Posted on 04/21/2006 9:28:25 PM PDT by MC Miker G
The immigration reform debate has highlighted a long-standing fissure in the GOP between the elitist Rockefeller business wing and the party's conservative populist base. Whether the two groups can continue to coexist and preserve the Republican majority is increasingly doubtful as conservatives begin to consider -- and in some cases cheer -- the possibility that the GOP may lose control of Congress this fall.
The two camps are deeply divided. The business elites are interested in a large supply of cheap labor and support unfettered immigration and open borders. The populist base supports legal immigration but is concerned about lawlessness on our border, national sovereignty and the real security threat posed by porous borders.
There is nothing new about this division. It is a 40-year-old fight that has its roots in the cultural, economic, regional and ideological differences between the two camps. Still, most conservatives felt that after the victory of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Revolution of 1994 their point was made and the country-clubbers would know their place. They were wrong. The Rockefeller wing is now attempting to reassert its control over the party and is openly hostile toward the Reagan populists who created the Republican majority in the first place.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
There is nothing noble about an American voter refusing to vote.
When the elections are over, either Democrats or Republicans will run the country.
The fight is about how much control of one of those parties we have.
I will not be patronized by a game that's unwinnable- a system designed only to pacify the enlightened and angry, and never award due satisfaction.
Perhaps we should consider that battle lost and it is time to have the GOPs go the way of the Whigs.
"It won't be easy.....our leadership is corrupted on almost every federal and state level. They are within a week of passing this amnesty, that's it. And if they pass it next week, the ballgame is over. Demography is destiny."
Your post perfectly sums up how I feel, frankly I'm at a very low point on our options right now, we helped put the Republicans in power, and while it helped slow the bleeding , it didn't reverse anything(maybe a couple of things).
It isn't that we are so pure and those politicians are so corrupt, it is that government is real life, it is like the ocean versus the land, the struggle never stops.
This isn't a sporting event where we fight, and the winner celebrates, this is more like a confused knife fight in a totally dark alley, that goes on forever.
Good plan.. its unreal we can't even bulid nuke plants for example when the republicans control all branches.
I'm beginning to think that the republican party was in opposition for so long that they can't really govern - besides on military issues. They got some tax cuts through, but then borrowed money to make up the gap in funding.
When I hear them speak they sound like an opposition party trying to slow down the Democrat agenda. Like Dennis Hastert's editorial on why the tax system is over-complicated and his ideas for a simple system. This same guy was the house majority leader and couldn't even stop the rising complexity of the tax code. It seems he is more natural as an opposition leader criticizing the ruling party's mistakes.
That is my feeling too. As long as there are elections people's ideas for how to change society are always related to electing their favorite party. But voting is only one of many ways of changing a society.. and one of the least effective.
It is utterly infuriating that a party which controls three of the federal branches and has only the press to contend with, cannot put one foot in front of the other.
Last time I checked, we ALREADY drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps you mean the Pacific Ocean off of California?
"9 attack 10 repeat, attack "
Attack who?- California? ( I'll go with that!)
"...and please find me an actual Republican who wants the GOP to lose control of Congress."
I would rather have 41 conservative Senators, as a base to build on, that would prevent the Democrats from passing their agenda than 60 Republican Senators who assist the Democrats in passing their agenda.
"the possibility that the GOP may lose control of Congress this fall."
It's called an ELECTION.
When you have an ELECTION all outcomes are POSSIBLE.
(I don't mean personally to you)
The way the left is salivating about November, shows what desperate gluttons for power they are after the American people have been rejecting them since that out of control sick pervert Clinton was reelected way back in 1996.
It makes one wonder what will happen to them if the Republicans actually pull off gains in November.
Bull Halsey, who should get the credit for the order, "attack, repeat, attack," never was in doubt about who was the enemy. The author's point is that the Republican party and especially its Rockefeller wing is confused about that. I agree. Start with House and Senate Rats. Take on the environmentalists who have bequeathed us $75 oil.
You can't just blame enviromentalists for oil, they are nut job commies, the republicans bought the s- they were selling. Plus Bush invaded an oil rich nation and let them stay in OPEC.
Good example.. the Democrats have balls when it comes to getting domestic things they want done. Like the Elian Gonzales issue, which even some Democrats were against.
There have been multiple cases I have read of where a guerilla movement fights for so long, and eventually wins.. But then have trouble actually running things, and soon are replaced.
You know what the Dems would do if the media was against them? They'd deny liscences to broadcast, send the IRS after the companies, sue them over equality issues, and so on. The thing every media person cares about more then ideology is money. They would fall in line within a few months, their major shareholders would demand it.
Its not pretty, but its playing hardball.
"What's different this time is that if the borders are open in such a way as to let in 20, 40, 50 million people in less than a decade, then all bets are off. It will literally be a new world order.....lol, where have we heard that before."
Frankly it is worse than you are stating, but the answer is we fight.
To me the only true gains to be made with immigration is within the Republican party.
You decide what kind of people you want to run the party then you spend the rest of your life trying to get them there.
What a lot of people forget is, even though we are in a living hell, this is the best era for conservatives since at least the 1920s.
When you absorb that , you realize this may be bigger that your lifetime.
With nuclear power we could move away from coal and gas (although the latter is clean and the former is on the verge of producing new technology which should make it clean) and produce electricity with clean and safe nuclear reactors. The president has called for a hydrogen fuel cell breakthrough and it certainly seems to this layperson that hydrogen if produced by electricity which in turn is produced not with hydrocarbons but with uranium, will in fact be clean and not just an exercise in pushing the pollution upstream
I say force votes on these issues and expose the enviromentalists and their Democrat spear carriers to the wrath of every voter, whose indignation is refreshed everytime he fills 'er up.
I just this minute heard the president call for reduced driving as a matter of national security. How many of the 11 to 30 million illegal immigrants are consuming gasoline and contributing to our national insecurity?
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