Posted on 07/09/2012 1:20:40 PM PDT by IbJensen
“The problem for the GOP is that it is in danger of fracturing, not because it has moved so far right, but because it refuses to actually practice what it preaches.”
Senator Max Baucus of Montana receives campaign donations from the parent company of Phillip Morris. Senator Baucus then puts a provision in the highway transportation bill banning roll your own cigarette operations, a business that does not exist in Montana.
Forty people in Harry Reid’s Nevada and elsewhere will lose their jobs because a transportation bill actively and willfully legislated a legal business out of business by driving up the regulatory burden so excessively. Major cigarette manufacturers championed the legislation and Republicans supported it because it will increase tax revenue without them voting to raise taxes.
Put bluntly, Republicans voted to do exactly what they they accuse the Democrats of doing — shut down businesses by driving up regulatory burdens in an effort to increase taxes.
Max Baucus may have inserted the provision, but it made it through Republican House of Representatives. Maybe we do need a third party to do the job Republicans campaign on doing, but then get to Washington and don’t actually do.
I am not at the point of really advocating a third party. But I know me writing this will get the attention it needs to get.
The Republicans in Washington really have no clue.
For several months members of the media have lusted after a third party candidate — a serious “grown up” to speak the hard truths about the deficit, the need to raise taxes, etc. In fact, pay attention you people in the media, there is a very simple formula I have developed to explain the media these days:
Greater the number of stories about Americans Elect and No Labels
Equals
The lower the number of viewers and readers of the media outlet
The media elite who get positively orgasmic about things like No Labels and Americans Elect are convinced they are tapped into the pulse of the American people, but in fact are only tapped into the pulse of their throbbing for people like themselves being put in charge instead of the hicks and rubes from America’s river valleys the tea party types keep agitating for.
A third party could have been successful in the United States this year, but it would have required a populist attack against Washington and spending. Done right, it would have resonated across Tea Party and Occupy circles. But it did not happen.
As media ratings have declined and the talk within Beltway media circles of “serious” “adult” “third party” challenges has increased, Republican leaders in Washington who have more and more in common with the media that covers them and less and less in common with their constituents back home — hell, look at Indiana’s Senator who does not even live in Indiana anymore and consequently got thrown out much to the outrage of Beltway elites — have become less and less like the Party of Reagan and more and more like the Party of John Anderson.
The problem for the GOP is that it is in danger of fracturing, not because it has moved so far right, but because it refuses to actually practice what it preaches.
The Republican Party’s actual policy positions help small businesses and individuals. It is the party of the individual against the collective. But Republican leaders are not willing to actually fight for those values in the face of media criticism.
In fact, the very types of people the media and more senior Republicans and Democrats alike are advocating are the very people who made the compromise decisions to get us to $16 trillion in debt. And, by the way, we spent ourselves there we didn’t tax ourselves there.
This comes full circle.
A Republican Party that has been unwilling to cut spending has now let go through Congress legislation to shut down lawful, legal businesses because cigarette industry lobbyists and a Senate Democrat wanted it done.
We’re not ready for a third party and both this site and I will continue advocating for conservative Republicans, but if the GOP doesn’t finally get a clue, I won’t be surprised to see it implode. By the way, this year fewer and fewer Republican candidates are signing the tax pledge on the advice of Republican members of Congress. This is another warning sign that the Eric Cantor led Republican conference is going far afield from what those who vote Republican actually want.
The GOP better get back to its pro-liberty roots quickly.
What Jim says to the 10th POWER!
LLS
I don't see a violent revolution. I can see individual desperate acts and massive noncompliance and civil disobedience. Americans are a handful when they are angry!
we have to many precinct leaders and alternates who are still trapped in the 1950’s and are clueless about tech, social media, or just how evil the MSM really is.
Some of them barely use cellphones. Smartphones? Internet? you might has well be john mccain in a cyber cafe wonder what kind of drink a cyber is.
All too aware my FRiend. And precinct delegate or not, ignorance on tech and social media is also a problem for those who at least step up to volunteer on a campaign as well. Here’s to a short learning curve for those willing to step up.
The grassroots tea party rebellion is not a revolution. It is a grassroots rebellion at the BALLOT BOX and was very effective in 2010. I only pray it continues in 2012 and beyond, although many of our weaker members have been frightened off by the specter of the blatantly STATIST Obama possibly winning re-election to the White House. So frightened are they that they are perfectly willing to set aside their conservative principles and cast their votes for a man who is obviously every bit the STATIST that Obama is. They are, in fact, surrendering to STATISM rather than fighting it.
Romney is a STATIST. It’s steeped into his psyche. The state is the first place he looks to solve problems.
Government, ie, the state, is not the solution. Government is the problem.
Romney and statists like him are the problem.
Statists should not be elected. Statists currently in office (like Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, et al, and now Roberts) should be impeached and expelled for blatantly disregarding, violating, or failing to uphold the constitution as is their sworn duty, and in some cases, for high crimes and outright treason!!
Much if not most of the problem is due to our own internal differences among the States. Certant republicans from certant states come from political climates that are not as conservatives as most of us would like.
We all have our own self-interest which is fine, but we don’t all recognize this fact in our policy making. Ultimately there is only one policy that can satafie all of us, and that is the policy of leaving each other alone and letting us each address our own problems in the way best suited to them independently.
We cannot hope to agree, or compromise on many many issues, simply because what is needed in Minnesota is poisonous to Texas, and vice versa.
Washington politicians have it suck in their head that their job is to solve problems indiscriminately. But that is not their job at all, indeed it is their attempt to do that job that has caused or exacerbated most of our existing problems.
The Job of Washington Politicians is to address issues of a Federal nature as listed in the Federal Constitution. Sadly Washington has been soo busy trying to butt its head into every domestic matter that they have largely negligent them federal responsibly.
Our trade relations are abusive, our foreign policy is inept and to be frank we are getting screwed over by foreigners all over the world, because congress is too distracted to act!
If we are going to fix this we are going to have to rebuild our old defences against Federal encorchment, including the political moxy at the state level to make a consistant and determaned stand against Federal encorchment.
We are going to have to play both the left and the right on this issue. Washington must be pushed back into its box whether it like it or not, and that will unforutnatly take us a great many years, perhaps a decade or more from where we are at.
This effort however is already well underway as it has been sense 2009. Current & recent State efforts are proof of that! The battle may look grim, but our strategy to win this war is already showing great promus and significant fruit. That is perhaps the most encouraging sign of these times. :)
Trying to mold he GOP has not worked well.
“I am but sadly not enough TEA partiers took action on this logical solution in my opinion.”
Conservatives can’t muster enough gumption to go to a town hall meeting and oppose a sidewalk ordinance. The Founders organized Committees of Safety. Conservatives have organized nothing. There won’t be any third party movement until conservatives can show they are willing to organize and clean out their own neighborhoods and remove liberals from town councils and county boards. Electing a constitutional sheriff is also a good idea.
Nice to see EE wake up. It’ll be even better when he realizes that there is zero hope for the GOP.
Why there isn’t blood running in the streets, I don’t know. I was past the point of marching (armed) on D.C. a few months ago, but when I look around me ... everyone else is sleepwalking. And I live in Texas ... so what does that tell you?
You get the government you DEMAND.
“All of our enemies”
All of our enemies/communists within got the job done where the external enemies/communists could not do it.
I restated it for you.
I would never want another 3-person election.
Perot gave us Clinton. I’m OK with multiple parties running but the TWO best should go head to head.
Phase one might entail secession of various states.
Romney is a STATIST. It’s steeped into his psyche. The state is the first place he looks to solve problems.
*********************************
Excellent post, Jim.
Thanks and you got it exactly right. The gooks are in the wire. We’re going to have to call in a dump of everything our side has left on our own pos..
...The GOP better get back to its pro-liberty roots quickly.
Yeah, Karl Rove, Graham, Snowe, mitt, McCain and the rest are all shaking in their boots.
"We'll vote for dog poo as long as it has an (R) after it, but oh, you just wait, one of these days I'm going to write a strongly worded letter!
..I say again, I want all you’re holding INSIDE the perimeter. It’s a lovely freeping war. Bravo Six Actual and Out.
The Democrats, for all their Marxism, govt in the name of fairness instead of justice, etc. stand for something recognizable (albeit tyrannical). The Republicans stand for...nothing. Plurality in place of principle isn't a governing philosophy, its a recipe for extinction.
We needn't fear the realignment that's coming because it's a natural and healthy process. What form it will take and the precise timing remain a mystery - most likely only waiting for the right leader and the right event.
Actually, they are very efficient at growing Gov't and taking from the citizen.
The chorus of this is the most important election will show up and sing the hymn of stopping one faction or the other. Thus repeating the failed cycle of our current political process. Unfortunately for the citizens of our States, we don't have individuals that rise up to face the trials we currently endure.
Special interest, globalism, fear of the Constitution, and the death of nationalism has been the republic's seppuku.
Yep. Light up that jungle (D.C.) and GTFO.
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