Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

GOP in desperate need of libertarian infusion
The Nashua Telegraph, Nashua, NH ^ | 2009-04-30 | Ed Lopez

Posted on 04/30/2009 7:33:36 AM PDT by rabscuttle385

Over a year ago, Mitt Romney was losing primaries to John McCain, and conservative pundits from Ann Coulter to Rush Limbaugh predicted the end of the GOP – Coulter went as far as promising she would campaign for Hillary Rodham Clinton if McCain became the party's nominee.

By November 2008, the GOP had embraced a nominee who had considered switching parties twice, had opposed tax cuts, and had failed to advance an aggressive shift in a foreign policy that left the GOP discredited in an area it had always trumped in.

It's not that McCain's willingness to reach across the aisle was condemnable. On the contrary, had McCain been able to do that as a conservative, he would've had more than tepid support from voters.

It also has less to do with the reasons conservatives disagreed with him when they should have found common ground. For example, McCain angered many conservatives when he opposed the federal ban on same-sex marriage.

Here in New Hampshire, congressional candidate Grant Bosse was among the few Republicans who understood the importance of leaving some decisions for adults to make with God and their state, not judges and the federal government.

It's precisely the reasons many couldn't support McCain – even conservatives who stuck by their guns and refused to send him to the White House – that merit serious reflection.

So far it's difficult to sense the fundamental message shift required for the GOP to make inroads in 2010 and 2012, but it seems no state is better poised to nurture these than the state of New Hampshire.

They key to doing this successfully? Allowing New Hampshire's libertarian spirit to infuse the GOP grassroots and allowing that to spread nationally.

(Excerpt) Read more at nashuatelegraph.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; US: New Hampshire
KEYWORDS: atlasshrugged; buygoldnow; buygunsnow; capitalismrocks; conservativeuprising; criticalthinking; donttreadonme; drillheredrillnow; fairtax; gdpdown6percent; givemeliberty; johngalt; libertarian; liberty; livefreeordie; lping; rememberthealamo; rinopurge; sciencerocks; shortstocksnow; treeofliberty; useyourbrainmore
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 101-120121-140141-160161-172 last
To: rabscuttle385

If libertarians get rid of their ideas about open borders
and legal drugs, then they are welcome.


161 posted on 04/30/2009 4:18:26 PM PDT by upcountryhorseman (An old fashioned conservative)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mountainbunny
And no one wants to hear that taking people's money by force and spending it on "moral" programs can never be moral at all, since the government didn't have a right to that money to start with. It is not better when the government program is socially conservative. It's only better when it doesn't exist at all.

The third, and most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power - J S MILL On Liberty

162 posted on 04/30/2009 6:12:37 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (Obama in Office for 100 days: Wall Street panics.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 142 | View Replies]

To: rabscuttle385

Eric Cantor’s gonna take care of that. He and Newt.

BARFFFF!!!


163 posted on 04/30/2009 6:14:01 PM PDT by sauropod (If you tell people you're "on Twitter" does that make you a Twit?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Rockingham
There are two strains of libertarian thought: free market, anti-tax, economic libertarianism, which is readily compatible with traditional conservatism; and lifestyle libertarianism, which insists on abortion on demand, gay marriage, and relentless secularism.

I would like to at least try and give you one. I'd love to say that much like that great poet and philosopher Meatloaf "Two out of Three Ain't Bad". Frankly you struck out on three straight pitches. Not talking about Libertarians as a party per se, but libertarians.

Abortion: Gubmints job is to protect it's citizens. Unborn children are citizens.

Gay Marriage: We don't care what people do in the privacy of their own home. Give them the same rights as married people. We just won't call it "marriage". We'll call them Butt Buddies.

Secularism: More Jesus and Less Government is good. More Jesus AND More Government is not.

164 posted on 04/30/2009 6:57:28 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Eric Blair 2084

I’ve always felt that marriage should be out of the hands of government. If it is a religious institution, which I believe it is, then leave it to the church. Married people shouldn’t be taxed, incentivized, subsidized, etc. any differently than individuals. I think grouping people into married and non married is another form of collectivism.

Leave marriage out of the state. JMO.


165 posted on 04/30/2009 7:26:14 PM PDT by djsherin (Government is essentially the negation of liberty.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 164 | View Replies]

To: mountainbunny
"No one in the GOP seems to want to hear that when you treat people like children, they will act like children and become more dependent on the government, never less.

No one wants to hear that, like children, when given the choice between a fun, permissive babysitter (liberals) and an old grouch (the SoCon wing), people will pick the fun, permissive babysitter nearly every time. If they're going to take your money and control you anyway, may as well has a good time, right?"

That is a positively brilliant metaphor moutainbunny! I actually may borrow it sometime ;)

I've often said that the difference between the SoCon Republicans and the Liberal Democrats the difference between wanting "Big Daddy government" and "Big Mommy government". Both see government in a parental role -- when in fact it the citizenry who need to be the "parents" to government lest it "get out of hand and run wild" -- and not the other way around!

166 posted on 04/30/2009 7:54:33 PM PDT by Bokababe (Save Christian Kosovo! http://www.savekosovo.org)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 142 | View Replies]

To: ontap
Some libertarians earn that scorn.

The ones that want more freedom and less government?

167 posted on 04/30/2009 8:44:27 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: TheBigIf
That sounds like the Puritan party.

There are millions of folks that would like the Republicans to be the party of more freedom and less government.

168 posted on 04/30/2009 8:51:12 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Eric Blair 2084

On three out of three, I think my description of the views of lifestyle libertarians is accurate.

On the merits, abortion is wrong because it is morally wrong. Were it not for that, whether or not to treat unborn children as citizens or otherwise under the protection of the law would be either a utilitarian question or left to the choice of the mother.

The problem with gay marriage by any name is that it subverts and devalues traditional marriage and families, with devastating long term consequences for stable relationships between men and women and for the rearing of children. Like it or not, traditional marriage and family life is the best way to raise and foster responsible adults.

The evidence from Europe is compelling on this point. After a generation of gay marriage, some gays marry, most gays and straights do not, and illegitimacy is nearly the norm. The consequences are rising crime, falling standards of personal conduct, declining educational attainment, general misery — and a decisive turning toward socialism and the caretaker state to sort out and tend the wreckage.

When one looks at the numbers and history, the greatest source of resistance to socialism comes not from the small sliver of libertarians but from the far larger ranks of traditional conservatives, and especially from those whose resistance is grounded in traditional religious faith.

In large part this is because America’s traditional nondenominational ‘civic religion’ regards freedom and limited government in a society adherent to traditional moral values as essential to the working out of God-given moral choice and free will.

From that perspective, at least in the American context, more Jesus means less government — hence the vilification of traditional Christians from the Left and the academic-media complex.

Lifestyle libertarianism offers a philosophy that was last seen in extended practice in the ancient imperial Rome. I prefer to be guided by the experience and traditional norms of a more than dozen generations of Americans.


169 posted on 05/01/2009 12:27:09 AM PDT by Rockingham
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 164 | View Replies]

To: elkfersupper
The ones that take too much colloidal silver and turn themselves blue, 9-11 truthers, virulent anti-war nutjobs, and Bob Barr...

The rest of us are ok. :-)

170 posted on 05/01/2009 5:41:39 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (III)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 167 | View Replies]

To: Dead Corpse

The Silver Libertarian was Stan Jones, who took enough votes in Montana to allow the ‘rat to win that seat.


171 posted on 05/01/2009 10:49:35 AM PDT by darkangel82 (I don't have a superiority complex, I'm just better than you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 170 | View Replies]

To: darkangel82

Sounds like maybe the GOP should have run someone that would have garnered more of the “unappeasable” population.


172 posted on 05/01/2009 11:42:35 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (III)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 171 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 101-120121-140141-160161-172 last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson