Good-Bye Cruel Free Republic

lol

I have yet to get a reply from B.A. Conservative. He quotes me in a post but refuses to address me directly. You think it's because I'm a woman?

He had a kite and a key. His name was Ben.

"Bipolar?"

You have my apologies. Questions about the messenger point out my failure to communicate the message.

The Democratic Party is beyond hope. While there are individual Democrats that may not be beyond enlightenment, no one has the time, energy or means to save the country operating within the Democratic Party. Clearly, the numbers needed to wield political power can only come from the Republican Party for the near term or maybe even the foreseeable future.

There is, however, a significant problem with the Republican Party. The Republican Party leaders take conservatives for granted. Almost all are politicians first and foremost. They put the interests of their own re-election ahead of all other priorities. Since they clearly believe that we conservatives have no other meaningful place to go, they do not have to do anything to win our votes, and worse, they know that we will not vote for Democrats. At the worst, they will record one less vote, but they know full well that vote will not be cast for their opponent.

That leaves them with a wide-open effort to take the vote that would normally go to a Democrat. If they succeed, not only will their opponent record one less vote, but they will gain a vote as well. In such a market, which votes will they work to get? Yours and mine that they can take for granted or at worst know their opponent will never get, in a sense a half a vote swing? Or will they cater to the normal votes of their opponents knowing that if they win that vote, it is the equivalent of a two vote swing?

I am suggesting that we can only counter this thinking of the Republican leadership, by serving them notice that we will indeed deny them our votes and the re-election that goes with them unless they cater to our agenda rather than the agenda of their opponents.

While some of the participants on this forum play dumb, there aren't many who are displeased by Bush's domestic actions so far. And we all should be able to understand why the Republican leadership has caved on issues important to them and us. I cite CFR, federalization of airport security, the farm bill, and acquiescence on ethanol in fuel as examples.

The Republican leadership is listening to the media and the polls taken by the media. They don't have the courage of their convictions that the people of the country are really conservative. The electorate danced to Reagan's conservative music in landslide proportions. They danced again with vigor to the Contract with America awarding a historic tidal wave victory to Republicans in 1994. Can there be any wonder that the media would not do everything in their power to confuse the Republicans and lead them down the primrose path. Nobody can blame you or many of the other doubters on this site. The media are masters of propaganda and have been stealing elections for Democrats for almost seventy years. Incrementalism works very well for Democrats. They have been successfully dragging the country into socialism for seventy years over the clear cut opposition by the majority of Americans. Democrats have been dividing and conquering the public one group at a time. Many of the people on this site have serious doubts about their fellow Americans. Look at the posts that reflect how many socialist programs are popular and their fears that the popularity of these programs are growing. How else can you explain the growth of government and the magnitude of the amounts of money that it redistributes.

I will say it again. Incrementalism will not work for Republicans or conservatives. We are too close to the cliff of the fianancial abyss. The inherent momentum of the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security will take us past the point no return. We will either default on our sovereign debt or inflate our currency to zero. Can there be anyone who cannot recognize which of these choices is inevitable? The only way to save the United States is an abrupt 180-degree change of course.

The only chance we have to make this change is by convincing the Republicans that conservatives mean business. We must face the risk of Democrats in control and going over the cliff in four years instead of eight in the event the Republican fail to take us seriously and then are unable to recover from the defeat that might occur this fall. If we are not prepared to take this gamble, then we are doomed. What difference does it really make if get six years or twelve? Frankly, if the end is in sight, I would prefer to get it over with now so that we can get on with the task of building a new republic from the ashes.

No one would argue that what we have is better than any other place currently available. But how many of you would continue to live and work here if there was another option. Suppose Mexico or Canada offered a republic similar or identical to the United States of the 1940's or 1950's. I would have preferred to have chosen another era like 1800, but some of us can remember the forties and fifties. How many Americans no longer can actually even experience a real memory of freedom? Wake up and dream no more America; it is time to either sh*t or get off the pot.

We must face the risk of Democrats in control and going over the cliff in four years instead of eight in the event the Republican fail to take us seriously and then are unable to recover from the defeat that might occur this fall.

Nonsense.

With so many judges who simply don't have much time left, giving Democrats more power in the appointment of them (which a Republican loss in November of this year or 2004 gives them) would be hitting the accelerator to go over the cliff.

And whoever told you that intimidating others who disagree with you into submission was a wise strategy did you a disservice.

Outside of your consistent contradictions of yourself, what you are saying is that we should vote Democrats in instead of voting for conservative individuals who will be accountable to us as conservatives (I use "us" very loosely here) by not voting for Republicans or sitting it out. You claim to want the Republicans to be held accountable to conservatives, yet you would rather have Democrats in office which would only result in NO ONE being held accountable to conservatives. I might almost buy into your sincerity about wanting to turn things around if you weren't so persistent that we are on this cliff that you so desperately want to shove us off.

I think there are two essential Amendments needed to improve the Constitution. First, I think that the United States will never be a viable nation unless we have term limits for members of Congress and term limits for the federal judiciary. And secondly, we should repeal the Sixteenth Amendment.

I also think it would be desirable for a third change. I think the Seventeenth Amendment should be repealed or amended to re-establish the election of US Senators by the state legislatures rather than the population at large. I think that would strengthen the Ninth and Tenth Amendments considerably by empowering state governments.

The problem is are any of them viable candidates for president? I don't think they are. I don't think any of them would come close to winning 50 million votes.

So, we're back where we were-- a vocal minority of conservatives who must form a coalition with other less conservative voters to elect a president further to the right than one put up by the Democrats.

So why on earth would we want a Constitutional Convention which could open the door to all sorts of other changes that we have no desire for?

And frankly, I am very opposed to term limits. I think each state should make that determination for themselves.

I think you have intimidated the weak into silence (at least when it comes to you).

Very odd indeed.

But the reality is, we have a very short window in which we may be able to turn the country around before it goes off the financial cliff into the abyss of the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security. The United States is now very close to being a true democracy rather than the republic that we were and should be again. We are on track toward a financial apocalypse. We have been consuming our industrial capital for a decade accumulating debt rather than investment capital. No individual, business, or nation has ever borrowed or inflated its way into prosperity. We face either bankruptcy default or massive inflation or both sequentially.

Someone has to provide the leadership.

this bears repeating! ;)

Republicans have controlled Congress since 1994. To their credit, the Congress elected in that year passed most of the Contract with America. Republicans proved that they were politicians rather than statesmen by failing miserably on the TERM LIMITS part of the Contract. Dole may have lost a sacred place in history when he dropped the ball on the Balanced Budget Amendment. After that, the Republicans have taken us down hill with a constant erosion of power in every election since.

I am trying to convince you and the Republican leadership that Republicans win elections and gain power when they are at their most conservative. And they lose ground or power when they move to the middle or worse to the left. With the single exception of the move to the right in 1994, Republicans are no longer taking the country to the right. They are in fact enacting the agenda of the left. And with each election, the Republicans lose more seats.

I am suggesting that we can drag the Republicans back on track by our discussions on this forum. If we don't succeed in dragging them back, then yes by all means, let the Democrats gain control. The Republican leadership is smart enough to figure out that if they want to win in 2004, they will have to be nice to Conservatives and do what conservatives want if the Republicans want to regain power. In the mean time, Democrats won't be able to do much damage if Bush is a real conservative. His veto should be virtually bullet proof. Surely the Republicans could muster that much.

If I am wrong about this, it really isn't going to matter much. A Cato paper concludes that there is no second best alternative to privatization.

If we don't succeed in dragging them back, then yes by all means, let the Democrats gain control.

vs.

The Democratic Party is hopelessly corrupt because it is based on a corrupt principle. No man has the right to take the property of another man without his permission even to give it to some else who needs it. No man can be empowered by government to do what he cannot do for himself. Democrats maybe our ally in the war on terrorism, but the Democrats remain the enemy of freedom just as the terrorists and the Communist party, the Democrats’ first cousins, are the enemies of freedom. America will never be safe as long as a single Democrat holds elected public office.

That leaves conservatives taking control of an existing party. Clearly the Republican party is the logical choice. But taking control from the powers that be is impossible unless the party were to suffer a massive defeat at the polls in an election. This fall presents a golden opportunity.

We hashed this out a little on another thread, but I think you have another angle here. Staying home is certainly easier than staging a coup of the Republican party. I think we also suggested infiltrating and taking over the Democratic party, but staying home is something that everyone has the time to do, and the message will not be ignored by the Republican machinery. The only catch is that you might find that Republicans are very consistant voters, out of a sense of duty, or maybe they still believe that their votes count even though vote recounts prove time and again that we are far from counting votes accurately enough to be able to honestly say that every vote counts. I think it might be difficult to convince enough Republicans to stay home especially now that we are at war.
I am still convinced that 2004 is the year to turn the ship, but 2002 will be a good time to start.

in other words, we're screwed :(

"And frankly, I am very opposed to term limits."

No one said we have to agree. And you are free to think anything you want regardless of its merits. Before Columbus, everyone else in the world thought the earth was flat.

Teddy Kennedy and Robert Byrd make laws every day that you and I have to live with. Their thoughts could not be farther apart from my own. Can anyone identify anything that either of these two have ever gotten right? Now the voters in their states send these two back like clock work and none of us who do not live in their states ever get to contradict the misguided constitutents of these two crack pots. And your children and grandchildren would have to live with their errors compounded, assuming you believe the US has a life after the bills for the boomers' Medicare and Social Security start coming due. What kind of life and retirement will your children have if the government actually attempts to force them to pay these huge unfunded liabilities? Part of the reason the boomers have not been able to save to support their own retirements is that they have been paying for their own parents' retirement. Upside down pyramids fall over. Ours will be no exception. South Dakotans are by and large conservative and only represent a tiny percentage of the population. Yet the one man they re-elect every year, is blocking a large part of the agenda that most of the viewers of this site would like to see enacted. And there are not a handful of Freepers that will ever have the chance to defeat Daschle. How much difference has Daschle's influence and power made to you personally and to your way of life?

Politicians in Washington have too much power. How many of you on this site would disagree with that statement? I would ask you how do you think they acquire power? One of the ways is by seniority. The longer they stay the more power they accumulate and the more they learn how to use it. Things get to be old adages because they are generally true. Have you heard the one about, "absolute power corrupts absolutely?"