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GOP MUST STAY THE COURSE
boblonsberry.com ^ | 11/26/12 | Bob Lonsberry

Posted on 11/26/2012 5:35:52 AM PST by shortstop

It has been interesting, since the election, to see Republicans scramble and equivocate.

Folks who seemed to be standing shoulder to shoulder before the election have turned their fire on one another and it seems almost to be a competition to disavow what until recently seemed to be bedrock Republican principles.

First the Republicans lost the election, then they lost their nerve.

No sooner had the votes been counted than the fingers started pointing. Republicans turned on one another and on the campaign they had waged, calling people extremists and policies outdated.

According to any number of Republican Monday-morning quarterbacks, the party needed to embrace amnesty, drop its opposition to abortion, distance itself from white people, forgive student loans, have some children out of wedlock, grow some entitlements and perform a few gay marriages. The party, these Republicans decided, has gotten too white, too old, too conservative, too rural, too Christian and too family values.

It seemed, based on what the Republicans said when savaging their own party, that the Democrats had been right all along.

They went on TV and explained that the GOP had to change its message. It had to get with the times.

Mitt Romney was no good, the brand was all wrong, the party is dead.

The unusually motivated even shared the playlist on their iPod, to demonstrate hipness and diversity.

They all, however, have been wrong.

There is nothing wrong with the Republican Party. Its principles are correct. Its basic platform is what America needs.

And anyone who would sell that out for political gain is a partisan, not a patriot.

When you are right, you don’t change because others fail to recognize that you are right, you work harder to convince them of your correctness.

The disavowers fundamentally misunderstand who Republicans are. They are not salesmen, they are missionaries.

A salesman, when his product is rejected, gets another product. A missionary, when his message is rejected, finds a better way to present his message.

If you’re selling brushes door to door and nobody’s buying, but the salesman across the street is selling knives and everybody is buying, you chuck your brushes and you start selling knives.

If you’re a missionary and you’re preaching Christianity and nobody’s accepting it, you don’t chuck it and start preaching Buddhism, you find a more effective way to preach Christianity.

The party’s leaders may be salesmen, but the party’s members are missionaries. More significantly, the core of patriotic Americans who are concerned about the country’s direction are not interested in sales pitches, they are interested in truth and wisdom.

They’re not looking to be conned, they’re looking to be converted.

We’re not selling talking points, we’re selling truth. And you don’t abandon the truth. You stick with it through thick and thin. Right makes might, Lincoln said, and that is as true now as it was then.

This doesn’t mean that a party’s policies and initiatives don’t adapt to changing times and needs. Principles can be unchanging, but their application to changing circumstance can vary. Further, some positions can be based on something less significant than principle, and can be changed to meet different needs without compromising values.

But there must be a North Star. There must be an unchanging guide. There must be an iron rod of truth which is clung to and never turned loose.

In the Republican Party, the iron rod of truth is the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration and the Founding Fathers. Republicans believe that we are a nation “under God” and that family values are unfailingly good and necessary. We believe in self-reliance and civic virtue, and that the government should stay off our back and out of our pocket.

We believe in rule of law, American defense, primacy and exceptionalism, and in individual equality before law. We reject any discrimination that faults or favors any person based on his demographic group.

And we reject socialism as an abrogation of economic freedom. We believe taxation is legitimate to fund the lawful functions of government, not to redistribute wealth, or to incentivize, reward or punish individual choice.

That’s what it means to be a Republican.

Those principles can’t be compromised.

Those colors don’t run.

And if those principles are rejected in an election, as they were in the presidential contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, we do not abandon them, we rally to them. Patriots do not surrender; people of conscience do not capitulate.

We regroup. We retool. We recharge.

And we fight on.

Because America is worth it. Freedom is worth it. Our message is true, our presentation must improve.

But our principles must not waver.

No matter what color you are, or how old you are, or how many rappers you have on your iPod.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: election; obama; republican

1 posted on 11/26/2012 5:35:56 AM PST by shortstop
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To: shortstop

How much do they pay you to post this stuff?


2 posted on 11/26/2012 5:42:39 AM PST by Rich21IE
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To: shortstop

I agree with the ‘sales pitch’ part however Republicans (party) couldnt sell a winning lottery ticket.

They only know how to preach to the choir, which I think Rush tells them they only need, and that McCain and Romney would win.


3 posted on 11/26/2012 5:56:01 AM PST by sickoflibs (Has Bohner caved to Obama again yet?)
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To: shortstop
And we reject socialism as an abrogation of economic freedom.

We reject it, but 51% of the country embraces it. They said so in very clear terms on Nov 6.

4 posted on 11/26/2012 5:57:08 AM PST by ScottinVA (I've never been more disgusted with American voters.)
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To: shortstop
Our message is true, our presentation must improve.

Which message would that be... that Republicans were against tax hikes before they were for them? That Obamacare is the law of the land, yet it "must go?"

5 posted on 11/26/2012 5:59:29 AM PST by ScottinVA (I've never been more disgusted with American voters.)
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To: Rich21IE

This is not a Republican credo, no matter how much or how often they use the term “Republican”.

The establishment Republicans have long since abandoned any standards of morally upright behavior and sound fiscal management. They have been a reliable ally of those loose cannons called “liberal” Democratz, and have chosen, each time a choice is offered, to suppress any phenomenon like the T.E.A. party. These are dangerous, and frightening, ideas, and who knows what pursuit of these ideas may lead to. Clearly, they have no intention of finding out.

It is just that, as a umbrella organization, the national Republican party has (grudgingly) made more room for the T.E.A. party people than can be found in the national Democratz party.

Conservative thought, when well articulated, wins every time. Unfortunately, the conservative point of view is often served up in a garbled and unrecognizable mishmash that proves unpalatable to just a little more than a majority of US voters. And the Republican establishment does their bit to spoil the broth, throwing in half-truths and venomous untruths on the sly.


6 posted on 11/26/2012 6:01:32 AM PST by alloysteel (Bronco Bama - the cowboy who whooped up and widened the stampede.)
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To: Rich21IE

What’s your problem, and why do you read it if you don’t approve of it?


7 posted on 11/26/2012 6:02:14 AM PST by shortstop (It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful)
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To: shortstop

Obama is a leftist raging communist.

Mitt Romney is a slightly less leftist raging communist.

When you offer that to the voting public, you lose the core base of your party and you give the election to the hard core leftist raging communist. Which is exactly what happened.

The Republican Party offered a candidate that stood for many things that the conservative base of the Republican Party finds offensive. Gun control, socialist healthcare, liberalism in general... Mitt Romney is not now nor ever has been conservative.

THAT is why Obama won. That is why I am no longer a member of the Republican Party.


8 posted on 11/26/2012 6:05:48 AM PST by BCR #226 (02/07 SOT www.extremefirepower.com...The BS stops when the hammer drops.)
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To: shortstop
It seems that just like the last four years have unmasked the democrats as being unapologetic socialists to the core, this election will be the one that served to unmask the republican establishment for being nothing but shameless triangulators of the electorate simply for votes. Note I didn't use the word "conservative" above, who have no voice.
9 posted on 11/26/2012 6:12:37 AM PST by SpaceBar
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To: ScottinVA

“We reject it, but 51% of the country embraces it. They said so in very clear terms on Nov 6.”

Let’s include the de facto Hussein Head “freepers” who said, “I’d rather see Obama re-elected than vote for Romney.”


10 posted on 11/26/2012 6:15:56 AM PST by treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
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To: shortstop
Appeasement, and losing?

R stands for retard.

Time for T!

11 posted on 11/26/2012 6:56:05 AM PST by rawcatslyentist ("Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one," Jeremiah 50:31)
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To: treetopsandroofs
Let’s include the de facto Hussein Head “freepers” who said, “I’d rather see Obama re-elected than vote for Romney.”""""""""...........

For that very reason, I am contemplating changing parties, and VOTE FOR EVERY DAMNED Democrat that will vote in more and more taxes, more social programs, anything to make THOSE very people as MISERABLE AS possible for the rest of their lives. (half way sarcastic, still in thet hinking process of this.)

Detestable people all who will say.........I will not vote Romney or whoever because............fill in the blank.

Why should I give a damn about them any more, they don't give a damn about our Country or my family.

12 posted on 11/26/2012 7:32:00 AM PST by annieokie
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To: shortstop

Since a number of ‘Republican leaders’ already are signaling their willingness to cave to the Dems, I will”

I will change my voter registration—after 52 years of being a registered Republican.

I will donate as much as I can to opponents of these turncoats when they are up for re-election.


13 posted on 11/26/2012 7:33:02 AM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: annieokie

I understand. I have not yet fully figured out how to deal with the “post-American world” like so many of our domestic enemies and their leaders have.


14 posted on 11/26/2012 7:40:41 AM PST by treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
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To: treetopsandroofs
Thanks. I can more understand the 47%er's than I can the "I will not vote for Romeny because.............." (fill in the blank) crowd.

And while we're at it I'll toss in the libertarians and whatever other KOOK party is out there.

I want them all to BE AS MISERABLE AS THEY HAVE MADE ME AND MY FAMILY, and many like me who cared, from here on. I want all of them to pay as many taxes as I can get them via politicians, tax them overboard if necessary, put every company out of business,etc. In the words of Rhett Butler, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn".

Let's just give up the idea of ever bringing AMERICA back, it will NEVER happen. Trust me. "The I will not vote for crowd because..........." have won. But, now they have NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN........none, ain't that a hoot?

15 posted on 11/26/2012 8:41:32 AM PST by annieokie
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To: shortstop

I don’t get that either.


16 posted on 11/26/2012 10:39:20 AM PST by rdb3 (We're all going to get what only some of us deserve...)
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To: shortstop

I completely agree that the gop should continue on its current course: the road to perdition.

The sooner the gop implodes, the better. Whatever party replaces it will be an improvement.


17 posted on 11/26/2012 11:02:15 AM PST by RKBA Democrat (Getting in touch with my inner rebel)
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To: shortstop

What a CROCK of Sh!t. TROLL.


18 posted on 11/26/2012 11:41:58 AM PST by MtnMan101
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To: MtnMan101; Jim Robinson

What’s your problem, dipwad? I just post the articles, I don’t write them. If you want to be the editor of what gets posted on FR, apply for the admin moderator job. Read my tagline.


19 posted on 11/26/2012 4:37:44 PM PST by shortstop (It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful)
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To: ScottinVA

51% of THOSE WHO VOTED embraced it. quite a few people, from what I’ve heard, basically sat this out.


20 posted on 11/27/2012 1:52:39 AM PST by Jacob Kell
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