IMHO, the majority of members here at FR are acting as mouth-foaming moonbats when ever Guliani's name is mentioned. This smells of fear, not rational thought. I see people obsessed with Rudy in their posts, and most much more visceral than they ever are about the issues you have mentioned.
I see very few asking themselves how events got Conservatives into this hole, and offering solutions to get themselves out. Instead their focus is on one guy, propping up another guy no one really cared about until he made an opportunistic speech very early this year. Regardless of which GOP member gets the party's nomination, we will wake up and nothing will be better.
The anger, frustration, and insults directed at Guilianni are misguided in my opinion, and damaging to the issues that are important. Guliani is not the problem, he is the result of a golden opportunity squandered by conservatives and thier leadership over the past decade and a half, possibly since Bush Sr. was elected.
I would blame names such as Gingrich, Delay, Bush, Dole, Buchanan, McCain, regligous leaders such as Robertson, Falwell, even media figures such as Limbaugh, Hannity. But ultimately, the fault lies within the group of people known as "conservatives" and many here on FR. Not just 'leaders'.
To some, probably most, that list of names will invoke some emotional reactions. But in the end every one of those names has failed the cause of Conservatism, as a result of their own selfish pursuits or incompetence. I look at the Contract with America, and really wish that was still the focus of ideals in this country and of those leaders. Somehow we quickly looked somewhere else. I honestly believe it was lost when a many got obsessed with impeachment and the 2000 election.
The failure for leadership is at the national level. On the grass roots level, I believe it is still potentially vibrant. I think there is a stronger faith in Christian/Judeo God in this country now than there probably was in the 60's. And with this faith will rise social conservatism. There is also a greater amount of support for things like the military, and a true support for the missions they are executing, even though through the leadership this execution is muddled and flawed.
But I see little evidence this rising group is well represented on FR.
FR posters definitely believe in not sparing the rod, that is for sure. But sometimes the rod is used too often, and it loses its effectiveness. FR posters also exhibit a my way or highway - 'fu' - rigidity, which does not attract those that only need to be informed about these issues through active debate. Seems FR used to have debate, and was very informing, now it seems FR seems 90% vanity now, all sorts of name calling and personal attacks, and very little convincing substanative debate. When an article is posted, the same FR trolls clutter up the articles before they can be discussed with their obsessions. This does not invite outsiders, and lurkers, who are the hearts and minds that need to be won, to consider alternatives points of view to what is being presented in other forms of media.
Instead of any debate, I see things like one poster insulting another posters candidate, and then as an excuse he covers with "politics is a full contact sport". Obviously serious substance there. All I can say to that is it will not win hearts and minds.
That is just my perspective.
BRAVO.
There is, in my opinion, too much name-calling.
But some of us have tried very hard to have a debate on issues, and have been futile because the rudy people don’t seem to want to debate the issues.
Last night, while rudy person afer rudy person came to scream and rant about being mistreated (which they certainly believe they are), I tried to get them to explain why they made claims about Rudy. When they mentioned an issue, I did a simple thing, asking them what Rudy had done on that issue.
I had ONE person respond, weakly, to my question about why Rudy is thought of as strong on terorism. Nobody else would even try. One poster said that without Rudy, we’d have truck bombs and wal-marts. I didn’t understand, so I asked what Rudy’s positions were on wal-mart, and got no answer. I was told Rudy supporters thought national security was the most important thing, but when I asked what experience Rudy had with national security there was silence.
I’ve tried to steer anti-rudy posts to the issues when they got personal. I’ve chastised people on both sides for attacking other freepers, and received grief from both sides for the effort.
I can’t remember ANY group posting so many duplicate articles about their pet candidates in my history here, as I see from Rudy supporters. They go out of their way to overwhelm the readers here with posts touting Rudy.
Polls get posted 3 or 4 times, and then are repeated in othe threads, and posted again a week later when a blog somewhere talks about them.
And speaking of blogs, any blog, no matter how infantile or meaningless, appears as if gospel if it says something nice about Rudy.
When an article is split between pro and anti-rudy sentiment, the rudy people always post it with strictly pro-rudy exerpts, even when someone has already posted the exerpted story.
And the rudy people post vanities attacking conservatives for being stupid for adhering to conservative principles, attacking other candidates for things Rudy agrees with, attacking principled conservatives for wanting Hillary as president, and even saying that pro-life people will have the blood of aborted babies on their hands if we don’t vote for pro-abortion candidate Rudy.
The post left-wing articles attacking good conservative candidates. When they can’t find a left-wing media report, they’ll find left-wing blogs to repeat, or strip left-wing spams out of Wikipedia and post them as gospel.
And when they post their polls, and their rudy-cheerleading articles, they get all smug and dismissive of the people on this forum for having principles and being too stupid to see the inevitability of our downfall.
And when they tire of that, they launch into the defeatist durge, the death march of conservatism, where they tell us conservative thought has lost, that 2006 was it’s funeral, that a real conservative can’t win election. They ooze defeat, telling us that rather than trying to lead the country in the right direction, we must instead find out where the country is heading and pick whatever candidate is in that direction who is willing to put an “R” by their name.
I have lots of places on the net I can go where my conservative values will be trashed, where my candidates will be lied about, where my attempts to push conservative principles will be met by laughs of derision and dismissed as a quaint relic of a bygone era.
Those are called liberal blogs. I shouldn’t have to put up with that from multiple posters on a conservative web site. Conservatives shouldn’t have to have a coordinated attack on them from behind while we are trying to fight the good fight.
I’m tired of being shot by my “own troops”, I’m tired of spending all my time having to watch my back, to sleep with one eye open, to spend my time watching for false, negative, and personal attacks on my conservative candidates from people who claim to be on my side.
I know that Rudy supporters are tired of attacks on their guy as well. But they are not naive, they know their guy is not conservative, but at best is a schizophrenic who agrees with conservatives on a small number of issues.
It’s clear when they attack all the other candidates for “liberal” positions that match Rudy’s positions. It’s clear when they discount the importance of much of what Rudy stands for, or argue that Rudy won’t really be in charge of things but will instead defer to conservative advisors on a wealth of issues of importance.
It would be better for all of us if they would be more honest about their person, more honest about why they support him, and more honest about the opposing conservative candidates.
And while it would be better in my opinion if everybody stopped the personal attacks, it would be especially nice if rudy supporters wouldn’t use attack people personally that ARE clearly conservative and support conservative candidates.
When your only argument for your candidate is that nobody else can win, you should on a conservative website have the decency NOT to make personal attacks on conservatives who are simply being true to their principles. Sure, those conservatives are saying bad things about you, but rudy supporters are acknowledging forgoing their princples in order to win an election, so you don’t really have the moral high ground.
And after what Mia T. said about me and other pro-lifers who don’t support Rudy, I have little patience anymore for the complaints of rudy supporters of being called pro-abortionists or even “treasonous liberals”. I wouldn’t use those words, but if you are going to lie in the mud you are going to get muddy.