Posted on 02/03/2007 9:22:54 PM PST by FairOpinion
Conservative House Republicans are disappointed that their leaders have no strategy to win back in 2008 the majority they lost in November.
"We think they need to be a lot more aggressive than they are," Rep. Steve King of Iowa said. "They don't seem willing to have blood on the floor, and there's got to be blood on the floor."
He and other House conservatives who came here from Washington for an annual meeting say they are united in thinking that the United States must win the war in Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
rejecting your "sacrifice any principle for votes" mantra would be a good start.
You don't win wars by propping up foreign governments, you win by decimating the enemy until they are no more and/or surrender unconditionally.
The days of "We have to vote for this or that to keep the majority" are long long gone. Let's show the democrats what obstruction really means!
This might be a good time for Duncan Hunter to step up and take charge....good practice for being POTUS.
The idiots still haven't figured out why they lost in the first place.
Leading like real conservatives might help.
REPUBLICAN MODERATE RESPONSE:
"Well, dear boy, fractious debates get in the way of the real purpose of politics: passing the pork to keep the folks at home happy, and getting re-elected. All these...moral issues make consensus impossible, make me more enemies at home, make me have to raise more money, and make it mor elikely I'll have a well-funded opponent. And actually doing something revolutionary is not why I got into politics."
LOL.
Bush has destroyed the Reagan revolution.
"Bush has destroyed the Reagan revolution."
I am sad to hear you say that.
President Bush continued the Reagan revolution by his tax cuts and attempts to reform Social Security and Medicare, but Congress didn't support him.
You may have noticed that President Bush was a little busy fighting the terrorists and keeping them from killing us.
Bush has been a "big Government" Republican, and his legacy reveals this without doubt. This pains me too, as I have supported him from the beginning.
I agree
What about Tony Snow for president?
Okay, Fair, I'll give you a winning strategy in four easy steps. Feel free to comment:
1. National Security:
a. Forget Iraq, becaue it's a lost cause brought to you by the same military that supposedly "learned the lessons of Vietnam" and was led by one of the architects of "Vietnamization" (i.e. Rumsfeld). Many conservatives pooh-pooh the paralells between this one and Vietnam, but every last bullet point matches up. The next President must convey the idea that when the American military gets sent into harm's way, they will do so with no restrictions (short of true humanitarian concerns) about what they do to the enemy or how. Had the Iraqis been reduced to drinking puddle water and scrounging for grubs, the "conditions" for "democratization" would have eventually materialized -- people on the verge of starvation are quite receptive to new ideas.Just ask the Nazis and militarist Japanese.
b. US policy with regards to it's vital interests will not be beholden to the need to give allies political cover (as in the Blair fiasco with the UN, intended for European consumption), will not be beholden to the requirements of countries in no position to stop us (as in the Powell fiasco with Turkey vis-a-vis guarentees about Kurdish non-independance), nor will it be restrained short of a direct confrontation with another power or alliance not actually capable of, or willing, to stand up to American military might.
c. Eliminate DACOWITS (Defense advisory committe on Women in the Services) which pussified and apparently castrated an entire generation of generals with Political correctness. Perhaps if the Generals had kept their bollocks, Iraq would have had the snot beat out of them, and now posses a world-class economy and their own version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" already, instead of being aterrorist sandbox five years after the fact.
d. US troops out of Europe. Declare NATO dead (which it is), redeploy those troops to where they are actually needed, like South Korea or the US border.
2. The Economy:
a. Repeal the ridiculous Medicare Drug benefit, implemented by Baby Boomers, for Baby Boomers, which will be paid for by non-Baby Boomers. My heart just breaks (NOT!)at the thought that my parents generation won't get reduced-cost or free drugs for their chronic dry eye, ocassional herpes outbreaks, restless-leg syndrome, hot flashes or erectile dysfunction. Do what people did before they had a magic pill that solved one problem but then proceeded to give you 72 more (one of which always seems to induce diarrhea or constipation, pick one), and use eye drops five times a day, go celibate before you infect someone else, get up and take a walk when your legs fall asleep, or get used to the fact that sex after 50 probably sucks in any case. Without Medicare reform, tax rates will increase upon a smaller tax base and wreck the economy for the sake of the eternal youth for the Flower Power generation.
b. Fix social security. In fact, get rid of social security altogether. Get the governemt out of the retirement business, and let the market do it's job. It might suck 35 years from now having legions of the short-sighted and completely stupid living on the streets, but that'll be their problem. Government cannot provide all the other sevrices it was constituted to provide when it's the bottomless teat of last resort. If you want a plan on how to do it, I have one (I'll send it to you via FreepMail).
c. Rebuild the American industrial base and put people back to work in good paying jobs (not the 2 1/2 million burger-flipping jobs or the other 2 1/2 million require-a-PhD-in-biomedical-sciences jobs). There is no longer much of a manufacturing base in this country (we're talking heavy industry, not factories that produce plastic lawn furniture, BTW), we're losing hat little we have left, and just when we neede domestically-produced steel, domestically-produced circuit boards, et. al., we won't have any, and will have to start from scratch in any case, with a very steep (and more expensive) learning curve.
d. Withdraw from NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, etc. Create tax incentives for American companies that wish to invest in AMERICA, instead of in China or Mexico. Stop the ridiculous notion that what's good for Wall Street is good for the rest of us; what's good for Wall Street is only good for the CEO's (I know, I spent 20 years on the Street). Stop the ridiculous fiction that taking jobs out of America and shipping them overseas is good for the ecomomy, because without a paycheck noone here can pay taxes or buy goods and sevices. Get the government out of the mortgage and insurance businesses. Repeal the legislation theat removed the ownership restrictions on financial institutions (and created monsters like CitiGroup, for example).
e. Energy Independance; Offer a challenge, and a reward, to US industry and science to produce both a renewable, cleaner, cheaper fuel, and just as importantly, the engine that will run reliably and economically on it, in much the same way as JFK gave American science and industry the impetus for the Space Program. This will also aid in National Security (see #1, because we will no longer care if Saudi Arabia is overrun by Koran waving lunatics who just want the right to beat their women, molest their livestock and kill infidels by their own rules).
f. Rescind "Permanent" MFN status on China.
3.Immigration;
a. Sign an executive order prohibiting any federal agency from transmiting any official document or transmission in anything BUT ENGLISH, except for measures required for public safety or national emergency. No more voter registration forms in Spanish. No more welfare applications in Mandarin. No more tax forms in Russian. No more Medicaid help-line phone trees in Swahili.
b. Eliminate funding for bi-lingual education across the board.
c. No more "Citizenship at Birth" for any child born in the US who does not have at least one parent who is either a native-born or naturalized citizen.
d. Prohibit any public school district which accepts any federal funding from accepting non-US citizens. If ilegal immigrants want their children educated, then let them pay for it and build their own schools (it'll be easier to round them all up that way, too).
4. Reduce the Federal Government
a. Eliminate the Department of Education, which educates no one, sets no national curriculum, no standards for the training or recruitiing of teachers, and which exists soley to funnel taxpayer money through another level of bureacracy to pay for things wholly unrelated ot actual education. Those aspects of the DOE mission (like School lunches, college tuition, civil rights) can be merged with other government departments that already perform some of those functions or which might (for ex; school lunches go to HHS and Agriculture, school loans to Treasury, civil rights to the DOJ).
b. Complete review of the Federal Register. Any law or guideline on the books that has not been enforced for 25 years or more, goes. And with it, the bureaucracy that it was set up to enforce or monitor it.
c. No more perks for Congresscritters. They can have a raise to ease the pain, but no more free cars, franking privledges, etc.
d. Get rid of hte Postal Service. Monopolies are supposed to be bad things (see Microsoft), but any entity that had one and didn't make a dime off of it would fold like a cheap tent. The Postal Service has a monopoly on all First-Class mail and cannot 1) turn a profit or 2) keep the price of anything down. Many of it's primary functions have already been supplanted by e-mail, electronic funds transfer, Fed-Ex, etc. More and more, my mailman seems to deliver Lillian Vernon catalogs I never ordered, Ed McMahon's promouncement that I "may have won" and more junk than I've ever seen in my life. If the Post Office has a monopoloy ion FIrst-class mail and gets paid huge sums to deliver scrap paper, and can't stay solvent, it deserves to close. Same deal for Amtrak. Otr any other government "Buisness" that operates in the red.
Your thoughts?
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic Ping List:
Please ping me to all note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
I agree too. It is so sad. Missed opportunities everywhere! But, Theeee sun'll come up, tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow,, it's only a day awaaaay!!
Post 13 perfectly encapsulates why the GOP lost the recent election and, if they do not change, will lose in 08. Put down the pom poms and accept that the Republicans, led by Bush, engaged in liberal / socialist policies with the expectation of maintaining electoral power. They've damaged this country and lost their hold on the Federal government. You want it back? Repudiate their leftwing nonsense and demand conservative / small government solutions.
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.