Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Purists Kill Whatever They Believe In
Townhall.com ^ | March 28, 2017 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 03/28/2017 4:43:54 AM PDT by Kaslin

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-62 next last
To: taxcontrol

During the election, there was much discussion and clarification on the Obamacare issue. It was always “repeal and replace”, period. Trump’s stump speech was not repeal only. So full repeal is a bait and switch and won’t pass and only serves as an ideological test that won’t get anything done. We already had years of these gems that didn’t get anything done when we didn’t have the Presidency. We are so practiced at it that we actually think the HFC provided us a victory. Sheesh...


21 posted on 03/28/2017 5:34:07 AM PDT by Religion and Politics (It's Morning in America)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Reagan Disciple

Here’s the deal. Anyone calling themselves Conservative that has hitched his wagon to the globalist free trader agenda is neither a Conservative, a constitutionalist or a patriot. Vote accordingly.


22 posted on 03/28/2017 5:35:44 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: central_va

Fair enough. Not sure you can lump all of us in that boat as some Trump supporters do, but I see that as valid.

I also didn’t vote for Trump to get a water downed version of BOCare only to be told that because the king of the “art of the deal” says it’s a good bill, just get behind it.

What separates true Conservatives from true Liberals is the recognition that country comes before party, liberty comes before control.

This bill had none of the formers and all of the latters.


23 posted on 03/28/2017 5:42:23 AM PDT by Reagan Disciple (Peace through Strength)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Religion and Politics

Yes candidate Trump has always supported “government care” or socialized medicine. In fact, I have pointed that out many times on this forum and was even suspended for posting videos of candidate Trump in his own words.

However, that is not what the majority of Republicans have been voting for and supporting during Obama’s presidency. Many of the candidates for House and Senate ran on repeal. In fact, a repeal bill passed both the House and the Senate and was later vetoed by Obama (no surprise there).

I believe that President Trump should be afforded the same opportunity to sign the same bill. Move the copy of the 2015 Obamacare repeal bill out of committee and to the floor for a vote in the House.

Lets see who supports a repeal when there is no backstop of a presidential veto. Lets see if President Trump is truly behind a repeal.

Otherwise, the GOP is just a bunch of hypocrites.


24 posted on 03/28/2017 5:42:47 AM PDT by taxcontrol (,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin; Candor7

>> Excuse my ignorance, but what does HFC mean?

House Freedom Caucus.


25 posted on 03/28/2017 5:45:03 AM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
Insurance would continue to be UNSUSTAINABLE and AFFORDABLE just as under Obamacare. The Preexisting Conditions ban makes it so.

The Fools!

26 posted on 03/28/2017 5:48:27 AM PDT by CptnObvious
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reagan Disciple
Conservatives should have played ball with Trump on this one. There is a lot of legislation coming up and this was a check box for Trump and he needed it. There is plenty of time to keep hacking at health care even the RINO version of it.

Since I haven't bought off on the Free Trader globalist agenda I no longer consider myself a Conservative. I am a pro American Patriot instead.

27 posted on 03/28/2017 5:51:08 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: central_va
“There is a lot of legislation coming up and this was a check box for Trump and he needed it.”

And this is where we break ranks. Passing this bill should have never been about what Trump needed. Killing BOCore should be about what America needed. Simply passing a different form of it after running and railing for seven years about totally taking it out for the sake of the image of one man is not “republican” (little r).

Trump is a representative of the people, not a demigod. We should be more concerned with killing the BO agenda and less concerned about Trump's image. He won, now is time to do what he said he would do and this bill, where I guess is kind of what he said he would do, was a disaster.

Not all Conservatives believe in the globalist agenda.

28 posted on 03/28/2017 6:00:06 AM PDT by Reagan Disciple (Peace through Strength)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: VanDeKoik

“The actual process of dismantling it would be in phases, and would be FOUGHT with every parliamentary move in the book, and would not be done overnight.”

Spot on statement. The trouble is that we’re dealing with a few incontinent cranks in the “I Walk on Water” cult. They believe only they embrace conservative principles. If they don’t get 100% of what they want immediately, they cry like little girls.

We just had this big fight about conservative purism during the primary, where a few dozen of these purists were thrown out of Free Republic.

As you stated, the process to create obumacare took a year to pass, and it will take probably an equal amount of time to adequately replace it with free market principles.


29 posted on 03/28/2017 6:05:21 AM PDT by sergeantdave (Cats are like potato chips - you can't have just one.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Reagan Disciple

Trump is fighting the MSM the “Conservatives” and RINO’s needed to give this would be faux victory for show purposes. We are fighting evil here and standard rules don’t apply.


30 posted on 03/28/2017 6:09:55 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: taxcontrol
Why would you think that could possibly pass the House and have support of the Senate? A full repeal would probably be signed by Trump, but will never be voted on and sent to him. It isn't reality. There are way more moderates who will not sign on to that then there are conservatives who want a full repeal.

While Obama was President, the conservatives could pass their do nothing repeal and get everyone on board, but that would never happen now that Trump is President and Reps would have to defend the outcome in their districts. It just isn't going to happen.

What is going to happen? We are going to have a "law and order" President not enforcing the law, i.e. Obamacare? Regardless, we get Obamacare and whatever "bailout" is down the road, which isn't going to be anything like repeal and replace, it will be much worse.

31 posted on 03/28/2017 6:12:22 AM PDT by Religion and Politics (It's Morning in America)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: central_va

You can’t be a little bit pregnant.

The bill left all of the detestable components of BOCare intact.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory should never be an option.


32 posted on 03/28/2017 6:13:04 AM PDT by Reagan Disciple (Peace through Strength)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Reagan Disciple

> Let’s pass what makes sense
I can almost guarantee you that I will think 1/2 of the tax, and immigration, and budget bills won’t make sense to me and even go backward/left. But there are more rinos than conservatives. And everyone wants donor money. Anything that requires legislation is going to be weak especially in the senate if 60 are needed. There’s either a lot of compromise or NOTHING. And NOTHING is not an option in lots of areas.


33 posted on 03/28/2017 6:17:32 AM PDT by LostPassword
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Reagan Disciple

Abolitionists didn’t vote for Lincoln expecting slavery to be ended in ONLY the parts of the country still controlled by the CSA either (basically leaving it in place in practice).

That was considered “watered-down emancipation” and was only done at a politically opportune moment to only get the process going that eventually led to the emancipation of them all SEVERAL YEARS LATER. <——————

But he had to leave out the ones in the “border states” and in territory they controlled and not to make the war about that like the “purist abolitionists” wanted so that he didnt lose the entire game.

Now if something that we today see as a no-brainer decision took that much word-play, finesse, and structured roll-out over several years and phases, I think we can at least give Trump some fricking room here.


34 posted on 03/28/2017 6:19:04 AM PDT by VanDeKoik
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

“damaging another major opportunity to do good”

Doing just “something” so as “to do something” is never necessarily “to do good”.

If - and I’m making no judgement - Ryan/Trumpcare was more then 50% pretense of change and reform than actual change of the status quo, then a majority of analysis might have correctly concluded it would not “do good” but continue to do too much harm by what it did not change.

How about the view that a better bill WAS possible, but such a better bill, a more thorough undoing of Obamacare was not on Mr Ryan’s agenda. Why should not Conservatives and moderates in the GOP question why Ryan was willing to settle for too little change and leave too much Obamacare in place.


35 posted on 03/28/2017 6:20:10 AM PDT by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
The Freedom Caucus members opposed a bill that had the support of 17% -- yes, that's SEVENTEEN percent -- of the American people. They were not "purists" at all. They recognized a political disaster for what it was.

This wasn't a case of the pure being an enemy of the good. It was a case of the good being the enemy of the bad. And it wasn't just "15 or so conservatives" that "made it impossible to pass the bill favored by nearly every other Republican and by President Donald Trump." Every conservative publication and blog that I read, and every conservative commentator on the radio that I listen to was against this horrible bill.

36 posted on 03/28/2017 6:24:18 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SharpRightTurn

“BTW, FR still is a conservative site isn’t it?”

I ask myself that quite a bit lately.

It is to the point where I am beginning to not trust and to some extent not wish to be identified as ‘conservative’. The word is becoming muddled.

Clearly, America was founded on the principle of individual Freedom and extremely limited central govt - in fact, enumerated powers only. I previously would assume anyone identified as conservative still promoted that American ideal.

But either we, as a party, are becoming intellectually lazy or we are becoming perhaps fatally infected with the political mark of the beast which virtually all Democrats possess. That mark is the prideful notion that no good shall be done in America if it is not done by the biggest, most impersonal, most inefficient and most corrupted level of govt - the feds.

Hail HFC, the true leaders in this battle!

And long live these purists.

Good lord, if our party can’t understand or acknowledge that, by design, the federal level of government is where purity belongs, then we really are in trouble.

The states basically have unlimited power to be idiots if their populations so desire. The feds are technically not allowed to do that. To the extent the feds increasingly dilute this purity is the extent to which states lose their rightful powers.

To the extent states lose power, then so do individuals. Try to get an appointment with your US Senator - good luck. On the other hand, call your statehouse rep and he/she will probably come over and mow your lawn for the chance to get your vote and hear you out.

The very best way for govt to be seen as legitimate and responsive to the most people is for decisions to be made at the lowest level as practical.

I’m not sure why our party has such trouble marketing Freedom - other than the fact they don’t try. National socialism is the existential threat to true diversity. The reason American style Freedom is both morally and practically superior to federal level socialism is very simple. And pure:

With our original and pure federalist design, socialism can still exist where states are stupid enough to desire it. And like minds can freely gravitate to Left or Right leaning states.

Whereas with national socialism, Freedom has no escape.

The im-purists are condemning us to the latter.


37 posted on 03/28/2017 6:25:38 AM PDT by BuddhaBrown (Path to enlightenment: Four right turns, then go straight until you see the Light!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: VanDeKoik

If you are telling me that you voted for Trump because you wanted his first pass at killing BOCare to actually be a further promotion of BOCare, then congrats. He’s your man.

If you are willing to accept these “victories,” which are not victories at all, yet rail against the Establishment for exactly the same things that were in the failed bill, then what have you accomplished?

I don’t see the Lincoln analogy. There he was trying to unify a divided nation by abolishing a principle that the Southern states believed was their inherent right. Here Trump is simply promoting a big government agenda in a different way, against the true will of the people in that Union.

You don’t need to a “purist” to understand that any form of BOCare, watered down or otherwise, should not be an option to a president that was elected on the mandate of destroying all of Obama’s legacy achievements.


38 posted on 03/28/2017 6:28:41 AM PDT by Reagan Disciple (Peace through Strength)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Thanks for your analysis.

Still, I’d like to test your assumption that the “purists” acted in “good faith” when they rejected Ryancare because they HONESTLY believed that a “better” bill was possible.

The test is simple.

The “purists” merely need to write the “better” bill that they claim to want AND get that “better bill” passed by Congress.

That’s it! A simple “Put up or shut up!”

If the “purists” DO deliver that “better” bill to the White House, that delivery will prove that the GOP “purists” acted in good faith and truly are patriots.

But, if they DON’T deliver that “better” bill, then the “purists” will have revealed something else....

BTW, rumor has it that the “Freedom Caucus” is planning to block construction of the border wall because -— wait for it — that wall is “...not high enough?”.


39 posted on 03/28/2017 6:29:25 AM PDT by pfony1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Representative Mo Brooks just filed a bill that completely repeals Obamacare:

FR Article post

"Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted," the bill states.

Mo Brooks is a member of The House Freedom Caucus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Call Congress at 202-224-3121

Ask your Congress Critter to sign the discharge petition for US Representative Mo Brooks's bill titled, "Obamacare Repeal Act"!!!!!!!!!!!

40 posted on 03/28/2017 6:34:26 AM PDT by Basket_of_Deplorables (Drone Soros and sons!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-62 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson