[Scape]

Steele Pwns Colbert

There may be hope for the GOP yet.

[Amilam]

If Conservatives want better leadership they should probably stop calling for "a night of long knives" on all Right Center Moderates or orchestrating attacks like "Operation Leper" on any Conservatives that dare to criticize Palin. Reagan was a skillful politician in that he gave voice to other Conservatives ideas to modernize the GOP core principles without necessarily moving the party to the Center. Additionally, he did this without alienating his base and at the same time taking moderates away from the Democrats. Wingnuts should stop trying to crucify people like Frum and realize that he's right. The GOP needs to create new arguments for the pressing issues of today like the raising price of health care. If they don't start getting their ideas out front Democrats, who are doing a much better job of responding to the concerns of the day, are going to win the argument by default.

[Psudo]

I don't normally like Colbert, but that's a funny, funny rap-battle.

CanadianJeff wrote:

In other words you want an intelligent moderate voice able to back up his opinions?

No. I want an intelligent voice able to back up his opinions, moderate or not. I'd even support Ron Paul if he was persuasively convincing more often than rigidly dogmatic.

[Kjorteo]

Doesn't that imply that you'd rather have someone electable than someone you actually agree with, if the two were somehow mutually exclusive? "As long as it's technically a Republican" seems to be a fairly popular idea among the fractured Republican base these days, but....

Anyway, I kind of feel sorry for Krohn. He's more or less a mouthpiece of his parents' views, because that's simply what happens at that age, especially with homeschooling. Even I inherited rabid conservatism and fundamentalist Christianity from my parents, and I had an external (private Catholic, yes, but still with-people-besides-my-parents-there) school. Who knows how bad it'd have been if I'd have been homeschooled. Rethinking one's own views is one of the side effects of puberty, but in my case, I was fortunate enough to have not already written and published a conservative tome before it happened that I would then be completely unable to live down after.

[Psudo]

I wasn't clear about this point, but I meant persuasively convincing to me. If someone can offer an argument that persuades me, then I'm supporting them both because I agree and because they are electable.

But the latest set of Republican leaders can't even convince me to support them on issues where we largely agree.

A good example is our relationship, Kjorteo. You and I agree on very little, yet our respect for each other is great. I agree with McCain on more issues than I agree with you, yet he defends his views so shallowly that I'd rather vote for you. At least then I could be sure some reasonable thought was behind the policies, even if it was in pursuit of things with which I'm uncomfortable. The worst option of all would be Ron Paul, the man who disagrees with me about nearly everything and pursues it with closed-minded dogmatic persistence.

Is that any more clear?

[Kjorteo]

Much. Thank you for the elaboration. That's a very noble position to take, actually.

[Tiler]

I'm personally hoping the Republicans rediscover the whole 'small-government' idea and drop the moral-guardian and oligarchy-supporting nonsense that they've been stuck at.

Unfortunately, it looks like instead the Republicans are going to do exactly what the Democrats did after Dean lost to Bush; be generally angry and pout.

[Psudo]

Sure, Kjorteo, it's pandering until I say I'd vote for you, then it's noble! haha

Tiler, what do you mean by "oligarchy-supporting"? What are Republicans doing that supports oligarchies?

[Murray_Smith]

The future of the Republican Party is a Krustofski-Terwilliger ticket in 2012.

Also, is it just me, or is Ron Paul a much-more-popular-slightly-less-crazy Lyndon LaRouche?

[Psudo]

There's not a lot of separation between Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Paul/LaRoche style libertarianism, but one thing that stands out in my mind is Ayn Rand's respect for industrialists and financiers like Morgan and Rockefeller and the libertarian view of them as the beginning of the end of the US Constitution through institutions like the Federal Reserve.

Of the two, I prefer the Objectivist interpretation.

[Sapio]

Tiler wrote:

I'm personally hoping the Republicans rediscover the whole 'small-government' idea and drop the moral-guardian and oligarchy-supporting nonsense that they've been stuck at.

Unfortunately, it looks like instead the Republicans are going to do exactly what the Democrats did after Dean lost to Bush; be generally angry and pout.

There is still one Republican fighting for that.

[Kjorteo]

.

Psudo wrote:

Sure, Kjorteo, it's pandering until I say I'd vote for you, then it's noble! haha

Oh, that's not what I meant and you know it.

Psudo wrote:

Tiler, what do you mean by "oligarchy-supporting"? What are Republicans doing that supports oligarchies?

It's not exactly a universally-agreed-upon matter, but there are definitely those who see the modern Republican party as the arm of the corporations, the super-rich, and the general elites of society like that. Basically, if they try to paint the Obama administration as Robin Hood economics, there are definitely more than a few Republicans who appear to support Sheriff of Nottingham/Prince John economics. All the recent grumbling about staging "Go John Galt" protests isn't exactly helping their case, either.

Psudo wrote:

There's not a lot of separation between Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Paul/LaRoche style libertarianism, but one thing that stands out in my mind is Ayn Rand's respect for industrialists and financiers like Morgan and Rockefeller and the libertarian view of them as the beginning of the end of the US Constitution through institutions like the Federal Reserve.

Wait, libertarians don't like robber baron-style industrialists? But they don't like the government, either...who do they like, exactly?

[CanadianJeff]

Kjorteo wrote:

Doesn't that imply that you'd rather have someone electable than someone you actually agree with, if the two were somehow mutually exclusive? "As long as it's technically a Republican" seems to be a fairly popular idea among the fractured Republican base these days, but....

Anyway, I kind of feel sorry for Krohn. He's more or less a mouthpiece of his parents' views, because that's simply what happens at that age, especially with homeschooling. Even I inherited rabid conservatism and fundamentalist Christianity from my parents, and I had an external (private Catholic, yes, but still with-people-besides-my-parents-there) school. Who knows how bad it'd have been if I'd have been homeschooled. Rethinking one's own views is one of the side effects of puberty, but in my case, I was fortunate enough to have not already written and published a conservative tome before it happened that I would then be completely unable to live down after.

Wow. I had the exact opposite experience. All throughout public highschool and university I had liberal profs and friends breathing down my neck about everything from pro-choice to the environment to how we need to start accepting absolutly everyone we can into Canada because we have so much unused space, etc. Religion was extremely frowned upon and unions were praised as the answer to the working man's wages because he was the odd man down and the suits were all evil. I could go on.
,
My experience with change was mostly in regards to me actually becoming religious and embracing the common sense that moderate conservatism made to me. As I began to work I realized how thankful I should even be to have a job and how destructive unions could be etc. The end result was the exact opposite of the change you underwent despite the fact I started off with a liberal outlook.

How interesting.

[CanadianJeff]

Psudo wrote:

I wasn't clear about this point, but I meant persuasively convincing to me. If someone can offer an argument that persuades me, then I'm supporting them both because I agree and because they are electable.

But the latest set of Republican leaders can't even convince me to support them on issues where we largely agree.

A good example is our relationship, Kjorteo. You and I agree on very little, yet our respect for each other is great. I agree with McCain on more issues than I agree with you, yet he defends his views so shallowly that I'd rather vote for you. At least then I could be sure some reasonable thought was behind the policies, even if it was in pursuit of things with which I'm uncomfortable. The worst option of all would be Ron Paul, the man who disagrees with me about nearly everything and pursues it with closed-minded dogmatic persistence.

Is that any more clear?

Now if only everyone voted that way we would fix the world's problems in only a few decades.

[Kjorteo]

Sometimes you go from liberal to conservative, sometimes from conservative to liberal, and sometimes you just end up re-confirming and accepting whatever you started with. My point was that adults span the entire political spectrum and (usually) arrive at wherever they happen to arrive independently, children do not, and I pity Krohn if growing up and being exposed to views outside his homeschooled upbringing and such happen to be particularly unkind to him in that regard.