Posted on 10/18/2006 7:01:51 AM PDT by IrishMike
John Stuart Mill once famously called the British Tories "The Stupid Party." From time to time since then, the Tory's American cousin, the Republican Party, has also earned that moniker. Now may be one of those moments. If current polls and anecdotes are to be believed, there may be a million or two conservative Republicans who are planning to not vote this November. Of course, Mill also said that : "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but also by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury." Apparently, these anticipated conservative non-voters are annoyed with Republican imperfection. They are disheartened, disappointed, disillusioned, distempered, dismal -- and thus plan to dis the party that better advances conservative principles in government. They appear to have fallen victim to the false syllogism: 1) Something must be done; 2) not voting is something; therefore, 3) I will not vote. Of course the fallacy of the syllogism is that the second category could be anything. For example, number two could as well read "eating dog excrement is something." I rather suspect that they will feel about the same afterward, whether they chose the non-voting option or the scatological one. They are both equally illogical -- and repulsive -- and would deserve the moniker, "Stupid." Here are some tell-tale signs of the sort of person who would vote (or not vote) to cause the election of a party which would act to defeat every value and interest he holds dear (merely because the party that will at least try to advance most of those issues has not done as well as he might havehoped) ...............
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
You should take your own advice.
And that post was like Maureen Dowd thinking she's Mark Steyn.
This conservative is a values voter. If that makes me unintelligent by your reckoning, then I suppose you will have to consider me unintelligent.
Seems to me you are incapable of comprehending his posts. I found his posts intelligent and insightful.
I find your post to be extremely arrogant. 'Pod.
NEWSFLASH: It is ALL power plays.
By putting one more R in office, it means Hassert stays speaker, it means the house remains republican.
It is the PURSUIT of happiness. It is the OPPORTUNITY to make a difference with the house legislation.
Your being a useful idiot for the left by not seeing that we need every man serves nobody but the left.
Your chest thumping over ideals is pointless.
Good luck with your virginity thing.
Thank you.
Agreed.
It's an easier mental exericise to threaten, blackmail, distract by casting attention on the other guy's sins, to namecall and whisper "speaker Pelosi".
Then if you don't get your way to stomp your foot, seek therapy or fume about those damn Bible thumping rednecks that are too blindly led by the nose by Rush Limbaugh to understand the Dems are better medicine for them..oh, wait, that's what the Democrats do isn't it?
And, that is what some people on this board and Blankley are attempting to do.
Has that worked for the Dems? Short answer is no.
Give conservatives a reason to vote FOR Republicans. They aren't unreasonable, but attacks against them are infantile and doomed to result in the action they fear. Conservative staying home.
They need to stop emulating Liberals, and start acting conservatively by structuring solid reasons to vote for Republicans this cycle that have NOTHING to do with Democrats or promises of goodies to come in the future.
And your post is like Helen Thomas thinking she's Maureen Dowd.
a caller actually said it correctly on Rush yesterday...he called them CUT AND RUN REPUBICANS
"You should take your own advice."
What ever that means ????? I am voting PERIOD, even though I am not happy with the GOP...no need for ADVISE here...I fully understand what is at stake....I am not stupid enough to cut off my nose to spite my face, which is what sit-on-their-hands conservatives will do it they do not vote.
AND, I am informing as many as I can through emails, handouts, etc. just what and WHO Nancy Pelosi is and what having her as THIRD in line could mean to our nation.
Just to save you some time, I'll answer this one.
There are none.
This is true for liberal, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Peace and Freedom, Green Party, you name it.
The question itself is a strawman arguement that is entirely irrelevant to the topic of winning elections. There is no perfect candidate for anyone, except themsleves. That said, certain people do manage to win elections, even though they're not perfect.
The perfect, as the saying goes, is the enemy of the good. Candidates don't have to be perfect to win. Nobody expects that. They just have to be good. Granted, that's a subjective term, but as a rule, be a good candidate, and you'll win.
And right now many in the GOP feel a need to move left to "get votes". So no matter what happens, the message will be spun "we need to be less conservative".
So how is the mess fixed or is it to late?
This thread needs a BUMP!
If you can't tell the difference between a party that shares some of your beliefs as opposed to one that hates you and your beliefs, I'm wasting my time anyway.
Libertarians can't get elected because they are too far from the mainstream. That is reality.
Libertarians are far from the mainstream, it's true. The drug issue kills them every time, and with some merit I think. Of course, they also have to spend their entire campaign season scrambling for signatures to validate their presence on a ballot...I don't know that you can really discount that...
.
This nation and our government has been moving to more conservative positions over the last six years. It is a work in progress. Punishing the party that provides that conservative momentum because it is not moving fast enough is nuts.
I voted for Graham, and I will punish him the next election in the primaries. If he wins the primary, I will hold my nose and vote for him again, for if not, a Dem will get that position.
This is not a conservative nation yet. GWB won by 3% over John Scary. Does that give you a clue?
When a large majority of this nation considers the Republicans the conservative party (and rightly so), and they lose, it will be a repudiation of the conservative goals that the Republicans have been fighting for.
I don't know why. We've had a form of this thread ("pragmatism" vs "principle") ongoing since 1998. Maybe we could consolidate them into on, big, 30,000 post thread? :-)
BTW, I AM a pragmatist. But just as Jesus said that we would always have the poor among us, so also will we also have the foot-stamping indignant ones. It's their nature. They WILL NOT be ignored!!!
Scrambling for signatures on petitions has been part of our way of government forever.
It could be worse, Republicans could treat them like Dems treated Nader!
Yes and there's another factor, hurling an insult can be so satisfying. It's hard to rise above that adolescent thinking sometime.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.