Posted on 04/25/2006 9:49:30 AM PDT by Reagan Man
I know a little something about adventure.
In the late 1970s, the leader of the Republican minority in the U.S. House of Representatives used to greet newly elected Republican members with a white flag of surrender. "Every day I wake up and look in the mirror and say to myself, 'Today you're going to be a loser,'" said the former minority leader. "And after you're here awhile, you'll start to feel the same way. But don't let it bother you. You'll get used to it."
A party whose leader would offer such advice deserves to be in the minority -- and we were, for 40 years. But in 1994 we changed that with a bold ideas-based, values-led grassroots movement. We believed in transformational leadership: accountability in government, balanced budgets, lower taxes, stronger defense and reforming the welfare state. And we believed this: To bring about this transformation, we had to reject the minority leader's advice. We would not "get used" to losing. We would win. And win we did.
But today, 12 years later, conservatives are grasping for a reinvigorated movement that will return our party to its roots of smaller government, innovative ideas and common sense solutions. The situation is serious. We are in jeopardy of losing the majority we won in 1994. Now is the time to act.
Five Challenges to Our Future
History is full of once great but now collapsed civilizations, e.g. Rome, Greece, the Aztecs, the Mayas. And yet as Americans, we deceive ourselves into believing that somehow we are permanent, that we will escape the fate of those who also believed that they were unconquerable.
My stepfather was a career soldier who served America in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. It was while living in France -- where the damage of World War II bombs and the suffering of those wounded were still apparent -- that my father's lessons hit home for me. We toured the battlefield of Verdun, the greatest battle site of the First World War. I realized then that the difference between preserving our freedoms and losing them to tyrants is the quality of our leaders, the courage of our people and the willingness to work every day for the implementation of the solutions necessary for our survival.
The future cannot be left to chance. The future must be won.
Today, in order to win the future, there are five challenges that America must meet:
1. Confronting a world in which America's enemies, including the irreconcilable wing of Islam and rogue dictatorships, could acquire and use nuclear or biological weapons;
2. Defending God in the public square;
3. Protecting America's unique civilization;
4. Competing in the global economy in an era of the economic rise of China and India, which will require transformations in litigation, education, taxation, regulation, and environmental, energy and health policies for America to continue to be the most successful economy in the world;
5. Promoting active, healthy aging so more people can live longer, which will require dramatic transformation in pensions, Social Security and health care.
For 400 years, in the spirit of freedom and entrepreneurial pioneering, we have defined a better America that has overcome every challenge. It is in this tradition that I will regularly share my thoughts here on the solutions necessary for our generation to meet these challenges and win the future.
I can make only one promise: It will be challenging and engaging, and it will never be dull. But then again, adventures never are.
Now there's an idea they should consider.
Morons. Rino's need not apply.
As opposed of course to the Democrats.
Riiiiiight...
You mean, like Mike Pence? ;)
Maybe, just maybe, The spineless, gonad-less REpublicans should look in the mirror and ask why their base is not rallying behind them? Hmmmm?? Too much to ask?
Sorry, I no longer fear a Dem majority, because Dems will just take us down this same path...only faster. The REpublicans have no one but themselves to blame for the exodus of conservatives. Game over.
OTOH. Bush was handed a solid economy in 2001, with a huge surplus. While the Bush tax cuts also stimulated economic growth, his liberal spending has run up huge deficits and increased the debt ceiling by 57%, from $5.7 trillion to $9.0 trillion. Today Bush spends 67% of the annual budget on welfare entitlement programs. In Reagan's day, that figure was closer to 50%.
Well said.
The pubs are getting to be more liberal, more socialist, more like the dims every day.
It's sickening.
And the illegal immigrant situation is just the last straw for me.
I'm fed up, pissed off, and just plain generally angry. I know I'm not alone in such feelings, but wahington just doesn't seem to care. They're too busy pandering (at not very well either) for the elections.
You are right that we are nibbled to death. The other tax I figured roughly how much a year I pay in taxes" federal state, local, incluidng fees. It is depressing how big a bite they take compared with what I paid back in, say. 1957.
It will be over sooner under a Dem, quicker death is more merciful in some respects.
To be honest with you sir, I believe that the majority of the blame lays with the stalwarts of the party and not with the so called ‘mavericks’ like McCain et al. McCain may have antics that position him somewhere between RINO and Hillary, but the blame that can (or maybe I should say ‘should’) be laid on his feet is not that big. After all, we do have a Republican White House, we have a Republican congress, and we even have a conservative leaning judiciary now. Yet we are spinning wheels on a whole range of fronts and acting like a headless fowl.
McCain may indeed be holding a pillow over the face of The Party, but there are a whole number of other non-RINO (at least by reputation) members who have a mainline dripping arsenic directly into The Party’s vein. Without the latter group McCain could do his usual antics to no real ill effect, but the other guys could cost elections and put this great nation in jeopardy. It is not McCain and his ilk that bode the greatest ill for The Party .....it is 'the others' (you know, the so called 'Real' repubs in Congress and the WH who apparently are sleeping) that bode the greatest peril.
Fortunately for us the Democrats are too inane to take advantage of this situation. If the situations were reversed you would have seen the Republicans really hit the Dems hard on the jaw over this, and make them suffer on so many fronts. Fortunately though the Democrats are simply incompetent and wouldn't know how to take advantage of a situation even if it came and sat on them. However the problem is that the average voter may not be as incompetent as the Democrats when it comes to the polls.
Reagan was ALONE.. with NO republican congress and NO conservative Supreme Court.. and most of the governors were democrats.. Reagan did quite well considering what he faced.. Thats assuming Reagan would have cut givernment significantly anyway.. He might not have.. "significantly".. You know, the way it SHOULD BE...
Was he a RINO?.. probably, maybe.. but then its been a hundred years since America had a conservative president.. whatever conservative means.. The meaning of the word has changed in a hundred years.. or less really..
If Reagan had a GOP Congress, like Bush43 has had for most of his term in office, Reagan would have begun a process of dismantling the "welfare state apparatus", as you call it. Reagan accomplished significant reductions in the welfare state spending from the Carter years. Reagan came into office with the Feds spending 53.4% of the annual budget on welfare state programs. He left having reduced that to 49.7%. Reagan came into office with the Feds spending 23.2% of the annual budget on national defense. Reagan left office with defense spending having been increased to 26.5%. With a high of 28.1% in 1987. That might seem minor to some folk, not to this conservative. Those are historic shifts in federal spending and the reason the liberal leftwing hated Reagan so much. The type of spending shifts Bush43 isn't interested in acheiving.
If Reagan had come into office with a Republican Congress, that Congress would have been no more and no less liberal than the rest of the Party. In other words, there were lots of Chaffes in the conference. And you forget that there were still lots of conservative Democrats. They are as rare as hen's eeth these days.
We immigration reformers need to take the same tack the pro-lifers and the gun rights folks have: loyal to the issue, not the party. If you'll notice, NOBODY is gonna piss off the pro-lifers or start gun grabbing, because the GOP knows they can't win without them.
Those of us who care about this issue need to do the same: you want my vote, you control the borders, you enforce the immigration laws. Yes, we'll lose GOP seats. I don't care if the GOP loses seats. Why should I, the party has clearly shown they prefer their corporate masters to the grassroots. In fact, we need to lose GOP seats so the party gets it through its' pointed head: without the immigration reformers in your coaltion, you can't win. Since the only thing the party cares about is holding office, that's the only leverage we have.
Obviously. Reagan didn't have the same opportunities to advance conservatism in his day, that Bush43 has had today. My hypothetical comparison is with todays GOP majority controlled Congress. Bottomline. In a much different time, under much different political conditions, Reagan showed bold decision making and great leadership in advancing conservatism. In the 1980`s liberalism still ruled. Reagan began to change that political environment. Newt brought about the second phase of the Reagan Revolution and for a short time period made cosnervatives proud to be members of the Republican Party. For all intents and purposes, Bush43 has turned his back on Reagan and Newt's conservative governing agenda.
Correction, Anwar should be ANWR.
LOL and agree.
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