Posted on 06/13/2003 1:55:59 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
Is Free Republic too "Republican?" I've been receiving a lot of complaints lately that FR is not really conservative, it's Republican. Is that a bad thing?
When I started FR (see the wayback machine) I don't think I even used the labels conservative or Republican. But, even though I was a registered Democrat at the time (I registered when I was very young), I was definitely anti-Democrat. And definitely anti-big government, anti-government corruption, anti-government abuse, anti-liberalism, etc. And I still am.
As FR became more and more popular, people started referring to it as a "conservative" web site and so eventually I posted the label to the front page. If it no longer applies, big deal. What's in a label? I'll change it to "Republican" if demand warrants.
I'm still anti-big government, anti-government corruption, anti-Democrat and anti-liberalism. I just happen to believe that in the current political environment we stand a better chance of defeating the left (liberalism/socialism/marxism, etc) by using the Republican Party to defeat the Democrats. The organization is there. The platform is there. The winning candidates are there. The dollars to run winning campaigns are there. The momentum is there. And the vast majority of the conservative voters are there.
Makes perfect sense to me. I want to defeat the left, and I want to do it as quickly as possible. I'll go with the organization that can get the job done.
My current goal is to defeat liberalism by defeating the Democrat Party. If that labels me a Republican, then so be it. If the vast majority of the FReepers want it so, then Free Republic will officially become the newest "Republican wing" of the Republican Party.
Long live Republicanism. Long live the Republic!'
What say you, FReepers?
What I like in FR is its congeniality with those who would "bind down from mischief" any who seek to violate (or change/pervert) our Constitution.
"...but tying the site to a particular Party would be a bad idea, IMHO. Let's keep them ALL honest." (from RightOnline #42)
". . . it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism — free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go .... In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." ( From Thomas Jefferson, The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 , from http://www.constitution.org/cons/kent1798.htm )
If we have a Democrat president,congress and judiciary, they will do what the combination of most centrists and left want done. They don't do all the left wants done because they can't get the center to go along with it. And to get a majority they need a bunch of center support.
If we have a Republican president,congress and judiciary, they will do what the combination of the centrists and Right want done. They don't do all the Right wants done because they can't get the Center to go along with it.
The far right and the far left get very little of what they want. People like you on the right and people like Nader on the left get very little of what they want. They represent 6 percent of the voters and are split 3 percent on the right and 3 percent on the left.They balance each other out. The point Jim was making is that with the Democrats in power not only will you not get what you want, you will get a giant amount of what you don't want.
There is only one way to success in changing the USA. Since shortly after this nation was formed, it has been a two party nation. There have been a total of 5 major parties... but only 2 have ever been dominate at the same time. For the last 147 years those two parties have been the Republican and the Democratic party. These two parties have spent the last 147 years making the laws so only they can control our government.
That leaves only one rational choice for all who want to change America's direction. That is join one of the parties and work to change that party to your views.
They call our elected officials public servants. They are not public rulers. This nation is a nation of majority rule. Democrats try to take the left base, and add to it enough from the center to make a majority. Since the center voters are the only ones that switch sides, they have a lot of power. If Bush wants to get re-elected he must bend to their will. For a Democrat to win he must put together his Leftist base with enough of the Center to win the contest. Again the Center had a lot of power. They decide every race. So both parties will try to please the center and the side that gets the centrist votes wins.
The problem is nominations. The left picks the Democrat and the right picks the Republican nominee. Thus bush has a big advantage in 2004. The Democrat Candidates for the nomination must appeal to the leftist base to win the nomination. What that base wants most does not play well with the center. Bush has the nomination sewed up so he does not have to pander to the right. He can work on getting the Centers votes. This time only after he has won the nomination can a Democrat try to run to the center.
In 147 years neither the Democrats or the Republicans have ever achieved political dominance. That is there has never been a time when one party has more than 50 percent of the voters as members of their party. At the hight of liberalism in the 20th century the Democrats only had a little over 40 percent of the voters. They still needed a lot of centrist support to win.
A lot of people think a right wing candidate can be elected. But that only happens in conservative states. Left wing candidates only get elected in leftist states.
People vote for candidates with whom they agree. A pure left candidate or pure right candidate has no more chance of getting elected president of the USA than Monica has of becoming Bill Clinton's wife.
People vote for the candidate they most agree with. Both parties candidates have to align with the swing voters. That means the CENTER.
The only chance the right has is to move the nation as a whole to the right. That means getting into both parties and moving the voting public to the right.
What many people on this site are looking for is a bold principled leader to lead the way. Bold principled leaders are Hitler and Stalin. What we have in the United States are public servants. They run for office and then do what a majority wants...or else. Politicians don't like the OR ELSE.
What needs to be done is move the voters to the right and both parties will cater to their desires.
Well put, 'Tator'.. You have clearly stated what most of the voting public believes. - And, - is totally wrong about.
We are still a constitutional republic, no matter how many fools think otherwise.
What many people on this site are looking for is a bold principled leader to lead the way. Bold principled leaders are Hitler and Stalin.
What we have in the United States are public servants. They run for office and then do what a majority wants...or else. Politicians don't like the OR ELSE.
What part of this is a nation of the people, by the people and for the people confuses you most?
Opinions like yours ~bother~ me a lot, tator, but the political confusion is all yours, - in my view ..
Just because a person calls himself or herself a Republican doesn't mean he or she isn't a leftist. I point to Michael Bloomberg, Dick Riordan, Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, Rudy Giuliani, etc.
If it's a matter of labels, I would stick to "conservative". There are far fewer conservative leftists than there are Republican leftists.
If you're looking for labels, it seems that "anti-liberal" fits your mission best.
What you say makes perfect logic, as far as it goes. But I'm dead-set against it, for solid reasons.First, because the term "liberal" is still associated, everywhere outside the U.S.--and a century ago was associated even here--with precisely the policy perspective which we so-called "conservatives" favor. This was emphasized by F.A. Hayek in a preface to a late edition of The Road to Serfdom. It is entirely against tradition to adopt formally the inverted meaning of "liberalism."Second, to define ourselves by the left would be to cede to the left the central role, defining "what is" against which we then rail. It is far more true to say that what we in the US now call "liberalism" is nothing but flight from tradition. Tradition and history, the Constitution and so forth, form the net and boundaries which define the tennis game of conservative thought; "liberalism" is mere cynical dismissal of the rules of the game--which as you consider it is what x42's maladministration so consistently, and infuriatingly, modeled.
Conservatives do not shame to recognize that the meanings of words--and even the value of the dollar--boils down simply to a matter of tradition. We rightly scorn those who demand that the burden of proof must always be born by the traditionalist whenever a cynical antitraditionalist comes up with her latest magic elixir to seperate responsibility from authority--designed to seize the authority and leave we-the-people holding the bag of responsibility.
And conservatives recognize the traditional nature of the two-party system and the profound difficulty in reducing the choices placed before the electorate to the manageable binary choice. We thus do not seriously expect that our government will always or even frequently be headed by the very best people for the jobs.
The "liberal," OTOH, promises--needs to promise--exactly that. Because the office the liberal seeks is not that of trustee of a tradition, but of philosopher-king. Which explains why the "liberal" is so dead-set on proclaiming both how smart the Democratic candidate is and how "dumb" the Republican candidate is.
YES
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
That may hold true for flowers, but if Shakespeare were here today he’d no doubt say, “A Website on the other hand is by its very nature defined by its name. Its name establishes the stated objective and very purpose for existing.”
The true significance and value of Free Republic is its independence from a political label. As we’ve seen in the past, certain Republican politicians can and will go liberal.
We have a higher calling than blind allegiance to a political party. We are independent thinking Conservatives. The Free Republic is one of the significant influences that helps to keep the Republican Party on the straight and narrow. If this site were defined by party affiliation, criticism of RINO’s would be discouraged.
Although I almost always vote republican, I would never call myself a Republican for if I did; they’d consider me in their hip pocket, no longer worthy of consideration. If this site referred to itself as Republican, it would cease to be the “…online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web.”
By adopting a political party label, it would no longer be Free Republic. Change the name to “The Republic” or “Republican”. But, truth in advertising would require that “Free” be removed from its name.
I just happen to believe that in the current political environment we stand a better chance of defeating the left (liberalism/socialism/marxism, etc) by using the Republican Party to defeat the Democrats. The organization is there. The platform is there. The winning candidates are there. The dollars to run winning campaigns are there. The momentum is there. And the vast majority of the conservative voters are there.
and Sir Gawain accurately observed regarding the types of groups that are destroying a once free-thinking, intelligent forum:
And the majority of that comes from the party-over-principle members of the GOP on this site.
Jim, I submit that in principle (on paper) your position has merit. However, like every other good idea man has had on paper, (Religion, our Constitution, etc...) when people are added to the equation the best intentions and best ideas get totally FUBAR.
All the people controlling the money in the R party continue to look for individuals they can control and who put position and party over principle.
Hell, I said it better in this post:
There was a time when any number of non-male, non-caucasian groups/individuals did not have equal access to the machinations of power in this country.Groups that came together to rectify that situation were needed at that time.
Individuals that wound up leading such groups came to love the power and access such leadership afforded. Now they must create issues in order to artificially sustain the groups in order to maintain their access to power.
An ugly undercurrent during this time is that these groups have become infested with individuals that, knowingly or not, espouse a desire for some variation of a Socialist, re-distribution of wealth, style government.
Our politicians are corrupt and those large donors who fund their campaigns are corrupt - which has now corrupted the system, the process and both parties.
I truly don't know if it can be fixed from within the party, even though I work to do so in my home state.
The problems this forum is currently experiencing comes from individuals that either don't understand the principles of our Constitution or put party/access over principle. You used to understand those principles but recently those of us that remember the early days and your posts have trouble reconciling the direction your posts have taken. At the same time, individuals who voice concern are "swarmed" and baiting into uncivil discussions. Bannings and suspensions abound for even a point of view - which rarely, if ever, occurred before. Many of us remember the days when positions were debated and debunked for the world to see - illustrating the assinine ideas that liberals have. Flames and flame-baiting were saved for the truly intransigent and were not the first posts to those morons. Not anymore.
Oh, and did I mention that if one questions anything a Republican does, one must look over their cyber-shoulder for the "swarm?"
IF, and I say IF, WJC would have done some of the things that have occurred lately in our government, you would have been right there with the rest of us screaming about extra-constitutional exercises of power. (I'm not talking about the WH specifically, as I more pissed off at some of the things Congress is doing.)
Are thing better than under Clinton? Yes
Could another Clinton-esque liberal misuse the powers being exercised? Yes
Do we really want to leave that kind of power around for Hitlery to use? Can you spell "duh?"
Finally, are we really ready to trust a politician just because they have an "R" behind their name? The answer to that is to remember that douchebag that switched parties and screwed up the Senate...
JMHO.
Nope. Short live Republicanism....it is much different than the Republic. It just needs to live a moment longer than what is currently Democratism, but thereafter if it persists as it does now, we'll end up in quite the same place as otherwise.
My vote is a very big fat no.
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