The New Rebels Are on the Right
To revive the party, Republicans need to shake off the party’s image as one of staid, old, straight white men, say moderates like David Frum. To this end he has started a new blog, the New Majority. In order to win again, we need to give up social and cultural issues, say the reformers. We also need to start blogging, Twittering, RSS-feeding, Digg-ing, text-messaging, email-alerting, and getting connected into the vast electronic network that the Democrats use so well.
Indeed, Big Brother Obama has a direct electronic cord to his followers.
We need to do the same, they suggest.
But had McCain-Palin offered such a direct conduit, it is doubtful that any of the kids would have signed up. As far as I can tell, conservatives have no trouble getting the message out to people who are interested because once I had filled out a form for one conservative list, I saw them spread like dandelions in my inbox.
And it seems that students are already capable of using the electronic network to effect change, as the protest via Facebook against using student fees to pay for a Bill Ayers appearance at a campus demonstrates.
But most of my college students won’t give Fox News even a look and have never heard of the conservative journals or blogs out there. Conservative foundations offering grants, scholarships, and free workshops beg for student participants.
Zac Morgan writing at the New Majority notes that it was the appeal of Obama that drew young people to the polls. To them, John McCain is like some historical artifact in a Wikipedia article, Morgan suggests.
Yet, it was McCain’s running mate, a woman younger than Obama, who drew the most vitriol — especially from young women.
The vitriol came from young female bloggers and columnists, and spread to college campuses.
I was taken aback by my female students’ contempt for Palin. After I had assigned them Gloria Steinem’s editorial, “Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message,” I was surprised at how they bought the talking points on “patriarchy,” “right wing,” and “reproductive freedom” that the 74-year-old Steinem resuscitated. Steinem was on the same track she was on in a 1971 New York Times editorial that they also read.
But I shouldn’t have been surprised: Steinem’s language — and Obama’s community organizing, diversity dribble — has been the language young people grew up speaking in schools.
In addition, faculty and staff members openly displayed their support for Obama during this election. And they continue to promote the idea that Obama is the messiah.
Consider this fawning post by University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley Dean James Perry, linked on the university’s main web page next to the large advertisement for The Vagina Monologues (hat tip to English Professor Malcolm Allen).
Dean Perry’s verbal boot-licking should appall any self-respecting, independent-minded young person.
Dean Perry is the establishment. We are the rebels. And we need to tap into the rebellious nature of our students.
We need to tell them about something they value: freedom. And we need to do it in a genre they relate to — satire.
The other side has given us plenty to work with, like the Demi Moore pledge video of pontificating celebrity narcissists. And the hokey, pseudo-country/multicultural Born Again American pap put out by Norman Lear.
We’ve got the talent and the intellectual powerhouses. I know plenty of conservative Ph.D.s frozen out of tenure-track positions at universities, and plenty of writers and artists who can’t sell their work to the outlets controlled by the liberal publishers and producers. (Shameless self-promotion here: I’ve got several manuscripts.)
And some are already out there waiting for exposure. For example, take a look at this rendering of the MSM news as Uncle Jay Explains. I found it on the Uppity Woman blog. (Love the kitty graphics.)
We need to put these on the shows that young people watch.
Jonas Stankovich, a college student blogging at the New Majority, suggests that Republicans follow the lead of Republican economist Lawrence Lindsay and take their message to such arenas as The Daily Show.
That’s one good idea from the New Majority website.
But we don’t have to give up our social principles.
We just need the opportunity to expose the power-grabbing, fascistic traits of the current administration. It’s an administration that wants to take away our freedom to earn and use our money the way we want (the “stimulus” bill), the freedom to listen to and express opinions (the revival of the “Fairness” Doctrine, Obama’s public ridicule of conservative talk show hosts), the freedom to defend ourselves (assaults on the Second Amendment, aid to dangerous Palestinian refugees, the closing of Guantanamo), and the freedom to live (abortion on demand, rationed government health care).
We need to get this message out. It’s all about values.
This is where the Republicans have failed. They have focused too much on the short term and not enough on culture and education.
The left, on the other hand, began its project in 1962, when the SDS founders meeting in Port Huron outlined their strategy of infiltrating the universities. They won hearts and minds through a long process — not by compromising or looking to the short term. Barack Obama simply stepped into the position that had been prepared for him. The process began before he was born.
It’s always been a culture war. To ignore that fact is to continue with the strategies that have failed.
Great article! I’ve thought long & hard about this issue since the day of the 1996 election. First, going on the Daly Show won’t help. Daly would crucify us. We need to go directly to the students & reach them where they are. Creating specific websites for this would help as well as getting rid of all of the old fools in the party that gave us the last 2 “victories” in elections. Emphasize people like Bobby Jindal & compare Palin to Obama & let ‘em see who has the most experience…
If we loose all of the young people, our goose is cooked. We have virtually no minorities following us & the media is totally in the tank for the demos. Illegal aliens & the coming amnesty II bill will be just another nail in our coffin.
We need to wake up, clean house & get moving on this or get used to being the liberal party, so to speak, of the US.
Mary,
It’s all well and good to promote freedom and rebellion, but after watching GWB for eight years, why would anybody believe the GOP is serious about these values?
Actions speak louder than words.
Peace.
DS
I agree that the GOP can’t pander to young voters, because it comes across as insincere. But on the social things, if the GOP went a little bit more libertarian/federalist, it’d be able to tap into that group of young people who “just want to be left alone.” Issues like gay rights, legalization of marijuana, etc. should be state issues, and always state issues, and national GOP candidates should articulate that. It isn’t the federal government’s job to tell people how to run their lives, economically or socially. That’s a winning message both for the country and for the Republican Party.
Forget trying to find the “next Reagan.” Nobody will be Reagan. Let’s instead find solice in ideas, not figureheads. That’s what the Dems do.
I think Nick G. and David S. hit it exactly. The republicans completely lost their way. Congress failed to stand up the GWB when they needed to…the checks and balances failed and republicans were subsequently punished for it.
Not heeding reports of Fannie and Freddies imminent demise when they still had the votes to do something about it, shows republicans were more interested in compromise and being all things to all people (this is a democrat ideal not republican). I believe the lack of fortitude of the party has damaged it for years to come.
The infiltration of the universities started long before the SDS. Revisit the old play and later movie, “The Male Animal”. Nick has a point, but it doesn’t become clear to most until they’re out in the working world. The point, however, is to tap into the frustration over basic ideas that free speech and political correctness are incompatible.
Take the Lefties’ techniques and turn them against them. And, yes, David’s right, it would be nice to make sure, as a party, we stick to our principles. We need to make the RINO an endangered species.
As much as we need a new Reagan, we need a new Lee Atwater – with the edges filed down a little. Civility towards the mobsters on Pa. Ave. is a bulls*it idea. An Atwater-esque campaign would peel the bark all the way off the dem/lib concept. Lee would never, ever let the opponent choose his own running mate. That’s how Willie Horton ended up on the ’84 Dem. ticket. Lee would have beaten Obama like a rented mule with Wright, Ayers, Birth Cert., BAIPA etc. The generational theft porkulus act should become an emotional wedge issue from here on. Young America – You’ve been played!!!! Thanks for the trillion!
These college students are shabbily educated. They are so incredibly ignorant that it is mind-boggling. Unfortunately, they are also ego-tripping whack jobs. Their cultural milieu panders to their sense of entitlement. After all, we are supposed to be overly concerned about their self-esteem issues. The sad thing is that these abysmally ignorant youngsters believe they are brilliant and insightful people.
As someone who spends a bit of time with those in their early 20s, I don’t think their minds will be changed by conservative thought.
Most know no history, don’t think critically, don’t have clue about economics, are incurious, and yet surprisingly have all the answers.
That’s not to say I don’t enjoy them and a few might actually grow up someday. But in general, I don’t think we’ve got a whole lot of material to work with. Their lives are filled with lots distracting entertainment.
You’d have to start with kindergartners if you want to see any enlightenment.
See how well it worked liberalism?
I’m with Mary too, I like her prescription for action. In fact, I call it “retaking the high ground,” and I believe it starts in the academy. There are stealth conservatives active in today’s academy, and bloggers like Mary and others are doing great work crafting cogent and coherent arguments for conservative principles that are easily taken up by an active and interested mainstream.
I’m not at all disturbed by the idea of going on the Daily Show with John Stewart. In fact, if we were “crucified” that would even work to our benefit if it were done ad hominem, because even a less than well-educated adolescent can sense a lack of fairness. Let the hollywood establishment have at conservatives with all the smug narcissistic self-righteousness they can muster. It’ll only work against them.
Of course that is assuming that our conservative representatives are able to respond persuasively to not only the current arguments but to the ones Stewart and company are likely to haul out once the conservative starts winning the debate. It would take some serious preparation.
Finally, I’d love to see some sitcoms with conservative ideas. The success of Rush comes from his willingness to laugh and entertain. We need media-visible conservatives to loosen up, have some fun, and shoot some pointy barbs. Adams and Coulter are already doing this well, maybe we could enlist them to write a sitcom. What a romp that would be! And imagine the popularity. Imagine the sour looks on the faces of the ruling liberal elite!
We need NEW YOUNG voices of all races on stste issues, who can illustrate the dangers of socialism.
If you have the background, teach young people to shoot. Whoa, way out of leftfield you say? Not so. The shooting sports teach individual responsibility in a way that classrooms cannot. The young person who shoots also has something to lose from one of the core tenets of the liberal agenda – gun control. Drop me a note at rkeithvance@yahoo.com if you want to know how. I have a whitepaper on how I and three friends started a college gun club in California. Next week we’ll have a group of 50 university students up to the range. And we know how to be subversive when the opportunity presents itself;>)
Also, it is quite fair game to drop some facts about social (in)security. It’s a very bad investment and the kids are getting screwed. A bit of generational anger is going to be required to motivate our youth. The gov robbing their future ought to click.
I agree that we should not be intimidated into being “civil.” Do you think that is how the left has come into power? Not hardly.
Anger is a powerful tool and civility will get you walked on. Think Jesus in the temple overturning the tables. There’s a time and a place.
I think all this emphasis on technology is ridiculous without a coherent message and leader. Obama didn’t win due to email blasts. He won because he was Obama.
Some will say we need a positive message, but I frankly, am fine with one that says we’re against the liberals taking us down a path to socialism, to an expanded welfare state, to limited freedom to do what you want with your time and your money. What’s wrong with that message? Not much.
Let me tell you about my remarkable transformation. In my twenties I was a liberal, abortion-loving, socialist wannabe. Then I got married, had kids, paid taxes and worked all day. Everything changed. The Demon-crats will always outdo conservatives with the youth; they are willing to make promises of something-for-nothing that we won’t make on principle. This country has actually been closer to ruin and Socialism than it is now (Civil War, Great Depression). Let Obama make an ass of himself as he is destined to do. Make him own his blunders. And keep getting the message out. And yes, part of that message is respect for life.
Oops, missed a few words …..of…….for.
I also meant to add…. I don’t think our youth have any concept of socialism mainly because it has been incrementally encroaching our government during their lifetime. As far as they’re concerned, it’s just more of the same, thus nothing to compare it to.
Socialism, Marxism, Facism .. I hate to say it, but I’m not sure they would recognize any of it coming our way, until it interfered with their “entertainment.”
Socialism is just more of what we’re used to, more liberalism.
Which leads to the problem with have with media, and how we get our information.
Example: As conservatives, we know that the a “fairness doctrine” means that conservative voices will be suppressed. We are the extremists. That’s our “MO” as far as the education/media system has gone for decades. That’s what our young people know.
How will the doctrine work? Not well for us. But the word “fairness,” well, that makes it all right. Just like the word “choice” to describe the unions thugs taking over our workplaces soon.
Dominating almost all avenues of information allows you to frame the issue. As on NPR, so called “conservative” commentators are so whimpy and limp-wristed they couldn’t express even remotely any conservative concept with out apologizing. Pathetic. The fairness doctrine will just be more of the same on the media’s part, but it will silence even the smallest conservative voice.
I say again, changing young minds is not going to happen until you get a substantial piece of the education/media pie.
Where do I get that picture of Regan for a bumper sticker?
OK, I’m a little older than the age we’re discussing here, but not much. I’d say most people my age just want to have some hope. Give us hope that there’s something worth fighting for. Not that empty crap that O & team gave us but concrete values and opportunities. If the GOP can figure out how to have a MESSAGE again, then I think we can have a shot. But we have to forget civility. We have to stop playing the nice guy and letting the MSM act like idiots – we have to call interviewers and moderators on their biased questions and demand fair representation. We have to become a party you don’t feel ashamed to be a part of again! We also have to find fresh candidates – get the Bobby Jindals and Sarah Palins out to the forefront in exciting ways doing good things…
we don’t need “NEW YOUNG” voices, how about some new voices.i have watched the republican party starting with Rush just isolate people because they aren’t white. lets not start beating up whitey here because its not about the color. the illegal immigrant issue just polarized alot of people. just because i”m not white i got kicked out of conservative circles, i became one of “them”. when i go to Mexico, i am an American. A program on PBS showed Black American emigrants to South Africa being told by the Africans no, no you have not returned home you are an American.
the one line that cracks me up in America the beautiful is “land of the pilgrims pride” wait what? guess what, you did not bring me to this land and I am an American. I now have a pseudo socialist government, and i want a little more freedom. can i join a like minded party,and have a voice?
Great, another article about pointless navel gazing.
Simple answer, and the same one since, well, forever: get rid of the bible thumpers who want to have their god dictate everyone’s life, and get rid of the black helicopter crowd. In other words, a political party of sane people.
A minimum of 50% of the country wants nothing to do with god as put forth by many social conservative “republicans.” And I agree with them. Does that make them or me atheist? Of course not. God is fine. Those who assume they can invoke his name to dictate THEIR policy to the rest of us, however… not going to happen.
There are 3 parties right now. the dems/left, the independents, and the creationist alliance. The latter two are thrown together in a nasty mashup called republicans. You need to get rid of the creationist alliance part of it. That doesn’t mean the independents are going to start drawing pentagrams, either. It means that a national political party has absolutely NO stance on gay marriage one way or another. Period.
Ultimately, if you want to appeal to the masses, the first thing you do is leave your personal convictions about gays and abortion etc checked at the door. The left has convinced the young (via issues like gay marriage) that the “republicans” are out to lunch. This is low hanging fruit. Too easy to resist. It’s obvious the anti-gay types out to lunch. Even *I* know this, and I wouldn’t vote for Obama under threat of death.
Yes, it really is that simple.
However, the simple thing isn’t going to be done; too many of you are concerned with what amounts to the question of how to evangelize your students but in the latest and grooviest* fashion. Good luck with that.
*yeah groovy was purposeful here. That concept is really that far out of date.
Teenagers love the idea of a rebellion. We should hold the Republican convention in Boston and have a mock “tea party” Printed on each bag could be another nanny state provision implemented by the liberal left.
Likewise, in the age of “new and improved” slapped on every product so consumers give it a second look, they need to rebrand the Republican Party that way. Or rename it all together. The word Republican has been to demonized in comedy circuits, the news media, and internet social sites and blogs for young people to want to associate with.
Unrestrained GOP spending under GWB is in my opinion what eroded the last bit of credibility the GOP had. All that spending, didn’t buy the left’s hearts and minds, and made the GOP another brand of the left.
There is plenty of room for a rejuvenated Republican brand. There is a of common ground with values the left thinks are it’s.
1) Fiscal responsibility: Taxpayers understand it and will respond to it if there is a choice. McCain wasn’t credibile any more than GWB was credible on Fiscal responsibility. The media covered Obama as a fiscally responsible dem, that cover won’t be credible much longer in a post stimulus world.
2) Free speech: the GOP should skewer the left on restraints on free speech and should now take a stand against things McCain Feingold.
3) Technology. Why cede the cool tech gimicks to the left. Technology and transparency go hand in hand. The GOP should to start publishing everything they can to add transparency to the legistlative process.
4) Opportunity. The chance to make YOUR mark in the world. Embrace your opportunity. A page or two of Reagan would be great. Find some CEO’s with lots of shades of color ( not gates or buffet) who can speak to why freedom and opportunity made them great.
5) Limited government: railing against bureaucrats is so simple. Just do it.
6) Competence on immigration. We welcome all workers to the US, provided they can document where they came from provide legal history, wiave the ability to collect social dollars for 5 ( or whatever ) years and have goverment issued ID. Scale social dollars to life and work investment in the US.. If you are citizen and your life is here, of course you are eligible for help. If you just snuck in over the border, sorry it is a tougher standard.
Time for a new brand of republicans.
hmm. I considered myself a rebel(against my family’s values) from the time I was a teen. way back when, my siblings were doing the “rebel, *highly* what’s in it for me?” lifestyle. My mother, with her favorite, apropos motto of “everything I like is illegal, fattening or immoral” was rebelling too – against her mother’s traditional values. Despite having children at home, and expenses – she expected to be constantly bailed out on her bills because she was so irresponsible with her income (still is). They all embraced the “if it feels good, do it”, and someone *else* owed them their living. It made them “so happy”. Now, 30 years later, the differences between us are glaring. (my liberal mother didn’t want to vote for O *because* he’s black.)
My own teens and 20′s-somethings hate the “O”, and they do understand just how destructive of our personal freedoms his agenda will be. They rebel against the left too. my own computer geeky children came to me with something that is making the rounds of other like minded computer geeky young people. It’s in html code, and has the backslash in front of obama to “end obama”. or the young person who photoshopped the “o’s” face onto the evil villian from a mmponrpg. not all young people are spoiled brats that think the world owes them a living.
Freddie’s list of conservative principles that might sell are simple, but rebranding and just doing it, is not.
Who and where are those who will espouse those principles. Surely no anybody in Washington right now. Jindal has a religious problem. Palin as much as a love her, isn’t seasoned enough. Romney? maybe.
How would it happen? We haven’t been able to get rid of the RINO whimps, they’re always in front of the cameras representing us … they won’t go away. They get 1 thing right and 10 things horribly wrong.
No question we need a new brand, but how is that to be accomplished?
Much to his discredit, G. W. Bush “un-straightened” the Republican Party (bigger tent, you know,) and out-shined the Democrats in frittering away taxpayer dollars. Until those two fatal errors are corrected, I will have nothing to do with the Republican Party, and no true Conservative should either!
University students in artsy fartsy courses
are going to be for the most part liberals.
They don’t have real world marketable skills.
The only consumer for their goods is some
level of government.
To them cuts to government spending is immoral,
except for the military. In fact most of them
are unable to present a coherent knowledgeable
argument. They just regurgitate crap their
professors presented.
Thirty five years ago I heard Castro
was a moderate, Ho was a moderate, The US
started the Vietnam war to change the diet
of the region to grain and so on and so on.
The favorite tactic of leftist professors
is to ignore inconvenient truths.
It takes a lot of guts to question your
held beliefs, especially in the face of a
hostile environment. It takes a lot of
reading outside the course outline and
listening to arguments that make you
uncomfortable.
Leftists use the public school system to
project shadows on the wall for the masses.
The puppet masters go to private schools,
just like the Obama kids. The public schools
are the setup men for the universities.
I have much to say in this regard, but let me say that with all due respect, G. Alston whoever you are, you are an idiot. Not only do you not know a thing about the American form of government as created by our Founders, your electoral strategy would keep you the loser you are, and all libertarians are. If the right decides to blow off the “Bible Thumpers” (99% of whom don’t give a flying crap about how you live your life) Republicans will be in the minority forever.
Ok, now I got that out of the way, as long as the left controls the cultural influence professions (media, entertainment, education) the right’s vision of government and society will always lack plausibility with apolitical Americans. All other strategies are fine as far as they go, but culture determines worldview, determines elections.
And I suggest we dump the label conservative as I argue in a piece at The American Culture (http://stkarnick.com/blog2/2009/02/post_219.html#). Classical liberalism is much more accurate and doesn’t have the baggage conservative does, especially for young people. And it has the benefit of being more accurate.
I see a lot of lets fight back against the con job put
over on Americans by the Democrats and Media elites.
My observation is that over time the Democrats and new-
Democrats are Communists, the Republicans are quasi-
socialist and Independents are the desperate, never
idiologically squared individuals who want to be Americans
that are treated fairly, are appreciated and not treated
to political trype by anyone.
Historically the Communists have had imigrant families
in America as far back as the 1920′s and they have
infiltrated every imaginable part of American life with
one job, that being to subvert at every level. It was
the World Communist plan, a 100 year plan and if you
wonder why the one World government the senior Bush
envisioned and the unexplained Republican spending and
no fight against Democrat attacks the past eight years
you may have the insight to see that all of us have been
played. The Democrats and Republicans have been playing
good cop bad cop with us since the early part of the last
century. What happened to the AMERICAN ECONOMY, American
production and industrial strength. Trade between the
states was sufficient for a great lifestyle and progress
with security if one was willing to work and seek self
improvement. Charity took care of the needy, government
was small and helpful to workers when greed poked its
ugly head up to gain more profit at the expense of polution
and worker health. We were never perfect but as America
we were on our way to better and better generations in
all areas of life.
Subversion has been warned of for years and years but now
it is not in our collective memory, what was warned of is
now our reality. A world in shambles is a Communists
dream for takeover, look around the World and see the
result of their influence. It may be to late but it is
never to late to go down swinging. Stay tuned in to right
thinking people like Mary and for those of you who want to
loose God well there you go eating from the Communist
trash bag, prayer has made us great for hundreds of years
and will continue to do so if what we want is good and
not evil. Young people are very spiritually oriented until
they are beaten down in school, work and at home with
a Godless agenda. Remember the Communists have been at work
in all of our houses of Faith undermining belief, turning
right into wrong, good into evil………making room for
sin and making sin the norm or an option smiled upon.
Keep on working for the right, be good, be honest and open
with everyone, otherwise the very liberty to speak will
be like in one of those bad movies where you are picked
up at night and will disappear as an enemy of the state.
Best Regards, Bill
Freedom, not peace as I can give you ‘peace’ (as I define it) at the point of a gun. Frugality and stewardship. Responsibility and family. Life and choice. I am pro-abortion if the child being born is allowed to make his or her ‘choice’ when each to-be-aborted human hits the age of their majority and their choice – whatever it turns out to be – is found to be valid and independent by a jury of their peers. One person making a death choice for another – no matter their circumstances or mistakes – is murder.
ZZapp writes:
“Let me tell you about my remarkable transformation. In my twenties I was a liberal, abortion-loving, socialist wannabe. Then I got married, had kids, paid taxes and worked all day. Everything changed.”
ZZapp, can I get an amen! Well said, young man!
Nick G. and especially the mewling David S. (“Peace” my a**!) should get over this Bush ruined everything. In fact, David S., park the “Bush’s fault” mantra where the son dosen’t shine. It’s gettign old fast.
One cannot say in one breath that we should forget Reagan and remember Bush. If you bring up George Bush then you should be prepared to invoke the memory of Ronald Reagan as well.
Mary has called for us to rally instead of sitting here chewing our cud and gassing about how bad thing’s are going to be.
Maybe many of you here are too young to remember the Carter years when the MSM had a vice-like lock on the public’s attention and yet we grew so disgusted with that sack of crap that he was toast before the California polls closed in 1980.
Those who are/will be in the same situation that the now-wise ZZapp is will have the same epiphany: “Oh, now that I am a taxpayer, I gotta pay for all those sluggards. Oh, now I get it!”
So when that epiphany comes, who’s this young new-working stiff to turn to? The grumbling old farts and fartesses over here on PJM who do nothing but complain about how good things used to be or some new visionary movement that offers them the chance to keep their hard-earned money and not dole it out to the masses.
Let’s face it people, this new Joke-in-Chief and the idiot broad running the House are well on their way to overstepping their bounds. I believe they have “mis-underestimated” the American public with their cavalier regard for the working, tax-paying middle class. They will pay for this miscalculation but only if we are prepared to take the initiative.
It seems like we have gone full circle back to the 60′s and 70′s where there was an equivalent divisiveness between the Dem’s and the Pub’s. The young (aka College students) including myself were sold a bill of goods that we were “injured” and anything short of a Pub was “evil” and they were to blame for everything wrong with our society. Unfortunately, there were aspects of it that were true and that was the hook that made “socialism” marketable. Like many of my peers, I dropped out and turned on and embraced the emerging entitlement movement. I thought this was the way to personal honorable freedom. And then I became employed in the “system” and REALITY. I cannot state with any certainty that there was a defining moment, situation or event, but one day I realized that I was a conservative through and through. I also know that my metamorphous was not taken lightly and not without a lot of deep thought, analysis and observation. There came a point that I could no longer participate in a system that in my youth I so idealistically embraced. I retired early. Now, I stand before you and can equivocally state with shame and humility that without a doubt government entitlement programs enable and perpetuate social blight on our Nation. People like me who worked, utilized or retired from these programs need to come forward and tell the truth.
To David S: Maybe your impression of the former President has all been clouded in MSM attacks-cum-Democrat war?? Writer Fred Barnes showed in his book ‘Rebel-in-Chief’ that GWB both were a champion of freedom in foreign policy and so against currents still running (in) the State Department..!
Historian Andrew Roberts has also written about ‘W’ to this effect, and slowly the backwater of stale politics in the US and Europe is coming round to the conclusion that GWB was a revolutionary leader—though, sadly, ineffectual outside nourishing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq..
Democrats are now in the driver’s seat re US policy and if they decide to run an ‘international agenda’ they will be sacked in 2010..
Obama’s economic policy is likely to fail in the short term or so is the opinion of many ‘experts’.. Cf. Obama’s steep fall in popularity after four weeks in office!
#25 Mike D’Virgilio — “If the right decides to blow off the “Bible Thumpers” (99% of whom don’t give a flying crap about how you live your life) Republicans will be in the minority forever.”
At least half of the voters think that the religious want to tell them how to live their lives. Whether they do or they don’t isn’t and wasn’t the point. It’s about perception. Deliberately not adopting religious positions as a platform isn’t the same thing as blowing off the religious, although the same thing is achieved. Adding ‘how you live your life planks’ (e.g. abortion and/or gay rights) immediately loses half of the voters. Just like that. And while I know this is an elusive concept for you, do try to keep up: the idea is to get enough votes to win.
3 Nick G, 18 GAlston, and 20 FreddieFunky are on to the platform that can swing the pendulum back toward liberty. The pendulum has been swinging socialist for about 100 years with one respite in the 80′s. Most of the new rebel platforms put out there (e.g., Glen Beck) list out platforms that include controversial religion-based elements in the platform, and ask people to sign on even if they only agree with the rest of the platform. This can be a hard sell especially when those other elements have so often been ignored once elected. It would be easy to get popular support for a platform like FreddyFunkie’s, which takes no position on the social/religious issues, and simply invites all to sign on who want to be more free.
Polls have been cited here and elsewhere that show that the majority of Americans still want less government and regulation of their lives. Apparently, many who want smaller government just can’t accept the tag along issues when they cast their votes. Counting just on independents who will always pick the less socialist option, and who put the other freedoms on a lower priority, just isn’t cutting it. If Republicans increase the marginal difference between the parties on economic freedom (a difference that has become far too thin) and decrease the marginal difference on the social/religious issues then the American spirit could be tapped into and liberty might reign again.
Social conservatives ask fiscal conservatives (libertarians, indepenedents or what have you) to hold their noses and vote with them for the shared belief in fiscal conservatism. This plea assumes that fiscal conservatism is the more important and uniting principle. I agree with that. So how about it, social conservatives? Can you do half as much as you ask others to do? Can you support a platform that takes no position on abortion or gay marriage or the like? Unlike what social conservatives have been expecting of others, this does not require anyone to accept a platform that adopts a position opposite of his own. It just asks that we accept that politics and government isn’t the venue to resolve disagreements about these issues (because of freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc.). Can we put the social issues aside, to be dealt with outside of government, and take back our country?
@28. Войска ПВО:
The first step in fixing the problem with the GOP is to acknowledge that there is a problem, and to identify the cause of this problem. The GOP is no friend of freedom if the past eight years are any indication. You are in denial, and until you come to terms with the real damage done to our country by the Republican party, you are doomed to advocate the same failed policies. And for the record, the “son” doesn’t shine.
Invoke them both, but try to be honest about it. Reagan was not a great President, and had more than his share of failures, many of which GWB repeated. The only reason the GOP considers Reagan a great president is that they have such low standards after Nixon.
Except that many of those same people just watched the value of their entire lifetime of investment drop by more than 30% under the GOP. They are likely to see the Democrats as better stewards of the nation and the economy after the unremitting GOP failures of 2001-2009.
The Democrats’ regard for the middle class is much better than the complete disregard demonstrated by the GOP. This is a big part of why Obama won the Presidency, along with large majorities in the House and Senate.
The GOP needs to reinvent itself. The only way to flank and defeat the Democrats now is to focus like a laser on liberty – but the GOP is too obsessed with their fancy new Police State to see that it is an obstacle to their returning to power. Eventually the lesson will be learned, but by then the GOP will have lost many more elections. Best of luck.
Peace.
DS
GA, you know how hard it is for we Bible thumpers to keep up. The fact which you obviously refuse to acknowledge is that it isn’t Bible believing Christians who tell people how to run their lives, it is the totalitarian left. This IS the point. Your pragmatism in the pursuit of 50 plus one is disturbing. To hell with the truth, let’s pretend what the mainstream media and Hollywood and education preaches is true about Christians who take their faith seriously, and marginalize them.
You are so invested in your distortion of such Christians that you actually think positions against abortion or same sex marriage are “how you live your life planks,” and that there are only bible based reasons against them. Since you a good at caricature and stereotype there probably is no hope for you, but there are plenty of completely good secular reasons to be against both. In a pluralistic society we cannot depend on people accepting biblical arguments for policy, so we don’t! That is why classical liberalism and the values of the Founding of our country should be the foundation of our political and social philosophy. That is the way toward 50 plus one.
Please remember that 46% of the voters did not want Obama as President. Of course, the Left will say they are all racists. But you know better. And among the 46%, a lot of those votes were more for Palin than McCain. While it’s true that Liberal (and worse) dominate the media, schools, and arts, that was also true when Reagan swept through two terms. Some of you may recall that the media portrayed him as not-too-bright (remind you of something?!). And Reagan made pronouncements that were absolutely antithetical to Liberal core myths. We do not need a Reagan for electoral success but we do need a Conservative, and one with wit, good humor, and a willingness to mix it up vocally. There will always be Republican (mostly East Coasters and RINOs) who claim GOP success will be served by becoming more like Democrats–embracing identity politics and losing some desire for freedom. So, all is not lost even if the media make it seem like the end. Try to keep some perspective and in the meantime, don’t play nice. There is more than enough material to work with even if the Republican National Committee is incompetent.
There are very few, if any, politicians in Washington who are not there for power. Neither “party” stands for individual freedom and limited government.
You don’t remember a shrinking government, or a lower Federal budget, because they never happen. This monster is going to grow until it dies. If we’re lucky, it’ll go peacefully, like the USSR.
@34. Mike D’Virgilio:
So Bible believing Christians had nothing to do with Prop 8, or violent opposition to abortion rights? That’s an odd argument.
Really? Why do the proponents of these policies rely so much on religious doctrine, rather than explaining these “completely good secular reasons”? I would love to know what you consider a good secular reason to restrict abortion rights and refuse marriage rights to gays.
Adhering to the values in the Constitution means not interfering in the private medical decisions of others, or their choice of spouse. The government has no business telling gays that they can’t be married, or telling women they can’t manage their own health. This is what a pluralistic society requires. Is that really so hard to understand?
Peace.
DS
#34 Mike D’Virgilio — “You are so invested in your distortion of such Christians that you actually think positions against abortion or same sex marriage are “how you live your life planks,” and that there are only bible based reasons against them.”
Let’s assume you can name a perfectly valid secular reason to outlaw abortion. I rather doubt this is true, but… so? Anyone who wants an abortion can easily afford a flight out of the country to get a procedure done or take a pill. It’s about 1 or 2 day’s pay for anyone in the middle class to buy that flight. It simply doesn’t matter what reason you have or think you have, and it doesn’t matter if you outlaw it. Technology trumps.
Abortion and so on doesn’t belong in a party platform not merely because it’s 99% a religious argument, but also because that particular battle was lost the day that jet travel was introduced. Picking battles that are winnable seems like a more productive thing for a national political party to do.
#’s 19 and 25 have got something, I LOVE the tea party thing-that could work, it’d need to be totally hyped by secretive commercials purporting the biggest rebel party EVER (and needs to be done quickly like in backlash to the present bill and the new one that we’re going to need because this last one wasn’t big enough!!?!!?)! Oh and instead the British thing, we’d need toplaster effigies of the Pelosi and reid and so forth…
And at the same time, relance the republican party with the euro version of a liberal (economic liberal, it is as hated by the socialist left here in france as is the republican in the US, HOWEVER the ideas are what got Sarkozy re-elected after the more socialist chirac, as well as throwing out alot of the dead conservative been there forever weight…and all this helped beat out Royale). Believe me, there are people inEurope that really admire American capitalism and the freedom, France hasa televsion show directed torwards younger people called “capital” Please, please save the US from socialism…
David S:
Firstly, thank you for the courteous reply. I appreciate your counterpoints but do not agree with most of them.
“The first step in fixing the problem
with the GOP is to acknowledge that there
is a problem.”
I agree in part with this. A previous response to Mary’s column characterized it accurately when it expressed frustration with the GOP’s ineptitude. I am no friend of the current day GOP precisely because it frittered away opportunities and lay down with the flea-ridden Democrats who caused the mess. I speak of Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, and their running dog lackeys Snow, McCain, and the other enablers.
“Invoke them both, but try to be honest
about it. Reagan was not a great President,
and had more than his share of failures..
The only reason the GOP considers Reagan a
great president is that they have such low
standards after Nixon.”
How conveniently one forgets that consummate tool and inept peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia. Now there’s a real role model and a POTUS that has set a high bar for ineptitude that TCPOTUS (hat tip: Diana) is bound to exceed.
“Except that many of those same people
just watched the value of their entire
lifetime of investment drop by more than
30% under the GOP. They are likely to see
the Democrats as better stewards of the
nation and the economy after the unremitting
GOP failures of 2001-2009.”
Forty percent of mine evaporated over the last four months but I do not hold GW Bush entirely responsible nor, for all of their collective bumbling, the GOP. I do hold responsible the Democrats who, since the Clinton administration have forced institutions to make loans to less-than-attractive borrowers and the other attendant crap. A lot of this has been very well documented both on PJM and abroad on the internet; rather than my resurrecting the citations, I suggest you do some research before hurling out your unsubstantiated blandishments.
“The Democrats’ regard for the middle class
is much better than the complete disregard
demonstrated by the GOP. This is a big part
of why Obama won the Presidency, along with
large majorities in the House and Senate.”
Wow! thanks for the humor! It is a pretty bleak, rainy day out here in California and I needed a good laugh. The Democrats — in my opinion — have no regard for anyone except themselves and maintaining their hold on power. The Republican party is only slightly less culpable of that accusation. I hold any federal government office holder in very low esteem, reserving particular enmity for liberal Democrats.
“The GOP needs to reinvent itself. The
only way to flank and defeat the Democrats
now is to focus like a laser on liberty..”
I do agree with this although, I take exception to your “police state” language, it is unbecoming and labels you as the wild-eyed leftist you are.
..and unto you, peace, man.
GA & DS, I’m not saying that Christians don’t bring their biblically based values to the debate. You are saying those values are invalid because they are religiously based. It’s really pathetic when otherwise intelligent people want to marginalize an entire class of people because they think their views are invalidated by where they come from. Your secular values are just as much, and I would argue more so, faith based as anyone elses.
You mention the Constitution, but ignore the foundational document of our country, the Declaration of Independence. You libertarian types like to ignore this document, because Jefferson had the bad manners to mention God in it. Can you imagine, we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights! The right to life is foundational to America, and life in the womb is no exception. Science tells us a new life is created at the moment of conception, a new person with new DNA, separate from father or mother. Don’t give me this crap that it is only religion that argues for the personhood of this new human being. You may draw the line at birth, like Roe does, or 7 months or 5 or whatever, but a line must be drawn. I choose to err on the side of life when we know life is created. Your arguments, airplanes, technology and all are weak, inconsistent and arbitrary.
As for same sex marriage, it isn’t Christians in 2008 who decided that the state has a vested interest in men and women successfully raising each new generation. By every measure children do better in a stable, two parent families, and those being parents as defined for all of recorded history in every society known to man. Your ideology blinds you to a simple, empirical fact: men and women are different. Children are more well adjusted when being reared with the different perspectives and different natures both bring. This is why societies in all of history happened to coincidentally come down on the side of marriage naturally being an opposite sex affair. It is the secular left that seeks through the courts to push its agenda on America.
But we’re not interested in hashing this out there. You are simply ignorant of all the powerful arguments, philosophical, secular and religious that argue for the traditional position. You buy into the facile and fallacious distortion that the left has painted on all religious people, and it’s a shame you so uncritically buy into it.
Forty percent of mine evaporated over the last four months but I do not hold GW Bush entirely responsible nor, for all of their collective bumbling, the GOP. I do hold responsible the Democrats who, since the Clinton administration have forced institutions to make loans to less-than-attractive borrowers and the other attendant crap. A lot of this has been very well documented both on PJM and abroad on the internet; rather than my resurrecting the citations, I suggest you do some research before hurling out your unsubstantiated blandishments.
And how many people in your position would be willing to calmly and logically work out the explanation for their misery? Very few. The rest just buy into the “Bush did it” line the MSM is stuffing into their ears 24/7/365. News flash: NOBODY BELIEVES IT’S THE DEMOCRATS’ FAULT, and as long as the news media have any say in the matter, nobody ever WILL believe it.
It’s always good advice to stick to what you know . . . play to your strengths. Conservatives aren’t rebels by nature. They’re conformists. They crave certainty and they don’t like risk. They’re better at proclamation than self-deprecation. Liberals on the other hand don’t covet the status quo. They’d rather laugh at the noisy, boisterous unknown than nod solemnly at conventional wisdom. Both young people and new media respond better to the liberal view of the world. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Conservatives bet the farm on cable and talk radio. It worked and now it’s done. The future is being shaped by someone else’s hands.
You say that Palin was disliked by women because of people like Gloria Steinham, and liberals in general.
I think you’re wrong. The women I knew were turned off by Palin because they didn’t like her personally, and because they didn’t think she was ready to be President. A number of them also think McCain only picked her because she was a woman – - a token – - and Repbulicans shouldn’t move ahead because of tokenism.
Cough – - Michael Steele – - Cough…
People, you must not engage David S. He is never wrong. His points are double and triple checked on Wikipedia, for goodness sakes. Seriously, I am shocked one of his intellect stoops so low as to debate our conservative beliefs. Besides, it is common knowledge that every ill in our society -economic, cultural, military, etc – are caused 100% by Republican policy. Its true. Just ask Davis S.! And if you refuse to believe this then I insist you check with his pal mister man.
I graduated from Cal Berkeley in 1990. 95% of my friends and classmates were rank liberals who thought Jesse Jackson would be a great president, “diversity” was only meaningful if compulsory, marajuana should be legal, AIDS is nobody’s fault but evil Republicans, the US is responsible for the third world’s plight, Communism is a great system badly implemented, trickle-down economics is unfair… I could go on and on. You remember the 80′s. Anyway these students didn’t acquire these views from their college professors, they showed up on campus already thinking this way. They were the top students in their high schools and probably more informed and engaged than most of their peers. How did they become such leftists? Answer: high school teachers and the media. If we ignore the propaganda from the high school teachers we are missing a huge chunk of the problem. We all know to be suspect of the media but we forget that some of those teens are actually listening in their classes and absorbing the left-wing dogma that will become the future’s policy.
David S; After reading your comments on PMJ, who wold imagine that you have any decent values whatsoever?
After reading you regurgitate democrat taking points, who would think that you have anything meaningful to say whatsoever?
After watching you trot out your narcissistic delusions of self importance why would anyone take you seriously at all.
Note: No pubic man in the world today as stood taller or more courageously for freedom and rebellion against tyranny than George Bush. Ask the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ask the faimlies of those who died on 911. But then you knew that.
@45. Kevin:
Your faith is humbling.
Why would I debate only with people who agree with me? That would be pointless.
Are you going to provide any citations? Nobody claimed Republican policy causes 100% of the ills in our society. You are arguing against your own strawman, Kevin. I know it is frustrating for you that the echo chamber here includes a diversity of opinion. However, you might note that I am not here just to rip apart faulty arguments – I also have contributed my own insights on what the Republican party can do to improve.
I keep returning to this site because I have hope that the GOP can return from the wilderness as a more principled and disciplined party. The USA needs at least two viable parties to maintain balance in our government. The GOP has been distracted and lost focus on the important values that underlie our Republic. If the GOP returns to a true focus on fiscal responsibility, building an efficient and effective social safety net, and protecting the liberties we hold dear, without getting caught up in social policy on gays rights and abortion, I feel it can be a very positive force in the nation.
It is also very interesting and entertaining to see all the different views, and the rationales (or lack thereof) that people use to support them here. Thanks for keeping things lively.
Peace.
DS
David S. wrote about “violent opposition to abortion rights.” David, please tell me when the last abortion clinic bombing was. I believe it was about 12 or 15 years ago. And “violent opposition to abortion” has always been roundly condemned by the overwhelming majority of pro-life activists. There is a huge march in DC every year on the anniversity of Roe v. Wade (needless to say, it’s barely covered by the MSM) and those people do not, and have never advocated violence. So please don’t haul out the “wild-eyed, violent anti-abortion nuts.” It’s like saying that the 19th century abolitionists were all insane nutters because of John Brown.
Pro-lifers honestly and deeply believe that abortion is murder. Are they supposed to just keep their mouths shut and go along with the program – because it makes people like you uncomfortable?
@40. Войска ПВО:
Likewise.
Carter may not have been a great President, but he presided over a more fiscally responsible government, and a more robust economy, than Bush. Despite his faults, he could have done much worse. In spite of your thoughts on Obama, there is little reason to suspect at this time that he will do worse, aside from the economic crisis he faces.
I have had the pleasure of correcting many posters here who keep insisting, against all evidence, that the economy was a victim of the Democrats. Quite frankly, the Bush administration had all the tools at its disposal to defuse this crisis years ago, but instead let the bubble grow for years. Both parties are culpable to some degree, but the overwhelming share of blame falls to the Bush administration’s inaction.
You are entitled to your opinion, but unless you offer supporting evidence, it’s hard to see why you believe this, or why it should apply to the Democrats more than to the Republicans.
I’m glad we can, at least to some degree, see eye to eye. I think we have more in common than labels like “wild-eyed leftist” do justice to. Thanks again for the thoughtful reply.
Peace.
DS
Not until the liberal republican philosophy of the Founders (small, limited government supported by civic virtue) is seen as just and morally superior, and that socialism is seen as unjust will there ever be hope of winning the argument.
In the 60′s, the rebellious youth and rock bands were very “anti-establishment”. What happened to turn them into backers of big government?
#32 TL.. you have it right exactly. What role does the government really need to have in social issues? Why spend your political chips in arguing the merits of social policy. My simple view is that government mandated social views is government overreach.
Example: Why does the government really need to know if you are married or not.. for a tax break? Custody laws? Why do they really need to legislate it? Run with the ideal of taking goverment out of marriage. Let Marriage be a religious choice, not a government benefit. Why not just file individual taxes for everyone. If a partner ship dissovles then courts need to help work out custody plans. That is fine.
Why does the government NEED to be in abortion. I didn’t see it anywhere in the constitution. Leave it up to the doctors or AMA. Why spend political energy on it. Call it a medical decision and leave it at that.
I argue that these issues hang republicans in the media and at the ballot box. I would let the dems argue with themselves. I would call them all out of scope, and a waste of politicians time and energy. Then I would focus on the basic tenets of good government. Really what is so hard about it.
Limit the republican scope to governing policies and therefore arguements that repubilicans tend to win.
Simple is better.
Thank you for this post, but somehow I don’t feel it adds up. It rather documents an ill, says that the establishment caused this, then says we need to promote the idea of freedom to counter the establishment. While saying this, it ignores the very fact that it just conceded the ability of the establishment to ensnare young minds, and the second half of your post moves through ways of countering the Left lightning-fast with no coherent thought given as to why the Right is shut out everywhere. Only at the end you mention culture and education and the fact that the Left took over the university (and, by extension, our entire public school system at that point).
Education is the opposite of freedom in many ways. To have an independent mind requires discipline, a willingness to submit to pain, careful and deliberate consideration before making choices. Education does train one to use freedom properly, yes: but an improper use of freedom still is considered “freedom.” It has to be, otherwise there is no freedom.
If you want to argue that conservatives need to take back the academy and the culture and the media, you need to document how bad the situation is and then argue from what’s feasible. A few anecdotes won’t do the trick.
Right now, what we need is a way of reaching everyone who’s younger – you’re absolutely correct about that. But I don’t think appealing to freedom alone is going to work: we need to show them we can empower them, that we do care for their career prospects. Because the Left has control of the schools and so much bureaucracy, they’re seen as those who do care for their students’ futures. The Right has neglected the young, when you really think about it, in some criminal ways the last few decades.
Speaking as a young person who used to be very left wing until recently I can tell you exactly why so many people are democrats. It’s because the liberals control the entertainment industry. Kids simply grow up believing Repblicans are evil racist ignorant rednecks that love killing people and destroying the environment because that’s what they’re shown. And then when they get to college it’s just reinforced by their liberal college professors. And now most of them are liberals for life except the rare few that see through their bullshit like I did. So the only way to counter this is to get more conservatives in the entertainment business basically.
Carter may not have been a great President, but he presided over a more fiscally responsible government, and a more robust economy, than Bush.
“A more robust economy?” Thanks for the laughs, David S!
I don’t remember stagflation being a problem from 2001-2009 (although I fear it’s coming), or a prime interest rate of 18.75% The economy began declining in Nov. 2006 (and I seem to remember that something happened that month, some sort of elections were held, weren’t they?)
You must be very young David S. Too young to know what you don’t know and certainly too young to remember the Golden Age of Jimmah Peanut.
jb wrote:
In the 60’s, the rebellious youth and rock bands were very “anti-establishment”. What happened to turn them into backers of big government?
Well, we found out a while back that “anti-establishment” stuff was a crock, because as soon as the old hippies got tenure in universities and became “the establishment” themselves, they began foisting speech codes and political correctness on their students. “Question Authority” – but not theirs! “Do your own thing?” No, that’s been changed to “My way or the highway, bud.”
Or as an old ’60′s band told us: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Today’s young are ignorant of history and the values of western culture except as they are presented by the left’s perverted version of it. As a group they value sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
I believe that Obama’s blackness appealed to people not because of his superficial message of hope and change but because of that same subtext of sex, drugs, rock and roll that characterizes much of modern black culture and the white liberal wannabies who embrace thug life and the nihilism that goes with it.
We must turn communities against the universities and the intelligensia who are undermining this country. They don’t represent freedom of thought. They represent absence of thought. Mao was not wrong to humble the elite by forcing them to do real work in the fields and in the factories. This situation can be turned around provided that we are sufficiently ruthless to do it.
The party’s image is not just an appearance – it IS the republican party. Grand Old Party = conservative. To market something conservative as rebellious and fresh is intellectually dishonest. What a silly article. It just reminds me why I so rarely both to visit this opinion site anymore. Next time I want a stupid opinion based on the emotions of the losing party, I’ll just talk to my grandmother.
It just reminds me why I so rarely both to visit this opinion site anymore.
Nobody has missed you in the slightest. I feel sorry for your poor grandmother – what a sorry schmuck she has for a grandchild.
Now, begone pesky brat, don’t you have X-box to play with?
It’ll take these idiots a decade or more, if that, to climb back in. It’ll be quicker if they can get rid of the racists label though. At McCain/Palin rallies were only white people, except for secret service & media. In addition, they need to care more for what is right for the country, like education, health care and the environment. And all of that country first crap will fall on deaf ears. Hell, we all love this country, and when they try to paint the Dems as anti-American they get absolutely nowhere.
@ 52
They figured out if they played the game, they could get the power and *be* the establishment .
David S.
~Carter may not have been a great President, but he presided over a more fiscally responsible government, and a more robust economy,
~~~~~~~~~~~
ROFLMAO!!!!!!! oh, that was good. You obviously aren’t old enough to remember what life was like under with him as POTUS.
For a bit of good news you might want to look at this over at Jawa Report:
SFSU College Republicans Held Anti-Hamas Event, Step On Hamas Flag & Rage Ensues
ked5:
So true. Carter is what cemented my move to the right.
God what a catastrophe that idiot was!
I think the writer of the article touched on something in her last paragraph concerning SDS. I have read the Port Huron Statement recently. It is a very shrewd analysis of the political situation facing these marxists. Essentially, they realized that they were too weak to defeat the “moral majority”:
“. . . the Dixiecrat-GOP coalition is the weakest point in the dominating complex of corporate, military and political power. But the civil rights and peace and student movements are too poor and socially slighted, and the labor movement too quiescent, to be counted with enthusiasm. From where else can power and vision be summoned? We believe that the universities are an overlooked seat of influence.”
They defeated the prevailing traditional western idea of the university by exploiting racial, and eventually sexual, grievance. They established themselves as idealists while simultaneously performing the hard everyday task of political infighting and hard work. To me, as someone who remembers the SDS as a very insignificant and puny group of guys who had trouble getting dates their climb to power and influence is amazing.
If anyone here wants to really understand Obama and the Democratic Party please google Port Huron Statement and read it. Or at least skim it. Its rather long and even incoherent but a truly remarkable and prescient document.
And don’t forget, the author Tom Hayden eventually married Jane Fonda. Not a bad score for a dweeb.
It’ll be quicker if they can get rid of the racists label though.
Oooooh, JackT is here with the scary “racist” word everyone. Hide under your beds, folks, a libtard is brandishing the biggest weapon he’s got, the dreaded “r” word. LOL! Those darn racist Republicans – wait, didn’t Bush have Norm Mineta and Colin Powell and Condi Rice in his cabinet? Oh, but they don’t count since they’re not really black – they’re Republicans (although Powell endorsed Obambi so I guess he’s black again in the eyes of white libs, who get to determine who’s black and who isn’t.)
JackT, I do believe baked squash takes up the space between your ears. I haven’t seen it produce anything resembling thought.
The GOP needs to explain to the public that the government jobs created by the patronage stimulus package will end as soon as the stimulus funding runs out.
And OTOH that money could have been spent on tax breaks for businesses — which would have created long term private sector jobs.
You want a purely secular reason for banning abortion? How about the 14th Amendment- equal protection under the law. Medically and scientifically speaking, there can be no question that a fetus is a human, and thus ought to be entitled to protection under the Constitution.
And to answer your question about social conservatives abandoning principle to vote for fiscal conservatives- the answer is a resounding absolutely not. Abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, embryonic stem cell research and gay marriage are non-negotiable issues. Social conservatives consider like me consider them a litmus test, and we will not vote for anyone who supports any one of those abominations. We absolutely agree with fiscal conservatives about fiscal policy, but it is not the most important part of the conservative stool. We embrace all the fiscal conservative’s policies, but we will not vote for someone who does not accept our values. Don’t believe me? Look at who was pushing the Fair Tax during the primaries: Huckabee, Hunter and Paul, not the fiscal conservative’s idol Mitt Romney. If voting our values means we are doomed to permanent minority status, then the country I love is on its deathbed. If so, good riddance. We’ll just have to wait for the King of Kings to subdue the evils of this world.
60. JackT:
“It’ll take these idiots a decade or more, if that, to climb back in. It’ll be quicker if they can get rid of the racists label though. At McCain/Palin rallies were only white people, except for secret service & media.”
~
Huh? Say WHAT? Don’t be a complete, slobbering dolt. The reason there weren’t many people of color at JM/SP rallies is because the MAJORITY of BLACKS AND HISPANICS were lib voting Barack-0-BOTS. Don’t worry your pretty, little head, when illegal “Brown” gets to stick around and our dollars aren’t worth a dime and the tax-system becomes enslavement, there will be a lot of people re-thinking the stupidity of their voting for a whitey-hatin’ racist, Marxist, narcissistic psychopath.
Until the Republican Party cleanses itself of the religious fundamentalists, you’ll never get the youth vote. But you’ll never do that, because the religious fundamentalists keep the party coffers full. So good luck on that long journey through the wilderness.
David S. said:
“~Carter may not have been a great President, but he presided over a more fiscally responsible government, and a more robust economy,”
This one statement has now negated anything David has said on this thread.
I would like to underscore the point that the right, religious and otherwise, are not in the business of telling you how to live your life (except under the rule of law). It’s the hard left with their nanny-statism and control-freakism. That difference is the potential appeal to the young.
#69 mythbuster — “And to answer your question about social conservatives abandoning principle to vote for fiscal conservatives- the answer is a resounding absolutely not.”
The overall question was how to get more votes. Social conservatives are not even the majority of the GOP, much less the majority of the electorate. Pushing the GOP in that direction is how you get FEWER votes, not more; the object is to get more votes.
(See Steve P at #71.)
There is no reason that a national political party should include a social conservative agenda of any variety.
For example I give you Prop 8. Lots of voters turned out to defeat that, but these voters didn’t vote for the GOP candidate. Some of you look at this and say “Aha! This proves that voters are socially conservative therefore the answer is MORE of it.” Meanwhile a move to ban abortion in SD failed badly in a Red state. It was the second resounding defeat in as many election cycles. So maybe more of it isn’t the answer.
What this says is that social issues are seen by the voters not as a big lump, but individual resolutions. It follows that people who vote to allow abortions may not necessarily support gay marriage. Or reverse that. Social issues are a case by case decision.
Each social issue du jour can easily be addressed through state ballot measures. It is not necessary to hogtie a national party and make it hostage to these issues.
A lot of you argue that stuff ought to be state issues, but when a suggestion like this (social issues being addressed via state by state ballot measures) is proferred, you revert back to the claim that it has to be at the national party level.
It seems to me that much of what I hear re states rights is just a lot of empty talk. You either believe in states rights or you don’t. If you want the GOP to succeed and you want the GOP to stand for states rights, the consistent message would be that social conservative issues are state level.
And just throwing this out there… I’m thinking a consistent message from the GOP might be of some importance in gaining voters.
#72 — Karin — “I would like to underscore the point that the right, religious and otherwise, are not in the business of telling you how to live your life (except under the rule of law). It’s the hard left with their nanny-statism and control-freakism.”
Thank you, Captain Obvious. We all know this.
But that’s not the point. The point was that the general voting public doesn’t perceive this.
Do you understand the concept of “perception”?
The question is how to change perception.
As a young-ish female academic (Ph.D. in English like the author of this article), I can’t tell you how many colleagues have said to me, “as an educated woman, how could you possibly vote for Palin?” They see Palin as a back-woods, unintelligent hick who wants to ban books and take away some ambiguous “right to choose.” Of course, part of this is the fault of the media who did its best to make Palin the stuff of tabloid journalism. Sigh. Of course, I want to say to them, “I voted for Palin precisely because I AM an educated woman.”
If John McCain had been elected President and then had dropped dead two days after the election (as everyone assumed he would), you could be sure that a President Palin would be lighting fires under the butt of Congress to force it to come up with a better stimulous solution. I would love to see a cat fight in the Oval Office between Palin and Pelosi. I’d love to see that crazy, hate-mongering, post-meopausal grandmother kicked back to San Francisco where she belongs. Alas . . .
The Republican party needs to do a better job of relating to women–I’m just not sure how.
But the author is right. Academia is a HUGE problem. On my local campus, someone wrote “F—- Obama” in grafitti on a building. There was absolute outrage. University-wide sessions on racial tolerance were called and the university president sent a memo to every faculty, staff, and student decrying such behavior. You can bet that any such graffiti referring to George Bush would have been ignored.
I’m telling you–I’m so sick of this career. Give me corporate America any day of the week. Academics don’t live in the real world, even though they think they do–especially those who have tenure. They live in a bizarre world of ideologies and isims, which they think can be applied to everyday American life in black and white. They don’t believe in Reaganomics because they didn’t have “real” jobs in the 80s and 90s. They rail against big business and oil companies because they have never worked for either and don’t understand how the economy really works. They disdain small-town life and lives of average, working Americans and those values as repressive, intolerant, uncultured, and provincial.
So, if Republicans can get a foothold in the university, they can go a long way to winning more voters.
By the way–there were Obama booths all over my campus for months before the election. I didn’t see a single McCain booth until two weeks before the election. Our regional headquarters didn’t even have McCain yard signs and bumper stickers until a week before the election. In the meantime, every single automobile in this town was sporting an Obama sticker. I’ve even had to listen to Sunday sermons that laud Obama and the fact that our country has finally come to its senses in electing him. Shameful.
Okay–end of rant.
@49. Donna V.:
April 25, 2007: A package left at a women’s health clinic in Austin, Texas contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death. A bomb squad detonated the device.
There is ongoing violence by anti-abortionists. Despite your belief, the bombings, arson, and assaults continue.
It is unfortunate that a minority continues to advocate through violence.
I didn’t say that all abortion protesters are violent, just that the violent protesters provide a real-world example of Bible believing Christians using force to impose their faith-based belief on others.
Nobody is asking “pro-lifers” to keep their mouths shut. I was just making the point that abortion rights opponents have been known to use violence to tell others how to run their lives, counter to the comments made by Mike @34.
Peace.
DS
@72. Karin:
Doubtful. GWB presided over the largest increase in the federal debt ever. GDP growth under GWB averaged 1.9%, while under Carter it averaged 3.4% (the same as under Reagan). I can go into further detail if you need to have your nose rubbed in it. GWB makes Carter look like an economic genius.
Abortion. Gay rights. Tell me again how the religious right is not interested in telling people how to live their life….
Peace.
DS
DS you really are a one note samba. No matter what is said you simply continue to assert as if that were an argument. Being against abortion isn’t telling someone how to live their life, period. Every American, I don’t care how “pro-choice” they are knows that a fetus is not a clump of tissue. As young Juno was told, “it has fingernails.” It is easy to argue via a sonogram that we are talking about life. So you really don’t want to be told nothin’, because your mind is shut tight. And homosexuals have every rights every other American has, but for you changing the definition of marriage is a sacred “right.” Your ignorance, no it’s actually bigotry, is obvious. Unless you come up with better examples than these you’re just a clanging cymbal, noisy and annoying.
Ms. Grabar writes,
“We need to get this message out. It’s all about values.
“This is where the Republicans have failed. They have focused too much on the short term and not enough on culture and education.”
True, the Republicans have been myopic pragmatists for decades – just like the Democrats – doing whatever the opinion polls conjure up. This is why our elections are so close – there is nothing of substance to differentiate – just bromides. McCain and Obama both vote for TARP. Palin and Obama both stress their relatively irrelevant church-going. The religious right wants to legislate their religious views on private, uncoerced individual choices, and everybody is advocating censorship under the woozily undefinable concept of “family values” or “fairness” which unfairly deprives property owners of their right to broadcast whatever non-libelous content they want.
The Republicans or a new party must drop the foggy mush of “conservatism” and instead commit to a single, crystal clear principle: inalienable individual rights.
Not the rights to *things* which other individuals have created like health care and education, but rather rights as moral principles – rights sanctioning freedom of action – to live, produce, voluntarily trade, acquire and dispose of property with *no* government interference.
That’s what the founders did. It’s labeled (classical) liberalism. It was and remains “revolutionary change” which young and old can support because it’s true and simple and morally right (by the standard of man’s nature, not arbitrary mystical edict) and leads only to freedom, prosperity and happiness – no wealth-destroying controls.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of young readers are now being exposed to the full intellectual nature of the battle – through the new morality invented by Ayn Rand – which provides the missing moral base to our Constitution: rational selfishness and the moral defense of the profit motive and capitalism.
Individual rights are absolute, and government’s function must be solely to protect those rights through courts, police and military – nothing else.
Islam is currently spreading rapidly because it’s far more consistent than conservatism or the new left’s egalitarianism, multi-culturalism, and collectivism. If Islam does not first plunge the world into another dark ages, individual rights *will* again become tomorrow’s mainstream politics.
Mike D’Virgilio @ #78 writes,
“Every American…knows that a fetus is not a clump of tissue” and “It’s easy to argue via a sonogram that we are talking about life.” — All this while condemning another post’s author as “simply continu(ing) to assert as if that were an argument. Being against abortion isn’t telling someone how to life their life, period.”
Period? Mr. D’s ostensive pointings to fingernails and sounds are themselves concrete-bound assertions – devoid of integration into any context, let alone a logically valid argument. His statements settle nothing and lead only to centuries of irresolvable, deadly religious feuds in places like Bosnia.
The right to rationally enjoy sex free of medieval Christian duty to produce unwanted offspring is fundamental. Being forced to give birth, like being forced to remain silent under censorship, sunders our nature as integrated beings of mind and body, thought and action – and turns us into mindless slaves – just what today’s religious right, mullahs, and pacifist leftists want.
Without the right to determine what shall be done with one’s body, one is a slave, duty-bound to sacrifice two decades of one’s own precious life to the rearing of an unwanted child. She may just as well be told to wear a burkah and be stoned to death if she’s raped.
Objective justice can result only from facts and reason, not arbitrary faith and appeals to mystic authorities or to the “fingernails” of a potential human being without integrating the full context: that that potential human is parasitically dependent on its actual human host’s body. This is why the founding fathers – most of whom were deists, not theists – mandated the separation of church and state. Rights can only apply to actual, not potential human beings.
If a woman wants to practice her religious beliefs like carrying unwanted pregnancies to term, she should have that right in a free society based on individual rights. No stonings – irrespective of her personal choice regarding her body and her life.
But if we cannot first defend individual rights on principle and have a government whose sole purpose is to protect those rights, then what difference is the specific form of the tyranny which later ensues? Whether burqas, gulags, gas chambers, or religious inquisitions and witch burnings – it won’t really matter because then no one will *fully* own their mind or body. The last vestiges of the Enlightenment will then have been totally buried and we’ll have some form of dark mysticism for centuries more.
Pat, my rights end when they infringe on another person’s. I can’t think of a more fundamental right than the right to be born.
Can you pinpoint the moment when a fetus becomes a human? Is it when it has a beating heart? Or after it emerges from the womb? Is there some magical second when fetus (and therefore worthless piece of tissue that can be ripped out or left on a table to die) becomes a baby? Or is personhood dependent on the mother’s whim or not? At the hospital I work at, neonatalists labor heroically to save 24 week old babies who are born weighing a pound. Those are the lucky babies – their mothers want them so they are deemed worthy of saving. Other babies exactly the same size might end up having their brains sucked out and tossed into the trash like so much garbage. You speak of “mysticism” but what is the more objective approach – to err on the side of life, or to let one person’s status as a human being be determined by the subjective wishes of another?
Birth control is readily available – and yet there have been 40 million abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade. And don’t tell me that pro-lifers don’t “care about the baby after it’s born,” because I can testify that there are plenty of organizations willing to help desperate mothers during their pregnancy and to plenty of people eager to adopt. I have known quite a few women who had abortions and in the end it basically boils down to convenience for the vast majority of them. It’s inconvenient and physicially onerous and potentially quite painful to bear an unwanted child. Abortion is the easy way out – or so it seems. I have several friends who had abortions in the 80′s and still suffer severe guilt and remorse. One of them does volunteer work on a pro-life hotline and tells young woman not to make the same mistake she did. And no, she is not especially religious (in fact, I wish she was; perhaps she could have forgiveness for herself if she thought God forgave her.) Nat Hendoff is an atheist who is strongly pro-life; it is not necessary to be a theist to reject the moral relativism that abortion entails.
Actor Gary Graham recently wrote an excellent article for Big Hollywood on the subject of abortion:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggraham/2009/01/27/flashpoint-a-womans-right-to-choose/#more-32250
Outstanding article. I hope the author will use her writing skills to get the word out that Republicans are indeed the party to rebel against the rapidly growing Democratic nanny state. It’s not going to be easy – thanks to the Hollywood left’s portrayal of Republicans – but it’s a case that needs to be made.
A budding libertarian will someday grow into a wise conservative. How do we teach our young people the failures of socialism when the left continues to rewrite history? I think the article is dead on. We need to take back our schools and universities.
I agree, satire is the key.
These liberal freaktoids need to be MOCKED starting with Teh Won, Barry Soetoro.
Also, check out this cartoon, hip and funny (but I don’t think we’ll see it in the NY Slimes any time soon)
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/
Let’s roll.
I sense that the overwhelming majority of women in this country hate Sarah Palin because of her religious convictions and because she opted to carry to term her Down’s Syndrome child. I knew that was what was happening back in September when the full arsenal came out against her.
My wife is pro-choice but not pro-abortion, and she supports Sarah Palin and does not consider her an unqualified hayseed. My wife is smart enough to note that Palin said it was not her job to actively seek a repeal of Roe v. Wade. But in the cacaphony of noise going on at the time, the nuance of Mrs. Palin’s position was drowned out and not heard. I am of the same position as my wife: I do not favor the vast majority of abortions, but I DO know of some cases where it most certainly was necessary to save the mother’s life from likely peril. And that’s why I want it legal and rare. Taking a life to save one is a morally acceptable trade-off to me. My wife and I are Catholics, by the way.
Women are terrified of Republican women with her convictions because they’ve been told distortions about Palin. Instead of going off on their own to find out the truth, they simply accept what their teachers, professors, and the liberal media spread about Palin.
And about abortion… here we are in the 21st century and the boys and girls getting it on do not know about birth control??? What gives with that? I can understand cases of rape – the rapist is not going to take the time to put on a condom. And I put a lot of the fears and insecurities that women experience right on the shoulders of some males who act in a predatory manner and will avoid responsibility for their actions. Overall, we are now more like Europe: given over to selfishness and hedonism, and wanting to have no part of the consequences of our decisions. Other people simply become objects present to consciousness for us to use and then discard.
Life is sacred. Even in its fetal stage. It is human life, even if it is incapable of surviving outside of the womb. When I make the statement “life is sacred” one either gets it or simply finds in the statement a conundrum. I admit that I have only come to the full awareness of the marvel and moral weight of it in stages, gradually over my life. Being a father certainly was a big step that affected my perception unalterably.
Actually, “life is sacred” is a foundational ethic and experience. Everything flows out of it. If one becomes aware that the very process that brought us into being is holy, then it changes almost everything. And only in the last couple of years have I come to understand that a dimension of my opposition to Islam derives from that ethic and experience, by way of contrast. For totalitarian ideologies (and Islam is one of them, and the oldest surviving totalitarianism) do not respect life, the person, or the process of creation.
If you believe life is sacred and freedom is our birthright, then you cannot embrace things like cultural Marxism or Islam or the toxic alliance of these two without egregious contortions in how you think. I am a former Democrat (I changed parties in 2002)who used to be a Marxist (I broke with it in 1987). My journey to where I am right now did not consist of intellectual dalliances. Rather, it was driven by passion and intellect. Since I am slightly right of center, if the Democratic Party had not been taken over by the Gramscian Marxists and had not marginalized conservative Democrats I might have stayed in that party. But everything changed for me after 9/11, when the Left came out and publicly engaged in doing things to help the enemy and hinder the President.
Which leads me to my last reason why we must sell conservative values and ideas to younger Americans: our very nation and Western Civilization’s survival hang in the balance. And that goes beyond the culture wars: it goes to the realm of foreign and defense policy. A realistic grasp of the nature of the world means the kids have to grow up. I am hoping that the next four years will provide that lesson to them, just as many in my generation were cured of their illusions by the Carter years.
Considering the vast majority of youth thinks that ‘liberal’ is referring to a happy-go-lucky lifestyle rather then the oppression of freedoms; conservatives need to start pounding the term ‘liberal-socialists’ at every chance they can get. There is no mistake that this term has been allowed to represent anything other then ‘liberal use of government’, not individuality.
Ms. Grabar is quite right to tell us that we should ignore the likes of David Frum and their suggestions on where the conservative movement should go and how to get there. Are we really supposed to give up on abortion? Are we supposed to make peace with “gay marriage”? Are we supposed to turn a blind eye to the collapse of our culture into the polyglot state that we are becoming because people like David Frum cringe at yahoos like ourselves claiming to represent conservative thougt?
Frum and company are trying to tell us that there is nothing more to conservatism than the idea of a strong economy and to hell with everything else. This is a psuedo-Marxist notion that should have no credence in conservative circles. Any conservative worth his/her salt knows that there is much more to conservatism than simple adherence to the free market. David Frum and his fans don’t even support a free market, ergo they do not even practice what they preach. We conservatives would be much better off if we stopped listening to David Frum, Kathleen Parker and David Brooks, among many others.
fred,
I am in full agreement and congratulate you raising yourself out of lefty adolescent rubbish. Me too. It seems to me the only way for traditional values to survive is to re-affirm a culture, not merely economic points or to endlessly re-play the marxist game of racial and sexual grievance. I think the line in the sand being drawn today will be Islam. For instance, why doesn’t NOW issue a press release condemning the beheading (!) in Buffalo. They and the entire marxist establishment need to have their feet put to the fire and explain their love affair with a medieval totalitarian and anti-feminist CULTURE. I know Americans want to be big-hearted and it goes against the grain to label a group as such, but, we will surely die the death of a thousand cuts just as Europe is dying every day if we can’t muster the will to oppose Islamic jihad.
Right-minded people in the West must learn about Islam and its dualism. It is not Aristotelian, it does not contain cause and effect. It is the life of Mohammed and Mohammed made contradictory statements depending on where and when he lived. I have lived in India and I can tell you that there are many more instances of violence not reported other than the spectacular massacres. And this after 1,000 years of Muslim occupation. Westerners need to know what the terms abrogation, dhimmi, kafir, and many others mean. I would suggest http://www.politicalislam.com/:
“America was founded based on arguments and debates, but now dissent is becoming morally wrong. For example: The New York Times is backing the suppression of Geert Wilder’s movie Fitna. In a shame and a disgrace, the Times condemns the man. They condemn him because he is offensive and insulting. Offensive to whom? Not to me. And they never once asked any questions about whether what he says is true. Truth is no defense against forbidden knowledge, haram. Instead they say he is the equivalent of a European redneck. They attack the messenger and not that facts. They don’t want to know about or look at the facts. Why is it that Islam can be offended, but I can’t? Where are we are we headed here?
I am more afraid of the ACLU and the Federal government than I am of Islam. The Newstate is beginning to act as a partner with political Islam. Whatever political Islam demands, the Newstate will deliver. The Newstate has decreed that ignorance is the acceptable political point-of-view. And those who represent facts and critical thinking will be punished and condemned as moral criminals and enemies of the Newstate.”
“Let’s assume you can name a perfectly valid secular reason to outlaw abortion.”
The Right to Life…etc shall not be infringed.
There. Thats very easy, isn’t it.
#80 sgt ted — “The Right to Life…etc shall not be infringed. There. Thats very easy, isn’t it.”
Assumes agreement re what is alive and when. None such exists. Sorry, but for this exercise you don’t get to gin up your own definitions.
Weak. Is that the best you can do?
Still waiting for a perfectly valid secular reason.
CONSERVATISM is the side of POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
It IS time that Republicans get back to Conservatism, actively and articulately.
Join me in urging them to stop compromising principles that work:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/we-demand-true-conservative-leadership.html
Donna V @ #81 – in answer to your question, individual rights begin when one becomes an individual – an independent entity biologically fully capable of sustaining itself – without biological dependence. An appendage to another entity (a dependent fetus in utero) cannot have rights because that would be a contradiction – the mother-to-be – an independent individual – would *not* have the right to her *own* judgment and body.
And, of course you are already in agreement with this premise through your statement, “my rights end when they infringe on another person’s.” You’re just not consistently applying your principle in this case – hence your impossible contradiction (fetus has rights that infringe on mother’s rights). Because the fetus’ entire existence depends on the mother’s body, to accord any rights to a fetus necessarily infringes on the mother’s right to her own body.
Potential people cannot have rights – only actual ones can. Your position sacrifices the actual rights of an actual person to a potential person. To love *actual* life is to hold its full context – including how fetus-worship is just a rationalization for centuries of mystics to condemn otherwise wonderful young lives to two decades of misery.
There are no reasons – facts and logic – for your position – only mystical belief. And mystical belief must remain in the private sphere – not in our courts. Otherwise, having already deprived a woman of her right to her body, next we’ll see her being forced into life-long arranged marriages.
There are two things that WILL get young people into the GOP fold (where they never have been before). One will be watching Obama screw this country into oblivion (most will see the damage he has done and will be more open to other options). With his soft line to terrorism, a second attack would be brutal to his administration (not that I wish for that, but let’s face it, it’s probably coming and the administration won’t stop it), seeing all their future earnings being pi$$ed away by stimulus after stimulus that will severely cripple young adults with astounding tax rates, and many other things that just can’t be helped with this administration. Honestly, we just have to sit back, be the opposing side and wait for it. This is a Jimmy Carter redux, which in fact, is how I myself became a conservative at the age of 11.
The second, and probably the most controversial, would be for the GOP to start a process (or at least lip service) to begin the decriminalization of marijuana. Kids nowadays only see people being put in jail for non-violent offenses when our jails are already over crowded and getting worse everyday. I think this younger generation doesn’t see marijuana the way us older folks did. They see it as one of the more relatively safe drugs compared to things like crack and meth (which not many of us were aware of back in the day).
These two things will work. We will gain more supporters simply from Obama being president than many people think right now. It’s just a matter of time. Obama is not a messiah, and when they realize he’s just a douche politican like the rest of them, he will totally lose his allure.
Pat wrote: in answer to your question, individual rights begin when one becomes an individual – an independent entity biologically fully capable of sustaining itself
Ridiculous. No newborn is “an independent entity biologically fully capable of sustaining itself.”
Roe v. Wade became law in the days before ultrasound. As images of pre-born babies become increasingly sophisticated, it’s becoming harder and harder for sophists and moral relativists like yourself to hide behind justifications. Squawk about “mystical belief” all you want. Have you ever considered that in 100 years, history might judge your moral evasions just as harshly as we judge slave-holders today? They too were at pains to deny the obvious.
And please note, Pat, that I have not argued from the basis of my own religious beliefs.
Pro-aborts always say that the pro-life position is the irrational one, and yet what their position boils down to is basically “I don’t want to err on the side of life, because that is inconvenient for me.” One person gets to decide if another person lives or dies. Human status is completely dependent on whether the baby is wanted or not.
Sure, keep on defending your “logical” position.
95 — “Ridiculous. No newborn is “an independent entity biologically fully capable of sustaining itself.””
Obtuse much?
Not trying to speak for Pat here but it’s obvious s/he means breathing and eating and pooping.
Keep on topic.
The point isn’t that you can argue pro-life, it’s that it doesn’t belong as a major part of a political party’s platform. Your argument is not agreed to by THE MAJORITY of the voters.
The whole idea of having a political party is to get votes, at least if the intent is to gain political office.
Please tell us how your argument gains votes. Feel free to use graphs or slides, whatever you think works.
Thanks.
@94. Karenina:
There are probably more that two, but you do identify part of one very important issue.
The GOP would gain a great deal of respect from the libertarians and liberal democrats if it could overcome decades of fighting an absurd war on drugs. This is part of the idea that I have been trying to share – that the GOP needs to focus on liberty. End the drug war, stop fighting against abortion and gay rights, and reverse police state policies. This is what it would take to begin rebuilding the GOP for future success. However, lip service without action would further marginalize the party.
I tend to think that Obama will not fall so hard as the right hopes, and that the crawl back to power will be a long and painful, but very valuable, one for the GOP.
Peace.
DS
Hey Blackwater, you say the Liberals control the media. Well, they’ve controlled the media for over 75 years now. Why do we keep getting Republican presidents? We’ve had more Republicans than Democrats. Is the media not that good at electing presidents, or is it every time a Democrat does get elected you drag out this same old whiny tune.
Not trying to speak for Pat here but it’s obvious s/he means breathing and eating and pooping.
No, it isn’t “obvious.” Pat wrote: “an independent entity biologically fully capable of sustaining itself.” It must be great,G. Alston, to know for a fact that it’s breathing and eating and pooping that makes us human, not heartbeats or fingernails or anything like that. Gee, thanks for clearing that up!. You must let the Europeans know that too, since they do not allow abortions in the last trimester. Hey, why err on the side of life when God Alston tells you no sweat, it’s just a blob, not a kid? I believe your 19th century counterparts were writing detailed briefs explaining why blacks were indeed only three-quarters human.
The GOP had anti-abortion planks in its platform in 1980 and 1984 and it didn’t seem to hurt them then. Nor did it hurt them in 2004. Remember the MSM having fantoids over all those “values voters?” Well, I am sceptical of the whole idea that all those values voters turned into social liberals in the space of 4 years. McCain didn’t lose because of abortion or gay marriage; he lost because of A. the economy, and, B. he ran a terrible campaign; and C. the GOP did not learn the lessons of 2006 and had lost sight of first economic principles. The One ran a very effective campaign and had the MSM in his back pocket.
I am not an across-the-board social conservative. I think pot should be decriminalized . I really dislike Huckabee’s combination of evangelicalism and big government instincts – he reminds me of Jimmah that way. And I wish Jindal would leave the creationist stuff alone. But if Jindal manages to clean up the cesspool that is Louisiana, his views on evolution will be about 135 on my list of priorities.
The GOP needs to get back to being the party of small government, low taxes AND spending cuts. After 4 years of Obambi and Co. spending like Paris Hilton on a bender, that’s what will make them more appealing to voters – not copying the Dems and trying to be “hipper than thou” on social issues. I think it would be morally wrong to get rid of the abortion plank – and I also think it would be counterproductive and unneccessary.
G. Alston, please furnish me with graphs and charts and slides showing that adopting libertarian social views will be a sure-fire hit for the GOP. How well do the libertarians do in national elections? There’s one socialist in Congress who is clearly labeled as such (as compared to all the SINO’s the place is now packed with.) How many libertarians are there?
Back to the point of this article, folks – America faces serious problems (like all any other countries around), some of them objective (like the ascent of China and India), but some of them generated by home, cultural malfunctions (if not outright subversion).
Who can seriously say that colleges and universities need no betterment and that a more serious approach to the US & world history wouldn’t help those kids (and society as a whole?)
#100 — “G. Alston, please furnish me with graphs and charts and slides showing that adopting libertarian social views will be a sure-fire hit for the GOP.”
Let’s see, lots (a million?) of kids graduate every year, and insignificant numbers of them are voting republican. They’re replacing the elderly who are dying off and used to vote GOP and social issues.
Math is your friend. (No, actually it’s MY friend and apparently lives in a zip code nowhere near you.)
Did you read the article? The GOP will never capture the hearts and minds of students unless the GOP drops the “right to life” as a party plank. This is clear. You can think otherwise if you like, but that’s just fantasy.
The article wants ways to get votes. Especially amongst college students. Evangelising and/or browbeating them with your misbegotten attempts at logic is how you do that?
Unless of course you have chart graphs and slides that show that a resounding majority of college students think telling women what they can and can’t do with their bodies is a good idea. Good luck with that.
The brutal truth here is that absolutely most college students are against abortion restrictions. Should we bet on this? Do you have the fortitude to place money on the contention that most college students are FOR outlawing abortion? Of course not. The only sane bet would be whether the numbers of pro-choice students is above 85% or above 95%. Supporters of “right to life” are aging. What you assumed worked in 1980 isn’t germane; don’t bother citing it. The younger generation is now openly hostile to “right to life” ideas. The ‘base’ social conservatives are dying off.
Meanwhile church attendance in the areas of the country with the electoral votes that count is dropping. Your pool of recruits to choose from is dwindling. I’d love to see your charts and graphs that say otherwise. Getting the CA electoral vote would be helpful. How do you do that?
Article writer Grabar here wants to appeal to the younger voters e.g. those in colleges. You’re never going to do this with a continued focus on abortion and/or other social conservative a.k.a. religious issues. Deal with it.
Donna V @ #95 responds to my post @ #93:
“Ridiculous. No newborn is “an independent entity biologically fully capable of sustaining itself.”
I endeavored to honestly answer Donna V’s #81 question, and avoid any implication that newborns can grow, harvest and chew food.
Upon re-reading that question, however, and her subsequent posts taken together, I see I was mistaken: hers was not the question of someone honestly trying to reason (getting as many facts as possible, and integrating them in full, non-contradictory context).
Rather than even attempting to refute any of my points, Donna V evaded them through tangents and bluster. This is the mark of the medieval mind that’s operating on faith, not reason – the mind that regards facts and logic as threats – the mind inevitably out of control in its war with reality.
Physical/biological/umbilical/dependent attachment and the resulting impossible contradiction of fetus’ v. mother’s rights are unassailable, factual *reasons* why opposing abortion must remain a private, religious matter – not for dictating to others by a moral government whose sole job is to protect actual/independent/born individuals’ rights.
To love life and hold it sacred through reason and individual rights, one must have reverence for every single woman (and man and child) of any race who is actually born – elevating no “potential” or lesser life forms (animals and plants) above them.
Religious leaders who advocate the subordination of women to potential beings are vile barbarians who profoundly hate life and all of the joy it can properly entail. They were advocating that subordination long before man even discovered the concept of individual rights, and today they use it to undercut the entire principle of rights.
Only last month, in Italy, they were preventing a comatose 37-year-old woman from being removed from the life support she has required since her *1992* car crash because she was still “in the condition to have babies.” That’s all women are to these people – mindless, soulless, subservient, incubators. http://www.seculargovernment.us/blog/
#97 G Alston – “The whole idea of having a political party is to get votes, at least if the intent is to gain political office.
You exposed your whole misunderstanding of our position with the one statement. THAT is how DEMS think. The goal is to get elected. Nothing more.
The purpose of a political party is to have your voice heard, win or lose, to try to get certain things accomplished. If the country is not buying your opinion, you don’t change your opinion just to gain political office. Rather, you keep advocating for your cause, win or lose. The office is a means to an end, not the end in itself.
So, we don’t abandon the evangelicals. To what end? Just to get elected? No way. Even if you’re non-religious, you can’t help but see much wisdom in the premises laid out in the Bible. You agree with most of the Ten Commandments, don’t you? How about Jesus’ command to love one another? The Bible, unlike the Quran, professes a culture of life and love. Religious or not, I’m down with that. If you get past the hating of religion, the values are solid, whether they come from God or not.
#93 Pat – Yes, it is a woman’s body, but she leased out a portion to the baby, and that tenant has rights.
Well, it’s still a woman’s right to choose. Okay, but let’s end child-support, since the Dad has no say in the matter. Can’t have taxation without representation.
Nevermind all that. Let’s look at the effects of abortion on society. 52% of black pregnancies end in abortion. This encourages the vast promiscuity among blacks. They have sex earlier and more often. Half of black children do not know who their father is. Another quarter have no father active in their lives. That means 3/4 of blacks have no father in their lives (the main reason for criminality). Another 15% are born out of wedlock. That means only 10% of blacks are born into a marriage. 10!
Blacks are the poorest group in America, even poorer than Hispanics. Single motherhood and lack of fathers tends to do that. Half of all black men have spent time in jail. 1/3 of young black men are in jail at any given time. 90% of black crime is against other blacks. The stats go on and on.
What does this have to do with abortion? It’s the mentality that a baby is disposable. The black woman sees it as a failsafe, so doesn’t close her legs enough, or bother to stick with one guy. The black man shrugs his shoulders and walks away, or simply gives it no thought at all. The cycle is self-perpetuating, and indeed, getting worse.
Whites were gaining in this regard, but it has scaled back. Sonagrams have much to do with it. So do traditional values, better education, lack of shame in single motherhood (even some status), and enforced child support (with DNA testing, and fathers who aren’t in jail).
But, go ahead with supporting abortion rights! That just means we’ll have less of those criminal blacks to pollute our gene pool, as more than half the pregnancies get terminated, right? Ugh. Tell me again how great abortion rights are?
AS to the article, someone else beat me to the punch. We just need to get back to our conservative roots, find some leaders, and get our own house in order. When the Lib policies lead us to economic ruin, like they did with Carter abd FDR, the people will turn on them in a hurry. It won’t take long. They are already rediscovering what the Pubs mean by tax-and-spend Liberals. Disenchantment is occurring even as I write.
Yes, God Alston, I have read the article. You have serious reading comprehension problems if you think Mary Grabar advocated that conservatives drop abortion as an issue. She wrote:
We just need the opportunity to expose the power-grabbing, fascistic traits of the current administration. It’s an administration that wants to take away our freedom to earn and use our money the way we want (the “stimulus” bill), the freedom to listen to and express opinions (the revival of the “Fairness” Doctrine, Obama’s public ridicule of conservative talk show hosts), the freedom to defend ourselves (assaults on the Second Amendment, aid to dangerous Palestinian refugees, the closing of Guantanamo), and the freedom to live (abortion on demand, rationed government health care).
Ms. Grabar is talking about reframing the debate, not aping liberal social views.
Abortion is not a make-or-break issue for most American voters. Slightly more pro-lifers rate it as a decisive issue for them than do pro-choice advocates. And the pro-lifers are in the GOP camp. So let’s toss the base under the bus in hopes of winning the youth vote, although we have no indication that that will actually work. My, God Alston, your brilliance is overwhelming. Completely alienating ones own base always wins massive converts from the other side – that’s why President John Anderson won the White House in 1980. Oh wait,…,
And meanwhile, Pat squawks on about “the medieval mind” – well, honey, if it helps you live with yourself, fine. I see you’ve managed to convince yourself that you’re really the pro-life one. That’s rich, indeed.
Oh, and I’d really better point out that when Mary Grabar wrote “and the freedom to live (abortion on demand, rationed government health care),” she was saying abortion on demand and rationed government health care are things that interfere with the freedom to live.
Most of us got that when we read the article. But others seemed to think Grabar was equating abortion on demand with the freedom to live. Better spell it out more clearly next time Ms. Grabar, for the easily confused.
#104 — ” If the country is not buying your opinion, you don’t change your opinion just to gain political office.”
Strawman much? That sure would have been a spiffy response if I’d said that. There’s such a thing as not having an opinion as an official position. It’s not the same thing as renouncing it. Nice try though.
Read the following. Then I’ll get back to you.
#108 — “Abortion is not a make-or-break issue for most American voters.”
Social issues in the aggregate ARE the difference maker and on the opposite side. Let’s see, how many people did the GOP lose because of stem cell policy? Probably most of the life science community. How about abortion? Probably a lot of folks scared of a potential supreme court justice changeover. There’s another few hundred thousand. Gays? Heh. There went a couple of million votes down the toilet. Enough votes to have swung the last election? Probably.
More importantly and to the point which you simply refuse to address, the younger crowd isn’t being attracted; they are overwhelmingly democrat voters. Social issues aren’t what will draw them in. In fact, social issues paint the entire GOP as anti-intellectual, anti-choice, and so on. Just throwing this out there, but the perception of an anti-intellectual bent is probably not a good thing to have as a starting position in wooing voters in colleges and universities.
#104 Redux
Did you grasp the concept discussed here of attracting NEW voters, particularly the students? Do you understand that as the social conservatives die off that what replaces their numbers are democrat voters?
Rather than attempting to lecture me about what you presume to be “the base,” how about you address the student issue as per the topic. Forget the dwindling and dying “base” and concentrate on the students. I’d like to hear how you’d convince college students to vote GOP vis a vis social conservative issues.
#108 — “Most of us got that when we read the article. But others seemed to think Grabar was equating abortion on demand with the freedom to live.”
Hey, it’s crayon time in the echo chamber again. My favourite.
A) Grabar talked about students, about gaining votes.
B) I talked about students. I don’t agree with her and spelt out why.
C) You have blathered about your personal feelings re abortion and the existing social conservative constituency.
Which one of these thing is not like the others?
There is no way the republicans and GOP will drop the abortion issue. This is not a matter of votes, it’s a matter of ethics, which some of us still regard as more important than winning.
As Donna V previously mentioned, when Roe v. Wade was passed, there were no sonograms. There was no way for a woman to tell exactly what she was aborting, except the word of some far left liberal abortion doctor telling her it was just a clump of cells. To this day, even though the technology has increased and we have had babies being born at 14 weeks and LIVING, there still remains this opinion that the abortion of “just a blob of cells” is accurate. It’s not. At merely 4 weeks after conception, babies are developing a resperatory system. That’s ONE MONTH old. At merely 8 weeks old, your baby already has a heartbeat. One is NOT simply aborting a “blob of cells”.
Personally, I think those that use this excuse are merely trying to stave off the guilt. And don’t think there isn’t guilt.
Therefore, the GOP must continue to support the right to life. You will find you will lose more support (including mine!) if the GOP dropped that issue from it’s platform than it will gain from libertarians or assorted democrats.
Now gay marriage? Drop it already!!
If the GOP wants to get its mojo back it needs to be less ideologically-rigid and hypocritical. The stimulus package is a good example. The Republicans who voted against it were much more concerned with pandering toward their conservative base than representing their congressional districts. How ironic some of these same reps who voted against it are now touring their states in praise of it.
To Marc Malone @ #105:
You wrote, “#93 Pat – Yes, it is a woman’s body, but she leased out a portion to the baby, and that tenant has rights.”
Clever, but stolen concepts like “lease” and “tenant” do not an argument make!
As to the problem of sexual promiscuity among black women: they, like us, have grown up in a society where there is widespread, legalized coercion (taxes, government schools, wealth redistribution, jail for drugs, etc.). When coercion is all one knows, then the logically inescapable (but still false) conclusion is that *all* lives – theirs and their babies – are disposable — because personal judgment and responsibility are useless in such a jungle of “eat or be eaten.”
But to “solve” the problem, you’re advocating more of the same poisonous coercion – this time, in one of the vilest forms possible – forcing her to abandon her judgment to yours under the fallacious pretense of “the public good”, so she can also abandon her control of her own body and life to an unwanted child for a couple of decades.
The left wants coercion, too – disagreeing only over which freedoms to violate.
There is a third alternative to miserable promiscuity and escalating coercion. It was discovered by John Locke and applied almost perfectly by Jefferson and the Founders. It is called *inalienable* individual rights. It’s a moral concept that subordinates government to the absolute, inviolable sanctity of each individual’s own judgment, body, life, property. It outlaws all coercion *as such.* It’s a principle – a fundamental, universally applicable, absolute truth. It’s organic – by our nature as thinking animals, we require rights to sustain our lives and gain happiness.
The choice is either: a) more mindless cannibalism by the left and the religious right (and amoral mindlessness of the libertarians) until the world collapses into another Dark Age, or b) a revolution for absolute rights. Either or.
And this leads to the more basic error as you revealed at #104: “If you get past the hating of religion, the values are solid, whether they come from God or not.”
Religion as such is *not* worth hating. Many good people join religions because they properly recognize that life requires acting on principles, as opposed to acting on whims like so many others do.
The error is in the principles and values themselves – the content of the religions: the moral code of altruism that Judaism, Islam, and Christianity share.
As long as self-sacrifice is the moral ideal (whether embodied in Mother Theresa or in jihadic martyrdom), your “values” are the opposite of “solid.” They’re fatal. As Ayn Rand discovered, until men reject altruism and discover a new moral code of reason, egoism and rights, the last vestiges of our freedoms and happiness will continue to crumble and vanish. And that’s what the Popes and mullahs want – their turn to dictate again.