Posted on 05/08/2006 7:04:26 PM PDT by mwfsu84
If I had told you on 9/11/2001 that we'd go four and half years and counting without another terrorist attack on US soil, would you have believed me?
If I had told you that US-led forces would secure Afghanistan in just a few months...something the Soviets couldn't accomplish in ten years...would you have thought I was crazy?
If I had told you that Saddam was gone, that Khadaffy had renounced terrorism, and that Iraq was on the verge of becoming the second democracy in the Middle East, would have thought I was on medication?
Sometimes in our disappointment of this administration, we often forget some of the positives. The economy is strong. More Americans are homeowners. With tax cuts, we're spending less time working for Uncle Sam.
And if you take those benefits for granted, just imagine how much different things would be under a President Al Gore.
So if the president's stance on immigration and spending upset you - and they do upset me - what are you going to do about it? Stay at home? Nothing could be worse for conservativism. Your non-support will usher in more immigrants, higher taxes, and weaker national security.
If the GOP loses Congress, George W. Bush will be removed from office. Nothing would embolden terrorists more. How can we be counted on to wage an effective war when we can't even decide who our enemy is?
George W. Bush isn't the enemy. But that's exactly the message conservatives will send to the world if they stay at home this November.
If you're upset with W. on immigration - write him, write a Republican Congressman, let him know how you feel. It was conservatives who got Bush to change his mind on Harriet Meirs.
I promise you, a Democratic Congress won't be nearly as responsive to your needs.
I notice you still dodged the above question
"Third party will never win, I am not bashing you I am simply stating truth."
The Republican Party was a third party once.
It replaced the Whig Party, which died out because it lost most of its supporters.
Third parties CAN win, they just have to come at the right time and have the right issues, and people have to be mad and frustrated enough at one or both parties to vote for a third party.
The Reform Party had a shot at becoming a real, viable third party. It fell apart for a variety of reasons, but the lesson from those reasons isn't that third parties can never win, it is that third parties have to form themselves properly and have the proper set of issues and goals.
THINK, people. PLEASE think.
LOL...
OK then, I guess you and everyone else saw two different debates. I like the former Admiral, but that was far from an impressive showing.
I'm getting the notion that you just like to argue for argument's sake. Your points make little sense and reveal that you have a very short memory.
I also think that you underestimate the importance of appearance and presence. If you truly believe that Perot had either, well, LOL..., then I just don't know what to tell ya.
You probably think that Gary Coleman could truly be a viable candidate all other things being equal.
The people screaming the loudest about illegals and hating Bush the most for his weak stance on it, are now advocating letting Dems take control, who have a completely OPEN border and reward the illegals with goodies policy.
Do they not see the problem with what they are doing? And if not, how is that possible??
If we stay home because we're miffed, and let the Dems take control of the Congress, the blame will lie squarely on OUR shoulders..........no one else's.
If you advocate a position, then you need to take responsibility for its consequences.
Scroll upthread and look at the photos SJackson posted. THAT will be the consequences of your 'protest' against a President who is not as conservative as you would like.
YOU may be able to live with that, but the vast majority of conservatives......especially those who love this country....... are horrified at the thought.
****
lol ..........
Well, we certainly won't agree on amnesty, regardless of when it is addressed. IMO it is morally wrong to allow them to cut in front of those who are attempting to get here legally, it is morally wrong to reward the breaking of our immigration laws with citizenship, and it is morally wrong not to punish them for having entered illegally and going on to commit crimes while here, and it is morally reprehensible that they should think they are in a position to make DEMANDS, assemble in numbers that risk our national security, threaten to shut down our country, and use a show of force to intimidate our lawmakers.
Given that, for the sake of 'morality', I am still willing to make a compromise, and I'm not even catholic! No jail time in exchange for immediate deportation.
" Putting up a fence stops the flow." "DELAY discussion of amnesty until NEXT year or afterward, but get the Fence approved THIS year and start building it."
Trying to separate the two issues changes the outcome of neither! I've looked through hundreds and hundreds of photos of the protests all across the country. Not once did I see a sign that said "Protect the Border, Build a Fence", nor did I see any that said "Willing to Earn Amnesty". In fact, quite the opposite. I've seen signs demanding legalization, demanding open borders, and Revolucion!
I do not believe that Bush and reps on the wrong side of this issue, catholics, unions, Lib Lawmakers, the illegal immigrants or those who support them are going to support the building of a fence, wall, etc. If Bush was serious about border security, we wouldn't be discussing the lack of it, post 9/11, in 2006.
"We must live in different worlds then; I'm in and out all the time and more people are hyped up about the Duke case than about that."
You're in the Triangle, right by Duke, with a very healthy economy. I'm in the Triad, worlds away from Duke, with manufacturing plants dropping like flies. Unemployment is not bad here at all, but the constant bad news and dislocation does take a toll and tends to lead to concern over cheap, illegal labor competing with these poor people.
Well, Fruitbat, let me tell you, if you are serious about building a third party in America, you have to focus on the important things, and stage management isn't what gave John Anderson 9% of the vote and Ross Perot 19% in 1992. Perot was polling above 50% in California before he withdrew from the race. THAT is what cost him a better showing in the election. Not Stockdale, not his voice, not his politics. My memory is surprisingly good for the details that matter.
If you want to start a third party, you need to pull up a chair and listen to somebody like me. For starters, you need to focus on the Midwest and California, because these are the two most politically disaffected regions in the country, the places worst served by the present two-party system. They are the two places that will (and have, in the case of Anderson and Perot) reached for a third party alternative.
The South is not going to spontaneously abandon the Republicans, and the Northeast is not going to abandon the liberal Democrats. You can't start there. You have to start where you can build up a powerful head of steam and become a regional power which others from outside then look at.
Any American third party that eventually succeeds will have its first victories in the Midwest and in California.
The next thing you have to do is to have a SHORT list of policies. The Constitution Party folks are well-meaning people, but they have a laundry-list platform, 80% of which is sane, 20% of which sounds whacko. The problem with ideological purity is that it forces you to take positions on things that you should just shut up about because they hardly matter, except to a narrow few ideologues, but they make you sound nuts.
Ross Perot successfully avoided that pitfall. He focused on globalization and the loss of American manufacturing jobs, on corruption and on government spending. Those who opposed him, of course opposed him, but PLENTY of people agreed with him and gave him a hearing.
Contrast that with the Constitution Party, whose website proudly tells us that they want to repeal the 17th Amendment and take away the democratic vote for Senators. This is la-la land stuff.
Make a laundry list platform of strange ideological hobby-horses and you are going to be a crank party on the fringes. Instead, you have to FOCUS. How did the Republican Party replace the Whigs? One issue: Slavery. Slavery was such an overwhelming moral imperative, that other issues paled beside it.
Political parties are not there to educate the unwashed masses in miniscule fine points of constitutional theory. That's what the Constitution Party Platform does. It's noble. And it's pathetic. People don't want a civics lesson, especially not a cranky one. What they want is fundamental changes.
The third thing you have to do is identify broad constituencies that are likely to share your view and vote for you. This all ties into issue spotting. Now, as soon as you do this, you are going to alienate others. All things to all people might work (for awhile) if your the party in charge handing out largesse, but it's hopeless if you're trying to get there.
So, what are the great issues of frustration in America, that lots of people, especially in California and the Midwest, feel are unaddressed:
(1) Uncontrolled immigration.
(2) Export of Jobs.
(3) The neo-isolationist desire, in general.
(4) Health care and pensions.
So, you propose, in order, a fence, no tax deductions for foreign labor, substantial pullback from the rest of the world and the UN, shoring up social security, and universal health insurance coverage.
That's a platform that will win you federal and state offices in the Midwest, and in California with a properly photogenic candidate.
Start opposing democracy on principle or other damnfool ideas, and you're headed for the fringes. Focus on the issues, and even without a champion, you can build a party.
Then champions will come, like Perot, and you can build a party faster.
Let me ask you, then:
(1) Are you going to vote for the Republicans this November, even if they either do nothing and leave the status quo open border, or if they offer an amnesty and a fence? Yes or no?
(2) Will you vote for them if they vote to put up the fence, allocate funds and start doing it, without agreeing to an amnesty? Yes or no?
Those are the only three options likely to happen:
paralysis and status quo open border;
a fence and amnesty;
or just a fence.
Will you vote for the Republicans if they do any of those three things?
"I will let the record stand for itself."
So will I, Wfan. While you're using suggestions to pray for cheap debate points and playing childish word games, you need to pray for guidance, as to just why you feel the need to make "enemies" out of people who disagree with you, and also why you're so incredibly freewheeling with the use of the word "liar" when it's inaccurate and inappropriate. It's not only petty, it's offensive.
The facts are clear, and your lies in bold black and white are not negated by your weak attempts to turn the blame onto me.
It's about integrity.........and your lack of it. And until you learn what honor and integrity are all about, please leave me alone.
I will accept your apology and forgive you whenever you offer are ready to acknowledge what you did here.
That's really true, isn't it.
"It's about integrity.........and your lack of it. And until you learn what honor and integrity are all about, please leave me alone."
It's about overblown rhetoric, and your use of it. It's about impugning ny integrity and honesty, and your insistence upon it.
I'll be quite happy to leave you alone. But, your interpretation of my doing so is going to be quite self-serving, of that I'm now certain. Think about that, the next time you have the gratuitous urge to write the word "liar." I won't be the first to take umbrage, and certainly won't be the last.
If you don't want to be called one, don't BE one. Your post to me was full of false accusations.......not 'opinions.'
Men of integrity don't do what you did. Ever.
I will accept your apology whenever you offer it.
How does it feel knowing that the winning margin of citizens chose a nut job over your candidate and your parties agenda?
Yeah, keep blaming your problems on everything except the fact that the Republican Party can not attract enough voters to retain power.
To: Carry_Okie
Well, there is the Republican party with some conservative members and some not so conservative and then there's the evil Marxist liberal socialist Democrat Party. I'd rather have a conservative Republican in office, but I'll take a not so conservative Republican over any evil Marxist liberal socialist Democrat any day of the week. And I might express my unhappiness with some of his policies but I think I've learned my lesson about irreversibly trashing the Republican office holder or the Republican base or the party itself (at least not too much trashing). As they say, the alternative is unthinkable.
34 posted on 03/02/2006 3:15:02 AM EST by Jim Robinson
And here's a link for a more in depth view.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612942/posts
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