Posted on 02/17/2016 12:49:08 AM PST by OldSaltUSN
Another anybody but Trump.. Well, I supported Cruz in his Senatorial Primary & the General here, but happily voted for Trump here yesterday in Early Voting.
I don’t see Trump as divisive. Watching the two Cubanos yelling at each other in Espanol at the last debate..
That’s divisive to me.
That said, I invest a fair amount of time here and I thoroughly agree with your post which makes a very worthwhile contribution here during this season of ongoing political misery. I supported Scott Walker, the finest governor of this generation and possibly even better than Reagan. When he failed to inspire the celebrity-oriented GOP voters of 2015-2016 and dropped out, I turned to support Cruz and I am thoroughly fed up with many of the attacks on him by the supporters of TRUMP!!!
Now maybe I am just getting old and cranky (no maybe about it!) but I have never experienced anything like the mob mentality supporting TRUMP!!! It is going to take a long time to heal the wounds inflicted by his Alinskyite campaign, if ever those wounds can be healed. Longer than we have before November. AND, if TRUMP!!! is elected, what do WE get? Just another self-centered narcissist like Obozo (as Thomas Sowell observed yesterday) but with a REALLY AMAZINGLY foul mouth to boot.
My mother was deaf and had to drop out of school after graduating grammar school. She worked for decades as a non-union production worker in a garment factory (often treated like dirt until finally she quit) and immediately afterwards, in her final years, opening the mail and filing at the Yale University Undergraduate Admissions Office for lower pay. She came home from Yale every day, marveling that they treated her like a lady, opened doors for her and called her Mrs. _____. Like your mothers and fathers and probably The Donald's, my mom and dad brought me up to have good manners and to speak only the words of a gentleman. All men are fallen and we all occasionally stray from such standards but we don't have to raise it to an art form.
These are simple courtesies, along with keeping a civil tongue in one's mouth, but they made her life far more enjoyable. It is fortunate for her and, maybe for the Donald, that she did not live to see his low rent campaign. The Donald is to civil behavior as Slick Willie was to marital fidelity.
I did not vote for Romney and, if this stuff from TRUMP!!! continues, I may not vote for him either. It is too far to fall in one lifetime between a gentleman like Ronaldus Maximus and, well, TRUMP!!!
It as though Carville and Begala and Axelrod and Jarrett and Soros were orchestrating TRUMP!!!'s campaign in a diabolical effort to destroy the GOP as the only major party vehicle for the translation of conservative ideals into public policy and destroying it effectively.
Of course, the destruction of the GOP and of our country is also ably assisted by the despicable likes of Boehner, , Ryan-O, McCarthy, McConnell, Cornyn, Light Loafers Graham, Thad Cockroach, LAMAR!!! Alexander, Bob Corker, and so many other Demonrats in GOP drag.
We have had a variety of spectacles, courtesy of The Donald. First, there is his foul mouth. I am quite permanently offended by his lowlife comments on Megyn Kelly having "blood coming out of her whatever" because she asked him about his lowlife comments as to other women. Can anyone remotely imagine Reagan behaving like that? I won't reconsider unless or until he apologizes to Ms. Kelly who is concededly not a perfect conservative either but she DOES deserve to be treated like a lady especially by one applying for the job of POTUS.
There was only one Messiah and TRUMP!!!! clearly ain't Him.
Then we had The Donald telling NBC "News" and Chuck Todd that he favored the availability of partial birth abortion and was as "pro-choice" as anyone in the USA. Then, realizing that he is running in the REPUBLICAN primary and not running with his usual leftist Demonrat pals, he "discovered" that he was actually pro-life when bouncing the REALLY AMAZING baby of a friend in his lap. This leaves many obvious questions which the lamestream media avoids asking to protect The Donald. Weren't his own kids (mostly born BEFORE he talked to NBC and Todd) not REALLY AMAZING too? If not, did they and other more "average" kids deserve to live? How about below average kids? Etc. Many of us were born at night but it was not last night. Again, when Reagan explained his change, he was as credible as The Donald is not.
Did I mention that The Donald insisted on allowing a "transgender" to compete in his "Miss Universe" contest and that he included a striptease joint in his Atlantic City TRUMP!!!! Casino? As is traditional with such operations, was there merely a backroom or a full-scale rent-a-girl accessory "profit center?" In addition to his infernal mouth and his Alinskyite tactics, these are reasons that make it verrrry difficult for a lot of us to vote for TRUMP!!!! even in the finals much less in the primaries. These are not qualities that I seek in a candidate I can favor.
Then we have the matter of TRUMP!!! during this campaign going "Code Pink" on George W. Bush actually accusing him of being responsible for the occurrence of 9/11. Makes you wonder what he smokes in his spare time or what fashionable leftist soiree taught The Donald that lie. Of course that lie is fashionable in The Donald's thoroughly, yes, Establishment Manhattan habitat.
Ahhh, but that should have been no real surprise since The Donald had already long since gone Code PinkO on Single Payer Healthcare just like Comrade Bernie and Comrade Shrillery and a bit further than the unlamented grandfather of Obozocare, Moral Monster Mitt Romney.
Will The Donald's running mate be Kim Kardashian (daughter of an OJ lawyer) or one of the dancing bears? Either might bring improved, ummm, substance to his campaign: Kardashian with acres of silicon enhanced flesh, displayed by "wardrobe malfunctions," as a distraction or the dancing bear by avoiding profanity. A balanced ticket, so to speak! Them that lives by celebrity, dies by celebrity.
Now I do disagree with a couple of your points.
John Ellis Bush was apparently a good governor of Florida, as you say. I was determined to give him a fair hearing this time around. I did. He began, however, to lose me when he insisted on sticking with Common Core which is a euphemism for misedumakating the unwashed to be serfs and to understand their place, if any, in our future as a society.
I did not like Bus h the Elder at all (or Barbara either) and his elitist New World Order scheme and Jeb also seems sympathetic to NWO and to a "reform" of our internal order. Another "transformative" presidency is not what I have in mind. The final straw was his declaring his intent to win the GOP POTUS nomination "without the base." Well, he's not getting the base and that's not all he's not getting.
Final disagreement for now. FR is still FR. The quality of dialogue is, as you say, badly degenerated by the rise of ad hominem argument against other FReepers or attacks on other FReepers as the default position. I am ashamed to say that I have recently been contributing to these sad trends. I owe better to my felow FReepers, no matter the disagreement and no matter the provocation. Your post, OldSaltUSN, gives me a firm intention of mending my recent ways and will similarly inspire others.
Attacking candidates is one thing and often quite justifiable but not personal ad hominem attacks on other FReepers.
So long as Free Republic retains its core of quite conservative and decent and well-informed members (and that obviously includes you), there will be a Free Republic and likely a free republic as well. Conservatism is a beautiful tapestry, somewhat complex with some acceptable internal variables. Conservatism is the tapestry of Western Civilization. We may argue over free trade, tariffs, interventionist vs. isolationist foreign policy, sadly over religious questions which ought not divide us but they do, libertarianism vs. traditionalism, etc., etc., etc., BUT we should agree to agree whenever we can and to disagree civilly and respectfully when we cannot agree.
Again, I am certainly not without fault and I intend by this post no disparagement of any FReeper. If anyone feels offended, that person should look to his/her own faults as I have looked to mine.
We can rebuild a sense of purpose at FR and in the conservative movement generally. Return to first principles. Start a Free Republic "book club" not to sell books but to discuss them. It might be a separate forum like the Smoky Backroom.
When we understand the economics books of Friedrich von Hayek (Road to Serfdom), Ludwig von Mises (On Bureaucracy or On Socialism or The Anti-Capitalist Mentality), Milton Friedman (Capitalism and Freedom), Thomas Sowell (almost anything including his books on ethnicity and race relations); when we understand the history of our nation as explained by James I. Robertson (on the Civil War such as Stonewall), Samuel Eliot Morrison (History of the American People), Paul Johnson (A History of the American People), Larry Schweikart (A Patriot's History of the United States/Schweikart is a fellow FReeper), David McCullough (anything), the rich gold mine of history as to the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, biographies of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution; Free Republic will get over
bfl
We'll get over Obamunism and the Trumponic Plague, hold National Review to the standards of Bill Buckley, hold the GOP to the standards of Ronaldus Maximus and hold our country to the ACTUAL standards of the Founding Fathers as expanded and modified by the results of the late unpleasantness between the states. Let your apparent despair be dispelled by grim determination to thwart our enemies and to enforce our agenda.
God bless you and yours!
bfl???? Care to spell that out for us old folks or do you prefer mystery?
Who, you? Not me. You won't find that in my post. Does thinking that enable you to marginalize what I wrote? Am I going to find one of those "crying baby" pictures posted next?
You will find that I essentially said "Anybody but Trump-Alinsky". If Trump win's the nomination, I hope to God he drops his running mate so that I can vote for him in the general election.
FR has traditionally be the refuge of Conservatives sharing information, and joining in common cause. It wasn't the "ends justifies the means" bash and slash forum until Trump came on the scene.
I'm for beating the Democrats. I'm for conservative, constitutional government. I'm for a strong military, and a strong leader CINC. You?
Trump, by the way, will never be half the man or half the leader that GWB was during the war years. But he might be a good President. We'll see. However, if Trump loses the general election, it'll be because Trump and his slavish follower's Alinskyites tactics drove conservatives away from the polls.
FReegards.
Morning BlackElk!
“bfl” is “bump for later”, for a later read and reply.
I hear what you’re saying, but I think you put words in my mouth. I’m not suggesting we pull together against Trump, nor was that what the original poster said. The point I took away from it, and the point I support, is that there has been too much incivility here. I don’t care if there is a pro-Trump, pro-Cruz, anti-Trump or anti-Cruz article posted; those articles come with the territory at election time and are to be expected. I’m just weary of seeing all the brutal comments (from either camp) afterward. It’s going to be tough to unite the party for the general election when people are still feeling disgusted and/or discouraged from the primaries. We obliterate each other now and there won’t be much left to unite later. We are all on the same team here (big picture); it just doesn’t feel that way lately. That’s all I’m saying.
You didn't use those words (neither did the OP), and I didn't suggest you said them. What I said was that you endorsed the OP. I read the OP as having a basis in the OP's opinion that Trump is the dividing force.
You see, I don't want to divide conservatives. However, Trump does. His lexicon and methods are Alinskyite, and even his supporters need to be honest about that. ...The author of all the pejorative, trash comments, the half-truths and mostly lies evolving in post after post on FreeRepublic is Donald Trump, via his Alinskyite verbiage and methods.
Now, of course the OP also pleads for decorum (or at least reasonable argument supported with authority), but the pleads are directed to ONLY those who favor Trump. Read the OP again, don't take my word for it. I just read it again.
-- We are all on the same team here (big picture); it just doesn't feel that way lately. That's all I'm saying. --
During primary season, the posters here are not all on the same team. That is normal, I have never seen a primary with no dissent. If the only point of the OP's post was one of civility, the point could have made by referring to no single candidate. Riddle YOURSELF this, if the OP had used Cruz's name instead of Trump's, would you feel the same way about the OP? Would you see it as a uniting force, or a dividing force?
At any rate, I do agree that the climate here is tense. It's been worse. Not defending it being the way it is, just noting the obvious.
Bump for later.
(Aren’t I clever?)
.
I salute you sir. Well said.
re: Trump: I oppose Trumps tactics, moral principles, temperament, and language. I fully understand why folks would support him. The GOP has earned it chance to become the next WHIG party - in spades. Trump serves as dynamite to blow up the GOP-e. I get it.
However, as I said before, I won't support Machiavellian, Alinskyite morals. That ain't me, and won't ever be. That's the problem with what's going on now in the GOP, and reflected on dialogues at FR. How do you "walk back" personal attacks like "He's a liar, he's the biggest liar there ever was, he's just nasty … just a nasty, nasty person". And that's not the exception with Trump, it's the rule. If Mother Teresa were still around to scold "The Donald", I'd hate to hear the words he'd use for her. Trump is permanently fracturing not just the GOP-e, but the conservative movement in general.
Why doesn't that concern him?
As far as Trump's late conversion to certain conservative positions, I say "welcome to the big tent, Donald". However, the burden of proof is on him. When conservatives question his credentials, and he issues invective and ad hominem attacks in return, that response doesn't support his bona fides, not at all.
As I've said before, I want to find a way to support Trump if he's the GOP nominee, but there are real problems. TRUMP has caused those problems. Just like his comments about "W", 9/11, and the war, he needs to "fix" this stuff fast.
I doubt that you and I disagree on much. I also spent a lot of time here trashing Ahhhnold Schwartzenkennedy back in the day. Another gilt-edged phony.
Retread!!! An admitted retread!
IBTZ!!
And a long-winded retread, too. I think the mods zotted him the first time because his overly lengthy posts and replies take up too much server disk space and bandwith. :)
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