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The Problem is not conservatism, but conservatives who aren’t conservative
PajamasMedia ^ | 5/16/08 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 05/18/2008 5:15:21 PM PDT by Dawnsblood

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Can we just vote this word for word as the GOP platform at the convention please? Maybe then even McCain, will understand?
1 posted on 05/18/2008 5:15:21 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
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To: Dawnsblood

Sorry, Victor. The problem is that the country has gone too far Left. This is due to a number of things: multiculturalism, moral relavitism, the decline of religion, leftist hijacking of the educational system, creeping socialism, and rampant materialism. Most Americans now think that all their problems can be solved by big government. Everyone wants their entitlements, earmarks, and assorted free stuff—no one cares what the real cost is or how we will pay for it. Sadly, to these people, Barack Obama REALLY IS the savior. Are the Dems mostly to blame? Yes—but the RINOs and GWB are just as guilty.

I am convinced the only thing that can change this is a total breakdown of the system—another great Depression or worse. No one wants that, but eventually, that is the dead end that this whole liberal parade is heading toward.


2 posted on 05/18/2008 5:23:29 PM PDT by rbg81 (DRAIN THE SWAMP!!)
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To: Dawnsblood

Neutered conservatives are the GOPs biggest problems.

The old “dimes worth a difference” cliche is truer than ever lately.

I may vote Barr as a protest vote.


3 posted on 05/18/2008 5:26:13 PM PDT by Ron in Acreage (McCain or Obama-Either way we get amnesty for illegals)
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To: Dawnsblood

btt


4 posted on 05/18/2008 5:27:14 PM PDT by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: Ron in Acreage
Neutered conservatives are the GOPs biggest problems.

Like the folks who will inevitably screech that you're voting for Obama if you don't vote for McCain. I'm writing in Duncan Hunter BTW.
5 posted on 05/18/2008 5:33:25 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Voting CONSERVATIVE in memory of 5 children killed by illegals 2/17/08 and 2/19/ 08)
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To: Dawnsblood

You forgot get off foreign oil so the Saudi influence is diminished.


6 posted on 05/18/2008 5:33:46 PM PDT by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys--Reagan and Bush)
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To: Dawnsblood
They forgot who they were and can’t explain what they might be.

Who is "they"? Some people have this insufficient notion that the problem is "them". And that if "they" would only get their act together that would solve the problem.

That is NOT the root problem. The root problem is the voters. It's true that effective leadership can convert voters but that cannot be relied upon unless you have an army of "Reagans" and we don't and never will. Also - personalities and people come and go. So the problem is not solely with "them" but also with "us" - the voters. We have to find ways to educate the voters on the merits of conservatism so that a majority of voters themselves want to elect more conservatives.

7 posted on 05/18/2008 5:37:17 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: Ron in Acreage

On Fox News tonight the panel had two major statements.
1. The three Democratic wins in the special elections were because they ran on the Republican platform, i.e., lower taxes, less government, more accountability, etc.
2. For the Republicans to win in November they must run on the Democratic platform, i.e., more taxes, more entitlements, more spending, etc.

So how can you win with that kind of attitude? Wouldn’t it have been better if they were to have said the Republicans would win if they ran on the Republican platform?

I am deciding not to vote for ANY incumbent at any level.


8 posted on 05/18/2008 5:44:02 PM PDT by ProudFossil
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To: Dawnsblood

Conservatives are a small percentage of the population, hence our electoral impotence. The media and public education have teamed up to minimize the number of future conservatives. More’s the pity, but there it is.


9 posted on 05/18/2008 5:44:09 PM PDT by gorush (Exterminate the Moops!)
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To: rbg81

I too am pessimistic about the future ever more leftist and socialist America. How bad can it get? East Germany or Cuba are examples. We conservatives seem to be a less than a quarter, perhaps less than ten percent of the electorate. We and America are screwed.


10 posted on 05/18/2008 5:46:42 PM PDT by Solitar ("My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them." -- Barry Goldwater)
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To: plain talk

The voters handed it all to the Republicans in 1994:

Excerpt:

Republican Revolution

The Republican Revolution of 1994 is what the Republican Party of the United States dubbed their success in the 1994 U.S. midterm elections, which resulted in a net gain of 54 seats in the House of Representatives, and a pickup of eight seats in the Senate. The day after the election, Democratic Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama changed parties, becoming a Republican.

The gains in seats in the mid-term election resulted in the Republicans gaining control of both the House and the Senate in January 1995. Republicans had not held the majority in the House for forty years, since the 83rd Congress (elected in 1952) under Republican Speaker Joseph William Martin, Jr..

Large Republican gains were made in statehouses as well when the GOP picked up twelve governor seats and 472 legislative seats. In so doing, it took control of 20 state legislatures from the Democrats. Prior to this, Republican had not held the majority of governorships since 1972. In addition, this was the first time in 50 years that the GOP controlled a majority of state legislatures. (snip)


11 posted on 05/18/2008 5:52:59 PM PDT by donna ("Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.")
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To: Ron in Acreage

This should be the platform of the new National Conservative Party—it sure will not be picked up by the present Republicans—or if they do it will only be lip service.


12 posted on 05/18/2008 5:57:58 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: Dawnsblood

Conservatisms greatest weakness is that it is stuck with the Republican party. If conservatives want to win in the long term, then they must make a concerted effort to infiltrate the Democrat party with conservative candidates.

This would take people with great intestinal fortitude, willing to pretend to be liberals for 20 years or more, until they had built sufficient numbers to hold their own ground in that party. Until that time, their purpose would be a delaying action, not to advance the conservative agenda and unmask themselves, but to prevent ultra liberals from destroying the country.

And I am very literal in this. They would have to play the liberals game, up to the very point where it endangered the security of the United States.

Such things could be in the near term, such as abandoning the national missile defense, or surrendering to an enemy or giving national sovereignty to a foreign power or the UN.

In the mid-term, it could mean derailing unconscionable treaties, preventing economic policies that could cause a depression, or the passing of some bizarre constitutional amendment.

Hoping to save the United States at the ballot box alone is asking for disaster. The Republicans alone cannot prevent a radical leftist Democrat Presidency or Congress, and having had two serious national disasters, Carter and Clinton, conservatives should act to prevent a catastrophe.

But to achieve the goal of infiltrating the Democrat party with conservatives would be a double victory for conservatives.

No longer would they be compelled to support a liberal RINO as the lesser of two evils. And they would be able to play the two parties against each other for the conservative agenda.

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are conservatives would make the best choice, as they would stand a much better chance of getting elected most anywhere but a Moonbat city.

And by pretending to be liberals, they might even get the support of the Democrat party in running against a liberal Republican.


13 posted on 05/18/2008 5:58:27 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: Dawnsblood
Let me stick a little pin into this bubble of funk that seems to have expanded over the conservatives of the country (and VDH is certainly that albeit a lifetime Democrat). Look, folks, we don't have a candidate for President this time around. We lost this one. It happens. For better or worse we have what we have to work with, and the glory of a representative government is that we can work with it.

A lot of Republicans are looking at this as if it were the coming of the Four Horsemen (not the rasslin' guys, the Revelation guys). Put yourself in the place of a real Democrat for a moment - you know, an old-time Hubert Humphrey, Harry Truman Dem who has watched his party being systematically subverted, inverted, and perverted. A Victor Davis Hanson. How lonely is that? Yes, something like that has happened to the Republicans. No small government. No balanced budget. No skepticism toward environmental hoaxes. No proper differentiation between legal immigration and alien invasion. No resistance to the multicultural nonsense that has so enervated our universities, corporations, and government. No fury at the methodical deconstruction of a culture that has given the deconstructors so much, including the freedom to deconstruct. That's all been sidelined, marginalized.

A pretty ugly picture, yes? Yes, it is. There is a failure at the top, and I do not except George Bush, however I admire his grit. The remedy must come from the bottom. That's us. It's our charge. This needs to come up from the grassroots because it's certainly nowhere to be found at the - should I really call the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, and John McCain the "heights"? I think not.

What we can do - get involved locally first. A school lien "for the children" that contains funding for environmental hokum and multicultural mind control needs to be defeated. County assessors who raise property taxes on the same basis need to be defeated, and told why they're being defeated. School boards convinced the the children need to be molded into some weird New Age ideal citizenry whether they want it or not need to be shown the door. State representatives, Governors - these people need to be forcibly reminded that the unstoppable progress of history toward some millenarian goal is not only false but unacceptable to the people paying for it and their salaries too.

This is within reach of the average outraged citizen. We don't have the millions - no, the hundreds of millions - to elect a candidate for President. This time around there's nobody to give our conservative pennies to anyway to make up those hundreds of millions. So don't.

We need to pick our fights where we can win them and do so. What we don't need to do is give up. And we really don't need to believe the manipulative garbage foisted on us by mediots who aren't smart enough to tip their valet parkers so their hubcaps don't get ripped off while they're schmoozing with The Great. The Great...aren't. And the mediots aren't either. And all that reflected glory counts toward the progress of the country as the yapping dog out in front of a parade who's convinced himself he's leading it.

14 posted on 05/18/2008 5:59:55 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Dawnsblood

“Mutiny at the Convention: The Last, Best Hope for Conservatives in ‘08”

Organizing a mutiny at the grassroots level shouldn’t be all that hard to jumpstart.

I don’t know how it is in other states, but in Tennessee, the names of the delegates were on the primary ballot under each candidate’s name. A lot of those name are familiar, as I am sure they are for others in each state.

The starting point would be to CONTACT THOSE PEOPLE...EN MASSE...and let them know how you feel. If there are mass abstentions on the first ballot at the Convention, McCain won’t get the votes he needs.

What I’m getting at here is to do what it takes to GET THE NOMINATION PROCESS TO THE SECOND BALLOT. If that could happen, then all bets are off, a “raucus caucus” ensues and the true fight for the “heart and soul” of the GOP can really begin.

It’s not impossible. We know who our delgates are...CONTACT THEM.


15 posted on 05/18/2008 6:09:47 PM PDT by TheRobb7 (Mutiny at the Convention: The Last, Best Hope for Conservatives in '08)
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To: Dawnsblood
Can we just vote this word for word as the GOP platform at the convention please? Maybe then even McCain, will understand?Pure delusion.

This country is done.

I realized that sometime after the Repblicans somehow got control of th House in 1994, the Senate shortly thereafer, the Presidency for the past 8 years, and then didn't do anything about it.

16 posted on 05/18/2008 6:14:46 PM PDT by elkfersupper
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To: donna

So your answer is sit back and wait for some “1994” event? And what was the event before that? 40 backs before? That is exactly one of the largest problems we have is in that sort of naive “hail Mary” type thinking.


17 posted on 05/18/2008 6:20:09 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: Ron in Acreage
I may vote Barr as a protest vote.

Then don't get pi$$ed when Obama or Her Heinous push their Socialist agenda, and get it passed, because you will have helped enable it, just like the Ross Perot voters did in 1992.

18 posted on 05/18/2008 6:24:18 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: rbg81
I am convinced the only thing that can change this is a total breakdown of the system—another great Depression or worse. No one wants that, but eventually, that is the dead end that this whole liberal parade is heading toward.

Yep, may end up being another Revolutionary War.

19 posted on 05/18/2008 6:26:59 PM PDT by DTogo (I haven't left the GOP, the GOP left me.)
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To: cripplecreek

Chuck Baldwin is probably the closest to Duncan Hunter in political philosophy, the stance against Iraq notwithstanding, and he’s actually running.


20 posted on 05/18/2008 6:32:59 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (To the liberal, there's no sacrifice too big for somebody else to make. --FReeper popdonnelly)
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