Posted on 07/09/2012 1:20:40 PM PDT by IbJensen
“The problem for the GOP is that it is in danger of fracturing, not because it has moved so far right, but because it refuses to actually practice what it preaches.”
Senator Max Baucus of Montana receives campaign donations from the parent company of Phillip Morris. Senator Baucus then puts a provision in the highway transportation bill banning roll your own cigarette operations, a business that does not exist in Montana.
Forty people in Harry Reid’s Nevada and elsewhere will lose their jobs because a transportation bill actively and willfully legislated a legal business out of business by driving up the regulatory burden so excessively. Major cigarette manufacturers championed the legislation and Republicans supported it because it will increase tax revenue without them voting to raise taxes.
Put bluntly, Republicans voted to do exactly what they they accuse the Democrats of doing — shut down businesses by driving up regulatory burdens in an effort to increase taxes.
Max Baucus may have inserted the provision, but it made it through Republican House of Representatives. Maybe we do need a third party to do the job Republicans campaign on doing, but then get to Washington and don’t actually do.
I am not at the point of really advocating a third party. But I know me writing this will get the attention it needs to get.
The Republicans in Washington really have no clue.
For several months members of the media have lusted after a third party candidate — a serious “grown up” to speak the hard truths about the deficit, the need to raise taxes, etc. In fact, pay attention you people in the media, there is a very simple formula I have developed to explain the media these days:
Greater the number of stories about Americans Elect and No Labels
Equals
The lower the number of viewers and readers of the media outlet
The media elite who get positively orgasmic about things like No Labels and Americans Elect are convinced they are tapped into the pulse of the American people, but in fact are only tapped into the pulse of their throbbing for people like themselves being put in charge instead of the hicks and rubes from America’s river valleys the tea party types keep agitating for.
A third party could have been successful in the United States this year, but it would have required a populist attack against Washington and spending. Done right, it would have resonated across Tea Party and Occupy circles. But it did not happen.
As media ratings have declined and the talk within Beltway media circles of “serious” “adult” “third party” challenges has increased, Republican leaders in Washington who have more and more in common with the media that covers them and less and less in common with their constituents back home — hell, look at Indiana’s Senator who does not even live in Indiana anymore and consequently got thrown out much to the outrage of Beltway elites — have become less and less like the Party of Reagan and more and more like the Party of John Anderson.
The problem for the GOP is that it is in danger of fracturing, not because it has moved so far right, but because it refuses to actually practice what it preaches.
The Republican Party’s actual policy positions help small businesses and individuals. It is the party of the individual against the collective. But Republican leaders are not willing to actually fight for those values in the face of media criticism.
In fact, the very types of people the media and more senior Republicans and Democrats alike are advocating are the very people who made the compromise decisions to get us to $16 trillion in debt. And, by the way, we spent ourselves there we didn’t tax ourselves there.
This comes full circle.
A Republican Party that has been unwilling to cut spending has now let go through Congress legislation to shut down lawful, legal businesses because cigarette industry lobbyists and a Senate Democrat wanted it done.
We’re not ready for a third party and both this site and I will continue advocating for conservative Republicans, but if the GOP doesn’t finally get a clue, I won’t be surprised to see it implode. By the way, this year fewer and fewer Republican candidates are signing the tax pledge on the advice of Republican members of Congress. This is another warning sign that the Eric Cantor led Republican conference is going far afield from what those who vote Republican actually want.
The GOP better get back to its pro-liberty roots quickly.
Mitch McConnell stands in front of the cameras and microphones to state that the 2,700 page death edict known as Obozocare is too big to bring down. I aave said before that firing every employee whose job it is to implement this garbage, tear out their phones, take away their cell phones, ipads and credit cards, sell the furnishings and declare this monstrosity dead before it finishes the job of killing the nation and its inhabitants.
I’d settle for a distinct second party.
I think Ann Coulter got it right (again) when she was talking about one of the underhanded things the democrats were doing. She said, “The Democrats are evil, but they’re not stupid. That’s us.”
I’m more inclined to think the Democrats need to split into two parties. The other one could be called the Occupy Party.
The rate things are going, the GOP will be a third party.
“I’d settle for a distinct second party.”
Well said....er...written.
We cannot have one until a real majority is required for election.
The First American Republic is dead. Died some time ago. It will take CWII to establish a Second American Republic.
Agreed!
“The First American Republic is dead. Died some time ago. It will take CWII to establish a Second American Republic.”
___
Agreed!
The silent majority need only take over one of the parties and allow the country club rinos go away with cristine todd whitman into her third party.
I agree though that there is a serious lack of AMERICAN leadership in the republic party. We only have managers and manipulators, no leaders.
” - - - The silent majority need only take over one of the parties and allow the country club rinos go away - - - “
That is the plan.
Third parties cannot win as long as the winner is determined by a plurality.
If the laws were changed so that 50 % plus one vote determined the winner then the third party would have a chance.
Thus, it is much more effective to just boot out the RINOs and run the Republican Party the way it should be run, come 2014.
You say: “The silent majority need only take over one of the parties and allow the country club rinos go away....”
So are you a precinct delegate? I am but sadly not enough TEA partiers took action on this logical solution in my opinion.
In examining the Republican party it started out as a pretty clear coalition of Liberty Interests and Business Interests.
The Civil War came along. They won. The coalitions reassembled themselves and once Grant's Administration was passed on into history, we start with "modern times".
Currently two new interest groups ~ one called the Mittbots and another called the GoP-e have consorted together to subvert the Republican party and take it away from its historic bottom up control structure.
It is our job to stop them, and then REMOVE them from the Republican party. They are better off among their own kind in the Democrat party ~
We need one but not THIS election...
(Look for someone to try and use the old “divide and conquer” strategy though—financed by the other side...)
This episode PERFECTLY illustrates EVERYTHING that the people have come to loathe and detest about Congress.
- Important change affecting many people slipped-in quietly at the last minute and attached to an unrelated bill on a Friday heading into a holiday.
- Change has never been subject to a full debate or public comment period.
- Powerful interests with vested financial interests are involved in actually writing the bill as well as lobbying for it.
- Details contained within the bill itself are at a Monty Python level of absurd (customers who sit and roll their own smokes on a borrowed machine are MANUFACTURERS???)
- Bill it is attached to is loaded with so much pork it attracts votes from all sides of the aisle.
- Congressional weasel who pulled this off WILL NOT EVEN RETURN PHONE CALLS seeking comment (quoted in many news accounts).
- Small businessmen put out of business, some financially ruined, by what Congress has done.
If smokers don’t spend every last dime they can spare to defeat Max Baucus the next time his seat is up then they deserve whatever is headed their way next.
If the first third party to gain credence is a leftwing one, then that will siphon votes away from the Democrats.
If the Green Party gets big enough, we can then think about starting a bonafide conservative party to threaten the Republicans with similar ballot box competition if they refuse to abide by their platform.
When both parties run abortionist/homosexualist statists, we have NO choice at all. It’s like a communist state one party election! Soros must be very pleased. Damn the statist parties!!
When the Chief Justice of the United States formally throws out the constitutional limits on government, we no longer have a constitutional republic!!
And this guy is supposedly a constitutionalist conservative appointed by a Republican president.
When we have a godless abortionist/homosexualist STATIST sitting in the White House and a godless abortionist/homosexualist STATIST congress under Reid and Pelosi throwing out all the longstanding congressional rules and ramming blatantly unconstitutional STATIST programs through congress over the objections of we the people and then we have the Chief Justice of the United States stamp his approval on it, we, my friends are in seriously deep doo-doo.
Our constitutional republic has been effectively dissolved before our very eyes and effectively dissolved by our own supposedly conservative Republican party!!
And now our supposedly conservative Republican party chooses to run a blatantly abortionist/homosexualist STATIST candidate for president??
C’mon, folks, give me a break!! Romney is the STATIST idiot who rammed the STATIST RomneyCare program through in Massachusetts and that directly morphed into ObamaCare and then Chief Justice Roberts knifed us all in the back and single-handily brought down our constitutional Republic!!
All of our enemies and the communists over the years could not conquer America by war or threat of war but the enemy within brought us down. And we are now being asked to sanction with our sacred vote the very STATIST idiot who made the loss of our beloved Republic possible?
NOT ON MY WATCH!!
FUMR!! FUKR!! FUGOP-e!! FUBO!! (FU = freep you)
No way in hell will I ever cast my vote for a known STATIST idiot like Romney!!
Statism - the theory or practice of concentrating economic and political power in the state, resulting in a weak position for the individual or community with respect to the government
Long live the grass roots tea party rebellion!! Long live the Republic!! Long live Liberty!!
Think about this ~ let's say you set winning at 35% ~ and a coalition party was formed around the idea they could get 35% and they'd win, and this other coalition formed around the idea they could get 36% and they'd win, now what do you think is going to happen?
Obviously you have to regularly have 50%+1 victories, but not too much more than that or you end up getting a surplus of losers in your coalition, and you'll find yourself fighting bygone policy battles forever ~ just listen to the Democrats in the NE. They haven't had a new idea in 75 years!
What Jim says to the 10th POWER!
LLS
I don't see a violent revolution. I can see individual desperate acts and massive noncompliance and civil disobedience. Americans are a handful when they are angry!
we have to many precinct leaders and alternates who are still trapped in the 1950’s and are clueless about tech, social media, or just how evil the MSM really is.
Some of them barely use cellphones. Smartphones? Internet? you might has well be john mccain in a cyber cafe wonder what kind of drink a cyber is.
All too aware my FRiend. And precinct delegate or not, ignorance on tech and social media is also a problem for those who at least step up to volunteer on a campaign as well. Here’s to a short learning curve for those willing to step up.
The grassroots tea party rebellion is not a revolution. It is a grassroots rebellion at the BALLOT BOX and was very effective in 2010. I only pray it continues in 2012 and beyond, although many of our weaker members have been frightened off by the specter of the blatantly STATIST Obama possibly winning re-election to the White House. So frightened are they that they are perfectly willing to set aside their conservative principles and cast their votes for a man who is obviously every bit the STATIST that Obama is. They are, in fact, surrendering to STATISM rather than fighting it.
Romney is a STATIST. It’s steeped into his psyche. The state is the first place he looks to solve problems.
Government, ie, the state, is not the solution. Government is the problem.
Romney and statists like him are the problem.
Statists should not be elected. Statists currently in office (like Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, et al, and now Roberts) should be impeached and expelled for blatantly disregarding, violating, or failing to uphold the constitution as is their sworn duty, and in some cases, for high crimes and outright treason!!
Much if not most of the problem is due to our own internal differences among the States. Certant republicans from certant states come from political climates that are not as conservatives as most of us would like.
We all have our own self-interest which is fine, but we don’t all recognize this fact in our policy making. Ultimately there is only one policy that can satafie all of us, and that is the policy of leaving each other alone and letting us each address our own problems in the way best suited to them independently.
We cannot hope to agree, or compromise on many many issues, simply because what is needed in Minnesota is poisonous to Texas, and vice versa.
Washington politicians have it suck in their head that their job is to solve problems indiscriminately. But that is not their job at all, indeed it is their attempt to do that job that has caused or exacerbated most of our existing problems.
The Job of Washington Politicians is to address issues of a Federal nature as listed in the Federal Constitution. Sadly Washington has been soo busy trying to butt its head into every domestic matter that they have largely negligent them federal responsibly.
Our trade relations are abusive, our foreign policy is inept and to be frank we are getting screwed over by foreigners all over the world, because congress is too distracted to act!
If we are going to fix this we are going to have to rebuild our old defences against Federal encorchment, including the political moxy at the state level to make a consistant and determaned stand against Federal encorchment.
We are going to have to play both the left and the right on this issue. Washington must be pushed back into its box whether it like it or not, and that will unforutnatly take us a great many years, perhaps a decade or more from where we are at.
This effort however is already well underway as it has been sense 2009. Current & recent State efforts are proof of that! The battle may look grim, but our strategy to win this war is already showing great promus and significant fruit. That is perhaps the most encouraging sign of these times. :)
Trying to mold he GOP has not worked well.
“I am but sadly not enough TEA partiers took action on this logical solution in my opinion.”
Conservatives can’t muster enough gumption to go to a town hall meeting and oppose a sidewalk ordinance. The Founders organized Committees of Safety. Conservatives have organized nothing. There won’t be any third party movement until conservatives can show they are willing to organize and clean out their own neighborhoods and remove liberals from town councils and county boards. Electing a constitutional sheriff is also a good idea.
Nice to see EE wake up. It’ll be even better when he realizes that there is zero hope for the GOP.
Why there isn’t blood running in the streets, I don’t know. I was past the point of marching (armed) on D.C. a few months ago, but when I look around me ... everyone else is sleepwalking. And I live in Texas ... so what does that tell you?
You get the government you DEMAND.
“All of our enemies”
All of our enemies/communists within got the job done where the external enemies/communists could not do it.
I restated it for you.
I would never want another 3-person election.
Perot gave us Clinton. I’m OK with multiple parties running but the TWO best should go head to head.
Phase one might entail secession of various states.
Romney is a STATIST. It’s steeped into his psyche. The state is the first place he looks to solve problems.
*********************************
Excellent post, Jim.
Thanks and you got it exactly right. The gooks are in the wire. We’re going to have to call in a dump of everything our side has left on our own pos..
...The GOP better get back to its pro-liberty roots quickly.
Yeah, Karl Rove, Graham, Snowe, mitt, McCain and the rest are all shaking in their boots.
"We'll vote for dog poo as long as it has an (R) after it, but oh, you just wait, one of these days I'm going to write a strongly worded letter!
..I say again, I want all you’re holding INSIDE the perimeter. It’s a lovely freeping war. Bravo Six Actual and Out.
The Democrats, for all their Marxism, govt in the name of fairness instead of justice, etc. stand for something recognizable (albeit tyrannical). The Republicans stand for...nothing. Plurality in place of principle isn't a governing philosophy, its a recipe for extinction.
We needn't fear the realignment that's coming because it's a natural and healthy process. What form it will take and the precise timing remain a mystery - most likely only waiting for the right leader and the right event.
Actually, they are very efficient at growing Gov't and taking from the citizen.
The chorus of this is the most important election will show up and sing the hymn of stopping one faction or the other. Thus repeating the failed cycle of our current political process. Unfortunately for the citizens of our States, we don't have individuals that rise up to face the trials we currently endure.
Special interest, globalism, fear of the Constitution, and the death of nationalism has been the republic's seppuku.
Yep. Light up that jungle (D.C.) and GTFO.
When the Chief Justice of the United States formally throws out the constitutional limits on government, we no longer have a constitutional republic!!
Exactly right bump!
Crony Capitalism is a bi-partisan provider of election campaign support, and finds bi-partisan takers for that support
Maybe we should just repeal and replace the two existing ones.
Probably so.
Who, this time, are the two best?
“The First American Republic is dead. Died some time ago. It will take CWII to establish a Second American Republic.”
Yup. Agreed.
“Long live the grass roots tea party rebellion!! Long live the Republic!! Long live Liberty!!”
Amen.
After I posted, I realized I didn’t fully explain what I meant but I didn’t correct that.
I meant that all parties involved would run in a national primary and the two best vote getters would run in November.
Since that system doesn’t exist, your question doesn’t apply. Our individual state primaries are so scattered across time and so different in format and results that they are hard to interpret. One guy runs away with one state and another guy runs away with a different state.
The stupid debate formats are a jumble of liberal moderator gotcha questions combined with unequal treatment of candidates. The winner is based on who has the best one-liners rather than the best ideas. They aren’t even debates.
Having multiple parties makes the problem even more complicated, though.
What I don’t want is a candidate being able to win the presidential election with 40% of the vote. I would like to at least pretend that we can narrow our selection to two candidates.
With people voting not for the best person in their party but rather for the worst person in the other party is another complication.
What’s the best solution? I don’t know.
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