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

true enough. like I said, it is his house and his rules.

Then why are you trying to impose your freaked-out totalitarian code of silence on all who dissent from your opinion. For cryin' out loud! (And find your darned shift key, would you?) I think Bush-bashing is bad for conservatives. they go vote third party in the election and get 8 years of Billary. a house divided can not stand.

Why... why... that's intolerable! Let's march the filthy dissenters to the polls at gunpoint and make sure they do the right thing... according to your wisdom from on high. I am quite sure that President Bush would consider you a dangerous nutcase, from which he would eagerly distance himself. Gads! Any sane person would.

"If Bush WAKES UP and starts working for a conservative agenda again, I will be the first to praise him and pick up a "Bush 2004" bumper sticker. If not, I'll be the first to pick up my "Tancredo 2004" bumper sticker. Whether or not Bush is "bashed" on this forum is up to him. Act conservative and conservatives will respond accordingly."

Please see Post #527.

Dear Mr. Robinson,

Let us remain ever-loyal to a politician -- not to our ideals, and not to our principles.

Love, Big Guy and Rusty 99

Oh yes, and we have to move quickly to silence all those who would oppose us. Then we can get on to the final solution...

Seig Heil and Sick Guy 99

Just kidding. A reminder that no matter how rough the debate gets here, it is nothing new.

Hamilton, of course, was a New Yorker -- and they haven't changed their tone even a little bit, in the 227 years since, when roughing up rusticating know-nothings from trans-Hudsonian Stickland.

"You can't "fight them with facts". They don't want facts - WHAT THEY WANT IS TO SEE YOU GET UPSET AND RANT AND RAVE AT THEM. You see, the goal is to upset you - not discuss issues that you disagree about. The goal is to watch you explode! Sooooo, everytime you take the bait and start trying to give them "facts", they will change the subject and start attacking Bush on some other issue. Check it out for yourself.

Remember, these people do not want to discuss issues - they want to upset you - that is the whole goal they are after. Then they go other places and tell people how nasty FReepers are."

The Communists called that tactic "AgitProp".

Agitation. Propaganda.

The purpose of Agitprop is not to be right, honest, or accurate, but rather to upset the enemy's comfort zone. It's Machiavellan, and it's immoral.

Check out a daily thread on FR with pictures of Bush from that day, and you'll see the disruptors flock to post their AgitProp, sometimes with such flimsy excuses as "you Bushbots think that everything is just fine."

More professional societal disruptors seek to disrupt our comfort zones in far more insidious ways, such as telling us each day that some new food is dangerous to our health, telling us that gobs of welded junk are really statues of "Art", that it is our fault that Third World nations have poverty, that we owe Reparations for the acts of people centuries ago, etc.

Decades ago the Communist Party correctly identified that America's key strong point was its nuclear family. To attack this strong point divorce was promoted. Promiscuity was promoted. Drugs were promoted (no coincidence that drugs are most prevalent in Communist-leaning areas such as college campuses and inner-cities). Child support was promoted (serves to encourage divorces and out-of-wedlock procreations), etc. This is AgitProp on steroids.

And that's what we're up against today...

Nice Post (#303).

Like I said earlier, I know when to quit. Try it. It doesn't hurt for long. Not only is this the FRee Republic, it is a democracy. You're idea has no legs and I will not be an accomplice to the beating of a dead horse.

Already posted here ;)(opens in a new window)

I agree, but since they "don't get it" about our President, they "won't get it" about your comments and will explain it away as "well this is an open forum", etc. because they don't understand and/or don't know what they are talking about.

Rusty, it's a nice attempt at bringing this to the site owners attention, but I don't expect people who are trashing Bush to "get it" (not referring to the owner).

Forest....trees.

Excellent point.

You're=your

I don't bash the President (I supported and still support him, but with reservation and some reasonable criticism), and I "don't get it" as you say. I think it was dispicable and un-American to try to silence dissenting opinions on the FREE Republic. That is UN-American, in case you missed it the first time.

Well the last few weeks have certainly caused people to show their true colors. You have leaders trashing Bush (Keyes, Klaymen, Daschle, Clinton, etc), their followers on FR repeating their tripe and then stirring the pot. And for what?

It is obvious they are not listening to (and understanding) what is being said coming from the Whitehouse, and are swallowing the bile of the liberal media and politicians, only to spew it back onto the pages of FR!

Of course, it shows how easy it is to sway the ignorant, and throw them off course. These people have done something even DU couldn't do. Sad, but....who needs or wants them? Lets sift the chaff and clean house!

Jimrob; I wouldn't want your job. I hope you get paid appropriately!!

WHat's been tossed out on FR is more than "dissenting opinions", c'mon.

I agree with cva66snipe that the GOP has become a "big tent" in its propaganda only. Here in Texas, the RINO's have been trying vigorously to purge conservatives, even incumbent conservative Republicans on the State Board of Education, whom the RINO's challenged in the primaries at the direction of, and with the overt support of, then-Governor George W. Bush. When have the Democrats ever done such a thing?

No, the "big tent" flaps open only one way, and the GOP is running away from its base and basically abandoning America to compete for votes among the immigrants and reverse racists. Texas Democrats are laughing at them, since they know their 75% majorities among Mexican-American voters are nearly bulletproof if there's a Mexican-American on the ticket, and their black majorities dip below 70% only among the most affluent and educated blacks, who are a tiny minority of the black community: the majority of black voters still deliver crushing 95% and 97% majorities to the Democrats every time. Terry McAuliffe has been running around the country throwing out the most incredible racist red-meat rhetoric (you'd almost think he was Bobby Seale himself, the way he talks) the way string-tie politicians like Theo Bilbo used to do.

The GOP hierarchy has been purged, and the conservatives are gone -- let's face it. The only conservatives left in the GOP are in Congress. This is the Old Arrangement, the one that obtained in the 1940's, when the yahoos, whom Ivy League-educated, white-shoe, East Coast Republicans called "primitives", could elect whoever they wanted to Congress, but the money men in New York controlled the Party, its presidential candidates, its bully pulpit, its platform, its image machinery, and its real agenda: thus Theodore White in The Making of the President 1964, that describes the epochal uprising of Conservatives against the thralldom of Old Money. (Concerning the background of GOP politics, see esp. p. 80ff.)

I wouldn't phrase it as tough as some posters like Rebelsoldier did above, but the observation is essentially correct, that President Bush has moved both himself and the bulk of the Party, now Administration, agenda away from the conservative base just the way Clinton did (at times) from both his DLC base and his liberal base. One of the reasons Clinton enjoyed his Presidency so much is that he eventually got to screw everybody!

Great traductions of the conservative, Main Street, Taft-Goldwater wing of the GOP have been the core political fact of life of the GOP since 1940 -- that and the creeping "Me-tooism" of the Wall Street Wing, which is basically a process of capitulating to political threats (instead of meeting them) from the Left when they are made, buying off the threateners (like Kweisi Mfume and the NAACP) by capitulating policy. The Leftists go back and do it again, and the GOP Business Wing capitulates again.

It's as if the Business Wing sees politics as just a form of competitive head-butting at the pig trough.

The infamous rush of the corporate pigs to Stockman's trough was a hallmark of the Reagan Administration; but I would argue with you that many of the "compromise" positions Reagan took were pitched to him by GOP staffers planted on him like leeches by Mr. Bush Sr.: Don Regan, Jim Baker, Tricky Dicky Darman, and their crew. It is significant that David Stockman, who was gulled into unburdening himself of his complaints about the "feeding frenzy" of corporate welfarism to the unprincipled William Greider, not realizing Greider was running a wire on him and preparing to publish every golden, Reagan-bashable word, was not a member of the Bush crew, but came to the Administration from the staff of a Michigan congressman. Everyone else in Reagan's inner circle except Ed Meese was a Bush guy, and they tried for 7-1/2 years to "option-C" Reagan to death, working around Meese to try to back Reagan into corners on matters where the Wall Street Wing wanted a result. Reagan usually just blew them off, driving James Baker very deservedly nuts at times. I say "deservedly", because he thoroughly deserved to be frustrated in trying so to lasso the Chief Executive and bind him to choices of the Bush coterie. Baker and Darman were always Bush's men, never Dutch's -- and so I've always thought the worse of both of them, for that reason and because they expended so much energy, in the second Reagan term, driving the real Reaganauts out of the Administration, and preparing the ground for Bush 41's takeover and lockdown of the GOP.

Whether it was Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon and their infamous, middle-of-the-night Compact of Fifth Avenue that delivered the 1960 presidential nomination, or the publishers, bankers, and broadcasters in 1940 New York, who rammed Wendell Willkie down the Party's throat, the Eastern Establishment has ruled or ruined in every single presidential race since the 1930's, with the exception of Reagan's two campaigns in 1980 and 1984. They've had their fun, and they've had their way. Their practical policy is refreshingly cold-blooded, pace some of our friends' calls to Dewey-eyed party loyalty (which isn't reciprocated, of course, and yes, that was a pun): in the words of one old East Coast political journo quoted by White, "I bet on money -- not just any kind of money, but old money. New money buys things; old money calls notes."

If Bushite Kool-Aid drinking Freepers keep supporting the Wall Street-Rockefeller-Ford-Dole-Bush wing of the GOP, that patriotic, public-spirited maxim will rule every one of their hopes. And the money guys won't even thank them in the morning.

Like I said earlier, I know when to quit.

Is it that you quit when you get to embarrassing yourself or when you know your position is "destined" to lose so you quit then.

Not only is this the FRee Republic, it is a democracy.

Well now, isn't that special. I have not seen even one democracy type voting opportunity on FreeRepublic. Please identify those opportunities so that I may check them out for myself.

You're idea has no legs and I will not be an accomplice to the beating of a dead horse.

So you can't have a rational discussion wherein you identify specifics and back up your assertions about those specifics.

Come to think of it, I believe Jim Robinson has plans to have modules wherein a Freeper can start his or her own forum where it is by invitation only or open to all.

That would be great. For example, Freepers that wanted to seriously discuss the aspects of the WOD articles with the focus on eliminating the WOD could do that on their own FR forum.

Conversely, Freepers that wanted to seriously discuss the aspects of the WOD articles with the focus on promoting the WOD could do that on their own FR forum.

Obviously the same type forums could be created for other issues.

>> "If Bush WAKES UP and starts working for a conservative agenda again, I will be the first to praise him and pick up a "Bush 2004" bumper sticker. If not, I'll be the first to pick up my "Tancredo 2004" bumper sticker. Whether or not Bush is "bashed" on this forum is up to him. Act conservative and conservatives will respond accordingly." >>>
>> Please see Post #527.
<<<

Alrighty, let's see what we got here:

>> GWB killed the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, for one. <<

Actually, congress killed the Kyoto Treaty. Bush was merely smart enough to back it. Kinda wish he continue those kinda smarts like Pete Wilson had when he came out against illegal immigration (another "moderate" who did something good from time to time)

>> GWB pulled the U.S. out of the CCCP-U.S. ABM Treaty, for another. <<

Yes. That was a step in the right direction, I'll admit it.

>> GWB backed and got our National Missile Defense program funded. <<

What do expect after 9/11? Can you imagine the responce to any president who wouldn't?

>> GWB Killed the International Criminal Court. <<

No, the International Court is alive and well. Bush sort of killed U.S. participation in the court if that's what you mean. Of course, back in the 20s, Republicans had a lot more spine when it came to exposing these international "organizations". Look at Coolidge's record.

>> GWB repealed Clinton's CO2 rules that were choking off electricity production in California and causing electricity rates to spike. <<

This was a lot of media hype that Bush "switched" on CO2 position because a bunch of right wingers talked him into it. Bush merely did what Republicans had been hinted at doing for eight years.

>> GWB repealed OSHA's new ergonomic regulations that were about to put every home-based business in America out of commission. <<

I don't remember this, but I'll take your word for it that he made a good move here.

>> GWB appointed Ashcroft and Ted Olsen, who just wrote to the Supreme Court that the 2nd Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right, not the "collective right" that liberals have maintained for decades.

I applaud him for that. But I also am aware of the fact he filled his cabinet with the likes of Christie Todd Witless, Gale N(Ab)orton, Colin Powell, and Norman Miyeta...folks who constantly write articles and give speeches that lecture us on how we are such intolerant bastards for being pro-life and for traditional Republican values. If they demand we drop our pro-life plank one more time, I'll puke.

>> GWB signed the bill into law that gives pilots the right to arm themselves with firearms, a pleasant pro-gun victory on a national level (currently being stalled by Democratic Party holdover bureaucrat Norm Mineta in the DOT).

Again, a good move by Bush. But again, he vetoed just as much good stuff as he signed. We may be able to arm pilots now, but the NRA won't have anything to say about it before an election thanks to CFR.

>> GWB killed the Left-Wing ABA's role in vetting federal judges for Congress. <<

A minor improvement, but there are still scores of other left wing groups blockade's virtually all of the federal judgeships.

>> GWB instituted the first top-down review of our military in years, which concluded (prior to 9/11), that asymmetric attacks were our biggest future threat. <<

And this helped us on 9/11 by...?

>> GWB killed the $11 Billion Crusader unguided munitions artillery boondoggle. <<

Again, I'll take your word for it.

>> GWB killed federal funding of foreign "family planning" activities. <<

So did Daddy Bush. But for a guy who says he wants every child to be "welcomed into life", he could sure do a whole lot MORE to discourage the huge number of abortions STILL taking place (with or without funding). Can't Mr. 80% approval rating take the bully pulpit to congress and challenge them to get off their butt and ban Partial-birth abortion like they voted THREE times during Clinton's adminstration?

>> GWB ordered the Justice Department to finally enforce the SCOTUS Beck decision, giving union workers the right to recover any of their union dues that are used for political purposes with which they disagree. <<

Well, it's about freakin' time. We praise the federal government as "conservative" for doing their job for a change?

Basically, your list reveals that G.W. Bush is not a Ted Kennedy-type liberal. Why, of course, I never claimed he was. The "conservative" record you list is more like common sense, SLIGHTLY right of center stuff that we would have gotten if someone like John Breaux was president. I didn't vote for Bush expected more Eisenhower/Ford type "conservativism". I expected him to keep his committments to be a conservative in the Reagan/Coolidge mode. He is certainly not a liberal, but he hasn't been much of conservative lately either.

Again, I'm not here to bash Bush. I praised him for the tax cut, even though it was smaller than the tax cut I would have pushed. I supported him on the stem-cell/human-cloning thing, even when a lot of folks here seemed to want to insist he "betrayed" us when he clearly did not.

Basically, most of the stuff you seem to list is from Bush's 1st year. He exceeded my expectations when he started, but LATELY, he's been a whole lot more "compassionate" than "conservative". What has he done for US in the past couple of monthes? G.W. Bush does not get my vote by default, he has to earn it by proving he's the best guy for the causes I believe in. Given a choice between Bush and Tancredo right now, I can certainly tell you which one would have the best agenda.

That's true, but this guy is calling for the banning of those who criticize Bush (without defining them other than to call them Bush-bashers). And that is sick. There are many offensive hacks, liberals, hedonists and cheap, foul-mouthed baiters that show up here. But I would never declare that JimRob should ban them on my whim. (Besides, the worst posters are those who cannot accurately interpret a simple English sentence. Those guys drive me nuts!)

Besides, the worst posters are those who cannot accurately interpret a simple English sentence. Those guys drive me nuts

Me, too!! LOL! (Shall we name names??!)

. . when you get to embarrassing yourself . .

Naughty, naughty. Getting close to a personal attack.

I have not seen even one democracy type voting opportunity on FreeRepublic. Please identify those opportunities so that I may check them out for myself.

The vote was umpteen to one for your idea. FReepers voted.