Posted on 02/12/2008 6:01:28 PM PST by rmlew
I don't mean to be a downer, but we've lost. And I don't mean the primary. The popularity of Obama among all groups and the increased support for liberalism and Democrats especially among the youth portend disaster.
Even if Conservatives were to magically retake the GOP, we are losing the country. Although individual conservative ideas are still popular, the American people want the nanny state to protect them, the government to provide or regulate health insurance at magically low cost, increased spending on all sorts of social programs and pork.
The failure of "big government" in the late 1960s to 1980 is a distant memory and about 1/5 voters were either not born then or immigrated since then. Meanwhile, during "conservative ascendancy", we have seen government grow along with debt, believing our opposition to these.
We complain about 12-30 million illegal aliens, but have not Americanized a greater number of legal immigrants and their children. (I am the exception, not the rule.) We have failed to teach our heritage to all American children. We have made fun of multiculturalists as these have divided Americans along race, class, and "gender" failing. While some saw the danger and fought rear-guard actions at school board meetings, far too many simply tried to opt-out of public education. Perhaps this retreat saved a few children, but the truth is that even students educated at home or in good private and religious schools are subject to the pressures of our sickened culture and Gramscite-dominated media.
The effects are real. How many under 35 can sing "My country 'Tis of Thee" with a straight face, or would even want to? How many cringe at words like Creator or the phrases "Self-evident rights" and "Out of Many One". How many stare blankly if one explains that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow for the people to overthrow an oppressive regime. How many under 35 get into a tizzy over profiling possibly terrorists, but meekly allow affirmative action? For that matter, how many over 35, conditioned by the media for years, have lost what they already knew to be true?
The failure to assimilate even legal immigrants is creating a balkanized society with aggrieved groups estranged from the founding principles of this country. Likewise, we have failed a generation of Americans in this country by not passing on the mores, tradition and heritage of this country. Is it any surprise the young and "New Americans" support Obama?
We Conservatives have chosen to passively list to talk radio and Fox News, rather than fight the battles that dominate our culture. As shown by the failure of the Bush-McCain-Kennedy Amnesty, we can fight and win, if we choose to. But this was the exception. Our "new leaders" are not independents. They are employees of multi-national corporations (Fox News, Clear Channel) or depend on these for exposure. Others are members of a political party, the GOP and thus have a natural tendency protect party and president over nation and ideology.
We, Republicans and Conservatives are playing to win individual elections. Meanwhile the left is transforming America, ensuring that they will win in the long term. We either fight this battle or consign our children to being strangers in what should have been the land of their birthright. The "New Jerusalem" sought by the Pilgrims has become Canaan.
People blame neocons and Rockefeller Republicans for the leftward turn of the GOP. However, it is only responding to the increasing liberalism of the American electorate, including self-proclaimed conservatives.
The GOP has not betrayed conservatives. Conservatives have failed America.
Yeppers.
It was a very special culture that created America. The rugged, do-it-yourself pioneer spirit was the result of a specific conjunction of individuality, pride, intelligence, and optimism that, frankly, is non-existent in most cultures.
Most cultures are tribal, collectivist, and have very limited goals: party and get laid. Even strict Islamists promise suicide bombers an afterlife of what? Partying and getting laid.
We are the last relics of a once-in-a-million-years mutation: a culture of self-reliance. The messy dregs you see about you are typically human. This is simply the jungle retaking the ruins. Nature. Be glad you got to see it before it was lost under the vines.
“But, as I gaze across the barren landscape of the Republican party, I can see only one guy who’s got any real ideas.
That would be you, Newt.” posted by: okie01
I’m inclined to agree. His baggage is no worse than the cleanest Dem, and he can point that out. What I don’t see is anyone who has the right stance across the spectrum of issues, who can communicate it, debate it, and sell it other than Newt. No one since Newt has been able to crystalize this set of qualities like Reagan.
The litmus test of true conservatism is whether the MSM holds you to a different standard.
And then the artificial intelligence of machines took over...
The pendulum swings one way, then another. All hope is not lost....perhaps delayed, but not lost.
We lost when we let the liberals take over the education system.
Now they are so entrenched the only choice is to abandon it and hope that the homeschooled generations can carry the baton of civilisation.
It is mystifying to me that Barack Obama is rising like a rock star by proposing to solve the politics of hate and partisanship— which were implemented and carried out by his voting base.
It is surreal that this will be the basis of his victory.
Obama will allow his base to stop frothing at the mouth with their hatred of our Commander in Chief and our troops.
Wow! What a deal.
I still believe a huge strategic error has been made by conservatives that disaffiliated themselves with Bush. I think that made Obama’s coming route a rational ploy. Even conservatives don’t like Bush so Obama is doing everyone a favor by relieving this Bush of his command.
That is an absurd and hateful meme but for now it seems llikely to take the Democrats to the White House and historic high levels of control in the Senate and the House. Conservatives on these boards will largely not bat an eye because they consider Bush a traitor on the border.
I strongly disagree with the bashing this good President has gotten from partisans on both sides. I am no longer particularly impressed with what is deemed “conservative.” The enemy Bush confronted was more diabolical than the Nazis and is more diminished by his radical strategies than any known alternative.
Thank you George Bush.
That's certainly one of the biggest reasons. The NEA has wreaked incredible damage to our country and culture.
“Allow me to get very ethnocentric here:
It was a very special culture that created America. The rugged, do-it-yourself pioneer spirit was the result of a specific conjunction of individuality, pride, intelligence, and optimism that, frankly, is non-existent in most cultures.
Most cultures are tribal, collectivist, and have very limited goals: party and get laid. Even strict Islamists promise suicide bombers an afterlife of what? Partying and getting laid.
We are the last relics of a once-in-a-million-years mutation: a culture of self-reliance. The messy dregs you see about you are typically human. This is simply the jungle retaking the ruins. Nature. Be glad you got to see it before it was lost under the vines.”
___________________________________________________________
Yep. Now I’m depressed. The truth hurts.
And the author of the article is right. We didn’t do enough. It’s so much nicer to blame everyone else. I hate when that happens.
We had no real conservatives run a good campaign. As a result, it looks like McCainiac will be a minority selected candidate.
Read “Atlas Shrugged”. It will cheer you up.
We also lost because the Rnc/Gop lost theyre way.We trusted them to do the right thing..
What we had instead was the Thompson charade. McCain’s buddy Fred did his job of sucking up all the air so that no conservative could gather a following, and a lot of good but foolish and unobservant people fell for it.
It is not an accident that conservatives don’t have a candidate. This is by design.
But there are still 9 months left before the election. We can stew about and sulk over it or we can put all that energy behind someone who is conservative and running for President. This is 2008. We’re not dependent on the media anymore to get the word out.
To some extent, these traits were universally shared by all British Colonies. Aside from the US, traces remain in Australia.
That is an absurd and hateful meme but for now it seems llikely to take the Democrats to the White House and historic high levels of control in the Senate and the House. Conservatives on these boards will largely not bat an eye because they consider Bush a traitor on the border.
1. The importation of millions of disaffected and inherently alienate future liberal voters and the Balkanization of America cannot be ignored.
2. Bush WOT is FUBAR. He refuesed to name the enemy at first and still refuses to understand it. He allows radical Islamists to control our security policy under the guise of PC. His "democratization" goal is allowing islamist to take power.
You want a Nazi analogy? Here's one. Amagin if instead of arresting all members of the German-American Bund FDR had made the FBI go through Bundist classes on German culture. Imagine that American school Children were taught about Wotan worship in glowing terms, and we spoke of Nazi-extremists and reached out to "moderate" Nazis instead of the German people.
Had it been a Democrat pushing these policies, we would all be screaming. But because it has been implemented by a Republican, we fall in line like lemmings.
Doesn’t wash. Have you looked at exit polling? Do you realise how many people think that McCain and the Huckster are conservative?
Joining the Cult of Ayn Rand will bring me no more joy than the cult of L. Ron Hubbard.
He's wrong. Those weren't conservatives. They were RINOS! He should be saying that Republicans are responsible, not conservatives! They are greedy, power hungry globalists who have sold America/Americans down the river to the highest bidders!!
ping
I would also add that many folks consider infighting and clobbering others within this forum a form of armchair activism. Rather than using the opportunity to hone persuasive argument skills, Giuliani and Romney supporters were kicked under and off the bus last year. Allegedly mature adults resort to childish name-calling and shoot-from-the-hip attacks to what end?
Historically, the odds of a party holding onto the Presidency following two four-year terms are slim. As Gingrich pointed out during CPAC, don't focus on POTUS as though it is the only race in 2008. Use this precious time to support and elect conservatives to local, state, and U.S. Congressional races.
Yes, I agree. I do think the Puritan basis injected America with a little more capacity for self-denial and spiritual ideals than Australia, but I do think they are just about the only other country worth a damn.
For the most part, however, individuality is doomed, as far as I can tell. Sorry to be so gloomy, but I teach in a public school in Los Angeles, and the only real differences between Islamic cultures and Hispanic cultures, as far as I can see, are surface. One is more militant, the other more easy-going, but they are both ultimately collectivist, fecund, and unashamedly avaricious. They can't wait to swallow up other cultures and claim their accomplishments and accoutrements for their own.
I can imagine a not-too-distant future where the wars are between these two cultures, once they've killed the goose that laid the golden eggs (us.) One side battling for the right to have pictures of Jesus and do those awful butt-grinding dances to hip-hop, the other side trying to impose sharia, but both united in governmentally bestowed largess that will quickly devolve to fascism as the few remaining producers hunt desperately for some Galt's gulch to shelter them.
Sorry, but the liberal/moderates and independents that have been trying to brow-beat conservatives into supporting the unsupportable have failed America.
It’s really quite sad that the liberal wing of the republican party cannot accept responsibility for what they have wrought.
My principles are not for sale.
I compromised on W and can see the spending record we have compiled since then. McCain was left of W in 2000, and has drifted further left since then.
The only conservative failure is having allowed the primary system to stack against conservatism.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG
I have to keep repeating that conservatism is a movement, NOT a political party. Some like Newt Gingritch are finally realizing it. Most Americans legal immigrants included hold conservative values. It is the rule NOT the exception. The problem in the paradigm is party loyalty. When we ran Paul Rodriguez for congress against Nydia Velasquez we asked ten questions of most of the constituents we met. They were issues questions regarding family values vouchers etc. most agreed with 9 out of 10 questions. Positions that were supported by conservatives, yet they were too tied to their party identity to vote for a conservative candidate. Most people respond to cliches rather than reasoned arguments and that is dilemma we are facing. The elites in this country have figured that out and are playing the public like a fiddle.
Conservatives must realize they belong to a movement. They have invested emotionally in political parties and that is the paradigm that we must deal with. There are conservatives in the democratic party, as independents and the vast bulk in the republican party. The republican party was NEVER a conservative party. It was just a party where most conservatives found themselves. We need to learn the lessons of this experience. Our problem in the political landscape arose when political office changed from a civic duty and obligation and became a career.
Knowing this paradigm I always advise conservatives stuck in heavily democratic districts to run as democrats and in republican districts to run as republicans. Conservatism is a values based ideological system not as socialism and other isms a strict theoretical construct guided by a dogma. Once conservatives realize this they will begin winning again. We need to start an organized movement rather than a third party as we have no Reagan at the moment to bring together conservatives in the democrat, independent and republican camps as he could. We can only appeal to all three elements outside of the party.
Our obligation this coming election is to take back the house and senate. We have to show up at the polls in droves. If every conservative shows up at the polls we can have an impact. I will NOT stay home. Sitting out the election is not an option. I will however, not vote for president and chose conservative candidates on the rest of the roster on election day. If we elect a president, whoever that is , we must put him/her on a leash, a very short leash.
WEll, they are FAR more conservative than either Hitlery or Obama.
Yes, it will be lost under the vines. My generation has no hope. As Baby Boomers, we were nurtured with the ideals of our history and the pride we took in reinforcing those concepts in our children. Well, they have grown and their children have become entangled in a society which values retreat in the face of any adversity and self-indulgence on a scale never before witnessed. Poor America. The Left has transformed this country into a nation of soulless sheep, not the NeoCons who lament what once was and what is fast disappearing. Their numbers have dwindled and they are powerless to reverse the course.
They know that no matter what, they can count on people to vote for anything that has an ~R~ after the name. Even Satan himself could get support with an ~R~.
It is time to take it one the chin and fight back. I am never throwing my vote away again.
The slacker generation is now of voting age and will put their bongs down and turn off their Playstations just long enough to cast a vote for Obama. Then off to their part-time job at Starbucks and McDs. Then back home to their mommys basement.
&&&&
Hey, the ones that actually have those PT jobs are in the minority among that set. Otherwise, your scenario is sadly accurate.
It is not an accident that conservatives don’t have a candidate. This is by design.
***
You are correct.
Predicted by Daniel Webster:
“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”
If Fred was on McCain's side the whole time, why didn't he stay in until Super Tuesday? His decision to drop out when he did almost cost McCain the election; indeed, even in retrospect, it's surprising that McCain won in spite of Fred's having dropped out.
If Fred was on McCain's side the whole time, why didn't he stay in until Super Tuesday? His decision to drop out when he did almost cost McCain the election; indeed, even in retrospect, it's surprising that McCain won in spite of Fred's having dropped out.
Thompson may not have entered the race until relatively late, but if you recall, he was toying with entry for quite some time - precisely the time when the voters he attracted would have been most valuable to conservative candidates. Google “will thompson run” and you’ll get articles from early last year already complaining how long he was dragging out an official decision, which will no doubt refresh your memory.
So for nearly a year before the first primary, he was sucking up that support, only to drop out on Jan. 22... and support McCain, which you recall was the absolute last thing conservatives wanted to do - quite odd for the great conservative hope to pitch in with a man we all detest, no? Super Tuesday was Feb. 5, only two weeks later.
The point Thompson dropped out was also the most important rallying time for conservatives opposed to McCain... who then instead of focused on Thompson, went some to Romney, some to Huckabee, some to Paul, others sticking with Thompson even still.... You could not set up a more perfect scenario for McCain on a day full of winner-take-all delegates.
Fred did well for his longtime friend. He may well just have cleared for McCain the latter’s biggest hurdle on the way to being President.
I'm not quite clear where you get that Fred Thompson supported McCain prior to Romney's departure. A bunch of posters here kept claiming it, but I saw no evidence. After Romney's departure, I suspect Fred saw his endorsement of McCain as being essentially a formality. I doubt he was expecting Huckabee to still be a meaningful factor in the race.
One thing any aspiring politician has to learn is not to needlessly make people dislike you. Having people like you can be very rewarding, and so it's often worth making small concessions to achieve that. Of course, there are limits to what concessions one should make. Only a political whore would make the types of concessions McCain does.
Romney was never a real threat - on the delegate numbers, he got creamed. He was also no rallying point for conservatives, as one of the RudyMcRomney RINO triplets. The unsuccessful last minute flight to his candidacy by some conservatives was due exclusively to him being preferable to McCain, which wasn’t enough to defeat McCain at the polls. And because the states were winner-take-all, McCain only needed to win by one vote in each of them to win the bulk of the delegates at stake the day.
Had McCain not won Florida, he would not have had momentum on Super Tuesday. It's possible he would have won anyway, but if that's the case he would have done so no matter what Fred did. Fred certainly did not help McCain in any overt way.
That explains a good deal of our dilemma. States with too many RINOs and states that are open to independents lead in the primaries and caucuses now. There's something screwy when the donkeys are left with two hard core lefties in apparent fight to the death, and the GOP is left with some of the worst of the RINOs.
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