Either you choose this...
Or this...
Which do you choose?
Posted on 02/24/2008 8:18:11 AM PST by jdm
The ascent of John McCain to the apparent Republican nomination has discouraged some conservatives, who have expressed a willingness to sit out 2008 and let a Democrat win the White House. They claim, hyperbolically, that no real policy differences exist between McCain and either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and that having a Democrat take the blame for the coming debacle will make it easier to elect Republicans later. An interesting analysis of the direction of the Supreme Court in the Washington Post should serve as a reminder of one area that will turn out very differently:
The increasingly conservative court has said often of late that it is getting out of the business of finding a right to sue that is not explicitly stated in the law -- what lawyers call an "implied cause of action."
Two discrimination cases that the court heard last week, both concerning retaliation, made plain that a sizable number of justices are deeply resistant to finding such rights and to expanding those it previously recognized. ...
"I agree with you entirely that it would make sense to provide a cause of action for retaliation, but we don't write statutes," Scalia said. "We read them. And there's nothing in this statute that says that."
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wondered whether the court's respect for stare decisis should extend to cases it believes were wrongly decided, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said he could not find a way to read the law that gave plaintiffs the right they wanted.
The election will present American voters with real choices on policy, especially on taxation, foreign policy, expansion of government, and national security issues, despite the complaints of the disappointed. It also provides a stark choice on the direction of the judiciary.
At least two Supreme Court justices will likely leave in the next four years, both of them from the Left, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The election will determine whether the court continues to turn in a more constructionist direction, forcing policy back to Congress where it belongs, or whether activists can outlast the constructionists. Jurists nominated by Obama or Hillary will have a much different idea of the Supreme Court's role than those nominated by McCain.
Elections matter. The next President will have a mandate to determine the direction not just of the Supreme Court but the entire federal bench. Conservatives can either help ensure that the work begun to get the judiciary out of the policy-imposition business will continue or allow it to get reversed.
Oh - and you’re right about Romney - a class act all the way.
If not, then your complaint apparently is not with the process, but simply with the results.
AW: You know, I've seen this argument of yours on other threads, but I think your conclusions are flawed.
In the scenario you describe - I still wouldn't vote for McCain in the general - but I wouldn't complain about the process. The process would be more fair & if the will of the people would be that McCain was the winner - then so be it. I would not be happy with him - but I would not blame it on the process.
Actually, your response proves the point I want to make. That is, that the process complaint is separate from and ultimately irrelevant to your refusal to vote for the nominee.
IOW, you have complaints against the process AND against McCain. I think that's an important clarification.
Since, regardless which primary system was used, you refuse to vote for this nominee, it seems to me the more helpful focus of debate is on whether the refusal to vote for this nominee ultimately helps or harms the country's immediate and long-term future.
Throwing out ancillary complaints about the process muddles that issue. Moreover, in my mind, it seems to just exacerbate the victim mentality that inheres in the arguments that it's someone/something else's "fault" that McCain is the nominee.
I think the victim mentality is very pernicious and I don't see any benefit to the real issue at hand in focusing on ancillary (though valid) complaints.
I still don’t agree with your conclusion. To me, the process is part of the problem of who is our current candidate. I can still complain about BOTH issues, as I see them to be intertwined in THIS election.
If they changed the process & a rotten, crummy candidate like McCain wins - I’ll just have one less issue to complain about. I’ll still complain about the rotten, crummy candidate - but I’ll be complaining from the viewpoint that the voters are totally responsible - not that the process is partially responsible.
I understand your frustration with those of us that refuse to get in line behind McCain - I have the same frustration at those of you who have decided to vote for him.
“Kamikaze Republicans—those who say they’ll never vote for John McCain because he isn’t conservative enough—may get what they deserve. The Clintons... It isn’t necessary to love everything McCain has done to vote for him should he be the nominee. But it isn’t possible to argue that there’s no difference between McCain and Clinton (or Barack Obama), as some Republicans insist.” —Kathleen Parker
“A wise aphorism has it that the perfect is the enemy of the good. While conservatives tilt their noses expressively in the air at the idea of John McCain’s representing a movement he votes with 85 percent of the time, Democrats offer the electorate two strong believers in the power of big government, two babes in the woods when it comes to foreign policy, two fast friends of every liberal interest from pro-choice to gay rights to let’s-kill-the-Bush-tax-cuts.” —William Murchison
“We are a movement that believes in personal responsibility, so it’s time to take some. There are consequences to losing. Now is the time to rebuild and re-group, not whine or complain or sulk. Reagan lost many political battles along the way but never lost hope in the enduring nature of basic conservative principles. Neither should we.” —Laura Ingraham
MY COMMENT: Keep in mind, you will have leverage over McCain on issues affecting conservative principles and none over Obama or Clinton. I recognize that this won’t matter to a person who has given up on the Reagan Revolution and keeping America conservative or holding the line on liberalism’s encroachments.
I was rather disappointed with my vote for Bush when the same people on here were saying Bush was our only hope if we wait for him to get things going blah blah blah
But was I ashamed about my vote?? NO!
and then the 06 congressional elections were.... we dont want Reid and pelousey as speakers blah blah blah and I suppose you sat home and let the Rats get control because obviously your opinion didn’t matter then, just as it don’t matter now. It is what it is and either we make the best out of it or we sit on our asses and complain some more.
Some on here refer to McCain being cozy to Teddy. But last I knew Teddy endorsed Barak.
There is a lot of smoke and mirrors out there in political land. And I can’t believe so many smart conservatives are so easily spoon fed so much spin and propaganda.
Well excuse me. I see your candidate of choice has been elevated to where? And thanks so much for your support.
My first choice was Fred Thompson. I even sent him money but he dropped out before the Missouri Primary. So I voted for romney because of all you dissing Huck and Huck almost won. So thanks for your opinion. I see it has really been influential and we all have what we all wanted.
I know. Juan McCain is probably "disappointed" by that. That just means, that like a stray puppy - Juan will have to try harder to get his friend Teddy to pay attention to him.
Poor Juan, just the the New York Times - they throw him a crumb & then they turn on him.
“The Presidential winner in November will probably appoint no fewer than two Supreme Court Justices”
speculation led on by who?? I know it is possible. but so are a lot of other things. Should we be concerned? Yes!
Should we let punditry and speculation drive every decision we make just because someone is saying it? NO!
Anyone who makes a voting decision based on a one issue agenda is not an informed voter, regardless of how patriotic they claim to be. The big picture requires a LOT of INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT!. Thought is not of the variety of the Sunday Morning pundits leading us to a conclusion about anything.
Keep trying, ozarkman! At least you’re tryin’. No one can take that away from you!
As I said if JC himself said it was “OK”.
Doesn’t mean he’s telling me to.
Still won’t vote for the traitor.
Lawrence Tribe and Bill Clinton.
Either you choose this...
Or this...
Which do you choose?
My frustration, if any, is simply with the mentality---however it is manifested---that someone/something not the voters is responsible for who our nominee is.
As I said, I think this victim/conspiracy mentality is very pernicious, and we can never reach any kind of unity around a candidate in the future until more people accept that we CAN and MUST.
Yes, you can have complaints about the process and about the nominee. But proceeding as if fixing the process would fix the problem is inaccurate, as you concede.
Proceeding as if the present process has made us powerless to control our own destiny also is inaccurate.
We had just as much opportunity as the Rat base to emerge a grassroots candidate. In fact, ALL the Rat candidates, including the Rat-Establishment candidate (Hildy), were and are mostly acceptable to their base. Yet, their base was still able to unite around an anti-Establishment candidate (Obama).
(And this has occurred previously in the Rat party, when the base emerged the anti-Rat Establishment candidate Howard Dean---until he self-destructed.)
The conservative base did not unite even in the face of the clear FACT that IF they did not unite, and therefore did not emerge one of the more conservative candidates, John McCain would win the nomination.
For example, the same people who say "I don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils" in the general election *approached the primaries with the same lethal mentality.*
They seemed clueless that if they did not vote for and rally around *the lesser of two evils* (one of the candidates who was NOT John McCain) in the primaries, that naturally John McCain---in their view, the *greater evil,*---would win the nomination.
IOW, the very reasoning process that is now being used to justify refusing to vote for McCain in the general election is WHAT CAUSED the nomination of McCain in the first place.
Think about the reasoning used to justify refusing to vote for McCain in the general and you'll see it's exactly what resulted in the conservative base fragmenting so badly in the primaries that it ensured McCain's nomination:
1. I'm tired of voting "against" someone; I want to vote "for" someone (but there's no one I want to vote "for").
2. I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils.
3. I won't have the MSM (whoever . . .) telling me who to vote for!
4. It's not fair, I had no say in who is running.
5. I'm tired of not having any good choices/candidates.
6. The GOP/RNC doesn't listen to me, so I won't help them elect their candidates.
7. I wouldn't vote for "x" even if Jesus told me it was okay (yes, someone said this and I include it here for the idea that, in the general as well as in the primaries, the mentality that "I would NEVER vote for [fill-in-the-blank, with every voter filling in a different name]" kept (and will continue to keep) the base fragmented.
8. I will never vote for a liberal/RINO, as I define "liberal"/ "RINO."
And so on.
So long as many people in the base approach the process of hiring a President/Commander in Chief this way, there can be NO unity in the base.
Therefore, the Republican base will never be able to act as the Rat base has done and emerge a candidate who is to their liking and electable.
When the major focus/mentality is on all the ways and all the reasons one WON'T VOTE for someone, no grassroots candidate will ever get enough votes to emerge from the bottom tier.
That's the souce of any frustration I may have.
This bears repeating and repeating. See Harriet Meyers and amnesty, which conservatives managed to stop only because we raised hell with a Republican president.
Yes.
This mentality that we can "win by losing" creates a very vicious and destructive cycle.
Is that okay with you or do you feel some moral responsibility to the country to try to preclude an administration that would take the Court in that direction?
Of course it's not OK with me. But for every bad thing that would happen under Obama or Clinton, I can name a bad result of McCain winning too. All of the choices suck, and this is one of the biggest reasons why. We're left with trying to decide what course of action results in the least harm, and when I look at the long view, it seems to me that it's better for the country and for conservatism if McCain loses. Reasonable people can disagree with me; I think either way there will be significant harm done.
I'm not claiming that my choice is a good one; I just don't think there are any good choices, and I think mine is - probably - the least bad choice.
Here's the correct one:
P.S. What is a tueffel dog? :)
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