Posted on 02/28/2007 7:54:19 AM PST by Al Simmons
Wedge Issues Posted by: Common Tator in FreeRepublic.com April 16, 2002
The one thing that amazes me on this site is the belief by some that the conservative position is the majority position.
Mostly people tend to believe it could be the majority position if the right candidate ran, or if it weren't for the media or RINOs or etc, etc. They really don't have a clue.
Roughly 2/3 of the public has firm views. They have made up their minds and do not change them. This group is nearly equally split between the left and the right.
There are about a 1/3 of the population that is never sure. Sometimes it will go left and sometimes it will go right.
When a party restricts itself to its base it will be in a minority party. The "base only" party will be reduced to crying as the other side works its will. In some nations both the left and right restrict themselves to just their base. That nation then develops five or six parties. And all governments in that nation are coalitions of a major party and some of the minor parties. In that situation the minor party always has more influence than its numbers represent. For the Rino and Dino haters that is the worst of all worlds.
Many of Rino and Dino haters try to make ours a 3 or 4 party system. They never figure out that their splinter right or left party would never get much power in a government based on coalitions. They are too small. It is the centrist parties that have a 1/3 of the public as potential members that get the clout in the Multi Party system. As you can see in a 2 party or a 5 or 6 party system the center tends to prevail.
But in our two party system the center is an instrument the major parties use to enact their goals. In the multiparty system it is the center parties that use the right and left to enact their centrist goals. Such a system like those in Italy and France are RINO and DINO paradise.
This nation now and for all of the last 140 years has been roughly 1/3 left, 1/3 right and 1/3 in the middle. Those in the middle who run for office are what we call RINOs and DINOs.
When Republicans drive RINOs out they leave the party to become DINOs and take their political power with them. The Democrat party gets them by default.
Then the Democrats thanks to its Dino buddies have a veto proof house and senate. It was Barry Goldwater's greatest accomplishment. In my BRAIN I knew Barry would elect a lot of DINOs ... and he did.
If a party with most of the center wins the presidency too, they have a filibuster proof senate. That party then can do anything it wants to do. When the party leadership takes control they implement the parties core beliefs. It was what LBJ did after Goldwater drove all the RINOs into LBJ's camp. It let LBJ do the "Great Society." LBJ had to have Barry's help to do it. And Barry did what it took to give LBJ the support he needed... LBJ had all the left. Barry gave him all the center.
To win control a party must keep its base and get over half the middle. If the Republicans have more RINOs than the Democrats have DINOs the Republican agenda prevails. If the Democrats have more DINOs than the Republicans have RINOs the Democrat agenda prevails.
Those that demand the defeat of RINOs are doing all they can to enact the leftist agenda. They are the most valuable asset the left has. One of the most effective tactics in politics in the negative campaign.
Negative campaigns are not about getting votes for your candidate. They are about getting the other side's base to not vote for their candidate. Thus if you can get the right to vote against a Rino or not vote at all, you can elect a very liberal candidate.
If you can force the Republicans to nominate a right wing candidate so right wing he can't get the center voters, you elect the left candidate.
Your tagline says it all! *LOL*
I see your reading comprehension hasn't improved over the years. But don't let that stop you from hurling unmerited insults.
What's a "right wing nut"?
Show me how I am wrong. He sumitted a lettter to his draft board to avoid military service. Sorry, you lose again, toots.
Damn, you kids can't handle the truth!
A very wise post, which, of course, will be completely ignored.
Absolutely not. I think anyone who calls another poster a treasonous liberal, as I have been called here, is vile.
Your indignation is identical to mine.
A promise is a promise...
Many misguided FReepers keep repeating this canard that the President doesn't have much to do with the Abortion issue. That statement is simply FALSE.Let's review SOME of what each President has done for or against abortion from Reagan to Bush II:
President Ronald Reagan 1981-1989:
My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have meaning. -President Ronald Reagan
- President Reagan supported legislation to challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand.
- President Reagan adopted the Mexico City Policy, which cut off U.S. foreign aid funds to private organizations that performed and promoted abortion overseas.
- The Reagan Administration cut off funding to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) because that agency violated U.S. law by participating in Chinas compulsory abortion program.
- The Reagan Administration adopted regulations to prohibit federally funded family planning clinics from promoting abortion as a method of birth control.
- The Reagan Administration blocked the use of federal funds for research using tissue from aborted babies.
- The Reagan Administration helped win enactment of the Danforth Amendment which established that federally funded education institutions are not guilty of sex discrimination if they refuse to pay for abortions.
- President Reagan introduced the topic of fetal pain into public debate.
- The Reagan Administration played a key role in enactment of legislation to protect the right to life of handicapped newborns and signed the legislation into law.
- President Reagan designated a National Sanctity of Human Life Day in recognition of the value of human life at all stages. President Reagan wrote a book entitled Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation, in which he made the case against legal abortion and in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.
President George H. W. Bush 1989-1993
Since 1973, there have been about 20 million abortions. This a tragedy of shattering proportions.The Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned. -President George H.W. Bush
- The Bush Administration urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to pass laws to protect unborn children, stating protection of innocent human life -- in or out of the womb -- is certainly the most compelling interest that a State can advance.
- President Bush opposed the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill which, he said, would impose on all 50 states an unprecedented regime of abortion on demand, going well beyond Roe v. Wade. The President pledged, It will not become law as long as I am President of the United States. President Bush vowed, I will veto any legislation that weakens current law or existing regulations pertaining to abortion. He vetoed 10 bills that contained proabortion provisions, including four appropriations bills which allowed for taxpayer funding of abortion.
- President Bush vetoed U.S. funding of the UNFPA, citing the agencys participation in the management of Chinas forced abortion program.
- President Bush strongly defended the Mexico City Policy, which cut off U.S. foreign aid funds to private organizations that performed and promoted abortion overseas. Three separate legal challenges to the policy by pro-abortion organizations were defeated by the Administration in federal courts.
- President Bush prohibited 4,000 federally funded family planning clinics from counseling and referring for abortions.
- President Bush steadfastly refused to fund research that encouraged or depended on abortion, including transplantation of tissues harvested from aborted babies.
- The Bush Administration prohibited personal importation of the French abortion pill, RU-486.
- The Bush Administration prohibited the performance of abortion on U.S. military bases, except to save the mothers life and fought Congressional attempts to reverse this policy.
President William Clinton 1993-2001
President Bill Clinton said he has always been pro-choice and has never wavered in his support for Roe v. Wade. I have believed in the rule of Roe v. Wade for 20 years since I used to teach it in law school.
- President Clinton urged the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade.
- The Clinton Administration endorsed the socalled Freedom of Choice Act, (a bill to prohibit states from limiting abortion even if Roe v. Wade is overturned). FOCA was defeated in Congress.
- The Clinton Administration urged Congress to make abortion a part of a mandatory national health insurance benefits package, forcing all taxpayers to pay for virtually all abortions. The Clinton Health Care legislation died in Congress.
- President Clinton unsuccessfully attempted to repeal the Hyde Amendment, the law that prohibits federal funding of abortion except in rare cases.
- President Clinton twice used his veto to kill legislation that would have placed a national ban on partial-birth abortions. President Clinton ordered federally funded family planning clinics to counsel and refer for abortion.
- The Clinton Administration ordered federal funding of experiments using tissue from aborted babies. President Clintons appointees proposed using federal funds for research in which human embryos would be killed.
- President Clinton ordered U.S. military facilities to provide abortions. President Clinton ordered his appointees to facilitate the introduction of RU 486 in the U.S.
- The Clinton Administration resumed funding to the pro-abortion UNFPA, which participates in management of Chinas forced abortion program.
- President Clinton restored U.S. funding to pro-abortion organizations in foreign nations. His administration declared abortion to be a fundamental right of all women, and ordered U.S. ambassadors to lobby foreign governments for abortion.
- The Clinton Administrations representatives to the United Nations and to U.N. meetings worked to establish an international right to abortion.
President George W. Bush 2001-Present
The promises of our Declaration of Independence are not just for the strong, the independent, or the healthy. They are for everyone -- including unborn children. We are a society with enough compassion and wealth and love to care for both mothers and their children, to see the promise and potential in every human life. -President George W. Bush
- During his first week in office, President Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which prevents tax funds from being given to organizations that perform and promote abortion overseas. He threatened to veto an appropriations bill unless a provision overturning the policy was removed.
- President Bush declared that federal funds will not be used for stem cell research that would require the destruction of human embryos. His threat of a veto stopped an attempt in the U.S. Senate to provide funding for such research.
- President Bush has stopped many anti-life initiatives by threatening vetoes -- including proposals to allow abortion to be covered in federal employees health insurance plans, and allow abortions to be performed in U.S. military medical facilities and within the federal prison system.
- The Bush Administration ruled that federally controlled substances cannot be used to assist suicides. When the decision was overturned in federal district court, the Administration appealed the case.
- President Bush has strongly backed a U.S. ban on human cloning and helped defeat a clone and kill proposal in 2001.
- President Bush has helped win U.S. House approval of pro-life measures including the Child Custody Protection Act and the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act.
- President Bush promoted and signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which protects all infants born alive, including those who survive abortion.
- The Bush Administrations representatives to the United Nations and to UN meetings and conferences have fought repeated efforts to establish an international right to abortion. President Bush promoted and signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which bans the use of the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure.
- President Bush supported and signed into law the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes unborn children as victims of violent federal crimes.
I said no such thing.
Purred like a cat. Ran like a top. Gleamed brightly in the sun. Such a shame to see all that Detroit steel, rubber, leather, and good ol' American ingenuity and know-how plunge off the cliff.
Rudy supporters will ultiamltly elect Hilary.
Wow Spiff. That's gonna leave a mark.
..On their hides, that is. Won't penetrate their thick skulls, though.
Boy you must lead a frustrating life.
Bookmark.
"Do I detect a note of sarcasm?"
Not a bit. It is just that there is a person posting a lot on this thread who I personally dislike (detest, loath, think is pompous, needs to get a job and quit sucking off others, etc). Since that person does not like your post I find I like it even more.
People who believe that the GOP platform should be the guiding principles for the party instead of a sales pitch.
Nobody was more active in avoiding the military draft than Rill Clinton. He didn't even have a deferrment excuse. "I loath the military" I think he said.
So in your estimation the facts are RINO speak?
Good to know.
"Pissed?" What class you have.
I agree with Margaret Thatcher totally, she is a hero of mine, which is why I use her name as my handle. I am confident, having actually met her, that she would be quite pleased at my honoring her.
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