"I guarantee that a 2nd Obama administration will be FAR more permanently damaging to the structure of American law and society than anything he did in the first term (except Obamacare, which is catastrophic for us)."I don't disagree that a 2nd term of Zero would be destructive. I just want to add that RINOmney at the helm of the Republican Party would be damaging as well.
Some of the following is borrowed from FReepers who posted thoughts. I took them to write out my own thoughts. I apologize to them that I didn't save their names to credit them here:
"People are so busy looking behind them in their panic, that they're failing to watch where they're headed. They forget that in voting "against" something, they are also voting FOR something, and voting FOR liberalism always empowers liberalism.
"Courage -- including the courage to risk a much-weakened Obama for another four years as the price of fighting to preserve the Republican party as an antidote to liberalism -- is our best chance of being victorious in the long term to save America from socialism. The best way to weaken Obama AND Romney, regardless of who wins, is to vote third-party to dilute the percentage plurality of the winner.
"Romney in the White House, the product of fear, panic, and desperation, would be the the agent that brought the Republican party to surrender to statism and liberalism; Romney would be the catalyst to make the Republican party a wholesale enabler of liberalism and disabler of any Republican fight against it.
"Romney has consistently promoted the very crushing government statism that stifles morality, freedom, and prosperity, and which nourishes strife and repression -- cap-and-trade regulation to squelch energy and production; on-demand tax-funded abortion; forced acceptance of open homosexuality in all corners of our lives and punishment for resisting it; nationalized health care. Voting for Romney is NUTS.
Can we survive nationalized health care when it is promoted and defended by a Republican president? (he did it in Massachusetts)
Can we survive onerous, energy-killing regulation in the name of the environment when it is promoted and defended by a Republican president? (he did it in Massachusetts)
Can we survive activist liberal judges when they are appointed by a Republican president? (he did it in Massachusetts)
Can we survive homosexual marriage ordained by a Republican president? (he did it in Massachusetts)
Can we survive the following Democrat president who will make Obama's politics look conservative by comparision, just as Obama made Clinton look benign by comparision - and the devastation of the Republican national party in DC as it tries to defend Romney's policies and is gutted?
This quote by Hamilton says where I've come down after a lot of soul searching ...
“If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”
It is a terrible situation for the Republicans to find themselves in this year. Unfortunately, some of them in the primaries just listen to what candidates say and not look at what they've done when in office.
I intend to vote for conservatives, as always, wherever I find them. Willard is not one of them.
Your view is pretty common here at Free Republic. I am in the camp that a 2nd Obama term will be far more dangerous than a Romney presidency. Some here have said that another Obama term with a hostile Republican congress is better than a Romney presidency with a Republican congress to give him what he wants.
I can see some validity to that point, but either way, Obama is going to get 2 of his deep communist SCOTUS nominees through our panzy Senate. A GOP Senate would reject his 1st nominees, then feel compelled not to reject the next ones.
I would feel a lot better with a mild leftist like Romney selecting SCOTUS nominees, than a radical communist Muslim doing so. What happens when he wants to put the first Muslim on the bench? He will scream “racism” if the GOP Senate so much as hints they will block his nominee.
I can about guarantee that a Muslim will be nominated in a 2nd Obama term. I hope you like Sharia law.