Posted on 06/22/2002 9:46:05 AM PDT by quidnunc
This summer will mark the 47th year since I took my first Republican job: as public relations director for the party in Minnesota. Since then I have rarely strayed from politics, or my party. I served as a staffer to two GOP congressmen, to a GOP governor, as a federal appointee to Richard Nixon and as a corporate executive who supported in Washington and Springfield much, if not all, of the Republican agenda.
You can describe me as a conservative. Thus I am qualified to say that although I dearly love conservatives, they tend to be querulous, disagreeable and threaten revolt when Republican office-holders don't please them. So it is now with George W. Bush. Here is a president who has surprised us all with the firmness and resolve he showed after 9/11. I must tell you I voted for him with less enthusiasm than I had for many of his predecessors. But his administration has pleased me often — most notably on two issues: defense of America and social policy.
Yet, Bush has to get re-elected in a country that is evenly divided on philosophy. Thus he must occasionally — on matters that sometimes offend conservatives — dip into the other side's ideology for support. He has done so on three notable occasions: on the issue of steel protectionism, where he departed his free-market proclamations; on the signing of a campaign finance bill tailored by his enemies, and allowing his attorney general (in the words of Libertarian Nat Hentoff in the Washington Times) "to send disguised agents into religious institutions, libraries and meetings of citizens critical of government policy without a previous complaint, or reason to believe that a crime has been committed."
In a perfect political world, where conservatives are in the majority, these things would be sufficient to encourage a boycott of the polls. Either that or a protest vote for the Democratic opposition. But we are not in a perfect world. We conservatives have a president who didn't receive a majority of the votes, and has one house of Congress against him. He must make compromises to get re-elected. Conservatives who do not understand the nature of politics ought to stay in their air-conditioned ivory towers and refrain from political activity altogether. If they cannot adjudge the stakes in this election and the difference between Bush and an Al Gore or a John Kerry (D-Mass.) or a Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), they are foolish indeed.
-snip-
To read the remainder of this op/ed open the article via the link provided in the thread's header.
And now many of our major cities in this country, such as Chicago, have now approved the use of identification cards, issued by Mexican consulates that will give illegal aliens access to financial and public services and more, as our so-called leaders stand treasonously silent, as our sovereignty is slowly dismantled.
Very good comments! I agree with you.
I will add that the present administration has been more successful at imposing socialism than the last. A wolf in sheeps clothing.
Yes, my FRiend, there is soooo much fat in the budget now that we could cut spending by 1% of Gross Domestic Product each year between now and 2010 and not even get to the meat of what the Federal Governemnt is Constitutionally-authorized to do!! But before we even consider down-sizing the Federal Leviathan, we gotta stop growing it!!
FReegards...MUD
Valid point...but Warner cares about no one but himself. He's a man with very little moral fortitude whose willingness to stab conservatives in the back when it suits him endears him to the DemonRATS while going unchastened by the Effete Elite--and the Sheeple--in our own Party.
FRegards...MUD
In order for compromise to work conservatives must walk away from the table with something, we don't. We don't have anyone in office, and haven't since Reagan, that will fight for our side and demand something to take away from the table.
We all call the RINO's in office cowardly, spineless, they even proved that during the last Republican Revolution when they were in control. Now we are grasping at straws hoping for Republican Revolution II, and it will be a failure.
There are three reasons I am going to go ahead and vote in November, one is for you guys because it is so important to you, two, because if a Democrat takes the Presidency in 2004 it's better for partisan politics to continue, weak as it is from RINO's, and three, because I will find it interesting to see a Republican President, who hasn't been able to find his Veto Pen, other than to deny disabled vets, suddenly veto almost everything that comes across his desk. Mostly he will be able to bully the Repubs in Congress and the Senate not to cause a "rift" between the White House and them, a bad show for the public to observe, by not placing something in front of him that he will Veto. I see it all right here in my crystal ball.=o)
The speed with which things are going south demands action to alot of our minds. There are two roads to go that I can see as potentially successful, a devastating no show at the polls for Republicans, or marching on our respective state capitols and demanding that they take their power back from D.C. I prefer both tactics because I feel local government is far easier to control than Federal Government. We pay for State Governors, and Representatives, like England pays for the Royal Family, they serve no real function other than historical tradition and do nothing really but cost great expense.
I think even moderates can agree with the idea of much more power to States than to D.C., after all we are a Republic, or were, and State politics are easier to influence than Federal.
As far as the things Bush has done that you approve of overall, I have no idea what they are, no one will list them. Getting us out of Kyoto was good for corporations, and as an aside is good for workers, I don't know how I feel about this other plan that is to replace Kyoto, kind of stealth Kyoto, whereby each corporation is assigned points they can sell to each other in order to "say" they meet the requirements.
Getting us out of the Criminal Court is expedient and neccessary given the "Hate America" fad going on in the world. There is a thread "The Judge As Prosecuter: Two Days At The "Trial" Of Slobodan Milosevic", you might want to check it out, some guy SANDNES around post "50" is claiming there is a documentary showing US soliders massacring Taliban prisoners of war. A complete lie no doubt but to have stayed in that Court would open our military to great risk over every freaking rumor and scam they can come up with.
I'm not downing your support of Bush, even though I can't see it myself. I'm just saying conservatives need to do much better than him and fast. I think if he is successful in his bid to turn the Party hard left, no conservative will have a legitimate reason to go to the polls ever again. It takes alot of gall or evil for a man to take it upon himself to take the Republican Party for a socialist ride, and what that tells us is going on behind the scenes is something conservatives ignore at their own peril because we are incrementally disappearing.
You aren't even happy about the Kyoto decision, because it is "good for corporations." Well, that is your privilege, but in my opinion a healthy business environment is good for the economy.
I am not inclined to keep posting on this thread, as it seems to me an exercise in futility. You don't think President Bush is doing a good job. I do. We will just have to disagree.
You're going to have to help me out here, Pain. What is a "lying opinion"?
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