HUCK THE 'VICTIM'; WHO'S DIVIDING THE GOP? (un-official libertarian vs. evangelical thread)

New York Post ^ | December 21, 2007 | Ryan Sager

[Eric Blair 2084]

'TIS the season: What better time than Christmas for an all-out war between Christian conservatives and the rest of the Republican Party?

The Evangelical insurgency of the Mike Huckabee campaign having spooked the GOP establishment into counterattacking with a vengeance, the former Arkansas governor has a plan to keep the Huckmentum rolling: Play the victim card. Hard.

"There is a level of elitism that has existed," Huckabee told the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody in an interview that ran yesterday. "People like me," he said - that is, "Evangelicals" and people "from the middle of America" - are expected to "come to the rallies and stand in lines for hours to cheer on the candidates . . . but when they got elected, behind closed doors, they would laugh at us and speak with scorn.

"It's OK if you guys get a seat on the bus," he added, mocking the tone of the country-clubbers against whom he aims to incite the pitchfork-wielding mob's rage. "But don't ever think about telling us where the bus is going to go."

It's a common complaint of the religious right. At the risk of agreeing with Huckabee (a despicable peddler of class warfare and various forms of bigotry), on this count he is without a doubt correct.

The relationship between the GOP and the Religious Right has grown dysfunctional, bordering on abusive. Take, for instance, 2004: The White House political machine couldn't feed the Evangelical base enough red meat on gay marriage and the evil judges out to force red-blooded Americans' sons to marry each other. Then came Election Day - and the Federal Marriage Amendment was never heard from again.

[Eric Blair 2084]

The old money eastern Establishment country club Republicans stand for nothing. They have no values except they came over on the Mayflower and they are entitled to rule. Bush is one of them. These are the people Reagan was fighting. Reagan is gone, but the “Rockefeller wing” is still with us.

Another Wow.

Good point. On behalf of the Rockefeller country club Republicans let me just say to social conservatives....

We are sorry. We apologize

They shouldn't have tried to ram a NY liberal baby killing, gun grabbing guy down your throat. Please accept my apology on their behalf. They were wrong.

You've made your point by ramming the socialist Huck joke down our throats in response.

We got the point loud and clear. No more shaving cream pies in our face. We'll laugh about it at Fred's inauguration.

Let's get behind Fred.

[muleboy]

fwiw, my 10 cents (inflation)...

All Walls Are Temporary

there is an old saying about "fighting fire with fire" which doesn't make sense to me anymore. it seems to me that fire would best be fought with water. with that in mind, i will now strive to piss on Mike Huckabee and his supporters as much as is divinely possible.

firstly, it should be noted for the record that every mass political movement contains a percentage of idiocy that positively dwarfs that of almost any individual's or the population as a whole, simply because any political movement that achieves mass popularity can be found to be but a reaction to the circumstances that preceded it and caused it. and as with the popular saying about fire, the masses seem always determined to "fight idiocy with idiocy".

secondly, if i but had the power it would not be so, because power so corrupts. but religious fundamentalists, under the U.S. Constitution, have every right that everyone else has, to organize and assert themselves in the public arena in furthering their proscriptions/beliefs into law. whether they should be able to do so from a foundation of tax-exempt institutions is a debate for the future, which in turn will be a reaction, if religious fundamentalists continue to succeed as they do today.

reason and logic in the civic arena should rule the debate. morals derived from experience and faith have a place in the debate, but once one religion becomes disproportionately influential, the other religions will be compelled to try to match it. then religions, rooted in the logic and reason of centuries ago, now meta-morphisized into only faith, will rapidly distort questions concerning the raising and spending of public money, demanding that it be directed to the ludicrous, while calling it sublime.

this applies to 'progressives', 'neo-cons', and 'baptists' equally, whether in the form of the 'war on poverty', the 'war on terror', or the looming war over the role of a semi-standardized belief in God and the traditional values associated with it, in future public policy. for every solution has consequences, some unintended and unforeseeable, some perhaps not. and from every negative consequence will come some good.

over 200 years in practice of the history of the U.S. has shown repeatedly that action and reaction are primarily the result of a dedicated, activist minority. yet it is also true that in every case, the majority allowed change by foregoing the use of it's power to stop change. the old saying "evil triumphs when good men do nothing" comes quickly to those who have sought to maintain the status quo and failed.

ultimately Government, hence Politics, is about the raising and spending of money for publicly directed purposes. every policy, large or small, momentary or generational, should be subjected to as thorough a cost/benefit analysis as humans are able by as many as practicable. each citizen must be an accountant when assessing public policy in order to hold public officials accountable. it is proper for each individual to use their faith and beliefs in the accounting process. then they should assert themselves in public with "it is MY opinion", "it is MY belief", or even up to "it is my religious teaching/belief" on the questions of the day.

but when their assertions begin with "GOD says", "GOD requires" or "GOD demands", the injection of spiritual/existential faith and unsubstantiatable belief is intruding upon reasoned debate and will quickly succeed in destroying the use of reason and experience upon questions of public expenditures.

and of course, the same applies to "Science says", "Science shows", and "Science demands", especially when the Science is, as yet, undefinitive. most unfortunate it is that there is, as yet, as much disagreement over what constitutes "definitive" in Science as there is with Faith. such is the nature of humans when dealing with questions concerning how to force their neighbors to act. even more so when incomprehensible sums of money are involved.

yes, STATISM is also a religion, one that currently has even more consequences and almost as many differing versions of it's principles and applications as does Faith in God's Word (which is also just about as many different versions as there are people who subscribe to the tenets of it, for it is entirely arguable that no two people's belief systems are identical)

while it is impossible to remove sentiment and emotion completely from any question, emotions are even more an enemy of reason and logic in the public sphere than they are in an individual. the struggle to sublimate emotion and muster as much reason as possible to public questions will be a never-ending one for humanity.

A Constitution proscribing limited and carefully delineated powers to various branches and subdivisions of Government, is the most powerful tool yet devised by man to assist in reason's perpetual struggle with emotions of the day.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Fair enough. Here are the words from the grave of ronaldreagan.blogspot.com...let's all agree and ditch the liberal democrat Huckster and vote for Fred.

"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path".

--Ronald Reagan

Inside Ronald Reagan: A Reason Interview from July 1975

[DakotaRed]

With all these ntics coming from the so-called Front runners, dump them and get behind the real conservative that keeps being ignored by the mainstream media and others.

Duncan Hunter

On the issues

It's time we told the media who we want, not them telling us who we are going to get.

[Eric Blair 2084]

[Eric Blair 2084]

Thompson/Hunter ‘08! VP Hunter for President in 2016.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Eric Blair 2084]

You’re welcome.

[Eric Blair 2084]

[muleboy]

fair enough, let's all agree

'tis music to a "radical incrementalist's" ears.

tyvm

[khnyny]

Ugh....Iran just got 80 tons of uranium from Russia and is on track to have the bomb in a year, not to mention bird flu is on the rise, and all we can think about is “who’s more religious, Romney or Huckabee?” and “ooh look, Oprah likes Obama, I do too!”

You forgot one:

And Vladimir Putin was just named the Time Magazine "person of the year", ...lol.

[Mariner]

The "Religious Right" is no more Republican than Democrat.

It's time the GOP quit pandering and let the chips fall where they may.

It's nothing more than a big lie to suggest church-goers vote GOP in overwhelming numbers. I'd bet it's closer to 50-50.

Will the "religious right" vote dim or 3rd party if they don't get their way? You bet they will.

That's why the GOP needs to start the process of building a new coalition. The party cannot remain hostage to a 20% voting bloc.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Reagan practically invented the concept of incrementalism.

Progressive liberal leftists stole it and have perfected it.

[Eric Blair 2084]

The "Religious Right" is no more Republican than Democrat. It's time the GOP quit pandering and let the chips fall where they may.

The natural order is that people want to be left the Heck alone. I'll drag Ron Paul into the debate only because it proves a point. Young people who have never been involved in politics flock to him because they really hate the leftist, socialist collectivist garbage they hear from Dims but they can't vote for Republicans because in their minds Republican = Big Gubmint bible thumper who wants to straighten them out.

Sure, social order will collapse if we embrace freedom and anarchy for it's own sake. We'll end up like ancient Rome. But for the Hell of it, what would happen if socons left the right wing and went to the left wing because helping the poor and disadvantaged is the Christian thing. What would happen?

Would the GOP trade young libertarians for their socons?

[pray4liberty]

This election race is getting so darn tiresome. Huckabee is from Arkansas....if he gets in, he’ll only cover up for the Clintons. We need someone who won’t protect them. They are like bad pennies, they keep turning up.

[xjcsa]

Where’s the evangelical libertarian thread?

[Eric Blair 2084]

Try the keyword “fredthompson”

[unspun]

Just stop.

This is preposterous premise.

(BTW, I believe in yielding to the authority of Jesus Christ and am a Baptist preacher’s kid — presently, I’m leaning toward Mitt Romney.)

But: just stop the silliness..

[Eric Blair 2084]

I can’t stop being silly. It’s the way God made me. I’m a natural.

What is the preposterous premise that you speak of anyway?

[xjcsa]

Try the keyword “fredthompson”

Well done.