Thomas Sowell: Dangerous Moderation

Creator's Syndicate ^ | October 30, 2005 | Dr. Thomas Sowell

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

And some Senators might be defeated in 2006, losing us the majority.

What?

What good is a "majority" if the "majority" are RINOs?

Better a minority with spine than a majority without spine.

I hope many of you learned after the Miers episode that it is time for activists to fight for conservative causes, not for "majorities", since "majorities" today means RINOs.

Conservative voters elected a left leaning president in George Bush, and leftists like McCain, Dewine, Collins, Hagel, SnoweJob, Chafee, et al. The voters in this nation are far more conservative than the RINOs we elect. As such, we need to fight for our causes and STOP believing that the people we elect will do the fighting for us. It has been shown so many times that they will not fight for us, so we need to carry the fight ourselves.

True conservatives on Free Republic, Michelle Malkin, Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter, George Will, Peggy Noonan and a multitude of other conservative commentators put the Miers nomination by Bush in the dumpster, thank God. It was the "Consenus Bush" who selected her, and it would have been the RINO Republican Senators who would have confirmed her had we not saved the day.

Had it not been for true conservatives like some of us here on Free Republic and these national figures, we would have gotten another Souter-style justice likely.

Any conservative who puts faith into George Bush or the Republican Senate needs a reality check. The fight needs to be taken at the grassroots level until these RINOs start understanding that the voters are conservative and, hopefully, they then start acting like a conservative president and a conservative Senate.

We true conservatives need to take pride that we caused a major change in the USA with the quashing of Miers, but we need to do the same on other critical issues. Bush and the Republican'ts will not do it for us.

[TADSLOS]

Senate Democrats are a united minority, while Senate Republicans are a divided majority, with prima donnas and opportunists ready to leave their fellow Republicans in the lurch when a showdown comes...

On any given day, I'm not sure who I despise more.

[DocH]

prima donnas and opportunists

Read that, "the RINO contingent of the 'republican' party", with McRino one of the lead traitors.

[Miss Marple]

You missed the point of my post. Losing the majority in the Senate guarantees that none of the things you wish to see passed will happen. No permanent tax cuts. No Social Security reform. No ANWR drilling. Nothing you wantp>In addition, NO decent apppointments to the SC or to any other positions. Everything would have to be recess appointments.

And most importantly, the democrats would own the committee chairmanships and would schedule investigations (aka kangaroo courts) on every subject imaginable, from the war on terror to environmental policies to the UN funding. By the time they got done running those "investigations" on national television, conservatives would be viewed by the public as a combination of Simon Legree/Snidely Whiplash. This would almost certainly translate to a non-conservative getting the nomination in 2008, and possible the resultant loss of the White House.

Then we would have 4 years of retreat from AL Quaeda, kowtowing to the UN, selling off our secrets to China, etc. etc.

THAT is why it is important to have the majority.

[DocH]

All we need to do is convince 2 of the 7 RINOs

I don't know, but it seems to me that Graham, being from conservative S.C., MUST have received a good number of "nasty-grams" from his constituents after the last go-round, which means he should be running scared enough to vote the right way this time.

Anyone from S.C. got the scoop on this guy?

[monocle]

Your assumption that similar personalities would be elected by state legislatures is questionable. Many, if not most, of those seeking senate seats today have narcissitic peronalities and would not fare well with state legislatures looking for team players.

[ComputerGuy]

Roger that

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Most of the people who seek U.S. Senate seats-or at least, those that succeed in the endeavor-have at one point or another served in their state legislature.

The idea that the two legislative bodies attract entirely distinct strata of aspiring officeholders is an inaccurate assumption.

[photodawg]

goldstategop wrote:
Simple - if Republican Senators refuse to vote for the President's nominee, punish the party next year by stripping it of its Senate majority. If these Senators do not want to please their President and the voters who elected them, perhaps being in the minority will help to concentrate their minds.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

Simple.....lets cut off our nose to spite our face. Who are we punishing by allowing the other party to be elected?

[goldstategop]

We would be punishing GOP Senators for failure to support our President and to deliver on the agenda. Our Senators have a choice: they can either get to work and earn their keep or find themselves out of a job. The base is fed up with the excuses and inaction.

("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")

[photodawg]

muir_redwoods wrote:
Moderation is not always a good thing
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Moderation for your appetites. Extremes in your virtues. Its either right or wrong no half way. Moderate your desires and wants.

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

Currently, we have a president who is not a conservative and a RINO filled Senate.

The issues you mentioned have not gotten done now, even though we increased our majorities in Congress and won the White House with a convincing vote.

The voters of this nation are indeed more conservative than the Republicans we send to Washington. The only way to get conservative victories is to keep doing what we did with Miers--show outrage at non-conservative moves by Bush and the RINOs.

The RATs fight, the Republicans avoid fights. That is how the RATs control the agenda today,, and that is how the RATs controlled the agenda when they were in power.

RATs have spine, Republicans lack spine.

Perhaps the grassroots rebellion against Bush and the Republicans in the Miers case will cause the RINOs to start looking more closely at their constituents and realize the people who elected them are more conservative than what they have been acting.

What you point out about Senate control is obvious, but the reality is the Republican have not made use of their majority. There is very little we accomplished with the sweeping 2004 win. There should be no more IRS but a national sales tax as a replacement. There should be a restoration of our national sovereignty but Spanish is the major language in many schools and they fly the Mexican flag in schools. There should be nuclear power construction but there is not the case. There should be fiscal sanity but instead we have Bush elbowing aside FDR and LBJ. We should have Luttig and JRP on SCOTUS but instead we have unknown-Roberts and the craziest pick in the history of this nation in Miers by Bush. Who knows what politically correct woman he will appoint next.

Having a "majority" is not any good when the Republican majority has no spine. I would prefer a minority of Senators with a strong backbone who stifles RAT agenda. The RATs have shown that they wield more power in the minority than the Republicans wield in the majority.

Before we talk about "having the majority", we need to get these RINOs to leave the Republican Party or to come back to the conservative cause. I have no desire to fight for Republicans who are liberals.

It is not the "party" that dictates agenda and nominee selection, it is the "ideology"--radical left or conservative. The ideology today of the Republicans is liberal and that is the fight that we activists have to fight first before we have the desire to elect more Republicans to elected office.

[GOPJ]

Politically, these can be "times that try men's souls" -- for those who still have souls and haven't sold them.

Listen up people...

[photodawg]

goldstategop wrote:
We would be punishing GOP Senators for failure to support our President
////////////////////////////////////////////////

Wrong. We would be punishing ourselves by giving in to the Democrat pressure, and giving up on our party. The answer is to hold each republican senator responsible for his poor performance. Then during his election year actively work to replace him with a better qualified republican. If this happens even a few times it would send a powerful message to those who think they can get away with abandoning the people who elected them.

[monocle]

Have your ever heard the logical fallacy of the whole equals the sum of the parts?

[etradervic]

Any judicial nominee who has said that the Constitution means what it says, not what judges would like it to mean, is going to be called an "extremist." That person will be said to be "out of the mainstream." But the mainstream is itself the problem.

The "mainstream" is not the problem. The Left has more effectively used language to sell their positions to voters. They have become astute languagemiesters out of a necessity to obfuscate their unpopular policy positions.

Conservatives have fallen for the bait and often refer to the Leftist, partisan press as the "Mainstream" press when they are not "mainstream". Leftists are often referred to by conservates as "Elites" when they definitely are not "elite" in any sense of the word.

Alito, Williams, or Luttig would make fine justices and are consistent with the mainstream of American opinion.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~govt/docs/Schiller.PDF

[tarheelswamprat]

Have your ever heard the logical fallacy of the whole equals the sum of the parts?

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~govt/docs/Schiller.PDF

Obviously not. /grin

Gotta run, I'm late for church. I'll revisit this when I return.

[thoughtomator]

Heh, it would be sumptuously ironic if we gave the Senate back to the Dems only to have the GOP filibuster anything and everything they try to do.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Yes I have, your snarky, uninformed comment notwithstanding.

I suggest that you at least take the time to look at the document I've offered for your perusal.

It is edifying, especially for those of you who hew to this ridiculous-not to mention, unverifiable-conviction that repealing the 17th Amendment is some sort of panacea that will return the United States to its Constitutional roots.

If you actually want to roll back the insidious socialism that's gripped this country from 1932 onward, then I suggest that you find a more effective vehicle for accomplishing that goal, e.g. lobbying for the modification or eradication of the income tax, clamoring for the repeal of the disastrous congressional expansions to Medicare-and every other "entitlement" program under the Sun-and campaigning for the imposition of firm, low numerical quotas on the thousands of tax-eaters that are given carte blanche to enter this country on an annual basis.