To: Cold Heat
I might add, that it would also be best for the Republican Party reorganization if they were to lose and lose badly. This is a key part of a rebirth. There must be a capitulation, and the sooner it occurs, the faster we can get back to the rebuilding of the core constituencies and take out the garbage.
Boy, do I disagree about this. A few years of Obama + 58 Democrat Senators will bring about fundamental and very hard to reverse changes in policy. Think about what Lyndon Johnson and similar rock-solid majorities set in motion in the mid-1960s -- the conservative "backlash" started as soon as 1966 and in 42 years since -- with 28 years of Republican Presidents -- has barely managed to trim the sails, to say the least of shift the course.
To many of us, probably the most important transformation, one that Johnson couldn't have dreamed of, is that Obama can put us over the line where the clear majority of the electorate are (or perceive themselves to be) government dependents, relying upon the power of the state to compel the means of basic security from the pockets of a small minority of business owners and professionals. When this happens, conservatism in the sense we know it basically disappears. Parties vie for the favor of the dependent majority and force the factions of the productive minority to compete against each other for protection and tolerance. If you doubt this, look at the manifestos of the "conservative" parties of Western Europe. There is little in them which Obama would hesitate to endorse.
Of course the Obama era will bring down the curtain on social conservatism as an available philosophy for governance as well. I personally think that the authoritarian / restrictionist end of that battle was lost many years ago -- see how very little any serious politician cares about Proposition 8 in California -- but the Obama regime will end the libertarian end of that battle, too -- which lets people do whatever they feel but doesn't immunize people who department from social norms from private disapproval or from paying the price if the behavior turns out to be maladaptive. Instead, Obama will extend the full protection of the welfare state and civil rights law over all variety of behavior social conservatives dislike or suspect.
To: only1percent
Sure! All that may well happen and more.
But look at the electorate we have today and convince me that things will get better, anytime soon without a major and substantive re-learning and reeducation of the voting public who drifts further left every year.
The only way to reverse this trend is major slap down learning experiance that will stay in the minds of those who experienced it for a generation or two.
We can't win this any more. Not without proof that liberal policies destroy wealth and economies, every time it is tried. The current crop of voters have failed to learn the lessons of time. Our elderly, and that would be me, have not really forgotten what was learned generations ago, yet they have ignored it in favor of policies that help themselves and screw their children. The latest fad of reverse mortgages proves my point.
All this leads me to the realization that all is lost for now, but only for the time being. It can be fixed, but not without much pain. That pain is just around the corner and actually has been in process for a couple years. It's going to get very much worse but out of it will come a rebirth of the new Conservatives and that will guide the future.
The present is lost and has been since the Bush coalition broke up.
244 posted on
07/30/2008 9:48:39 AM PDT by
Cold Heat
(NO! (you can infer any meaning you choose))
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