[CommanderSock]

Quote:

As a long-time Republican, I'd like to see more rationality and intelligence in the next generation of Republican leadership, but that's not necessarily "closer to the center". From my perspective, both Bushes were "closer to the center" than Reagan but neither was a better Republican leader. And though Reagan was rarely the actual mind behind his policies, on average he adopted very intelligent positions and policies that did good things for the world, the country, and the party. The center isn't always the right answer.

I'm not exactly sure of your definition of that to be honest. Reagan was a monster in terms of foreign policy.


The GOP may not need to be revived. It will be, but it does not need to be. It may have ran its usefulness, perhaps it may be time for a new right wing party.

Hm, perhaps not.

[Proculation]

CommanderSock wrote:

Quote:

As a long-time Republican, I'd like to see more rationality and intelligence in the next generation of Republican leadership, but that's not necessarily "closer to the center". From my perspective, both Bushes were "closer to the center" than Reagan but neither was a better Republican leader. And though Reagan was rarely the actual mind behind his policies, on average he adopted very intelligent positions and policies that did good things for the world, the country, and the party. The center isn't always the right answer.

I'm not exactly sure of your definition of that to be honest. Reagan was a monster in terms of foreign policy.


The GOP may not need to be revived. It will be, but it does not need to be. It may have ran its usefulness, perhaps it may be time for a new right wing party.

Hm, perhaps not.

You would prefer a one party state ?

[CommanderSock]

Quote:

You would prefer a one party state ?

I didn't imply that.

I implied that the Republican party may be obsolete. It may be a time for political re-alignment.

[Psudo]

Kjorteo wrote:

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.

Yes. Yes I do. But good-matured teasing is the basis of all civilization. I, for example, go crazy and start shooting from the clock tower if my wife doesn't make fun of my boring obsession with politics at least once per day. She deserves a medal for her honorable public service in that regard.

Psudo wrote:

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.

Yeah, dang that Sheriff and his putative taxation. Who elected Robin Hood again? John Galt is a better metaphor for Robin Hood than Obama is.

Kjorteo wrote:

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?

Well... themselves, I think... Ludwig von Mises, Ron Paul... maybe Adam Smith, I'm not sure...

On the whole parents vs. schooling issue, my parents were fairly apolitical though a little right-leaning and my schooling was about the same. As a small child, I was a kind of wanna-be corporate environmentalist who dreamed of making it rich by inventing some device that could cut down on auto emissions. It wasn't until middle and high school that I took an interest in politics and ended up on the Reagan/Rush right (though, in hindsight, I have some memories of great approval for Reagan's actions even before that). Most of my family followed my example rather than the other way around; when my sister got married her groom didn't even vote. In 2008, he volunteered for the McCain Campaign in Denver. I defy your "identity by upbringing" paradigm.

CommanderSock wrote:

Quote:

though Reagan was rarely the actual mind behind his policies, on average he adopted very intelligent positions and policies that did good things for the world

I'm not exactly sure of your definition of that to be honest. Reagan was a monster in terms of foreign policy.

Communism spread continually, never losing ground, for 60 years between the USSR's inception and the 1980s. Then Reagan declared, against the consensus domestic and international, that Communism could be not just held back but actually pushed back. He declared that he would stress them into economic collapse, and instigated a spending race. In response, the Soviet Union chose a reformist as their leader and tried to adapt enough to keep up. Their military spending rose. Communism started to lose ground for the first time. Then, about a decade after Reagan claimed the Soviet Union could be beaten, it collapses and ceased to be an entity.

There were plenty of complications in all that. It was not that straightforward a story. But that all happened, and Reagan predicted it, catalyzed it, and deserves credit for it. It was a great thing. Even if all else in his administration had gone horribly, that would have been enough to redeem it. But all else did not go horribly. The previous administration had been unable to correct ever-rising inflation and unemployment, even declaring it impossible to do so. Reagan ran claiming a great tax cut would cure the problem. He cut taxes. The problem went away.

I can name areas where Reagan didn't do enough, or where he did the wrong thing. But he declared he would fix problems everyone else said were irreparable, and he did. Whatever else you want to say pales in comparison. Reagan was a hero in foreign policy, the likes of which hasn't otherwise been seen since World War 2. Communism was the monster, and he slayed it.

CommanderSock wrote:

The GOP may not need to be revived. It will be, but it does not need to be. It may have ran its usefulness, perhaps it may be time for a new right wing party.

Political re-alignment in the USA tends to be some new ideology taking over an old party. In fact, there hasn't been a successful new party since the Republican Party, and even it was largely the Whig Party with a fresh coat of anti-slavery paint. If you measure the stagnation of a party by the time since it's founding, the Democratic Party is far older. If you measure by the time since it's last internal realignment, then you're probably right; Reagan was the last Republican realignment, and we could do with a new Reagan. But that won't happen in either party until people give up bumper sticker thinking start reasoning again.

"Yes we can!" is not preferable to "Tax cuts work!" as a political platform.

[Amilam]

I pity Krohn because he's being called a prodigy but this is essentially the end of his intellectual development. Krohn's ideas of core Conservative principles are identical to countless other core right members in America and will likely never change.

[KyleEverett]

I think the Republic party either needs to drop is social conservative banner or face extinction. Societies never stay socially conservative or we'd still have slaves toiling in plantations across the south.

People hate change and that'll never change, but give me a party that is socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and agrees that there should be some state then I'll be happy.

[Ramsey]

KyleEverett wrote:

I think the Republic party either needs to drop is social conservative banner or face extinction. Societies never stay socially conservative or we'd still have slaves toiling in plantations across the south.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like you are claiming that social conservatism is completely against change, as opposed to just being resistant to it. And by resistant to it, I mean that conservatism at it's core is an ideology that believes in carefully considering any change and therefore is considered to be less progressive.

I don't think there really needs to be a change in how socially liberal the party is because the problem currently lies with there not being enough effective leadership. Telling conservative voters to stop being socially conservative sounds to me like it would be counter productive.

[CanadianJeff]

Sorry but fist off I noticed a lot of new faces here so let me just say welcome.

psudo wrote:

"Yes we can!" is not preferable to "Tax cuts work!" as a political platform.

I may not now much if anything about the Regan era (something I should really read up on) but I do know that tax cuts right now are NOT the answer when the government spends billions of dollars in bailouts when they SHOULD have cut taxes to get people spending.

The national debt has just ballooned and it will need to be paid for the US to survive the coming years. Tax cuts are not going to help if everyone gets stuck paying higher taxes in the long run due to the national debt. It needs to get paid!

[Psudo]

The Republican Party's greatest successes since Nixon have all been social conservatives. Granted, there have been a dusting of socially conservative retards, too, but when Republicans push moderate candidates (McCain, Dole, Bush Sr., Gerald Ford) they predominantly lose.

A bigger failing of the Republican Party is that social conservatism gets votes but can't really implement policy. Dubya's veto on federal funding for fetal stem cell research is the biggest social conservative win at the federal level since... my lifetime, at least. And I have no doubt that Obama will have that overturned during his term. Meanwhile, fiscal conservatism works but doesn't get votes (except on the lone issue of tax cuts). Accountants don't bring out the MTV vote I guess.

When you look at what social conservatives are clinging to--the bill of rights, equality under the order of law, protection of innocent human life, and military vigilance against the Hitlers and Stalins of the future--which of these principles is less valuable to people today than to people centuries or millennia ago? Which of these principles is obsolete? Not everything becomes obsolete, and the mission of a conservative is to seek out those timeless principles.

And lastly, how dare you associate slavery with that Republican Party at any level. The Republican Party was established explicitly to end slavery. Conservatives either look to those anti-slavery party origins or to the Constitution, which was authored with the intent of eventually abandoning slavery as a practice. Since the civil war and before, the difference between pro- and anti-slavery has always been geographical. Drawing any other association is pure muckraking devoid of any factual basis or moral value. Even the slavery practiced by the Confederate States was a form evolved (and for the worse) than what was practiced centuries earlier in the colonies. It was never conservative in the United States to operate plantations using slaves picked on the basis of race and utterly without hope of freedom.

Even if there is no truth to the preceding paragraph, what does slavery have to do with any modern issue? No one belongs to anyone, no one is being killed by the hundreds or treated like cattle in this country. The whole system tries to err at the opposite extreme at every opportunity.

That being said, a socially moderate but strictly fiscally conservative party that would have my vote, too, so long as it also advocated a military that remains ever-prepared but hopefully unused.

CanadianJeff wrote:

tax cuts right now are NOT the answer when the government spends billions of dollars in bailouts when they SHOULD have cut taxes to get people spending.

I recognize this point. It will take a lot of revenue to pay for the bailout. Given the current federal government, though, I have no doubt that any and all interest in tax cuts will be postponed at least until the next election. I doubt the Bush tax cuts will even survive the next four years.

[Teikiatsu]

Quote:

Michael Steele, the newly-minted chairman of the Republican National Committee. As a funny, moderate African-American known for his media savvy, many initially had high hopes that'd bring a breath of fresh air into the party. Unfortunately, as the weeks progress he's increasingly earning a reputation of a bit of a bumbling bonehead who doesn't really know what he's talking about a good percentage of the time. Like recently, when he cited the fact that Greenland is no longer green as evidence that the planet is getting colder, not warmer.

Yeah Steele is a goof. For a while I thought the situation could be salvaged, but he's running out of feet to cram in his mouth.

Quote:

Rush Limbaugh, the ultimate conservative talking-head. Emblematic of the so-called "angry right," Rush recently quipped that he hoped Obama would "fail," and was a big opponent of the president's stimulus package. Is hoping the economy, war, and country in general collapse into chaos out of spite for the White House a viable ideological strategy for the next four years? Some clearly do, others think Rush needs to go back to his pills.

Rush speaks the solid core of conservatism, but he is not a leader of either Republicans nor of Conservatism. He is the modern Benjamin Franklin who keeps the ship crew's morale high but leaves the steerage to a captain.

Everyone takes his 'fail' comments out of context. He wants the president's socialistic, marxist, way-to-the-left policies to fail. Rush, like the rest of us, want BO to suceed at keeping the homeland safe, balancing the budget, etc. (Granted I won't hold my breath that BO actually reads the Constitution and does what it says in there.)

People who think Rush needs to go back to his pills tend to overlook that BO was a druggie as well, and proudly admits it in his book and in interviews. I enjoy pointing that out everytime they mention it.

Quote:

Bobby Jindal, another great non-white hope for the Republicans. Governor Jindal is a fairly average politician who happens to have a slightly interesting personal biography, so needless to say the party establishment now declares him to be one of the most fascinating men in America today. His first big moment in the national spotlight was a flop, however. Given the task of offering a televised rebuttal to President Obama's address to Congress, Jindal spoke to America like an over-Prozac'd Mr. Rogers instructing the special needs class how to use fingerpaints.

Anyone who follows Obama in a highly choreographed scenario like a psuedo-State of the Union is going to look bad. Hell look at Sebelius last year after following Bush. I won't deny Jindal was goofy. He is still looked to for the future because while other states are losing jobs Louisiana gained jobs. He's cut taxes. He did everything right during the last hurricane scare in LA. We won't drop him because he gave a bad speech. Personally I think it was a bad idea to present him after BO, yet another doofus decision by Steele.

Quote:

Jonathan Krohn, a 14-year-old who is on TV a lot for some reason. Krohn is a little homeschooled weirdo who, like most homeschooled kids I've ever known, is incredibly socially awkward and maladjusted. But he also likes talking about conservatism, so Republicans have declared him the Next Big Thing. So I'm sure he'll be on "Fox and Friends" a lot in the near future, slurring about Ronald Reagan and stem cells and other matters it is physically impossible for him to understand.

I keep hearing about this kid, but on the conservative sites I frequent he is never mentioned. I think he's kept in the mix by media types who want the general public to keep negative stereotypes of conservatives in their head. He isn't even really on our radar right now. Let him break away from the parents, go to college, get some social skills, get laid, loosen up a bit, face the world on his own and then maybe we'll see who he really is.

Quote:

Sideshow Bob

Kelsey Gramer would be an excellent spokesman. He's conservative you know. Just don't let Steele write the speech. Hmmm... Thompson/Gramer... naaaah

Palin is still in the mix. She's embraced her status by the grassroots. She's reached out to people over the internet via SarahPAC as well as other internet methods such as Facebook and Twitter. Her support is still very strong.

Regardless it is true we don't have a leader right now, but as said before it is very early. We need to get a more solid base in 2010 first, that will involve getting some Dems and RINOs kicked out of Congress. One big problem is that Conservatives and Republicans are not the same thing. Republicans depend on us to be their rank and file, but we have let them know we aren't interested in carrying their water anymore. If they want our votes they have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. The Republicans have to decide then if they will be the party of conservatives (which is not easy) or the party of centrists (which is easy on paper but means they have to compete with Dems for moderates, and usually Dems win there.)

My (granted lengthy and long-winded) 2 cents

[Teikiatsu]

Social Conservatism is not resistant to change, but it does not want to diverge from the founding core of the Constitution. Society is a whimsical, fad-oriented, dynamic, and most of all fickle force and you shouldn't focus your political decisions on the mood of the crowd.

It is the Constitution that gives people the right to pursue their dreams so long as they don't infringe on the rights of others. I won't deny that Conservatives need to lighten up a little bit, but at the same time liberals and leftists ned to be called out for activities that border on treasonous or anti-American.

Let me turn the argument around: why do people never call out the leftists and tell them they need to reel it in a little and act more responsible? Who are these 'people' by the way?

[Kjorteo]

Perhaps if you gave more specific examples of what exactly the leftists do that is unconstitutional, treasonous, anti-American, or at the very least needs to be "reeled in?" Who exactly we're talking about that do such things would also be nice.

[CanadianJeff]

I think that's really the question at the core of most politics Kjorteo. People almost always see the other side as either insane or loony when they are on the extremes. It's why I personally despise the terms of "left" and "right". It addresses and labels an entire group of people rather then address the ideas and issues at hand.

Personally I think that if your always conservative 100% of the time or always liberal 100% of the time then you have not truly thought through all the issues. I think that's what I respect about you and Psudo so much is that you both understand where each side comes from. It's so hard to have a debate with someone that can't understand both ends of the question.

[Psudo]

Kjorteo wrote:

Perhaps if you gave more specific examples of what exactly the leftists do that is unconstitutional, treasonous, anti-American, or at the very least needs to be "reeled in?"

I usually concern myself with ideology and principle rather than the specific exploits of specific individuals, but I'm gonna give this one a shot.

- President Bill Clinton (D) orders a 20 Aug 1998 00:30 EDT bombing of what turns out to be an Aspirin Factory in the Sudan in what critics call an attempt to distract the news media from his 17 Aug 1998 grand jury testimony and 19:00 EDT speech to the nation in which he admits "personal failure" in the Monica Lewinsky sexual harassment case. [context] That's a 53.5 hour gap between the events. If the critics are right, that's a gross misuse of the military. In a related event, the US Supreme Court decision Clinton v. Jones declared that the US President has no particular immunity that allows him to waylay personal lawsuits against him to be tried only after his term has ended.

- Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) trades President Obama's vacated senate seat for cash. He was arrested on 9 Dec 2008 and impeached by the Illinois State Legislature 8 Jan 2009.

- The Washington DC ban on handgun ownership (Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975) was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court decision Dictrict of Columbia v. Heller (2008). Thus, overzealous gun control advocates had deprived DC residents of their 2nd Amendment Rights for about 33 years.

- In their eagerness to connect the Valerie Plame CIA leak case to some wrongdoing by George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, anti-administration investigators ended up jailing reporter Judith Miller for refusing to release the name of her source. This move, while not technically illegal, clearly eroded the 1st Amendment freedom of the press. The only wrongdoing that was linked to them was the bad judgment of hiring and trusting Scooter Libby, and no evidential gains came from the imprisonment of Judith Miller.

There are also a widespread arguments from the right-wing that the left-wing undermines various war efforts from Vietnam to today in ways that strengthen our enemies. I'm a little sick of research at the moment, but perhaps later I can elaborate with specific, extreme cases of liberal politicians damaging war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, the Gulf War, and Viet Nam.

All of these arguments can be countered with allegations of cherry-picking on my behalf, and there's no possible way I could perform a thorough enough survey of modern politics to ensure an even cross-section of political behavior, so I'd rather focus on these specific examples and whether or not they contradict the constitution, national security, or other essential national interests with the acknowledgment that my argument is incomplete.

[noufie]

Amilam wrote:

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.

I thought Palin was too green for VP back in June of '08.

But "Operation Leper" wasn't about people criticizing Palin. It was about campaign insiders spreading lies. The "Africa is a country" anecdote could only have been a lie. Even a 5 year old would know that Africa is a continent. That had to be a slip of the tongue.

Yet someone from the McCain campaign leaked reports that Palin thought Africa was a country. That's the sort of bad faith we'd expect from an intellectually dishonest Democrat. They deserved to be punished.

I agree with the rest of your post, though.