I suspect that it is the likes of you … who will do FAR more to revive the GOP than any feeble effort that I could muster would.

Well, at least on something we can agree. The GOP isn’t likely to revive itself anytime soon if it depends on folks like you.

I think there is a lot of value in a two party system, and I look forward to a day when the GOP embraces all Americans and contributes something positive to politics. I’m not holding my breath.

Peace.

DS

“Your sales pitch lacks punch, Bilgeman. You don’t even offer an argument for your own positions, or a rebuttal to mine. Good luck reviving the GOP.”

Awwww, that’s mighty sweet of you.

Thankee muchly, but I suspect that it is the likes of you and Brother Timmy, homosexual cultist eco-warrior union members, marching shoulder to shoulder in advocacy, chins uplifted and staring resolutely into the future of the middle distance, who will do FAR more to revive the GOP than any feeble effort that I could muster would.

Keep pulling my leg. You’re trying to sell the same old yarn.

Tim gave you a chance to reflect on the GOP’s failures, and potential solutions. Instead you focus on his sexual orientation, and ignore the valid point he makes.

You laugh at the notion that civil marriage for gays is an equality issue, but you offer no rebuttal.

You claim abortion is different from any other medical procedure, and should not be part of state assistance for medical care.

You imply that abortion is used as a primary method of birth control, although it is often performed to protect the life and health of the mother.

Your sales pitch lacks punch, Bilgeman. You don’t even offer an argument for your own positions, or a rebuttal to mine. Good luck reviving the GOP.

Peace.

DS

“I guess maybe you could work on your salesmanship, too.”

Ahhh, but I’m not selling anything. You and Brother Timmy apparently are, since you are in the habit of speaking as though the points of the agenda that you share are inevitabilities.

I’m familiar with the technique, it’s a variation of the “Completion Backward Principle”…get the mark to accept that he’s going to be behind the wheel of the jalopy you’re trying to sell him, and then whip out the financing papers for him to sign.

Workmanlike try, but I’m not buying it.

“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re the one that “jumped on” first time Republican voter Tim when he showed up to share his 2¢”

I jumped on Tim-bo’s case because he exhibited a shocking amount of arrogance. He wasn’t sharing his 2 cents, he was whining that the GOP should perform “gender reassignment surgery”,(if you will), on itself to suit the whims of a fresh-out-of-college California Gay man.
And I suspect that the only reason he can harbor such a laughable expectation is that he, too, has swallowed whole these notional “certainties” that the Gay Cult likes to spout as their sales pitch.

“Here you are off the mark. Gay marriage is an issue of equality.”

And there you go again…standing on that mountaintop of your own ego and demanding that I accept your premise.

“The state has already asserted an interest in marriage – unless you seek to repeal all civil marriages, you are going to end up with the gay variety as well.”

Ha-ha-ha! Did Timmy bequeath you his scare-mongering when he left?
This is as absurd a notion as his bogeymen of “Lurking Socialism” and “Extinction of the GOP” should we all not steer the course he dictated were.

“Abortion is fundamentally exactly what Roe v. Wade decided – a privacy right. It isn’t something that anyone should have to share with another person against their will. It certainly isn’t a “Statist” issue.”

It is a Statist issue when the public monies are used for the Prvate benefit.

Oh. certainly. So you endeavor to do this with cheap shots, eh?
Quite the salesman, you must be.

I’m not correcting you solely for your own benefit. Since you feel free to take cheap shots, you’re fair game for the return volley.

@68. [Gay marriage and abortion issues] Are Statist to their very core. They seek to empower the government, and you cannot empower the state unless it be at the expense of the citizenry.

Here you are off the mark. Gay marriage is an issue of equality. The state has already asserted an interest in marriage – unless you seek to repeal all civil marriages, you are going to end up with the gay variety as well. If you want to abolish civil marriage – I bid you well. But you can’t have straight marriage if you don’t provide the same for gays. Abortion is fundamentally exactly what Roe v. Wade decided – a privacy right. It isn’t something that anyone should have to share with another person against their will. It certainly isn’t a “Statist” issue.

What is “Statist” is enforcing a ban on civil marriages for a subset of the population, and trying to legislate the extent of rights that women enjoy in their own body. Both of these are issues where you are clearly on the side of the State trying to coercively influence the private behavior of others.

I need not be privy to the Official Gay Agena® to see your hyperbole for what it is. In case you haven’t noticed, gays use the same kinds of media as other groups – internet and print, primarily. As soon as you provide your very own Certificate of Gay Knowledge©, I’ll fax mine over.

In case you haven’t noticed, you’re the one that “jumped on” first time Republican voter Tim when he showed up to share his 2¢, explaining why the GOP really ought to be on the right side of history based on the philosophy of conservatism. Denying rights to gays and women has a long history, but that’s no reason for Republicans to perpetuate the injustice.

I guess maybe you could work on your salesmanship, too.

Peace.

DS

“My only interest in you, Bilgeman, is in correcting your characterization of important issues at hand.”

Oh. certainly. So you endeavor to do this with cheap shots, eh?
Quite the salesman, you must be.

And while you may presume that you are “correcting” my characterizations about anything and everything under the Sun, the validity of this “correction” extends only so far as the limits of your mind,(and those whose water you’re carrying at the moment, plus any dullards who are convinced by your rather unique method of persuasion…IOW, not very many people at all).

I’d think more of you, frankly, if you would fax your “Certificate of Correctness” over to PJM and its staff for posting , so that we can all goggle at and admire it.

“I noticed you did not address your comments on the “gay agenda”. Perhaps you now realize how absurd your previous comments were.”

Like much of what you write, I did not find it much worthy of comment at the time.

But now that you’ve brought the matter up, I will admit that I am utterly amused at your egotistical posturing and how incredibly foolish you have managed to make yourself appear in the late stages of this thread.

You think that you are “correcting” my characterizations.

This YOU said.

One of my characterizations you claim to be here to “correct” is that of the “Gay agenda”.

This presupposes that you are privy to the “correct” characterization of that agenda.

But you claim that you are NOT Gay.
So, barring that absent Certificate I mentioned above, (signed and notarized by every single Gay person in America)…

How would YOU know?

Your posts have made for a most mirthful,(on my part),exchange here, and I heartily compliment you on playing the buffoon so skillfully.

Thank you, my good sir.

BTW, have you noticed that Timmy, who at least admits that he IS Gay and can then be reasonably expected to have more of a “dog in this fight” than you, who are NOT Gay, has apparently stolen the last lifeboat of this quickly foundering craft?

Methinks that you just might have been left on the streetcorner holding a big empty bag, chum.

There’s a court in Massachusetts that tends to disagree with you on the issue of marriage. Marriage is a state-sanctioned right, that should not be denied based on a religious or cultural basis – only a legal one. Equal protection demands that all persons have the right to marry, or none. Eventually, the right of marriage will be for everyone, despite the unconstitutional amendment to California’s founding document.

Similarly, on abortion, you mischaracterize the issue by claiming that the goal of pro-choice persons is to make abortion the primary means of birth control, which is pure hyperbole. You may not wish to make it illegal, but your support for politicians that do is hypocritical in that case. For abortion to be safe, legal and rare, it needs to be supported by a full range of family planning options – something not happening under GOP governance.

My only interest in you, Bilgeman, is in correcting your characterization of important issues at hand. I noticed you did not address your comments on the “gay agenda”. Perhaps you now realize how absurd your previous comments were.

Peace.

DS

“You noted that the ‘attention’ you received was solely from men.”

The anonymous attempts by adult men to seduce me into pedophilic homosexual acts…try as you may to gloss over the ugly facts with euphemisms like “attention” all you like, but I’ll correct you and call bullshit on your bullshit every time you try it.

“You promote restrictions on the rights of others (gay marriage and abortion)”

More of your self-serving distortions.

Gays have no right to marry. Marriage is a State-sanctioned right, and as California, and a bevy of other states have shown, there are specific amendments in their constitutions that limit the recognition of marriage only to ones that exist between a man and a woman.

My position, far from just “promoting restrictions”, is to uphold the status quo…and our cultural traditions about matrimony since before even the founding of the Republic.

As to abortion, you have, like Brother Timmy, chosen to impute to my words a straw-man entirely of your design, (one of the reasons I think that you two might have got it on like a house on fire, he has the same habit. The cold and lonely winter evenings would just fly right by, with the two of you arguing past each other).

I may personally frown on abortion, but I don’t wish to make it illegal.

I simply do not wish to subsidize it as a form of birth control.

“…which made it pertinent.”

And since I’ve shown that your bases for interjecting yourself and your insinuations into what was heretofore largely a “pas de deux” conversation are nothing more than the hobgoblins that you keep in your sordid little mind, then your claim of pertinence is invalid.

I think you just wanted my attention, and weren’t above a cheap shot to gain it.

“Your political views are informed by your own perspective on sexual preference, no doubt colored by the lack of attention paid you by females.”

And lookie there…there’s another one!

Please note for the record that I have made no direct reference whatsoever to your own orientation/preference,(aside from my initial presumptive declaration), and nor have I offered any analysis of your success or failure at it…whichever way you happen to “swing”,(or “swish”, as applicable).

If I WAS to play it YOUR way, however, I might note that you exhibit an unhealthy amount of interest in getting MY attention.

I would further perhaps opine that this trait you have is maybe an effect of the lack of attention paid to you by OTHER men.

But I wouldn’t do that.

You noted that the ‘attention’ you received was solely from men.

You promote restrictions on the rights of others (gay marriage and abortion), which made it pertinent. Your political views are informed by your own perspective on sexual preference, no doubt colored by the lack of attention paid you by females.

Your concept of a “gay agenda” is so laughable, I thought it was satire at first.

Peace.

DS

“I’m not gay.”

Sure-sure. You’ll forgive me, then, for assuming that you might be, since you saw fit to pop in and question my own orientation/preference.

Y’know, in our many exchanges together, it had never occurred to ME to wonder or comment about YOUR preference in bed-mates.

Wasn’t pertinent, was it?

(Sorry, Tim-lad. I’m sure you’re a splendid fellow, if a wee bit confused and conceited, but I hope we can find SOMEONE for you. It does make it a bit challenging, though, since you automatically discriminate against any potential life-partners simply because they have vaginas, y’know…)