Posted on 05/17/2006 7:47:58 AM PDT by Pukin Dog
Edited on 05/17/2006 8:30:59 AM PDT by Lead Moderator. [history]
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." – Abraham Lincoln, 1858
It is getting somewhat strange around these parts when not only the President, but yesterday the First Lady was personally attacked by someone claiming to be a ‘Conservative’. Can there be any doubt that there are forces among us looking to drive a wedge between us?
A few weeks ago, this forum’s owner attempted to remind all of us of the big picture, that regardless of any personal animosity towards the President or Republican Party over their adherence to Conservative principles, that they are still a clear choice over the alternative Democrat Party rule. At that time, I assumed that FReeper-sanity had been restored, and that some of the negative rhetoric aimed at those in Washington D.C. would be dialed back.
Free Republic is a political forum with a proud history and vision, responsible for dragging Dan Rather from his post, and providing countless radio-talk shows with their daily talking points. FReepers are unique in their determination and energy towards protecting and defending the goals of our Founding Fathers.
We are also quite a powder keg of emotion and anticipation, expecting our Republican majorities to take advantage of this opportunity to make permanent gains in our Conservative agenda. Some might argue that this opportunity has been squandered, but those persons would be ignorant of history, lacking understanding that change cannot occur overnight in Washington, and that this is the way our Founders designed our Republic.
In frustration, impatience, and ignorance, we have allowed this forum to become a haven for those who do not share our Conservative goals. I do not blame our enemies anymore then I would blame a scorpion for stinging me. If anger and stupidity were one’s nature, I would expect the trolls that infect this forum to be angry and stupid consistently, which also makes them somewhat easy to detect.
The trolls are not the problem, though. The problem is that so many of us are allowing ourselves to be taken in by those who seek only to prevent us from going to the polls in November to keep their stinking hands off our government for another term. There can be no doubt, that no matter how disappointing our current government has been in promoting the Conservative agenda, that the alternative, enabled by our staying home will be MUCH worse.
The way to deal with Republicans who have actively worked against our goals is to defeat them in Primary elections. We do not even have to defeat them all, only enough of them to send the message that we will indeed target them if they work against our agenda. It should be the goal of EVERY conservative to see that Lincoln Chaffee is defeated in November. His seat is one we can afford to lose. Were I a Rhode Island resident, I would vote for the Democrat if only to send a message to Snowe, Hagel, Collins, Graham, and especially that bastard Specter that their primaries just got a lot tougher.
We only need to get one of them, and Chaffee is the one to get. It does not really matter if a Democrat takes his seat; he will be junior and mute as long as we maintain our overall majority in the Senate.
The one thing that bothers me here like nothing else, is the simple disrespect of the President. Am I am Bush-Bot? Damn straight I am. If you want to know why, click on my handle to read Southack’s excellent list of Bush’s accomplishments in office. But if Bush had done almost nothing in office, it would be no excuse for some of the slights and disrespect he has received from some of us on this forum.
Some of the things I have read here this past week match in tone what one can find on our favorite Democrat sewer site. Someone calling himself or herself a FReeper was promoting shooting aliens at the border until they stopped coming. Is that what we are about? Obviously not, and that so-called Conservative has been eliminated from this forum.
I think it is important to remember that you and I have just as much responsibility as George Bush does in changing our culture to better reflect Conservative values. Right now, this very moment, Conservatives have the government they deserve. We put them there. They are not our mommies and daddies sent out to bring home our Conservative bread. That responsibility lies with all of us. These Republicans represent us, they don’t serve us. Our job is to pick the best individual and send him/her to Washington in the hope that their CHARACTER will see them through.
This is why it is such a nutty thing to consider punishing the Republican party, when we should be letting them know that we’ve got their back, but if they cant do the job, we will replace them with ANOTHER Republican, instead of handing the reigns of government to the party of anger, hopelessness and despair. We sometimes like to think that those people we send to Washington are different from us, that they are capable of meeting our every need and desire.
I want every one of you to think about what you would consider to be your perfect mate. Maybe some of you think you have found that person. If you are married and totally in love with another person, that is great. Now I want to ask you to think about the last time that person you love, who is PERFECT for you, completely pissed you off. Remember, this is your perfect mate, your one true love. Do they do everything you want them to do? Obey your every desire? If you answer yes, I am going to put you on my troll list.
Those people in Washington do not even cut your lawn, yet you expect perfection. Get over it.
I am issuing a challenge to every person who considers him or her to be a Conservative; why don’t we all commit to a return to HONOR? Do we honor our Conservative agenda when we comport ourselves in disgraceful ways? Is it an honorable thing to suggest that our President is a moron, as I read here a few days ago? Is it honorable to attack Laura Bush or any other person representing true Conservative values?
Some of you might argue that George Bush is not representing Conservative values to your liking. I would remind you that the first thing Bush said upon taking office, is that he was going to be President of ALL the people, not just some. You know that if you followed Bush from the beginning that he campaigned of the very immigration platform he is defending right now. Did you vote for him? Yeah?
If you have ever had a steak at a Ruth’s Chris restaurant, you know that sometimes they bring that wonderful steak to your table with a sprig of parsley on it. I hate parsley. Hate it. If I were to treat my steak the way some of us want to treat our President, I would have to throw out the steak, due to that nasty parsley that comes with it. I can deal with the parsley to get the steak, and that is what I am asking FReepers to do.
Expecting perfection from any person, group or team is a recipe for disaster. George W. Bush is my president. You can disagree with him, you can blame him for your problems if that is your desire. If you disrespect his office, his service, his risking his life to be with our troops in Iraq, his steadfast desire to bring a new tone to Washington, or if you just like the way he keeps Democrats so pissed off they lose their minds on a regular basis, I ask you to treat him and his wife with respect and cut the personal attacks. If you call him ‘Shrub’ or ‘Jorge’ consider yourself my enemy.
Right now, our real enemy are the Main Stream Media, the Democrat Party, and all who follow and support them. If you want to jump-ugly on someone, why not start with those leaky bastards and give our side a break?
Do it for Pukin.
I knew that you could.
The analogy is interesting, but a comprehensive plan addresses the border security as well. What is different, is the "guest worker program" and that is where we are at a impasse.
We both concur that increased border security is critical to the process.
It is my sincere belief that if we do not do the rest of it, the border security will only help to control drugs, terrorist incursions and the like. It will not solve the illegal immigration situation, and will only delay the inevitable and frustrate the situation of some 12 million people and their extended families, numbering some 30-35 million more....(just plucked that from my estimate bin)
This is a huge problem Dirt Guy, and simplifying it does not help to solve it.
"I've got a date with some Largemouth Bass."
Very disturbing mental image.
>>I'd say there are no hard and fast rules concerning a particular freepers political belief system. I'm amazed at times the freepers I've found myself on the same side fighting for a particular cause. Many years we couldn't agree on anything.
I can say for sure just keep freeping gondramB, if it doesn't make you battle hardened it'll definately educate you in some area.<<
Its every day... I learn something or I have to adjust my view on something in light of new information.
And that's an excellent point about an individual's belief system. If the people who criticize conservatives without knowing conservatives would spend some time here they would realize how diverse this group is.
Even more so, if you consider that I am only interested in the really fat ones.
I agree entirely. And I am not trying to simplify it. However, IMO, Bush needs to table his guest worker/amnesty proposals until such time that we have security improved in all the areas you cited. That, IMO, is the one place this debate can be simplified.
Ah, but I found some of the soundytes (and textbytes) about Miers to be sexist before it was ever mentioned publically by the administration (I'm a woman). There HAVE been some extremely racist statements made by what I prefer to believe is the moonbat segments of the close-the-border crowd and that has to be denounced because A:) it's wrong, B:) they're making Mainstream America look bad.
Racism and sexism existed before the left hijacked the terms for use as a political club. It's not President Bush's fault that the left has worn so many terms so thin by terminal overusage. The administration was, in the two cases you cited, calling a spade a spade, not playing Democrat games.
I have the oddest feeling that when the border issue loses the Senate because REpublicans stayed home or voted D in "protest", the sense of immediacy regarding it will mysteriously die down...and in the end nothing will get done. Hopefully I'm just being cynical, but if I am right, then we conservatives will have played right into the Democrats' hands.
Too funny.
My husband did that a little while ago with this special box of chocolate french mints I had stashed in my office. He gobbled them up, then put rocks in the tray, so it would feel as if I still had some left. Then he left me a note asking for my forgiveness.
I have GOT to find a better hiding place...;^)
"Even more so, if you consider that I am only interested in the really fat ones."
Goin' trans-species dating, and slummin' while you're at it!
Call me "Pukin' Frog"!
BTW, if you like bass, you should beat around the marish at the edge of the lake where the bass are and club some croakers. Make the legs just like you'd make the fish.
They really believe is this, as did Reagan with his "Shining City America".
These are all long term goals, and we have all lauded them in the past for this vision.
Why is it that now it is some ulterior motive.
I'll tell you why......because someone really wants to destroy these visionary ideas by labeling them in the negative.
It is really surprising to me that so many have bought into it and are now visibly and actively participating with some very strange bedfellows to undermine what the Republican Party has stood for. A vision that has been our motto for a generation.
Please tell me you don't believe this is a "true conservative" principle. As Reagan said, "Government is not a solution to our problem. Government is the problem".
(Boy I had to do a LOT of reading to catch up! My head hurts!)
Well done. Thank you.
"If they ram it through, there may be an upheaval in this country like we've not seen since the civil war. I think the revolt will be in far more than just the republican party."
2008 looks like another one of those Anderson/Perot years, when an independent candidacy sweeps the Midwest (and perhaps California) like wildfire.
Or we could just agree to a fence and keep the GOP together now and not have to worry about that.
Are you kidding me, trying to pull this nonsense? The biggest problem with the fedgov nowadays is that it does way too much of what it shouldn't be doing and far too little of what it should be doing. That is what Reagan was referring to - unless you think his arms buildup was wrong as well (that was government, you know).
And border security is clearly a vital, enumerated function for the fedgov under the Constitution. So is legislating and controlling immigration.
"I have the oddest feeling that when the border issue loses the Senate because REpublicans stayed home or voted D in "protest", the sense of immediacy regarding it will mysteriously die down...and in the end nothing will get done. Hopefully I'm just being cynical, but if I am right, then we conservatives will have played right into the Democrats' hands."
Then let's not go down that road, and agree to put up a sea-to-sea fence. Then the issue really WILL die down.
Sorry, but Bush is doing the undermining here - unless you think counting on near-total Dem support to pass his immigration agenda is somehow representative of what the Republican Party stands for.
This is precisely why it is so dangerous to encourage any attacks upon the GOP. While it may not be perfect outside the GOP is only varying degrees of insanity.
The wave of madness sweeping the FR over Illegals is as dangerous a threat to this site as has ever occurred. And this site is the biggest problem the radical left has. If it is compromised and made ineffective by the Ultras this nation is in for very heavy weather.
"It all rides on what comes out of conference. In this example of immigration reform the ball rests with Congress and W was proper to state as such in his speech."
This is true, it does lie with Congress.
But the President is the leader of the Party, and the President's stance backs McCain and the guest-worker faction in the GOP, which is the lethal minority here.
Probably, the result will be no agreement.
The House Republicans aren't going to accept amnesty or guest worker.
The Senate probably won't accept anything without it.
So, we will have status quo...which is an uncontrolled, open border.
And the BorderBots will stay home.
We so needed the President to shape the issue differently.
But he didn't, and he won't.
The will isn't there, in the Senate, to work against the President, although it is true that nothing quite focuses the mind like the approach of the executioner, so there's always a possibility the Senate could agree to a very robust sea-to-sea barrier and postpone talk about guest worker awaiting some new commission report.
Well, I know that actually. It's a Republican issue, which the conservative base is happily tearing down the whole party over, while being cheered by Democrats, with the end result that nothing will every really get done.
Also, they may have been afraid of being Waco-ed by the Clintonistas if they tried massive protests or volunteer organizations patrolling the border.
It doesn't change the fact that the problem also exicted under a Democrat administration and nothing ever got done.
My goal is to see something get done.
That is exactly what some of the loudest detractors of the president's attempts to control the border want: a hermetically sealed society. If you believe such a thing is not only impossible (it's been tried) but hurtful to our country both socially and economically, you are an evil globalist.
They are the all or nothing crowd. They demand all or nothing and get nothing. The rest of us lose.
"My goal is to see something get done."
Mine is to win in 2006.
To do that, the Republican Establishment has to visibly make a major concession to the Border Conservatives. Bush's speech was a finger in their eye to go along with what McCain/Kennedy are trying to do in the Senate.
The only way to split the baby is to change the wording on the Fence proposal. The President talked about border enforcement, but then he went out of his way to propose weak measures that BorderBots DON'T want, to avoid giving them what they DO want, which is a sea-to-sea Israeli-style fence. That's the most doable thing.
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