Posted on 01/24/2002 12:50:37 PM PST by traditionalist
Pledging to win a larger share of Hispanic and black votes, The Republican National Committee completed its winter meeting. This fateful decision could mean either the end of class and race political war in the U.S. or the demise of the Republican Party.
The outcome depends on how Republicans approach the task. The GOP can base its appeal to minorities on assimilation to American culture, on the promise of an opportunity society based in low taxes and decreased regulation, on respect for parental authority and a reduction in government intrusion in family affairs, and on respect for individual achievement and self-reliance.
If Hispanics and blacks desire a free and independent life, they will respond positively to the offer.
The alternative approach is to compete with Democrats in offering income support programs and race-based preferences.
The first approach would not only rally the demoralized Republican constituency, but also provide a test whether immigrants are committed to American principles or to income redistribution. The personal income tax burden rests on 32 million taxpayers (primarily white males), who deserve to know whether they have a future different from tax slavery.
The alternative approach--pandering, preferences, and handouts--will destroy the Republican Party.
Many of the Republican Partys natural constituents are disgusted and alienated by the partys wobbly principles and refuse to vote. Experts have pointed out that had Bush received 2 or 3 percent more votes from the white population, he would have swamped Al Gore in the electoral college. If Bush competes for minorities on the Democrats terms, he will lose more white votes than he will gain minority votes.
Moreover, whatever handouts the Republicans offer, the Democrats will offer more. Two political parties competing to redistribute income and expand minority privileges would spell the swift end of the U.S.
Most immigrants to the U.S. are poor and uneducated. They are tax-users. Sensing the white guilt that weakens resistance to income redistribution, organizations that speak for immigrants lobby for more benefits. Large and concentrated immigrant populations, combined with the emphasis on multiculturalism, make assimilation difficult.
Fearing that a principled approach to minorities will fail, GOP pandering has already begun. Witness President Bushs plan to legalize millions of illegal Mexican immigrants and to provide food stamps for legal aliens.
Democrats will outbid him. Republican voters will desert the GOP.
Millions of Americans believe that their culture is being overrun from abroad and overturned from within, and that they are forced to pay for their corresponding loss of community and sense of self with their own tax dollars.
Black and white New York City councilmen are taking down portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Malcolm X is taking their place. There is no longer a George Washington Day; but there is a Martin Luther King Day.
Announcing a MLK, Jr., portrait that will hang prominently in the White House, President Bush accepted the replacement of our Founding Fathers with new heroes: Some figures in history, renowned in their day, grow smaller with the passing of time. The man [MLK, Jr.] from Atlanta, Georgia, only grows larger with the years. America is a better place because he was here, and we will honor his name forever.
Many Republicans will see in these words the Republican Partys acquiescence to racial preferences and unequal rights for whites. The war against terrorism and the illusion that the country has pulled together have led Republicans to conclude that they can broaden their political base by betraying the people who vote for them.
When the Democrats tried this, they lost the solid South.
Actually, some republicans do. Unfortunately, they have been defecated upon and run out of Washington.
Democrats are more than willing to steal more from productive people to fund their pinko agenda.
When the issue becomes "Who will offer the biggest gov't check" Democrats will always win.
What the Republicans are doing now in refusing to fight Democrats tooth and nail over their "tax 'n control" agenda is suicide.
To heck with compassionate conservatism! There exists no victory in being a watered-down version of your enemy, is there? Am I missing something?
I cringe when I now hear people talk about "freedom" in the US. Yeah, we're free to work half of every year to pay our taxes, fees, surcharges--protection money to leftist thugs!
What freedom is there really when you can't keep most of what you work your butt off for? How many of you have spouses lucky enough to stay at home at properly raise your children? How many of you stress about making ends meet? Having some left over to save? Look at how many people are stressed, unhappy nowadays. More people are on anti-depressant medication than ever.
Notice how you spend some time every day answering our bloated governments call. Your nothing short of a slave. The serfs and slaves of old kept more of what they earned than you do!
But there's a Republican in office so we can all take a deep breathe and relax right? NO! The Bush administration increased federal spending by 5%. Government has grown under Bush after just one year.
Your Republican leadership is doing basically nothing to hand our lives back to us.
<img src="http://www.etsel.com/DemRepSoc.gif
This is an accurate picture of life in America today. The public memory is beginning to fade from a time when a guy with a half-way decent job could support a wife and 3 kids and still be able to afford a house and car. That was when America was truly at her greatest heights. Today we have the specter of both parents working full time with any kids being shooed off into a day care center to just barely keep up with the standard of living their parents had and most can't even keep up. They just have fewer kids and take on more debt. This is what socialism was wrought. And the GOP, instead of fighting the democrats every inch of the way, have been busy splitting the difference with the democrats new and expanded social programs. All the meanwhile both parties were allowing a new class of welfare seekers to pour into the country by the many millions to keep the productive citizens of America on the treadmill forever. On that the GOP is and was REALLY STUPID. At least the democrats got a new political base out of their treason. It is really disgusting what our 2 parties have done to this country.
I found the recent flag-waiving bittersweet. At first I thought it was refreshing to witness some patriotism. Then, though I love my flag and the ideas that made my country great, I found myself getting annoyed by it. All I saw were patriotic bromides. Sheep, only half-conscious.
The left is winning. Half of your productive life will be sacrificed for "the common good." Your children are next in line at this alter.
How much more will Americans stand. How much more will a people spoiled with freedom sacrifice for the illusion of security?
Government is inherently evil. Whenever men have great power over men you will find corruption, stagnation, and injustice. Do you suppose the Founding Fathers thought differently?
So just sit by while your political "leaders" deliver your livelihood and your life into the power of an omnipotent government--it's "for your own good." Pick your slogan by which your rulers delude you--the enslaved subject.
Join in the chant. Submit I to thou. Sacrifice for the "common good." Sacrifice is a virtue.
Observe that any social movement which begins by "redistributing" income, ends up distributing sacrifices.
If a man proposes to redistribute wealth, he means that the wealth is his to distribute. If he proposes it in the name of government, then the wealth belongs to the government; if in the name of society, then it belongs to society. No one, did or could define a difference between this proposal and the basic principle of communism.
They're rounding up the chattel--busily creating one neck for one leash.
No, the Founding Fathers understood that as a government grows larger relative to the people that corruption is a natural outgrowth. And there is that tendency for those consumed by power to work their way into governments. As things are today the Founding Fathers, if alive, would be aghast at how our government as departed from the constitution and limited government framework that they hammered out three centuries ago.
After the war, he was sent back to Northern Europe as commander of the DP camps, under UN auspices. Once again he involved himself in aiding Masaryk against the Soviet agitators. Remember that Czechoslovakia was nominally still a Republic at this time. However, because of Yalta, the Czech Republic types were snubbed by the State Department and left to fend for themselves. The only support to be gotten was simply to get people out. Masaryk was pushed out the window, he didn't jump, and the fall of the Czech Republic was assured, as the rest of Eastern Europe. They let it happen because it was policy, and to be honest with you, my Grandfather said it was FDR's policy, because he wanted to show Stalin that "we mean't him no harm". It was appeasement of a different sort.
You can say the Red Army had overrun Eastern Europe and the deed was already done. But the intentional revocation of support for Czechoslovakia, The Baltics, and Hungary tell a different story. They were intentionally left in thrall to the Communists because of balance of power calculations and Communist influence within both Cordell Hull's and Dean Atcheson's State Departments, with the acquiescence of FDR and Truman.
I grew up with a man who was there for the whole thing. Everyone in my family always called it a sellout. You can show me all the links and documents you'd like, but I'm afraid I'm a little firm on this. Roosevelt was after a balanced world in the aftermath and I don't think he thought Communism was all that bad. He got his balanced world, but at a 50 year cost of freedom for the people involved.
The man [MLK, Jr.] from Atlanta, Georgia, only grows larger with the years.
America is a better place because he was here, and we will honor his name forever.
UGH, who will be next, Pancho Villa, Santa Anna, "Slow Poke" Rodriguez or maybe even "Speedy" Gonzalez?
The last "president" was bought and sold many times, I haven't been watching too closely, whose for sale next and for what price?
Who Cares? In the history of the world, he's only going to be a minor footnote. Washington and Jefferson, Madison and Franklin - they will still be known in 500 years, or 1000. They may go down as noble failures - the US will certainly not be in existence then - but I think they will still be known, and known in a positive light.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.