Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 09/26/2005 5:34:31 PM PDT by mwfsu84
My major complaints with the GOP are Bush's spending, and the stonewalling RINOs in Congress. And yet, what is the alternative? To vote Democrat? Or to not vote at all - which is just as helpful to Dems.
Every time I think how disappointed I am with Bush, I try to remember how much worse it could be with a legitmate Bush-hater.
The Democrats won't cut spending. They'll raise taxes. We'll see national health care. A Democratic President won't nominate moderate SCOTUS justices - unless you consider Ruth Bader Ginsberg a moderate. We'll cow tow to the UN, probably pull out of Iraq, establish relations with Cuba and Hugo Chavez. They'll be no legitimate challenge to the ban on partial birth abortion. This fall, an upcoming SCOTUS case will be whether a minor has a right to have an abortion without parental consent. If a 15 year old child wins that 'right', do you honestly expect ANY leader from the party of Planned Parenthood to challenge it?
You think gas prices are high now? Wait until you see prices caps imposed, Jimmy Carter-style, so you'll have higher prices and longer lines. We'll have a president that preaches to us the value of sacrifice, which as we all know, worked so well during the Carter years.
As disgusted as we are with George W. Bush, we can't give up on the Republican Party.
Bingo. House and Senate.
For example, we almost had Toomey in the primary in PA, and not RINO Arlen Specter. (I know you know that, just an example for others)
We need to work harder to bring conservatives to the table in the primaries.
Exactly!!!
Reagan Man found graphs that use the LBJ system of showing reduced spending for social programs... Don't include social entitlement numbers in your graph.
By the way Reagan like Bush43 increased Medicare benefits.
America was designed with the American family in mind. One can take the view that both parties are inherently greedy, selfish, self-centered, certainly. And of course, your post then more functionally expresses that viewpoint -- to wit, that greed is what motivates both parties, and in that venue, are one party, per se.
Let's imagine, for the sake of argument.. a different two party system: Say, Greenies and Constitution Party. Let's suppose each of them offers "real choice". Over time, your same view about Dems and Repubs will be applicable to these two newer parties, IMHO.
Taken in the small, imagine a Republican Husband and a Democrat Wife. Overtime, one will see there are unifying factors -- income, investments, religions.. even tho' politically, they appear different. Are they greedy, then? Are they "one" party to the exclusion to anyone else trying to enter the "race"?
I'd vote for that and I'm a freaking Dem.
What's the alternative? A third party................
The alternative is to organize a third party of dissafected conservatives who will target only RINOS. Think about it. Run conservative candidates against the likes of McCain, Snowe, Collins, in their home states, in both primaries and general elections. DO NOT run a candidate against GOP presidential candidate unless he/she is to far to left. Who cares if Dems win seats? The RINOS never vote with us on the most important issues anyway.
Think it out, no incumbent RINO or wannabe would want to be ousted or defeated if they had conservative opposition on the ballot. In fact, we would be able to exercise more leverage than ever. We have been courted, then marginalized for too many years.
Bring the best and brightest on to the cause. Target our money where timidity dwells. It could work.
Should have said "risk being outed or defeated".
I still think we need a third party.
I like it.
It's like a football team playing with a lead. Once in power, the politicians start playing to not lose power. They quit playing the way they played to get in power. It is very disappointing.
Gridlock.
It worked when clifton was president............
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
I have given up. I vote for the American Constitution Party and Libertarians.
I agree
I keep having nightmares that HIllary will be POTUS if we stay home
i cannot in good conscience do that i love my country too much
I think your attack on Michael Brown is a reach.
The fact is that he executed the responsibility of the post competently before Katrina. That alone removes any doubt that he was qualified for the job regardless of what was not in his resume or his background.
Up until Hurricane Katrina he had only worked with states with strong and prepared plans. He had never worked on a disaster this size, and no American can claim to have done so, so the issue of past experience is again a moot issue.
There is no doubt that errors were made. Tell me, have you ever had to try and coordinate just your family to go on a vacation? How many mistakes are made that could've made the preparations easier and the execution easier?
Mistakes are made even in well prepared and competently led disaster responses.
I think you're trying to crucify a man that did his job as well as could be expected of a human being, and that nobody could've anticipated the lack of preparation by the local authorities, or the degree of miscommunications that would occur between the local authorities and the Feds. And any reasonable assessment of the miscommunications points to the local authorities (Blanco and Nagin) having had made multiple errors that contributed and continued to contribute to the problems.
If you've ever worked as a project manager - have you ever had to mange people who hide any problems they're having with a project out of fear, reporting what you want to hear? FEMA is aptly named as a management organization. This happens.
The thing that made the difference between Louisiana and all the other states that have been affected by disasters during Brown's tenure was not his experience or lack of it, but the degree of preparedness of the local authorities. Blaming Mr. Brown with the majority of the blame is wrong. Yes, he made some errors. In hindsight he should've assessed the situation using his own sources of information, but seeing as how the resources FEMA designates for information gathering is limited and that FEMA has always relied on local authorities to be honest and upfront, such hindsight cannot be weighted heavily against Brown.
Are you a Libertarian take the worlds smallest political quiz to find out http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
The only way one of the current two parties could be dislodged is if on a very divisive issue roughly half of the voters have one view and the remaining voters take the opposite position. What would be the result if both major parties take the same position on the issue or one or both parties takes no position on the issue? That results in one party collapsing and a new major party being formed
We have such an example where a party collapsed and a new one arose taking the position not represented by either of the other parties.
That happened with slavery. When the two major parties of the 1850s, the Whigs and the Democrats, became similar parties on the issue of slavery, the Whigs collapsed. Neither the Democrats or the Whigs would oppose slavery in the 1850s. In 4 years the Whigs went from electing a president to oblivion. As a result the Republicans rose to take power under Lincoln in 1860.
As long as our two major parties tend to oppose each other on most issues there is no chance for a third or fourth party to succeed. It would take an issue as powerful as slavery and both parties would have to refuse to oppose it.
It might possible over time for abortion to become that issue. But Republicans oppose abortion and Democrats favor it. There is no third position that has about half the voters support so abortion will not work to establish a new second party.
You are right if both the Democrats and Republicans collapsed we would get two new parties that in time would be the exact images of the Democrat and Republican parties of today.
But it is worth noting that the two parties switch positions all the time. The Republican party of 70 years ago was isolationist. It wanted to bring any troops we had overseas home.. Including the Marines we had in China. Stay out of Europe's and Asians wars was the Republican philosophy. The fact that Japan attacked China was none of our concern. That was the Republican position back then. Then the Democrats were interventionists. Republicans could not see the danger in Hitler and Japan. Yet the danger was there.
The Democrats under Roosevelt wanted to get involved in the world situation to stop Hitler and Japan while the cost was low. There was not a lot of support for that position in either theUSA or Britain in the mid 1930s.
Winston Churchill sas castigated in 1936 for wanting the British take out Hitler while the cost was low. The liberals in Britain were aghast.. they said it would cost 2,000 lives to take down Hitler. And they were right. It world have. But four years later the cost had risen to 50,000,000 lives. But eight years later those who had opposed Churchill considered the 50 million lives well spent.
Today the Republicans are for international intervention and the Democrats are opposed. That is just one issue where the parties have switched sides.
It was the Republicans who created our first quasi-judicial government bureaucracy. Republican Teddy Roosevelt created the Food and Drug Administration. But by 1932 the Republicans and Democrats had switched sides. Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt belonged to different parties but their philosophy of government was the same.
It is very unlikely that our two parties will ever agree on any important issue enough, or ingnore such an issue enough to bring about one of their downfalls.
I don't quite understand your reasoning.
If you're disgusted with George Bush, the candidate that the Republican Party served up, how can you still maintain loyalty to that party?
Isn't George W. Bush an extension of the party?
Would you continue patronizing a restaurant whose chef continuously served food that was not to your liking?
A practical suggestion in theory. However, I have found that the size of my contribution doesn't buy much accountability, which I'm guessing is the case with most voters.
"President Bush has pledged to do whatever it takes to rebuild the lives and communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. This pledge comes with a price tag. To deliver this kind of aid, Congress and the President must set priorities and make sacrifices and trade-offs to pay for it. Offsetting the cost of rebuilding is all the more important because the rebuilding effort follows a 33 percent expansion of the federal government since 2001, a period that saw:
* The 2001 No Child Behind Act, the most expensive education bill in American history, which led to a 100 percent increase in education spending;
* The 2002 Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, the most expensive farm bill in American history;
* The 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, the most expensive Great Society expansion in history;
* A war in and the rebuilding of Iraq that, while justified, could cost between $300 and $600 billion, in total;
* International spending leap 94 percent;
* Housing and Commerce spending surge 86 percent;
* Community and regional development spending jump 71 percent;
* Health research spending increase 61 percent;
* Veterans’ spending increase 51 percent; and
* The number of annual pork projects leap from 6,000 to 14,000. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm844.cfm
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