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Boehner, GOP Leaders Purge Conservatives from Powerful Committees UPDATE: Boehner Scoffs
Brietbart ^ | Monday December 3, 2012 | Matthew Boyle

Posted on 12/03/2012 7:45:40 PM PST by Bigtigermike

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To: major-pelham

I agree. Conservatives should revolt and back Allen West as Speaker.


61 posted on 12/04/2012 7:25:34 AM PST by oldernittany
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To: Bigtigermike

Here are some thoughts. First, consider that the Repub party is not being supportive of its conservative base. This is in dramatic contrast with the Dem party which unwaveringly supports its base even if that base is a very small percentage of the population and is as irrational and nutty as the day is long. Actions of the Repub party since Nov 6 have weakened the likelihood that the base will vote for and fund Repub candidates in 2014. It is possible the Repub party has a plan for making up those losses and exceeding them by adding new voters to exceed those now attracted to the Dem party’s candidates. I have heard nothing of such a plan but it must exist somewhere, if only in the thoughts of Repub party “leaders”. If that plan fails to be explained soon, the Repub party will not be viable in national elections in the future, although they will remain viable in intra-state and local elections provided the party infrastructure and funding is sustained—a big “if”.

If conservatives want to win the more prominent elected positions for the near-term, including Senate, House, and Presidential positions, a supportive relationship with Repub party leaders must be solidified. The same is true for the Repub party leaders. There is mutual dependence here. In the longer-term, perhaps 20 years, if conservatives want to win it is possible to do so by increasing influence in the Repub party the way it currently exists or constructing a new party, not from scratch, but from a major portion of the current Repub party. This could be done by isolating the serial election losers in the Repub party, getting pledges from conservative Senators and House members to form a block and then threaten to become “Liebermans/Independents” if the party leaders don’t agree to some changes and ceding of authority, then mounting a direct effort to chip away at Dem and independent voters at the very lowest level (the educational system, information media, and personal contact).

As an aside, the Dem party is vulnerable although it may not seem to be vulnerable given the policy changes that party has achieved since Medicare (1965). Although it may seem strange now, the Dem party is also a place where conservatism could be grown. The Dem party is a coalition of more extreme and conflicting views than the Repub party and is more vulnerable to change in influence from small groups. The average Dem voter is not a deep thinker, goes with the mood of the moment, wants to fit in with the prevailing pop culture-getting “news” primarily from comedy shows for example, and is easily fooled by propaganda. That is a vulnerable voting pool.


62 posted on 12/04/2012 7:39:09 AM PST by iacovatx (Conservatism is the political center--it is not "right" of center)
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To: BCR #226

The only reason I opposed a third party movement was hat I feared it would lead to the re-election of obama. Well now that the worst posible outcome has come to pass I say it’s time for conservatives to cut their ties to the GOP and start a new Conservative party. We have a conservative base in the House that could be the embryo of our new party. Their leaving the GOP would cost the GOP it’s majority. Tough sh*t! The new party could agree to caucus, temporarily, with the GOP...but only at a steep cost. The first payment would be the ouster of Boehner and a conservative replacement...or hand the gavel over to pelosi.


63 posted on 12/04/2012 7:42:05 AM PST by pgkdan (We are witnessing the modern sack of Rome. The barbarians have taken over.)
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To: Bigtigermike

Time for the third party. The Republican Party wants our votes and nothing else.

Grand Old Plantation, indeed.


64 posted on 12/04/2012 8:00:09 AM PST by Colonel_Flagg ("Don't be afraid to see what you see." -- Ronald Reagan)
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To: Bigtigermike
Yawn. It's common practice for committee memberships to change.

I'm sick of the paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense coming out of so-called conservatives. Lose nominations? Conspiracy! Elections? Conspiracy! Change committees? Conspiracy!

65 posted on 12/04/2012 8:07:21 AM PST by newzjunkey (grr)
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To: newzjunkey

Take your beloved moderates and Mitt lover with you! I can’t wait until you praise Jeb Bush for President


66 posted on 12/04/2012 8:13:48 AM PST by Bigtigermike
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To: BCR #226

I have just contacted Speaker Boehner’s Office with a copy of this article asking if these Conservatives have been relieved of their positions. I told the Speaker that if it was true that the GOP would lose another voter as I would go Independent and sit back and watch as the Party finishes committing suicide. I stated that conservatism was the glue holding the GOP together but evidently this was not the thinking inside the Beltway.


67 posted on 12/04/2012 8:21:53 AM PST by navymom1
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To: Bigtigermike
Zees are ze early steps along ze vay de Nazi's treatet ze Joos! Zey von't neet to identify us by our ears on our passports, ze government database will allow any of ze nomenklatura to qvickly check our conservative ratingk.

Above 20 you von't be able to go to University. Above 30 you von't get a good job. Above 35 you won't be able to get a bank mortgage. Above 40 zey vill send you to a verrk camp. Voting for a conservative earns you 32 points. Posting on FR earns you one point per verrt. How vill zey know how you vote or about your FR postst? Zey haf vays!

Enjoy it vile you got it!

HF

68 posted on 12/04/2012 9:00:03 AM PST by holden
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To: Bigtigermike

BOHICA. Sigh.


69 posted on 12/04/2012 9:31:28 AM PST by VictoryGal (Never give up, never surrender! REMEMBER NEDA)
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To: Bigtigermike

I think Sarah Palin, newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Thomas Sowell, and a host of others should start a NewGOP party to defeat the Democrap-lite GOP


70 posted on 12/04/2012 9:34:15 AM PST by Mr. K (some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help...)
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To: Bigtigermike; All
The answer to such arrogance, whether among Republicans or Democrats, is educating citizens in the ideas which made America a place of liberty in the first place, and in the danger of allowing a few elected representatives to take away their freedom and make them slaves.

"Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature." - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787

The above words comes from the following essay, which is reprinted with permission:

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CITIZENS

"Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature." - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787

Background And Original Intent

"A good constitution is the greatest blessing which a socie­ty can enjoy." So said James Wilson, in his oration at Philadelphia on July 4, 1788, celebrating the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. Wilson, who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, preached startlingly democratic theories - more democratic than the ideas of any other delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

Yet Wilson emphasized the duties, as well as the rights, of citizens:

"Need I infer, that it is the duty of every citizen to use his best and most unremitting endeavours for preserving it [the Constitution] pure, healthful, and vigorous? For the accomplishment of this great purpose, the exertions of no one citizen are unimportant. Let no one, therefore harbour, for a moment, the mean idea, that he is and can be of no value to his country: let the contrary manly impres­sion animate his soul. Every one can, at many times, perform, to the state, useful services; and he, who steadily pursues the road of patriotism, has the most inviting prospect of being able, at some times, to perform eminent ones."

Wilson's argument is quite as sound now as it was two centuries ago. The success of the American Republic as a political structure has been the consequence, in very large part, of the voluntary participation of citizens in public affairs - enlisting in the army in time of war; serving on school boards; taking part unpaid in political campaigns; petitioning legislatures; sup­porting the President in an hour of crisis; and in a hundred other great ways, or small-assuming responsibility for the com­mon good. The Constitution has functioned well, most of the time, because conscientious men and women have given it flesh.

The Premises of Americans' Responsibility Under the Constitution of 1787

In the matters which most immediately affect private life, power should remain in the hands of the citizens, or of the several states - not in the possession of federal government. So, at least, the Constitution declares. Americans have no official cards of identity, or internal passports, or system of national registration of all citizens - obligations imposed upon citizens in much of the rest of the world. This freedom results from Americans' voluntary assumption of responsibility.

In matters of public concern, it was the original intent to keep authority as close to home as possible. The lesser courts, the police, the maintenance of roads and sanitation, the levying of real-property taxes, the control of public schools, and many other essential functions still are carried on by the agen­cies of local community: the township, the village, the city, the county, the voluntary association. Citizens' cooperation in voluntary community throughout the United States has been noted and commended in the books of Alexis de Tocqueville, Lord Bryce, Julian Marias, and other distinguished visitors to the United States, over the past two centuries:

A republic whose citizens - whose leaders, indeed - are concerned chiefly with "looking out for Number One," and ig­noring their responsibilities of citizenship, soon cannot "insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare" - or carry on the other major duties of the state. When the crisis comes, the people may turn in desperation to the hero-administrator, the misty figure somewhere at the summit. But in the end, that hero­administrator will not save the republic, although he may govern for a time by force. A democratic republic cannot long endure unless a great many of its citizens stand ready and will­ing to brighten the corner where they are, and to sacrifice much for the nation, if need be.

Has The Consciousness of Responsibility Withered in America?

For the past five or six decades, several perceptive observers have remarked, an increasing proportion of the American population has ceased to feel responsible for the common defense, for productive work, for choosing able men and women to represent them in politics, for accepting personal responsibility for the needs of the community, or even for their own livelihood. Unless this deterioration is arrested, the responsible citizens will be too few to support and protect the irresponsible. By 1978 there were more people receiving regular government checks than there were workers in the private sector.

What follows, if we are to judge by the history of fallen civilizations, is described by Albert Jay Nock in his book Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943):

"... closer centralization; a steadily growing bureaucracy; State power and faith in State power increasing; social power and faith in social power diminishing; the State absorbing a continually larger proportion of the national income; production languishing; the State in consequence taking over one 'essential industry' after another, managing them with ever-increasing corruption, inefficiency, and prodigality, and finally resorting to a system of forced labor. Then at some point in this process a collision of State interests, at least as general and as violent as that which occurred in 1914, will result in an industrial and financial dislocation too severe for the asthenic [weak] social structure to bear; and from this the State will be left to 'the rusty death of machinery' and the casual anonymous forces of dissolution."

Modem civilization offers a great variety of diversions, amusements, and enticements - some of them baneful. But modem civilization does not offer many inducements to the performance of duties, except perhaps monetary payment, and certainly it does not teach people that the real reward for responsible citizenship is the preservation of a free society.

It is not money that can induce citizens to labor and sacrifice for the common good. They must be moved by patriotism and their attachment to the Constitution. And patriotism alone, ignorant boasting about ones native land, would not suffice to preserve the Republic.

Thus it is that on the occasion of the Bicentennial celebrating of the Constitution, a mighty effort ought to be made to restore the American public's awareness of the principles of their government, of their responsibilities toward their country, their neighbors, their children, their parents, and themselves to be sure that their patrotism is based on this solid foundation. No one knows how late the hour is; but it is later than most people think. Love of the Republic shelters all our other loves; and that love is worth some sacrifice.

Responsibilities Are Readily Forgotten

Nearly all of us are quick to claim benefits, but not everybody is eager to fulfill obligations. We have become a nation obsessed with rights, forgetful of responsibilities. In an age of seeming affluence, a great many people find it easy to forget that all good things must be paid for by somebody or other - paid for through hard work, through painful abstinence, sometimes through bitter sacrifice. Below we set down some of the causes for the decline of a sense of responsibility among some American citizens.

In other words, the temptation of public men in Washington is always to offer to have the federal government assume fresh responsibilities - with consequent decay of local and private vigor (it might be argued that, at least in part, a failure in the proper exercise of citizens' responsibility permitted the development of the welfare state syndrome - that the government owes them a living. In any event, once it got under way and the welfare state grew, the sense of citizens' responsibility and rugged individualism deteriorated).

These are only some of the reasons why a 'permissive" society speaks often of rights and seldom of responsibilities. A time comes, in the course of events, when abruptly there is a most urgent need for men and women ready to fulfill high and exacting and dangerous responsibilities. And if there are no such citizens, then liberty can be lost. It must be remembered that the great strength of the Signers of the Declaration and the Framers of the Constitution was that they knew their classical history, and how the ancient Greek cities had lost their liberties, and how the Roman system had sunk to its ruin under the weight of proletariat and military state.

Prospects For The Renewal Of Responsibility

What may be done by way of remedy? Although America's social difficulties are formidable, probably they are less daunting than those of any other great nation today. The economic resources of the United States remain impressive; and the country's intellectual resources are large.

This essay cannot offer, in its small compass, a detailed program for the popular recovery of devotion to duty. Here we can only suggest healing approaches:

In your own circumstances, you may encounter oppor­tunities for the renewal of responsibility more promising where you live than any suggested here. In any society, it always has been a minority who have upheld order and justice and freedom. If only one out of every ten citizens of the United States of America should vigorously fulfill his responsibilities to our civil social order - why, we would not need to fear for the future of this nation.


Consider

  1. In all previous cultures, children ordinarily accepted responsibility for the well-being of their parents in old age; and in various societies, the children were so held accountable in law. Why has this form of responsibility decayed in the twentieth century? Can you think of political and social causes for the care of elderly parents being turned over to public agencies?

  2. Can you name seven or eight voluntary associations or organizations, not subsidized or directed by government, that perform important services in your community or in America generally? Explore the benefits from this kind of involvement as opposed to "letting the government do it."

  3. Responsible citizenship sometimes brings risks - all the way from unpopularity in some local dispute to pushing forward under enemy fire in military action. How may schools help to teach the rising generation the high importance of performing duties that may be dangerous?

  4. Are you and I personally responsible for our decisions and actions, or are we simply creatures of our environment, "conditioned" to respond in one way or another to events and challenges? Marshal the arguments on either side of this question, and then consider the probable social consequences of believing in freedom of the will, or believing that society, rather than the individual person, is responsible for citizen's actions.

  5. What are you doing to help preserve the great principles on which this nation and your personal freedoms are based?


Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part VII Essay (Dr. Russell Kirk & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Co-Authors):  ISBN 0-937047-01-5 Read more

71 posted on 12/04/2012 9:51:11 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: jpsb

I”m not a fan of Libertarians - but many of them (at least those that I know personally) have FAR more in common with us Conservatives than we have different.

Indeed - out of the sizable group of self-identified Libertarians I know - 95% of them are pro-life (strongly) and anti-homosexual. I think the disagreement/misunderstanding we have on those issues - Libertarians view those issues as state issues.


72 posted on 12/04/2012 10:01:27 AM PST by TheBattman (Isn't the lesser evil... still evil?)
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To: TheBattman

ILLEGAL Immigration is the fundamental issue

Ron Paul- probably the most Libertarian GOP member flipped and went PRO open borders last election cycle- thus dooming his already slim chances

I agree that we have more in common with liberty loving folks of all stripes BUT with amnesty EVERY state becomes solid Democrat as did CA


73 posted on 12/04/2012 10:12:13 AM PST by usmc19651990. (chik fil a,amnesty,obama,RINO)
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To: wildandcrazyrussian

Bush actually got 62M in 2004. So Romney’s totals were still below Bush’s.


74 posted on 12/04/2012 11:58:05 AM PST by princeofdarkness ( Nobama. No more. No way. November 2012.)
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
"OTOH, the collapse could be blamed on "capitalism." That thought keeps me up at night."

Maybe dumb it down for the 99%ers I call it "greed". Greed comes in many forms, including lobbyists, government czars, local unions, etc.

75 posted on 12/04/2012 12:25:05 PM PST by uncommonsense (Conservatives believe what they see; Liberals see what they believe.)
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To: Bigtigermike
Interesting move.

Wonder just how far re branding will take the new GOP (pun).

76 posted on 12/04/2012 12:26:06 PM PST by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: Bigtigermike

Leaving Boehner in the Speaker’s chair was a mistake.


77 posted on 12/04/2012 12:31:59 PM PST by Baynative
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To: Baynative
Leaving Boehner in the Speaker’s chair was a mistake.

Did anyone challenge him? I have missed a lot of news lately.

78 posted on 12/04/2012 12:50:43 PM PST by Irish Eyes
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To: Bigtigermike

The GOPe blames conservatives like Democrats blame Bush. Neither one of them can accomplish anything, but rather than learn from their mistakes, they blame a bogeyman.

In 2016, right on cue, Republican apologists like Limbaugh and Hannity will show up to browbeat us into obedience. Remember: the GOP is our only hope for survival! Why, just look at how well they’ve helped us so far!

The great irony of these scheisters is that they use the same faulty logic as the Democrats (the economy would have been WORSE without the stimulus!) and nobody notices.


79 posted on 12/04/2012 1:12:32 PM PST by Cato in PA (May America reap the putrid fruit of the demon seed it's sown.)
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To: TheBattman

It may well be time for the Tea Party to become a party. They can operate like the Conservative Party of New York State: running the Republican only when he or she is conservative enough. Otherwise they run their own. Let the chips fall where they may.


80 posted on 12/04/2012 2:07:58 PM PST by firebrand
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