I know I’m going to get flamed, but here goes anyway. I spend a great deal of time at Free Republic, even though some folks who post here give me a very hard time.
I loved/love President Bush, for example, despite the hard time he got from nearly everyone here.
Someone needs to explain to me the following difference. When those on this site go to great lengths to point out that RINOs like John McCain are very, very far to their left, that seems to meet with lots of applause.
When the McCains and Murkowskis and Roves of the world point out that the the Tea Party and Freepers of the world are very far to their right, they get scorn and ridicule.
I truly don’t understand the difference.
What the NRSC is doing here is despicable. What Crist has done in FL is desipicable. What Murkowski is contemplating in AL is despicable. I get all that.
But I want to point out that there is little difference between folks here pointing out that much of the party is to their left Versus those who you are singling out pointing to the fact that you all are well to their right.
There are a lot of folks out there, myself included, who have strong principles and yet hold views that sometimes fall in one camp, sometimes fall in the other, and most often fall inbetween. As a simple empirical matter, I have for a decade or more always found myself cheering on the more conservative candidate. Always. So while I fail a litmus test or two or three ... I seem inclined a very specific way.
Having said this, I hate the finger pointing and the divisions. I think the Tea Partiers and Freepers have better manners. I think the TPs and Freepers are more principled, more often play by the rules (e.g., if you lose the primary, for goodness sake, go home!), etc.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that there is huge ground for improvement and more tolerance of opposing views. The NRSC is flat out wrong. But two wrongs do not make a right.
“When the McCains and Murkowskis and Roves of the world point out that the the Tea Party and Freepers of the world are very far to their right, they get scorn and ridicule.
I truly don’t understand the difference.”
++++++++++++++++++++++
I think what you’re seeing is the battle for the soul of the GOP. This is a predecessor for the battle of the soul of the nation, which will happen in 47 days and in 2012. Those of us to the right of the “McCains and Murkowskis and Roves” happen to know from experience what happens when you compromise principles, like those people often do.
That is why we’re passionate about opposing their compromise. They can certainly point out that we’re to their right, or even far to their right, but that they say from their location squarely in the midst of squishy compromise.
See the difference? :)
The difference is that Freepers and Tea Party people are actually the middle-of-the-road. You only think of them as "extreme" because that's been the media template about conservatives for 60 years.
I first became aware of this when a radio show host (I wish I can remember his name because I loved him) who is a former Republican pollster said that the "real" polls, the serious and expensive polls, that the parties conduct consistently show that the average American's views are closer to Newt Gingrich than to Bill Clinton.
That's a shock because it means our whole political spectrum must be re-calibrated to put Rush Limbaugh slightly to the right and the media and Democrats so far to the left that they sit in another galaxy.
So, to us on FR, saying Obama is an extremist but O'Donnell isn't is about the same as saying Ebola bad penicillin good. Penicillin is not "extreme" just because it kills strep. We are making an evaluation based on our values.