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To: Yashcheritsiy

We should certainly work to defeat romney and hope for a brokered convention. Although frankly that no longer seems likely.

If, as seems likely, the GOP decides to commit suicide, then somehow or other we need to unite behind a third party candidate. Or, to be more hopeful, a new second party candidate, since the GOP is determined to dump any remaining shreds of morality and common sense and go the way of the Whigs.

How to do that, I don’t know. It certainly won’t be easy. We need some trustworthy leadership. The only person I can think of to do it would be Sarah Palin, whether as organizer or as candidate (I wish!).

In any case, the libertarians among us need to realize two things.

1. No way conservatives can possibly win without a solid union of social conservatives and libertarians.

2. Also, no way that a free Republic is even possible unless a majority are willing to discipline themselves in the right way—which means to obey the basic moral laws, have stable families, do away with stuff like abortion, and return to the values that made our country great in the first place.

If anyone thinks that freedom means every man for himself, and everytone do whatever he damn well likes, then we are cooked. It’s OK if a few people on the fringes act like that, but if a majority does, then as Hobbes long ago argued, dictatorship is inevitable. If you cannot choose to do the right thing freely, then the government will do it for you—and they will have very peculiar ideas what the right thing is, as we are seeing right now.


22 posted on 04/28/2012 6:11:23 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero
We should certainly work to defeat romney and hope for a brokered convention. Although frankly that no longer seems likely.

In what way do you think we should work to defeat Romney and hope for a brokered convention? What are your thoughts on how to defeat a candidate that no longer has any real competition and will very shortly have all the delegates necessary to be the official nominee? You can just avoid the whole mental exercise if you accept that "no longer seems likely" doesn't apply anymore, "no longer possible" does.

1. No way conservatives can possibly win without a solid union of social conservatives and libertarians.

2. Also, no way that a free Republic is even possible unless a majority are willing to discipline themselves in the right way—which means to obey the basic moral laws, have stable families, do away with stuff like abortion, and return to the values that made our country great in the first place.

So let me understand this. One the one hand you are saying there is no way conservatives can win without libertarians, and in the very next sentence you are telling libertarians to....do what exactly? Drop all their social libertarian positions? That is hardly going to convince very many libertarian folks to join in your quest for unity.

I think we are just not going to win the votes of most real libertarians and it is just foolish to even try. It's a giant waste of time actually. You are offering to give up essentially nothing, yet you are asking them to give up half their agenda to join your cause - that's just not realistic and isn't going to happen. Right now, the people we want to attract into the conservative camp are right-of-center folks with some libertine leanings (which has become more and more the norm). This accounts for a lot of everyday Americans who are with us on the economic and foreign policy stuff, but lukewarm on abortion, gay rights, etc. We may get many of these folks (and keep our anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, etc, positions) if we focus on the massive debt, wasteful spending, Hussein's world wide apology tour, etc. However, turn the election into a social issue fest and start babbling about whether contraception is "not okay" or blather on about a need to crack down on porn - things that Santorum risked doing, and we lose almost all of these voters. .

Now if we reach a point where social conservatives were actually willing to give up something to attract libertarians, there might be room to deal. Keep anti-abortion, keep anti-gay marriage in exchange for dropping objections to legalized drugs, gambling and prostitution. This kinda of workable alliance might bare fruit one day, but I think it is still a long way off.

57 posted on 04/28/2012 6:49:58 PM PDT by Longbow1969
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To: Cicero

Well said, FRiend.


181 posted on 04/29/2012 5:06:59 AM PDT by jagusafr ("Write in Palin and prepare for war...")
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