Republicans, being the Stupid Party, are likely to misinterpret the result of last week’s election result and end up compromising on some core issue that will turn off a large segment of their base and create more Democrats.
Democrats, being the Evil Party, are likely to misinterpret the result of last week’s election and end up pushing hard for some destructive policy set that will create more Democrats while also straining the nation’s overextended entitlements even further.
The policy that both parties are likely to work together on is “comprehensive” immigration reform. Republicans will end up trying to reach more Hispanic voters in a way that creates more Democratic voters. Democrats will end up stressing their precious welfare state to the breaking point. They may feed the beast to death. The media, full of evil and stupid hacks who write from souls of dishonesty, will fail to note the erosion of the rule of law and, really, any other fact that’s relevant to a nation that should wish to remain as such.
While everyone focuses on demography, which surely played a role in last week’s election, the possibilities of cheating and buying votes aren’t getting much play. Barack Obama is said to have gotten as much as 99% of the vote in some Democrat strongholds. Those are Fidel Castro numbers. They’re not believable. (Neither are the numbers coming out of Broward County in Florida). It’s a guaranteed lock that there was voter fraud in Philadelphia, in Baltimore, in places like the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, because there has always been voter fraud in those areas. There has been and there will be no fix for this fraud for the foreseeable future.
It’s a guaranteed certainty that the Democrats bought votes in a variety of ways, from the usual political promises and threats, to the rise of middle class welfare and the Obama Phone — a million of those in Ohio alone, remember, and regardless of how when the program actually started, users see those phones as gifts from Obama — and it’s a guaranteed certainty that left-wing outfits like the Voter Participation Center slipped some number of fraudulent voter registrations into the system. Recall, that the VPC was most active in Virginia and Florida. That should make us go “Hmmm.” And Hurricane Sandy gave Obama an excuse to don the bomber jacket for a day or two and, among other things, pushed his real foreign policy failures even farther from the front pages than they already were. He’s not a real president in many ways — for instance, ask Democrats how involved Obama gets in the legislative process — but he plays one on TV well enough to get some votes.
In addition to all of this, I learned something at church Sunday morning. In the past 12 years, the number of Americans who claim to believe in no religion has skyrocketed from 8 percent to 19 percent. From one in 12 to one in five.
I’m not making any judgements on anyone here. People who attended church leave for a mix of valid and stupid reasons. Had the apostle Paul not already coined “chief of sinners” for himself I might adopt that title for my own.
But here’s something worth considering. That great a cultural change over that short a span of time is bound to have effects far beyond the number of bodies in church seats on Sunday mornings. Many who would previously have turned to a church in their time of need have, for whatever reason, moved away from any affiliation with any church. Where do they then turn?
Democrats worked from the very start of this campaign to define Republicans, frankly that was there campaign, in essence their campaign as “Four more years of not those guys”. Did we run on an “anti-birth control” platform? No, but you wouldnt know that from the coverage of the campaign.
We had every opportunity to do the same to the Democrats and define them as the party of privilege and waste. We chose not to do it. We tried to be nice and logical.
Let’s not get all googly here. I dont remember there being a big outcry after the 2004 election to have Democrats become more like Republicans. In my opinion, nothing much changed. Were disappointed but so what. We lost the election but we have not lost the argument.
We really did lose the argument because we didn’t have ANY ideas! There are things that can be done that are simple PROCESS issues to manage government. When you’re talking to a laborer next time (one that gets a sweat-stained W2) or an independent contractor, try asking them if people who get ObamaPhones should get a 1099-GOV for that redistribution of their income and I think you’ll see that meets with enthusiasm. When W2/1099-MISC for earned income are mirrored with a 1099-GOV for recipients of ObamaPhone/Welfare/FoodStamps THEN we’ll know what the government is doing.
If you can’t file a ‘no tax due’ 1040easy based on your accumulated 1099-GOVs then you can’t get any more.
Everyone has been complaining about what we did or did not do during the campaign. It would not matter what GOPers said since the press would still just print and cover on their “news” what they wanted people to hear. Conservatives cannot win when they do not control to media. We need another way to argue our point and no more mister nice guy approach. It really is true that nice guys finish last.
We don’t need one of the alternate media outlets. We need to buy up one of the big three networks. A movie studio would be nice, also.
You don’t need a movie studio. You need conservatives willing to fund making movies that subtly encourage our values. I have the screenplay. But it takes at least $2 million to make a movie that doesn’t look as stupid as the film that Obama used as an excuse for Benghazi.
These’s an audience out there for them. Halmark movies (anything made by Larry Levison is a sure bet) are BIG sellers. I know because I’ve been buying them up for the day I unplug the boobtube.
$2 million? No, no, far from it. Google MICRO-BUDGET PRODUCTIONS. Google MUMBLECORE. See the recent film, SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED.
You say, “I have the screenplay,” but you need to re-write that script so that it can be done in a focused, narrow way.
Rent an HD camera, shoot until you understand it’s capabilities. Shoot it in your home of the weekends, get help from your like-minded friends. Distribute it digitally.
I think this is a very good point (12 years gets you from first grade to high school), but I’d like to see a new poll first.
I’ve seen too many of these “party x is dead” to believe it. Thge election in popular vote was very close. The next one could go the other way, if we don’t suicide.
But I can tell you this non-Christian voter is a social conservative first and formost. Life before money.
I say it again. We need to force the “abortion for sex selection” question. Make the Fox people ask it. Have the candidates insist it be asked before they answer any questions the other way. Ask it at town halls.
“Progressivism worships the almighty State.”
The embracing of this principle by “Democrat” voters is the direct opposite of the fundamental covenant that the Founding Fathers articulated so beautifully, that the rights of man are inherent and cannot be bestowed nor taken away. To us the evil and cunning of the left is so obvious, because we can’t even frame the debate or discussion so that we aren’t on the defensive. Christians are vilified now quite openly, which is no surprise as those who stand for true principles always will be. We represent dissonance to be removed or drowned out. No matter. God will reveal His arm to the nations when and as He sees fit.
“Progressivism worships the almighty state” is an incorrect formulation.
Progressivism is based on the principle that its true believers are the only legitimate power that exists, and that the state is their chosen instrument to wield that power over all us unenlightened heathens.
As for “worship”, that’s what they expect, in fact demand, from everybody else.
Obama is not an aberration. He is the purest form of progressive. Conceited, egotistical, narcissistic, vain, clueless- and with a soul-burning hatred of anyone he perceives as not giving him the adulation he believes is his birthright.
This is why he, like progressives generally, views his campaign to “fundamentally transform America” as a holy crusade against evil.
To him, we- Americans- are the source of all evil on Earth. And we must be made to suffer, and to pay.
Progressives think they are Absolute Good on the hoof. So, ipso facto, the opposition must be Absolute Evil. It’s a simple formulation that requires no real thought, and makes the believers feel good about themselves.
This is a major reason that religion is losing out in the United States. It’s not that people no longer want, or need, to believe; they’ve just found something else to believe in.
Unfortunately, what many have decided to believe in is their own perfection, and their own power. And that they are so perfect that they are entitled to use it to force others to “see the light”- of their perfection. (See “circular argument”.)
In this formulation, the phrase “legitimate difference of opinion” is a non sequitur. The differing opinion not only “does not follow from logic”, it simply cannot exist, for there is only one “legitimate opinion”- that of those who perceive themselves as perfect, and good.
For an example of how this can end up, Google “Albigensian Crusade” and/or “Cathar Suppression”. To say nothing of “French Revolution”, “The Directory”, and “The Terror”.
Few such movements end without the blood of innocents being spilled. And yes, history shows that “crusaders” can be vicious b*****ds. Mainly because they enjoy it. And their philosophy allows them essentially to make war in the sure and certain belief that they are justified in doing so. It’s called “all the fun, none of the guilt”.
It’s a known fact in psychology that people tend to adhere to belief systems which allow them to justify whatever they were going to do anyway. Which tells you a good bit about what sort of mentality the average “progressive” has naturally. We’re not talking about Mother Theresa, here.
Progressives tend to get dreamy looks in their eyes when they contemplate how they’re going to “rectify the inequalities” in society, or “save Holy Mother Gaia”, or “eliminate (fill in the blank)”.
That’s all you need to know about just how dangerous the mindset is.
“Progressivism” isn’t about “creative destruction”, as capitalism is supposed to be. It’s about destruction, period. It’s about erasing what exists- and not replacing it with something better. It talks about “Utopia”- but at heart dreams of nihilism. The more delusional members of the clique’ believe that once they’ve wrecked everything, Utopia will somehow create itself spontaneously- with them in charge. Showing that they have the long-term planning acumen of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park.
Progressives know everything there is to know about how to destroy a society, and nothing about how to build one. The followers don’t bother to worry about this. The leaders know it, and don’t care.
They don’t want to “transform” our world into something better. They just want to set it on fire, and watch it burn.
Perilous times lie ahead.
clear ether
eon
Dynamite post, eon.
In re eon’s post just below #4:
http://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701
(excerpt –from this particular google translation)
(suggest, scroll down a little ways and start at)
From the Editors
Данная книга основана на не публиковавшихся ранее отдельным сборником документах, которые долгое время были недоступны читателям и исследователям. This book is based on previously unpublished documents of a brochure that had long been inaccessible to readers and researchers. Документы по истории Тамбовского крестьянского восстания, принадлежавшие тамбовскому губернскому военному комиссару, уцелели чудом. Documents on the history of the Tambov peasant uprising owned Tambov provincial military commissar, survived miraculously. После подавления восстания и коллективизации они в 1933 году подлежали безусловному уничтожению. After the uprising and collectivization in 1933, they were subject to the unconditional destruction. В архиве губвоенкома в Тамбове, в здании Зимней церкви Казанского монастыря, документы о подавлении восстания сжигались в печи. The archive gubvoenkoma in Tambov, in the building of the Church of the Kazan Winter monastery, documents about the suppression of the uprising were burned in a furnace. Однако при уничтожении документов возник пожар, горящие же бумаги были залиты водой и забросаны песком. However, the destruction of the documents there was a fire, burning the same papers were filled with water and threw sand.
Алтарь Предтеченской церкви, где под слоем песка и штукатурки была найдена часть архива Тамбовского губвоенкома Altar Baptist Church, where a layer of sand and plaster was found part of the archive of the Tambov gubvoenkoma
В 1982 году архив, находившийся в церкви, переехал на новое место, а в алтаре, под слоем песка остались бумаги – одни в довольно хорошем состоянии, другие – подпорченные водой и песком. In 1982, the archive is in the Church, has moved to a new location, and the altar, under the sand were issued – one in fairly good condition, others – ruffled by water and sand. Помимо документов губвоенкома периода подавления восстания (включая документы 1919 года, касающиеся знаменитого рейда генерала К.К. Мамантова), сохранились и документы о репрессированных в 1920-1930 гг. In addition to documents gubvoenkoma period uprising (including documents for 1919 on the famous raid of General K. Mamantova), preserved documents of the repressed in 1920-1930. Приказы командования Красной армии периода подавления восстания, переписка с Москвой, доклады об использовании химического оружия против крестьян, документы Союза трудового крестьянства и другие свидетельства – все они вошли в книгу. Orders by the Red Army period uprising, correspondence with Moscow, reports on the use of chemical weapons against the peasants, the working peasantry Union documents and other evidence – they are all included in the book.
((ellipse))
And if we want to finally learn today our true XX century Russian history, such as it was in effect, it must be thoroughly cleaned of all kinds of layers and ideological drift.
((ellipse))
===
Above are a few excerpts (at the site, the google translator worked fine, but then it didn’t survive the copy/paste to this PJM comment box) from an introduction to official USSR papers concerning the so-called Tambov Uprising. 1920 Russia seems so far away in space and time –but the ideology driving its acolytes (see eon’s post) to genocide upon fellow-language speaking, culture and history and common-language sharing neighbors, within the nation itself, is anything, anything but, far away, in either time nor space.
In fact, the evidence in the lit seems to say, it’s here and now, and as such would lack only some further ‘development’ to quickly reach Tambov reasoning.
===
A bookend for the above, this one a fast three-minute read, notable for:
(quote)
Mikhail Khordorkovsky had been the wealthiest man in Russia, and chief executive of Russia’s largest oil company, Yukos. He was arrested on 25 October 2003 in Novosibirsk on charges of fraud. In his final statement at his second trial, Khordorkovsky asked what entrepreneurs and creative individuals will think of such a trial where the outcome is set in advance. The conclusion, he said, is chilling in its simplicity. “There is no right of private property [in Russia]. No person who conflicts with the ‘system’ has any rights whatsoever. Even when enshrined in law, rights are not protected by the courts.” Because, he said, the courts are a fraud.
“It is the worst case,” said Kalashnikov about Khordorkovsky. The top guys who were actually running Yukos were KGB generals, and Kalashnikov named them. Most contracts were arranged through these KGB men, he said. “No serious action [within Yukos] on the side of Khordorkovsky or others was thinkable without their direct authorization. I had to realize that, here in Germany and Austria, not everyone would be ready or happy to be reminded of this. There is a certain mutual understanding between the West and Moscow … so they are quite reluctant to look closely into this issue.”
((ellipse))
It is important to distinguish between ideology and what really happens in the world. When our heads are stuffed with ideology, our expectations are those of a fool. When we look at reality without ideology, we see something that is generally outside our expectations. Ideology and reality belong to different realms. Ideology belongs to the childish side of the imagination, while reality is the realm of the wise. The two things, ideology and reality, never coincide, ever. The reasons were outlined by Gustav Le Bon in his study of crowd behavior, where he stated: “The philosophic absurdity that often marks general beliefs has never been an obstacle to their triumph…. In consequence, the evident weakness of the socialist beliefs of today will not prevent their triumph among the masses…. The socialist ideal of happiness [and] … the vanity of its promises will at once appear as soon as the first efforts toward their realization are made….”
Kalashnikov described that point where the socialist ideal of happiness first encountered reality, and came undone like a cheap sweater. “Probably you’ve heard something of the Tambov uprising,” he said. “The Tambov area was a huge part of central Russia. It was three times larger in older times. It was a normal rural area, fairly stable, inhabited by farmers, along with handicrafts, and very religious, decent people. Now, the Bolsheviks came and imposed a lot of duties on them. So they revolted. The result in 1919 was not just an uprising but the formation of a republic with its own armies and police. So this huge armed conflict started. Lenin correctly identified the Tambov uprising as the most dangerous one to his regime. This is why the Bolsheviks stopped pushing against Europe and turned East. Their best generals and armies were thrown against the Tambov area. The official reason was to occupy Tambov. During that war, the key episode of the Russian Civil War, was the elimination of large segments of the male population in this particular area. In 1991 the regional KGB department was alarmed. For some reason, the opening of records in Novosibirsk, shed some light on what happened in Tambov. One third of the population was killed. The Bolsheviks were experimenting on people with torture and extermination techniques. When I started to explain to the Germans what happened in Tambov, they were shocked. Those who you would expect to be best prepared for such revelations, researchers into the Holocaust, were surprised at the sophisticated methods of hostage taking (to reveal hidden fighters), and the manner of executions used by the Bolsheviks. A lot of this history is simply incredible. The Bolsheviks introduced a system of concentration camps for men, women, elderly people and children, with various types of terror and indoctrination. That’s what they called an occupation. But the most important thing, what emerged from the ruins of the Tambov Republic, was a permanent system of police control. From time to time they practiced, yet again, hostage taking, indoctrination, Komsomol [youth wing of the Communist Party], and now, the next stage: – they distributed this occupational regime to the rest of the country; so that socialism emerged not from Marx and Engels, but from the practice of occupying Tambov.
((bolding mine, close quote))
Read the rest @ JR Nyquist’s archive, from January 2011, Origins of a Killer State
===
That archive begins areound 9/11/01 (scan back pages, see old titles, see the [laugh, fools!] nostradamus-like predictive perspicacity) of this Kremlin-watcher’s several-per-month columns, few of which need more than three minutes to read because tho they stand alone they’re essentially review and commentary on the contained hyperlinks to original sources.
Anyhoo, not one of us reading here would expect Tambov to happen here –but the point is, where is the difference in the two expressions, Tambov and DC Democrat, of the ideology, as you see it, as a person who understands enough of that world to have been reading this thread in the first place?
…and lastly, written as a young man, long before coming to power, long before he ordered the Tambov, Lenin’s works contain several approving references to the Vendee. I won’t get away with any more links, may not get the present set past the gate, but do search the word. See Ann Barnhardt’s video on youtube, if your eyes are tired of reading the gloom.
ugh –lost control of the html –please forgive attack on eyeballs –
Definitely describes the ones I know, eon. And most of the liberals I know,too.
Seems like I just ruined around and found all these people with really big heads. (Never mind who is actually smarter or more educated; that seems irrelevant to them.). How did such a large portion of Americans suddenly turn into snide, insufferable boobs, anyway?
*turned around
–two transpositions in one typo? That result in an actual word that takes the sentence to to uh, well, cosmic awareness? Nah –you were ‘autowriting’ –your spirit is active!
And in spite of what you say you voted for a man, who by the standards of most mainstream Christian churches, was a member of a cult. This is why all what you say rings so hollow when you speak of America’s decline, etc. People like you didn’t really care about the religious beliefs of your candidate. You cared about a political agenda being fulfilled. I wonder how God would feel about that?
And it isn’t me who is saying Romney is a member of a cult. Frankly, I could care less what he believes. Look at what Liberty University, that bastion of conservative Christian values, has to say:
Page 173. Graduate course Theology 678—Western and New Religions.
Course description:
“The history, doctrines, and present state of the major cults such as Mormonism, Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventism. The course will also include a study of the Occult Movement. Emphasis is placed on the errors of these groups and on methods and materials for confronting them effectively.”
The test of whether an organization is Christian or a cult is whether or not they practice water baptism “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Language is irrelevant, so whether they recite in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, or the local vernacular or whatever language the catechumen or his/her parents and godparents speak doesn’t matter. Likewise, the baptism is valid as long as water flows or immerses the catechumen during the recitation of the Trinity.
In case you were unaware Mormons reject the Holy Trinity. Not to mention they reject the virgin birth and that salvation is not possible without Joseph Smith. The sacrifice by Jesus on the cross was not enough to save.
Proving yet again you are a stupid fascist pig that is also a religous bigot.
Sorry, you are wrong on every count.
PS.
I’m not a Mormon, or a Christian.
Now go drink some bleach and make the human race smarter.
I don’t that many people voted FOR Romney so much as voting AGAINST Obama’s failed policies. Would I have preferred a Christian to run against Obama? Sure. But a syphilitic camel would have been preferable to the continued failed policies of Obama.
And of course, being a liberal, you are against bigotry, except when convenient. We were electing a president, not an archbishop, you know.
I think liberals better enjoy their false sense of security because it will be short lived and people like you Cynical will be the most disadvantaged.
President Santa Claus has already made the poor people poorer and now that he once again has used them for their vote, they will suffer more than the last 4 years:
http://www.toledoblade.com/State/2012/11/12/Ohioans-food-stamp-aid-to-be-cut.html
Liberals will be begging for new leadership before the year 2014. Obama will soon be eaten by his own, rightfully so.
“Liberals will be begging for new leadership before the year 2014. Obama will soon be eaten by his own, rightfully so.”
Whatever you say, hun. Just like Romney was going to win in a “landslide.” “Please proceed” to live in your alternate reality.
I told you to go drink bleach.
Make it happen, scumbag.
The aid level is being cut because it is tied to the federal FDA’s estimates of natural gas costs. They calculate that the prices should go down, due to a “mild winter” last year (it wasn’t all that “mild” here in southeast OH), allowing them to save money by cutting the allowance about $166/family. Thus the $50 cut in EBT allowance per family.
The dynamics at work here are (highest weighted probabilities):
1. FDA’s policies are driven by EPA “estimates”, which are based on deep-ecology environmentalist theories and computer models- which, being obsessed with AGW, have a nasty habit of not reflecting the real world.
2. The Obama Administration’s gratitude to Ohio’s Democratic Party for delivering 18 electoral votes is not enough to overcome its animosity toward Ohio’s Republican state government, which it is sure will be blamed for this by the majority of EBT recipients, virtually guaranteeing they “turn out” for the Democrats in 2014 and later.
3. The Obama Administration knows who its friends are, and which of them are the “high-maintenance” types. Those being the deep-ecology environmentalists, who want more evidence that The One is as committed to “saving Holy Mother Gaia” as they are. Up to and including letting their dogmas influence food stamps in Ohio, rather than admit their prognostications on weather, etc., might be even a little bit inaccurate.
The takeaway from this is;
1. As the old saying goes, “actions have consequences”. All those Obamaphone recipients who voted for The One are about to find that out the hard way.
2. As Psalm 146:3 says, “Trust not in princes”. Especially do not trust in the gratitude of princes, and absolutely not in the gratitude- or even common sense- of those with dogmas, “narratives”, agendas…
… and supporters with the mindset of a high-maintenance girlfriend/boyfriend.
clear ether
eon
I agree with Bryan that this is the key take away that needs to be understood from the election. In the last FIVE YEARS ALONE the percentage of non-religious went from 15 to 20% From me last week: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/11/07/when-your-dog-dies-you-can-bring-him-back-to-life/?singlepage=true That’s how Obama grew his base.
Romney lost by a lousy 407,000 votes—that’s not a shift in the culture.
Romney failed to win in a landslide. That is the problem. A narrow victory for Romney would have been marginally better than a narrow defeat. But an America where a man like Obama can get elected president and then get over 35% of the vote in the face of epic failure is not a country that has preserved its character and is able and willing to preserve its constitution.
The alien nation where I reside is coasting towards destruction. Maybe the minority of people who understand what America was will be able to pick up the pieces.
Firstly, we do not elect President by popular vote but by the electoral college. Romney got his a$$ handed to him (332 to 206). President Obama does have a mandate because he won decisively.
Also, I’m not sure where you got your figures on the final popular vote count from (Karl Rove?) but President Obama won by over 3 million votes.
Obama – approximately 62 million
Romney – approximately 58 million
Do the math. Math doesn’t have a liberal bias. That said, you can always do republican math just to make you feel better.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/171178/obamas-3-million-vote-electoral-college-landslide-majority-states-mandate#
I need to be forgiven for my ignorance of the American electoral system but it does seem to me, a Canadian, that it needs to be reformed.
When Obama can win in Ohio by only a little over 100,000 votes and, yet, receives all 18 of the electoral college votes and when he beats Romney in Florida by a razor-thin margin and, yet, receives all 29 electoral college votes, something seems seriously out of whack.
Why are the electoral votes not awarded proportionately? If they were, Romney would probably have received 14 electoral votes in Florida to Obama’s 15 and six, seven, or eight in Ohio. The U.S. system seems dysfunctional to me.
The electoral college was originally meant to protect smaller states and rural areas from the larger more populous states.
However, what has happened is we’ve grown these huge mega-cities that decide how a states electoral votes go. New York decides for the entire state and how their other cities or their rural areas doesn’t matter. In Ohio, Cleveland and Columbus decided that states electoral votes. Baltamore chooses for Maryland. Portland for Oregon, etc.
So yes, something should be done because mega-cities are choosing for everyone. That leaves a lot of people disenfranchised.
Cynical, I have always believed in poetic justice.
Me knowing that “you have to live with you” puts a really nice smile on my face.
And you being a part of the 20-25% minority of leftists in America makes me care very little what you think, if at all. My comments, if you already haven’t figured it out, are for the other 75-80% who have to put up with your drivel.
The 407,000 votes that ahem is talking about simply come from the 4 key swing states that separated us from real adults being in charge.
There, fixed it for ya.
I understand your need to make sense of your defeat in whatever way you can. I really do! You thought you had this one in the bag because Fox news and all your republican skewed pollsters told you so. You didn’t
Plus, your side is really, REALLY good at cheating.
And I don’t want to hear that it’s just sour grapes on our side. When you have 141% of registered voters ALL pulling for obama in key counties and an absolute refusal on our sides part to investigate than that just tells be yours just fine with fraud. Alls fair in love and war, right? And it IS war for you…..
The fact that President Obama won at all in a terrible economy indicates that the base Democratic support is even higher than the 3,000,000 vote victory would indicate. No incumbent President has ever won with an unemployment rate of 7%, until now.
Obama did it by giving away mountains of free stuff. This is how democracies perish, when the people figure out they can vote for more free stuff.
I know that gay marriage is a touchy subject, and I have no wish to offend. But what Bryan wrote here stuck a chord with me in this respect – if you have “pastors” that are actually out promoting gay marriage and have the audacity to say that this type of “acceptance” is what Jesus would expect, well, then the mystery of why people are leaving the protestant churches is not really all that difficult to decipher.
Reports say applications for Amateur Radio (HAM) Licenses have skyrocketed in recent years (I wonder why!) and there’s been a lot of talk of using it for communications in a post Fan Event.
http://lewrockwell.com/rep3/ham-radio-explained.html
Remember what it must have been like for Martin Luther and other serious Christians in Luther’s time.
Then go a d be of good cheer.
1946….that year began a drought of Republican control of Congress which was not broken until the Elections of 1994. During that time, Cold War reality assisted in electing more Republican Commmanders-in-Chief than Democrat. Republicans were associated with Rockefeller Country Clubism, though these principled Republicans were the real leaders in the Congress to end Jim Crow and racial discrimination.
But we forget that it was not until Reagan was elected that the Conservative ideas laid out by Buckley, Hyaek, and Laffler and his “curve” bore fruit.
New Deal and Great Society ideas were the accepted formula for Domestic success. But as they bore their fruits of the disintegration of our cities, of the disintegration of minority families, and a concommitant rise in crime, the folly of the beliefs underlying the Democrats social policies became obvious to more and more Americans. Reagan Democrats were blue-collar and often union-member former constituents of the Democrats.
They were won over by the obvious bankruptcy of the Democrat policies and the factual and common sense policies of the Conservatives.
Don’t fall for the Siren calls for Republicans to embrace Identity Politics at the expense of Conservative ideas. Do we believe that we truly have the winning ideas of history ? If so, we must be prepared to defend them and use their validity to convince others.
We must be prepared for those who have been deluded into believing the propaganda of the Democrats to reap the fruits of their poor choices. We thought the past four years would be sufficient. We may need to wait until enough Hispanics follow the Italian model into small business ownership where they will experience prohibitive taxes and regulations in order to understand the superiority of our Conservative ideas. I hope we do not have to experience a half century of foolishness.
But pandering should not be the basis of of our politics. We should get the most we can get for our conservative principles of real sovereignty and real citizenship. We have more control at the statehouses than in many years. Let’s use that to strengthen States’ Rights and fight to diminish Federal power.
Now is not the time to go wobbley.
The only identity politics that belongs in the Republican Party is an appeal to religious people on moral grounds: don’t vote for the enemies of the Church.
– in our blue state leaving Catholic Church for more macho evangelical denominations.
As a christian and a conservative voter let me just say that while I weep for the death of the unborn and would never condone abortion, I will not stop loving those who chose it. Also, any person who chooses to be homosexual is free to live out their lifestyle as far as I’m concerned. I just want them to grant me the same type of consideration I show them by
a) Not passing legislation making me pay for abortions and thus violating my core religious beliefs.
b) Not trying to convince and coerce me into believing that embracing homosexuality or other deviant sexual behaviors as equal to traditional family units are good for a nation’s health.
They are free to believe as they wish, just stop trying to convince me as a christian that I am holding them back from achieving whatever it is they are trying to accomplish.
“a) Not passing legislation making me pay for abortions and thus violating my core religious beliefs.”
No one is making you do that. However, under the ACA insurance companies are required to cover the array of medical products and services for their female policy holders as they do for their male policy holders. Personally, it violates my “core religious belief” that insurance companies provide Viagra for male policy holders. My religious view is that erectile disfunction is part of Gods plan. It is his way of making sure that seed is not passed on. And who are we to mess with Gods plan?
“b) Not trying to convince and coerce me into believing that embracing homosexuality or other deviant sexual behaviors as equal to traditional family units are good for a nation’s health.”
You are free to believe whatever you want about marriage. I encourage you to marry the partner of your choice. The government, however, has no business promoting a particular religious view about marriage. Not to mention that doing so violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The Constitution is the final word on matters, not the bible.
cynical wonder you are sadly misinformed regarding the government forcing me to fund abortion against my core beliefs. Is not Planned Parenthood, the world’s largest provider of abortions funded by tax dollars? And does the ACA not contain language calling for taxpayer funded abortion and abortifacients. Also, when was the last time you saw a huge uprising of men seeking the taxpayer to fund the E.D. drugs? If there was one I missed it and would not be in favor of it if it was to come up.
You are correct that I am free to believe what I want about marriage but what of the myriad number of “hate crimes” legislation benefiting only certain gov’t favored groups. Fringe groups who don’t believe in live and let live. I may be able to think and believe as I wish NOW but freedom to express those views verbally and in the way I choose to live my life is fast slipping away.
Your comment on the constitution vis a vis the bible I will respond to with this question. Do you think we would even have a constitution if we had not first had the bible?
Most of the framers were Deists, not Christians.
That’s an out lie. There were TWO at the most. And the two were STRONG proponants of Christian values in a Christian nation. They knew the Constitution could not function without a moral citizenry. They were apparantly correct in that assessment.
Caught ya! You ignored his points and slid off into hair-splitting over deism. Youi just lost the debate.
Bilge water! Marriage predates both “religion” AND the Constitution.
What you people completely fail to realize is that equal protect thingy also works for other deviant lifestyle if you trash the very meaning of marriage.
If you think granting marriage to homosexuals ends the argument you’re crazy. Next will come polygamy, beastiality and pedophilia. Oh – and why not incest?
You people act like this hasn’t been done before. There is a reason for the taboos. Knocking them aside for expediency has consequences you people never forsee or asknowledge.
Of course, the old “slippery slope” argument. Have fun sliding down it in your alternate reality. And “bilge water” is far better than that rancid tea you’ve been drinking.
Well, apparantly, it is YOU who live in an alternate universe.
Democrats have already called for the decriminalization and destygmafication of pedophilia as a crime and mental disease.
Personally, I thought they’d go for polygamy first – you know – for they muslim buddies. But, NOPE they went straight for legalizing child-rape. They also want to either lower or get rid of altogether age of consent laws.
Now tell me again about that slope. Besides, you’re forgetting ALL about that equal protection under the law thing. When do you think the first muslim will bring a lawsuit regarding polygamy (four wives) as a cultural issue?
CW is ever so smart and I don’t know how all of us manage to make it through the day without his wisdom. One would think that having won the election the leftists would be out celebrating the USA and being happy. But, NOOOOOOOO! Why would someone continue to attempt to taunt and bully the losing side other than pure meanness? Go pick your switch, you brat!
It is interesting that you mentioned hearts and minds since both have been under deliberate unappreciated attack through K-12 education since what was called Outcomes Based Education in the 90s. That’s a whole lot of under 30 voters who have had their attitudes, feelings, values, and beliefs deliberately tampered with to put the group first. It is also why social and emotional learning and social interaction are so dominant in all of Obama’s education reforms.
Likewise, what is commonly called “Higher Order Thinking” is actually an intentional attempt to target the irrational and trigger emotional responses instead. And always to foster a belief that this is a society in need of fundamental change: socially, politically, and economically.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/what-if-higher-order-thinkingdeliberate-confusion/
So hearts and minds are not just spontaneously changing. They are under attack.
Ditto on the reference to the Reformation times. (Luther’s birtday was Nov. 10th, BTW, same as the USMC)
Study the causes of the Reformation and subsequent upheaval in society. Amazing paralells to todays world and national politics and cultural morass.A fight is looming.
” In the past 12 years, the number of Americans who claim to believe in no religion has skyrocketed from 8 percent to 19 percent. From one in 12 to one in five.”
You see this as bad. I see it as good. Not being religious does not mean one is not spiritual. A lot of people are turned off by organized religion, and rightly so. Organized religion has, for the most part, lost it’s purpose. Many Christian evangelical churches have become nothing more than an arm of the republican party and only look to those bible passages that support their political agenda while ignoring those that don’t (you are you brothers keeper?). All one can find in these places is mechanistic piety, not spirituality. They have become much like the Catholics with their nattering of memorized verses, etc. Indeed, if one wants to find a spiritual desert one need not look farther than your local conservative Christian church.
Spirituality is garbage talk. It simply means your rutterless.
Only liberal churches are losing their memberships. Why go to a church that ignores the bible? Conservative churches are busting at the seams. People WANT the truth and they want God’s leadership.
Also, why do you pick on conservative churches who wish to vote for people who share their values? Not that that ever happens – if it did you’d be screaming to have their tax exemptions pulled.
I assume you have no problem whatsoever with democrats who routinely make political stops inside black churches? If so, you’re a damned hypocrit.
“People WANT the truth and they want God’s leadership.”
No, they want authority, easy answers, and to not have to think about anything because it is scribbled in some book or prattled about by a pastor with a political agenda. This, of course, is intellectually lazy. In other words, they want a magic sky daddy to tell them what to do.
What is happening now is that people are turning away from organized religion because it is being revealed for the sham that it is. People search for truth but they are not finding it in organized religion. When they examine it closely they find it to be an empty spiritual desert.
A faith with any substantial intellectual substance should be able to stand up to rational scrutiny, and a faith that can be destroyed by an honest search for truth is not worth defending.
Very nice; I particularly liked your last paragraph. Religion is both a matter of faith AND rationality.
Odd, since everything foretold in the bible is coming to pass right before our eyes. Don’t think people haven’t noticed and the only churches they are leaving are those that have compromise God’s Word for the squishy views of the world.
Old woman shouts at cloud…
LOLOL! You had nothing at all for a comeback did you? That was just WEAK!
You must REALLY be frightened by what you already KNOW is true.
It’s not too late to repent, you know………
Old woman shouts at cloud … again.
I wasn’t aware that the Republican Party was run by libertarians who don’t want the government to care for the poor. It is clear that the Democratic Party follows this notion of “brother’s keeper” when it involves redistributing money, but loses interest in the matter when it involves the rest of the traditional notion of a Christian commonwealth: abortion; prostitution; promoting sexual morality with laws against adultery and pre-marital sex. Democrats (and even many Republicans) aren’t keen on those ideas, of course, but pretending that you are redistributing wealth as an expression of Christianity, while ignoring the rest, is just dishonest.
The notion of “brother’s keeper” is hardly a christian invention. Neanderthals have been dug up that had lived for years with bone breakage and other damage that would prevent them from fending for themselves and/or making a meaningful contribution to a hunt. They were being cared for by their brothers.
You make the insightful point: “Just as faith fills a need, the lack of faith often leaves a need.” You make a small mistake, however, in suggesting that material goods are filling that need. No! The loss of a moral creed is replaced by an ideology. One mental structure is replaced by another mental structure.
In the first half of the 20th century, communism and national socialism were the ideologies adopted by those people who left their religions. Today, a kind of pseudo-environmentalism and soft communism are the ideologies young people and others have picked up from their intellectual environment. It would be helpful to Republicans to understand that these soft ideologies “work” when material conditions are good–when people have jobs, don’t worry about their economic futures, etc.–but provide no support emotionally, economically or socially when things get bad. Republicans cannot and must not give up the array of concepts that make them into the strong, intelligent actors that they are economically and socially. As the economy worsens under Obama, the Republican analysis of how economies and political systems work best will become more and more attractive to the people who current hold the soft ideologies.
Gloria,
I think you made an excellent point.
When times get tough and people are frightened, their attitudes harden. Kumbaya is not often sung in the tough times. Battle Hymn of the Republic, Deutchland Uber Alles, or the Communist Internationale are more likely to be chosen. Which will Americans sing when the time comes? I don’t know.
Looking at history, it seems to me that societies under stress often reject the leaders with hard, but accurate, answers to difficult problems and choose those that offer easy solutions (aka lies). I hope we will be different but I get less confident every day.
You need to get out more. Alternate ideology to christian faith isn’t limited to joining the commies. Plenty of young people are discovering heroism and the other cardinal virtues in recycled asian (particularly japanese) stories and mythology via anime. The dominant anime themes are solid — dare I say conservative — values. Communities of like-minded fans of positive messages of the future are gaining steam in the con event scene. Even star wars geekery is centered on the Jedi code of service. It’s not a bunch of dweebs playing mindless games. These people are learning things. Refreshingly the majority of these people are fundamentally republican minded. Few of them would walk into a church if you paid them to so so, yet they are still republican minded. Of course I expect that you will find this confusing and counter to your preconceptions.
People who are out-of-churchers … will eventually turn to something like “In That Day Teachings”.
In 1955 Rosa Parks refused to sit on the back of the bus. The culture was ready for the argument.
However, supposedly, she did the same thing earlier, 12 years earlier. But the culture was not ready for the thoughts.
Similar it is with “In That Day Teachings”. Perhaps the gurus at PJ Media will promote In That Day Teachings?
Look them up at http://www.inthatdayteachings.com
An example:
Spirited Away
By Robert Winkler Burke
Book #4 of In That Day Teachings
1/14/09 http://www.inthatdayteachings.com
The prophet’s message,
Has been spirited away,
Drowned out by others,
With nothing to say.
Others with prophecy voices,
Full of beans,
Tell us all exactly, precisely,
What future brings.
Ever they are wrong,
It does not matter,
People want broadcast,
Blithering blabber.
One famous preacher sells,
A small idol,
Jewelry he designed,
And signed back of.
The front is Jesus,
Come in clouds,
“Behold, I come quickly,”
It says proud.
Meanwhile, the preacher, himself,
Looks ghostly, palid pale,
Haggard, worn out, tired, made up,
In truth, a soul for sale.
His very witness: Jesus is not,
Much now come present in me,
The exact diametric message,
Any prophet would, well, be.
And how much does this Nehushtan cost?
One hundred fifty dollars,
A cheap price for leviathan pride,
Spirit shackles and collars.
My own view is that the GOP should absolutely and totally stay out of the so-called ‘social issues’, i.e., issues of abortion, marriage, gender identity, ethnicity. They should stick to the only issues which are legitimate to the federal government; namely: the economy, fiscal policy, security of person and property, foreign affairs, interstate infrastructures. Period.
The GOP should insist that social issues belong to the people. Not to government, unless you want a Taliban Sharia or totalitarian government. Otherwise, these issues, which are vital to life, belong to the people and must be decided by the people. Not by government. At the local level, in the family, church and by referendum only, at the State level of government. Never, ever, at the federal level.
The Democrats have, and particularly under Obama, abandoned and ignored these vital duties of the federal government. Obama’s economic, foreign, fiscal, security, interstate deals are a catastrophic disaster. He doesn’t care; he blames Bush for all of this.
The Democrat focus is on, and only on: social issues. The day after the 2008 election, the Democrats began to plan for 2012. They deliberately developed an electorate divided into dependent Identity Blocs, each adversarial against others, each dependent on subsidizing funds from the federal taxpayer for their existence.
1)The Stimulus was geared to satisfying the massive public service unions. They put the US into enormous debt to bond the unions to them.
2)Then, health care was geared to satisfying yet another portion of the population dependent on govt funding, the uninsured and poor.
3)Then, the EPA was developed to satisfy the environmental and green crowd. Obama couldn’t get Cap and Trade through Congress so he ignored Congress and had his unelected EPA set up the rules.
And, borrowed more taxpayer money to fund ‘solar energy and other green projects. The fact that they went bankrupt was irrelevant; his goal was to attach the environmental crowd.
4) Then, unemployment insurance was extended, and food stamps increased; this created yet another enormous sector of the population dependent on the government.
5) Going after single women, with making Catholic Institutions fund contraceptions.
6) Anti-Israel – to appease the leftist academics and get the loyalty of US Muslims.
7) Class warfare to divert the anger over the economy, from the govt and its failures…to ‘the rich’.
8) Approving same sex marriage – to bond gays and lesbians and the left.
9) The refusal to support Arizona’s attempts to deal with illegals, and the Act to allow illegal students to stay in the US; this was a focus on hispanics.
We can see that this was a coherent and single-minded plan: to focus on Identity Blocs in the population, make the dependent on the Democratic govt…to win the 2012 election.
The FACT that the economy was tanking, that bribing these identity groups was taking money from the economy..was blamed, as a red herring, on Congress who-wouldn’t-do-anything. On the GOP. On Bush. etc.
And it worked.
The GOP MUST, absolutely MUST reject involvement in social issues. Such issues belong, vitally, to the people. Not to government.
Thus telling 20-25% of American who care passionately about these issues, “We don’t need your votes that much.” See how well it worked for McCain, who went out of his way to offend values voters?
No, you totally misunderstand. The people who care passionately about these social issues – and there are far, far more than 25% – should not be dictated to by a federal government. That’s what a fundamentalist totalitarian government does, such as in the Islamist or Communist states.
Instead, these issues must remain under the control of the individual. Not a set of ‘representatives’ in a federal government, even if they are elected. The individual makes up his/her mind on these issues, based on religion, on rationality, and etc – and if any legislation is required, it’s at the State level, and only by referendum.
That leaves these decisions in the hands of the people. Not the government.
And indeed, the social conservative position is to return these questions to the states. And that is what the Democrats reject — allowing states to decide these questions.
Sorry for the double post. The Democrats reject returning these issues to the States because they have deliberately moved election campaigns from a focus on the capability of the candidate to deal with the real federal duties of the economy, fiscal, foreign, infrastructure….to one based on pure emotional attachment – an emotional attachment which has absolutely nothing to do with any governance.
By so doing, the Democrats create an enormous set of Identity Blocs, adversarial to each other, dependent on government subsidies and overseeing for their viability: gender issues, abortion funding, welfare and social services, environmental subsidies, marriage and child support, health care, ethnic and religious ‘rights’..and so on. This is their electoral base, an irrational population only too ready to consider themselves victims.
The GOP should declare that these issues as SO VITAL that they must not be decided by a federal Congress but must be decided by the people themselves. At the local level. By referendum. The GOP should state that their focus is on the economy, on security of person and property etc…to ensure that people are free and strong, to make and live these decisions on their own.
The Obama Gang? They ignore the economy – well, ignore is not the correct word. They abuse and destroy the economy, kicking the can down the road for future generations to deal with. They use money (those trillions in debt) to buy out the electorate and ensure their continuance in Power. That’s all Obama cares about: power.
He certainly doesn’t care about the strength and viability of the USA.
ETAB — The Democrats reject returning these issues to the States because they have deliberately moved election campaigns from a focus… [snip]
This is not true in the least. The republican bible beating set is so out of touch with reality that the democrats need to do little more than wait for R candidates to say something stupid. And they always do.
e.g. anyone seeing Akin and not concluding that he’s anti-female simply is out to lunch; he is CLEARLY anti-female to rational people everywhere. The democrats otherwise aren’t capable of planning a boy scout meeting.
We hear the culture warriors ascribe all manner of long term cleverness and utter brilliance to the democrats e.g. “they took over the schools 30 years back and now look at things” and I just have to laugh. Either the democrats are absurdly clever and evil or they’re dumb, they can’t be all of these things. And the notion that there’s a core of evil supervillians mind puppeting the masses is pure tinfoil territory.
You have it largely right though the social issues need to not be a part of the national party. These are guaranteed losers. The culture warriors have been at war with science and progress since Galileo and are on a continuing losing streak. As the article writer notes church membership is dwindling.
The social conservatives are dead and dying. It’s a matter of when, not if, and there will be no reprieve. The only question is whether these authoritarian douches will have the class to step aside or will they continue to vainly drag the GOP into irrelevance.
In reply to random engineer, I think that the Democrats have indeed, deliberately defined themselves as focused on social issues; their focus on ‘women’s rights’, gay marriage, illegals, food stamps, class war, their ‘fair share’ etc – all of which have been at the center of Obama’s bills and actions – show how the Democrats align themselves with these identity groups.
They have provided no policies for the economy; amassing trillions in debt isn’t a policy; loaning to ‘green companies’ is a social not economic agenda. They have no foreign policy, for denying that Islamic terrorism exists isn’t a policy..etc.
The problem is, that the GOP HAVE involved themselves in social issues and they should stay out of them. The fact that the majority of the population are not conservative really isn’t the point, for many, many people ARE ‘conservative’ and probably this ratio will remain high. It’s not disappearing nor should it. The GOP should not align themselves with either the socially conservative nor the …I’m not sure what term to use. I reject ‘progressive’; I’ll have to say, socially non-conservative.
The GOP should instead align themselves with ensuring that all sides have the freedom and right to live according to their moral decisions, and, IF, IF, these lives require a legal condition, then, this has to be, by referendum, at and only at, the local level. Never the federal level.
ETAB — …I think that the Democrats have indeed, deliberately defined themselves as focused on social issues; their focus on ‘women’s rights’, gay marriage, illegals, food stamps… [snip]
Ummm… they are reacting, not initiating. If no RNC adding abortion as a plank then no doubledown on women’s rights. It’s the culture warriors of the right doing the initiating. Think about this. I heard not one peep from the left re stem cells. However had the culture warriors started nattering about this the left would have added a countering reaction. When the far right starts with the school vouchers business the left (correctly!) points out that this is little more than a way to avoid teaching of eeeevil evolution. Laughter ensues. There was no democrat chatter about education repudiating vouchers; there was nothing that they needed to react to.
It is not the left practising politics of division, it is the far right social conervatives doing this. The left is simply better at reacting, largely because the social conservatives are so far out of step with mainstream culture. This is why the left needs to do little more than repeat that it stands for women’s rights. Trot out Sandra Fluke, but only because the right continually refers to her as a whore. You really think they would bother with her unless the far right kept referring to her? Seriously?
What I hear from you is that the left initiates and the right shouldn’t answer. As before I think we agree on the right should not answer this… BUT… since I see what the democrats do as countering, not initiating, my longer answer above re social conservatives is relevant — the RNC needs to stop pandering to them and resolve to stay out of social issues altogether.
This could have been an election about jobs and energy but of course the inevitable victory that would have resulted from republican policy and superior poisition was ruined yet again by the far right statist religious wingnuts. Obama didn’t even have to answer to any of it. All he had to do was trot out Sandra Fluke. The democrats didn’t even have to breathe hard this cycle; it was like taking candy from a baby.
In reply to random engineer, I think we have a basic disagreement on causality.
You think the Democrats merely react to the GOP initiating policies and views on social issues. I think that the Democrats initiate them AND the GOP also initiate them. That is, both political parties are involved in social issues.
BUT, the Democrats are NOT involved in economic issues. ‘Redistribution’ of money taken from the rich isn’t an economic policy; it’s a class war.
Remember, Obama said zilch about his ‘economic policies’ (heh, such as the stimulus, such as funding green energy, such as taxes, etc). Obama aligned Himself, not with his own ‘policies’ but with the economic era of Bill Clinton! And the Democrats are not involved in immigration, security, defense, foreign affairs (unless insulting all your old allies is a policy) and so on.
The Obama Gang began, the first day after their win in 2008, to work towards 2012. I outlined this in my post #18.
The GOP ARE involved in economic and other valid federal issues. Ryan’s reform of entitlements is a clear policy; the Democrats have no policy, but they sure do invoke emotional fear about the GOP plan!
The GOP are also involved in social issues, and my point is, as we both agree, that they should absolutely stay out of them. NOT because ‘the people have changed’ and these perspectives are too ‘old fashioned’. No. But because these issues are not the legitimate domain of any federal government. Unless you want an Islamist totalitarian government.
In my view, the Democrats are focused only on social issues because these are immediately ‘bonding’; the public wakes up to them, while it cannot understand the effects of taking Investment money from ‘the rich’ – which deprives the economy of its capacity for growth. People don’t get this basic economic fact; they sure get ‘no contraceptives’, or, ‘no food stamps’.
ETAB — In reply to random engineer, I think we have a basic disagreement on causality.
It’s nice to disagree with civility on causation and agree re results.
In support of my contention that social issues are initiated by the far right I humbly submit into evidence the initiatives in no less than four states by social conservatives seeking to prevent gays being married. Please note that I am unable to find any initiatves from the left.
In suppport of my conclusion that the social conservatives are utterly out of step with the US mainstream (hence the left needs merely to react) I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that these initiatives failed in no less than four states.
Lastly, I submit the following quote for your consideration:
In the elections of 2010, we were told that the Tea Party candidates arriving on the scene would eliminate the deficit and shrink the government, somehow. Other issues were set aside. Abortion, gay rights, religion in politics—those were all part of the old religious right, now supplanted by the deficit purists. But in a great bait and switch, the first thing the new people in Congress, the state houses, and state legislatures did was introduce a flood of bills to limit, stigmatize, or eliminate abortions, and the flood has not abated—944 provisions on abortion or contraception were still being introduced into state legislatures during the first three months of 2012.
This is from:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/nov/08/election-4/?page=2
As I’m seeing it the left didn’t need to distract at all; this was done for them. When you look at the larger picture and not just Obama, it’s clear that the social conservatives are doing the initiating and have been.
In reply to random engineer, ah yes, I see your point. Those initiatives against gay marriage, etc, were at the STATE level. Not the federal. That’s where these debates have to be argued and fought out – by a referendum. The federal government must have no role in these issues.
As for the Tea Party, they were hardly going to eliminate the deficit and shrink government; they might certainly have that agenda. I wasn’t aware of their motions on social issues – and they were absolutely wrong to do this.
But, I won’t absolve the Democrats of this focus and initiative. It was Obama who ‘evolved’ (heh, what a term for flip flop) and approved gay marriage at the federal level. It was Obama who insisted that Churches pay for contraception and abortion etc.
From various blogs I’ve taken a look at, I can see that the GOP are still heavily focused on social issues, still feel that what they have to do, is ‘spread the message’ on the conservative perspective on social issues. Look, the conservative perspective has as much validity and value as the non-conservative one. It is a matter for the individual to deal with, and we are lucky we live in a nation where such freedom is/must be guaranteed.
BUT, the GOP are totally, completely, wrong, to define themselves as the political party of social conservativism. At the federal level, they must confine themselves to the duties as outlined in the Constitution, and social issues are absolutely not part of this outline. The GOP should not be engaged in trying to bring people into social conservativism, but to explain fiscal and economic conservativism – ie, the themes of Hayek etc.
If the GOP refuse to take this road, they are, in my view, doomed to irrelevance.
Kindly note that the Tea Party confines itself to economic and government issues. The GOP took the House, because their strength is within economic responsibility…while the Democrats abuse the economic capacities of the US. But, they won’t get into federal power as long as they wear a cloak of social issues.
No, you totally misunderstand me. The people who care passionately about these issues – and there are far more than 25% – should not have their rights to make up their minds and live by these issues taken from them by a far-off federal government.
To insist that a government make these moral decisions, rather than you, the individual, is to ask for a totalitarian governance. Islamic fundamentalist and Communist states make all these decisions – for you.
Instead, these are issues which belong to the people. Not to government. So, decisions are to be made by you, within your reason, your religion, and any legal attachments should be made, at the State level, and only by referendum.
“My own view is that the GOP should absolutely and totally stay out of the so-called ‘social issues’, i.e., issues of abortion, marriage, gender identity, ethnicity.”
They did that this time and the media dug up clips from years ago to use. Or they would ask what their PERSONAL opinion was on something and then they hung them with it. They even edited soundbits to get the proper message they wanted out there.
Give it up, already.
So what if the Democrats dug up sound bites from the candidate’s own words? What that person has to reply is:
“Yes, that’s my opinion. But I adamantly reject that MY opinion should rule over YOUR opinion. These social issues are important; after all, they are the moral rules by which each one of us lives. They must not be made FOR YOU by a far-off federal government. They must be decided by you, at the State level, by referendum. There is no reason for you to live by MY rules”.
And the GOP did NOT stay out of these issues this time! They brought up abortion, – and I don’t mean the two peripherals talking about rape – but Romney brought it up. He ought to have said what I suggested above.
You cannot have these issues, which are always divisive and never universal, dictated by a federal central government. That’s totalitarian. Instead, the duty of the federal government is those basic economic and security and infrastructure issues – to enable people to be free to make up their own minds about social issues.
They did that this time and the media …
The media did precisely what was expected of them.
The problem is simply that the RNC caved to the bible beaters and just had to add abortion as part of the republican platform.
It’s an official stance of the republican party.
The media asks a republican about this.
How dare the media do that. It’s all their fault.
What are you, about 3 years old?
Oh PISH! The media did they job, INDEED!!!
If the media did their job they’d report on fast and furious; on benghazi; on the kill list; and a miriad of other offenses large and small that this administration has done to limit liberty and the rights of Americans.
If obama had been a republican it would have been non-stop coverage. With this media they would brush obama eating his dog on a BBQ on the white house lawn under the rug.
You missed the point. We’re talking about giving a hostile media an excuse to make a republican look like a backwards wingnut like Akin. Via social issues that are NOT supported by the majority of voters, the GOP automatically adds further limits to the voting pool. You may not like the fact that tha majority is pro-choice, but that’s the fact. You have to deal with the facts. You get to have your own opinions, but this doesn’t extend to you having your own facts. Please address the point maade thusly.
A further comment on immigration.
I think that Rick Perry of Texas had it right, and the GOP vilifed him for his stance. He concluded that, since he could not legally stop illegals coming in, nor could he legally deport them – since both are the prerogative of the federal govt which refuses to act, then, he HAD to deal with their existence in the state.
He could choose to ignore them, which meant that these millions in his state would continue to use our govt services – health care provided ‘free’ by emergency care at hospitals, ‘free’ schooling K-12, public services such as fire and police protection, roads, etc..while PAYING NO TAXES for these services. AND, also these illegals move into the black market and/or illegal economies..
OR..he could ensure they would work in the legitimate economy and thus pay taxes. He said that they could go to college instate at the same cost as a citizen, and then, apply for citizenship. The GOP vilified him for this.
But – you cannot deport 12 million people. They are here, enabled by both GOP and Democratic governments. The cost to the taxpayer is enormous, since they do not pay taxes and yet, use all the public services.
So: amnesty must be provided for, let’s say, all those who came but not those who came in the last two-three years.
They would NOT become citizens, but, if vetted (no criminal records) would receive something similar to the Permanent Residency Status in Canada. This means that the individual is legally allowed to work – and pay taxes. THEN, applying for citizenship is a second step. They can lose this Permanent Residency status if convicted of a criminal offense, and are automatically deported.
AND, the borders must be secured.
AND, as a side issue, any people who come to immigrate, legally, to the US, must sign what the Australians have developed, namely, a ‘Values Agreement’, in which they acknowledge that they accept and respect the laws of the land, that English is the official language etc.
I don’t accept the suggestion that IF legalized, these illegals would be unable to find work and would end up on welfare. The fact is, that low paying jobs exist; those who say they are ONLY low paying because no consideration needs to be given to the fact that the wages need not include taxes, ignores that the COST to the taxpayer (including that employer) in supporting the services these non-taxpaying people use…outweighs the extra he will have to add to the wages to include taxes.
I am an Episcopalian. Can’t go to any other church. I have tried. Can’t abide what Episcopalians have become. I don’t go anymore. I miss Eucharist. But, I can’t stand some of the social issues. I just don’t go anymore. Oh, and I sang in the choir for 20 + years, too.
Janetoo, I hear you.
I, too, was an Anglican/Episcopalian. I became a Catholic and I am much happier. No church is perfect — it’s full of fallen human beings, after all! — but its Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church, keeps it from falling prey to all of the progressive temptations which are felling the Protestant Churches, because they have no central authority. Now, it’s pretty much every wo/man/church for themselves.
The Christian Church is Christ’s body. We can’t just dress it up any way we want and when we’ve decided that that shirt or that skirt doesn’t “suit,” discard it and try another one. That’s essentially what the Protestant churches have been doing and, recently, at an accelerated rate. It’s inexpressibly sad what too many Christian churches have become: shadows of their former selves and, maddeningly, the groups for whom they’ve changed are not keeping them alive: They don’t attend and the disaffected, like you, are leaving. You have my deepest sympathy.
Kyrie eleison.
Here’s your –our –problem
Welcome home! There is good reason that Obama attacks the Catholic church head on and zealously. It’s practically the last Western institution standing amidst the Gramscian rubble. And before anybody goes all “Whore of Babylon” on us an points to the priest scandals as a sign of capitulation to the culture, those were just another form of attack from which the church will recover, not a collapse of the pillars.
Yeah – I heard some commie broad back in the 20s or 30s got about 300-400 gay guys to infiltrate the church and screw it up. Did a bang up job. They still have to purge their ranks of the commies. Too many Catholic priests still champion illegal immigration and collectivism.
Ann Barnhardt describes this attack in extremely frank detail. She’s a lapsed Catholic who came back –as well as –oh well, just search the name. best way to find out.
http://barnhardt.biz/
you have to scroll forever, but it’s there.
No, we’re pretty much done. The last election showed that a majority of the American public has no problems with socialism and has no problems seeing government as the solution to all of its problems. Yes, that same government that has let down all of the people in Staten Island, New York, after Hurricane Sandy is now going to take over your entire health care system. Hope you sleep well knowing that.
So now it’s all about “free stuff,” even though liberals never mention who gets stuck with the bill for all that “free” stuff. The “rich,” you say? You could take every dime away from everybody making over $250,000 a year and it still wouldn’t make a dent in the $16 trillion (and growing) hole that we are in. THAT is the biggest lie Obama tells, because he knows full well that EVERYBODY is going to get hit when it comes to reducing this gigantic deficit. Everybody, even the poor and the middle class. Somewhere along the line entitlements are going to have to be cut or else we end up like Greece, and Obama knows it. The only question is how much we’re going to have to pay up.
So what are conservatives supposed to do? Well, I’m afraid not much. We can still work at the local level to get conservatives elected, like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, but as for the presidency, it’s hard to fight socialism AND a corrupt mainstream media.
Maybe the answer IS to go socialist light? Always remember, the last Republican to serve two terms as president, George W. Bush, was a “compassionate conservative” and spent money like there was no tomorrow. And he got re-elected. Obama just out-spent him and made even bigger promises. It just shows you that a majority of Americans now want their “free stuff,” regardless of who has to pay for it.
I don’t know how you can stop it now. Even if you had a better messenger like Marco Rubio, you’re still going to bow at the altar of Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, and a host of other entitlements. It doesn’t really matter that people paid into these programs. What DOES matter is that these programs are going bust but the people STILL want their checks. Go figure. Doesn’t really matter that through mismanagement on the part of both Republicans and Democrats we’ve made promises we can’t keep. But, hey, it’s only money, right? The question is, where is all that money going to come from to pay for all this?
Why from you, silly. Hope America likes the socialism they voted for last week. And when we go broke just like Greece and Spain and the rest of Europe, I really do hope those same people who voted for Obama keep their sense of humor. They’re going to need it. Maybe they should watch a rerun of Obama on the Daily Show. That may cheer them up during the food riots and unemployment riots that are coming in the not to distant future.
Think about all those people added to the food stamp rolls in the past 4 years. I think it is more than 15 million. Once they do that you have a dependency voter. They are in federal and/or state databases that can be used by the dems ground game to get out the vote.
Once they do that you have a dependency voter.
People getting food stamps are poor and unable to do much in the way of entertainment. They’re certainly not vacationing in Cancun. They’d certainly rather have that sort of money and it’s no secret to most that a college degree and a good job is how this is done.
Let’s assume for a moment that most of these can’t read or write and are functionally illiterate. What do you intend to do with them? You can preach republican values all day long but people who can’t read and write may not be able to process the message. And where are they going to work? Who’s going to pay them at the same rate as food stamps and welfare, as bad as that is?
I’m not suggesting you’re necessarily wrong in the notion of permanent underclass. Certainly this concept has been around a while. What do you do with these people?
You try to behave culturally in a way that supports upward mobility?
I think every generation thinks theirs is the worst ever but I find these things very troubling:
marijuana is now “medicine”, gambling is now “gaming”, a protest against rape has turned into “slut walks”- how dare you criticize me for being a slut, assisted suicide comes very very close to passing in Massachusetts.
There are no vices. In fact, the things that were vices are now GOOD. They can’t just legalize marijuana and sell it in liquor stores as a recreational drug- no no it HELPS you. Gambling is a vice. Gaming is fun! The whole family likes to play games! You can now be PROUD to be a slut! Suicide is “dying with dignity”. The only sin is being “judgmental”. I really am not a prude I swear…but am I the only one seeing this as a disturbing erosion of society? There are no adults in charge. America is turning into an MTV show.
Yeah, but to randomengineer we’re just outdated, religious wingnuts. Who cares what they think.
Obama cares for no one. He is ice cold inside. What is all important to him is his leftist agenda, and he does not care how much pain that causes America.
Both political parties push their own brands of tyranny: The Democrats favor economic tyranny, the Republicans want to control us via social tyranny. Both parties simply adore big government and the power it affords them. The only reason I have consistently voted Republican is simply because the biggest problem facing our nation now is economic collapse. I have had to hold my nose doing so, but to vote Democrat would be akin to making sure that the bus you are riding on is painted yellow before it goes over the cliff. The Republicans at least are offering to slow down the inevitable. The Democrats, on the other hand are behaving like Major “King” Kong in Dr. Strangelove and happily riding the bomb into oblivion.
So republicans want to rule by social tryanny eh? How? By sending the abortion question back to the states because roe v wade was bad law and not a constitutional right? By not wishing to use public money to provide abortions by a for-profit (PP) company? By thinking that gay marriage is a states rights issue?
The bastards!
“At the present time, more than in any preceding age, Roman Catholics are seen to lapse into infidelity, and Protestants to be converted to Roman Catholicism. If you consider Catholicism within its own organization, it seems to be losing; if you consider it from outside, it seems to be gaining. Nor is this difficult to explain. The men of our days are naturally little disposed to believe; but as soon as they have any religion, they find in themselves a latent instinct that urges them towards Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church astonish them, but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its great unity attracts them. I have hardly any doubt but that the same spirit of the age which appears to be so opposed to it would become so favorable as to admit of its great and sudden advancement. I am inclined to believe that our posterity will tend more and more to a division into only two parts, some relinquishing Christianity entirely and others returning to the Church of Rome.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840.
My small informal sampling was that of my left/Democrat friends they were pretty much going to vote for Obama no matter what. There was one friend who I was pretty sure was a Democrat but was not too sure about Obama and was looking for a reason to vote for Romney. However, this person seemed to be looking for any reason to not vote for Romney and of course there was one of several that showed up. I thought the whole racist thing was overblown but I was called a racist when criticizing Obama on a couple occasions. My most open minded friends were fellow conservatives, who I had many thoughtful conversations, but they were pretty much sold on the idea that Obama is a hard-left Communist/Marxist/Socialist of which I believe as well. My conclusion was that mostly people are very tribal and are not easily swayed to switch sides. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, they were very likely to just say “bull” and stick with their “tribe”. I read an article by Dick Morris in which he makes the point that the entire election was a waste of money because no one changed their minds. I tend to agree. One driver for all this, is that there is just so much information and misinformation out there that people seem to become overwhelmed and default to their ideological position. Of course the folks running the campaigns on either side know all this and especially the leftist, can manipulate the uniformed voter to great effect. Needless to say I am not optimistic about the future of the USA.
(Apologies for a second posting of this –i messed up the HTML up above, and besides, the .ru link is both important and not easy to find –more eyes perhaps will see it down at the bottom of the thread where the new posts generally are)
In re eon’s post just below #4:
http://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701
(excerpt –from this particular google translation)
(suggest, scroll down a little ways and start at)
From the Editors
Данная книга основана на не публиковавшихся ранее отдельным сборником документах, которые долгое время были недоступны читателям и исследователям. This book is based on previously unpublished documents of a brochure that had long been inaccessible to readers and researchers. Документы по истории Тамбовского крестьянского восстания, принадлежавшие тамбовскому губернскому военному комиссару, уцелели чудом. Documents on the history of the Tambov peasant uprising owned Tambov provincial military commissar, survived miraculously. После подавления восстания и коллективизации они в 1933 году подлежали безусловному уничтожению. After the uprising and collectivization in 1933, they were subject to the unconditional destruction. В архиве губвоенкома в Тамбове, в здании Зимней церкви Казанского монастыря, документы о подавлении восстания сжигались в печи. The archive gubvoenkoma in Tambov, in the building of the Church of the Kazan Winter monastery, documents about the suppression of the uprising were burned in a furnace. Однако при уничтожении документов возник пожар, горящие же бумаги были залиты водой и забросаны песком. However, the destruction of the documents there was a fire, burning the same papers were filled with water and threw sand.
Алтарь Предтеченской церкви, где под слоем песка и штукатурки была найдена часть архива Тамбовского губвоенкома Altar Baptist Church, where a layer of sand and plaster was found part of the archive of the Tambov gubvoenkoma
В 1982 году архив, находившийся в церкви, переехал на новое место, а в алтаре, под слоем песка остались бумаги – одни в довольно хорошем состоянии, другие – подпорченные водой и песком. In 1982, the archive is in the Church, has moved to a new location, and the altar, under the sand were issued – one in fairly good condition, others – ruffled by water and sand. Помимо документов губвоенкома периода подавления восстания (включая документы 1919 года, касающиеся знаменитого рейда генерала К.К. Мамантова), сохранились и документы о репрессированных в 1920-1930 гг. In addition to documents gubvoenkoma period uprising (including documents for 1919 on the famous raid of General K. Mamantova), preserved documents of the repressed in 1920-1930. Приказы командования Красной армии периода подавления восстания, переписка с Москвой, доклады об использовании химического оружия против крестьян, документы Союза трудового крестьянства и другие свидетельства – все они вошли в книгу. Orders by the Red Army period uprising, correspondence with Moscow, reports on the use of chemical weapons against the peasants, the working peasantry Union documents and other evidence – they are all included in the book.
((ellipse))
And if we want to finally learn today our true XX century Russian history, such as it was in effect, it must be thoroughly cleaned of all kinds of layers and ideological drift.
((ellipse))
===
Above are a few excerpts (at the site, the google translator worked fine, but then it didn’t survive the copy/paste to this PJM comment box) from an introduction to official USSR papers concerning the so-called Tambov Uprising. 1920 Russia seems so far away in space and time –but the ideology driving its acolytes (see eon’s post) to genocide upon fellow-language speaking, culture and history and common-language sharing neighbors, within the nation itself, is anything, anything but, far away, in either time nor space.
In fact, the evidence in the lit seems to say, it’s here and now, and as such would lack only some further ‘development’ to quickly reach Tambov reasoning.
===
A bookend for the above, this one a fast three-minute read, notable for:
(quote)
Mikhail Khordorkovsky had been the wealthiest man in Russia, and chief executive of Russia’s largest oil company, Yukos. He was arrested on 25 October 2003 in Novosibirsk on charges of fraud. In his final statement at his second trial, Khordorkovsky asked what entrepreneurs and creative individuals will think of such a trial where the outcome is set in advance. The conclusion, he said, is chilling in its simplicity. “There is no right of private property [in Russia]. No person who conflicts with the ‘system’ has any rights whatsoever. Even when enshrined in law, rights are not protected by the courts.” Because, he said, the courts are a fraud.
“It is the worst case,” said Kalashnikov about Khordorkovsky. The top guys who were actually running Yukos were KGB generals, and Kalashnikov named them. Most contracts were arranged through these KGB men, he said. “No serious action [within Yukos] on the side of Khordorkovsky or others was thinkable without their direct authorization. I had to realize that, here in Germany and Austria, not everyone would be ready or happy to be reminded of this. There is a certain mutual understanding between the West and Moscow … so they are quite reluctant to look closely into this issue.”
((ellipse))
It is important to distinguish between ideology and what really happens in the world. When our heads are stuffed with ideology, our expectations are those of a fool. When we look at reality without ideology, we see something that is generally outside our expectations. Ideology and reality belong to different realms. Ideology belongs to the childish side of the imagination, while reality is the realm of the wise. The two things, ideology and reality, never coincide, ever. The reasons were outlined by Gustav Le Bon in his study of crowd behavior, where he stated: “The philosophic absurdity that often marks general beliefs has never been an obstacle to their triumph…. In consequence, the evident weakness of the socialist beliefs of today will not prevent their triumph among the masses…. The socialist ideal of happiness [and] … the vanity of its promises will at once appear as soon as the first efforts toward their realization are made….”
Kalashnikov described that point where the socialist ideal of happiness first encountered reality, and came undone like a cheap sweater. “Probably you’ve heard something of the Tambov uprising,” he said. “The Tambov area was a huge part of central Russia. It was three times larger in older times. It was a normal rural area, fairly stable, inhabited by farmers, along with handicrafts, and very religious, decent people. Now, the Bolsheviks came and imposed a lot of duties on them. So they revolted. The result in 1919 was not just an uprising but the formation of a republic with its own armies and police. So this huge armed conflict started. Lenin correctly identified the Tambov uprising as the most dangerous one to his regime. This is why the Bolsheviks stopped pushing against Europe and turned East. Their best generals and armies were thrown against the Tambov area. The official reason was to occupy Tambov. During that war, the key episode of the Russian Civil War, was the elimination of large segments of the male population in this particular area. In 1991 the regional KGB department was alarmed. For some reason, the opening of records in Novosibirsk, shed some light on what happened in Tambov. One third of the population was killed. The Bolsheviks were experimenting on people with torture and extermination techniques. When I started to explain to the Germans what happened in Tambov, they were shocked. Those who you would expect to be best prepared for such revelations, researchers into the Holocaust, were surprised at the sophisticated methods of hostage taking (to reveal hidden fighters), and the manner of executions used by the Bolsheviks. A lot of this history is simply incredible. The Bolsheviks introduced a system of concentration camps for men, women, elderly people and children, with various types of terror and indoctrination. That’s what they called an occupation. But the most important thing, what emerged from the ruins of the Tambov Republic, was a permanent system of police control. From time to time they practiced, yet again, hostage taking, indoctrination, Komsomol [youth wing of the Communist Party], and now, the next stage: – they distributed this occupational regime to the rest of the country; so that socialism emerged not from Marx and Engels, but from the practice of occupying Tambov.
((emphasis mine;
close quote))
Read the rest @ JR Nyquist’s archive, from January 2011, Origins of a Killer State
===
That archive begins areound 9/11/01 (scan back pages, see old titles, see the [laugh, fools!] nostradamus-like predictive perspicacity) of this Kremlin-watcher’s several-per-month columns, few of which need more than three minutes to read because, tho they stand alone, they’re essentially review and commentary on the contained hyperlinks to original sources.
Anyhoo, not one of us reading here would expect Tambov to happen here –but the point is, where is the difference in the two expressions, Tambov and DC Democrat, of the ideology, as you see it, as a person who understands enough of that world to have been reading this thread in the first place?
…and lastly, written as a young man, long before coming to power, long before he ordered the Tambov, Lenin’s works contain several approving references to the Vendee. I won’t get away with any more links, may not get the present set past the gate, but do search the word. See Ann Barnhardt’s video on youtube, if your eyes are tired of reading the gloom.
almost unbelievably, i screwed up again. the embedded links way up above, i forgot to replant in the copy –all but the first one –the one in Cyrillic, natch. but they’re all up there, just below comment #4.
Yes, we all want to look for fraud and clean up the voter rolls. So, pay for it, please. The people actually doing the work have gotten NO support and are doing it on their own time, at tremendous cost. The RNC is hiding under the covers; the chattering classes are comforting each other. There is work to be done, but the people trying to do it have to get back to their paying jobs.
If you folks really want this to happen, you’re going to have to step up. Screw owning a movie studio — how about a modest subsidized investigation into voting irregularities? We can’t do it alone. We can’t do it on our family budget. The Right is spending its money but in all the wrong ways.
Byran Preston and his followers: Rabble, meet Rouser.
Meanwhile, the serious people have no more time for talk,
for historical/theoretical shouting matches; They have made
their prayer to the Gods of the Copybook Headings and are
doing what they can to prepare for the coming economic crunch,
which will decide all the issues discussed here very simply;
Those still standing after it is over, those who carry out the
hard, dirty, dangerous work of recovery and reform will write
the new rules, and they will not ask for input from the rabble.
This is depressing. Man I hate politics…