While you see getting back the Government's permission to exercise a fundamental and Constitutionally guaranteed right through Government inaction to be a 'victory', I look at it as an issue which never should have been on the table in the first place.
Pray tell, what happened to the the RKBA conciousness of the Republican Party?
The current "front runners" are either somewhat soft on the issue (Huckabee--a 'B' from the NRA), or have a track record for being downright hostile to the RKBA (all 11th hour conversions aside).
You seem to feel that we are somehow resisting the forces of Socialism by only advancing their agenda a little here and a little there, instead of letting them go ahead and make a train-wreck.
Either way, they win.
If the Republican party candidates win, the Socialists can kick back with a bottle of their favorite beverage and celebrate.
Why? becuse they won, that's why.
Their agenda transcends party lines as well as do the Conservative positions on the issues.
In 2006, the Republicans tried to out-liberal the liberals, and lost, resoundingly. Democrats ran to the right of Republicans on key issues and won.
That should have been a wake-up call, but instead of recognizing that that was a critical Republican mistake, here we go again.
How is voting for the candidate who is only 20% Socialist a win? By not getting the candidate who is 40%, 60%, or 80% Socialist?
Look, at some point, we have to decide where the limit is.
Some of us will hit it earlier than others, because we have values and beliefs which are absolute.
To demonstrate, let's roll back the clock.
If, for instance, in 1960, someone had decided to use the no-knock, dynamic entry, militarized police unit technique for serving a warrant, it would have cost the local sheriff his job in short order.
The process of allowing a baby to turned in the womb, born except for the head, and their brains sucked out would have been decried as the horror it is, and not debated as a woman's 'right' in Congress.
The idea of some people using a word (no matter how distasteful) being a "hate crime", would have been laughed at as straight out of 1984, another horror story which was embraced by some as a manifesto.
Some things were socially unacceptable among decent folks, no law needed.
The idea that a local government wanted to take someone's property and tear down their home or lawful business, not to put in a road, but to sell it to someone who would build a property which would increase the local tax base, would have been met with a march on city hall with torches and primitive farm implements, not upheld by the SCOTUS as 'emminent domain'.
The idea of keeping a firearm in your home for the defense thereof and not being charged for using it for that purpose was taken for granted.
The idea that the Federal government would mandate what kind of light bulbs you could obtain and use would have been laughed away.
I am not saying every change has been bad, but a great many have.
So where do we decide to stop the slide and begin the long climb out of the abyss?
If voting for someone other than the big two candidates can send the message, great.
Personally, I think 'none of the above' would be good to have on the ballot, and that might get out more voters than all the election-year pandering and fear mongering will.
Am I quitting? No. But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life stuck on stupid, either, by slowly voting away my great-grandchildrens' freedom when I have a chance, any chance of helping turn things around.
If the Republican party is not going to be the vehicle by which we achieve that turnaround, and at present it does not seem so, then we had better find another vehicle by which to accomplish those ends before things have gone past the point of no return.
Maybe all the gauges running in the red will get the point across.
If the Republican Party is going to be the vehicle by which conservatives can turn things around, then it is time for the drivers to realize that it needs to be reworked. It is running badly and pulling hard to the left. A combination of denial and panic is keeping it from being fixed.
Well, no one questions that, but it will have to be done from the ground up.
And having Democrats running the country is not an option.
excellent statements...