I have to disagree somewhat with his last paragraph.
This is why FReepers are saying goodbye forever to the Republican Party and saying we need a third party.
Sooner or later one has to give up on banging one’s head against the wall.
IF the GOP doesn’t fire at least Boehner as Speaker . . . I am so disgusted with the whole lot of them. I hope they fire McConnell too.
It’s “simple”. The entire top leadership of the Republican party has to go. And they won’t. And they are so well entrenched that they cannot be thrown out.
The only alternative is either a new party, or at least an independent candidacy at the Presidential level.
Starting a new party is impractical. But an independent candidate at the Presidential level can be launched, and can be won.
Cruz/Palin?
Personally, I think that ticket would win in a landslide.
That is exactly right. They need to get someone else in the leadership positions. Both “leaders” have compromised their positions to the point that NOBODY trusts them.
Isn’t Ann Coulter still supporting McConnell big time?
I don’t know how...
Boehner and McConnell have to go if there’s any hope of real change.
The rift cannot be healed!
The gangrenous RINO leadership needs to be politically amputated from the Republican Party so that new healthy, patriotic, conservative backbone can grow to replace it.
AMEN to that! That is precisely one of the main factors that gave us obama.
The way to take over a political party is to start at the bottom. That's how the socialists took over the Democrats.
Do you even know who your precinct committeeman is? Does he/she represent your views in the Party? If not, run against him/her. Get others sympathetic with your views to run in the other precincts. Take over your County Central Committee.
Do you even know who is your representative on your State central committee? Replace them if they don't represent your views. Take over the State central committee with like-minded people.
If that's done in enough states, you can replace the Party leadership with people who do represent your views.
Yes, this is a lot of work, and will require a lot of people getting involved. However, it's the only way to succeed.
For the record, I stood my watch: over ten years on my county central committee and two terms as county chairman. I had some influence in selection of local and state-level candidates. I could have used help from other counties. I'm now too old to walk my precinct, but I can stand on the sidelines and urge others to follow the same path.
Stop complaining and get busy.
Those who now have this "temporary" majority must remember that it is "the People" who are, as Justice John Story, in his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States," recognized as "the only KEEPERS of the Constitution." The Constitution provides them that position of power and trust in its Article V.
Excerpted below are the concluding paragraphs from Justice Joseph Story's "Commentaries on the Constitution. . . ."
The final paragraph serves as a cautionary warning for today's attacks on its principles and limitations on government power. If Boehner, McConnell and all the elected Republican Congressmen and Senators recognize the meaning of their Oaths to uphold the Constitution, then they should take seriously Justice Story's cautions and warning.
" CHAPTER XLV. CONCLUDING REMARKS.§ 1903. We have now reviewed all the provisions of the original constitution of the United States, and all the amendments, which have been incorporated into it. And, here, the task originally proposed in these Commentaries is brought to a close. Many reflections naturally crowd upon the mind at such a moment; many grateful recollections of the past; and many anxious thoughts of the future. The past is secure. It is unalterable. The seal of eternity is upon it. The wisdom, which it has displayed, and the blessings, which it has bestowed, cannot be obscured; neither can they be debased by human folly, or human infirmity. The future is that, which may well awaken the most earnest solicitude, both for the virtue and the permanence of our republic. The fate of other republics, their rise, their progress, their decline, and their fall, are written but too legibly on the pages of history, if indeed they were not continually before us in the startling fragments of their ruins. They have perished; and perished by their own hands. Prosperity has enervated them, corruption has debased them, and a venal populace has consummated their destruction. Alternately the prey of military chieftains at home, and of ambitious invaders from abroad, they have been sometimes cheated out of their liberties by servile demagogues; sometimes betrayed into a surrender of them by false patriots; and sometimes they have willingly sold them for a price to the despot, who has bidden highest for his victims. They have disregarded the warning voice of their best statesmen; and have persecuted, and driven from office their truest friends. They have listened to the fawning sycophant, and the base calumniator of the wise and the good. They have reverenced power more in its high abuses and summary movements, than in its calm and constitutional energy, when it dispensed blessings with an unseen, but liberal hand. They have surrendered to faction, what belonged to the country. Patronage and party, the triumph of a leader, and the discontents of a day, have outweighed all solid principles and institutions of government. Such are the melancholy lessons of the past history of republics down to our own.
§ 1904. It is not my design to detain the reader by any elaborate reflections addressed to his judgment, either by way of admonition or of encouragement. But it may not be wholly without use to glance at one or two considerations, upon which our meditations cannot be too frequently indulged.
§ 1905. In the first place, it cannot escape our notice, how exceedingly difficult it is to settle the foundations of any government upon principles, which do not admit of controversy or question. The, very elements, out of which it is to be built, are susceptible of infinite modifications; and theory too often deludes us by the attractive simplicity of its plans, and imagination by the visionary perfection of its speculations. In theory, a government may promise the most perfect harmony of operations in all its various combinations. In practice, the whole machinery may be perpetually retarded, or thrown out of order by accidental mal-adjustments. In theory, a government may seem deficient in unity of design and symmetry of parts; and yet, in practice, it may work with astonishing accuracy and force for the general welfare. Whatever, then, has been found to work well in experience, should be rarely hazarded upon conjectural improvements. Time, and long and steady operation are indispensable to the perfection of all social institutions. To be of any value they must become cemented with the habits, the feelings, and the pursuits of the people. Every change discomposes for a while the whole arrangements of the system. What is safe is not always expedient; what is new is often pregnant with unforeseen evils, and imaginary good.
§ 1906. In the next place, the slightest attention to the history of the national constitution must satisfy every reflecting mind, how many difficulties attended its formation and adoption, from real or imaginary differences of interests, sectional feelings, and local institutions. It is an attempt to create a national sovereignty, and yet to preserve the state sovereignties; though it is impossible to assign definite boundaries in every case to the powers of each. The influence of the disturbing causes, which, more than once in the convention, were on the point of breaking up the Union, have since immeasurably increased in concentration and vigour. The very inequalities of a government, confessedly founded in a compromise, were then felt with a strong sensibility; and every new source of discontent, whether accidental or permanent, has since added increased activity to the painful sense of these inequalities. The North cannot but perceive, that it has yielded to the South a superiority of representatives, already amounting to twenty-five, beyond its due proportion; and the South imagines, that, with all this preponderance in representation, the other parts of the Union enjoy a more perfect protection of their interests, than her own. The West feels her growing power and weight in the Union; and the Atlantic states begin to learn, that the sceptre must one day depart from them. If, under these circumstances, the Union should once be broken up, it is impossible, that a new constitution should ever be formed, embracing the whole Territory. We shall be divided into several nations or confederacies, rivals in power and interest, too proud to brook injury, and too close to make retaliation distant or ineffectual. Our very animosities will, like those of all other kindred nations, become more deadly, because our lineage, laws, and language are the same. Let the history of the Grecian and Italian republics warn us of our dangers. The national constitution is our last, and our only security. United we stand; divided we fall.
§ 1907. If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the Union, then they will have accomplished all, that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."
- Justice Joseph Story - "Commentaries on the Constitution. . . ."
Great article, valid points, but the GOP party has sailed down too far and taken the wrong fork in the road too long ago. Instead of turning back, they continued on into the Dem-light stream.
The party is dead to me since 2006; I only look at candidates. And while I’ll NEVER vote for a Rat, the GOP is assured I’ll NEVER support it, ever again.
Bookmark
Actions matter. Chronic Empty Rhetoric that turns into lies doesn’t cut it. Republicans are showing their liberal hand and it ain’t pretty.
Loonie Left Joins Far Right Ping?
Pray that these strange bed-fellows (Choke-Puke) can kill this thing.
in calif., goes back at least to when country club repubs coopted the gray davis recall with swartzenegger (~1994). almost certainly goes back much farther than that, though...
there really is no question anymore. The leadership are RATS in every sense of the word. People like us have no representation.
BTTT