I share his disillusionment with the national republican party controlled by the "Northeastern Country Club Republican Establishment". I agree with Chris that they are worse than the democRATS, the reason being because when they sell out (as all but a very few seem to do), they are selling out their supporters as well as their country.
You KNOW that a democRAT is going to vote for bigger government and less freedom, so at least they are honest, if misguided. But when the republicans vote for bigger government and less freedom (as all but a very few seem to do), they make their supporters [us] look like fools along with themselves.
It's really very simple. DemocRATS adhere to principles (evil ones), but they always abide by them. They are consistent. Republicans have no principles at all that I can see, other than "we're morally better than the other guys".
Having Liddy Dole rammed down our collective North Carolina throats by the NE establishment was probably just too much of an insult for Chris to take. Personally, I can't blame him.
I expect that his FReeper wife, technochick99, co-founder of the Second Amendment Sisters will leave with him. I always liked her style, and wish her well, too.
It is generally understood that those who support the "conservatives" expect them to uphold the system which has been camouflaged by the loose term of "the American way of life." The moral treason of the "conservative" leaders lies in the fact that they are hiding behind that camouflage: they do not have the courage to admit that the American way of life was Capitalism, that that was the politico-economic system born and established in the United States, the system which, in one brief century, achieved a level of freedom, of progress, of prosperity, of human happiness, unmatched in all the other systems and centuries combined--and that that is the system which they are now allowing to perish by silent default.
If the "conservatives" do not stand for capitalism, they stand for and are nothing; they have no goal, no direction, no political principles, no social ideals, no intellectual values, no leadership to offer anyone.
Yet capitalism is what the "conservatives" dare not advocate or defend. They are paralyzed by the profound conflict between capitalism and the moral code which dominates our culture: the morality of altruism...Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.
--Ayn Rand, Conservatism: an Obituary, a lecture given at Princeton University on December 7, 1960.
Moral treason is something we should all ponder.
Wrong wife. :o) I got there fustest with the mostest. :o)
I sympathize since I'm stuck with Arlen Specter. On the other hand, if Specter were running this term, I would vote for him in a heartbeat. It's a national election. A vote for Mrs. Dole or Specter or Chaffee is a vote against Daschle and maybe even a vote for Nichols as Majority Leader.
And before you complain about the GOP being just as much anti-Constitution as the Dems, don't you think it would be uselful to give them the House, Senate and the Presidency at the same time just to prove it. The alternative is to leave the Dems some control. That's not an alternative.
Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.
The mistake a lot of people make is to think that America is about "capitalism." It's not. It's about freedom. And freedom means that if you want to look out for your neighbor you are certainly allowed. An altrustic society is much happier than a society based on looking out for number one.