. Would this make the GOP sit up, look around and say "Okay, we've strayed from traditional Conservative beliefs and values. We need to go back to that to bring those voters back." It's an interesting question to ponder. As of right now, we seem to have no true Conservative platform, or at least one that is being followed. A little tough love maybe needed?

Maybe questions should be asked about if this is a Bush problem or a GOP problem. Here in Texas, the GOP is thinking about/doing something to deal with RINOs (i.e. making candidates with GOP labels basically say "here is our platform, we agree with these points"). The past decade, we haven't had a problem with RINOs, because we really haven't had the GOP in any serious state-wide office/position. I know it's hard to believe, but a decade ago, Texas was run by liberals. It took us a lot of hardwork to bring people around and convince them that the GOP was different than the democrats. Now we are swinging back to that, we have democrats supporting Conservative beliefs, and we have RINOs running around. We don't have that "umph" that seperates the parties, and as a result, elections are going to be tight for us, with a lot of voter indifference on both sides of the fence.

Sorry for ramling.

How To Structure a Forum So it Naturally Facilitates and Rewards Higher Quality Posts

Sounds like a good reason for people to put emphasis on quality over quantity in their posts. Fewer posts that take longer to think about and write. Everybody would benefit in both writing and reading higher quality posts. And it would empress the heck out of newcomers -- newcomers that sincerely want improvement in government. Not to trash.

In juxtaposition, the trashers can't hide their posts amongst well thought out, well written posts. They'll stand out like a sore thumb. Civil, constructive criticism is a benefit. But trashing is worthless and can be spotted a mile away when the demeanor of a forum is benevolent.

Jim Robinson is working on new the Beta software for FR. So far I like what I've seen. What I suggest is a way to structure the form so that it facilitates and rewards higher quality posts.

As I understand there will be several different forums and chat rooms. That's fine. To wrap your thinking around this proposal I'll keep it simple by describing the scenario for one large forum like it was a year ago. From there the reader can extrapolate or re-work the concept.

Have a forum split into three parts. Forum one the elementary forum; forum two the high school forum; forum three the college forum.

The demarcation point for each forum is based on quality. Any person can read any forum but they must earn the right to post on each higher level forum. The more consistent a poster is in crafting quality posts the more he or she ensures that they will retain their posting privilege at the college forum. A less refined writer may work his way up from the high school forum. And a sloppy poster would be stuck in elementary school until he or she took it upon themselves to improve their research and writing skills. Also, a degradation in a Freepers posts could cause them to be demoted to a lower level forum.

Very important is that any person may read any forum. Posting in a forum becomes a privilege based on skill level. It would be an effective way for those that wanted to improve their writing by studying the posts in the college forum The college forum would also be where the most articulate writers and probably a higher ratio of sincere freedom fighters.

Think of the things that detract from a discussion or posts. Degradation is caused by might be using too much rhetoric or sophistry. Ad hominems would be a sure way to get demoted as they ad nothing useful to the discussion.

What elevate the quality of a post? Elevation in quality comes from reducing ambiguity, connecting common denominators, Staying focused on The Point of a discussion by not going unnecessarily venturing into a side tangents.

There must be other specific traits, styles, approaches that identify and separate degradation from elevation. I would think reading the college forum would have the activity to fosters unique concepts, strategies and tactics that could lead to breaking through political correctness and the status quo in as-of-yet unknown ways.

I don't want to carry on any further so I'll say for now, Jim, if you want to discuss this further, or "hear" ideas including how to self-police and/or monitor the different forum levels as well as possibilities for working (probably not a word you really want to hear right about know with all the work you're already doing) this concept into the multi forum structure you already have in beta, just give me a "holler" @ Zon. :-)

Sometimes -- well a lot of the time -- I get so mad at some of the Republicans that appear on TV. When are they going to muzzle the likes of Lott and Hatch?

no . . . put I figured he'd show up at some time because his name is on the thread name.

You have the answers NOW go create it and "they" will come.

Hmmmmmmm ... really ? Is that WHY you have personally attacked me , bashed me on the nonimmigration I've been on ?

I have no " clique ". I've seen YOU double tag team on me and others with your clique, though .

Being a lowly " webbie ", I can only be on one thread at a time. It takes me forever to post / load / reload a thread. I can't flit from thread to thread; you do.

Don't spit in my face and then try to convince me that it's raining.

"...the Democrats of the 60's were much more 'conservative' than the Republicans are now..."

I agree redrock. Republicans have gotten off Conservative base, and its distressing. They left us, not the other way around.

I'll remember that when Bush flip-flops on the next crucial issue that results in the liberal's agenda being advanced and implemented. Your standards for conservatism and success are as preposterous and meaningless as your lapdog surrender to failure. Defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy, what a plan. God you suckers are pathetic.