Thanks. You too. I'm going to grab a bite to eat then go ride one of our horses - always good for relaxing.
Mia knows who feeds her - she agrees with ALL of my politics!
Posted on 05/08/2009 3:27:15 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
Haven’t some Democrats voted against things like the stimulus, too?
I’m sure there are those in their party that are calling them DINOS and condemning them, but don’t you kind of applaud that?
I believe in conservative principles. When a democrat votes that way, I’ll give credit - if it is due. However, my own democrat, Rep Giffords voted against the first bailout - then stayed in the well with a yes vote, in case it was needed for passage.
THAT is something I find despicable! And yes, the GOP helped elect her by actively working against the conservative republican in the general election. But then, those socially liberal republicans tend to operate like that...
So, basically, you don’t like or trust any Republican that believes differently than you do on one social issue? Should those Republicans face a firing squad or simply be driven from the party?
This might be our problem.
And we are giving the media exactly what they need. Divisivness. A tendency to ignore the fact that we are united in most respects and on most issues and a focus, instead on the few issues that some are still struggling with/debating on.
Remember Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment?
I think not many people do, anymore. And it’s hurting us all.
Please show me the hordes of socially liberal but fiscally conservative Republicans voting in unison with the party on fiscal matters.
I’ve already pointed out 3 good reasons to be worried that socially liberal republicans don’t vote for fiscal conservatism either.
Nor have I recommended shooting anyone. Let them run. If they win the primary, I’ll vote for them in the general election. But we have primaries to pick candidates we support - not to have them dictated to us by liberal columnists or party leaders.
Oh, and remember Arnold? I was living in California during his election. I remember the calls to vote for him over McClintock because he was a fiscal conservative, and his social liberalism would help him get elected. How’s his fiscal conservatism doing now?
My fault finding is with you directing republican voters to put aside their beliefs to vote for someone you like IN THE PRIMARY. And Julia, I’ve watched the social liberals stab conservative candidates in the back after losing the primary vote. That is internal infighting you seem to ignore.
It’s precisely guys like Huckster that are the reason the GOP has already become irrelevant.
“It’s precisely guys like Huckster that are the reason the GOP has already become irrelevant.”
Exactly and yet Hannity, etc. still have him on blabbering away. Why can’t they admit this guy is a self serving hypocrite?
Hucksterbee is not my fave, but he is right on this one.
The worst behavior I’m seeing from elected Republicans right now is fiscal irresponsibility and the tendency to embrace this idea of huge government, but maybe I’m missing something.
Well, the voting for porkulus, etc. etc. is one example.
Further, we've seen scads of op-eds from folks like Parker, Frum, etc. who basically pin the election loss last year on the social conservatism of the GOP and who have been urging the Party to dump social conservatives, or at least muzzle them and send them to the back of the bus. I would not call that "working with the Party base", by any stretch of the imagination.
What's worse is how simply wrongheaded and ignorant of reality their advice is. Social conservatism was the only thing that won last November. Gay marriage bans were approved by the people even in bright Blue California. Social conservatism is one of the few commonalities the GOP has with the minority voters that we keep hearing (falsely, I believe) that we need to win. Poll after poll show majorities holding to socially conservative positions on everything from gay marriage and abortion to affirmative action and illegal immigration.
And yet rocket scientists like David Frum want to blame Sarah Palin and the SoCons.
Brilliant.
I trust my sarcasm isn't spread on too thickly.
Look - let's be realistic here. The empirical evidence to date suggests that when Republicans run as conservatives, they will win - just like in 1980, just like in 1994 - the voting demographics have NOT changed nearly as radically since 1994 and 2000 as many like to think. When the GOP runs RINOs like they did in 2008, they lose. The GOP's drop in support is proportional to how far they've moved to "the centre." Personally, I think Arlen Specter cost the GOP half a million votes from disgruntled conservatives merely by being in the Party and having such a prominent place. It's time we face facts - the moderates have run this party into the ground. It's time for conservatives to take it back. The moderates can stay and vote for us, like in the 1980s, but the RINOs cannot be trusted with positions of any real influence or power. Not only on ideological ground, but just on flat pragmatic grounds as well.
“...directing republican voters to put aside their beliefs to vote for someone you like IN THE PRIMARY...”
No, I’m not doing that. All I’m trying to say here is that there seems to be a tendency to want to throw Republicans overboard because they may disagree somewhat on a single issue. I’m not talking of politicians, I hope I’ve expressed how I feel about them nowadays and I think it’s a feeling that we all share. I believe our politicians are selling ALL of us down the river in order to get money and influence, but I suppose that might be no different than it has ever been. I’m speaking of fellow Republicans. Just the normal folks who read or post here. No one deserves to have verbal flames, scorn or derision directed at them because they might disagree on an issue.
I’ll say it again. Especially right now, there is far more to unite around than to divide around.
I think Arnold should suffer total recall and I think Specter’s going to get the poison pill from Harry Reid’s ring. They deserve that. I think Michael Steele needs to call out Colin Powell and say, “You supported Obama and you’ve said that you believe people want more government. Please find a different party...go talk to Arlen Specter.”
“Please show me the hordes of socially liberal but fiscally conservative Republicans voting in unison with the party on fiscal matters.”
When people go into the voting booth, their choice is still private.
And at this point, judging from the disarray and the infighting...I’m tempted to say, “WHAT ‘party’?”
Name someone banned from here for accepting abortion, particularly in your mentioned cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother - which I believe the GOP platform allows exceptions for.
All we can talk to by name are politicians, since they are the only names we all can know. And no one has ever been banned from the GOP for being pro-abortion. Not CTW, no Specter, not Snowe. Heck, I don’t know of a single GOP politician tossed overboard for fiscal irresponsibility as well.
NO ONE is tossing ANYONE overboard, except for voters in their home states and districts. That is, I believe, still the voters right. So what is your complaint?
As for flame wars here, I’ve been on the receiving end of many of them, including for being weak on abortion. It goes with posting.
The infighting is natural, since it will help determine who our standard bearer will be. And there is a lot more ink being spent writing that the GOP needs to get rid of social conservatives than the other way around.
I didn’t say anyone was banned from here, did I? If I did, I didn’t mean to. I was talking about the party in general.
My experience with liberals is that they may find agreement with you, or you them on an issue or two, but their motivation at heart is to make people assimilate or be eliminated.
I’ve always considered the Republican party to be the party of free-thinkers. I consider the liberals to be the party of “groupthink” defined by whatever the party leaders inject into the vein of debate that day. And all Americans are oppressed by the false censorship of political correctness.
I know that you are talking about politicians. But politicians are not what I am talking about.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, people are defecting from the party and labelling themselves Libertarian.
Can you ever see the Libertarian party winning the White House? I can’t. I am still a Republican, but all of this infighting and sniping within the party seems to be sinking it. And the media’s loving it and fueling it.
My first post here expressed what I feel...I’m tired of Republicans like Huck pronouncing doom on the party.
Republicans all, fiscal conservatives and social conservatives need to put their big girl panties on and deal with the situation at hand.
We need an agenda and a GOOD leader...not all of this fret over the state of the party and the few issues that are contentious and the whining about feeling left out.
“No one deserves to have verbal flames, scorn or derision directed at them because they might disagree on an issue.”
That’s what I said in the prior post. I mean it. I’m new to Free Republic and I’m just getting used to it. Within my first days I was told I wouldn’t last 40 days here because I suggested that Reagan was a big tent Republican. That he knew how to make Democrats understand the vital economic and foreign policy issues of the day. Then I read “A Different Drummer” and Michael Deaver wrote that Reagan understood the concept of a big tent.
If Republicans keep marginalizing themselves and other Republicans, we’ll never have the White House or Congress again...and with the upcoming Census, it may already be too late.
I understand that debates get heated, but everyone loses when other posters lash out and call honest people “trolls” or worse. And no one speaks up...and the possibility of good ideas and the rejuvinative power of civil debate loses.
Now. I’m going to go eat the dinner I’m cooking. We may have discussions around the dinner table. We may not agree about things, but in the end, we’re family. We’ll be fine.
Enjoy your evening.
Thanks. You too. I'm going to grab a bite to eat then go ride one of our horses - always good for relaxing.
Mia knows who feeds her - she agrees with ALL of my politics!
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