Posted on 05/04/2012 6:31:27 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
My FRiends, we might as well face the reality that we the combined pro-life conservative movement and tea party coalition have lost this round (the presidential election) in the larger battle to reclaim our constitution and our inalienable rights. Rove, Romney and the GOP-e have successfully destroyed and driven off each and every pro-life conservative tea party candidate from the race and all have surrendered to the Romney camp. It is no secret that Romney is not one of us. There is absolutely no doubt that he has never accomplished a single conservative thing in his entire political career (one term as liberal governor of liberal Massachusetts and six years campaigning for president). In Massachusetts, he undeniably championed abortion, gay rights, global warming, gun control, big government statist mandated/socialized health care programs, liberal judges, TARP, bailouts, stimulus spending, debt limit increases, etc, and even though he's recently claimed a complete reversal in political beliefs and no longer despises pro-life conservatives or the time of Reagan-Bush, I still don't trust him. He still stubbornly holds on to some of his statist beliefs, like global warming, gays in the military, RomneyCare, stimulus spending, etc, so there is no way I can vote for him or join Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Newt or any others who are endorsing him. But I will not act on my prior promises that I would actively campaign against him if he wins the nomination. Our combined movement is already torn and splintered and is going to have to be mended if we're going to have any impact whatsoever against the liberal/progressives and statists after the election. To that end I propose a TRUCE among our conservative forces during the remainder of this election cycle.
We conservatives have already lost the presidency to either the Dems or the GOP-e, and if we tear the tea party apart, if we tear the pro-life movement apart, if we tear FR apart then we lose it all. It's far more important that we re-unite and live to fight another day. Even if we can't vote for a true conservative for the presidency, it's doubly important that we all turn out on election day or sooner and drag our friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, etc, to the polls to vote straight conservative for every slot on our ballots. The only way we can win our freedom back is to vote out the liberal progressives and vote in as many liberty loving conservatives as is humanly possible into every elected office at every level of government all across this great land. To prevent a total loss to the dems or GOP-e, we must continue the tea party rebellion into November and beyond. Whatever else you may do, you must turn out and vote straight tea party conservative down ticket!!
We must continue expanding our inroads into the state houses and into every elective office in the land. We must continue building on our majority in the house and we must retake the senate!! We must help the conservative governors and state legislatures to fully restore the ninth and tenth amendments and reclaim the real political power away from the federal usurpers and return it to the states and the people per the constitution!! This way, regardless of who wins the presidency, we can cut his unconstitutional expansionist movements off at the knees. And if any executive, civil officer or judge dares commit impeachable offenses, we must hold the majorities so we can impeach and remove them from office!!
And we must salvage and rebuild and continue strengthening our conservative pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, pro-borders, pro-constitution, pro-small government, pro-defense, pro-liberty movements and our tea party coalition. And we must stop ripping each other apart!!
Therefore I hereby propose a general truce among our conservative forces!!
The Republic we save may be our own!!
As far as FR's finances go, we're in the same boat as the rest of the economy and will have to make do with what we can raise. Fortunately, the big debts we ran up a couple years ago have been paid off. We borrowed approx $20,000 a few years ago from two FReepers to fund our national convention, plus we ran up another $20,000 in legal fees during the last couple of years fighting off Righthaven. But those are now behind us and paid off. We also did quite a bit of traveling each year for the last three years on cross country tea party tours, but I think we can now cut that back and remove it from our budget requirements. If we're fortunate enough to not incur any additional legal costs or equipment costs (other than what we've already planned), and cut the travel and a few other areas, we should be able to tighten our belts enough to weather the storm even if we fail to reach our short term fundraising goals.
Whatever the outcome of the elections, we are prepared to roar into 2013 with the tea party chewing up liberal/progressives and RINOs and raising hell in our never ending fight for liberty!!
We are the resistance!!
Let's take the enemy head-on instead of fighting each other!!
Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!!
I've not been a Paul supporter. I've wanted to support Palin since I first heard her speak the day McCain introduced her. But I have some questions to anyone here who would be willing to coolly answer them.
First a statement: from what I've learned, Ron Paul is first one who supports the Constitution as it was written. He has developed, sponsored and convinced many of a number of opinions regarding our fiscal house and how to get it in order. He has a voting record unparalleled in terms of supporting the Constitution. He is Pro-Life, and as a physician, understands the problems confronting the health system and knows how to solve them. He served in the armed services. He appeals to all kinds of political forces.
So my first question is, why aren't we Freepers supporting him? I understand his foreign policy seems a bit odd. But even George Washington cautioned against getting involved with foreign wars. Some think he's anti-mililtary, but he's not. His record shows that he's anti-waste in military spending and military use.
Question 2: If Freepers can consider supporting Romney, how can we not consider supporting Dr. Paul?
I hope someone will answer these questions without putting me down as a flake. I'm not. I simply don't understand what seems to me to be a lack of logic in the thrust and content of this thread. Thanks.
A truce means you stop nagging.
We have the system we have, and we are in the circumstances we are in. It didn't spring up overnight or by accident, and none of us here today will live to see our Republic fully restored to the Founder's vision.
However, like all Americans of every time, we have a job to do. Giving up and checking out is not an option.
I think that in January of 2009 things looked a lot worse for conservatism and for America than they do today, even considering Romney's apparent nomination. The tea party movement was and continues to be a great hope for the future. We have some good young people in office (Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, etc.) The conservative new media presence is way ahead of where it was in 2008.
Here is what I see as the key point: America continues to be a conservative country and the American people can still be trusted as a whole to choose the conservative path if it is on offer. We need to build on this but the framework is still there, thank God.
Bill Clinton ran (falsely) as a moderate and a pragmatist in 1992 and won against a divided and demoralized GOP. He then governed as the leftist he always was and as a result the 'Rats got slammed in 1994. Bubba said "I hear you" and declared (insincerely) that "the era of big government is over." He then proceeded to compromise and govern as a moderate until after the 1996 election.
Obama also ran (even more falsely) as a moderate and a pragmatist in 2008 and won against a divided and demoralized GOP. He has governed as a raging commie. The 'Rats got smacked down again in 2010 but rather than employ Clintonian triangulation and guile, Obama has come out of the closet even more as a leftist. It is all about class warfare and identity politics with him and will be through November.
Here's the thing: Even though Romney is no one on FreeRepublic's idea of a true conservative, still he is running somewhat as a conservative. More importantly, we have the first election in decades where the Democrat is running as a self-acknowledged undiluted leftist. Thus we have a golden opportunity to run this election as a national referendum on conservatism vs. leftism.
I look forward to the next six months of explaining to the American people why leftism results in low growth, high unemployment, huge deficits and debt, inflation and a weak dollar, plummeting home valuations, exploding student loan debt, insolvent entitlement programs, ruinous unfunded public employee pension and health care obligations, bankrupt municipalities and states, downgraded credit ratings, and all the rest.
These failures of leftism are happening right now across America and throughout the Western world. Yet as recently as 2004 and even 2008 we had the 'Rats extolling the European big government model and talking about how America is backwards and hateful for not having government health care, government paid college, etc.
Obama and the 'Rats now have to own Obamacare, "stimulus", "green energy" central planning, @julia lifelong handouts to all, the entire menu of now-failed leftist nostrums. They have nowhere to hide when we come at them with the Reagan stick.
So let's just get right down to it and beat the crap out of them! (In the arena of debate and at the ballot box, of course.)
We can worry about Romney once he and the new GOP-majority Congress are in office.
You said: "I'd rather shut the place down than be involved in any effort to install abortionist/gay rights pushing RINOS like Romney or Giuliani into the White House!!" Does the truce change this stance?
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I would also be interested in seeing an answer to this question. I am no Romney fan, but I do not believe we will have a free American republic after another four years of Obama. I pray the brokered convention/Palin scenario plays out. But assuming it does not, we are left with two choices - voting for the only viable candidate other than Obama, or enabling the re-election of the ineligible, evil, incumbent. Unfortunately, in a two man race where in each state the winner takes all, not voting or voting for a third-party candidate simply makes it more likely the incumbent will be retained. Don't blame me - I didn't take these rules.
So, for those of us who believe Obama MUST be defeated to save the republic, you are with us or against us. I respect your feelings if you simply cannot support Romney, if you'd rather not vote, etc. I'm not going to attack you or call you names. But you are an obstacle to the goal of turning out the incumbent, whether you like it or not.
I don't like this situation - but that's the way I see it. Now is FreeRepublic going to support the defeat of Obama or not? I'm not "going to war" against you if the answer is no; I just want to understand, clearly, what position this site is taking in the upcoming election.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." (attrib: Edmund Burke)
While I agree with you 100% (as usual), Jim, I’ll say here that I will hold my nose and vote for Romney (boy, am I SICK of having to hold my nose to vote.....).
ANYone will be better than Obama. As others here have stated, a Republican-controlled Congress has a good chance of forcing Romney to the right of center. We need to focus on taking the Senate and expanding the Republican majority in the House.
As you pointed out, that means Tea Party-approved candidates for both houses of Congress.
Then.......we just might have a chance at righting this listing, sinking ship of state.
In times like this, I always remember the remark of Lord Acton, one of the forefathers of the modern American brand of conservatism which seeks to conserve the American Founding along with the rest of the patrimony of Christendom, though he hailed from the other side of the pond:
At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success.
Those FReepers who may chose to "hold their nose" and vote for Romney are taking exactly the sort of risk Lord Acton spoke of -- hoping to advance freedom by associating with [an] auxiliary whose object are different from their own (in Gov. Romney's case, I suspect the object is simply his own power, though we might hope it is power for the GOP). In either case a solid Tea Party victory down-ticket would drag what I, at least, regard as the convictionless RINO to the right. If that happens the risk may be vindicated, if not a protest vote for a third party candidate would be the better choice.
Each of us will need to make his or her own decision about the top of the ticket come November. In the meantime let all FReepers heed JimRob's call to work tirelessly for a conservative victories down-ticket!
And the anybody but Romney camp have been called the same things and worse.
Are YOU going to apologize to us?
You know what really frosts me about this fiasco?
Lots of us didn't vote in any of those primaries. At all.
We stayed home on Stupor Tuesday, and all those other primaries.
Why, do you ask?
Simple:
Our primaries haven't even happened yet!!!!
WV primary is on May 8.
I'll probably vote for Newt.
BFD ...
Apparently it has been already decided that r0mney, the all-holy knight in shining armour on a white horse is "The One" to defeat "The One".
FUBO.
FUMR.
I'm on the verge of FURP.
Bingo!
Sarah Palin was the tipping point for my voting the presidential ticket as well. I voted for her, not for McCain. Without her I can’t really say whether I’d vote the top of the ticket or not. You can’t prove a negative.
But things are vastly different now, even though one of the candidates remains the same. We now know what the man is not only capable of, but plans. As much as I can’t stand voting for someone like Romney, I will, because another 4 years of Obama will only accelerate America becoming a socialist state, moreso than under Romney. At least, that’s my opinion.
Amen. Well said.
Romney is less awful than Obama, but he’s still awful. So I’ll vote for Romney, but it will be even more painful than voting for McCain. I’d even pick Ron Paul over Romney, but that would be no different than not voting.
The GOP-e needs to go. Failing this, we need a whole new party. We all know this.
The problem is, we have the need but not the leader. Palin, for instance, has the leadership ability and character to lead the rebellion, but not the stomach. According to her own statement, she puts her family ahead of the country.
The founding fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Most of them had to make good on that pledge. We need no less today.
That is how it works, if you want to get that prickly about it. You're welcome to join us here in Real-ville. This thread presumes a Romney nomination.
Thanks to Lincoln the butcher and the statist Yankees who followed that goon, we are all slaves of the state and states rights is dead. You are so right it is over and the Feds are getting over on us. Curse your ancestors and anyone who cant’s see the republic died 150 years ago. New England will go Obama and gave us Etch-A-Sketch Milquetoast, Yankeedome and New England is a curse on the USA. Have a day in crapville.
BTTT
Good for you. Congratulations. Soon as I start to see pro-Romney posts it's opus time for me.
/johnny
Excuse me hoss, but as a long-time San Franciscan whose girlfriend is a Berkeley native, I'm here to tell you that you may still have a thing or two to learn about where the real hippie liberals congregate in these here United States of America.
The way I read Jim’s message, he has seen the light and as long as one is not promoting Demobulbs, it’s full speed ahead.
Interesting to hear that Paul is your Congressmen. I view him as over the top but one smart guy. I especially like his view of troops bases all over the world - pull them out and station them here - spend the money here. We can readily travel practically anywhere on short notice and having bases everywhere is a huge waste of money.
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