I’m not coming to some grand conclusion or offering a perfect solution here. I’m certainly not suggesting amnesty for illegal aliens as the solution. The 1986 amnesty may have been Reagan’s greatest mistake. The nation as a whole has become split, handing Republicans thundering victories in 2010 only to put Barack Obama back into the presidency two years later. But for some idiotic comments by a handful of Republicans, the GOP might have taken the Senate and had less of a drag on Romney. Todd Akin, Richard Mourdoch, Chris Christie — those two socially conservative and one moderate Republican have one thing in common besides being Republicans. They hurt Mitt Romney’s candidacy when he had no margin for error against an incumbent president. All three oppose ObamaCare, but their mistakes helped keep ObamaCare in place.
The fact is, despite the incessant media game of kicking the GOP, the brands of both parties are severely damaged. Democrats appeal ever more stridently to a base that aligns on race, is persuaded by ridiculously dishonest fear appeals on micro issues, cares little to nothing about threats to our sovereignty and security, and rejects economic math. We Republicans are at risk of appealing ever more to a shrinking and aging base. Demographics favor Democrats, but economics do not.
Obama won on Tuesday without winning independents and it may be that Hurricane Sandy and his ground game have as much to do with that as anything else. Barack Obama must be the luckiest politician alive. He might have had to face a crafty and very aggressive conservative in Rick Perry, but for a silly gaffe that wrecked Perry’s run. He was losing traction to Mitt Romney until a hurricane blew in and allowed him to don a bomber jacket and play the role of president just in time for low information voters to decide on him. The good news is that though it’s far too early to start thinking about who we’ll nominate in 2016, Republicans have a much deeper pool of strong candidates than the Democrats do. But the Democrats will probably have that Obama ground game to rely on again.
What I am saying is, we need to slow down the blame game and stop blaming each other. That’s what losers do. We need to filter truth from agendas and myths and then figure out what to do. That’s what winners do.
“Obama won on Tuesday without winning independents”
That, and the fact that Romney got fewer votes than McCain indicate to me that our problem is that we did not get out the base. We need to get out the votes. We need a better ground game.
Colorado registered voters are divided roughly into thirds: Republican, Democrat, independent. Obama won here convincingly thanks to a large swell of support from independents.
The answers are in Chicago
Rod Blagojevich made a deal
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/11/08/1161/
Not just Romney.
Even _OBAMA_ got less votes than McCain.
How the hell did he win?
The thought that a lot of Republicans did not turn out could be a false thought.
With the votes being “counted” outside the country, nobody really knows how many conservatives actually did vote. That could be possible if the votes were sent to the trash bin. With Soros involved, is that a stretch? I think not
I once heard a joke that if we could keep the Republicans out of our bedrooms, and the Democrats out of our pockets, USA would be the perfect country!
I am fiscally conservative,and voted republican. However, I am a single, divorced mom, and my son is gay – therefore, I believe in abortion and gay rights – anyway these issues should be discussed at state levels and not at federal level. Frankly, Santorum and Bachmann scared me. I expressed my views on every piece of mail I got form the Republican party, but, seemingly, no one listens.
Mitt Romney is a good man looking for a new career-leave him alone!
The Republican primary process was obscenely long AND EXPENSIVE when so many people go broke. It did not look good, and it did not make the candidates (bickering amongst themselves) look good. It also exhausted the coffers, and wasted time while the opponent was organizing ground game.
To err is human, to persevere is stupid!
I imagine it’s natural for mothers of gay men to “believe in” gay rights. But how does it naturally follow that single, divorced moms “believe in” abortion? Surely there are plenty of single women who “believe in” right to life. Just curious.
She/he/it is a liar. Think concern troll.
Obama’s fellators over at the Comedy Channel were able to get out the moronic youth vote. I heard on this video that Obama fellator Stephen Colbert since e-mails to all of them and they responded in droves, er herds.http://www.theblaze.com/stories/category/politics/
I doubt there will be an election in 2016 to worry about. Obama will have imposed martial law and declared himself emperor by then. I’ve been saying if you like what Castro did to Cuba you’ll love Obama’s next four years. But now I’m thinking South Africa is a better comparison.
Bush 43 was a conservative? He sure fooled me with the Medicare drugs, 2008 stimulus, and general indifference to wasteful spending.
The GOP has run 1 conservative in my lifetime – Reagan. I find the current Republican blend of Dem Lite economics and social nannyism extremely distasteful.
How about the Republicans at least treat their Libertarians with respect? They really went out of their way to disrespect Gary Johnson and Ron Paul during this campaign cycle – despite the fact that they were the only Republicans getting enthusiastic support from young voters.
How they treat Rand Paul in the next cycle will be very telling.
You can look at maps that show how many voted for whom in which state.
No state had enough votes for Johnson to put anyone anywhere had they been reallocated to Romney.
Not even enough total to give him the popular vote.
So to be completely honest I’m not seeing how Libertarians work here. Talk about massive support yet this massive support is apparently not supportive enough.
@TMG “Fiscally conservative, socially liberal is a winning message.”
Unless you’re someone who values social issues. A chunk of the GOP base just so you know.
I wasn’t suggesting that collecting some Gary Johnson voters last week would have put Romney over the top. I’m talking about how to build a party that is conservative AND competitive in the future. It isn’t just old white men and church ladies.
Bush 43 was no conservative, he is a progressive. The last conservative to run was Reagan and he won twice! Under Bush 43, NCLB which was a takeover of education from the states, so much of what Bush did were steps that Obama took and greatly expanded. Federal funds to advertise to non-citizens to apply for Food Stamps, The Patriot Act (yes, I know too many R’s support, most people have no idea the law was written by Biden’s staff), the Department of Homeland Security which started the militarization of our domestic police force, the TSA, Federal land grabs, the death of Edison’s light bulb, there are so many examples. He was also fooled by the Muslim Brotherhood and allowed “moderates” into all levels of our government. Now, anyone dare to speak out for simple background checks of people in our government (Huma), they are attacked by McCain, Boehner and the other moderates.
You’re right. Bush was lousy. Signing on to McCain Feingold and then saying that he doesn’t believe it’s Constitutional but he’s going to pass it on to the SCOTUS to make the call. What pusillanimity.
His daddy outlawed the flush toilet. There’s no telling what good thging Prince Jeb would outlaw if he ever got elected.
I have serious doubts the Republican Party is going to survive in numbers large enough to get a President elected.
I am convinced most social conservatives would rather see one-party Democrat rule than compromise on their issues, and their issues scare off a lot of people who are very open to Republicans on economic issues.
Were Republicans willing to embrace liberty more, rather than thinking of politics as a tool for social engineering, i think they would become much more inclusive and thereby appealing to a wider audience.
Fiscally conservative, socially liberal is a winning message. If Democrats listen to their fiscal hawks and business-friendly wing, they might transform into smiling moderates in 2013. They could claim this turf and if they do I might even support them. God help me.
The Democrats may have no choice but to listen to their own fiscal hawks, given the realities of Mr. Cliff and their myriad pension fiascos. It would nice if two non-constitutional federal cabinet agencies (instead of the boilerplate 5 GOPers tend to cite) got eliminated as well. I’d be happy also with Hillary and Holder being given the boot-I still contend that Chris Christie was being vetted for AG, hence the chummy cordialness on the Shore. Obama will let Holder squirm and burn for F & F so as to deflect from Bengazi and buy some political capital for other plans.
It is liberals and liberals ONLY who socially engineer. Conservative just want to push back the clock to a time that government stayed OUT of all these decisions and staes could regulate them without tax-payer funding.
Everytime we try to do that people like you shriek that we’re trying to impose a theocracy.
I’m to the point that I doubt I will ever vote again and you can all burn in the hell of your own creation.
Please explain to me why Republican controlled congress wasted 1.5 million dollars defending DOMA? If they are not concerned with pushing their social agenda why are socons pushing for a constitutional amendment against homosexual marriage?
I need explain NOTHING to you. If you can’t read that’s NOT my problem.
So it wasn’t President Bush who created a federal program for “faith-based intitiatives?” It’s not the GOP looking for a federal ban on gay marriage? It’s not the GOP who pushes for tax breaks for married couples? It’s not the GOP who wants to ban pornography?
Lolly: “it is liberals and liberals only who socially engineer…..” That’s ridiculous. The whole movement opposing abortion, contraceptives, gay rights, sex education in schools, calling for mandatory prayer in schools written by fundamentalist Christians, is NOT social engineering, you say? I suggest you need to do some research into the religious right. You can start here: http://www.au.org .
I will say it again – only liberals socially engineer. All the fake rights so women can MURDER their babies to please men and be whores of society. All the diseases it has caused. All the gays that are free to molest little boys.
That is ALL liberals and you are just upset that people don’t want any part of it. So you call us names and get hysterical that we want a theocracy when all along it was YOU who foisted this into the public square.
Well, dont worry. We are done. I hope you like the crass country you now live in, because all that violence, greed and destruction is all yours. We are going to stop fighting you and just drop out. Enjoy your crumbling infastructure because we will not fix it for you.
So in other words, shoving your beliefs down my throat and my children’s is all good. I want control of what my children learn. Tell me how anything otherwise is not social control. Personally, I think we should get rid of public school all together. Let each family decide the social values that their children learn. It is the progressives that have control now. Why are they so obsessed with molding the hearts and minds of my children? You have no right to override my parental authority. You are advocating for social control, not me, I am advocating liberty.
LOL lolly! So you think repeating yourself makes you right? How about this? I believe in reincarnation. Soul is eternal, a beloved spark of God. A fetus is a lump of flesh until the first breath, when Soul enters the body. Therefore, abortion is a moot issue. The government should have no say whatsoever on abortion, for or against. It should be out of the abortion business, no regulation, no funding, nothing. Personal choice and free market principles all the way, for or against.
Christian mythology is your belief, it seems. Fine, you have that right under the First Amendment, and it’s interference to attack your beliefs. However, it sounds like you’re not comfortable extending that same First Amendment right to others. Maybe it’s you who needs to do some reading: the founding documents.
lolly – If you can’t see the level of social engineering called for by Republicans then you are experiencing a rectal-cranial inversion. Once you pull out you’ll be able to see more clearly.
Actually Ken, what gives you the right to decide what Ari’s children learn? It’s the other way around buddy. The progressives have for a long time controlled what goes on in the classroom. The aggressive secularism, anti-natalism, and progressive ideology is the new religion that is shoved down every last child’s throat.
How’s that? Because we want you to teach your own children about your own god on your own time and dime?
“Were Republicans willing to embrace liberty more, rather than thinking of politics as a tool for social engineering, i think they would become much more inclusive and thereby appealing to a wider audience.”
When Conservatives engineer society, they do it through the churches. Don’t like the church? Choose another congregation. Don’t like the Synangogue? Join a Reform Temple, Don’t like the the Mosque? Sucks to be YOU.
But when Democrats engineer the society, they do it through government…legislating THEIR amorality down peoples’ throats. Throwing people in jail for internet YouTube videos and such.
Therein lies the difference.
Caesar is not God, and God is not Caesar.
I agree and that’s a problem. Progressives should be ashamed with themselves for abdicating their principles on civil liberties.
“I have serious doubts the Republican Party is going to survive in numbers large enough to get a President elected.”
Think California. The Republican party out here barely rises to the level of loyal opposition. The Democrats own this state from top to bottom and it shows. The state’s a mess and getting worse.
So is Arizona… What’s your point?
That if the National Republican party doesn’t get it’s act together it will become as irrelevant nationally as the California State Republican party is. The country will be subject to a full court press of the same Democratic policies that are ruining California, and they ARE ruining California.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Period.
Every time I heard Mitt Romney utter words “I can deliver real change,” I cringed so deeply I might have pulled a muscle. Yes, I voted for him, and thought he would do a great job.
If Republicans can’t wage a campaign on big ideas, and consistently point out what’s wrong with liberal ideas, then we need something else.
okay, two days of crying, and walking around stunned.
(1) I don’t know that Mitt Romney really lost. I don’t know that this wasn’t stolen fair and square. When I ask people in other states- they voted Romney. I saw lines, you saw lines, we all saw lines. So, I’m not sure he lost.
(2) Manzikert and Boehner. Just sayin’
(3)Just sayin’ that Boehner gave a dam* squeaky voiced ” I kept my job! I kept my job!” speech, without being too concerned about Mitt Romney, who is a good,productive man who din’t need to waste two years of his life.
(4) Working poor people wish there was as good a safety net for them as shiftless, no account, not-working, section 8 poor people. Obamacare might suck, but the present arrangement is cause of great anxiety, indignity and fear. It’s not unreasonable.
(5) Editors at women’s magazines have been working to create a single mother’s paradise since World War 2. I know ya’ll get excited about National Review, but someone needs to start taking Glamour seriously as a cultural conduit- it’s where I first heard about Barack Obama, while he was running for Senate. It was a puff piece about Samantha Powers being smart and charismatic.
(6) If single women want tingles, can we borrow all, and I do mean every last single one, of Mitt Romney’s kids to make youtube videos with short set pieces? Start now. Youtube.
(7) Can someone, anyone, make Minecraft Hayek videos? For kids? and teens?
So, the fed sued the states for enforcing emigration laws? Did the feds win? They lost property suits for 100 years, against Western states. Why not now? B/c from what I’ve read it was (1) Vote fraud (2) single mothers (3) illegal, not speaking english, immigrants. I went to bed not liking a whole bunch of Americans- but I don’t think they did this. I think it was a bought and paid for ballot coup.
Well done, ari!
Ari-
Your points, 5 and 6, are spot on. My daughter,19, and I talk every day about her college classes. Last year in her Freshman curriculum of ten basic classes, 9 of them included some discussion on liberal social issues but focusing on sexual rights. Yes, even in math class they found a way to discuss percentages of the population that are LGBT. She moved schools and this one is on track to have a 60% rate of including social issues. The narrative has been tightly drawn on these campuses that to even utter an opinion against abortion or non-traditional relationships you are bitterly scorned. The College Republicans (few in number) had to basically go underground. Her female classmates are “liberated” by the ability to sleep with as many people as possible and they talk about that openly, with pride. When these young women,18-30, think they will lose birth control, the ability to “control their own body”, or have their gay friends persecuted, they will listen to nothing else.
The things you are alleging are CRIMES, plain and simple. You seem like an intelligent guy & I doubt you’d make those sort of allegations without evidence. As an American, isn’t it your duty now to present your evidence to the judicial authorities?
Who? Would? I? Present? Them? To?
I live next to section 8 housing. The woman next door was a dual-language- spanish/english hospital clerk. She told illegal immigrants how to birth the baby, and then get housing and benefits. They mowed her lawn, cleaned her house, and cooked her meals. Who would I go to? When she was promoted to manage all the clerks? Her bosses liked her- she spoke Spanish and English.
Her family was managed by a social worker. The social worker figured out how to have her lesbian girlfriend licensed as her childcare provider, $17/ hour, time and half on weekends, double on vacations. She spent 2 weeks in Disneyland, with her kids. Who do I complain to? The state paid for that. A state official figured out how to pay her girlfriend to move in. She has one disabled child. She can’t marry that girlfriend- so the girlfriend is “not a family member.” for benefit purposes. Who do I complain to? When the state official is the one that figured it all out. When she figured it out at work- how would her boss not know that the spanish-speaking mothers aren’t citizens? We’re a sanctuary city- they are barred from checking- and who throws a pregnant woman out onto the street. If that baby is born on the street- it’s still an American street.
The new crazy lady is independent- she works, she pays for her own kids, and her family is really, really white trash wonderland. But- they work. they train for work, not school. Who would like them better than a woman with a clean house, immaculate yard, new fences, perfect paint? The white-trash wonderland family has way more police visits, and no social worker visits.
I didn’t count the votes- I estimated by the number of people in line. I live in a hard- Democrat district. I was surprised to see any Republicans at all. I estimated by- military tee-shirts, children, checked study ballots left behind, comments past 50 feet.
Look, the social worker structure of government is corrupt to the core, and always has been. It started in Chicago, anyway. BHO taps into that group and mindset.
If you are referring to my post, I am a mother trying to do whatever I can and will take all suggestions. The first school I speak of is one that is currently being sued by a Law Professor whose case is that she did not get the job for her pro-life stance. When the republican group on campus tried to host an event two years ago a tenured professor, using her university email account to said “f the republicans” and she still has her job. When I call the school about their textbooks and curriculum I am either laughed at, patted on the head or pointed in circles. When the Planned Parenthood is openly running a theme of “sluts are cool”, I am honestly asking the question what my daughter and I can do. We all know what happens when you oppose PP.
Well, G*d speed and angels protect, your sweet daughter.
The next question is, is she on board with you? Or is she thinking her friends might have a point? I have two sons and a daughter. The oldest had an elementary school teacher decide to use the most repellent sex- ed curriculum on fourth graders. The label on the package was for 10th graders. That was the one teacher that got invited to not return the following year. The assistant principal laughed at my concerns. Good grief! She thought I was a vanilla-mouthed religious nut. Nuuuu—I was a peer educator in high school in a high-pregnancy rate school, and then I worked with street kids- hookers, chickens and strippers- and this was worse than the stuff I used on hardened prostitutes.
FWIW, read up on the wikipedia page on Simone de Beauvoir: she was a lesbian pedophile. She was fired from her first job for preying on students. She spent the rest of her life grooming young women, all young women, to be her consorts. She arranged sexual partners for her drugged out homunculus of a partner. Where else do you hear about women doing this? Karla Homoltka- the serial killer who sacrificed her own sister to her predator boyfriend.
or, go find the American Thinker article on Kocheve. I can’t find it. But- and-however- in the 40s, in Paris, he was lecturing that Marxism meant that all men would be in ecstatic union with the state, while all women would be available to all men. They weren’t free citizens- the women were “objects” and “other” and “under.” The only way to get up to “subject” was to kill another being: hence, abortion.
Also- deB- as a pedophile- called pregnancy “rot” and “decay.” It’s about like any pedophile getting upset when a young boy gets peach-fuzz on his upper lip.
The women’s magazine editors lied. And lied. And lied. I thought Hanna Rosin’s articles were a joke- but no, she’s serious. She cites Edna St Vincent Millay- who ended up a drug addict, married to an addict, surviving on gin and liver pills. EsVM lived in Greenwich Village. She once snuck into John Reed’s house, waiting for him naked as a jaybird, and got surprised by his live-in girlfriend “wife’- Louise Bryant. Have you ever walked in on a naked woman in your kitchen, waiting for your husband? me neither. I don’t think it’s paradise.
LB, of course, tried to prove she was with it, by sleeping with a playwright, and then spent the next two weeks with an ice-pack on her hoohah, or straddling the bathtub spigot to cool down her burning with disease crotch. VD prior to antibiotics. She died of an exotic neural disease. My guess is fulminant, tertiary venereal disease, wandering the streets of Paris, begging for drinks.
Well, how political is she? how loud? how effective?
are there any conservative anyones at that school? I’m not sure she needs to be out demonstrating, if she can be having lunch with the school pres once a week, or once a month or so. My friends had that dilemma- my lefty friends were out demonstrating, while my righty friends were up having lunch and talking about music and math and architecture with the dean of the whole place. If she can’t offer sandwiches and salad and lunch with the dean ( does she know how to have an effective business lunch? )( don’t argue- talk about anything in common that builds rapport) who can she offer lunch to.
Second- no miniskirts. Not one. Skirts below the knee, somewhere on the curve of her leg. This isn’t prudery. She wants some guy nearly having a heart attack by pushing her skirt up over her knees, with his paw on her leg. ( flirting)( it’s a brutal blood sport, what can I say) tight sweaters are fair game, but not tight tee-shirts- teeshirts wrinkle. pearls, if she wants to marry rich. otherwise, whatever makes her happy. ( really- guys will sort themselves out of the mix, if they think they can’t afford her.) ( guys are honest. it’s really bizarre how honest they are)I had a checklist of what I was looking for on my fridge, and guys would give honest answers. Unreal- they’d disqualify themselves- guys I wanted to go out with would disqualify themselves if they thought I should be with someone better. oh- have nice legs, so when that skirt gets over the knee, he’s stunned with the perfection of it all. Running, dancing, squats, will all work.
Can she have a tea meeting in her room- tea and crumpets- it’s lunch,not political, right? that way she doesn’t have to register.
stats on cooties help. I scared people when I could rattle off rates of infection, without getting excited. bring up pregnancy- the real pregnancy possibility in your early 20′s is, like, 1/3 of the time- 10 days, not one. If she can imagine a kid, the right guy won’t duck. He’ll think it sounds like a cute kid.
care for guys. right now- the slutty hoes can’t clean a bathroom, run a load of laundry, or cook a steak. if you can do any of that, if they can’t marry you, they’ll find a guy for you to marry. I didn’t go out and find my guy- he was presented to me on a silver platter. my boss found him for me. his business partner worked on him. my co-workers were giving me names of suitable guys. my old dates were advising me on how to handle him. he didn’t know what hit him. nice and competent are so rare right now, she can name what she wants, and get it.
Have you looked into Brigham Young University? I’m serious. Those problems you describe are rare there, although you would have to deal with the Mormon religious nature of the school. It might be one of the last conservative high ranking Universities in existance.
you were addressing Ari’s post and I jumped in, my apologies.
Sophia Lee, really, blessings on you and yours.
Hokay, so your daughter- is she presentable? Can she walk with a book on her head? (balance, grace, all that) Does she clean up nice? Can she make a lunch? Can she flirt- real flirting, 40′s style, not “I gots a key, lets get to it.” Real, hand on the arm, purring “you are so handsome…”flirting.
Do her suitors know she has a stable family life? Does she have a protective dad? (really, guys are terrified of dads. I dated the CEO of a company, old enough to be my dad, and he was in tears before meeting my dad. Sha-ah.) Is she clear about what she wants: degree, marriage, work until babies, make lunch every day to save up a million?
Does she like art? math? engineering? chemistry? Can she be a little conversant- it helps to have money ( stem) and culchah- museums and music. it takes both to climb the corporate ladder.
is she on the pill? Get off- ovulating hormones are intoxicating. and the right guy smells better than the one that’ll knock you up with the allergy-kid from hell.
After that, line em up, and sort. She’s got a high market value ( see Roissy. revolting, yet pragmatic) It won’t be fun b/c her friends will be getting laid by all the easy guys- there are so many pretty boys that you can’t play with- but she’ll be able to marry a really good guy.
I had to do a version of this, and my friends called me ruthless, cold and shallow- and I’m the only happy one, 20 years in. Guys wanted to know why I wanted to get married rather than focus on my career ( careers are easy- marriages are hard) and girls wanted to know why I gave away so many good guys- he wasn’t the right one- and why I didn’t have sex for years. Um. cooties. unintended pregnancies. heartbreak. they’ve got kids by lame jerks, suicidal drug addicts, and total losers, and I’m married to a guy with an MBA, who is still the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. I married above my weight class by being a smart shallow girl, not a brilliant man-eater. If she’s conservative- she has the ability to really have a happy, good life with a very lucky man.
Ari-
Oh my, you made me smile! My daughter is not only on board but after bawling Tuesday night she picked up her chin and went off to school and work. Not on the pill, waiting for marriage and very presentable! She had to write a story for a fiction class she calls the ‘lesbian serial killer series’ because this is what all the youngsters are obsessed with. Her story was about a butterfly that had to make a difficult moral choice. The teacher red-inked the entire thing and said “no one reads Dr. Seuss”. She was upset for a few days until, with each successive class, three students approached her and asked if they could have a copy to read to their kids. She was not only surprised (based on the conditions I describe in earlier posts) but also victorious since the teacher overheard one of the mothers’ request. She is my hope for this country. I will pass along your thoughts about her future marital prospects!
is it illustrated? Does she know an art student? Pub-it accepts Word-files. Kindle has hd on some machines. CreateSpace allows for efiles and printed copies. Look up Dean Wesley Smith for extensive, complete, how-tos. Kristine Katherine Rusch has a website on the why-fors of publishing- legal, financial, freelancing, and so on. amazon and b& n pay back, respectively, 70% and 65%, respectively, of cover price. Most successful independent kindle authors charge between $3 to $5 dollars. My friend has one up on prayer, for $3.99. It’s been perking along all year, getting noticed, bit by bit.
If she read it in a creative comp class and three people thought it was worth taking home- that’s gold. Literally GOLD. lit classes are usually people trying to be ruthless, so three students wanting to read it to their own kids- that’s replicable, like crazy replicable. If she wrote it and published it- announce it here- people need Christmas gift suggestions. I found my favorite kids’ book series- rebecca shelley-from an online interview.
And sha-ah: Dr Seuss had a productive career to the day he died. Tell the prof to suck it, she’s clueless about the market. She might know MFA stuff, but MFA writing stuff is the single lowest selling type of books, ever, in any market, at all. The program is not designed for writers- it’s designed to make professorial critics. suicidal, drunken, depressed, divorced, professorial critics. and its’ creaky, and old and lame. her professor is likely vomiting John Gardner workshop retreads: he wrote the book in the 70′s, and writing profs have been parroting his lines ever since. She’s a hack, and a groupie, and a creative fraud.
And, seriously, flirting beats random sex on nearly any draw of the dating hand. the girls who go directly to sex- that’s all they’ve got. it helps to have a full-card hand. making out, somehow, died, in the last ten years, too. I don’t get that. carolyn graglia wrote a really strange book about it- it goes between marriage, and getting laid and making out.
oh- “how to marry the man of your choice” is also a strange, yet enormously useful book. I gave it to a friend when she turned 30, and she had to quit after 6 weeks, b/c she couldn’t handle all the men coming out of the woodwork. Literally-men walking up to her in the grocery store telling her she was so beautiful, men at work she’d known for ten years asking her out.
she’s a sophomore? junior? senior?
she shouldn’t be dating until she’s a junior at the earliest, and senior is better. She wants all the stupid guys to wash out the first two years, and then wait a year past 21, for the alcoholics to wash out. The guys remaining are okay. If she’s a senior, she can shop the grad students, med students, law students, and, if she’s careful and discreet, instructors and profs. Discreet is the main word here.
Volunteering at high-end art stuff- opera, museums, charity fundraisers, is a pretty standard route to a trustafarian.
What sort of guy does she want? Seriously, she can shop like going for jeans. Volunteer at what puts her near her type of guy. My best friend wanted a pilot, so she volunteered at some ROTC support group thing. Went from straight As at school to marrying a helicopter pilot ( I thought she could have shut- down a jet pilot guy, but she liked this one- they’ve got two beautiful, high-achieving, lovely children in college now) She’d had two boyfriends, ever. Both high- end. The one from high-school still adores her.Her husband near worships her.
She should go out with any guy that asks, that’s not a serial killer. Do something inexpensive and fun. If she likes him, go for a second date, and interview him- what’s he like. Carbs and wine loosen tongues. Walking around loosens tongues, too. If he’s not for her- figure out who he could go out with next- it makes for a clean drop. Most girls don’t know how to do this.
Continue on. Only make it to a third date with a suitable prospect. 6 months to 2 years is the right range for marrying. Past that, ditch him cold. Don’t be shy- guys aren’t. My husband still uses my negotiation as a training example for his salesmen. It was an “affirmative close.” : “are we getting married before the end of the year, or after?”
past that, assume he will stay the same, and that he will do what he says he’ll do. so, no nagging. no doubts. just be happy and supportive and competent. they get better when they are admired and respected. if they suck, and you do have to get a divorce- abandonment, alcoholism, abuse- staying positive and kind and supportive even as you leave- the guys who see you be nice will still be interested. weird, but true.
I joke this is the Baptist marriage machine. It works. It’s not just baptist, either- spouse’s cousin used it on her wishy-washy boyfriend- and they are very, very, very happy mormons, today.
I forgot the obvious- the years she’s not dating- she should be going to school, working, hosting study groups, hosting “watch silly tv show” night things, going to plays in groups- all sorts of things that are social, and give her a base of people that can attest to her sterling character. If a guy asks for a date ” I’m waiting to start dating until my senior year b/c I want to be able to really pay attention to the guy…I want to really enjoy dating the right guy…” whatever reason she has had best have a positive spin. She’s not sitting home sulking and drying her hair. She’s being strategic. Guys respect that. They might not like it, but they respect it.
Guys have projects and goals, too. They are looking for a match. They want an organized girl, too. They don’t want a limpet, or a loser, or a clinger, or an air-head, for more than 24 hours. They want what other guys want, too. So those friends, telling him he’s lucky to go out with you, and that they’re jealous, and they wish they’d had a chance? Makes your daughter more valuable in his eyes.He wants to win her, conquer the dickens out of her, sweep her away, all that Disney Prince Charming stuff. Let him. Guys make great Prince Charmings. Corporate VP offices, not so much.
She’s not limited to college guys when she graduates. She has to work to meet guys, then. That takes work. But finding the right guy- if she makes it a priority- can be done. And, again, date, interview, shift him off to a friend, or do something positive for him, so there’s a net positive interaction. After college, for good dates- send thank you notes. little ones with writing, not big pre-printed Hallmark ones. Guys want to be appreciated. They have to work up the nerve to ask a girl out, and then they have to figure out where to go and what to do- it deserves some gratitude in print.
+1, ari
Well, this is outside the area where I’d charge for my opinion, but I raised a daughter from thirteen as a single father, so I have some qualifications. She’s 41, married to the only man she’s ever been married to, and I suspect one of the very few she’s ever slept with, makes a LOT of money, and has a very nice, very affluent lifestyle in a fashionable suburb of a very fashionable city.
When her mother needed “more space,” I had to make some decisions, and I basically decided that if I was going to raise a teenaged girl by myself, I had to decide what was important. My decision was that I had to get her to at least 21 and preferably 25 without a felony conviction or an unwanted child. I know how minimal that seems, but those are the two things from which your daughter will NEVER recover. I never told her what time to come home at night, I asked her when she’d be home and held her to it. I had some rules; boys could never be in her room, boys couldn’t blow their horn for her in the driveway. I wasn’t dumb enough to ever just tell her I didn’t like some guy, but I got damned good at showing her how and why I didn’t like them. For purposes of this discussion, I firmly belive that you should keep your kids and especially your daughters in a community college or junior college near home and have them live with you until they are at least juniors in college. You can’t be authoritarian with them though; even if you know they’re slipping off to get their toes curled you have to buy the story about the spend the night with a girlfriend or go camping.
I had all sorts of problems with her about the women in my life since she was the woman in my life or at least the woman in my house. She didn’t mind some bit of fluff so long as she didn’t have a class with her but some older woman that looked like a serious rival for control of the house was a real issue. When my now-wife decided to move in together, it was time for her to move to the dorm. You’d have thought that I was stuffing her in a feed sack preparatory to throwing her off a bridge, but after a few months you couldn’t have gotten her back in the house with dynamite.
High taxes will make the venture capitals run away.
Obamacare will burden the economy with an unbearable cost.
Regulations will kill the energy sector.
The debt will choke the dollar.
Don’t worry about 2016 and political tactics.
We are going to witness the fall of this wonderful Country.
Violence and poverty are the next scenario.
And the enemies abroad are just laughing, but they will do much more than laughing.
Clean up the voting rolls state by state, every state we can, all at once. Get Holder stretched so thin he can’t cover it all. The states need to push back, hard, and keep pushing. Fed.gov doesn’t give a fig about gop-voting flyover country, so game on.
Next step, what do we do about the Government Cheese voters? How do we inspire at least some of them to aspire to greater?
And the mid-terms are in two years. Lotsa big-spending Government Cheesemongers’ seats up for grabs. Isolate and hogtie the executive branch.
“What I am saying is, we need to slow down the blame game and stop blaming each other. That’s what losers do. We need to filter truth from agendas and myths and then figure out what to do. That’s what winners do.”
If we had actually, ummm, WON, there might be merit in this exhortation, but as it is, we LOST, and your capsule of the two Conservatives’ success juxtaposed with the Moderates’ failures rather decisively dilutes the “Party Unity” message.
Again…we of the base were ceaselessly told through the primaries that Romney was
“The Electable One”…but not only did he not win the Presidency, he didn’t even carry his home state. That’s a McGovern-sized failure, friend, and there just ain’t no way for the early Romney people to whitewash it as anything other than what it is.
AFAIC, if they want to be taken seriously, they have to publicly eat humble pie for both McCain and Romney…or they can spend a few billion more buying campaign memorabilia, because I will not again vote, nor advocate for, another RINO who MAY be palatable to “Open” GOP primary voters in Massachussetts and Minnesota and California.
Reince Priebus can start undoing this Achille’s Heel by refusing to seat GOP convention delegates from Open Primary states…it is too easy for these delegates and their choice to be tainted by the opposition.
“So evangelicals turned out and delivered about 26% of the electorate, and Romney’s share among churchgoers rose over McCain’s total in 2008. That isn’t stopping the usual “purge the evangelicals and win” talk among some Republicans.”
Uh-huh….very interesting. And the “moderates” you speak of…what was THEIR voting numbers for Romney? If SoCons are the ones that mark the ballots and have the church-based ground game, then SoCons get the FIRST seat at the table, and the Squishies can eat the scraps until THEY turn out and cast ballots. You don’t win a war by shorting the fighting vanguard of your army of supplies and ammo for the sake of the JAG and Medical corps, y’know…especially when they are non-combatants.
I would also like to remind you that in spite of Romney’s shortfall and the verbal brainfarts of Aikin and Mourdock, the GOP DID keep the House…and House races are the ones most closely watched by those that pay attention. You’re welcome, Moderates.
“Here are some facts that we need to deal with. We’re losing Hispanic voters, the fastest growing segment in the nation and one that is still persuadable for both sides.”
I am more concerned with the single White women we are not reaching. What is their problem with us? Are they all Sandra Flukes?
And if we are going to speak of “demographics” and start picking out ethnic goups and such, then let us speak of our own. Because the “demographic destiny” argument is one that tacitly acknowledges that politics is tribalism with shoes and without the machetes. If that be the case, then we may as well throw the values out the window, abolish the ICE,join the MSM borg in advocating homosexuality and make abortion a Sacrament, since the growing numbers of Blacks, Hispanics and Asians will be unable or unwilling to adopt and accept our White Christian Western European values.
I don’t believe this, and the victories of Reagan and Bush, plus the crushing victories of 1994 and 2010 mid-terms argue otherwise.
At the Congressional level, we may have room for moderation, but when we run people of Conservative principle for the White House, we have won. It’s that simple.
And if we cannot win the White House while standing on our principles and collecting the support of sovereign citizens of like mind, whatever their origin or station, then don’t bother running anyone at all, because this is then no longer America, but a collection of racial and ethnic and class tribes at war with each other, and you might as well forsake PJM and go yap with the worthies on Stormfront.
What makes me crazy is all the scorn heaped on people like me because I don’t care as much about MONEYY!!!111!!!! as I do about Human Life, Itself. If moderates don’t have respect for that point of view, then we aren’t allies to any greater extent than Stalin and Hitler were (or Stalin and Roosevelt, if the near-Godwin’s Law violation bugs you).
Not to mention this: Pro-lifers have more children, aka future voters. If you alienate pro-lifers, you lose our children’s votes.
Before Roe, the federal government stayed out of the abortion question; some states allowed it, others didn’t. Roe was when the federal government stuck its big butt in. Every other social issue is following the same path; the federal government sticks its butt in, forces its liberal opinion on us, and then the social liberals complain about how WE’RE the ones who want to force our opinions on other people! Just get your damn ovaries out of my wallet, keep your gay marriages out of my church, and finish dying off so we can get on with this. The silver lining to Maryland’s gay marriage law is that the only thing better than a fetal liberal with scissors in her skull and her brains sucked out, is one that never did come into existence in the first place. But pay for it yourself.
Maryland…the Haven for Catholics…and look what Liberal Socialist governments have done to it.
If it were not that Maryland is in the morally corrupt and Marxist-infiltrated Archdiocese of Baltimore, I would say the Archbishop should impose degradation and laicization of those “priests” within it. If he balks, maybe His Holiness Benedict would impose an interdiction on that heretical diocese.
But that’;s neither here nor there in the secular world. What IS germane is that if homosexuality is ever found to be genetically based, then it won’t be too long before there’s a prenatal test for it, and when THAT comes about, unborn homosexuals will likely meet the same fate as unborn Down’s Syndrome babies…90% of women whose fetuses test positive for Down’s Syndrome opt to “terminate the pregnancy”, this despite there being waiting lists of people wanting to adopt those extra chromosome angels.
We know, however, what the “Gay Marriage” is all about, it is about access to and recruiting the young so that they may be perverted from their normal and rightful sexual orientation…”buggered into the Gay Cult”.
If you think anything other, you are a fool. And if you claim that it is anything other, you are probably a liar into the bargain.
I do have a modest idea as to how to address the demographic issue. It’s only an idea now, y’all, and I cannot say it’s proper, correct, or would be feasible, but here goes:
Since policies enacted in 1965 (and a subsequent modification of the law in 1990), our immigration policy has favored accepting people from all over the world, seemingly especially from the poorest nations. Many if not most of these are precisely the kind of people who will vote for their benevolent Democrat Master.
Well. Inasmuch as Affirmative Action has been continually beaten down due to it’s inherent “racist” undertones, why shouldn’t the same argument be made about our immigration policy? To say otherwise is to accept the inherently racist nature of these laws. So perhaps it’s time to legally challenge this, so that we can accept a far more equitable number of Europeans again.
Mind you, I think this is fairly self-evident, although I certainly can’t be sure – it seems to me that these European immigrants would tend to be the more Conservative types. Else why leave their Socialist paradise? And it would be a counter-balance to all of the third-worlders we currently take in.
If your problems are demographics, then change the demographic.
Anyways, it’s a thought. Ill-formed and half-assed, but it’s something.
If your idea was sold as a way to obtain more “health care professionals” for the impending Obama care, that might be one avenue.
you know, I don’t know that the union holds. All the states with jobs and reasonable governments went hard for Romney. The bankrupt states with out-of-control budgets went for Obama. I’m not sure flyover states wish to fund housing projects. I know they don’t. Which is why BHO has been put up for president: the regionalism plan forces suburbs to pay for decrepit, rotten, cities.
Texas, when it was a big, flat plain full of obstreperous Indians scalping people- the land-grant guys bought middle German farmers from their prince. The core of the state is still German. They published German-language newspapers through World War 2. The “Texan” military guys that won WW2- Eisenhower, Nimitz–were from that wave of immigrants. It’s how Texas is different than the deep South- it’s german, not scots Irish.
Well, if we want to be in a good position- I say we invite in every white Namibian, and South African laying around. It beats getting killed by roaming bands of machete-freaks. And any German family with young children. They’re getting taxed to support fat greek slobs. Why not come here, get a place with a big yard, few nanny-state regulations- and have a bunch of kids, instead of the one and only? It’s already culturally compatible.
Or, maybe scotland. they’ve already got a beachhead with the tech companies. They’re depressed and living in crappy apartments there. Come here. We’ve got soccer leagues and accounting departments, and presbyterian churches with scottish families already here.
I hear what you’re saying, but the problem with Europe is Europeans.
I’ve known more than my share of Euro-immigrants, and t’ain’t a one of ‘em who doesn’t at some point start babbling about how much better/smarter/cheaper/whatever it was in “the Old Country”.People will recreate the same dung-heap they fled from.
Note to Texans: I hope you boys have your “Boot Camps” up and running to pump the West Coast out of your “reverse Okies” from California.
Do NOT let them out until they have got their minds right with Texas!
they stay twerpy. but the kids, the kids turn Texan. Every morning at every public school in Texas, the kids say the Pledge of Allegiance, the Texas Pledge, likely a school pledge, and a minute of silence. It’s only 3 minutes, but it’s every last single kid in public education.
If the Cali person wants to dry out from drugs or drink -the AA and NA meetings are in churches- big, shiny, up to date, glossy, filled with their contemporaries- churches. None of this dank basement in an old, near abandoned building, or public library or grange hall nonsense. Big, shiny, successful churches. In every last single flavor of faith, including, but not limited to, Theosophical churches. One of the founders of the atheist society in town goes to church with his parents. An atheist tried to join the Presbyterian church, just b/c he liked the people.
If their kids play sports- Fellowship of Christian Athletes is HUGE.
Their kids get tested 4 times as much as the rest of the state- no social promotion, and no self-esteem training. ” You screwed up, Now make it right.”
The housing projects are safe, clean and plain. The police patrol them like crazy. So, no blaming chaos and destruction. The kids can get out by getting an education. They aren’t freakishly traumatized by chaos, and they aren’t comfortable in the squalor.
Seriously!! We just had a neighbor move in from Virginia, and she was griping about how plain the project was. HELLOOOO- it’s to encourage people to leave. It has police there all the time so it doesn’t turn into a crack-dealing cesspool. And this next street over? Everyone has guns. Every few years some jackass moves into the project and starts burgling houses and cars on our street, until he gets to one of the houses with a gun-owner. The last time, the gun-owner was in the middle of the street with shot-gun, and the dumb burglar was running down the street TOWARDs the police officer, for protection. The crazy lady next door has three pit-bulls, a shot-gun,and a cross-bow. I can’t let my kids in the backyard, b/c her dogs think my kids are food, but still- it’s really freaking entertaining.
Beavis and Butthead are from Texas. They are cartoons- and retards, and awful. But you know what? They’ve got jobs. That’s different than any other cartoon teenager on TV. Or any other teenager on TV. Or 50% of all teenagers for real.
Dare we let it be known that 12-step programs are Ignatian Spiritual Exercises in disguise?
The bad news is if you are basically conservative, but don’t come from or believe in the “correct” religion (like Mormons) then living in Texas is harsh. The good news is that they still end up loving Texas the state despite its people.
There isn’t a majority religion, like Utah or Louisiana.
There are huge Baptist, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Mormon, Hindu, Methodist, Catholic populations. Yes- Hindu- Barsana Dam. People move from other states to be a part of that temple, and raise their kids around other whatever they ares. The Moslem center is pretty hopping, too, and multi-national.
Waco is a huge Baptist town- Baylor U, and all that. The Branch Davidians lived and flourished in peace with their “scary fundamentalist” neighbors for half a century. It’s Hillary and Bill Clinton, courtesy of Janet Reno- that would be statist, leftist, liberal Democrats, who annihilated them. Not us. Them. Big-state Democrats killed the Branch Davidians. Religious, right-wingers lived at peace with them. 50 years of peace and amity vs 3 years of a Clinton presidency.
The bar is pretty low for going to church. Baptists believe in soul competency, and the priesthood of the believer, so what you get out of the reading the Bible- that’s yours, and the pastor can only hope to persuade of his view, not impose his view by fiat. There’s pentecostals, too. This isn’t a state of rich people snickering about poor people. This is poor people getting rich. “White Trash with Cash” is the expression.
How low a bar, you ask? The founder of the atheist society in town goes to church. The manager of the largest topless bar in town goes to church. The lector at the last church we attended died of AIDS, and wore a rainbow necklace with his cross. There is a church under an overpass on the highway for homeless people. Some wealthy people go there b/c they like the pastor. Jessica Simpson’s dad was a youth pastor.
Max Lucado, Joel Osteen, TDJakes ( I think, I could be wrong) are Texas pastors. These are not frightening men.
Well, as I’d said, it’s not a perfect idea, but at least it’s some form of method to return those immigration demographics a bit more towards our political POV.
Now I do understand what Bilgeman says, and that’s a good point. My Supervisor is from Chekia (just became naturalized a few months ago) and yes, he on occasion has those tendencies. Yet there are Europeans who are still Conservative, religious and adamant about it. Say people from Poland and Ireland. Both would tend towards this.
I don’t know about you – I’d rather find solutions than cry into my beer about how unfair fate has been to our lot. Or, perhaps the better way to say it is, “if you can’t win under the rules, change the rules.”
Don’t fret about the idea maybe being imperfect, the conversation is a good one. Because there are a few different ways to get more people to vote your way:
1) cheat
2) convince people on the fence to side with you
3) convince your opponents you’re right
4) give birth to an army of like-minded descendents (this involves quite a bit of time and money. You have to have a parent stay home with the kids, stay involved with their lives, and discuss the issues frequently and in depth at the level the child is able to understand. Just yesterday, I explained tax policy to #5, who is twelve years old, because his friends think soaking the rich is a good idea)
5) Import! This is kind of a new idea, and someone above suggested sneaking eastern Europeans across the Mexican border so they’ll qualify for the next amnesty.
Ah, and coincidentally, the Boston Globe – as Lefty a rag as there ever was – just posted an article that address the precise same thing: “President Obama’s big Hispanic victory worries Republicans.”
Well, it should. I, for one, have *zero* attitude towards minorities. But neither do I want to see our demographic being deliberately altered towards this end. Why? For what possible reason? Can some Democrat show me in our Constitution and body of laws where it says we are insufficiently (fill in the ethnicity here), and therefore it should be a codified governmental policy to change things?
I think the GOP screwed up on this. They should have challenged this POV decades ago, and like Ju-Jitsu, used the Dems favorite argument – you’re a racist – against them.
Time to fight dirty, y’all, and use their own methods against them
Good G-d, I can’t type today. Grammatical errors abound. Apologies.
Let us not talk about libertarians. Don’t talk about what the Romney campaign did to Ron Paul voters. Don’t mention the dismissive attitude that establishment Republicans have towards the tea parties. I’m pretty sure most establishment republicans would rather Obama be president than Ron Paul. Well, guess what…you got your wish.
Ceteris,
Ron Paul supporters have consistently been able to successfully promote his presence and his ideas _out of proportion_ to his level of support. His support hovered around single digits, yet his views got stronger play due to the tactics of his supporters. I have personally witnessed Ron Paul supporters trample on common courtesy in order to insist that his views be broadcast loudly, and then become indignant when the tactics backfired and his message was not universally acclaimed. The indignancy then morphs, startlingly, into an almost tyrannical mindset whereby the Ron Paul supporters believe that because they are a vocal, energetic, and passionate minority, that they get to overrule the will of the majority. Over-ruling the majority is not patriotic. It is not Consitiutional.
Then, when their minority opinion was not embraced, many of them became so indignant that they refused to vote Republican. Claiming they were voting their “conscience”, they very publicly proclaimed to every Republican they could find that they would NOT be voting for Romney. It was almost gleeful. And it reminds me of Marx. Marx believed that capitalism must fail before socialism could rise, and many libertarian conversations I have seen and participated in run the same way. “I will vote my conscience, and then when Obama is re-elected and the country collapses, everyone will finally understand that Ron Paul is the only one who can/could have saved us.” Sorry but that is hero worship, not allegiance to a principle.
What kills me is that libertarians are amazingly well-informed on the Constitution and on confusing aspects of government such as the Federal Reserve. But they are, by and large, completely unwilling to accept the idea of the majority rule set out in the Constitution, and then blame those of us who are closest to their ideals for their inability to impose their will. Instead, by abstinence or by “protest vote”, they throw their lot in with those who are shredding the Constitution as fast as possible.
Who lost on November 6? Why? That single digit Ron Paul support that you diss might have been useful to Romney, no? Hey, enjoy Obama part 2!
Well, if petulance is any guide than the Paul supporters voted for obama.
The Republican Party kicked me in the crotch and spit in my face. Now some call me petulant for not voting for them. Snort!
Your glee, despite the widespread acknowledgement of the disaster which awaits us all, merely proves my point. Not that it matters.
Hell, I’D rather Obama were President than Paul, and I’d have stood in line long as it took to cast my vote for [bleah] Obama. These alternate-reality numbercrunchers are always feverishly counting how many extra Republican votes their guy could have garnered, while never acknowledging which (and how many) they’d have sacrificed.
Dont discount the late-game Mormon unease factor. A stout christian white male friend of my sister in IA was reported to have said “f’in mormon” several times in his pre-election conversations. That could have cost Romney margins in N and Central Florida, North Carolina (didnt matter but how come McCrory and some Reps cruised by comparison?), and Virginia. I’d certainly put IA (outright irrational hatred) and even NV (LDS fatigue) as victims of the Mormon factor.
Not sure if this is a factor, but one of the little quirks in NC voting is that you can vote straight party ticket – but you still have to check the space for your choice of president.
If a lot of voters simply hit the republican box and didn’t bother to educate themselves enough to know they had to put TWO checks (one for straight party ticket and one for choice of president), then effectively they cast no vote in the presidential election.
I think you’re wrong, Bryan. The social conservative message plays well in some regions (the southeast) but is rejected outright everywhere else. Where you’re wrong is that you’re looking at the raw numbers and not seeing context. Social conservatism doesn’t work expect in the southeast… period. The fate of Akin in a state that went Romney ought to have spelled that out for you. More importantly Akin and Mourdock were **NATIONAL** stories and effectively killed a lot of republican votes.
Social conservatism is regional at best, so yes, the GOP needs to pull the plug on this if it intends to win national elections.
Fine. Give up the most reliable part of the party’s base. We won’t vote with you. Where do we go?
Victory!!! For the Democrats, forever.
As a social libertarian, I am totally tolerant of socons. I have no problem with anyone who doesn’t hurt innocent people. If only the reverse were true we might actually have a decent country.
Bingo.
I wish you would acquire reading comprehension skills. No republicans are intolerant of social conservatives. Not even me. I’m not the least bit religious yet defend the rights of the religious to believe what they want. But… THIS ISN’T WHAT IS BEING DISCUSSED. Rather, it’s the usurpation of the republican message on economy and jobs and defense and energy by social conservatives concentrating on their particular concerns. When voters bypass the republican candidate, it’s because they’re not hearing the *political* message; they’re hearing nothing but the war on women and gays.
To far too many voters, thanks to so-cons, republicans = mysoginist homophobes. Can those who think so little of something as simple and obvious as women’s and gay rights be trusted with stuff that’s meaningful and more difficult? Of course not. The electorate just got finished underlining this.
Social Conservatives know why they are pursuing the goals of Fiscal Conservatism.
They pursue them because of their families. Families they did not have by accident but because they wanted to. They looked for and found partners they could have & raise those families with. Families whose futures extend beyond their own lives.
For these reasons, they do not want to saddle them with debts incurred to pay for pleasures and privileges that their children and grandchildren will not be able to afford because the all the money is gone, or tied up in paying off the Debt Instruments issued to pay for those Pleasure & Privileges 20 or 30 years ago.
You cannot be a true Fiscal Conservative unless you at the very least grasp and do not reject outright the tenets of Social Conservatism. You would be a Mind divorced from your Soul.
You would be Solomon, whose Wisdom degraded into Sophistry.
The socons aren’t usurping the message–the media are the ones bringing up the social issues, for the PURPOSE of creating a distraction. They know their party can’t win on economics, so they do everything they can to gin up controversy elsewhere. The media hides our economic message by focusing on social fear-mongering; it’s not the socons affirmatively doing things to usurp it, it’s the media obscuring it.
That said, we need to stop giving the media their sound bites. Every GOP candidate for president, governor, senator, or representative needs to attend an RNC 3-day training camp to practice messaging, and delivering our ideas coherently on EVERY issue.
There is precious little more important than defending the defenseless. Believe me, you kill a baby you have no problem running up national debt. There is nothing more important for a nation to do than defend itself (life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness for us and our posterity…”provide for the common defence”). We are simply defending at the basic level those who cant defend themselves. Perhaps we have saved someone who is important in your eyes, you just don’t know it.
The fact is many fincons just want to make money. This is epitomized by the person who won’t put a Romney sticker on his Bimmer or Pathfinder cause it might get keyed. Founding Father risk death and you just care about your “Silver Graphite” enamel. Nice.
JULIA — The socons aren’t usurping the message–the media are the ones bringing up the social issues, for the PURPOSE of creating a distraction.
Yeah, the RNC adding an anti-abortion plank to their platform, Akin, Mourdock, and four states with homophobic anti-gay marriage attempts by so-cons were INVENTED by the opposition just so they would have something to distract with.
Check your meds, twit.
Follow the Thread of the Comment I am responding to, look to what RandomEngineer says just above me.
And you will see why when he shows up here on PjMedia again, there no reason to even acknowledge his presence here unless you are one of those people who comes here to argue the way Brawlers go to Dive Bars.
I believe aggressive politics wins. Obama was a total a$$hole and he won! The point is not to piss off the wrong people though. As a libertarian, I was pissed by the treatment Ron Paul received as well as the treatment I received as a vocal Romney opponent. If you think that treatment was appropriate, please enjoy the next four years of Obama. You own it!
And that’s why the GOP is doomed. Many (not all) socons insist on putting issues at the forefront that scare off a huge number of potential GOP supporters.
I saw a quote yesterday from the head of the Susan B. Anthony anti-abortion group; saying that Romney lost because he did not pursue a socially conservative agenda. In other words, ending abortion is more important than jobs or the economy.
The problem with the so-called so-cons is that it’s their way or the highway. Until this attitude changes, I am not tolerant of so-cons at all. If they oppose abortion, don’t have them. If they don’t like contraceptives, then don’t use them and follow the rhythm method of birth control. But stop trying to impose your religious ideology on all of society.
It might be worth some time to read some of the writings of Roger Williams. He and others of like mind left religious domination in Massachusetts Bay colony and started the colony of Rhode Island.
Please give me a non-snarky explanation why money should be more important than human life. That’s what it comes down to. You’ll need Biblical references of course.
OMG! I am so sick to death of you filthy lying b@stards!
All we want is for you people to go to h3ll in your own way ON YOUR OWN DIME!!! You want to murder your baby? Go ahead. Just don’t use my money. You want gay-marriage. Fine – move to a state that allows it. Just get out of my face with it and don’t force me to pay for it.
lolly — All we want is for you people to go to h3ll in your own way ON YOUR OWN DIME!!!
Cute. You honestly think you have a valid point?
I don’t like seeing my car insurance rates go up because you were texting and wrecked your car. I don’t like paying more for health care because you have no self control and can’t stop drinking a six pack of pepsi daily and now you have diabetes. And I’m not really happy paying for your disability cheques because you went into a diabetic coma and wrecked your car again and really messed yourself up.
We all have to pay for the idiocy of others and we always have. Deal.
Jeanette: non-snarky explanation follows:
Without money (or its equivalent) there is no life. No one will reproduce because they will starve long before they can.
Of course it’s our way or the highway, and may God have mercy on us if it is ever not so. Fiscal policy is negotiable; abortion is not. Abortion isn’t just another issue; it is a litmus test, and whoever fails it disqualifies himself from our support. There are other issues of equal importance: maintaining the bans on infanticide and euthanasia, and protecting human beings from immoral experiments. Protection of marriage and family integrity follows immediately after the life issues. Then comes protection of freedom of speech and religion and the means to preserve them. Only after these does fiscal policy enter the arena. Were slavery still being debated, it would be alongside human experimentation as an issue.
Ceteris,
A good start, thanks. But you have to remember a few things:
1) Any good Christian worth his salt fully expects to suffer financially due to his beliefs at some point or another (and perhaps suffer otherwise also of course). You can raise children on an astonishingly low income if you work at it; look around at some of the homeschool blogs and you’ll see that in many cases people give up quite a bit financially to live our Christianity in the world.
2) As I commented elsewhere in this article, the socially liberal policies we’re debating here (relatively civilly, one of the things I like about PJMedia!) are specifically mentioned as “ways to weaken American Culture in order to pave the way for Our Glorious Communist Revolution” in all the now-leaked books and documents from the 1930s-1960s. It’s probably a good idea for social liberals to meditate on how they got these ideas. Who was instrumental in your moral formation? Trace it back. Again, the Communists believed these ideas would WEAKEN American culture. I think Communism is a cult, (perhaps even the source of all the other religious cults that suddenly popped up in the 1960s!) which has infected most Americans to one extent or another. It’s time to deprogram ourselves.
Bryan, nobody is asking you guys to leave the party; that’s just stupid. What I’m saying is that your DOMINATION of the party’s message isn’t working. I understand that you don’t like that. But surely there’s something you so-cons will offer other than “do it our way or else we’ll take our toys and go home.” Who’s being reasonable here? Hint: it’s not you guys.
See the SteveB comment below. YOU are the problem. Deal.
“Where do we go?”
Out into the wilderness where none of your conservative approaches to sensible, effective, efficient governance will have any play at all whatsoever. Face the facts that the majority of the American people approve of the woman’s right to choose (particularly during the early weeks of pregnancy) & approve of, at the very least, civil union rights for gays. No one likes being pushed around, whether it comes from the left or the right.
Not true, if it mattered. Polls show majority against abortion now. Besides I don’t live by the polls. Of course, I probably would have been against the Nazi too. You?
As a registered independent who voted Romney all I can say is I want the jackass party to stay out of my wallet, and the pachyderm party to stay the hell out of my bedroom.
Oh, and I’m fed the F up with ‘my turn’ GOP candidates. If they didn’t make the cut this year they absolutely have no business popping up like mushrooms again in 4 years. They’re also-rans for a reason.
Herman Cain is making noise about needing a true third party, leave the establishment GOP beltway grandees in the mud. I’mna all for that. Mebbe it’s time to make the Dem-lite party go the way of the Whigs. Mebbe the tea party needs to step up and get official, tell the GOP beltway grandees to piss off and go their own way. Not likely to do much worse.
HOW are the gop in your bedroom. I mean – it’s a nice catchphrase – but I just don’t see it.
Seriously, how? Besides us not wanting to PAY for your toys and your ability to murder your offspring HOW is the gop in your bedroom?
In my view, the division isn’t liberal vs conservative any longer. I think it is more along the lines of Government vs non-government. If you are in private business, you are seen as responsible for taking care of the 50% of the people who are either employed by, receive income from or dependent completely upon the government. Why would they want less government? There is nothing in it for them, and they think it should be.
If you look at a voting map of this country, county by county, we are still a VERY red country. The problem is that these mega-cities are choosing the candidate for their entire state, disenfranching everybody else.
This is exactly what the framers DIDN’T want to happen. Why should one city (i.e. NY, for example) choose the candidate for the entire state? There needs to be some sort of cap on these cities. Why does a handfull of mega-cities around the country get to choose the president for the rest of us?
That’s a damned good point. And say, wasn’t the the entire purpose behind the Electoral College? That a few large states couldn’t dominate the smaller others in the selection of a President?
Perhaps each state requires it’s own equivalent of an Electoral College, such that the feww big urban areas don’t do the same to the rest.
And say, it also occurred to me, what could the Democrats possibly say? It’s not acceptable to try to protect the right of the minority from the tyranny of the majority? They’d come across as pretty damned stupid sounding if they tried.
“It’s not acceptable to try to protect the right of the minority from the tyranny of the majority” They are already saying that — see “one-percenters.” If you are too small a voting block, you can’t protect yourself from big-government folks. “Rich” people can protect themselves to some degree with their money, but only to some degree. Of course, the eat-the-rich paradigm constantly expands downward in search of ever more vulnerable targets…
Maine and Nebraska award their electoral votes based on who one in individual congressional districts. It’d be interesting to see how the EC count would’ve changed had all states enacted that policy. Someone sufficiently wonky and with time to kill might want to research that. It still preserves the electoral college, still lets states decide how they’re going to implement their own EC delegation.
Have each state enact it’s own electoral college based on the votes of their constituent counties. Or counties and independent cities in cases like VA and suchlike. It would only be *fair*…
I haven’t thought about it enough to form a conclusion about whether a state could come up with an EV apportioning scheme that was Constitutionally permissible but I know that Georgia and perhaps other states had a similar system that thwarted the political power of bigger cities, specifically Atlanta in GA’s case, that was thrown out by the USSC on racial discrimination grounds. We tried to tell them it wasn’t the blacks in ATL we were trying to discriminate against but rather all the damned Yankees that had migrated there. They didn’t buy it. Well, not really, but it’s a good story.
That’s an astute observation, but unfortunately, central planners love mega-cities and re-urbanization is going to be a central part of Obama’s 2nd term.
The answer to your question is that votes are allocated per person and not per acre.
I’m not saying that is how it should be. I have no particular tie to any such political mechanic.
Why all this apocalypse?
I will happily take the position that Romney ran an awful campaign, and though he might have positive personal attributes, he has been an awful candidate in all his national races, primaries 2008 and primary and general 2012.
Look guys, running any variety of bankster in 2012 was really bad timing (though it did not have to be fatal – how about the brainstorm of some idiot with an Islamic name, running for president in 2008 – and WINNING!). And even running Mr. Romneycare against Obamacare – I mean, really? The lack of clarity that provided can be blamed for enough vote shift to swing this election.
One of my favorite cliches is “You can’t beat something with nothing”. Romney’s highly paid campaign staff, thought that they could. Obama’s sleazebag campaign staff thought that they couldn’t. Obama’s team won.
That’s 2012 in a nutshell.
I agree with every dark trend and conspiracy theory that is raised, but you’ve got to go out there and play the game, and Romney didn’t. To that extent the electorate made an entirely predictable, if not entirely rational, decision. Most of the right blogosphere thought the electorate should be out searching for a minimally acceptable alternative to Obama, and certainly Romney was that. However, that’s not how most of the electorate viewed things. Ach, I’m just ranting now. But this is election analysis, basic politics 101, and not blame as such, but hey the analysis has to mention who did what, and who didn’t what.
I will offer this weak defense of Mitt Romney.
He ran an OK campaign against someone who ran an Exemplary (ruthlessly focusing on the people he needed to get re-elected – focusing on attacking his opponent’s character rather than on issues, which people say matter but really are bored by) campaign.
Obama understands that portion of the American people who are likely to vote better than Romney did.
Or me, for that matter. I thought that more people in America are adults, able to overcome their fear and see past the glitter of personality.
And Romney would have been an OK President, starting off the Recovery with measures of fiscal prudence that could have been added onto and improved by more Conservative successors.
I am someone who gave up drinking not because I had a problem with it but because I learned in college that drinking does not make people who are not interesting when you are sober any less dull when you’ve got a beer or two in your system.
So I get Incremental Improvements. And I get how people who are not Rock Stars or Saints can still do a good enough job.
I agree with you, Romney would probably have been OK, which puts him way above Obama. But we’re here reading and posting on a political blog.
Retail politics has never been so wordy or intellectual, the winners have to make a personal and institutional impression on EVERYONE, and 50% to 90% or maybe more like 99%, have somewhat less time to spend worrying about national politics, than they have for their local sports team.
Frank Luntz was commenting on Hannity yesterday that this election was not decided on any issue. That was Obama’s victory, and Romney’s failure. Even the jobs issue washed out – perhaps because Romney was absolutely the wrong image to win that issue. Obama would happily give everyone a federal job, or a paycheck in any case. Romney even as super-duper-job-creator, isn’t going to win that one. What he SHOULD have done (per Luntz) is talk up “economic freedom”, a Main Street story of economics even better than some slick bankster funding Staples or Mr. Moneybags examining your resume and hiring you direct, and maybe even better than some hack government job. A lot of America still respects hard work and reward for it, OTOH a lot of American never has and always would go for a handout. I’m not sure that has changed too much in 200 years. Probably some and not for the better, but I don’t think (don’t WANT to think) that was the whole story here, not with so many obvious errors in the way.
Using the term “Bankster” gives you away as an OWS Anarcho-Socialist.
Nobody would ever run on the R ticket that would get you closer to that end if they won.
Yep. And I am a big Romney fan, (not that I would expect anyone to remember but I have defended him on PJ many times). We didn’t have the best candidate- though he would have been a good, possibly great President. They are two different things, alas. All this pearl-clutching is tiresome and premature, in my very humble opinion.
I suggest the republican party start advancing the ideas of personal liberty, fiscal responsibility, and limited constitutionally authorized federal government.
Abortion is not going to be made illegal as it’s been legitimized to too many generations of citizens. The socons who dream of overturning Roe v Wade at the federal level are delusional, and their pronouncements on the subject are always going to be played off to the public, via a filtered media, as out of touch.
What hip young man-child or woman-child in their twenties wants to look out of touch as they dribble their opinions onto social media via their Iphone?
Suggesting that the federal government have a role in that debate in fact flies in the face of federalism as it should be a state issue anyway.
Proper response when a republican is questioned on that subject should be that it is an issue that should be addressed at the citizen and state levels and the federal government has no constitutionally clear role to play in that debate one way or the other – end of story, next question.
If a republican starts mouthing crap about “legitimate rape”, any republican standing nearby should have carte blanche to pick up a heavy object and pummel him about the head and neck until he is senseless.
Socons won’t like it, but it comports with federalism and an originalist reading of the words in the Constitution. It also takes it off the table as another club to be beat over the head with.
Gun control, legalization of marijuana, school voucher systems, busing, are all similar issues.
The federal government should get out of these and so many other subjects entirely, and make the case to the public that this is a deferral of responsibility from the federal level back to the state level where it belongs and they can have the kind of society and laws they want on these issues and so many others that agrees with the particular society each state has developed over generations.
If you don’t like the laws of a state – move!
If my own state of North Carolina wants to legalize pot – I’ll be the first to object and lobby against it! But I don’t feel the federal government should be coming into my state to enforce federal laws on the matter as it was never an authority delegated to them in the Constitution.
This then ties back into fiscal concerns. The less the federal government is involved in, the less money it takes to run it. If things hit the wall the way everyone is concerned they will over the next year or so, then these Obama voters are going to get the shellacking of their lives, financially speaking.
Give them no help. Make them live with their choices. When you bail them out repeatedly they will just make the same decisions over and over again. Let them have their Obama cake and force feed them every mouthful until they are puking it back up. Pity at this point is self-defeating.
Only when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing will they even consider a different political viewpoint.
While I agree with large swaths of your post I must take issue with this statement:
“Gun control, legalization of marijuana, school voucher systems, busing, are all similar issues.”
Nothing related to the use or misuse of pharmacological substances or to schools can be found in the Constitution and hence must fall under the tenth amendment.
BUT “gun control” a euphemism for disregarding and desecrating the second amendment is a horse of a different color.
The Constitution isn’t a smorgasbord, you either embrace all of it or none of it.
Ya might want to cool your jets – just a little.
You see, I believe that the private citizen should actually be able to legally own anything and everything up to and including their own belt fed machine gun (regardless of whether it was manufactured before or after 1986!).
However, at the same time I DON’T believe the guy hitting the marijuana joint a couple of times a day, or the paroled axe murderer (who should actually have been executed for his crimes!), should be able to possess anything more dangerous than a lump of play dough.
See, I can be reasonable…lol.
OK, that was a little out of left field, not sure if your implying the young lady above is a stonner. . . although, in this exchange she did throw the first one.
While I agree with you in principle, I think belt fed/crew served weapons fall into the category of ordnance, not arms, which is what the Constitution states we have the right to bear Some may think it’s a small difference, but words only have power if they have meaning (meanings that the left routinely ignore or invent).
A thousand apologies for my closing remark about the “young lady” it was in reference to another exchange here at PJ! Mia Copa.
“While I agree with you in principle, I think belt fed/crew served weapons fall into the category of ordnance, not arms, which is what the Constitution states we have the right to bear Some may think it’s a small difference, but words only have power if they have meaning (meanings that the left routinely ignore or invent).”
Sorry, but I disagree with your definition wholeheartedly while at the same time agreeing that words have meaning. Here are definitions of “ordnance” and “arms” from one online dictionary:
ordnance: “military supplies”
Arms: “weapons considered collectively”
The 2nd Amendment did not clarify what “arms” were being discussed as if it was assumed people would know what was being referred to.
In my opinion, if it can be carried and operated by one person and fires a bullet then it should be legal to own by the average law abiding citizen. If you read the words of the Founding Fathers, they were actually quite in favor of the free citizen possessing martial arms:
◦”Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American…(T)he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” (Freeman’s Journal, 20 Feb 1778) Tench Cox
If I’m not mistaken, when the British marched on Concorde or Lexington, they even confiscated a privately owned cannon. In later generations, it was not unusual or odd for private individuals to purchase artillary or naval cannon, and even into the 1920′s you could mail order a fully automatic short barreled Thompson sub-machine gun with a 50 round magazine with no paper work at all other than the dollars you used to pay for it with.
Even in the Miller vs US decision that legitimized gun control originally at the federal level, the court basically held that the law was reasonable as long as no evidence had been presented that a short barreled shotgun (the weapon in question) was a common military type weapon.
The reason it was not presented was because no one showed up but the government when the case was presented, and the government chose not to inform the court that short barreled shotguns had a history of military use. Under that logic, the court could have tossed the case out had the proper evidence been presented.
This may seem odd to some – but this was actually the norm up into the early part of the 20th Century, which may say more about how we have been socialized ourselves to think about firearms than it does about what those people did generations ago.
But I’m perfectly willing to be reasonable and accept that the states can restrict the private citizen from purchasing an RPG or howitzer, and that the federal government can restrict the international import or export of arms…lol.
My remark about the second amendment was not meant to be disparaging. I simply think the Federal Government SHOULD be involved in “gun control” by overturning all such laws at all levels and returning to the Constitution.
Scott, JustAl, nicely put.
I agree with you. As a public school teacher who retired after 26 years, I am tired of all the blame being pushed on the schools. Let those complainers try working in a public school for a period of MONTHS…not days and see what they encounter. Let those complaining deal with the pressure groups, irate parents and bratty kids. Let the students and their parents be responsible for the kid’s learning. Think twice abouot that nighttime visit to the mall or the 2 weeks vacation in Bali.
Insist that new immigrants learn American history and how our government operates. That learning doesn’t occur by osmosis. Have civic groups unite to fund a livly program about history. They came to this country wanting something: let them become an American before they get our money.
In the Southwestern city in which I live, everyone has a truck to carry “their gear” which is used for mountain bike riding, climbing fake rock walls, or visits to the gym. No one I know mows their own lawn; there are even professional Christmas tree trimmers. Get back to work..the real manual labor of living. Put church and religion in proper perspective and tax those which have the bowling alleys, pools and auditoriums with professional theater lighting. Be sure your child knows a wide assortment of our society and volunteers to help them.
Know some of today’s celebrities for who they are….Limbaugh…an entertainer and rabble-rouser. Lohan…a spoiled brat with no moral values…maybe not very bright. etc.
Learn to think and read and watch for yourself. You are never too old to learn. Insist on good manners whereever you are. I attended a Republican meeting in Virginia where someone slapped a John Warner(formerly married to Liz Tqaylor) sticker on my jacket. After that I was treated BY THE ULTRA CONSERVATIVES as less than human. I hasdn’t seen or heard such individuals before. Actually, they were in a group. and probably came from the Bible belt part of Virginia. Part of the Republican party is like that and they are a very active and verbal part.
I don’t know what Republican leader is of the no conflict school but that person should be gone. I spent almost a year willing George W. Bush to defend himself, i willed someone to say that the Abu Grave jail business was just a sophomoric exercise that is frequently carried out in high school or college. I felt the same about those horrendous “debates” carried on by the Republican party. I’m sur[prised anyone remained. Romney is a good decent man; he didn’t deserve that.
I am a member of a Republican Women’s Club and find it a collection of white women who lunch. One of their philanthropies is contribution of books to the “Mamie Eisenhower” library. Spending money other than for plush places in which to meet is out. When a patriotism program was sugested or taking up some more current philanthropy, they thought they might put together a lecture series…..Today young would protest tht asssignment as well they should. I think revamping the Republican party should start with groups like this.
I am becoming a Social Conservative.
Because I am coming to realize that a culture that values Convenience over Life is one where Fiscal Conservatives are not likely to be listened to.
Edward, likewise. I have gotten to where I am sick and tired of being presented with “anything goes” as the “only” acceptable social model.
Amen brother, amen.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill Tuesday night/’Live as he could be! For those who don’t recognize it, those words are from an old union organizing song about a union organizer shot by “the Copper Bosses.”
This spirited discussion graphically illustrates the biggest problem Republicans/conservatives/sane libertarians have: they like political philosophy a whole lot better than they like nut ‘n bolts politics and government. OK, I’m not real high on some of the SoCons and self-styled “true conservatives,” but our ideological differences among ourselves and between us and some part of the electorate did NOT cost us the Presidency; probably cost us several down-ballot races, but not the Presidency. We simply got out-organized, out-worked, and out-spent in the ground game, especially in the union-leaning so-called battleground states. Unfortunately, our success in Wisconsin gave us a false confidence and we should have looked more closely at how Kasich got his head handed to him by organized labor in Ohio; it was the firebell in the night and nobody seemed to hear it.
The muscle, sinew, and bone of the Democrat electorate is organized labor and organized labor pulled out all the stops to make sure Comrade Obama carried his firewall states and his must have states. They had hundreds of thousands of volunteers doing the hard, boring door to door, boiler room, and phonebank work. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this ground game. Republicans have long used a money advantage to buy a media advantage and thought of it as a way to win; it doesn’t work in the highly fragmented society and electorate we have today. Most of the Country has 100+ TV channels available. Which one are you going to buy ads on? High tech and mass communications have made politics increasingly retail, one-on-one work. The days of writing a check to the candidate or committee and calling it your political activity are gone unless that check is for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We have three years to sort out our ideological differences. We have NO time to waste before we get our mechanical differences sorted out. It is evident that we know how to do retail politics at the state and local level; we control at least the govenorship in 33 of the states. I don’t know fresh numbers but I think we control the majority of state legislatures. So somebody out there knows how to get elected in this not very brave new very fragmented world.
As I see it, we need to do two things: first start identifying a hard core of volunteers in every state and polisub that can be used as boots on the ground for nuts and bolts political work. Democrat campaigns don’t have to devote much resource to this because they have the unions and the front groups doing it. We don’t have the shadow government the Democrats have, so we have to come up with some organization, and, second, we need to ATTACK the revenue streams and illegal spending of the unions and the Democrat front groups. Most of the federal money coming into our states is nothing more than a money laundry operation to move money from the Treasury to Democrat constituencies. Who do you think got all that lovely Transportation money the Republicans were so proud of spending in the Bush years? The answer is union contractors, union members, and union political action committees. Most of the DHSS, DOEd, EPA, and DOL money coming to the states goes straight to Democrat owned “contractors” and Democrat activist cells inside even Republcan controlled governments. I’ll guarantee you that even that big FEMA bottled water order for the Sandy victims will go to a vendor that has reliably contributed to Democrats and who understands that some portion of what he gets paid for that contract had best get back to the Party.
In sum, our ideological differences are not nearly as great as, say, the differences between the raving Alinskyite union organizers and the soft Eloi-like urban liberals and squishy suburban women that the Democrats have to get to the polls. Neither are our ideological differences within the Republican electorate nearly as great as the ideological differences between the base Republican and the base Democrat constituencies. I can tell you first hand as a one-time, and still sometime, Republican operative, if you don’t HATE Democrat apparatchiks, you don’t know any.
We need to put our pride in our pocket and get to work on putting the structures in place and finding the people who are willing to do the hard dirty work of retail politics or it doesn’t matter who we put on the ballot, they’ll lose.
okay, art. the nook has 27% of the tablet market. It is primarily owned by a mother with 2.3 children. Pub-it accepts word documents. The best way to format Word documents for publication is an website e-tour by guido heinckel.
you know how to do this. you know what it looks like, bit by bit, step by step. Would you start writing? 99 cents for up to 100 pages. more, above that.
I know how-ish, it’s done by democrats- my dad’s a dem, and he’s got dusty old yellowed how-to campaign books from the 60;s.
I’ve done what I could with what I’ve got- me, frailty, small children. But I don’t know how, and I know more than most women I know.
Kindle, of course, has a huge chunk of the market, and it has searchability- one pamphlet launches the next, basically.
Open your head, and let the information and how-to out. Sometimes, it’s what you know, and sometimes, it’s what you know and who you know, and what book you know. I’m not effective showing up, but I can always find a book for someone.
I’m not kidding.
ari
I only kinda sorta know how and what I know is as dated as your Dad’s yellowed books. The last time I did real boiler room work was when I was still on the union side in ’80. Those were still the days of Joe Napolitan’s minimum winning coalition and Matt Reese’s (JFK’s pollster) socio-demographic targeting. I actually worked a Reese-run campaign in Mike Gravel’s failed re-election bid in ’80. I really do think we’re back to those days in terms of technique but the technology is very different; we had clipboards for our lists and pay phones to call the office.
I could describe the broad strokes and bright colors of what to do, but I don’t really know the how to do in the world of email, twitter, facebook, etc. My specialty is how to organize and run a government in a unionized environment, getting elected to that government, not so much because I’ve never really been a policy guy outside my expertise, and by the time I got into Republican politics, I was just a write a check guy who might put in a few evenings on the phone and put up some signs.
technology moves fast enough you don’t need to write a “now boot up your altair..” broad strokes is good.
second, that auditing thing? when I say I don’t know who to call, or complain, or how- that’s really true. I can’t even find my friend who works at the parole office to invite him to lunch- it’s some privacy violation thing or another- i’ve got his email, but the phone system clerk laughs at me. I don’t think I’m stupid. I think gov’t is opaque on purpose.
at 99 cents, you can make mistakes. at $45 you better be textbook perfect, but 99 cents?
Sorry Art. But the Citizens United SCOTUS decision opened the door to massive fundraising by unions as well as by corporations. You can’t blame the unions for doing what they do best; organize; when billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, Sam Fox, the Koch brothers, etc. poured over $300 million into the race on behalf of Romney.
If I was those guys, I’d be wondering what I got for my money.
What is it with lefties and wild-eyed moderates that makes them reflexively start yammering about Citizens United? I don’t have any problem with unions spending all the voluntary PAC money they want. I’m not one of those stupid do-gooders that believes in “campaign finance reform,” and especially not in the kinds of campaign finance reform that Democrats like because they all believe that all their front groups are public interest and all of everybody else’s are evil incarnate. So, no limits and total disclosure for candidate advocacy and no limits and no coordination for issue advocacy. As to union money, I unlike most, know how singularly unsuccessful most of them would be in getting volunatary money. I saw the reports every month if I wanted to of what we sent them in dues and what we sent them in “voluntary” PAC contributions. Even with a good bit of coercion by the unions hardly one in a hundred employees would make the voluntary contribution. My criticism of unions is that they blatantly illegally use compelled dues money for political advocacy and it has been black letter law since the ’80s that it is unconstitutional for them to do it. They also blatantly suppress objections to their dues structures, misrepresent their chargeable costs, and fail to account for their staff time spent on “social, fraternal, and political” activities, also not chargeable to objectors to compelled dues. Any Republican AG in the Country in a compelled dues state who’d grow a pair could perp walk most of the union business managers in his/her state over their dues schemes and spending.
No, what I’m advocating is that we on the Right do the same thing the unions do but since we’re on the Right, we’ll do it legally with money people, including people like the Kochs, give us voluntarily.
Thanks Art. Love reading your insight and would subscribe if you do find another way to disseminate it.
I talk a lot about the money laundry issues and the dues schemes in my book, here: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Blue-Establishing-Republican-ebook/dp/B005M784HW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352405306&sr=8-1&keywords=red+on+blue+establishing+republican+governance
I just don’t think I have enough expertise or am current enough to advise on how an effective “ground game” could be put together for Republicans. Just as we can’t really use much of the Alinsky stuff because most people who support conservatives are civilized, we don’t have the throngs of union myrmidons and stupid kids that the Ds can gin up. When my youngest kid, who neither knows nor cares anything about politics, was a member of the Laborers’ Union he was constantly being sent to sing songs and carry signs or do GOTV/boiler room work. They couldn’t really make him and they weren’t paying him but he well knew the next time there was a call at the hall, the dispatcher would remember who turned out for the political activity.
nook version?
short sentences for housewives doing kitchen table organizing nook version?
I’ll look into Nook. You can get a Kindle reader for your lap or desktop for free also.
Frankly, I have come to a point where I simply don’t believe any longer.
First and foremost, the game is rigged. The Propaganda and Lies Ministry need to be rounded up, tried for treason and hung from the neck until dead, if and when they are found guilty.
Without getting the game to move from a grotesque parody of freedom and liberty to one that respects and admires our founding principles, we aren’t going to have a fair election in this land of ours.
Secondly, I’m very sorry to have to say this to all the fans of the Republicans in the primaries, but they were all B Teamers. Rick Perry didn’t make just one gaffe that cost him, he ran an imbecilic campaign and and had NO chance in the general. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
If we don’t address the first issue head on, instead of Republicans trembling in the corner, afraid to expose the lies and propaganda…we aren’t going anywhere but down.
And, if we keep running B Team candidates, who are scared to death of telling the truth, we aren’t going anywhere. Having one attribute, but not the other…is a waste of time. Being oafish, strident and scared is no way to win a national election.
The MAIN issue…is messaging. The other side lies and cheats and distorts. And we let them.
The break every rule, shred the Constitution, remove our checks and balances. And, we let them.
They frame the issues, distort the facts, lie about their motives. And, we let them.
I’m a live and let live type socially, the anti-bully who takes his victims where he finds them (not invented ones) and am pro-military, pro-fiscal sanity, pro-American exceptionalism. I despise Marxism and REALLY despise communism and betrayal. The Republican Party doesn’t represent me, I am coming to the realization…because they won’t fight where the battle is…they instead seem to always get their ankles chopped off…fighting where the bear traps are. Stupid Party indeed.
The Republican Party is famously inarticulate, not quick on its feet, horrible at messaging and even worse at fighting slander, propaganda and distortion. In a word…they suck…at combating the enemies of truth and at defending America from Marxist trickery, treason, and treachery. They make horrible guardians of the realm when the invaders are from the inside.
They make sissified warriors in the culture war on non-social issues. They allow themselves to get painted as extremists…by radical extremists. And bleat, whine, moan, complain all you want. The other side is winning this culture war and the information war and the distortion war. And our side can’t game plan worth a whit. The Republican Party is letting us down.
Worse. They don’t seem to have a clue as to how to defend us. Or protect us.
And WE…will continue to pay the price for that.
Yep to the above.
If Romney had gone after Obama the way he went after his primary season competitors (particularly the case of Newt Gingrich), we probably would have been celebrating instead of griping & crying into our proverbial beer. Again, affirmative action principles drove Romney to soft-peddle his approach (his reluctance to go after O on the Benghazi scandal was really painful to watch), making it look as if he wasn’t serious about winning. Speaking of AA; I would not be surprised if it prompted many to support O for a second term, as the minority percentages were not significant enough to put him over the top without lots of help from white voters.
Nice post. We did get the “B” team because the “A” team is waiting for 2016. No one wanted to run against Obama, having seen how the media savaged his opposition in the 2008 primaries, and the slavish worship of the young and minorities. All in all, I don’t think Romney did that badly given what he was up against. But he didn’t have the fire in the belly that it takes to win. Mormon nice could not win against the Chicago machine.
Unless they Dems find another first black President, which by definition they can’t, we’ll do better next time. Conservatives did not even turn out in the numbers that they could.
In 4 years Obama will be out. The economy will still be sluggish, at best. Probably we’ll be in another recession or depression, but there won’t be any money for goodies, either (like 99 weeks of unemployment benefits- that’s already on the chopping block). People will really be ready for a breath of fresh air, and I think we’ll be in a better position to provide it.
Mormon nice couldn’t win against the Chicago way says less about running for president than it does the sorry state of the electorate. I agree that we need a no holds bar candidate next time, but only because we have to and not because I want to. Reagan won as a nice guy, but would he win today?
I’m just wondering when we’ll admit the real problem.
This nation as it is managed now and how it is composed, is not a nation worthy of the ideals it was founded upon.
Period. Even the losing party, the only party that provides any hope, so fractured to be clearly classified as dysfunctional.
We are a nation of degenerates, double standards and deviancy dumbed downward. We have a majority party that would elect men feigning schizophrenia from Mayo Clinic still elected, a black caucus were at least half of attendees immune from the their tax evasion, fraud, theft. We have two men demonized for Senate who clumsily addressed the most difficult of issue of abortion and rape destroyed, but a new Senator from Massachusetts telling lies that would had made Baghdad Bob blush and elected.
We have a President that has failed the economy in every capacity, found in opinion to have a better grasp of how to manage the economy than a candidate whose whole life story is predicated by financial success and turnarounds.
We have a group of social liberal and fiscally conservative, condemning the obvious last remaining stronghold of the minority part, the social conservative and fiscally conservative who turned those red states even redder, identified as the real problem and to be rejected. Read this board as proof.
We have a morally corrupt nation, permissive to a fault, with marriage deemed unnecessary and rampant teenage suicide. Shame has no meaning, our public school system a disgrace and hotbed of humanist thought, three generations indoctrinated now.
Both the media and our courts corrupted, the latter packed with black robed thugs to nullify the vote.
Our military half abandoned and taken for granted, our entertainment more sewer and gladiator.
And we kid ourselves into believing one vote would stop the bleeding? Who are we kidding? We are failed and broken. Mitt Romney was so clearly more qualified than Barack Obama, a campaign should not even have been necessary. A moral nation would have booted Barack Obama and David Axelrod to the curb so quickly, their feet wouldn’t have hit the ground until they hit the street.
And the only way this stops is through a complete collapse of the system, with the people of enough integrity to pick up the pieces and start over and make it the way it was intended.
And that should include leaving these demons who brought us to this point to fend for themselves. Heartless to be sure. But absolutely necessary to purge of us this filth.
Ultimately what brought Romney down was he in losing is much better off than the base he has. Wealth breeds conservatism of action not of ideology. The firebrands of the American revolution were those who were not worried the most about what they had to lose but what they could gain (Sam Adams being the best example). The Republicans do not inspire in the opposition the need to back down, the need to compromise, the need to worry about our self esteem. The liberal is happy to tell us how we have to worry about the feelings and needs of those who are aggressive against us but is happy to be ruthless to our beliefs. The liberal knows the universities, the corporations, the wealthy way of life is sacrosanct to the Republicans and he knows he can win. We must the liberal know we are being impoverished, we are getting desparete and we are not afraid of him. We must not accept his national debt. He will shoulder it. We will not. The unions will pay their fair share of the national debt directly. We will legislate it. We have lost a political election but we are actually winning. They think we will stand down and take it. We will not. We will make the liberal pay off the national debt. We will redistribute and we will create financial soundness for all by doing so. He will not enjoy his victory he will suffer by it.
Not sure I am following completely, Mr. G. Perhaps I am not completely grasping your point. Not flippant – actually interested in further explanation. But I am curious to your plan. Can you provide me an example?
Thank you for asking. I am flippant about my own responses because I do well with arguing with liberals and it is because I take the argument out of their comfort zone. When they say “you can twist anything” I know I have won. They did not get their planned conservative response (which sadly conservatives walk right into) and they are lost when I tackle ideas from directions they do not expect.
Here is the thing. They are printing money, creating a budget on our backs and taxing us and they expect to continue. The problem is their money is getting worthless and if goods and services are provided it is at inflated cost even though there is a sound economy underneath. We need to form a secessionist party and start floating plans through white papers etc. on how we can use different specie to pay each other for goods and services. The more boldly and openly we do it the better so that it is a freedom of speech issue and not a tax evasion issue. When they try to prevent it in practice we have things like by appointment flea markets and we pay each other with this specie of money (maybe a gold standard). To be part of the stronger currency you have to pledge allegiance to the group and its values (at least that is step one). Step two would hopefully be an underground market where the alternate currency is swapped for the increasingly worthless dollar. At that point people who hold the alternate currency are richer and more powerful and the nation sees it. We can’t win against giving away free stuff but we can compete with free stuff with actually having money that buys something. People will see markets versus socialism in every purchase they make. When that happens we have won and enriched ourselves in the process. This is a great opportunity if we grasp it. It sounds crazy but if the midwest and southern states embraced it, there would be little the blue states could do.
I live in New York which sounds like a disadvantage but if I became a repository for a stronger currency through contacts elsewhere, overnight I would be very wealthy. If I have to hire gunmen to protect my currency then I would know I was right. I am a broker by trade and I could broker blue state contractors for projects outside the blue states where they can get paid with the better currency (and if I don’t do it thousands of others will). Guarantee if we start talking about alternate means for a market economy they will cringe. It forces the issue and they will have to either allow us to do it or respond with force and show what they really are.
Not a good idea making your own money. Google the name “Bernard von NotHaus” and see what pops up.
The crooks at the Federal Reserve don’t like the competition and the federal government doesn’t like the idea of something of real value taking the place of a fiat currency.
An alternative idea may be a return to bartered goods.
The IRS will still want their cut, and tends to frown on it as I understand, but it may be a workable solution when dollars are worthless.
Think of this scenario –
Y
ou have a gallon of gas. I need a gallon of gas.
Unfortunately, a gallon of gas costs $75 at the local gas station due to inflation. I don’t have $75 because my paycheck has not kept up with inflation.
However, I DO have something of value that you could use or trade further yourself for something of value with another person, be it a crate of apples or a box of eggs or a 6-pack of beer.
We won’t have the money to purchase these items outright – but we COULD trade back and forth for what we needed.
The real challenge would be to figure out how to do this on a larger scale and in a consistent and predictable manner while remaining within the bounds of the law.
On a small scale it would be next to impossible for any government to keep track of such trades in order to get their slice in taxes unless the government forced you to routinely list for them everything you owned so as to compare it with what you owned the year before.
In other words, when you barter with your neighbor that you fix his leaking sink in exchange for him mowing your law, or you trade him your old 12 gauge shotgun for a freezer full of beef – the government could never keep track of it unless you informed them of the deal.
On a larger scale the government would have an easier time keeping track. You can’t very well hide an entire truckload of apples heading up I-95 for trading purposes.
But then you get back to the problem of the IRS wanting their cut in taxes as they decide this constitutes a source of income – and they want their cut in US Dollars.
So there is a workable framework underneath the concept, the problem is one of scale.
Actually many of the Founding Fathers were wealthy individuals. Washington and Jefferson, for instance, both held large plantations.
The difference, I think, is they were leaders by the experiences they lived through. Washington, again for example, had been a leader all of his adult life and even fought the French and Indians as a military officer in service to the British crown.
This makes his gamble in throwing his lot in with the colonists that much more dramatic – he had a lot to lose.
I suspect part of our problem in this country is that too great a percentage of the population became comfortable. Just enough to get by, no great famines wiping out the population, just punch the clock every day and hold on to what you have.
That comfort has led to complacency, and only by losing that comfort level will the country get going in the right direction again.
Scottch,
Thanks for the dialogue. I am not stupid enough to print my own money. What I am proposing is that we begin a dialogue among conservatives on how we can print our money. The bigger the dialogue, the bigger the resultant protest and they have to take us seriously. Barter will not work large scale and across states. We need some sort of alternate system. The infrastructure is in place. We have contiguous red states, tea party groups, alternative media sites, etc.
Thanks for the info on NotHaus. I am not surprised they cared more about that than Benghazi but he tried it too small scale and did not have major public support. It is also telling that the Justice department called him a terrorist and not um, actual terrorists. I think this is the right track. We can accomplish a lot with a national dialogue and when they call that terrorism it will wake a lot of people up.
Spot on.
That’s my only consolation. From Woodrow Wilson To Hussein Obama it was democrats that destroyed this nation. It will go down that way and may their name be cursed forever. Benedict Arnold will be will be considered a hero compared to the venom I hope attaches itself to the democrat party – because it won’t just be us to goes down – we’ll take the whole planet down with us.
Yes, this is the way civilizations go. See if this sounds familiar:
First, a sexual revolution.
Second, a material/earth worship.
Third, a homosexual revolution.
Then society gets a depraved (i.e worthless) mind. Things happen that just don’t make sense. Sound a bit like what you have described, Tex.
All this from a document written ~55 AD. See Romans 1:18-32 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1&version=NASB)
Frankly I’m sick and tired of Postmodern “Conservatism”. The defeat of Mitt Romney was nothing new; it’s part of a political tradition that began with Bob Dole in 1996. Witness the supreme elder conservative “wisdom” of Andrew Klavan:
http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2012/11/05/shut-the-hell-up-and-vote-for-romney/
Yeah, that’s the ticket; that’s how to build support. Simply demean and disparage everyone who disagrees with you. It didn’t work when Rush Limbaugh did it back in ’96 and, “unexpectedly” failed again in 2012.
To misquote Inigo Montoya: This word “disparage,” I do not think it means what you think it means.
The article you linked to says basically that in the end, if you voted in the last election for anyone but Governor Romney, you were essentially voting for President Obama. Not that your beliefs are stupid, or even wrong; just that if you voted for someone else, there wasn’t the margin for Romney to win. Sounds about right to me…
Then again, full disclosure, I am a huge fan of Mr. Klavan’s writing and find that his humour usually manages to take some of the bitterness from those bitter pills (and tweaks the lefties something awful, which is always a nice bonus).
I’m sorry, but what is killing the party IS the RINOs, especially when they are put up for president. I worked with local campaigns for the 2008 election and just about everyone working there and the Republicans we talked to hated McCain. We told the national office this and they effectively patted us on the head saying “there, there, we know what’s best for you.” I didn’t have anything to do with this last election except voting. If they don’t get rid of Boehner and/or if they put up another RINO for president, if we have another election, then like so many other Conservatives, I’ll stay home on election day. If that means another Obama or worse, it is the fault of the RNC.
The Establishment is definitely the problem. They are treacherous fools.
The problem is, they don’t care what the base says. Amazingly, they mistreat us and ignore us, then expect our votes as of right. I despised McCain, and disliked Romney (he dissed Palin, the Tea Parties, and conservatives in general). I voted for both.
The bigger problem is, these corruptocrats are totally entrenched. I say we take out McConnell, Boehner, and other treasonous RINOs in 2014: if not in the Primaries, run an appealing 3rd party candidate to steal votes.
Reagan won by appealing to middling voters who are just as likely to vote for Democrats, including RINOs. After he got elected, he governed from the right, but he knew he had to get elected to govern from any position. Barry Goldwater was our only example of a Presidential candidate who spoke only for conservatives and tried to get elected that way. That is your outcome if you can’t face the hard fact that conservatives are not even close to being the majority in this country. Exit polls showed us as being only 35% of the voters. 40% identified themselves as moderates, RINOs and the ignorant among them. Romney had to appeal to these voters to get elected, and he came up short because a hurricane allowed the President to pander to them for five days before the election. Romney had him beat until that happened. 42% of voters said that storm influenced their vote and I bet the vast majority of them were these self identified moderates. If we are to pass out blame amongst ourselves, Chris Christie should get the most as I see it.
I am not at all convinced that Sandy was to blame completely, albeit I do not understand why Romney didn’t at least show up with a large entourage passing out food & water. The Democratic ground-game machine deserves a lot of credit for its success in getting its base up off the couch & down to the polls. The Pubs were a dismal failure in this regard.
You mean run someone who’s more like Michelle Bachman? That’s sure to end well. I like Michelle, but would never run her for president.
Well, surely, it can’t be the conservatives fault! The rest of America is just too stupid to understand our message! It’s gotta be Christies’ fault! He just did job, getting help for your fellow Americans from the feds after a natural disaster! He actually talked to the President about it! …the fat bastard*. That cost us the election!!11!! (*That’s what a conservative radio host called him this AM. Some of you have called him worse.)
Surely, it’s not the fault of the conservatives or Republicans! It’s all of those lazy looters who want free stuff. They want it all from our pockets and from the benefit of our labor!
It’s gotta be the RNC! Yeah. That’s it. The stupid country club set. Completely disconnected from the rest of us…they just don’t understand how to win!
It wasn’t our message! It was our messaging!
Ideological purity! That’s it! That’s the ticket for winning! Toe the line or else!
…and on and on and on. It’s everyone else’s fault. Like children, you refuse to take responsibility for anything, not even your own wrong assumptions or false premises (not that you think you have any), let alone for the way you alienate Americans who might – generally – agree with you on many issues.
Heh. You keep shooting yourself in the foot, and then scream bloody murder because it hurts so much.
Constitutional constructionism. Lookit up. Learn it. Embrace it. …w/o caveat or exception…or religious or moral bias. Until you do this, you’ll keep losing the big elections and the big policy issues. Either that, or start calling yourselves Whigs and disappear into the dustbin of history.
You are right, but for the wrong reason. Conservatives have a hard time believing that politics and philosophy are completely different disciplines. One is related to what we believe about the way our world works and one is about working to get some of what we want. Hard core types believe that politics is an all or nothing game. That is as true of your side as it is of the conservative side. Go look at some of the liberal web sites and you will see just as much strident belligerence on display. I guess you feel grand enough about your collectivist superiority to lecture our side on our bellicose approach. I am already on to the task of making you collectivist fools be the bellicose bunch the next time around. Your house of cards will start crumbling before you know it. The people always figure it out when they are getting screwed, no matter who is doing it to them.
“The people always figure it out when they are getting screwed, no matter who is doing it to them.”
Really? Obama, with his policies, is putting the screws to the people & what do they do? Blame Bush & vote the bastard back in for a second term!
What needs to be found is a solution to republicans winning Hispanics. Any ideas? Republicans need to be starting mking an effort now, not just in election years
Actually, that’s NOT what Republicans need, because Hispanics (unless they’re WHITE cubans living in south florida) and Blacks will always be better served by a party that promotes their ethnic solidarity and a redistributionist welfare state. And unlike you with your head-in-the-sand race blindness, they’re smart enough to realize this.
What Republicans need is to get their share of the white vote up to at least 70%. The only way to do that is to gain “fiscally conservative/socially liberal” Obama voters and working class Midwestern Obama voters. You get the first group by going moderate on social issues without losing too many of the social conservatives (who have nowhere else to go anyway). You get the second group, for starters, by not nominating a vulture capitalist/private equity banker and an Ayn Rand fan for your presidential ticket. This would have helped a lot in Ohio and the Midwest.
“You get the first group by going moderate on social issues without losing too many of the social conservatives (who have nowhere else to go anyway).”
Moderate is what gets us in last place every time. Oh, and so-cons have nowhere else to go?
Yes we do. Home. We stay home. I’ve had enough of you mushy melons that have absolutely conceeded before you even begin. To heck with you. Enjoy your trash-heap because me and mine are digging in to weather the storm.
When it all comes crashing down on the Democrats, the Republican Party will be looking a lot better to all classes of voters. The only thing we must be diligent about, is not letting the Democrats point the finger at us for their own failures. This is the way they always win the votes of the imbeciles who are not capable of thinking cogently anyway.
uhmn……. Is anybody paying attention to Gary Johnson pulling in 1.2 million votes?……….
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/11/08/Libertarian-Party-buoyant-Greens-hopeful/UPI-46151352363400/
All this inter-partisan bickering must really gladden the hearts of the democrats.
Lets face it folks – the OBO2012 wasn’t enough to excite the base. Romney is/was and will forever be a RINO. I sat out the 2008 vote for POTUS because of a RINO – although I did vote for state and local issues and candidates. Yes – I did vote for POTUS this go-round. I firmly believe there just wasn’t much excitement over Romney with most of the base – and there wasn’t that recognition from a significant portion of our base that Obama is the mean evil figure that we see him as. How else to explain how Romney got fewer votes than McCain did???
Lets face it – either we get out the vote or we wither on the vine – if this coming 4 years finds us still having the ability/right to vote.
And for ANYONE that believes G.W. Bush is or was a conservative I’ve got a bridge available for cheap. FWIW I got a good laugh outta that!
Two things: Romney did not go after Obama hard enough & the Republican Party flubbed its ground game. Throw in that bit of proverbial Democrat voter fraud scheme & the recipe was perfect for an Obama win.
These arguments are pointless. Conservatism is not and never has been an ideology, strictly speaking, and isn’t a movement with the kind of unity the Left has. It is a coalition. And, as always, we hear the same thing after each loss, blaming (depending on what one isn’t) libertarians, social conservatives, RINO’s, whatever. The other guys lost it for us.
I have news for you: The American people have spoken, and they hate us. That means you, you, and you. (And me.) They wanted 4 more years of Obama, rather than ANY form of social, cultural, financial, governmental, or constitutional conservatism. They believe that individual freedom is social darwinism, that moral responsibility is slavery, that limited government is heartless. They voted for nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
We, all of us, are their enemies.
Well said.
1. The Republicans needs a media strategy since they don’t seem to have one. Hire Frank Luntz and shut the heck up about abortion. All they need to say is that since abortion was made legal, I can’t do anything about it. Then move the issue to the states. Get the conservative states to enact laws that mandate abortion mills meet the same standards as hospitals. And resist, reduce the governmental funding of abortion.
2. Have a get out the vote machine to match the Dems. We need to target every single Republican voter and get them out to vote; period. If all the people who voted for McLame came out, Romney still could have won.
3. We need some rich Republicans to get involved in the culture. They need to make family, patriotic movies. And more wholesome music, tv, and art. Dems need to made as reactionary and Reps cool.
4. Fill up airplanes full of white Christian illegal immigrants and bring them to the U.S. Best to have ones who lived under communism. Then when amnesty comes, we get “our” people in. Why not?
5. And with the Marxist Media helping the Dems, a Republican may never win. We’ve demonized and slandered. Dem lies never challenged. And with Candy Crowley, we know they aid and abet Dems.
6. Fund private schools so your kids can get out of gov’ment schools where they get poisoned. And stop sending your kids to marxist universities. Why send business to the enemy where your kids can be indoctrinated.
Other than that, pray since we’re going to live under the boot of centalized gov’ment.
1. is a huge stumbling block for the fiscals. They’re all for smaller government, until it comes to funding every liberal social issue. They’re all for smaller government, until it comes to putting social issues back to the states where they belong. No, we need the judiciary shoving its big butt into every social issue there is.
I really like #4.
6. Another alternative to private schools is homeschooling, especially if you’ve lost your job… I strongly recommend George Mason’s school of economics for college. Anyone else know where to send kids? (It was my Purdue astronomy professor in 1988 that first told us that global warming is baloney, but that was a while ago. I don’t know what the current climate is)
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
Kids, quit your whining.
The Republicans have won eight of the last 15 presidential elections, the Democrats have won seven. And the Republicans win a LOT more congressional elections than they used to. When I was a young feller the Democrats used to control both houses of Congress every single year.
Whatever their overall message is, the Republicans are doing BETTER than they used to do.
You’re not going to win every election. Deal with it.
Again, the worst problem is that most of you simply cannot see, let alone admit, that you do use the government to engage in social and religious engineering. Hell, your own words are a confession to having do so and an admission to your willingness to continue to do so. (Hint: That position has damn all to do with individual freedom and personal liberty. It’s also an admission that your theological doctrine of free will is full of shit.)
That position of religious intolerance, imposed through big government policies and regulations, is a bug, not a feature, especially to most independents. You know, those voters you keep trying to politically ‘evangelize’ …and they’re the same people whom you revile during most other times. (Insult them all year and wonder why they don’t vote for you Yeah, keep pounding that monkey, for all the good it’ll do ya.)
You couch your language in freedom and liberty, but seek to use the government to limit the freedoms and liberties of other Americans. Americans whose lifestyles and life choices -and even career choices- are of offense to your moral and religious sensibilities. You’ve confused politics with religion and morality. Freedom of religion also means, to a greater extent than most of you are willing to admit, freedom from religion and from a government imposed religious-based morality.
” Freedom of religion also means, to a greater extent than most of you are willing to admit, freedom from religion and from a government imposed religious-based morality.”
You want freedom FROM government-imposed religious-based morality?
Where in the world do you think that you would get THAT, pray tell?
Cuba? North Korea?
The USSR? (Ooops…they went out of business!).
Frankly, if you don’t believe in God, then you believe in Man, and that’s a pretty sad idol that you are worshipping.
I’ll come right out and say it…if you are such a narcissist that you cannot acknowledge at least the possibility of a Divine Being, then YOU have no business being a part of ANY society wrought by humans.
Even non-toilet-trained Neanderthals living in caves and picking lice from each others’ heads for snack-foods buried their honored dead with the flint knives and spears that they would need to hunt the abundant game in the Afterlife.
You lot claim to be so MUCH more advanced, but you are actually devolving into pre-Paleothic culture.
Infant mortality, (although by medical intervention, rather than disease), and leaving the elderly on ice floes when their teeth all fall out,(state-sanctioned “Doctor”-assisted suicide).
Not what God hath wrought, but what Man hath wrought.
Maybe you should move to a tropical clime and take up tree-livin’, sport.
“I’ll come right out and say it…if you are such a narcissist that you cannot acknowledge at least the possibility of a Divine Being, then YOU have no business being a part of ANY society wrought by humans.”
I acknowledge the possibility of a Divine Being, just as I acknowledge the possibility of a pepperoni pizza floating in outer space – it might exist, but it is functionally irrelevant, so I really could care less. Keep your myths about your imaginary bearded sky wizard to yourself, and we’ll all get along much better.
“…if you are such a narcissist that you cannot acknowledge at least the possibility of a Divine Being, then YOU have no business being a part of ANY society wrought by humans.”
Heres the problem with your assertion. The constitution grants to you AND those you’re apparently condemning, the right and protection to believe as you and they wish.
There were a total of 204 individuals considered to be the founding fathers representing as best we know, 11 different religions. Still, they seen fit to grant and protect every person the right to believe or not believe any religious doctrines.
Many folks who banter around the constitution in their debates all to often forget what individual freedoms the constitution grants and protects.
Just saying that there might be a better way to express your point(s).
“Heres the problem with your assertion. The constitution grants to you AND those you’re apparently condemning, the right and protection to believe as you and they wish.”
The Constitution doesn’t “grant” anything, friend, it recognizes the Rights of the People and curtailks the Powers of the Federal Government.
Maybe you need a remedial Civics class? Is that why you’re here on PJM?
You’ll get it.
“There were a total of 204 individuals considered to be the founding fathers representing as best we know, 11 different religions. Still, they seen fit to grant and protect every person the right to believe or not believe any religious doctrines.”
Again with the “granting”… but to your point, As far as we know, ALL of the Founding Fathers believed in God. If they did not, would they have signed their names to the Declaration that very clearly mentions the Creator in the Preamble, and would they have tolerated a chaplain of the Congress?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplain_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives#History
“Many folks who banter around the constitution in their debates all to often forget what individual freedoms the constitution grants and protects.”
Indeed. You might like to remind our militant secularist and atheist friends that the proscription against legislating any one Faith as a state religion ALSO proscribes the legislating of the tenets of the anti-Faith of Atheism.
“Just saying that there might be a better way to express your point(s).”
Lotta that going around, huh?
OOOPS! Sorry John my comment was meant for the Bilgeman person!
The basic problem with the atheistic POV is that if someone doesn’t believe that our rights are “endowed by our Creator” and unalienable, then he believes those rights are only bestowed by Man, and can then be taken away by Man.
Agree Jeannette.
See JohnH above you? He belittles us for belief, demands his Constitutional Rights without understand their origins, and ignores the reasoning and recognition for the Declaration of our Founder’s Independence.
Whether JohnH recognizes it or not, his demands are of Caesar. It is not you and I that are at odds with our Founders, Jeannette. It is JohnH and his requests.
So I ask you and anybody else of like mind. Do we really want to be party with JohnH to win a vote? Not me.
My answer to JohnH is to hell with a vote. Be prepared to do battle JohnH if you wish to attempt to silence my voice through marginalization. This slippery slope of tacit prosecution of faith now going on around this country here and there, some of it quite activist, is a war no different than King George declaring himself Master and my fathers forced to bow in his presence. Either demand is egregious and do not deserve my respect nor my compliance. And JohnH’s demands will not be granted – through fiat or force and will be met with prejudice.
And they would be right. The religious phrase from the Declaration of Independence has no legal weight.
Try carrying a rifle over your shoulder in NYC and tell me your rights, even those specifically written into the Constitution which, unlike the Declaration, is supposed to be the law of the land, then get back to me on “man” not being able to take your rights away.
The problem with the mythological point of view is that it’s mythological.
I’m talking about who I would vote for. I agree with the opinion expressed in the Declaration of Independence that my rights are given me by my Creator, and that man therefore cannot take them away. I therefore would be very hesitant to vote for an atheist, especially one like you who holds me in contempt. Yes, thuggish men can bar me from exercising those rights, but cannot take away that they are due me. Other thuggish, arrogant men can demand on blogs that I stop voting according to the dictates of my conscience, but those men who want me to vote with my wallet aren’t any more convincing than the women who want me to vote with my girl parts. I’ll use my own brain to decide who to vote for, thanks; it won’t be a soulless, chestless man who worships dollars.
In reply to your statement below. I’ve not seen anyone tell you to stop voting for whatever reason you choose. What I AM saying is that you need to get used to loosing because your holier than thou attitudes will drive off far more voters than it will attract. You can not win a battle of make believe with the left because their make believe world is more fun than yours.
From the First Century Anno Domini, when we were used as human torches for Nero’s dinner parties, through today, when men and women are martyred throughout Asia, we’ve gotten used to losing. But thanks for your concern. Our Lady of Fatima, after she predicted that Russia would spread her errors throughout the world and that many would suffer, whole nations would be annihilated and the Holy Father would suffer much, promised that in the end, Her Immaculate Heart would triumph. So I’ll go ahead and vote my conscience.
Dividing the federal government into conservative vs liberal progressive is what’s ripping this country apart and corrupting the government. The founders and their constitution, by its very construct reveal that the federal government is to function from the center which I suspect is what you define as the no good moderates. Otherwise, I suspect the constitution would have retained for the constitution, the old proposition of dueling pistols for the congress and the other branches of government. Something the GOP Tea party folks choose to ignore is that the founding fathers themselves had a wide variety of personal beliefs and opinions among them. However, rather than employing dueling pistols they chose to debate all the many complex issues among themselves and then come to a central position that best benefitted the whole – a compromise for all parties concerns. Do we really want our federal government to function by dueling religious/social factions? Haven’t we witnessed of late such religious factions in the world such as the extreme factions of the Muslim world trying to press their narrow and rigid beliefs upon parts of the world? It seems to me that this resurgent movement of the evangelical right faction of the GOP is acting on the very same premises.
I certainly would not be one who would deny this movement the right to do what it feels it must. But I do believe when a faction that becomes so dislocated from the principals of its host, it should form its own party with its own following. If you can amass a national majority during a national election then sobeit.
And while I’m on a bit of a rant, I want to take great exception to the Tea party Evangelicals taking claim of President Reagan as being one of their own in his governance of the nation. First, he governed from the center reserving his right to debate his personal beliefs of a particular issue. He governed for the national interests and welfare of the majority and not a minority. That’s why he had the overwhelming support of American’s across all major party lines.
We are a nation of one with many differing beliefs and opinions who historically, thanks to our constitution, have the ability to bring our differences to the center for the benefit of the majority —that American exceptionalism thing!
This was cute–
1.Cut out social conservatives.
2.???
3.Victory!
Likewise:
1.Purge moderates.
2.???
3.Victory!
But here’s how it actually works–
1.Run real small goverment, fiscal conservatives
2. Republicans, conservatives, and non-leftist libertarians come out to vote
3. Victory!
This works. We know this works because it HAS worked.
So-cons, you’re not ‘small government’–too many of you would be all too happy with an intrusive, large government that was imposing your belief system. Sorry. And you’re too focused on things that have nothing to do with running the country. Abortion, gay marriage, contraception, evolution. These are distractions. Let’s get the roof back on before we start niggling over what color we’re gonna paint the bedroom.
Here’s an interesting thing, we distrust the word ‘justice’ when someone puts ‘social’ in front of it. We even distrust the word ‘democracy’ if ‘social ‘precedes it. Why not ‘conservative’?
Moderates, I don’t even know what you are. You’re okay with moderate fiscal irresponsibility? A little socialism is fine? What ARE you? Confused is what it sounds like. And gods help us all, it’s these confused people who are the bulk of the Republican establishment.
Here’s the thing, Romney was an awful candidate. In the primaries he didn’t break 25% support until most of the other candidates were gone. Like John McCain, he was the medias’ favorite(I don’t understand why this isn’t an instant disqualifier). He was OBAMA’S favorite(look it up). Even that didn’t get his sorry butt out of the race. He only got support when he was the last man standing–and he only got enthusiam(such as it was) after Obama screwed up in the first debate. We were desperate to get Obama out–no one, except maybe Ann Coulter, was desperate for a Romney presidency. We need to admit that.
And then discount the opinion of every person who told us he was the only ‘electable candidate’ in the primaries for good.
I don’t believe any of the other candidates who participated in the Republican primary would have done anywhere nearly as well as Romney did in this week’s election. As I noted above, if Romney had forged a stronger campaign & if the Pubs ran a better ground game (and those several hundred thousand military ballots had made it in time), he just might have been able to pull it off.
The Democrats and their propagandists, i.e. the media, talked to women as though they were morons and 54% of them voted accordingly. Everyone who voted for Obama is a moron.
The crazy thing is that Puerto Ricans voted to join the union. Are they crazy? Perhaps. Morons?, Oh, for sure.
I wish my state would secede. It would be so much better, not to be owned by Leviathan D.C.
I just wanted to bitch-slap all those women; the “lady part” I use to decide who to vote for, is my BRAIN. I’m going to get myself a brain costume for the next time Code Pink shows up.
I’m embarrassed at the way these women voted. Obama and his buddies reduced us to TALKING SEX ORGANS, and somehow that transparently sexist patronization actually got votes from women?!
Are you gonna dress up with me? I’ll bring signs that say “I vote with THIS ‘lady part’”.
Looks like you can’t win without libertarians and paultards. Start pandering now.
Sorry, it started at the top! Yes, the “Washington DC We The Elite People of culture of corruption.(read: RNC)” THEY wanted a candidate just slightly to the center-left (they could control). Trouble was, Romney was (early-on)revelaed for what he was…a tad center-left (review the outcry, Ann Coulter wanted anyone else…Chris Christie!!!).
The republican primaries revealed what was obvious…weak challengers and the “anointed one” Mitt Romney. Results of RNC’s: “We The Elite People of culture of corruption of Washington DC” gerrymandering are on full display for all to see… a failure of a candidate(Romney). America wants to “lead,” not follow. We The People (Tea Party)must analyze and dissect these 2012 results.
Center-left is a lost philosophy. A Democratic President, far-left as a candidate could get, running against a republican candidate with a record of 20 or so “flip-flops” and running slightly “center-left.” what’s the difference? Go with the one you’ve got!!!!” This was visible from the get-go!!!!
When will these RNC “Elites” from corrupt Washington DC understand Americans want a leader…not a follower. Obama is a “follower,” he follows Kenesian, fabian socialism’s mantra. This “divide-and-conquer” action plan works for a very secific, limited time, then implodes (as Obama’s second term will will surely implode taking with it the democratic party faithful). History is rife with these examples, begin with France’s Revolution: “Let-them-eat-cake!!!” Watch the EPA and reams of new regulations.
Tea Party faithful, oust these RNC “mover-and-shakers.” They’re ruining Americas core values, cherished by all Americans, by moving to the “center-left” and relinquishing We The People’s Founding Fathers Principles and hard fought values….remember, ” The God who gave us liberty…Can the liberties of a Nation be thought secure when We have removed their only firm basis, the conviction…these liberties are a gift from God? Author: Thomas Jefferson.
Back to basics, Tea Partiers…revamp the RNC and all its platforms. Pray. Amen.
–The People’s Founding Fathers Principles and hard fought values….remember, ” The God who gave us liberty…Can the liberties of a Nation be thought secure when We have removed their only firm basis, the conviction…these liberties are a gift from God? Author: Thomas Jefferson. –
The founding fathers engineered and left our nation a constitution arrived at by a consensus from which to govern, not a tattered bunch of religious and personal opinions ramblings.
For all those who have a problem with the nations state of morality and there is certainly just cause for concern, I would think it best to take this battle up with the decades old failing churches of the nation and not the federal government.
The constitution is very precise in what the authority and functions of the branches of federal government are. The constitution is also very clear on the extent and scope of any organized religion upon or within the federal governments governance of the nation.
As has been more eloquently addressed on here the constitution provides protections for and from religions in our federal government. Both the parties extremes wish to use the federal government for their own indoctrinations and passage of social engineering and laws. That is not a constitutional grant by the constitution nor should it ever be.
The legislation of congress has historically always been mostly fair and sound but for the corrupted special interest judicial system (layers) in America who ignore the written intent of legislation and thus re-define it and get it upheld in the Supreme Court.
There are only two real problems in the federal government that have led to its current breakdown.
First, in the congress. The rule that allows for special interest caucuses or caucuses of any kind. Elected officials of congress should be free to vote on behalf of their constituents and not some strong arming caucus body.
Second, the judicial of the government. The allowing of congressional legislations written common sense intent to be ignored or redefined by any level of the judicial system. If the language of the legislations body of works is skewed (always is by special interests) the judicical should only refer to the written common intent of the legislation for a constitutional ruling.
Return the federal government back to the people and away from the grip of both parties special interests groups and this nation will be on the road to healing and recover pretty fast.
Hooray! So you want to overturn Roe and send it back to the states where it belongs, too?
And many, many more supreme court rullings that have defied the constitution. Additionally, in more recent times the congress has extended to the excutive branch authorities that are constitutionally granted only to congress. Not sure how we correct this bucket of mess!
The left thinks they have completely triumphed over us. We conservatives are to be consigned to the ash heap of history. They are wrong. We just need to remember that tenacity is a virtue. We can even laugh as we watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ypn0y32Ac
Commentor cfbleachers said
“The MAIN issue…is messaging. The other side lies and cheats and distorts. And we let them.
The break every rule, shred the Constitution, remove our checks and balances. And, we let them.
They frame the issues, distort the facts, lie about their motives. And, we let them.”
he also said,
“The Republican Party is famously inarticulate, not quick on its feet, horrible at messaging and even worse at fighting slander, propaganda and distortion. In a word…they suck…at combating the enemies of truth and at defending America from Marxist trickery, treason, and treachery. They make horrible guardians of the realm when the invaders are from the inside.
They make sissified warriors in the culture war on non-social issues. They allow themselves to get painted as extremists…by radical extremists. And bleat, whine, moan, complain all you want. The other side is winning this culture war and the information war and the distortion war. And our side can’t game plan worth a whit. The Republican Party is letting us down.
Worse. They don’t seem to have a clue as to how to defend us. Or protect us.
And WE…will continue to pay the price for that.”
Why are more people not talking about this??? Throughout this whole election I have wanted to scream about this. The playing field is nowhere close to level, it’s like the republicans have lost before the game starts and they’re letting it happen! We all know about the media being bias, I am not going to whine about it but, I just don’t see why it isn’t being fough harder. For expample, when Benghazi is discussed, nobody mentions the fact that media including Fox at least at first, was the worst offender of the truth. They reported that the attack was a result of YouTube video as if it were a plain, tangible fact! Why are the people in power not calling out the leftists? Particuarly in the media? People who seek the TRUTH are not being stood up for, subversion and lies are winning, we are getting our asses handed to us and the republicans pretty much have to be overthrown and completely changed if we ever want to save this country.
This is why a terrible president just got re elected over a very qualified man with the integrity and credentials to have easily won the election if we weren’t living in complete insanity.
IMO, the best & brightest in the Republican Party, generally speaking, do not serve in national public office. If they do serve, it’s more commonly on the local (city, county) or state level. Most of them prefer to remain within the private sector where they can enjoy financial success & pass what they have created onto their heirs.
This is true, but it isn’t likely to change. If, in some alternate universe, the media gave a true and fair accounting of Obama, and talked up on Romney’s strengths and none of his weaknesses, it would have been a 48 state landslide. Illinois and Hawaii are just unreachable.
How do you bring in more people without sacrificing any stance held by the GOP? Well, that’s the million dollar question. And I really don’t think its possible. There are a several clear issues that continues to shred us in the elections, but since were on the subject of evangelicals, we have to talk about the four hundred pound gorilla in the room: Abortion.
If I truely thought that abortion was wrong when the fetus is nothing more than a tadpole, I’d stick to my guns to the end. The problem is the absolutist stance of no abortions at any time for any reason that is indefensible and makes us sound like hardcore extremists subject to religious extremists.
God as defined by evangelicals is not my God nor is he the God of the majority of Americans. To define a human as any potential human life because somebody said so–and I know it wasn’t Jesus–is fine to believe (more power to you), but I fail to see how that fringe belief has any right to be foisted on the rest of us. Are any other religion’s beliefs integrated into the GOP platform? Yes, you could say that the platform is based on Judeo-Christian roots, but that platform comes from a derived philosophy that transcends even religion and truely speaks for all. And it doesn’t require any kind of leap of faith to arrive at.
Now this is certainly not to say that abortion at any time is just alright by me. Like most American, it gets rather creepy after the second or third month–and downright repulsive much further beyond that. This is something most people can agree on when shown a photo of a fetus sucking its thumb beyond the first trimester. People get it. Maybe because we innately recognize a fellow human being when we see it.
The radicalism of the left, with their de facto abortion is legal right up until the moment of delivery, is also SO extreme, pointing it out to the public (who currently have no idea that abortion is legal up until the very end of term) and crucifying the democrats on this very subject would go a long way to making up lost ground amongst the electorate. Problem is, we can’t point it out without being trumped by our own extreme stance.
Like most guys you LOVE that women are whores. You can use them at will and you know you’ll never face the consequences. May you reap the diseases that you sow and become sterile when you wish to replicate yourself.
In case anyone wants to know why Obama won, this is it. Thinking people read stuff like the drivel directly above and assume all conservatives are, in fact, nuts.
Oh no. Lolly’s posts are illuminating. She is the very picture of christian tolerance that is endemic to this site.
you need to take a huge break. You’re not the only one who took the election results of this week very hard.
I was about to make a few snide comments, but then started actually thinking about what you wrote. Maybe I’m not fully understanding the full view of the anti-abortionists. Is it just the religious part or is it also connected to other things, like monogamy? (Something I never considered as part of it.)
Unless some disease–far worse than AIDS–comes along, so mortal it puts the fear of Jesus into all of us, I find it difficult to imagine returning to the morals of an America that lasted . . . what, a decade after WWII when all Americans wanted was nothing more than a return to security after the trauma of such a vast war?
Bawdiness–and beyond–is as much a part of America and its heritage as any other country. I know both my father and grandfather heartily partook in it; and my grandfather, at least, was a staunch conservative brought up Apostolic Christian.
You can’t legislate to a golden age of purity that probably itself is largely a fable. Even the dower Victorians, we now know, we’re knocking it around during Britain’s halcyon days of empire. Speaking of which, I think I heard the Romans did a bit of it themselves. And their empire lasted 500 years.
And none of this kept families from forming and babies raised. (Even if they weren’t all yours.)
I know you can’t legislate morality – nor do I want to. But I AM tired of all the smut. It’s everywhere. Young girls encouraged to dress like prostitutes and young men encouraged to use them like dirty rags. Adulatry treated less than J-walking. It has been more distructive to the nuclear family than anything else. For all it’s treated so casually, not many marriage can survive it and the destroyed trust it entails.
And yes, I’m AM talking about the morality within the family. Monagamy.
I KNOW people used to anticipate the marriage bed, but it was winked at on the sly because a marriage DID usually take place. If it didn’t the young woman was ostricized for life. Maybe not fair, but it was a lesson to other girls. And these marriages lasted and they were the bedrock of our society.
When our families started falling apart in the 70′s civil society because of these broken homes soon followed. Everything wrong in society can be traced back to the destruction of the nuclear family.
Make of that what you will.
Lolly, I absolutely understand what you said. But people are complicated, as is life. There are so many things about myself that are less than perfect, well . . . let’s just say it is best to let people find their own happiness in their own way. We really don’t have the right to tell people how to lead their lives and all it will do is send you to an early grave.
And all those choices that seem so obviously wrong to us? What if we’re wrong and the responsibility of a ruined life ends up falling on our conceits?
Sugar, I’ve sailed the seas for twenty-five years, circumnavigated twice.
If I wanted a whore, I know just where to go to find her, and she’d be alot better-looking than you, and be a whole lot cheaper.
Now if I wanted a whiny moody b*tch with a bad attitude and expensive maintenance…
You ain’t all that and a bag o’ chips, snookums, and when these dumb farm-boys dope out that the product YOU are selling is no different than the product the foreign gals are selling, the only difference being price and service, you’ll be the GM of the Vagina-as-a-Commodity market.
In fact, the way single women are voting for Federal handouts, I reckon that you are already in the “Chrysler and GM Bankruptcy” phase.
Wow! What a snide, nasty little piece of work you are! I must have hit some nerve! Good!
“Wow! What a snide, nasty little piece of work you are! I must have hit some nerve! Good”
LOL, hey pal, when you come on like a penis-less man and post this:
“Like most guys you LOVE that women are whores. You can use them at will and you know you’ll never face the consequences.”,
…then be prepared to get it like you brought it, m’kay?
I can speak in more than one language, see?
Your offensive blanket-statement about men ALSO is perfectly valid to describe women. If a “free” abortion isn’t about getting out of “facing the consequences”, then what in God’s Holy Name is?
More than most, but not as much as some, I’ve seen the end-game of the Libertine “lifestyle”.
On the male side, it’s a bunch of late-50 something guys with 2 or 3 ex-wives and 4 or 5 ex-children who make, after the support payments are extracted, making less money than the entry-level dude who is sweeping the deck-plates. Once they can no longer work, they die. Nothing and no-one to go “home” to.
On the female side, it’s long lonely and miserable years dependent on a check from the ex and other checks from the government,resented and ignored by their own children,(if they have any), and with no other live companionship than the cat that sleeps on the bed.
Ah! I see! YOU are the fella with the beer gut and 3 ex-wives that you have to pay alimony to. Gotcha.
My comments were absolutely meant to illicit outrage. So they should – from both genders. Men ARE happy to use women as whores! Women ARE happy to take the poor slobs for every cent they have.
Is THAT the world YOU want? It sure isn’t the world I want. I think we are worth more than that!
“Ah! I see! YOU are the fella with the beer gut and 3 ex-wives that you have to pay alimony to. Gotcha.”
Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve been married to the same woman for near 15 years. One of the few gifts that the Almighty saw fit to bestow upon me is that I learn from other peoples’ mistakes.
“My comments were absolutely meant to illicit outrage. So they should – from both genders. Men ARE happy to use women as whores! Women ARE happy to take the poor slobs for every cent they have.”
Well, then you got your wish, didn’t you? Seems that you didn’t end up liking the reaction much. That’s a very American trait, you know. Whine to get something and then be unhappy when you get it.
“Is THAT the world YOU want? It sure isn’t the world I want. I think we are worth more than that!”
It isn’t the world I want, but its the world that we live in.
You know, I have read some of your other comments, and if you read mine, you will see that you and I are actually allies.
Especially with regard to the DemocRats and their demagoguery of the “Women’s Health” issue.
AFAIC, what the DemocRats want is roughly analogous to demanding that the government pay for toothbrushes, floss and toothpaste, and when the recipient fails to use those articles properly and regularly, to then pay for all the corrective dentistry.
Frankly, I would happily pay people a cash sum to have themselves sterilized. Anyone who would accept a moderate cash payment for their ovaries or testes would pretty much be the kind of people we do not need breeding in the first place.
Nobody has to worry about getting or paying for a “cavity” if the patient has no longer has any teeth…
Bilgeman, you’re an idiot.
Your view is shared by the majority, IMO. The Republican Party does itself no favors by taking this hard-line stance on an issue that involves a law of the land, an issue that is never decided by who is the sitting POTUS. The party badly needs to just let this issue go as a focus for a presidential election.
Keith, If you truly think that your MSM-inspired rant about prolifers is an accurate picture, and you really are a fiscal conservative, then there isn’t any way we can work together. Has it occurred to you that the same media that misleads about fiscal issues, might also be misleading about prolife issues? I suggest you talk to some of the mainstream pro-life groups (Judie Brown is nutty, and Bill Donohue is Catholicism’s Al Sharpton, a religion-hustling persecution pimp) to get an accurate picture. Or just try what Mitch Daniels did: yes, cut funding for abortion, PP, ESCR (if you think we’re “anti-science” because we oppose funding for ESCR, then see the above about our misleading media again). Most pro-lifers, like me, realize that the part where we believe that God gives an immortal soul as soon as a tadpole wins the race, isn’t legislatable. But yes, late-term abortion, parental consent, ultrasounds so that women can make an informed decision are all sensible limitations.
A lot of people _even here on this page!_ don’t understand the difference between Todd Akin (who Democrats put in because he was the only one McCaskill had a chance against) and Richard Mourdock. Mourdock should have had some coaching on careful phrasing wrt gotcha questions, but his response was reasonable and didn’t go into public policy, just his religious beliefs about God’s permissive will. If you aren’t a troll, you might want to look into the common ground, the truth about Roe and government butting in, what social conservatives are interested in. Yes, we think abortion clinics should meet some kind of safety standards so that the women, at least, come out alive. Yes, we know laws against aborting people when they look like dragons ~6 weeks in, aren’t going to happen. But there’s always more outrage when socons propose Referendums about life, than when judges impose law based on penumbras, against the will of the people. Try this:
“In these difficult financial times, it doesn’t make any sense to fund ESCR since in addition to being ethically questionable, the results are poor in comparison to the universally supported ASCR.”
“Since one of the most frequent reasons given for having an abortion is “I didn’t think I had a choice”, women who want an abortion after (insert #) weeks will be required to meet with a pro-life counselor who will help her determine what her options are.”
Outlaw abortions after sufficient gestational age that the child could survive outside the womb.
We’ll be thrilled.
Then you’re going to have to help me out here, Jeannette. I have no response when liberals ask why the Republican Party platform states an absolute no abortion under any conditions policy. I say, “well, yours is just as extreme . . . “, and the subject dies right about their with them continuing to think we’re a bunch of hillbillies. Why even give them the opportunity to portray us that way?
Let’s get real here. We DO NOT live in a world of blind media nor even blind justice. If we give these people any opportunity to exercise their prejudices against us, they will do so remorselessly and without pity and–inevitably–we lose. We need absolute consistency of principle in order to show our fellow citizens that the real threat to our freedom comes not from a Republican Party that wants to put you back in the kitchen (or whatever), but from a Democratic Party that is bent on taking half your earnings–with the indirect threat of violence through imprisonment, a Democratic Party that wants to tell you the proper things to eat, drink, say and think during your waking hours and define for you what your own “subconscious” thoughts are inside your very mind–drowning us in mother’s milk.
Now, you can paint a fairly reasonable picture about the moderate views of yourself and those like-minded around you, but that means nothing when the party platform officially states an absolute mandate delivered from God himself. And if you think that mandate is helping out a one-issue cause, it is doing anything but. It maintains this deadlock which includes 24-7 abortions, which I might remind you, is not falling in your favor.
Moderate our views, point out the other guy’s extremism and reap the rewards. This should all be packaged as a general liberty and freedom manifesto from the party that reveals the Democrats to be what they truely are: a bunch of control freaks. But that’s another story . . . .
You’re right about pointing out the “others” extremism. Candidates should either refuse to answer when the press invariably brings it up (and they will and they do) or just state a libertarian position. Something like, “It’s your state. Shape it as you will.”
I’m really a libertarian at heart. I believe the fed should be out of all this personal stuff. If you believe in certain things, put them on the ballot. Let the people decide and if you can’t live with what your fellows decided vote with your feet. That is how this place (America) was meant to work.
For instance, I have no problem with Maryland voting for gay marriage. It was on their ballot and chose accordingly. I REALLY resent it when legislators choose FOR the people against their will.
What happened in California was a crime and that ONE judge should be disbarred and prosecuted. Those people voted down gay marriage three or four times until they FINALLY put it on the ballot as an Amendment change. That was the correct course and should have been untouchable and irreversible. Except for the will of ONE gay man.
That’s not how it’s supposed to work and I get sick of an opposition will NEVER take no for an answer. They never stop and point fingers at us for OUR intollerance. I, at least, would take the answer by the people of proof that that’s what they want. They don’t.
Sounds good. But while guys here are screeching about Mourdock’s poorly phrased but reasonable answer, they’re also demanding that abortion go off the party platform while sounding like Keith Olbermann. I can have conversations with people about a lot of sensitive subjects, but most of the time the other side talks like JustAl and Random. (and yeah, sometimes my allies sound like lolly…)
So. A platform that looks like “The Tea Party believes that life is sacred, and will work to enact just legislation supported by the will of the people that limits the tragic procedure of abortion as much as possible, and encourages the People to foster a culture in which new life is welcomed no matter how it is begun”, top of my head, and I’m not a writer. A Pence/West ticket? Ryan?
Jeanette
Yes I reckon the national party needs to expunge itself of culture war stuff, and so so immediately. It is a proven loser.
Yeah I crapped on Akin and Mourdock and I think you’re assuming that this is the limit, strictly about these guys. It ain’t. Bear in mind Akin (culture warrior) lost in a state that voted Romney.
It probably escapes your notice that so-cons in 4 states had homophobic anti-gay ballot measures and — unsurprisingly — they lost in all 4 states. Meanwhile pot became legal in 2 other states.
Any one of the 3 data points by itself you could claim (and some culture warriors do) as being an aberration. Together they paint a picture. And the picture is that your culture war crap isn’t working. It is THE losing proposition. It’s what’s killing the GOP.
I note that it isn’t working on a site that doesn’t want to hear it, therefore I’m regarded as an extremist. Heh.
So be it.
Here’s my challenge to all the social liberals:
Since most of the issues we’re arguing about here, show up on the lists of “How to weaken the United States to help the Communist takeover” from the 1930s, 1950s, it seems to me that you’re clinging to some really bad ideas that in the long run, don’t advance our best interests. I’d like you to find one of those lists and think honestly about why you want to keep these “ways to weaken the American culture to prepare the way for Our Glorious Revolution” or whatever argle-bargle they came up with. Here’s one that was posted on Facebook by an ex-cult member friend of mine so I don’t of course have full confidence in its actual existence and accuracy. Note that several of the items are ones that we all agree are bad, several have been confirmed elsewhere (like infiltration of the Catholic Church’s leadership).
An interesting little tidbit pointed out by Joel Trumbo. A little scary, but good to know where America is right now.
Excerpts from the 45 Goals of the Communist Party in the US in 1958:
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
Random,
It isn’t your views alone, but the contemptuous way you express them. You come across as pretty arrogant, even when it isn’t warranted. “Unwarranted arrogance” rarely brings someone around to your point of view. In addition to looking at why you would want to promote “things that the Communists wanted to implement in order to weaken America”, you might also take a look at your goals on this blog and assess whether or not you’re achieving them, or if you’re merely convincing readers that “some people with this opinion are extremely unpleasant folk”. (I of course can only address the effect your opinions have on me and can’t extrapolate to others.)
Oh sure! Now I’M insane because I believe in a libertarian approach and I’m culturally sick of the smut.
If you think I talk to anyone about this stuff you’re nuts! I already KNOW how these people think.
Look, I completely disagree w/ this article. We lost because our candidate was a wuss! He did not attack O on Bengazi, corruption in his admin., Fast & Furious & refused to stand up for himself when a biased “moderator” told a bold face lie. He deserved to loose. Our party is full of wimpy moderates that give us people like dole, Mc cain & romney. The party left me. I’m going independent & voting for the best person available that will fight for conservative values w/ their last dying breath. The party hacks in the GOP give us yet another loser. Thew will never learn!
Have patience (I know – it’s hard) and focus on REPLACING these people. I never liked any of the candidates they’ve been throwing at us lately either. We have a two party system and I’m not sure a third party will help.
Remember, it took the commies around 100 years to completely take over the democrat party. It will take us more than a couple of elections to kick these mushy people out. We’ve made a good start with the tea party folks. We just need to keep it up.
We all want to dance around the truth, because the truth is–if it doesn’t exactly hurt–is very embarrassing in regard to what it says about too many voters. Of the people that voted for O those that did so out of ideology or skin color at least had some scrap of a reason to do so. Voters that were not in either of these two categories were easily duped by the Obama campaign. In other words, they were just plain too dumb to figure out who was the best person to lead the country.
Koch Bros, Adelson, Trump, etc, I’d like to see them backing a radio/TV media venture, featuring high quality news (not slanted per se, just good presentation of news stories), and plenty of conservative opinion and commentary shows as well, in English AND Spanish. This is the important part, broadcasting in Spanish. also heard Rush Limbaugh today toying with the idea of translating his show to Spanish. YES, do it Rush.
Build it and they will come.
The biggest mistake being made is that people are still liberty minded. They are not. They want stuff. If you promise them stuff, they’ll vote for you. If you are in favor of taking away their stuff for overall fiscal health of the nation, they will reject you.
Their cognitive dissonance, which was brought about by a bankrupt public school system that care more about socially liberal issues than it does teaching anything of value, doesn’t allow for them to equate their lack of economic opportunity, with the fact that more people every day are getting more free stuff from an ever shrinking pool of taxpayers.
This whole socon, libcon, defcon, dumb-con bullcrap is just that. It’s a way for someone to lay the blame at another person’s feet.
My gut feeling is it was a huge fraud.
Now, in the case of Americans actually voted the way we saw, well… they voted for gridlock, not a mandate.
Some cold hard facts, from Breitbart:
Voters’ responses suggest that the American public agrees with conservative policies–but does not trust the Republican Party to implement them.
For example, voters dislike big government, with 71% agreeing (and 49% strongly agreeing) that: “The larger the size of government the more opportunities it creates for possible corruption.” In addition, 85% of voters said they were concerned about corruption in Washington, and 53% described themselves as “very concerned.”
source: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/08/Breitbart-News-Network-Judicial-Watch-Election-Night-Survey-Conservative-Issues-No-Trust-in-Party
The voters would be correct. 60 years since we’ve had a GOP prez balance a budget. GOP talks the talk but can’t walk the walk. At least the dems aren’t hypocrites.
Nobody likes big govt that cannibalizes us, but how big is “big”? Cut Big Bird fundings? Cut Planned Parenthood abortion fundings? Why don’t we just hollow out our military instead?
More than half of the voters claimed to be conservatives, but what is a “conservative”?
Most voters don’t want their taxes raised, neither do they want spendings cut.
Soc. Security is bankrupt but I’ll vote down future generations’ hope to prevent today’s changes to my entitled share.
Conclusion: most Americans want to have their cake and eat it too. Ergo they voted for Marie Antoinette’s husband.
The other thing is, people are going on and on about the permanent Dem. majority. Don’t forget that Pres. Obama is a MINORITY. Good luck getting the minorities to turn out en masse for the next white Dem to run for President.
Unless they have a boundless supply of minorities to run for President, which I just don’t see. If anything, the talent is on our side.
“the talent is on our side”
Name one, and why.
I don’t think I will. You know the names, but from your hostile tone I surmise you have decided they’re not capable. Frankly, I don’t feel like discussing it with someone who’s made up his/her mind already. If I wanted to do that, I’d post on CNN.
Minorities will vote Dem, regardless of the candidate. The GOP are racists, remember?
I don’t agree- for sure I don’t think we have a big enough sample size to say with any certainty.
Your reference to Catch-22 was perhaps the closest dose of reality for me. The Dem Party will continue to demonize anyone who opposes them as racists and continue to pander to immigrants legal and illegal and put up candidates which emphasize this.
In real terms, there is no solution to this. We live in a reality where our demographic will be overwhelmed by Third World populations. The reasons why are no longer important – it’s just a fact.
You’re talking about two different schools of thought in this regard: one says immigrants from the Third World will assimilate, everyone in the world is basically equal, and that America will continue to innovate on multiple societal levels without breaking stride. The reason the Third World is a failure is situational and not innate and all will be hunky-dory. Arriving to America, everything will change for the immigrants from the Third World and be better due to osmosis; in effect, the same theme as school busing.
The other school of thought says that when you import people from medieval cultures, they can’t assimilate fully because they can’t compete in a place like America, or rise to the old standards of America. What CAN happen is that standards of productivity will be pulled down until something LIKE the ability to compete emerges.
Whether the former or the latter is true, the Dem Party will create enemies for any group traditionally seen as having been relegated to second class status by history; that group is constantly expanding in America.
These groups includes straight whites who buy into the idea of the historical oppression of everyone who’s not them, anyone not white, gays, and women and Muslims. That’s the meme of liberal progressives. Libs practically have ceded the field to the idea these groups have never competed adequately in history and will continue to not do so. Certainly Obama’s actions as President buy into the idea, whether due to innate incompetence or white racism. “Fair share” is ethnic to Obama, not financial.
The Dem solution is a form of socialism, uplift, quotas and entitlements. The Pandora’s Box Dems are opening is that eventually the ethnic segments will increasingly organize themselves along ethnic lines and eventually turn on their “masters” so to speak. The Asian, black and Hispanic (no white) tri-caucuses in congress speak to this as a fact and our future.
The result will be people who vote according to skin and last names, or at least as close as one can come to that, depending on what politician is pandering. Issue-oriented voting will become passe, the greater good kicked to the side of the road, and a Tower of ethnic Babel emerge dedicated to naked self-interest.
The sad irony is that the people most accused of not caring about the greater good, regardless of race, creed or gender, are in fact the ones who’ve done the most to bring that about. They are about to go the way of the Passenger Pigeon. Not today, not tomorrow, but in 50, 100 years. The people who spout the most crap about the greater good, the Rainbow Coalition, are in fact the people who care the least about it. Double that for anyone from a dog-eat-dog Third World. Anyone who’s been to the seething, barely functioning pest holes of Cairo, Mumbai or Guatemala City can attest to this world. Their populations are surging and have nowhere to go but out.
Political correctness and it’s application to immigration are the greatest down-turning of a gamechanger in American history. In terms of a nation that once stunned a world with it’s eccentric and brash leadership, it amounts to a suicide cult, and a torch passed off to the least successful groups in the world. It is not the meek that will inherit the Earth, but failure.
In 60 years America may have 500 million people, 90% of that extra 200 million, (our population in 1960), will come from the Third World. Figure out the rest for yourselves and multiply Muslim and Hispanic and Asian agitation accordingly. And there will be agitation because the pie will shrink, not grow. We are taking it for granted 8% unemployment will shrink because it’s always done that. What if it doesn’t? What if that’s the new norm?
Obama will fail; there is no doubt of it. America will failure as a PC culture. The question is one of a wake-up call. By today’s cultural standards, that wake-up call is one we won’t ever contemplate: an end to all immigration.
Perfectly said! Bravo!!!
“By today’s cultural standards, that wake-up call is one we won’t ever contemplate: an end to all immigration.”
Of course we won’t. We are a nation of immigrants; it’s a major component of our legacy.
There have been a lot of comments here. Normally, I would read each and every one of them before commenting myself, but if I did that I might be here still reading comments in 2016. So let me offer my two cents and if I’m repeating someone else’s comments please accept my apology in advance.
I am not a socon. I am strictly a fiscal conservative. I not only shudder at the thought of the national debt, but I see how easy it would be to cut taxes and fund programs if we didn’t have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars every year to service the debt.
I am reading a lot of comments from conservatives. The general theme is “Oh no, all is lost! time to restart the Civil War/flee to Costa Rica/invest in ammunition and canned goods.” Maybe it’s because I’m over 50, but I don’t see this as anything but a temporary setback. The popular vote was very close as were all the battleground states. Congress held. Yes, the Senate was winnable but blown, AGAIN! Romney was a terrible candidate but if things had gone just slightly differently he could have won this. I’m not saying this was a victory, I’m just saying stories of the death of America and the Republican Party seem to be a bit exaggerated.
Since I am not a socon I think there was way way way too much time and effort wasted on the abortion issue. In 2010 a wave of Tea Partiers delivered the House to the GOP. Since then the Republican Congress has introduced over 60 bills aimed at limiting abortion. If the Democrats were painting Republicans as not caring about anything but abortion, Congress was giving them all the evidence they needed.
I was disgusted by something that Republicans were doing that I think was a factor in losing the Senate. Here is a simple idea. When a Republican talks about rape don’t add a qualifier. Every time a Republican added a qualifier like “forcible rape”, “violent rape” or even “emergency rape” it led directly to “Republicans are anti-women”. I was disgusted because it always reminded me of a stupid frat boy explaining “It wasn’t rape, she was passed out.” Just say rape. It’s that simple.
In a two-party system both parties are going to be umbrella organizations holding many groups with differing opinions. The Republican Party has to learn to accept people who only agree with them 70% of the time (Ronald Reagan’s definition). Saying “Shut up and do what we say” hurts the party. Talking about throwing factions out of the party is a death wish.
If it was up to me I would say shut up about abortion and gay marriage and do whatever is necessary to balance the books. I’d even be in favor of raising taxes to balance the budget if I thought for a single second it would help (it never did before so I’m too skeptical to favor tax hikes). But it isn’t up to me. The GOP is millions of Americans who don’t see eye to eye on everything, but are willing to stand together to fix America.
At least I hope it is.
Yes. And as a socon myself (who sits on the board of a crisis pregnancy center) I can tell you that the reason why abortion rates have continued to decline DESPITE the failure of these laws to pass is that we really ARE changing hearts and minds. You don’t have to shove laws down people’s throats to do that- it’s education. Something I heard Tony Perkins say last year that was a real shocker is that young people are getting more liberal- except on abortion. On that one issue, they are becoming more conservative. Young people are not stupid, they can be persuaded, they can be educated. And that is all we should really care about.
Yes, and we can win on family. I watched a video last night of college age kids talking about growing up in a broken home. They are definitely open to an atmosphere were kids are raised by their parents in a secure environment. The report also noted 2 out of 3 dads reported the were happier before their divorces.
I’m afraid as conservatives we are not truly modelling what we espouse on many levels. See my comment on #46.
Family is absolutely a big, big issue that should attract not only young people but Asians and Hispanics as well, and it can be approached in economic terms as well as emotional ones. For example, in my small city, there were profiles on the valedictorians, from all the high schools, in our newspaper. Every single one was from an intact family- except one young person who acknowledged he had a very tough row to hoe because of it, and it spurred him to work even harder.
This is a very positive issue that Republicans are naturals to take on, and I think we have let this slide in the last few years.
We’ve let pretty much everything about education policy slide for many years except the obligatory nod to home-schooling, vouchers, and school prayer to keep the religious right on our side of the line. Who is on the local school board, the state board of education, the state board of regents and who is secretary/commissioner of education or chancellor of the university is just as important, moreso in the long run, than who is elected to the city council or state legislature, yet pretty much nobody but teachers pays attention. Anybody not backed by the NEA/AFT when running for an elected education position can count on being outspent ten to one or more. Anyone appointed to an education position without the NEA/AFT’s endorsement can count on being mau-maued.
I understand why people with political skill and ambition on the conservative/Republican side don’t want these positions; they’re a political suicide mission, career enders. I sat here for several minutes trying to think of one person who’d served as a conservative on a school board in one of the major towns here who’d ever been elected to a higher office and couldn’t for the life of me think of one. If we want to end communist indoctrination of our children, this is where we start.
Many of the missing millions of Republicans are libertarians. The Republican Party screwed us and many libertarians stayed home on November 6! Some of us believe that things need to get much worse before they can get better. Capiche?
“Some of us believe that things need to get much worse before they can get better.”
Your wish will be granted. Good luck with that.
I believe that we are headed for a world-wide depression resulting from socialism. I also believe that nuclear weapons will be used by terrorists in the next four years. If I am correct, it will be better that these calamities happen on Obama’s watch.
You did not get screwed. You just lost, fair and square. You are a minority faction in the party. Your candidates got an astonishingly fair hearing but were either a bit screwy behaving, or spoiled a very well received domestic program with a non-starter foreign policy. Lots of other decent candidates failed the beauty pageant we call primaries. Get over it. It happens all the time. Only one guy can win, so inevitably most people feel “stuck” with a secondary choice. All this talk about the primaries being rigged, secret cabals of “Old Guard” RINOs, is infantile, pathetic, hysterical, and just plain deranged. The “Old Guard” types win often simply because they are good at it. Learn something from them. Your grandfather probably beat you easily at chess or cards when you were a kid, and I doubt he did it because there was a secret cabal of Old Guard grandfathers helping him. Acting like tin-foil hatted conspiracy theorists is a major reason why your guys got no traction: they were tarnished by the lunacy of their own followers. Learn to be team players, contribute whatever you can, stay positive. Your message is hard to swallow for many people, and you have made great strides recently, but this takes time and you can’t demand total surrender from everyone else.
“You did not get screwed. You just lost, fair and square.”
If you Googled “Ron Paul voters screwed by Romney campaign”, you would get quite a few substantive hits. But then, who needs facts?
Care to offer some proof of the “millions” of Libertarians out there??? Can you offer any proof that there are “millions” of “fiscal conservative-socially liberal” types just baying to vote for a Republican if social conservatives were good little boys and girls and shut up like you want us to?
You want to self-righteously blame social conservatives for Rommey’s losing, fine! Then we will take credit for the Republicans holding the House of Representatives. How many candidates has the Libertarian Party ever elected to State or Federal office?
We lost because of tactical mistakes by the Rommey campaign, they totally missed the trouble brewing in Florida for instance, lies by the hyper-partisan media, growth of a “the world owes me a living no matter what I do or how I live ” demographic, and a racial tribalism that believes that central government economic redistribution is the only way to get their “fair share” of the GDP.
What happened to the three million extra Republican voters who voted for McCain/Palin in 2008? My theory is that the missing voters are libertarians who voted for Palin last time who were repelled by their treatment by the Republican establishment this time around. Your theory is that the Romney campaign made “tactical mistakes”. Who is right? I dunno.
BTW: I have no issue with socons and didn’t mention them. I do not blame them for this loss. I blame establishment Republicans who thought they could stuff a self-described progressive down our throats.
Obama also got fewer votes than he did during the first run. I don’t think it has to do with get out the votes efforts. I thing its now a center left nation with an apathetic population. We are Europe now.
What about the missing Obama supporters who didn’t show up? If you talk about one side you need to at least mention the other or you are no better than the corrupt media.
Over 210 million eligible voters.
Only 115 million or so bother to vote.
WHERE THE HELL ARE THE OTHER 100 MILLION?
From a purely demographic POV, over 7 million white voters didn’t show.
Apathy won the election for the village idiot. Instead of watching debates, the masses watched football.
We are still a center-right country where most people are reviled by homosexuality; pissed-off about illegals; exasperated by the incredible deficit; and hate abortion as a means of casual birth control for the stupid.
Ours is no longer a center-right country; that writing has been on the wall for a while now & this year’s election underscores that. Legal abortion is here to stay & the majority of the American people are fine with that, as they realize that there are some areas in which no one has a right to stick their nose. The majority of the American people recognize that DOMA is nothing more than an illustration of thinly-veiled bigotry; most at the very least advocate the allowing of civil unions. Most people accept the fact that something needs to be done about illegal immigration but most don’t want to slap them all on buses & ship them home; it’s simply not quite that simple. Most don’t want the entitlement programs to go away either.
The Republican Party must figure out what its priorities really are while it figures out a way to broaden the “tent.”
All of the above is great theoretical discussion. Too bad at this point it’s irrelevant. This election was the last chance to stop what’s coming. “We Can’t Afford 4 More Years” was prophetic.
Lets talk about the reality of a 16T debt, 1T annual budget deficits and what that means…hyper inflation followed by societal collapse followed by civil war. Are you prepared?
What people should be doing right now is trading their paper fiat money (it’s freaking paper!) for tangible assets…precious metals, guns, ammo, food, shelter, fuel. Anything that can be bartered.
Who is John Galt?
So many comments, wonderful. BUT NOT ONE TALKING ABOUT VOTER/ELECTION FRAUD! where the Democrats are masters of the legislation and the game. “For evil to happen it is enough good people do nothing!”
The historian A. Toynbee said: Every civilization dies from suicide not from murder.
America started its suicide decades ago, on Nov. 6 2012 the USA sealed it. What follows are bleeding times….
The country has just been dealt a death sentence, and you’re worried about the ‘effing Republican party? Half the damned party is liberal, which is what’s killing our society, and you worry about the party??? That’s the whole problem! If you’re so conservative you should be worrying about how to spread that message, instead of cheering for your favorite stupid political football team.
When we talk about “social issues”, it usually really means only abortion. Abortion, abortion, abortion.
Before I get started, let me preface by saying that there are more than a few justifiable and/or medically necessary abortions. For those in that category, I have only sympathy. But the majority of abortions are for convenience, a form of last-ditch birth control for career-protection or face-saving. For those I have no sympathy.
For pro-lifers, abortion triggers a visceral revulsion at the thought of killing babies. Among pro-choicers (note the need to use a euphemism) get all riled up because any suggestion that even the most flagrant of convenience abortions might be “wrong” triggers a massive psychological effort to suppress intense self-loathing and shame for what they have done to their own offspring, or their own nieces and nephews, or grandchildren (the shame extends to all those who encouraged a woman to get a convenience abortion, you see). The “ghosts” (metaphorically speaking) of the aborted babies haunt these people all their lives no matter how well they suppress it.
Many a pro-choicer’s need to maintain the state of denial is so strong that they would gladly keep company with communist traitors and Islamist terror-bombers, abandon and even militantly oppose both Church and God Himself, rather than face their own guilt.
I would go so far as to say that abortion alone is, directly and indirectly, a principal driving force behind the mental disorder we call “Leftism” generally. Not the only factor, but a major one. There are other pathways to Leftism, but this could be the critical pathway to the kind of blind, crazy, hysterical Leftism we have seen ever since the so-called “sexual revolution” of the late 60′s.
I respect and stand will all my fellow conservatives, social cons, libertarians, the log cabin crowd, even the Ronulans. Will they all stand with me and respect that I refuse to place abortion, gay marriage, drug legalization and other social/behavior issues ahead of fiscal sanity, spending, debt, national security/defense, entitlement reform, taxation, an out-of-control and intrusive government and all the rest? I don’t care if my candidate is pro-choice or anti-abortion. I don’t care where he (she) stands on same sex marriage. These are not issues I take into the voting booth. So you’ll have to forgive me if I get a little testy from time-to-time with my fellow conservatives who do take those issues into the booth and insist upon ideological purity in our candidates.
You can have money as your overriding concern, or the continued existence of this American experience, (or even your own girl parts and having money for their maintenance! for that matter).
Our main concern is for Human Life, Itself, and we believe that what we do in the ballot box and in our daily lives (which means we must be as supportive as possible to every unplanned child we encounter, and love his mother) will have an effect on where our souls spend Eternity. So liberty and the pursuit of happiness come after, and then the other concerns.
“Normal people” estimates say that the world’s population will peak around 2050 and then decline due to lowered fertility. So very soon, we’ll all look like Japan, Germany, Spain, where there won’t be enough workers’ taxes to support old people. It would actually be in our country’s best interest to encourage women to carry their children to term.
I stand with you because we probably agree on alot more than we disagree. But, I see the fiscal problem we have as minor compared to abortion. You do realize that we are approaching killing ten times what Hitler did, don’t you? Ten times.
Besides, if you see my #46 above, the social issues were not even our “downfall.” We Republicans are financial hypocrites, that is why we lost.
Your post captures my sentiments beautifully.
The social issues are at the core of the economic issues. Why does Julia look to the sugar daddy in the White House to take care of her. Quite simply she has no real family that supports her in need and holds her accountable. Libertarians and people narrowly concerned with fiscal issues do not understand that when the social bonds that integrate individuals into their families, their neighborhoods, their church and other community institutions rupture, people will turn to the state. Strong families and traditional morality are preconditions for economic liberty, the rule of law, limited constitutional government, economic prosperity, etc. License and liberty are incompatible.
Most of the problems you mention would be cured if socialism weren’t around. That’s the fundamental problem; the rest are just symptoms.
Well written, Charles.
We political “junkies” spend a lot of time poring over information, analyzing issues, and this and that. It’s easy to forget that your average independent or not-terribly-interested voter makes a presidential decision (including whether to vote or not) based on one question, and one question only: Is it time for a change?
People decided they weren’t ready for a change. That’s all there is to it.
It’s not a validation of the liberal worldview, or a rejection of the conservative worldview. People simply thought it wasn’t time for a change, and that the risks of switching parties for the presidency outweighed the risks of the status quo. In a strange way, it was a conservative decision.
People will give conservatives/GOP another chance when they’re ready for a change. Keep it simple. Be ready when the time comes.
how does one get ahold of the Romney campaign? One of the Romneys?
The Romney campaign does not exist anymore.
“….The “ghosts” (metaphorically speaking) of the aborted babies haunt these people all their lives no matter how well they suppress it…..”
Or, maybe they don’t…… but there’s a verdict carried in that, isn’t there?……………
It’s not that we need to get rid of socially conservative pro-life candidates, its that we cannot run the TYPE of socially conservative pro-life candidates that were most visible during this campaign. Santorum, Akin, and Mourdock, were each and all of them poor advocates for their cause. Shrill, irate, completely inflexible, and entirely incapable of of arguing their way out of a paper bag.
Future socially conservative candidates must be young, telegenic, and completely at ease with speaking to both secular crowds as well as religious ones. If a candidates appeal stops the moment they step out of a church, they are completely inappropriate for statewide office.
But you’re right, it isn’t one aspect of our party that is at fault. Socially conservative candidates lost, yes, but candidates like Tommy Thompson lost too.
The core problem with this election, is that ultimately minorities came out in such force that the electorate looked more like a poll of registered voters. That wasn’t even the case in 2008, had the racial make up of the electorate looked more like 2008, Gallop would have been right, we’d have been close to seeing an even split between Republicans and Democrats.
Now, however, its clear that at least for Obama, minorities will come out in full force. This probably isn’t true for mid-terms, so I expect we’ll pick up a lot of seats then, but so long as we suffer blood baths during Presidential elections any progress we make in off year elections will be temporary.
As such, the answer is obvious. We must do slightly better among Hispanics, slightly better among women voters, slightly better among young voters, and slightly better among Asians. We don’t need to win any of these demographics, but merely doing BETTER will allow us to compete a lot more effectively during Presidential year elections.
Hopefully, another four years of economic stagnation will hurt the democratic party among minorities. It’s already killed them among white voters, and I expect another four years will further the damage in that respect. But, we cannot expect to be a national party if we only appeal to one racial demographic, no matter how big it is at the moment. Demographics are shifting in this country, and we have no idea when they’ll stabilize. So we simply have no choice but to broaden our appeal until we can compete regardless of how much the white vote shrinks.
Well, right now the only way I know of to appeal to minority voters–the only PROVEN method, that is–is to grant them special status and give them more money. The conservative platform is against this kind of machine politics because its beliefs are all inclusive and respectful of a person as an individual. Not that many minorities can grasp this. Its just too philosophical. To them, if you don’t give them something, you are against them. And I don’t have the time to wait around a millennium to find out if they even can “get it.”
But to dilute our philosophy would truely be the end of the Republican Party. The way I see it, there is only one (palatable) way to get back the vote. We need to become the true party of freedom. No more “victimless crimes (whatever they are. You really have to stretch the mind to get ahold of that), no more vice department, no more telling people what to do. That is between them and their God.
We could absolutely destroy the liberals by painting them as what they truely are: control freaks. And I guarantee that if we push these people as the anachronisms that they are–your mother’s party–the youth vote will be there to reap.
Quit all the Wednesday morning quarterbacking and blaming this one or that one or this thing or another.
Just look at yourselves in the mirror (the leadership especially) and admit to your own stupidity.
WE THE PEOPLE (conservatives) TRIED to tell you………you just would not listen……as usual.
Now all you have to blame is yourselves.
When people vote for a dishonest candidate because they couldn’t care less about his immoral and unethical behavior, the war is lost. There is nothing we can do to convince people that 2 + 2 = 4 when they are willing to believe that 2 + 2 = 5 because Obama told them it was. The USA died on Nov. 6, 2012. It’s over.
To win Obama only needed to show that Romney couldn’t decided which side of an issue he was on. He flip flopped more time than a fish on a hook. The GOP needs to change a lot of things if it intends to win the next election.
Come into the 21st century. The U.S.A. isn’t the post WW2 superpower that dictates policy in most of the free world. Little democracies have grown up. You can tell a kid what to do when it’s 5 but not so much when it’s 18. My point is this. The GOP tends to think it’s the heir apparent to global domination. People in blue states with more ‘exposure’ to world trade and interactions with other cultures tend to get this. America is part of the world economy and democrats seem to realize this more than republicans. Democrats tend to realize how the US is viewed and how the US is viewed internationally is becoming more important with each passing year. Might doesn’t make as much right as it used to. American has to learn to play well with others and I don’t think supporters of the GOP have come to terms with this yet. Romney took a quick trip overseas while trying to look presidential and put his foot in his mouth and offended allies in Britain and Israel. Find a presidential candidate that connect with the American voter and people internationally and we may have a chance. As an FYI does anyone know how other nationalities would have voted if they were eligible? 91% of Germans would have voted for Obama. 74% of Australians would have voted for Obama and the list goes on. Find a candidate acceptable to the rest of the world and we may win in our own country as well.
Quit blaming us Socons.
From National Organization for Marriage:
“the pro-marriage position out-performed the Republican ticket by an average of 6.6 points in these four states.” The four that had marriage-definining elections. They were deeply blue states.