Posted on 05/17/2006 7:47:58 AM PDT by Pukin Dog
Edited on 05/17/2006 8:30:59 AM PDT by Lead Moderator. [history]
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." – Abraham Lincoln, 1858
It is getting somewhat strange around these parts when not only the President, but yesterday the First Lady was personally attacked by someone claiming to be a ‘Conservative’. Can there be any doubt that there are forces among us looking to drive a wedge between us?
A few weeks ago, this forum’s owner attempted to remind all of us of the big picture, that regardless of any personal animosity towards the President or Republican Party over their adherence to Conservative principles, that they are still a clear choice over the alternative Democrat Party rule. At that time, I assumed that FReeper-sanity had been restored, and that some of the negative rhetoric aimed at those in Washington D.C. would be dialed back.
Free Republic is a political forum with a proud history and vision, responsible for dragging Dan Rather from his post, and providing countless radio-talk shows with their daily talking points. FReepers are unique in their determination and energy towards protecting and defending the goals of our Founding Fathers.
We are also quite a powder keg of emotion and anticipation, expecting our Republican majorities to take advantage of this opportunity to make permanent gains in our Conservative agenda. Some might argue that this opportunity has been squandered, but those persons would be ignorant of history, lacking understanding that change cannot occur overnight in Washington, and that this is the way our Founders designed our Republic.
In frustration, impatience, and ignorance, we have allowed this forum to become a haven for those who do not share our Conservative goals. I do not blame our enemies anymore then I would blame a scorpion for stinging me. If anger and stupidity were one’s nature, I would expect the trolls that infect this forum to be angry and stupid consistently, which also makes them somewhat easy to detect.
The trolls are not the problem, though. The problem is that so many of us are allowing ourselves to be taken in by those who seek only to prevent us from going to the polls in November to keep their stinking hands off our government for another term. There can be no doubt, that no matter how disappointing our current government has been in promoting the Conservative agenda, that the alternative, enabled by our staying home will be MUCH worse.
The way to deal with Republicans who have actively worked against our goals is to defeat them in Primary elections. We do not even have to defeat them all, only enough of them to send the message that we will indeed target them if they work against our agenda. It should be the goal of EVERY conservative to see that Lincoln Chaffee is defeated in November. His seat is one we can afford to lose. Were I a Rhode Island resident, I would vote for the Democrat if only to send a message to Snowe, Hagel, Collins, Graham, and especially that bastard Specter that their primaries just got a lot tougher.
We only need to get one of them, and Chaffee is the one to get. It does not really matter if a Democrat takes his seat; he will be junior and mute as long as we maintain our overall majority in the Senate.
The one thing that bothers me here like nothing else, is the simple disrespect of the President. Am I am Bush-Bot? Damn straight I am. If you want to know why, click on my handle to read Southack’s excellent list of Bush’s accomplishments in office. But if Bush had done almost nothing in office, it would be no excuse for some of the slights and disrespect he has received from some of us on this forum.
Some of the things I have read here this past week match in tone what one can find on our favorite Democrat sewer site. Someone calling himself or herself a FReeper was promoting shooting aliens at the border until they stopped coming. Is that what we are about? Obviously not, and that so-called Conservative has been eliminated from this forum.
I think it is important to remember that you and I have just as much responsibility as George Bush does in changing our culture to better reflect Conservative values. Right now, this very moment, Conservatives have the government they deserve. We put them there. They are not our mommies and daddies sent out to bring home our Conservative bread. That responsibility lies with all of us. These Republicans represent us, they don’t serve us. Our job is to pick the best individual and send him/her to Washington in the hope that their CHARACTER will see them through.
This is why it is such a nutty thing to consider punishing the Republican party, when we should be letting them know that we’ve got their back, but if they cant do the job, we will replace them with ANOTHER Republican, instead of handing the reigns of government to the party of anger, hopelessness and despair. We sometimes like to think that those people we send to Washington are different from us, that they are capable of meeting our every need and desire.
I want every one of you to think about what you would consider to be your perfect mate. Maybe some of you think you have found that person. If you are married and totally in love with another person, that is great. Now I want to ask you to think about the last time that person you love, who is PERFECT for you, completely pissed you off. Remember, this is your perfect mate, your one true love. Do they do everything you want them to do? Obey your every desire? If you answer yes, I am going to put you on my troll list.
Those people in Washington do not even cut your lawn, yet you expect perfection. Get over it.
I am issuing a challenge to every person who considers him or her to be a Conservative; why don’t we all commit to a return to HONOR? Do we honor our Conservative agenda when we comport ourselves in disgraceful ways? Is it an honorable thing to suggest that our President is a moron, as I read here a few days ago? Is it honorable to attack Laura Bush or any other person representing true Conservative values?
Some of you might argue that George Bush is not representing Conservative values to your liking. I would remind you that the first thing Bush said upon taking office, is that he was going to be President of ALL the people, not just some. You know that if you followed Bush from the beginning that he campaigned of the very immigration platform he is defending right now. Did you vote for him? Yeah?
If you have ever had a steak at a Ruth’s Chris restaurant, you know that sometimes they bring that wonderful steak to your table with a sprig of parsley on it. I hate parsley. Hate it. If I were to treat my steak the way some of us want to treat our President, I would have to throw out the steak, due to that nasty parsley that comes with it. I can deal with the parsley to get the steak, and that is what I am asking FReepers to do.
Expecting perfection from any person, group or team is a recipe for disaster. George W. Bush is my president. You can disagree with him, you can blame him for your problems if that is your desire. If you disrespect his office, his service, his risking his life to be with our troops in Iraq, his steadfast desire to bring a new tone to Washington, or if you just like the way he keeps Democrats so pissed off they lose their minds on a regular basis, I ask you to treat him and his wife with respect and cut the personal attacks. If you call him ‘Shrub’ or ‘Jorge’ consider yourself my enemy.
Right now, our real enemy are the Main Stream Media, the Democrat Party, and all who follow and support them. If you want to jump-ugly on someone, why not start with those leaky bastards and give our side a break?
Do it for Pukin.
I knew that you could.
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Agreed. He's probably kicking himself today. I suppose he could throw himself on Mr. Robinson's mercy, but it's hard to imagine Mr. R. changing his mind. I guess it depends on his history here.
Because of all the heated and totally off base rhetoric, this issue may end up on the table with nothing accomplished and the guarantee that the status quo will be in place until a new president takes the reigns.
NOTHING is acceptible to those people, which is why THEY are unacceptible to the process. The sooner they can either act like adults and accept that they ARE NOT going to get exactly what they want and work with what they get, the better for them. Until then they can curl up in a corner with their hankys between bouts of screaming fits.
Just a few other thoughts.
I'm all for welcoming legal immigrants. I'm against guest worker programs in principle, although I think prima facie we should be against them, because they could risk creating a permanently non-upwardly mobile worker class.
I believe George W. Bush to deserve a place on Mt. Rushmore more than Teddy Roosevelt does. But President Roosevelt made a great point about ideals Republican Party you're talking about when he said that there was no room for the "hyphenated American."
The only way to keep America open to immigrants of all nationalities, races and cultures is to ensure there's an America for them to come to. That at least means losing the Spanish-only public school classes, controlling the border, elimninating double-citizenship. Those sorts of measures are not anti-immigrant by any means--- they are in the tradition of "the shining city on the hill".
If 0.0001% of those using "neocon" have read a word of Strauss I'll eat my White Sox hat, film it and post the film here.
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The mods on this or any other board should be whatever the host/owner wishes them to be. Jim Robinson's board=Jim Robinson's rules.
I think the base is so fractured that it will need to be rebuilt. I don't see any way around it.
As far as Bush compromising, he has voiced this idea since his Governor days in Texas. He does not need to compromise. This is not a court nominee issue like Harriet Miers where he can simply allow the nominee to withdraw. He must lead with the strength of his convictions, and the only compromise will to to sign or to not sign the Bill when it arrives at his desk.
Agreed.
I was just posting my opinion of general standards of behavior.
Only from the rhetoric parrots.
I'll go along with the border fence of course - I always have. After the lawsuits die down. Environazis and "human rights" types invariably file them and they'll file them this time. However, some portions of the new fence have alreaady been built, so there is no way you're ever gonna hear an honest person propose one exactly as long as the border is.
As long as states and municipalites help enforce the law, the free goodies stopped and we have a way to track immigrants without people screaming "ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING GESTAPO!! IMPEACH BUSH! FROG MARCH ROVE!!".
Only then will the actual issue die begin to die down. We'd best not forget that not every illegal is Mexican.
Do you want to know why tens of millions of illegals aren't streaming across our Northern border? Here's a hint...it isn't because the government has made it secure. In fact, our northern border is FAR less secure than our southern border. The fact is, Canadians aren't flowing illegally into our country by the millions because we aren't luring them down with benefits better than what they already have. Eliminate the lure, end the immigration problem. If we can convince our fellow country men that employing illegal aliens is not going to be profitable for them, we eliminate part of the lure (a very real lure you cynically call a "straw man"). If we appoint Federal judges that let American's vote to terminate access for illegals to our social programs, we take another big chunk out of the problem. And if we then vote representatives that will end our liberal social programs all together, we are on the highway toward Conservative Paradise.
OR....
We could demand our government spend billions and billions of dollars expanding itself to do a job it has proven it can't do, all in the hopes that maybe this time, the government will get it right. Fool me once....
"Either way, I agree that we seem to have a political death wish and the House needs to laugh that Senate bill to death and force a commonsense compromise which CAN work. And it would be fat better for the prsident to support it."
I agree that we have a political death wish, and are acting it out.
I agree that the Senate bill is bad, the House bill is better, but I think that there will probably be no compromise at all: the sides are too far apart, and too adamant.
I agree that the President ought to be taking a different stance, but won't.
I think that a compromise that has a sea-to-sea border fence now, with a bipartisan commission to study and propose guest worker programs is the way to dodge the bullet, if it can't be dodged at all.
I suspect that it can't be.
In which case I see clockwork playing out: Border Conservatives will punish Republicans, Democrats will win Congress this year, and the reduced Republican Caucus that comes out the other end will probably be a more conservative rump.
They, then, will have to get together next year and put together a new party platform that brings the Border Conservatives back, so that the party has a chance to win in 2008.
I just think it's too bad that we can't come to our senses now, and the guest worker advocates blink. The Border Conservatives have the better case: illegal immigrants are already illegal. They don't have any right to be here. The guest worker advocates want something, that is clear, but what they are saying is that they are going to refuse to allow effective enforcement of the law unless they get something that will further undermine immigration policy. That position simply does not have the same moral foundation as the argument that the law is being broken and we should enforce it.
But you're right, in the end, that I don't think the guest-worker advocates (I'll call them "WorkerBots") are going to back down either. I think their primary motive is financial, and that's a strong motive. I have a tough time seeing anything PRINCIPLED behind a stance of "No law enforcement unless we get special privileges for business that make lawbreakers legal".
Anyway, I am trying not to be to gloomy. The GOP could still come to its senses and scoop it own. Still, it does seem like a good time for a Dan Rather-ism: "Mabel come in from the kitchen! Our back's against the wall and our shirttail's on fire, but it's not over yet!"
"Until then they can curl up in a corner with their hankys between bouts of screaming fits."
You'll have a worse opinion of them when they are responsible for Congress being handed over to the Democrats this year.
Clearly you despise them and want to teach them a lesson.
In the process, they're going to teach you one too.
They're not going to get what they want.
Neither are you.
So we'll all be crying about it afterwards.
It's too bad, but it looks like there's noplace to go in this Mexican Standoff other than to the "destruction" part of "Mutually Assured Destruction".
I guess you missed the stories where a lot of non-Canadians do come across the northern border as illegals.
We cannot change Mexico. We cannot change third-world economies overnight to make illegals not want to come here. We CAN act within our own boundaries to keep illegals out.
If we can convince our fellow country men that employing illegal aliens is not going to be profitable for them, we eliminate part of the lure (a very real lure you cynically call a "straw man").
It's a straw man in the context of what I was dicussing - improving border security. And the worst border by far is the Southern one. Fix that, and then address our ports and our Northern border.
Oh, and I have, for some time, encouraged a much stronger crackdown on businesses that hire illegals.
Worse opinion? Hardly, Conservative America will simply know them for what they are...our doubts will be cast aside.
You are making too much sense, my Air Force diminished brother.... Enjoy the battles, I'm heading for the lake NOW!
Calm down. You missed the point and it's not worth going into any further discussion.
Calm down. You missed the point and it's not worth going into any further discussion.
It was nice for a day...the raving nutters have resumed their screeching on almost every thread.
Well yeah. I should have said my goal on immigration reform is to get something done. Winning in '06 and again in '08 are also my goals.
"To do that, the Republican Establishment has to visibly make a major concession to the Border Conservatives. Bush's speech was a finger in their eye to go along with what McCain/Kennedy are trying to do in the Senate."
OK, you have a point. You feel the president was trying to snow job the one fence, one solution voters. However, I believe that the president honestly believes that he's finding workable solutions for a single issue which is composed of an awful lot of sub issues, and that informed public debate on the issue has broken down.
I'd like the one fence, one solution voters to join the debate and to be heard. Believe it or not. They won't get a single issue bill from either house, but it might make lawmakers think along more workable lines of solution. I believe that speaking in a normal tone of voice, in a rational manner is the best way for everyone to get their concern on the table.
The media certainly isn't going to air the concerns of HONEST conservatives, and reasoned debate has at least degenerated, if not broken down.
You and I are talking about two different crowds.
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