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.
Which really means selling out principle for power. Our country sucks because of pragmatists. The occasion always demands pragmatism when your power is threatened.
I provided a link, open it and read the article.
I would do the same if for instance the "Christian conservative Republican" was a gun-grabber and the Democrat understood that the second amendment protects us from such nonense. But of course, we know that Goldwater is disliked by the neo-conservatives of today because he broke the 11th commandment.
I certainly do with the Senate, but Dubyuh's gotta weild that Veto Pen of his to assist the folks in the House!! Dubyuh didn't argue to trim down the Farm Bill...or the Education Bill...or the Steel and Lumber Tariffs. He's our Leader and he needs to Lead us Rightward and the support for the GOP candidates will be shored up considerably.
FReegards...MUD
Not true.
A truth lost on modern man is that a man really has nothing BUT his principles. Everything else is crap, in the end.
There are actually serious voices in our rapidly sinking culture who advocate FORCED voting. At the rate we are going, it will be implemented one day, just before forced volunteering, or forced teaching of our children the opposite of our beliefs, or forced abortions, or forced eating of your young.
Couldn't agree more...MUD
At 85, after a life in politics spanning five decades Mr. Conservative has found himself an unlikely new career: as a gay rights activist. While that's not his sole pursuit... in recent years he's championed homosexuals serving in the military and has worked locally to stop businesses in Phoenix from hiring on the basis of sexual orientation. This month he signed on as honorary co-chairman of a drive to pass a federal law preventing job discrimination against homosexuals. The effort, dubbed Americans Against Discrimination, is being spearheaded by the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the influential gay lobbying organization. (Wash Post 7-28-94)
BarryG on Bill Clinton.
Gay rights aside, Goldwater is doing lots more to drive would-be disciples nuts. ... and has been applying the full force of his cantankerous personality to frequent denunciations of the religious right and occasional defenses of Bill Clinton – calling a press conference recently to urge Republican critics of Whitewater to "get off his back and let him be president." (Wash Post 7-28-94
Goldwater supported the scumbag Clinton!!!
BarryG on Roe v Wade/abortion/pro-choice.
Although supporting the right to life in Senate votes in prior terms, in his final term Goldwater "changed his course and voted consistently to uphold" Roe v. Wade (Arizona Republic 8/7/92).
But perhaps the most striking blow to the right to life came in 1992 when Goldwater took an active stand in opposition to the pro-life platform of the Republican Party. Goldwater opined that the GOP "will go down in a shambles" if the expected "anti-abortion" plank is adopted in the GOP platform. The warning came in a letter from Goldwater to Mary Dent Crisp of the so-called National Republican Coalition for Choice (Arizona Republic 8/7/92).
In 1991, Goldwater joined the National Republican Coalition for Choice and was "named to its national advisory board" (U.S. News and World Report 5/27/91).
I've got more.
Well, let me just leave you with a couple of examples.
Abolitionists were called Radical Republicans, not conservative Republicans.
And it is no longer easy to find conservatives who oppose women's suffrage.
Conservative thought changes.
And I just can't count the number of times that I've seen someone at this forum post the opinion that we need to pursue the foreign policy described by Washington in his Farewell Address. And maybe someday we should. However, you can be absolutely certain that we're not going to pursue such a policy in the world that we're living in right now.
And history does not teach us that governments are inclined to become smaller during wars.
And history does not teach us that wars are a real boon for civil liberties.
The libertarians may someday have their day. But it isn't likely to be anytime soon.
'Perhaps' you are so busy clicking the abuse button and making sure your lightning button pics and attacking words are never removed all while getting all others you don't agree with's posts and graphics 'removed by moderator.'
I voted for the President and am glad the leftist hillbilly dems are gone but for God sakes just because I do not post pics of the President and go ga ga like a cheerleading squad does not mean I do not have a right to discuss concerns over issues.
Your post I am currently replying to now leaves me no doubt that you are tiring of the abuse button you want more than your lightening button, you want all who don't agree with you, gone.
How very sad.
Will this forum be 10,000 'life in the day of President Bush,' threads? This world is too complicated politically,socially and religiously to hush people who don't belong to your little club.
Hurry now, (I really don't care, I am sick of this little mob rules cry baby club,) go call Jim Robinson/ hit the abuse button so he can kick us all out of 'perhaps' a place we don't belong.
I'll let TExas give you the results.
Oh Ok ... I'll have to check it out .. LOL
Heh heh
Are you serious? All of these Bills start out in the house. Why should Bush save them from themselves. The Republican house NEVER allowed CFR to come to a vote when Clinton was in office then as soon a Bush is elected they send the thing through the house like S--t through a goose.
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