Posted on 05/16/2008 9:42:19 AM PDT by Jim 0216
The Grand Old Party looks, and acts, like the Going Out Party.
After losing three congressional special elections in as many months, in what were assumed to be “Republican” districts, some Republicans are finally waking up to the fact that they have squandered the Reagan legacy and consequently, are about to be relegated to the minority status wasteland they occupied for five decades after WWII.
The Party of Reagan withered under the “kinder, gentler” administration of Bush(41), consequently suffering further indignity under two “era of big government is over” Clinton terms, only to be further disenfranchised by Bush(43)’s “compassionate conservatism.”
Government spending and regulation increased dramatically when Republicans held the White House and majorities in the House and Senate. That does not constitute “reform” or “change.” So why should voters believe them now?
In 2005, my friend Rep. Mike Pence and his minority caucus of conservatives in the Republican Party rallied around principles outlined in a speech renewing Reagan’s vision, “Another Time for Choosing,” but alas, it was too little too late.
Today, conservatives and Republicans again face a time for choosing.
The NRCC’s Tom Cole concludes, “What we’ve got right now is a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence by the American people that we are going to do what we say we’re going to do.”
No, that is what you had back in 2006.
Perhaps there is still time for Republicans to re-brand themselves around conservative themes and even adopt them as a matter of policy. It’s high time they borrowed another slogan: “Just Do It.”
(Excerpt) Read more at archive.patriotpost.us ...
The Republican Party is/was only relevant as long as it is/was true to the basic values of our country. If conservatives permanently lose the Republican party, where do we go? Do conservatives stand a chance to muster a viable third party? If what Ronald Reagan called "principled conservatism" loses, America will disappear.
“America is a Christian nation.”
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Certainly there are Christians IN America and they ARE in the majority.
I think he means that it is a nation founded BY Christians, based on Judeo-Christian values and principles. As opposed to a nation founded by atheist Marxists, or Sharia following, head-lopping Muslims, etc.
Whouda thunk? By now I figure this thread should have 1000 comments. Must be the time of day. After all, Republicans do have to work for a living, and I’m headed out myself. Yesterday as I was leaving a call came in from the RNC, unfortunately I didn’t have time to answer. Too bad.
No, there isn't. They are so over it isn't even funny.
He means that the country was settled by and the United States of America was founded primarily by Christians on Christian values of self restraint and personal accountability and that within the law, you answered only to God. The government was something to be distrusted and was to play as small a part as possible in ones’ daily lives.
Today, that has become moot in liberal circles as accountability has been replaced with blaming someone else and self restraint has been replaced with self indulgence of any form of perversion that you want. Now the first place many people look to for a solution to ANY problem is government.
Saw another story whee a GOP leader was complaining that Rats pretending to be conservatives had run and defeated Republicans. The author replied, "Why not? Republicans had been pretending to be Republicans for years>"
“Saw another story whee a GOP leader was complaining that Rats pretending to be conservatives had run and defeated Republicans. The author replied, “Why not? Republicans had been pretending to be Republicans for years>””
That was a dead on accurate response.
The GOP will not get it until they loose the White House and Congress. I hope McCain looses so the Americans can see just how well the Dems policies work. 2-4 years of a Obama presidency and Dem Congress should do the trick. Kinda reminds me of 1976 all over again.
Keep your powder dry and keep the faith.
“America is a Christian nation. If you doubt it, review the writings of our founders like George Washington and John Adams (Patriot Post is an excellent archive source). If conservatism and Christianity fail, as Washington and Adams both said, then America will fail.”
Not according to John McCain.
McCain also noted that he was in the opposition when the Arizona Republican Party several years ago endorsed a resolution declaring the United States to be a Christian nation.
``I am a Christian,’’ McCain said, ``and devotion to my faith is integral to my own pursuit of happiness. But we are not only a Christian nation.’’
The senator was recently active in crafting the ``don’t ask-don’t tell’’ policy in regard to gays in the military but has otherwise largely stayed away from the issue during his political career.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2008/04/ive_seen_john_mccains_temper.html
I mean that the beliefs, values, and principles that guided early Americans, our founding fathers, and are germane in American original institutional documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (not to mention state constitutions (and even the Magna Carta, the genesis American political contract) were Biblically based and expressed in the Christian lives and writings of these people.
That wasn’t my quote.
There may be no America by the time they're done. Remembrances of the 90's - can the Montana and Idaho militias and civil war be far behind? I don't even own a gun.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say “America is a nation that was founded and based on Christian values and principles”.
Using the phrase “America is a Christian nation” sounds like you’re saying the whole country is or should only be Christian and to be quite honest, a phrase the Christian Identity Movement uses...a place I doubt you want to go.
If America is not a Christian nation, it will be part of the Islamic nation. Take your pick.
No, I meant what I said. Its what our founders said. I believe its a word-for-word quote from George Washington. These are the people who hated a state-sponsored church as do I. But they knew that if we didn’t remain a moral and virtuous nation, we would be finished. The handwriting may already be on the wall (again from the Bible in Daniel, “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting”).
I’m perfectly happy to say that America is, or at least was and should be, a Christian nation.
In the past, that was not always happy for Catholics like myself, because the WASP establishment was, well, WASP. But it was a lot better than what we have now.
Yes, we have freedom of religion, and should have freedom of religion. But does that apply, for example, to Satanism or Witchcraft? Under the current rules, apparently it does. Does it apply to unbridled Islamism, which includes sharia law and wife beating and polygamy? Apparently it does.
There is no single, perfect answer. I would not want to live in a Christian theocracy, but we never had one here in America except for a generation or so in Massachusetts Bay. I do want to live in a Christian nation, where traditional values are honored and supported. I would rather deal with Catholic-bashing Protestant rule than with the rule of moonbats, perverts, and nihilists. In fact, by preference I would rather work toward some sort of working coalition of Catholics, Protestants and Jews, which is reasonably open to other beliefs so long as they do not clearly endorse evil ways.
Law must have some sort of moral foundations. At the moment, unfortunately, the law is whatever those in power say it is, and that is not a good situation. They say you should not legislate morality. Rather, I would say you should not microlegislate morality. But if laws are not based on beliefs about what is right and wrong—for instance that murder and robbery are wrong—then what should it be based on?
“But they knew that if we didn’t remain a moral and virtuous nation, we would be finished.”
Is it possible for the US to be a moral and virtuous nation without it also being a “Christian Nation” only?
My statement, "America is a Christian nation", and your question really applies to individuals and generations of individuals. A nation is just a bunch of people within geo-political boundaries. The issue of morality and virtue in a nation is an issue of the individuals within that nation.
So I think the question really is, "Is is it possible for an individual to be moral and virtuous without being a Christian?"
I'll try to answer as briefly as I can. Since the understanding of true virtue and morality come from the Bible, an individual will have to have been influenced by a Bible-adhering (Christian) society (virtue and morality are essentially externally generated) or will have to have accepted Jesus as their Savior, with the resulting experience of rebirth and renewal bringing profound change in that person's outlook and life (virtue and morality generated internally).
So although a non-Christian individual can be moral and at least have a belief system of behavior that embraces virtue, he/she would normally have to have learned these things from a Bible-adhering (Christian) environment. So for the US to be a moral and virtuous nation (a "good nation" as President Eisenhower put it) there would need to be enough Christian individuals in this country to have an overriding influence in its culture, laws, institutions, and way of life (the way America used to be). America would be (as it once was) a Christian nation.
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