Posted on 01/16/2014 7:28:22 AM PST by sheikdetailfeather
Conservative and Republican affiliated groups have started the 2014 assault against Democrats who support Obamacare. At the very same time, it is increasingly clear Republicans are laying the groundwork to abandon their opposition to Obamacare.
The Business Roundtable, which has a great relationship with Republican Leaders, is now listing Obamacare as an entitlement worth preserving.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former economic advisor to John McCain and who opposed passage of Obamacare, has started a think tank premised on keeping, but fixing, Obamacare. Holtz-Eakin has the ear of Republican leaders. In 2009, Mitch McConnell appointed him to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
The Chamber of Commerce is declaring it will work to fix, not repeal, Obamacare. In fact, just last week the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said, “The administration is obviously committed to keeping the law in place, so the chamber has been working pragmatically to fix those parts of Obamacare that can be fixed.”
Concurrent to this, the Chamber of Commerce has begun funding candidates to beat conservatives in Republican primaries.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
Well Laz, it seems you have finally gotten to the only real solution to where we are today.
I knew you would say that
Who knows what any of us will be doing or where we will be come October...........or May
Life is happening fast!
I knew you would say that
Who knows what any of us will be doing or where we will be come October...........or May
Life is happening fast!
“You spoke for me and many of my friends, many of whom have already left FR for sites where they can have discussions “
“You spoke for me AND many” ect.
If the person is so horribly offended by the affront to their dignity, then why are they still here?
If this person is having a discussion, and they are, it sorta blows the whole inability to have discussions thing out of the water don’t ya think? Perhaps the friends in question just don’t like being asked hard questions and made to defend their positions...like others on this thread.
My skills are just fine thanks.
Then *do*. :)
My post was confined to the tactics and manners of the wolf pack members who roam at will attacking the motives and persona of posters who don't agree with them.
I clearly stated that many of us wish to work WITHIN the Republican party to change the RINO leadership. Others on this thread agreed....and in true wolf pack style, the usual suspects instantly appeared to attack, spin and alter posts on the subject written in good faith.
This is what's driving people away from this board, it started about two years ago with the anti-Morman hate group pounding away with unbelievable personal hate attacks that continue to this day.
Now, we have those trying to turn this forum into a destroy-the-Republican-Party site....and woe to those who don't agree with this premise. A poster advocating GOP reform at the top starting from within (and/or pointing out that it's too late for a "dream party" right now and the next GOP primary is our one weapon at hand) suddenly becomes an insane, anti-American, traitorous, RINO, moderate, liberal, socialist Republican pinata....and the personal attacks commence.
Those of us who are Republican adherents, who may be committeepersons, precinct captains, judges, poll watchers, volunteers, local party officials, etc. are very suspect by the wolf pack watchers now....and evidently we need to be carded by them as to our conservative purity. I, along with others, will not be bullied by these keyboard commandos having a good ole time trying to divide us.
Leni
You're not suspect and your conservative credentials are impeccable, to my thinking.
I detected a certain standoffishness in your last post to me. No worries. Though I like you, I recall you never were terribly fond of me. Not an issue, because your opinion of me can be anything, and that's okay. :)
But, I am definitely not a 'wolf pack' person. I ask some hard questions, and I have some terrible misgivings, but I've kept this conversation for the most part civil, and presented my points with clarity.
Not that it matters, truly, but I have an idle curiousity: Would my questions and points be considered 'wolf pack' by you?
I think the answer can be found on your series of posts on threads two and three. Let the readers decide.
You allied yourself immediately with the premier anti-Republican-Party master baiter, divider and wolf-pack attacker on FR. You started out happily joining his attack on a "non-purist" poster by accusing her of being an "establishment Republican" which she's not. You ended up your series of non-applicable posts by calling her "you CINO Establishment Republican harridan"......which appellation you later tried to slink out of.
Excuse my triteness, but like birds, wolves of a feather flock together. If the shoe fits, wear it. Being a Republican on this board and staying and working WITHIN the party to reform it does NOT mean you are a GOP-e, establishment or RINO conservative..or a "harridan"....and you guys just don't like any pushback on your off-the-wall accusations, rants and general nastiness.
Leni
Ergo, it is not my tone and message, but who I happen to occasionally agree with -- no matter how the magnitude of and the reasoning behind the agreement may drastically differ.
Gotchya.
Not that it matters (in the same manner as your opinion of me does not matter), but my regard for you is slightly diminished.
Leni
Just because of who I happened to be on the thread with.
Why, that sounds positively liberal.
Yes, you've slipped. And yes: Good day.
I understand your consternation. In your views you expressed an understanding of folks like me, who see what the Republican Party leadership has become. We all want to see it change. Unfortunately, every time leadership has changed over the last twenty years, it has gotten worse rather than better. And once the leadership position changes, you know you’ve got another five to ten years before the party leadership will change again. And so you know right then and there, that the party will deteriorate for another five to ten years.
Are we seeing changes at the top at this time? I would say yes. We are seeing changes. Reince Priebus who was once a solid Conservative is now backing people who do not share our views. His public statements don’t express comprehension of my understanding of Conservatism at all.
None of us are unaware of what House Speaker John Boehner has meant to our cause. His negative impact on Conservatism has been astonishing to take in. Mitch McConnell might just as well be a Democrat for all the negative things he says about Tea Party members and Conservatives. Boehner is guilty of the same things.
Our nominees over the last twenty years have been luke warm Conservatives (read that luke warm to moderately motivated Lefts) to solidly Leftist. None of them have expressed a grasp of true “fire in the belly” Conservatism. McCain was comfortable working with the Left’s worst players. Romney was comfortable implementing the Statist Romneycare in his home state. Bush was a massive big-spender.
Who can we point to, when trying to convert people to our cause? If you’re looking at the Republican leadership to find someone, you’ll have to give up proselytizing. There is no one in a leadership position at the top of the Republican Party ranks who gets it.
Can Republicans have an honest conversation with converts right now? No. If you bring up big spending and how it is wrong, your prospect will mention the fact that under the most recent President Bush, our national debt increased by over 90%. And lest anyone be confused on this subject, the wars accounted for about 25% of that increase. Spending under Bush was massive. So scratch the idea we can approach anyone with the idea our team is good when it comes to spending and the national debt. It isn’t.
Can Republicans have an honest conversation when it comes to Obamacare? Once again, the answer is no. Our most recent presidential nominee didn’t campaign on doing away with the government health care scheme. He campaigned on morphing it into something that resembled Romneycare.
With Romney, McCain, Bush, or Dole, could we have an honest conversation about illegal immigration? Once again the answer is no. Each of these candidates thought we needed comprehensive immigration reform. And each of them thought that a leading component of that had to be a pathway to citizenship. (And lest we kid ourselves, there is someone in the wings right now who agrees with them. “Register so you can stay here and work…”)
These men were either hoping to or had actually been sworn in as our president. The oath they swore or would have sworn to includes language that confirms that they would protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have tenets that have been placed into law by our House, Senate, and former presidents. None of these men intended to adhere to those tenets turned laws.
Article Four Section Four of the United States Constitution included language that states the president “SHALL” (will, must, cannot decide not to) protect the states from invasion. Bush didn’t bother. Not Dole, McCain, or Romney would have. Clinton didn’t. Obama hasn’t. They were of a mind on this subject. As bad as Obama is, his views are no worse on immigration than theirs were.
These men, as much as we may want to like them, were each destroyers. On one or more topics they killed our ability to approach people saying the Republicans were worth supporting, because on very important issues they would be better.
On spending, they destroyed our arguments. On immigration they destroyed our arguments. On the ability to say we were better when it came to economics, they destroyed our arguments. On the issue of the courts, they often destroyed our arguments. When it came to the military, despite doing some things that looked quite pro U. S. or pro military, in the background they were allowing our military to be dismantled bit by bit. So with regard to the military, they destroyed our arguments. When it came to welfare, give-aways, k-12th grade education, our universities, and a whole slew of issues that contribute to what our nation is or will soon be, they destroyed our arguments.
I can’t approach a single person and tell them we are better when it comes to these issues, because anyone with half a brain can think of one recent Republican leader who makes me look like a liar.
You see, you and I know what the truth is. We know what our inner core is, or rather should be. The people we are trying to get to join us often times don’t. They have been told their entire lives we are just lying when we loft certain preferences, and our recent leaders have proven that to be true for all practical purposes.
Like many people here, I have been a Republican my whole life. Today I remain a registered Republican. Am I a Republican? Well, if we’re judging by leadership, the answer is an unequivocal no. I don’t embrace what the leadership is doing. It’s gone completely off the rails. It used to be said that the Republican Party was just the Democrat Party lite. Now, I’m not buying into that description any longer.
Our leaders are perfectly fine with slashing our military. They are fine with massive spending. They are fine with seeing our nation be turned into a Mexican enclave. The illegal immigration problems don’t just affect California and other border states. Washington, D. C. and other places far from the border have felt its effects. And yet, my supposed leaders see no problem at all with seeing our Forefather’s influence abandoned here, while freeloaders swamp us and impose their own will on us. So in many ways, the Republican Party isn’t the Democrat Party lite. It is the Democrat Party on issue after issue.
My state is probably a pretty good example of what has gone wrong, because of its current population mix. The rank and file Republican in the state is generally a good Conservative. The leadership is not. California languishes because of the inability to loft and support a good Conservative Candidate. The leadership will not authorize support. The rank and file can locate and support good people, but when the campaign comes, the Conservative will have to win the election being outspent by 10 to 1. It’s not just the expenses that count either. The leadership doesn’t bring out the big guns, the party leadership, to support our local or state-wide candidates. In comparison, the Left plays every card in their hand, as national party leaders and state leaders, movers and shakers contribute as a team. Our team doesn’t. It’s as simple as that!
Nationally, it’s the same problem. The RNC quietly lets it be known who they will support. The cream of the crop donors are quietly told who the leadership supports, and the coffers of those candidates swell, while the coffers of the good Conservatives remain sparsely funded.
I feel sorry for people who have been in the party for 30, 40, 50 years or more. They have a loyalty to the party. I can understand that. They believe the party can be brought back on course. I wish it were true. I remain very skeptical that can happen.
Over the years, I have had to ask myself what has really taken place in the party. There was a day when we were clearly anti-Socialist, and anti-Communist. Over time I have seen our party morph to the point that it doesn’t mind severe examples of Socialism at all. When it comes to their approach to health care, it seems they don’t mind a single payer program at all. I say this because that’s where we are headed, and you don’t hear much of anything in objection to it. Obamacare is pure unadulterated Communism.
It won’t simply be a Socialistic approach. It will be a Communistic approach. The state will be providing all health care in our nation. There won’t be the slightest hint of Free Enterprise in the whole system. There will be no competition. The state will decide all medical decisions. And let us remember, Romneycare was the only alternative in 2012. Romney was not trying to do away with the government involvement in health care. The Republican policy was for all intents and purposes, the same policy as the Left’s policy, just with a different name. It was a Communistic approach.
So what is there to support? In the long string of presidents since the 1960s, who was our champion? I would say Ronald Reagan. I believe the party was more Left of him in his day. The party as it exists today makes just about everyone look like a Reagan, but we know that not to be true.
Bush Sr. wasn’t. Dole wasn’t. Bush Jr. wasn’t. McCain wasn’t. Romney wasn’t.
So while we all wish the Republican Party would wake up and realize what we all know to be true, at the end of the day that’s all it remains to be, very sincere wishes and very sincere sorrow.
Our nation is dying. While we remain hopeful and supportive of the only party we’ve been a part of, it’s loyalty to us, and more importantly our Founders and Founding Documents, is non-existent.
In race after race across this nation, the RNC withdraws its support. It withdrew from California a little less than 20 years ago. Now it is withdrawing from races in the heart of the Eastern States. One candidate who nearly won received no funding from the RNC, while Chris Christie who won by a large margin received considerably more than he needed.
The leadership is surrendering states, while we are inclined to remain loyal out here, hoping for a change back to the right. How does that change occur, if our leadership abandons true Conservatives when they run? What does it take for us to realize they want no part of us and no part of what we believe to be true?
I don’t care if you call them Tea Party members, Conservatives, or simply loyalist Republicans who hold out hope for the party, they are being shunned. They are being ignored. They are being disrespected. They are being called terrorists by some, and our leadership won’t even defend us against that. In fact some of the Republican leaders agree with these slanders.
Ronald Reagan himself explained it best. Paraphrased: “People ask me how I could leave the party of my family, the one I grew up in, the one that I championed, the one that I was loyal to for decades. My answer is that I did not leave my party. My party left me.”
Our party has left us. I was decades behind the curve as it did. I was in denial. I would not accept that the party was changing forever. I thought those were mere anomalies over time. I was wrong. They were indications of where our ship of state was headed (as a party). We have run aground. The sad thing is, we have already been tugged back out to sea by Ronald Reagan. And now we have run aground again.
All I know for sure at this point, is that our current captains are incapable of doing what is right. They’ll run us over the shoals again and again. If the left doesn’t sink our nation under the Democrat banner, they will under the Republican one.
This is not working. Our political machinery is broken.
Those that chose to attack Mormons are idiots. Mormons don’t believe the same things Christians do. Neither does the Jewish Religion. Catholics don’t believe the same as other Christians. So yes, we can bog down and make a big deal of it. The fact is, for the health of our nation, we judge how it is run, not on religion, but on sound economic and political tenets. These are tenets that a person of any religion can support, if they understand them and favor them.
Folks who go after the Mormons are losers. They don’t belong here. They are doing the Left’s, the Internationalist’s, the United Nation’s, the Democrat’s bidding here, when they behave as they do.
They would ostracize the Mormons as the Germans ostracized the Jews. What’s even worse, is when they advance their tenets to ostracize, they damage the reputation and credentials of the Conservative cause. They make Conservatism look like a branch of the KKK. And whether that’s their plan or not, the outcome is the same. Conservatism is hollowed out once more, so nobody will listen to Conservatives.
I wish to turn this nation back into Ronald Reagan’s America. I do not want to turn it into Adolph Hitler’s idea of America.
We should pull together. We should not look for false problems. We should look for people who share our views and cause. We should join them, to turn this nation around.
If we keep focusing on the wrong issues, those that separate us falsely, our nation is doomed.
Whatever route we take from here, it must be one that is not predicated on waiting and hoping.
It is time to take a stand against the status quo, that being anything other than our founding principles.
Our Founders did not seek to splinter the colonies based on religious differences. So the actions we take today must also avoid that. If we truly value our Founders and the Founding Documents, then we need to follow their lead.
Those men did not falter. They did not accept that in time King George might be reasoned with.
They took a stand. They didn’t leave King George. King George left them.
To the healing of our nation, I swear my allegiance.
There has never been a better group of Founders. There has never been a better group of Founding Principles and Documents since God plan was rejected.
I suggest we take our Founder’s lead to heart, and champion our shared cause, the same today as it was on July 4th, 1776. We do not seek a new nation today, but we do seek the nation that was laid out for us those many years ago.
Those that do not…, those are our political enemies.
It is up to each of us individually to reason if the Republican Party agrees to return to the Founding Principles. No matter what our belief or wishes are, the outcome of the party’s actions will be the same.
We must come to terms with what is taking place. We haven’t left our party…
Your words are passionate and Patriot driven......they resonate with me, I hope they resonate with others here.
We must stand together
Thank you Guenevere. I appreciate your response.
“We must come to terms with what is taking place. “
Very much so. And I agree with the vast majority of what you wrote...and for the same reasons. But unfortunately a portion of the right doesn’t want to. They are in the denial stage of the grief process and they have been stuck there.
Now it isn’t unreasonable to think “Well, they’ll get over it”. The problem is they aren’t satisfied grieving for their loss. They are intent on stopping the rest of us from doing what needs to be done...namely, removing problem RINOS from office.
Now while they may enjoy playing their little games, I don’t. And I sorta doubt many people do. The proof of which being the fact that so many people who trashed so called ‘purists’ like myself for months are now sounding an awful lot like us. And stating flatly ‘Never Again.”
People who claim to support Ted Cruz have no excuse in helping keep the very people that mock him, minimize him and work to nullify his actions in power. None. There are a thousand angles you can look at this from. There is exactly no logical angle that shows how continuing to empower the party leftward leads to bore constitutional governance.
Unquestionably there is a faction of the right that must come to terms with, as you said, what is taking place. But likewise, another faction has to come to terms with the reality that the first is, like it or not, actively attempting to keep RINOS in power.
It doesn’t matter what claims are made. Nor what excuses. If Bhoner is still in office post election, he will continue doing what he does, likely moreso since he will have the confidence that comes with having the mandate of a victorious election. The same applies to ANY RINO. And since their big issue votes and/or policies are exactly those of the Democrats, it means we lose, America loses either way.
Now the Butthurt brigade can cry about ‘wolfpacks’ and threaten hellfire and damnation till the cows come home. What no one sees on this or any other thread is a single one of them willing, much less able to refute the facts and points several of us have made.
So at what point do ‘we’ collectively accept that these people, regardless of what they claim to be doing, are in fact perpetuating the problem to America’s detriment?
No one wants to repeat the whole brother against brother bit. But the reality is that some of us don’t share parents.
+We are, increasingly, fighting a rear guard action. There is substantial confusion and misrepresentation in all the efforts to bring about change.
I agree we cannot stand with traitors who have assumed positions that will keep them in power as the republic is destroyed. We face a long twilight of struggle. Let us not be so jaded as to assume our effort is worthless. We are able to keep the faith and pursue our goals until they are achiieved.
IOW damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.
This is an essay worthy of its own thread, in the Freeper Editorial section.
“Class of 1998. Now there are hardly any members from that Class of 98 left here.”
Sure there are, we’re just older and occupied with life far
more than we are with perpetuating an old argument and beating already dead dogs.
Didn’t do me much good to vote for Mitt, I wouldn’t do other than p on Mcain no matter the justification.
Yeah, I be a libertarian!
It’s my right to own a nuke, and an F16. It’s my obligation to stay out of my neighbors yard and bedroom. Spark it up if you wish and I’ll help scrape the junkies off of the sidewalk.
Blind obligation to vote for the accepted GOP candidate aint
on my playlist.
BTTT
Yes it is....good idea
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.