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“According to The New York Times, 10 moderates, 15 conservatives, and eight other Republicans would have voted against the Republican repeal and replace Obamacare bill. So, then, 15 or so conservatives made it impossible to pass the bill favored by nearly every other Republican and by President Donald Trump.”

Well, Prager, was it the 15 conservatives who killed this Dream Bill or was it the “10 moderates + 8 others” who killed it? Fifteen members on their own could not have stopped ObummerCare 2.0.

The root of the failure is that it was a bill struck in secret by Ryan and who knows who else with no input from conservatives.

BTW, FR still is a conservative site isn’t it?

I think you are proving the author’s point.

“GIVE US THE BILL THAT PASSED LAST YEAR!!!! IT IS ASSURED TO PASS THIS YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!”........right?

You do know why it sailed through last year, dont you?

That’s the la la land child-like stupidity that the HFC and supporters were inhaling last week. The idea that there would be no amendments, no filibuster, and nothing but smooth sailing.

The votes last year were SHOW because Obama would veto each and every one....which he did.

The actual process of dismantling it would be in phases, and would be FOUGHT with every parliamentary move in the book, and would not be done overnight. Obamacare itself took months to get voted on, and wasn’t even considered the “end game” the Democrats wanted, and those guys had a larger majority than the GOP has now.

I didn’t like the bill as it was, but I’m not so pig-headed as to not know there were plenty of chances for amendments, debates, and moves because it was only moving out of the House! It still had to go to the Senate, and then it had to come BACK to the House again!

The problem with the HFC is that they were RIGHT to hate it, but they wanted to make a damn grandstand for virtue signal sake when they should have fought through the process to change it on both sides of the hill and in the WH.

They didnt even want the process to even move. better to
FUBAR a bunch of other things then to lose face on passage that wasn’t even remotely the end, but just the end of the beginning.

“BTW, FR still is a conservative site isn’t it?”

I ask myself that quite a bit lately.

It is to the point where I am beginning to not trust and to some extent not wish to be identified as ‘conservative’. The word is becoming muddled.

Clearly, America was founded on the principle of individual Freedom and extremely limited central govt - in fact, enumerated powers only. I previously would assume anyone identified as conservative still promoted that American ideal.

But either we, as a party, are becoming intellectually lazy or we are becoming perhaps fatally infected with the political mark of the beast which virtually all Democrats possess. That mark is the prideful notion that no good shall be done in America if it is not done by the biggest, most impersonal, most inefficient and most corrupted level of govt - the feds.

Hail HFC, the true leaders in this battle!

And long live these purists.

Good lord, if our party can’t understand or acknowledge that, by design, the federal level of government is where purity belongs, then we really are in trouble.

The states basically have unlimited power to be idiots if their populations so desire. The feds are technically not allowed to do that. To the extent the feds increasingly dilute this purity is the extent to which states lose their rightful powers.

To the extent states lose power, then so do individuals. Try to get an appointment with your US Senator - good luck. On the other hand, call your statehouse rep and he/she will probably come over and mow your lawn for the chance to get your vote and hear you out.

The very best way for govt to be seen as legitimate and responsive to the most people is for decisions to be made at the lowest level as practical.

I’m not sure why our party has such trouble marketing Freedom - other than the fact they don’t try. National socialism is the existential threat to true diversity. The reason American style Freedom is both morally and practically superior to federal level socialism is very simple. And pure:

With our original and pure federalist design, socialism can still exist where states are stupid enough to desire it. And like minds can freely gravitate to Left or Right leaning states.

Whereas with national socialism, Freedom has no escape.

The im-purists are condemning us to the latter.