I'd appreciate knowing why it is you feel that my particular stand for the constitution is worthy of contempt. I have the distinct impression that it's personal.
But at least we can be secure and smug in the knowledge that we did the principled and right thing.
As to this particular point. I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and know I did the right thing. To know I supported the constitution and my fellow Americans.
I could care less what others think about this since others are not interested in whether or not I can face myself. If they are, I at least have a good answer for them.
As to what you do? Forgive me if you think I am lecturing. I have respect for you JR. If you followed the anti-freeping at all you'd know that I had your back when others walked. Even when you had banned me.
My disagreements with you do not in any way indicate that I have contempt for you. I don't. I never believed the crap said about you by your enemies and still do not to this day hold any ill-will toward you. Perhaps we can resolve our differences someday even if it's simply an agreement to disagree amiably.
I am in agreement with you on several things:
1. We live in a two-party system...something that is unlikely to change in our lifetimes.
2. Any Republican is better than any Democrat...because of the way majority control works in the Congress, (and because there is no such creature as a conservative Democrat anymore).
3. The choice of judges is at the very top of the list of the critical priorities which are facing the Republic.
4. Bush is our President...and is likely to be for the next six years, barring an act of God.
Where we might differ...I'm not sure...is what that situation means for us, the conservative base of the Republican Party.
The liberal factions of the Party are having a heyday currently. The money and power in the Party are being used to support the most liberal candidates possible in primaries. Many liberal policies that wouldn't pass the smell test if they were pushed by Dems are being implemented.
So what do we do?
Do we take our ball and go home? I don't think so.
Here is what I believe principled conservatives must do to be relevent in this new 'moderate' age of the GOP:
1. Don't give up or give in. Stay in the arena.
2. Go on offense. Pull out every stop to grab hold of the Republican levers of party power in the next two to four years...and of course continue to target Democrats with all we have.
3. Fight like hell for the principles we believe in, without fear or favor. If the liberals are going to end up with two parties instead of one, let's at least let them know that they had to fight to get it done.
Who knows, we might just win.
Here in South Dakota this fall, I am faced with the choice between Tim Johnson, Daschle stooge, and moderate-conservative John Thune, who voted for CFR.
I hate the fact that Thune represents the exact sort of compromising Republican that I fight constantly. But I'm going to vote for him...because the alternative is worse, and I've got my eye on the bigger prize...the dethronement of the Daschle Democrats en masse.
I hate the fact that the national GOP has been pouring money and talent into primaries in support of RINOs and against conservatives...Ganske in Iowa, Riordon in CA, etc...but I'm not going to surrender because of these things...I'm going to find ways to redouble my efforts to do what you said...send reinforcements to the many wonderful conservative leaders who already are in the Congress.
The GOP has been the majority Party for awhile now, but conservatives are still far in the minority. Until we do the hard work to change that, we will continue to witness the long slow slide into socialism.
But we won't accomplish that by simply sitting and complaining, or by meekly keeping our mouths shut when the other side implements another plank in their manifesto...we will win by continuing to boldly speak out for our principles, and by continuing the hard work of educating the electorate.
Regards,
EV
"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it. "Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything. "I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average."
"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it."
~~ Ronald Reagan, in his autobiography, An American Life