I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Barry Goldwater by the end of his career in the Senate was a moderate. Today he'd be a liberal in the Republican party. The quote by him I actually like the most is "Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the nuts", and that was in 1981. Today he couldn't win a Republican primary for Senate in just about any state.
that's a common retort today. people say the same thing about Reagan. its really irrelevant. if they were as "liberal" as they were at the end of their lives as they were at the height of their power then they would not have achieved what they did.
many people think that conservatism is losing out to progressivism. i disagree. the Republican part put two consecutive weak as water candidates up against Obama and they predictably got their asses beat. but as usual, the democrats are over playing their hand and will get slaughtered next time. life is circular.
oh and this sequester nonsense is an indication of democrat fear. they need to raise taxes in order to fund run away govt growth and spending. if the House stays firm those plans won't happen and the US would have come close but didn't quite turn into California or Illinois.
Sol I've been active in the Republican party since the 80's. While I entirely agree the last two presidential candidates we put up were weak that's almost besides the point. We currently have conservative members of Congress that are losing their primary contests because they are not conservative enough for those active in the primary process and then those candidates are being slaughtered in the election. We're literally killing ourselves.
From a governance point of view we've got new members of Congress that actually don't believe politics is the art of compromise, which it is, and instead believe very strongly they need to never compromise. It's exactly why we don't have a budget deal.
We simply can't keep running people like this for office. Moreover, many don't believe in little things like science. When a feeling or belief can easily trump factual data you've lost the ability for critical thinking.
We lost because we're anti immigrant, anti brown and black people, anti gay, anti women, anti poor, anti science, etc., etc. We say we're for fiscal conservatism but 8 years of Bush shows this to be factually untrue. The average voter needs positive reasons to vote for something. I can't tell you 5 things the Republican party is for along these lines. I can easily list 10 things the Democrats for, and I disagree with all them, and that's why they're winning elections.
Sure elections are cyclical but the Democrats controlled the House for 40 straight years from 45 to 95 and 20 of 24 years before that. We're setting ourselves up to be out of power for a long time to come. The people that control most of the party at the precinct level are in large measure lunatics.
Goldwater saw the writing on the wall 30 years ago with the rise in the power of the religious right and he hated those people with an undying passion. I don't feel quite that strongly but they're killing the party. Together with the tea party they've driven out all the moderates, forget any liberal or what we used to call Rockefeller Republican's, and even attacked the average conservative for not being conservative enough and then actively worked to defeat them at the primary level.
Frankly we're a party of immature angry children with some corporate hacks left over for flavor; moreover, we're a party of hypocrites. We say we're for states rights and then we have the Republican controlled Congress debating Teri Schiavo? Hell that still makes me ill.
you're mixing and matching narratives to suit your position. we're entitled to our opinions but not facts. before we go on lets agree on a few facts.
1.. The tea party came about in direct opposition to obama care because many believe that it will finish the job of bankrupting the country. it didn't touch on any social issues. just the budget. democrat revisionism is saying this and that about the party.
2.. you talk compromise but what exactly are the democrats bringing to the table. even so called centrist push for moving toward liberalism. both sides have to do it or its capitulation, not compromise.
if we can agree on those issues then we can move forward with the debate.
What I was talking about is the big picture and funny enough I happened to catch Jeb Bush tonight on the news saying the party had to get away from being anti immigrant and anti science. To address your points.
The tea party did start off as a fiscally conservative movement that was angry with both parties, including how the Bush administration was racking up deficits. Quite quickly we saw a number of tea party people talking about Obama's birth cert and calling him a communist, anti white, etc. I entirely agreed with the original tack, sounded like the Concord Coalition, but they quickly filled up with a significant number of crazies.
Last year we had a chance for any number of deals between Boehner and Obama. Now one deal was made and then Obama screwed that one by asking for more but that aside Boehner could not deliver his own caucus as too many tea party members would not agree to any tax increases whatsoever even if it was 5 to 1 spending cuts for more revenue. There's just far too many tea party members who simply will never agree to any revenue increases.
Everything has to be a compromise unless one party controls both Congress and the Presidency. Even Grover Norquist pulled back from demanding no increases in revenue. The numbers don't allow the budget being balanced by either tax increases or spending reductions alone and everyone knows this.
Sure I agree both sides have to compromise and Boehner can hold the position that look I've got a lot tea party people and they're not going to agree to any increase in revenue without very substantial cuts in spending but he can't compromise if his caucus won't agree to anything.
Moreover, the idiots in the tea party actually believe voting against increasing the debt limit actually has anything to do with spending. They're total morons. The money was already spent and the debt limit simply keeps the Federal government from defaulting on money it has to borrow to cover money it already spent. I've seen dozens interviewed and they don't get that. The result being we had our credit rating cut and it's still cut. It's a national disgrace.
i agree with every single word you've written but i MUST add this caveat. the Obama Administration loves making closed door deals. every one of those bargains was done in a one on one brain storming session with Boehner. never once has he actually submitted budgets or legislation to congress and allowed them to debate the merits, add language etc. i personally believe its because he doesn't like the sausage making but its really disturbing. additionally making deals in that way goes against the very kind of open government that he supposedly is for. last the issue is beyond a simple tax and spend equation. the payroll tax just went up and that alone is probably going to stall the economy. we have fundamental issues with the way that our economy is balanced and the reset of that will take more than just the old talking points that democrats and republicans engage in. we are structurally imbalanced and current fiscal and monetary policy is only making it worse. the simplest solution would be to simply go back to 2009 spending levels and freeze it there for x number of years till we got things together. however, you hear the media talking about a do nothing congress. that's what we need now. a congress that does nothing...at least for a few years.
"AUH2O" I use this quote in my email signatures along with one by Ayn Rand.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding! love it!
DeleteBarry Goldwater by the end of his career in the Senate was a moderate. Today he'd be a liberal in the Republican party. The quote by him I actually like the most is "Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the nuts", and that was in 1981. Today he couldn't win a Republican primary for Senate in just about any state.
ReplyDeletethat's a common retort today. people say the same thing about Reagan. its really irrelevant. if they were as "liberal" as they were at the end of their lives as they were at the height of their power then they would not have achieved what they did.
Deletemany people think that conservatism is losing out to progressivism. i disagree. the Republican part put two consecutive weak as water candidates up against Obama and they predictably got their asses beat. but as usual, the democrats are over playing their hand and will get slaughtered next time. life is circular.
oh and this sequester nonsense is an indication of democrat fear. they need to raise taxes in order to fund run away govt growth and spending. if the House stays firm those plans won't happen and the US would have come close but didn't quite turn into California or Illinois.
Sol I've been active in the Republican party since the 80's. While I entirely agree the last two presidential candidates we put up were weak that's almost besides the point. We currently have conservative members of Congress that are losing their primary contests because they are not conservative enough for those active in the primary process and then those candidates are being slaughtered in the election. We're literally killing ourselves.
ReplyDeleteFrom a governance point of view we've got new members of Congress that actually don't believe politics is the art of compromise, which it is, and instead believe very strongly they need to never compromise. It's exactly why we don't have a budget deal.
We simply can't keep running people like this for office. Moreover, many don't believe in little things like science. When a feeling or belief can easily trump factual data you've lost the ability for critical thinking.
We lost because we're anti immigrant, anti brown and black people, anti gay, anti women, anti poor, anti science, etc., etc. We say we're for fiscal conservatism but 8 years of Bush shows this to be factually untrue. The average voter needs positive reasons to vote for something. I can't tell you 5 things the Republican party is for along these lines. I can easily list 10 things the Democrats for, and I disagree with all them, and that's why they're winning elections.
Sure elections are cyclical but the Democrats controlled the House for 40 straight years from 45 to 95 and 20 of 24 years before that. We're setting ourselves up to be out of power for a long time to come. The people that control most of the party at the precinct level are in large measure lunatics.
Goldwater saw the writing on the wall 30 years ago with the rise in the power of the religious right and he hated those people with an undying passion. I don't feel quite that strongly but they're killing the party. Together with the tea party they've driven out all the moderates, forget any liberal or what we used to call Rockefeller Republican's, and even attacked the average conservative for not being conservative enough and then actively worked to defeat them at the primary level.
Frankly we're a party of immature angry children with some corporate hacks left over for flavor; moreover, we're a party of hypocrites. We say we're for states rights and then we have the Republican controlled Congress debating Teri Schiavo? Hell that still makes me ill.
you're mixing and matching narratives to suit your position. we're entitled to our opinions but not facts. before we go on lets agree on a few facts.
Delete1.. The tea party came about in direct opposition to obama care because many believe that it will finish the job of bankrupting the country. it didn't touch on any social issues. just the budget. democrat revisionism is saying this and that about the party.
2.. you talk compromise but what exactly are the democrats bringing to the table. even so called centrist push for moving toward liberalism. both sides have to do it or its capitulation, not compromise.
if we can agree on those issues then we can move forward with the debate.
What I was talking about is the big picture and funny enough I happened to catch Jeb Bush tonight on the news saying the party had to get away from being anti immigrant and anti science. To address your points.
ReplyDeleteThe tea party did start off as a fiscally conservative movement that was angry with both parties, including how the Bush administration was racking up deficits. Quite quickly we saw a number of tea party people talking about Obama's birth cert and calling him a communist, anti white, etc. I entirely agreed with the original tack, sounded like the Concord Coalition, but they quickly filled up with a significant number of crazies.
Last year we had a chance for any number of deals between Boehner and Obama. Now one deal was made and then Obama screwed that one by asking for more but that aside Boehner could not deliver his own caucus as too many tea party members would not agree to any tax increases whatsoever even if it was 5 to 1 spending cuts for more revenue. There's just far too many tea party members who simply will never agree to any revenue increases.
Everything has to be a compromise unless one party controls both Congress and the Presidency. Even Grover Norquist pulled back from demanding no increases in revenue. The numbers don't allow the budget being balanced by either tax increases or spending reductions alone and everyone knows this.
Sure I agree both sides have to compromise and Boehner can hold the position that look I've got a lot tea party people and they're not going to agree to any increase in revenue without very substantial cuts in spending but he can't compromise if his caucus won't agree to anything.
Moreover, the idiots in the tea party actually believe voting against increasing the debt limit actually has anything to do with spending. They're total morons. The money was already spent and the debt limit simply keeps the Federal government from defaulting on money it has to borrow to cover money it already spent. I've seen dozens interviewed and they don't get that. The result being we had our credit rating cut and it's still cut. It's a national disgrace.
i agree with every single word you've written but i MUST add this caveat. the Obama Administration loves making closed door deals. every one of those bargains was done in a one on one brain storming session with Boehner. never once has he actually submitted budgets or legislation to congress and allowed them to debate the merits, add language etc. i personally believe its because he doesn't like the sausage making but its really disturbing. additionally making deals in that way goes against the very kind of open government that he supposedly is for. last the issue is beyond a simple tax and spend equation. the payroll tax just went up and that alone is probably going to stall the economy. we have fundamental issues with the way that our economy is balanced and the reset of that will take more than just the old talking points that democrats and republicans engage in. we are structurally imbalanced and current fiscal and monetary policy is only making it worse. the simplest solution would be to simply go back to 2009 spending levels and freeze it there for x number of years till we got things together. however, you hear the media talking about a do nothing congress. that's what we need now. a congress that does nothing...at least for a few years.
Delete