Posted on 10/18/2011 8:36:24 AM PDT by Vintage Freeper
"It is remarkable to see how relatively numerous in declining empires are the people capable of making the right diagnosis and preaching some sensible cure. It is no less remarkable, however, that wise utterances remain generally sterile, because, as Gonazles de Cellorigo forcefully put it while watching impotently the decline of Spain, "those who can, will not; and those who will, cannot." Carlo M. Cipolla: "The Decline of Empires"
The Red Shift
In the 1920's, Edwin Hubble, while studying the stars of distant galaxies, found that for some, their emission spectra had peaks at 411.54 nm, 435.50 nm, 487.75 nm, and 658.47 nm. Hubble knew that these wavelengths did not correspond to any known element and that it was not likely that a combination of other elements or molecules was responsible. He did notice that these spectral lines corresponded to hydrogen's emission spectra except that they were all 0.0033 percent longer in wavelength than they should have been for a hydrogen spectra. Hubble deduced that this red-shift must be because of a Doppler effect. His calculations showed that these galaxies must be moving away from earth at 1 x 106 m/s (one million meters per second)! Courtesy PBS.org
In 65 years of persistent and diligent effort, I have succeeded only once in converting a liberal Democrat into a conservative Republican. I had the privilege of watching it once in medical school when a classmate figured it out based only on his own life experiences. Nobody, maybe not even God and certainly not Democrats, knows how to make people be safe or to protect them from themselves. Neither the word, nor the concept of insurance, appear in the Constitution. People not willing to protect themselves cannot be protected. Charity is the voluntary act of offering support or voluntarily offering a hand up; socialism is about using government power to promise support or a hand out and in more recent cases as is to be expected in democracies, has become the demanding of support or hand outs. If you look closely, socialism is not actually designed as a safety net or even intended to make people safe; socialism is designed to turn people toward dependency which in turn encourages (requires) them to vote for career politicians who create and expand socialistic programs. Democrats introduced socialism to America; Democrats are still the problem and will not be any part of the solution. The Gokhale-Smetters clock precludes educational reforms that would require generations to bring about effective results. Self-evident, but worth repeating in order to avoid the ever-present temptation of considering compromises; limiting, and then ending socialism requires that the Democrats and other "professional" politicians be defeated.
No third party, not even one with Ronald Reagan as their standard bearer, could form a governing Congressional coalition capable of defeating the Democrats before the Gokhale-Smetters clock runs out. Only Republicans can defeat enough Democrats to end socialism. It is the Republican Party that the Reagan Wing is going to divide and conquer. Instead of the big tent that welcomes Rockefeller Republicans and other RINO's (republicans-in-name-only), Republicans not willing to adopt the Contract with Congress are going to become the target of the Reagan Wing of the Republican Party. Not content to simply push the RINO's overboard, the Reagan Wing will be the sharks in the water looking for blood.
Nature abhors a vacuum and moderates lacking conviction love company. We will talk more about our Reagan Wing Republicans in a moment, but for now consider them analogous to the 1994 Republican Freshmen. The first time one of our Reagan Wing Republicans defeats a targeted RINO, surviving RINO's will break into a cold sweat. The second RINO defeated by the Reagan Wing will create a vacuum between conservative Republicans and moderates. As long as the sharks are circling, it will be the moderates that shift quickly to the right. The task of the Reagan Wing is to move the entire Republican Party substantially to the right. As long as there is blood in the water, it will not take the defeat of many moderates to make a major difference. The first movement of the Reagan Wing's Red Shift will be to make the Red States even redder.
The renaissance plan outline is simple and straight forward. It has a reasonable chance of success. The risk of failure is that the plan will not be tried. Ronald Reagan said, "We have come to a time for choosing; we will preserve for our children this the last best hope for man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.....history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening." Compare Reagan's words, "..history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening," with the quote at the top of the page, "those who can, will not; and those who will, cannot."
The Koch brothers and conservative talk show hosts can change the composition of Congress, but don't know how to do it. Our small group who developed the plan knows how to change the composition of Congress, but can't do it alone. Freepers and Free Republic provide the forum where this knowledge can be shared with those who have the ability and hopefully united into a common plan of action. Hubble's Red Shift changed how we see the universe. Our Red Shift can change how Americans live their lives. Free Republic can sit on the sidelines allowing the Blue States to preserve their political power or Free Republic can become the key to making the Red Shift and the renaissance it will foster a reality.
By changing a few details in how we elect the members of Congress, what works for defeating one incumbent can be repeated hundreds of times. And in only a few election cycles, WE the people can change the entire United States Congress. And our new Congress can change the entire body of bad US law that has been accumulating for two centuries. It is this "HOUSE" cleaning that can make an American Renaissance possible. It is just as true today as it was in 1776 when Thomas Paine said,
Ping.
I don’t really give a damn about the “moderates” or “independents” for that matter. A “moderate” is someone who has no core beliefs or principles. They wait until they see what side the majority is in then they jump on the babdwagon. An “independent” is just someone that is telling both sides that they are for sale to whoever will do the most for them. An “independent”, like the “moderate” has no core beliefs or principles either. In time of crises,neither can be depended on and both will stab you in the back at first opportunity.
Liberalism is a form of perpetual adolescence that our society is more and more willing to tolerate.
Sadly, this is exceedingly accurate, and the reason Republicans routinely snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory.
It's pretty hard to win when your troops are full of backstabbing RINO traitors.
I do.
Recommended viewing ... Sarah Palin's movie,"The Undefeated," and realize that her first fight is against established Republicans.
Interesting, but wrong. At non-relativistic speeds, the percentage change in wavelength is equal to the object's speed divided by the speed of light. Thus galaxy receding at 1,000,000 m/s would have a shift of 1,000,000/300,000,000 = 0.0033 or 0.33%. PBS was off by a factor of 100.
Bull I’m an independent who holds many of the same core beliefs as others on this site - I just refuse to kowtow to a party that has screwed us every time they get in power just to say I’m conservative - which Republicans haven’t always been.
I think an important lesson can be learned from how a single woman saved an empire, and the rather peculiar parallels that exist with America today.
In the 6th Century, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, ruled over by a wise administrator, Justinian I, and his Queen Theodora, who had been a commoner with street smarts before she became queen.
Constantinople had four political factions, which were also somewhat sports teams and gangs, each of which had a representational color: the blues, the reds, the greens and the whites. Today, I suppose these colors would represent the Democrat party, the Republican party, the radical left and the conservative right, respectively.
Justinian tended to support the blues, but after a major chariot race, some of the leaders of the blues and greens went on a rampage and were arrested for murder. The arrests enraged these two factions, who started riots with the intent of overthrowing the emperor and his queen, called the Nika riots. They soon had killed hundreds.
Likewise, the senators from these two factions, the blues and the greens, decided to use the opportunity to betray their emperor as well, wanting to proclaim another emperor in his place.
At first terrified, Justinian planned to flee the city, but Theodora put her foot down and refused. She was made of sterner stuff. So the two conceived a plan.
With the confidence of only a trusted, non-partisan eunuch, and two generals, the eunuch was sent with a bag of gold into the hippodrome where the blues and the greens were planning to crown a new emperor. The eunuch gave the gold to the leaders of the blues, and reminded them that Justinian had always favored them.
They got the message, and as a group, the blues stood up and left the stadium. Then the two generals, who had brought their armies with them, surrounded the stadium and proceeded to kill some 30,000 radical greens, sparing none.
While later in their reign, the Byzantine empire was rattled by the plague, which even sickened the emperor, the massacre of radicals, fanatics, freaks and ne’er-do-wells of the capital of their empire resulted in at least 200 years of peace and tranquility, with little else needed.
For her part in this, Empress Theodora was made a saint of the Orthodox church.
As a last thought, imagine how different America would be with the absence of the Moonbat left, full of radicals, freaks and ne’er-do-wells? No longer having to suffer their fanatical ideas, oppressive and irrational trouble making, and continual threats of violence and civic disorder?
If you have certain core beliefs, you are not an “independent. You are someone who knows what you believe and why you believe it. Irrespective of political party. There is a difference between Republican and Conservative and the gap widens each day.
Beliefs belong in church.
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