"THAT which you believe"---"An open letter to Republicans"

Oh, yeah. Those of us who know how politics work and are tired of letting it go on are the stupid ones. You can't polish a turd, Luis. Party politics is a big unflushed turd, stinking up the whole house and the faithful of both parties are trying to polish it instead of flushing it.

This is yet another example of a conservative who confuses politics with millenialist religion.

Politics is about compromise to achieve many, if not most, of your aims. It is like making a sausage. It is not pleasant. You simply cannot deal with the fact that the Framers understood this and deliberately put together a construct which would make it difficult for any one group of people to seize power.

You want to remove parties and competing interest groups from politics? You might as well remove the money from politics, for all the good it will do you. The Twentieth Century is filled with Millenialist political movements that promised the "broad, sunlit uplands" and delivered only poverty, tyranny, and mass murder.

In so many words, you are demanding that we cast aside politics in favor of adherence to the Constitution. I say, who are you to tell me what "Constitutionalism" is?

Many of us don't have the tolerance for rot and corruption necessary to keep allowing the RNC to thwart the conservatibve movement. Those of you who do aren't going to convince anyone that you're holding the keys to success when all you offer is a plan to be increasingly loyal to a gang of increasing treacherous politicians.

Oh effing please.

The Republican Party is the only practical vehicle for conservative politics in this country, and both of us know it. That means that conservatives have two choices, work within the party to win over the RINO's (who are malleable and want to be liked) and other groups within the Party, thus maintaining some control over the direction of the Party, or, as I see all too often on FR, to pick up their marbles, declare a pox on all the houses, and walk away and sulk.

Don't even start with me about the Libertarians, or the Constitution Party, the remnants of the Reform Party, the Brigadiers, or the Coeour d' Leine, Idaho branch of the True Conservative Church of the White Race Totenkopfverbande. They are nothing. They are nowhere. They are a distraction to the real ball game. All you are doing is wasting your time, and ours.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

"I don't have to convince you of anything other than to respect my choices, as I respect yours."

Mr. Gonzalez, I really enjoy reading your thoughts and experiences. What I admire most about you can be summed up in the sentence above.

Don't be too tough on my friend Redrock as he, like many of us others, got tired of fighting the good fight and took the path that led to us giving up on the GOP as the party that represents even the ideology you have.

God Bless you Luis. I which I could share in your optimism. I really do but I have become cynical in my old age. I am past bitterness, but I, as others here really do believe, the GOP at the national level, stands for nothing. They, as our advisaries on the left, will say anything to acquire votes, but once in office they as the left are concerned with but one thing. KEEPING POWER!!! History has proved time and again what a corrupting force "power" can be and is.

While I do admire, respect and agree totally with the "principles" you have time and again stated, I think the republic is beyond the brink.

Those of us who even understand, much less read the constitution, are in a vastly great minority. We are but a remnant of what this country was built upon.

Again, God less you Luis, and keep on ... keepin' on!

Sure, chris. the GOP is the only way to promote conservatism. We have to elect Liddy Dole and other liberal republicans so that the conservatives will control the Senate. That'll be a neat trick, since Dole will be taking the place of the last functioning conservative left in that august old boy's club. Sure, electing liberal conservatives is our only hope of advancing conservatism. How could I have been so stupid as not to see this irrefutable fact?

Maybe you can show me where the Constitution lays out this plan for government that you're touting here. Your comment about millenialist religion shows that you're living in a cartoon, kid. Until you can talk straight, don't try to talk to me at all.

Ahaha...this isn't going to be nearly the fun you think it is, boy.

Excuse me?

You posted this tommyrot below?

Sure, chris. the GOP is the only way to promote conservatism. We have to elect Liddy Dole and other liberal republicans so that the conservatives will control the Senate. That'll be a neat trick, since Dole will be taking the place of the last functioning conservative left in that august old boy's club. Sure, electing liberal conservatives is our only hope of advancing conservatism. How could I have been so stupid as not to see this irrefutable fact?

Well, besides the fact that you're ignorant of the way American politics works in the real world, I really don't know how you could have been so stupid as to see that irrefutable fact.

So where's President Alan Keyes? Or President Howard Phillips? Or President-for-Life Ross Perot? Oh, they didn't get elected? Oh, the people didn't vote for them?

You remember the vote, don't you, Twodees. It's called, "building a majority" or "building a coalition"? Something you're not interested in because you want it all and you want it all now.

Do you actually believe that all Republicans who don't pass your Kool-Aid test are liberals? Eh?

I guess you do. Which means that yes, you are stupid.

Maybe you can show me where the Constitution lays out this plan for government that you're touting here. Your comment about millenialist religion shows that you're living in a cartoon, kid. Until you can talk straight, don't try to talk to me at all.

Have you, like, ever looked at the Constitution?

It says nothing, nothing about political parties or "faction". It does lay out a structure for the apparatus of government and the division of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. It also divides power between the central government and the several states. The key point is the restriction of legislative power, in which every jot and tittle of a law must be in agreement for a bill to go to the President.

It's not "my" plan for governance. It's in the Constitution. You want instant governance? It's not in the Constitution. In fact, the Constitution is specifically designed to keep people like you, who want it their way and no other way, in their place.

The political parties, or "faction" aren't there, either. They arose, organically, as people organized themselves during the Federal Period.

Now, when you can reason rationally, and present a coherent train of thought, try coming back with a rational post. Until then, you get horsewhipped, and you stay horsewhipped.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

Now, I will be stepping away from the keyboard for a while, as I have other things to do. Believe me, twodees, when dealing with True Believers such as yourself, I have nothing but great fun.

People who are divorced from reality are rather easy for me to handle. The dividing line between, say, you, and the Tinfoil Hat Krowd is very, very thin. It's there, but the minute you start saying that any Republican who might be even mildly to your left is a liberal, I know that I'm walking into Doggie Downer land.

I'll give you time to wipe the spittle up from your keyboard so you can post something coherent. If you want to debate me, fine. If you want to try to trash me so I can give you another horsewhipping, well then, that's your loss and my gain.

If the former, I'm willing to debate you as long as necessary to come to an understanding. If the latter, then I'm willing to horsewhip you into the ground. Either way, I get to have fun.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

OH DeeDee, your posts are getting more and more shrill by the minute, you better slow down on the absurd grandiloquence before you hurt yourself.

Yes, I posted what you snipped. Did you think someone else was using my screen name? How am I ignorant when I point out that Dole is a liberal? She really is, kid. You haven't shown anything to contradict what I said. How do we elect more conservatives when the GOP will only run liberals?

I know exactly how politics works in this country. If you really did, you would be as disgusted as I am unless you're in on the scam.

For the sake of argument. Let's pretend you really believe this nonsense you're pushing here. We just had two terms of Clinton and somehow it's the fault of conservatives who wouldn't vote for Wobbly and Dole. How is it that the RNC isn't at fault for running them? The GOP analysts decided after Reagan won two landlsides back to back( running as a conservative), that conservatives didn't have a chance to be elected. That's bad enough, but they saw Bush defeated, saw the electoral success of the '94 election where conservative candidates ran on conservative issues and won, and they put a big government liberal, Bob Dole up against Clinton. To make it even worse, they ran a "moderate" in 2000 and barely won with him while getting more of their seats trimmed from Congress. One of their Senators was beaten by a corpse with blatant electoral fraud and they didn't even challenge it.

Sorry, kid, but it sounds to me as though your bigshot GOP experts are the ones who don't know anything about American politics. They're the ones losing elections and having their own members jump ship and side with the democrats. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they're stupid. The alternative is to conclude that they're betraying the cause they're pretending to support: conservatism.

When do you think you might get around to horsewhipping me? Blathering on with personal insults and presenting nothing in the way of fact doesn't get it done, boy. Come on and get after it. I don't have all day to fool with you.

You are responsible for the accomplishment of your goals, no one else.

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

Sure, Luis. Tell yourself I'm getting shrill. Write us another fictional tale about your Dad. That last one was almost believable, if the reader wasn't familiar with your tactics.

OK, I wasn't going to respond to this thread, but I thought I should put in my two-cents worth.

I am a proud Republican. I think that Democrats are the anti-thesis to freedom and liberty in our country, that they divide people by race, gender, religion, you name it, in order to convince everyone they are being oppressed by greedy capitalists, heterosexual white males, "them". I will never vote for a Democrat.

While I am a proud Republican, I do not vote for every Republican. I will not vote for a pro-abortion Republican. While I understand some of my conservative friends who are pro-life will vote for any Republican in November, there are some things I can't do. I answer to a higher authority, and while I MIGHT vote for someone who disagreed with me on NAFTA or education or illegal immigration or a host of other issues, when it comes to the basic fundamental right to life -- from conception until natural death -- I will not budge.

I am definitely far right of center, but I don't expect everyone to agree with me all the time. There is room for compromise and dissent on some issues. Now, if the Republican disagrees with me on MOST issues, I won't vote for him (or her). But if there are a couple things I don't particularly like, but for the most part the candidate is good, then I'll support them.

Us conservatives often shoot ourselves in the foot. We hold our conservative politicians to a higher standard than even ourselves, and then at the first sign of weakness we threaten them, turn on them, pull our support. With friends like us ...!

We need to support our conservatives. George W. Bush isn't perfect, but he has done some incredible things for the unborn. Politics in incremental, unless there is bloodshed. I, for one, will take incremental politics over war. That's how the Democrats usurped our freedoms and liberties, and that's how we'll get them back.

I get frustrated when one conservative says something stupid, and all conservatives complain and bail on them. We can be critical, but we should do it as friends not as enemies. We shouldn't threaten -- "If you don't do this, or do this, we will not help you." Obviously, if the organization saying that is the NRA or the Pro-Life Council, or another issue-based organization, I understand. But when it's us: we need to say, we don't particularly like what you did, but we'll continue to support you. We hope that in the future you'll talk to us first before you make these decisions.

I'm not saying that we capitulate on everything. For all of us there is the one or two issues that is so important we can't forgive a transgression. Believe me, I understand that -- I'm one of those people. But as we search our souls for what is important to us, our families, our country, we need to realize that not everything is black and white; people we like will do things we don't like; and most of the time (not always) a Republican in office is better than a Democrat.

But is we conservatives stab our candidates in the back -- and they win -- who are they going to listen to while in office? The conservatives who complained, threatened and betrayed them? Or the liberals who quietly served as yes-men?

Activism is a two-way street. Mutual support is necessary to advance our agenda. I just wanted to throw out my opinion on the matter. We need to stop eating our own.

It's easy to argue with someone that can't argue back. And the way you feign shock is really laughable, section9.

I was this close to giving the little clown the horsewhipping of his life on this board when Admin Moderator pulled his posts.

Uh huh. Sure you were. You think rather highly of yourself. That seems to be a prevalent attitude in the Country Club Republicans that post here.

I am a weird sort. Call me a pragmatic idealist, I know what I want, and I know what I can get.

I've always argued that once Castro falls, there will be quite a problem in Cuba. The people who left there (years or even decades ago) and their offspring, will return to claim their land and property, they will also take credit for the fall of Castroism.

They will face resentful, angry native Cubans, the ones who didn't leave, the ones who stood their ground and resisted in the face of overwhelming odds...the one's that worked from within to affect change.

I'm staying with my Grand Old Party Bill, I am throwing in my hat with Ronnie's Party. And I, standing side-by-side with the rest of the pragmatic idealists, will turn the Party around from within and build that shinning city on a hill...and you can bet the house on that.

This is my cause, and this is the way that I, along with all those other pragmatic idealists, will fight for our country and win. And we'll be just as resentful, and angry, when the day comes that the Party is fully restored, and all those "true conservatives" who walked of the battle field, return with a clamor of heraldic trumpets, claiming that their absence was the catalyst that brought about THEIR victory.

Luis

Lacking any sort of response (or substance for that matter) you revert to form and substitute personal attacks for any sort of intelligent conversation.

Isn't there some sort of a "Lincoln Was A Vampire" thread going that needs your undivided attention?

"but I also know the alternative has NOTHING in common with my beliefs. I will continue to work within my party to immprove it. What will you do?"

What you don't seem to realize is that the alternative (democrats) would do what bush is doing only at a faster pace.

The republicrats do the same thing only at a slower pace so as to put us to sleep. The best way to juge this is to do an overview of what's happening under george's watch. It's true that he has done some good things, but, in my opinion, a "watered down" version of some of of these issues will be promoted in the future.

I trust no politician regardless of their label. There are three certanties in life: Death, Taxes and Betrayal by politicians.

If Gore had even hinted that he would correct the abuses of the Clinton Administration, we would be talking about President Gore,

The MAIN reason we aren't all saying "President Goober" right now is because of that old sissy,Ralph Nader. He took the votes away from Goober that he needed to win. The Dims had the same thing happen to them in 2000 that we had happen in 1992.

This thread has only just come to my attention, which is a pity. It's probably the most important subject the politically engaged freedom lover could imagine.

A few decades ago, a mighty genius wrote a mighty book. In the book, he undertook for the first time to analyze the various strategies and tactics that were and might be used in major conflicts among nations, in the context of the newly arrived nuclear age. The book was controversial in part because the author insisted on dealing in a rational and detached fashion with possibilities that would cause the deaths of tens of millions. It was also controversial because he contended that there could be reasons to push the Big Red Button even if it meant the utter destruction of one's own nation. Finally, it was controversial because the author was an unabashed patriot and booster of all things American.

One of the segments of the book that was particularly mind-broadening was the analysis of brinksmanship strategies, which were dominant for a while in the Fifties and early Sixties. We played brinksmanship against the Soviets by being incomparably better armed and letting them know that any transgression against a NATO member would invoke "massive nuclear retaliation" against Soviet forces and cities. As the arms gap closed in the late sixties and seventies, the Soviets began to play brinksmanship against a more accommodating series of U.S. administrations, but they did it in a fashion that's reminiscent of what I've read here, and in other to-GOP-or-not-to-GOP threads at FreeRepublic. Khrushchev and Brezhnev both succeeded in getting concessions from Washington by laying down a fairly hard line, and then claiming to be politically weak.

Got your attention?

The author of the book described above dealt with exactly this sort of political stratagem. He didn't lay out a payoff matrix or attempt to present a pivot analysis to determine what the best rejoinder would be; he merely noted that it often reaped exactly the same gains as bargaining from a position of strength did. The Soviet leader would say, "If you don't give me what I ask, my political backing will evaporate, and I will be deposed. The man who will take my place will be much more demanding, and much harder for you to deal with. Therefore, in your own interests, you should concede what I ask." And Washington under Nixon and Carter would do exactly that.

The book, in case you've been wondering, was On Thermonuclear War, and the author, easily the most powerful mind ever devoted to the analysis of lethal international exchange and the associated diplomacy, was Herman Kahn, who went on to found the Hudson Institute.

Imagine that, by its deeds and enactments, the current administration in Washington is speaking to us, asking for support now and at the polls come election time. Imagine that, as is the case today, the titular head of the administration has voiced firm support for your highest convictions, on the basis of which you voted for him back when. Imagine further that he's acted against those convictions seven or eight times out of ten since being elected. But he can point across the aisle and say, "If you don't support me, that's what you'll get: a man who doesn't even say the right things! Is that what you want?"

I've been pondering this for most of my adult life, and the answer to the hypothetical politician's hypothetical question is yes. If I am to be governed in a fashion antithetical to my principles, I want someone who's overt about it, even in-your-face. My reasons are:

I want there to be absolutely no chance of anyone blaming freedom for the consequences of tyranny, or the market for the consequences of socialism.
I believe that the righting of the American political and legal landscape is an iterative process that will require reinforcement of the good and punishment of the bad over several generations of Americans.
I believe that politicians and their parties are completely and inescapably amoral. They don't seek power because of superior moral virtue and a commitment to doing the right thing with it. They seek power because that's what they crave, even the most decent of them. If we encourage them (with our votes) to believe that saying one thing and doing another, or claiming to be stalwarts of the Constitution while shredding it crosswise in practice, will get them reelected, then we'll get more such treason, not less.

There are many here who will say that President Bush is doing the best he can in a difficult time, what with the war. Yet he's had discretion to veto several awful bills and has failed to do so. He's lent his active backing to a couple of those bills. He's failed to introduce legislation that he promised us during the 2000 campaign, despite considerable popular support for it: the partial privatization of Social Security. He's traduced his own pledge of belief in the free market with tariffs designed to buy votes, at the expense of all American consumers and industries.

Perhaps Al Gore could have done worse, and would have... but he would not have enervated the conservative movement, which is now largely persuaded that it has no standard-bearer, in doing so. And he would not have had so many people believing that when a man pledges fidelity to free trade, private property and limited government, they should clamp one hand on their wallets and the other on their guns.

On the strength of his pre-Black Tuesday record, I would have liked to support President Bush in 2004. But he's overspent the admiration he won from me with his tax-cut battle and his dealings with the Europeans and the Chinese, by being so statist since then. At this point, he has two years to reverse course and demonstrate that he really did mean it, that his aberrations up to now are correctable and will not be repeated. If he does, I'll vote for him; if not, I won't. The same goes for any Republican Congressman, Senator, Assemblyman, County Legislator, Town Councillor, Sheriff, Judge or Dog Catcher whose name appears on my local ballot. They will get my support only if their records indicate that they've earned it.

Vote for a Democrat instead? Of course not. I won't reward the Evil Party simply because I can't support the Stupid Party. But I won't have the GOP, or any party, thinking it can claim weakness yet garner the rewards of strength and resolve. I will not reward deceit.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

What you describe is exactly what has happened in New York, where there is actually a fairly established Conservative Party.

The Republicans drifted leftward. The Conservative Party candidate can't win, unless it also happens to be the Republican candidate. (The flip also is true, that the Republican can't win more times than not unless also on the Conservative Party ticket).

Now, the state is mostly Democrat, the Republicans in power are "centrists" at best, and the Conservative Party is forced to end up putting moderates like Rick Lazio on the ticket anyway.