Posted on 10/06/2013 11:34:09 AM PDT by DanMiller
The Republican Party is broken. Its leadership has great difficulty doing anything beyond yielding to the Obama Machine. Can the party be fixed, or should it be put out of our misery.
Here's the RINO view:
It hasn't worked very well.
Here's the Democrat view:
It has worked.
In a presentation shortly after the November election debacle, Bill Whittle explained that most Republicans do not stand for what they say are their basic principles. Before getting into that, some historical insights into basic concepts, "big ideas" and what most conservatives believe is necessary
Part I -- Constrained vs. Unconstrained Visions of Humanity
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwz_Z62e0s&w=640&h=390]
Part II -- The problem with Elitism
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0MESB6VZM4&w=640&h=390]
Part III -- Wealth Creation
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkXI-MNSb8Q&w=640&h=390]
Part VII -- American Exceptionalism
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuv0K8H8ILM&w=640&h=390]
Additional segments -- Natural Law, Gun Rights and Immigration -- are also available at YouTube. Each of the seven segments is well worth watching and -- of greater importance -- presents ideas worth thinking about long and hard. That will take time and effort, but it will be a worthwhile expenditure of both. I wonder how many of our "leaders" have ever given more than passing thoughts to any of those ideas.
With that background, here is what Mr. Whittle said about why we lost the November 2012 election: "our" guys don't believe in or support the philosophy or ideas they say they support and believe in. Could Mr. Whittle, or someone like him, run for President as a Republican? That would be great but, as things now stand, it won't happen.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywy1ZkgirZ4&w=640&h=360]
As usual, I think he is right. Is he a "wild man?" If so, we need one an entire population of them. Would Mr. Whittle be a better President than Obama? I think he would.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRYXGIi5340&w=640&h=390]
Is President Obama a "turncoat?" Even Huff and Puff claims that the United States seem to be "befuddled," internationally and domestically. America has indeed become a mess. Who is to blame and who can change course for the better? Can We, The People? Hadn't we better try as diligently as we can?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3HkD_7vw5M&w=640&h=360]
Can we do anything to make America better?
Following the election debacle in November of last year, I wrote a series of articles pointing out various problems and suggesting ways to deal with them. Some are here, here, here and here. There are doubtless other problems and other, better, solutions. Unfortunately, there are no quick or easy solutions. However, if we continue down the highway to oblivion by continuing to do the same things over and over again, noticing each time that they don't work but hoping that maybe they will next time, we will never get better presidential and congressional candidates or better people and America will get worse rather than better. We will continue to have a weak, elitist, economically, historically and ideologically deranged, America-hating bunch of incompetents in the White House and in the Congress. Like it or not, they seem to lead America; unfortunately, they lead in numerous wrong directions.
The Great Government Slowdown
Many if not most on the Republican side will probably yield to the Democrats and their Great God Obama, paying more attention to what they consider best for their party in the short term but without regard to what's best for the nation in the long term. The "defund ObamaCare" and debt ceiling kerfuffles remain in a state of flux and Speaker Boehner may, or may not, screw the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
In the meantime, the Obama Administration is doing all that it can to make the Government slowdown as painful as possible for the "little people." More is provided here and here, at Old Virginia Blog. And, as the screw turns, both parties are doing lots of fund raising based on the Government slowdown and are raking in lots of money.
The Democratic National Committee has profited handsomely: The DNC announced Tuesday that it brought in around $850,000 in the 24-hour-period before the government shutdown, its best single fundraising day since the 2012 election. (It helped that the day before the shutdown was the final fundraising day of the quarter.)"If you've been watching what's been happening here in Washington over the past couple of weeks, and you still think you need more reasons to support Democrats over Republicans, I'm not sure what to tell you. The choice is pretty clear," Vice President Joe Biden wrote in a DNC fundraising email sent Monday.
The Republican National Committee claims it did even better during a two-day haul, raising more than $1 million in 48 hours from Monday to Wednesday. The committee also had rolled out one of its big guns as part of an online fundraising push earlier this week: former vice presidential candidate and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.
"The foundation of our democracy is built upon accountability. And the Republican National Committee has made it their mission to hold accountable each and every Democrat who chooses to embrace the President's health care train wreck at the expense of their constituents," Ryan wrote in an email, asking for $14 donations to turn the Senate Republican in 2014.
Why kill a cash cow like the Government slowdown?
We have already seen some of the consequences of the November 2012 electoral debacle. It's already been a clusterdunk for America and worse is likely to come before January of 2017. It's time to reflect even more intensely than ever before on the sort of ideas Mr. Whittle and others have presented, and on what should and can be done.
Term limits are needed but there is very little chance that the Congress will enact them in the foreseeable future.
Being a CongressCritter should not be a career; it should be a brief period of service to the nation. However, both political parties try to keep congressional incumbents in office until they die, wither away or become unelectable. As I observed in a comment here,
Not only do “we” continue reelecting incompetents incumbents, they gain substantial power through increased senility seniority with each re-election. Choice committee assignments come with seniority and, if the congresscritter is in the majority party, it can also lead to chairmanship.Increased seniority also provides increased power to push legislation uniquely favorable to the state/district which returned the congresscritter to the Congress, which makes his incompetence/inability to push for good things for the nation as a whole seem less and less important to his constituents, further enhancing his chances of repeated reelections. These factors in turn provide incentives to “log roll” to help colleagues do nice things uniquely for their states/districts in return.
The lack of term limits immunizes both the Republican and Democrat Parties against internal reform because the powers of incumbency are great. Those who benefit from unlimited terms in office are not about to relinquish the benefits of incumbency. Although probably not possible to accomplish in the foreseeable future, the idea should be pushed forward and pursued at every opportunity. Otherwise, we will never make it happen.
Our nation needs a competent, forceful and conservative candidate for President. That's obvious, but what (if anything) are we doing to make it happen?
We didn't have one in 2008 or in 2012 and it's high time for us to get busy figuring out who is the most conservative potential candidate who can win. Dr. Carson? Colonel West? Senator Cruz? Speaker Boehner? Who? Probably not anyone the Republican Party leadership will try to get.
Hillary Clinton is the antithesis of what we need. If we don't get cracking we are likely to get her.
The beloved Hillary Clinton will probably announce her availability as the Democrat presidential candidate.
Hillary Clinton says she isn’t thinking about running for President, but she is thinking about when she’ll think about it. She told a group of Long Island supporters Friday that she would begin seriously considering a campaign sometime next year.
Right.
Do we have a competent and electable conservative who can beat her? We had better find one. Her qualifications and her past are just as relevant as were President Obama's, and look where ignoring His got America. Team Hillary is doing, and will likely continue to do, whatever it can to obfuscate her past and her (lack of) qualifications. That has already begun.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lr6_bci-lM&w=640&h=360]
Do you remember Ms. Clinton's story about her heroic arrival under sniper fire in Bosnia? Of course you do. But do enough of our brilliant uninformed voters remember? Don't count on it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4&w=640&h=390]
But what difference does that sort of thing make now? The truth is not in her, particularly concerning anything that's relevant to her presidential ambitions. Yet, unless we do "something" effective, she may well become "our" next President. Should that happen, we will deserve it.
We need to do something, better and different. Perhaps it may work.
Remember this song?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zqoR3yWu2k&w=640&h=390]
America as our country seems to be slipping away. Lord Obama is managing to confiscate it, piece by piece.
Add this to the growing list of Obama’s extreme offenses.
In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”
We have a sadist in the White House. Barack Obama has spent the past week making sure that the shutdown hurts and offends as many people as possible.
In his piece, Schlageter worries about this restriction as Sunday nears. “If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors,” he wrote.Because of the lack of active-duty Catholic chaplains, the military relies on hiring civilian priests to serve as government service and contract ministers. Those civilian priests are not allowed on the bases during a shutdown, Schlageter wrote.
Is there a Democrat out there with a conscience who will stand up against this? One? We need to do more than try to take America back and fix the mess. We need to do it. Starting now.
Would helping this poor, deprived “non-essential” Federal employee get back to "work" be the "something" we need to do? Nope.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9VdtaCoJY4&w=640&h=360]
It's satire, of course, but not far from reality.
The Republican Party will not heal itself until it embraces the TEA Party, Conservatives in general, and the faith and political convictions of the Founding Fathers.
I agree. The question is, how do we cause that to happen? The Republican Party will not do it without substantial pressure. I don't know the answer, or if there even is an answer, but I hope that there is a viable one.
I get out and talk to people; on FR and elsewhere. I let my Rep and Senators know what I think (not just by Email, but with letters and phone calls), and I vote (sometimes by leaving a ballot blank). Otherwise, like you, I don’t know the answer.
One thing I do understand; Losing is a natural risk of free elections.
Otherwise, I try to prepare my House as best I can.
That's good. We should all do what you are doing. Please do keep in mind, and try to spread the word, that we will get President Hillary Clinton or a RINO if we don't work very hard for someone better. Obviously, we have to decide who that "someone better" is. And we have to do that sooner rather than later and push vigorously for him.
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