John Galt is Dead
This isn't an Ayn Rand novel. There will not be a resurgence in 2016, led by the John Galts who have been hiding in the hills with their money-making inventions the past four years.
America is all out of John Galts. Atlas didn't shrug; he crawled in bed with Uncle Sam. Corporate welfare turned their shields into begging bowls. Our pusillanimous business owners and CEOs, looking like grade schoolers in their poorly fitting Captain of Industry and Brave Capitalist costumes, will quickly fall in line. They will release the trillions they’ve been sitting on. And Obama will gobble it up and waste it, but they will get their pats on the head and a sliver of the state-controlled pie, as the economy staggers along the path of jagged and uneven marginal growth.
Welcome to the New Normal
I’m not predicting doom. This is still America. Like the beautiful disco diva Gloria Gaynor, we will survive. We are America and we will truck on, but we will grow to resemble our sagging, flagging cousins across the Atlantic. Higher taxes and more of them must necessarily follow in order to stave off a fiscal calamity.
A Greece-style collapse will still happen eventually, but the massive tax increases must come first. The malefactors must build up their emergency funds against the advent of the inevitable clean getaway. Crony crapitalism and political patronage will proliferate, leading us down the path of Argentina and Venezuela. Obama-scale government interventions in the private sector don’t work unless accompanied by German-style government-business-union “partnerships.”
This was Conservatism’s High Water Mark
If we couldn’t sell a conservative, small-government message with a moderate-friendly candidate running against an imperious ruler many perceived to be a crypto-marxist, or at best constitutionally-challenged, then small-government conservatism it is a spent force. Many conservatives will drift to the middle looking for morsels, while the rump right will meet the fate of its European cousins, enduring a meager existence as either principled cranks or angry extremists.
The Apotheosis of Obama
We voted for an ever-expanding, activist government, and Obama will give it to us good and hard these next four years. BHO will eclipse FDR and LBJ, emerging as the Great Demiurge of Progressive Statism
The People Have Spoken
Obamacare is untenable and they know it. They’ve always known it. It is just a bridge to a nationalized health care system, which will quickly follow.
Higher taxes are inevitable. Republicans will lose the fight over more and higher taxes. They will be viewed, rightly, as the obstructionists. The people voted for Obama’s grand projects. How dare the Republicans be so fiscally irresponsible as to block the means to pay for them? Government Debt is at $54,000 for each US citizen. Not raising taxes will be considered the height of fiscal irresponsibility.
Democrat mouthpieces in the press, their subornation complete, will openly demonize and vilify Republicans, causing mid-term losses in the House and Senate for the party, leading it to abandon any tea party pretentions and revert back to its pre-1994 crouching, servile posture of go-along-to-get-along.
In addition to much higher taxes, we can also expect…
* More regulations
* Higher gas prices as government taxes it more
* Resurgence of unionism as Card Check and Closed Shops rule the land
* The end of Internet anonymity
* Government crackdown on offensive speech
* National gun registration
* The Constitution is officially a living document
* A progressive, statist Supreme Court for the next generation
One bright spot: We conservatives and libertarians are now the subversives.
Oh, and GOP, you can kiss my ass. I hate your party more than the Democrats. At least the Donkeys know who they are and aren't suffering a perpetual identity crisis. And they know how to grab what they want. The typical Republican politician couldn't grab his ass with both hands and a mirror.
FrankJ at IMAO has said it beautifully. Cheer up!
Here’s a blog post to help soothe your soul:
Teresamerica – Soul Searching, The Constitution, and the Election
117 comments:
It's nearly impossible to carry the banner of Conservatism, when your standard bearer isn't Conservative.
I haven't said a eulogy for the GOP just yet....this could be just the low water mark that the party needed to rediscover long forgotten principles of limited government and individual liberty.
The question remains, does the party have enough collective intellectual integrity to leave behind the meme and myths that so obviously didn't work, and actually stand for principle.
I might agree that we would shuffle along as Europe save for the fact of our non existent foreign policy, or a policy so dangerous there is no way we will be permitted to shuffle. After the election, Obama will have more fexibility.
@ CI: "does the party have enough collective intellectual integrity to leave behind the meme and myths that so obviously didn't work, and actually stand for principle."
No.
Allen West got tossed.
Not a bad night.
DO IT FOR BREITBART !!!
Constitutional Insurgent, the people rejected the Tea Baggers. The big losers last night were the Baggers so by all means keep trying that nonsense.
Keep selling what nobody's buying. You took one swing state. One (1).
Time to purge Rove if the Koch Bros. haven't ordered the hit already.
Good post, SF. Most of your predictions are sensible.
* The end of Internet anonymity
Technically difficult to do -- I don't know how you'd do it. I can do everything through an SSH tunnel if I need to, and there's no government that can take SSH away from me. I think it's just impossible. Even if they could take it away, they wouldn't because of all the legitimate needs for secure protocols.
* Government crackdown on offensive speech
Hope not, but I don't know Obama well enough to judge that one.
Jez.
SF, I don't think your predictions are valid. Mr. Obama is just one branch of our government.
I'm here to tell you and other conservatives not to despair.
But the GOP has to change by acknowledging that the American people have changed.
We are, after all the votes are counted, Americans first.
I hope you hang onto that truth and understand that we on the left are not your enemies; we are your fellow Americans.
Peace.
"Keep selling what nobody's buying. You took one swing state. One (1)."
Ducky, I'm not a Republican, I'm a Libertarian.....we took no states.
...well, I guess we get to see how this guy operates when he's not worrying about another term. Rethugs should celebrate, because Obama will continue to be in the back pocket of Wall Street, will continue to launch drone strikes, will continue to expand the Patriot Act, just like their candidate would've. What will he do differently than Romney would've? Remains to be seen, I guess.
He will propose major cuts to SS/Medicare as part of the grand bargain and leave defense intact.
Obama will continue to support the Gates' attempt to privatize education. That's right, the spokesperson for American education will be the woman who supervise "Microsoft Bob".
People who are so stupid, like Allen West (Special prosecutor on Benghazi?), who scare the horses were purged but there was no serious move to the left.
Wake up.
The Karl Rove crew have learned their lesson. RINO is the new Republican "Gold Standard" in politics. Hispanics, Bievenidos, Alta California es su patria!
I want to apologize to everyone. It's my fault Obama got re-elected.
No no, hear me out. I just couldn't get into pretending the founding father of gay marriage was a "conservative." And when actual conservatives like Newt Gingrich came on the screen, I couldn't bring myself to scream "progressive leftist!" at them.
I know Ann Coulter made traipsing around with homosexuals look easy, and we all know what fun Glenn Beck had trashing one of the architects of Reagan's conservative revolution and the Contract with America as a veritable communist. Who didn't look at America's largest nstional debt generator, Medicare, and scream "There's a program we should never cut!"
Well, it's my fault. I was told to throw away my conservative principles and vote for Romney anyway. And I couldn't do it.
The GOP needs to reacquaint itself with being the party of reason and fiscal responsibility.
Trying to manage morals doesn't work in today's society and it is not a government function.
It is going to be a changing four years. Obama has to govern for once instead of campaign. That will be something difficult for him to do because it is a new concept.
He must overcome
The fiscal cliff
KatrinaII
Bengazigate
Immigration reform instead of pandering
Do one thing he promised to do four years ago, just one.
For small business it is a challenging time. New regulations, taxes, government BS and of course managing Obamacare. We will see more failures and more companies ship jobs to business friendly countries.
Post-Election Peace-Offering
To My Liberal Friends
The election is over.
Campaigning is done.
My party lost,
Your party won.
So let’s make amends,
Continue as friends,
And let arguments pass,
While I hug my Dumbo,
And you kiss your Ass.
~ Anne Animus
Franklin warned us that we were being given a Republic if we could only hang on to it. Americans as a whole were not up to the task. America will continue on the path to mediocray anlong with Europe until the day when the world's monetary system collapses. Fro that reason, I believe the conservative resistance must continue. Forget the Republican Party!
Yes the people have spoken and the Dow futures are down 115 points before even opening!
Make that 130 points and counting...
@ Shaw: "But the GOP has to change by acknowledging that the American people have changed.
Yes indeed. This is a cultural and generational watershed, and in the spirit of George Orwell, I face it with eyes wide open.
"I hope you hang onto that truth and understand that we on the left are not your enemies; we are your fellow Americans."
I have never considered those on the left my enemies.
That certainly doesn't mean that they think of you as their "friend", sf.
Let the beatings begin!
You libs are going to be sorry that you got what you asked for when your taxes sky-rocket next year!
Lots of luck, we are ALLl going to need it
Excellent essay, Kurt. It made me feel a bit better reading it. I agree with your description of the GOP's identity crisis. I too am fed up with it, but what practical alternatives exist?
I am hoping for a secession of some of the red states. America is over and it's time to find a replacement, or create one.
One suggestion: ban the asshole who calls himself Ducky. You have no obligation to afford a forum to the far left.
Yep, the herd certainly ran off with the wrong crew of cattle rustlers, this election. Suggestions for 2016, you gotta throw more dynamite if you want to start a stampede that moves in the directions YOU want it to go.
Not only do we have to put up with 4 more years with this idiot, but another 4 years with chuckles Biden
"I can do everything through an SSH tunnel if I need to"
Yes, but you have to pass through a gateway to get there.
At some point somewhere, you have to establish an identity.
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated" -- Thomas Paine in "The Crisis," 1776.
Ducky,
Just an honest question...Why do you resort to ad hominem and sophomoric antics? Can you state your opinion without the silliness?
@divine theater ---
Ducky,
Just an honest question...Why do you resort to ad hominem and sophomoric antics? Can you state your opinion without the silliness?
------
Because I have been called everything but a child of God by Tea Bagger dullards.
I try to converse. Truly do.
You throw the first punch and I will truly freaking counter punch.
I am tired of the fringe right clowns who have monopolized the national debate for the last four years. You just got your head handed to you.
Here's a suggestion:
Palin/West 2016
Steve,
Be advised that over 50% of eligible American voters did NOT vote for Barack. He is not as magical as you believe.
And remember, Divine theater, that you have to completely remove a cancer. You have to destroy it.
That's what is being done to the Tea Bag movement. It has to be excised.
You can be part of the Republican party that rises from the ashes healthier but the Baggers will be destroyed.
DO IT FOR BREITBART !!!
Wow, ducky SURE is scared of the Tea Party... I wonder why THAT is....
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... :)
Ducky,
Until you behave like an adult, I will no longer address you.
I'll ask everyone again. Please do not feed the trolls.
I clean up the doggy doo when I can and I apologize for the mess.
"I have never considered those on the left my enemies."
What are you some kind of freaking NUT CASE?
I am stunned that after writing an excellent, hard-headed article like today's, you could still say something THAT unequivocally asinine and palpably untrue.
If leftists are not our mortal enemy, who else COULD be?
GOD IN HEAVEN!
I have come to the conclusion that the good old USA has become a nation of dumb Half-assed leftist progressive A-holes and is just about beyond saving.
JOHN ROBERTS is one of our mortal enemies.
CHRIS CHRISTIE became one when he pulled the rug out from under Romney's feet by PUBLICLY embracing President OGODNO.
That SINGLE ACT of Chris Christie's was "the straw that broke the back" of Romney's momentum.
The only enemy more powerful and more diabolical than a committed LEFTIST is a FALSE CONSERVATIVE.
We might be able to withstand naked aggression from foreign powers, but the insidious poison that slowly seeps through the system after decades of nursing TREASONOUS VIPERS in our BOSOM has spelled our DOOM.
"Our" trouble -- and subsequent downfall -- came from foolishly entertaining the notion that it's possible to make friends of monsters by exercising the art of gentle verbal persuasion.
We grew soft, lazy, incurious and complacent.
We got fat, dumb and happy swilling down junk food in front of our 54" flat-screen TV's letting moral, spiritual and intellectual EXCREMENT wash over us day and night.
We ROTTED, folks. And now we have gotten exactly what we DESERVE.
Bye, bye, America. Bye bye Freedom. Bye bye prosperity. Bye bye hope. Hello despair.
What FOOLS [we] mortals be."
~ FreeThinke
Try this divine theater
It's a good description of what the left has felt up against for some time.
You may want to gain insight, you may not. Or you can throw in with the folks who go on about "Bengazigate".
Your choice.
Oh, by the way, Tom Paine was a leftist. Nice post but superficial.
lol!
Duckman, you get loopier and loopier with every passing day. The "branding" king and chief pusher of the "Republican War on Contraception" is now trying to convince the world that marketting candidates doesn't work.
Light up another one of your torches of freedom in honour of your "superior campaign positions".
No one believes the cr*p your peddling, especially those who pretend to write "honest advice" columns to their political opponents.
Peddle it to someone who's buying.
The most expensive election in the history of money is now in the books, and for the moment, the lesson is plain: money cannot, in fact, buy you love. Mitt Romney, the Republican Party, and the awesomely powerful dark-money barons backing them up - the guys you'll never meet who have no problem writing checks with eight zeroes to the left of the decimal - failed to deliver the goods ... and there will be hell to pay because of it.
BWAH!
"Oh, by the way, Tom Paine was a leftist."
What a laugh. He was not for a collectivist dictatorship or redistribution.
"Liberty and Property are words expressing all those of our possessions which are not of an intellectual nature. There are two kinds of property. Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the Creator of the universe,—such as the earth, air, water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property,—the invention of men. In the latter equality is impossible; for to distribute it equally it would be necessary that all should have contributed in the same proportion, which can never be the case; and this being the case, every individual would hold on to his own property, as his right share. Equality of natural property is the subject of this little essay. Every individual in the world is born therein with legitimate claims on a certain kind of property, or its equivalent."
This was the purpose of Payne's plan:
To create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:
And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.
So supporting social security makes one a leftist?
You guys jump like a pack of diseased monkey all over a conservative when he makes such a statement.
This is why many consider you to not be an intellectually honest interlocutor.
We've thrown the bs flag on you too many times.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31271/31271-h/31271-h.htm
Oooops...
Oprah's Tweeting me again...
gotta run!
IDK Silver, while I share your disappointment, I'm not surprised, nor do I share your pessimism for the conservative cause. As a different Shaw put it: "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." The left's jubilation today is that of an addict who has acquired the the means for one more fix, allowing him for the moment to mask from view the inexorable fate that lies ahead. Reality lies in wait for a country that borrows 40 cents of every dollar that it spends, and all of the liberals solutions to the problem involve imposing even more drag on an already faltering economy. They're deluding themselves if they think taking the rich will be enough to pay the bills
They're also delusional regarding the end of the Tea Party. There used to be a saying that "A liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet". I think we can revise that to "A liberal is a conservative who hasn't been taxed yet." When the Misery Index reaches Carteresque proportions I think you'll be amazed at the numbers of people who will come to believe they've been Taxed Enough Already!
FT: I do not consider those I disagree with to be the enemy and I do not believe they are evil.
Perhaps they may be, but I don't engage in such questioning of motives.
My son and I discussed this last night, and when I paused, he finished my sentence for men: "...because it short circuits your reasoning."
Progressives are not evil, they are just studiously ignorant of human nature or hubristic enough to believe their programs can overcome it. The cast their gaze upon humankind and are disgusted by its messiness. They want to clean it up.
Certain elements of the Right have brought ths ruin upon the Right.
Why did so many Republican nominees talk about Rape? Over and over and over! The only people who had Rape on their minds more than Republicans are Rapists.
I want America to be a Great Nation. But, a great nation takes care of it's citizens. It doesn't spend a Trillion a year on a bloated foreign empire. It doesn't have a lower tax rate on those who seek to hide their income in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. It doesn't reward Corporations that cheat on their taxes, which dismantle and send factories to China, and outsource jobs.
President Obama has won Two elections decisively. Bomb-throwing Reactionary Republicans also lost decisively in the Senate and House.
This Nation needs to rebuild itself and turn inward. Will it or will Republicans and conservatives continue to call President Obama a Nazi Marxist a Gay Kenyan and a Terrorist Appeaser.
Unfortunately, I think we know what most Right-Wingers will do.
Hey Obimmer, stop slapping yourself on the back and trim on the TV and watch the people all over New York and Long Island who are suffering . This is Your Katrina.
Silver, my friend,we will just have to agree to disagree this one -- as we have i many other issues in the past.
People may be genuinely kind-hearted and have the best MOTIVES in the world for promoting their ideology, but that doesn't deter them from acting as INSTRUMENTS of EVIL -- handmaidens to Satan -- ACCOMPLICES in CRIME -- however you want to put it.
MOTIVES count for naught. DEEDS are all that matter.
Dupes dutifully doing dirty deeds are -- effectively -- every bit as evil as the guiding geniuses who motivated them with prevaricating promises and counterfeit compassion.
Look! I've been deeply in LOVE with one or two liberals in my life. I love them still, but affection could never overcome the revulsion I feel for their evil beliefs.
MARXISM with all its hydra-headed offshoots is SATANIC.
If you don't believe that, you will never be able to combat it effectively.
~ FT
The new normal sucks.
Silverfiddle, you've been tagged - http://catholibertarian.com/2012/11/06/tag-youre-it/
FreeThinke, I agree wholeheartedly.
I just don't think it accomplishes anything calling whole groups of people Satanic or evil.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, all evil. President Barack Obama, no.
I have called certain acts evil. For example, Obama eloquently arguing against that born alive bill in the Illinois legislature was evil. Abortion itself is an evil, and leaving a surviving baby to die is the epitome of evil, so I can identify it when I see it and I'm not afraid to call it.
Don't lose your head my friend. It's not the end of the world.
Look on the bright side, all this progressivism crap just might work. The masses have proven themselves softened up for it.
The GOP lost becasue they are comprised if lunatic haters and dividers who will believe any crap Fox News throws out. They have rendered themselves totally irrelevant to contemporary American society.
Another magnanimous comment from a classless liberal who can type with one hand while picking his nose with the other....
Alas, they cannot all have the wit and manners of Shaw...
You won, Liberalmann. Stop acting like a knuckle-dragging moron and get out there and make the Obamanation happen!
@Ducky << Here's a suggestion:
Palin/West 2016 >>
Ohhhh ... you do have a cutting sense of humor!
Silverfiddle, did you notice that Harry Ried stated he is planning a change to the filibuster rule?
Now that he doesn't have blue dog clowns like Joe Lieberman threatening to run to Faux News for any little complaint there's a new sheriff in town.
We may have won more than you know.
The Tea Party is dead, KP.
@And remember, Divine theater, that you have to completely remove a cancer. You have to destroy it.
Too late Ducky, it just metastasized.
Ducky: "...did you notice that Harry Reid stated he is planning a change to the filibuster rule?"
Did you notice that he doesn't have the votes to do it? The proposal itself can be filibustered, and the rule change require a 2/3's majority as opposed to the normal 60% for cloture
@The Tea Party is dead, KP.
Look for it to come back and haunt you in two years.
Can someone please teach that mutt another tune?
Did you notice that he doesn't have the votes to do it?
-----
Remember the "nuclear option"?
Payback's a bitch.
I figure this may be as big a political transformation as '84.
@ Ducky: "We may have won more than you know."
Oh, believe me. I know how much you won.
Although a thin margin, this is bigger than 1984.
This was a generational and cultural earthquake. Obama is going to beat Boehner like a bongo drum.
It will be interesting to see the final numbers. Did a substantial amount of religious nuts stay home because they couldn't vote for a Mormon?
...and I thought "deeming" Obamacare WAS. the payback.
Oh well. Ducky has no room to complain when the REAL. payback hits.
Remember the "nuclear option"?
Remember who controls the House.
Political transformation?
He has no grand mandate that comes out of Tuesday’s numbers. He has been re-elected, but his policies did not win the day. Voters didn't turn their faces up to the vision he painted the way they did in 2008. When voters were asked which candidate had a vision for the future, Romney won that question in exit polls, 55 percent to 43 percent. Asked about Obama's signature achievement, health care, voters did not approve. Forty-nine percent said they wanted it repealed in part or whole. Voters also said the federal government was too large.
http://news.msn.com/politics/how-barack-obama-won-four-more-years
So why did he win?
The Republican Party needs to stop pandering to social conservatives. The fiscal conservative-libertarian model works, the social conservative model does not.
I'll probably get flamed by fellow conservatives, but if you want religion...go to church. It cannot be part of a successful political platform.
Cheers!
@Remember the "nuclear option"?
Quite well. Do you think the arguments against it have changed? You're far too politically astute to think that Reid is doing anything but blowing the same smoke that Lott was. No one in the Senate wants to give up the filibuster.
Finntann: "The Republican Party needs to stop pandering to social conservatives. The fiscal conservative-libertarian model works, the social conservative model does not."
I'll second that motion.
"You may want to gain insight, you may not. Or you can throw in with the folks who go on about "Bengazigate".
Your right duck, it was only 4 Americans killed so we should not seek answers. Lets take the leaders attitude, it's only a bump in the road.
Finntann: "The Republican Party needs to stop pandering to social conservatives. The fiscal conservative-libertarian model works, the social conservative model does not."
Viburnum: I'll second that motion.
Me too! Piety should be a private matter. The Bible even tells us, "Go into your closet and pray in secret."
Anything that hints -- however faintly -- of a desire for THEOCRACY is hugely repellent to the vast majority of everyday Americans -- many of whom actually are practicing Christians, but don't want to make "a holy show" of themselves.
Yes. Keep politics OUT of religion, and VICE VERSA.
~ FreeThinke
Turn-out has been high over all, Silver.
You're simply being outnumbered.
I think that gets to an interesting point. America's demographics are changing, like everything always, and like everything always to the consternation of conservatism.
JMJ
go to church. It cannot be part of a successful political platform.
didn't the gays just win the right to "go to church" in two states?
its pretty obvious that church and state ARE mixing sucessfully.
Finntann: "The Republican Party needs to stop pandering to social conservatives. The fiscal conservative-libertarian model works, the social conservative model does not."
I'll second that motion.
Amen!
@ Jersey: You're simply being outnumbered.
No shit Captain Obvious.
Did you read the article? I already said that.
Silverfiddle said: 'Did a substantial amount of religious nuts stay home because they couldn't vote for a Mormon?'
No, the progressives came out in full force to shun the haters, the extremists, the tea baggers, the racists, the misogynists, the vote suppressors, the liars, the obstructionists, the angry white morons, the bombastic rhetoric, and those who tried to buy the election.
Finn is right, the social conservatives are dead. But it's now impossible to separate them from the fiscal conservatives in one candidate.
Have you looked at an examination of the numbers?
No, of course you haven't because they haven't been analyzed yet.
Talking out your ass, as usual.
You do realize that calling people "tea baggers" is itself a form of hate, right?
Irony is lost on the slobbering left.
@Did a substantial amount of religious nuts stay home because they couldn't vote for a Mormon?
That's a question I'd like to see answered as well.
The soul searching questions Republicans need to ask themselves is: How did the the same district that reelected Paul Ryan also go for Barack Obama?
And before anyone tries to use this excuse:
Third party candidates had zero effect on this election. I already checked, with the possible exception of Florida, you could give Romney every third party vote cast and he would still have lost the states he lost. Now Gary Johnson's votes wouldn't have put Romney over the top in Florida, but the latest numbers indicate all the third party votes would (by 24231), but Florida wouldn't have won the election anyway.
While the Red/Blue state map of the US is pretty, I urge everyone to dig deeper and look at the nation on the county level.
http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results
It paints an interesting picture.
Cheers!
@viburnum --- You're far too politically astute to think that Reid is doing anything but blowing the same smoke that Lott was. No one in the Senate wants to give up the filibuster.
-----
What type of filibuster. Reid has the power to revoke the procedural filibuster and he can also modify the motion to proceed which can get bills to the floor without filibuster.
There are options and without the likes of Lieberman forming his thin majority it is a new day.
This was probably as big a change as '84.
"The Republican Party needs to stop pandering to social conservatives."
----
Turn on a major portion of your base?
Good luck with that.
Tell Focus on the Family to stand down?
Good luck with that.
The repubican party should do the country a favor and burn down its headquarters and exile itself to South Sudan.
Whatever the right move is, we can count on them to do the opposite.
We saw it here in Colorado two years ago with bankrupt scammer Dan Maes, and this time they went national with old men talking about rape. What a strategy.
What will they come up with next time? Chastity belts? Witch trials?
Look at the county map Liberalmann, cities elected the president.
Look at that county map of any red or blue state outside New England.
Take PA for example and its 20 electoral college votes. The Philadelphia-Scranton Corridor, Harrisburg, Pittsburg, and Erie gave Obama PA, the rest of the state is Red.
Hell, look at a red state like Kansas, the entire state is Red with the exception of the Kansas City Metro area.
Ask yourself, why you don't control the house?
We have become a nation of city-states that control the senate and executive branches.
Our problem isn't a Republican-Democratic problem, it isn't a liberal-conservative problem, it is an Urban-Suburban/Rural problem.
I'd even venture to guess that the red-blue split is directly proportional to population density.
Were the electoral college votes awarded the way they are apportioned, you would have lost the election by the same margin you lost the house.
Do the Senators from Pennsylvania represent Pennsylvania? Or do they represent Philadelphia and Pittsburg?
This is why our government is dysfunctional and grid-locked. The Housemembers represent their districts, the Senators represent their population centers.
The checks and balances of our federal republic have failed, not because they were wrong, but because they were inadequate. The concept of Manhattan or Los Angeles 2012 would be as alien to the founding fathers as Mars.
What you live with today is the downside of popular democracy, the interests of those in an urban metropolis do not align with the interests of those outside.
The system is fundamentally flawed for a biparty system of government. Until those underlying flaws are repaired, you're stuck with what you've got.
Cheers!
Ducky, the nuclear option is only an option in the senate. The senate cannot act alone, the Republican majority in the house can defund the government if it so desires. You can't do anything without money.
So if the Democrats in the senate have a nuclear option, the Republicans in the House have a Thermonuclear option.
You don't want to go there, but sometimes I wonder if that wouldn't actually be for the best in the long run. A defunded federal government would force the states to govern as they were intended to, we might even become a Federal Republic again.
And Ducky, IMHO, the Moral Majority is the worst alliance the Republican Party ever made.
I fully intend to spend the next four years, probably futilely, of convincing fellow libertarians to joing the Republican Liberty Caucus, it's either that or convice fiscal conservatives to leave the Republican Party in droves for the Libertarians... which actually might be the better course.
Cheers!
go to church. It cannot be part of a successful political platform.
didn't the gays just win the right to "go to church" in two states?
And to court, when the divorces and divisions of assets begin. And don't forget the pre-existing "gay rights" that "hate" crime laws give them that don't necessarily equally protect heterosexuals.
Americans seem to want more government in their lives. That is the lesson of this election. Even the Republicans were keen to this. Who would have thought we'd all live to see a Republican cry foul about a 7% reduction in Medicare spending?
Then again, the Republicans did run the guy that was issuing gay marriage licenses faster than efforts to enact legislation governing the same or put it to a vote of the people. People who will now be compelled to compromise their own beliefs - say you don't want to rent your home, apartment, car, banquet hall, whatever, to a gay couple or homosexuals in general. Too bad, so sad. Government's not just in everyone's bedroom, their putting people's bedrooms in your living room. They've even found room for bedrooms in your kid's textbooks and after school clubs.
@ Beamish:
"Americans seem to want more government in their lives. That is the lesson of this election."
Wow. You just now figured that out. You're smart...
And you seem to have a homosexual fixation. You should get that looked at.
Maybe you can re-inflate your Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man blow-up doll and run him in 2016.
Beamish...do you know what a libertarian is? You're preaching to the choir.
And to court, when the divorces and divisions of assets begin.
Marriage is a religious ceremony, the associated civil effects stem from a coterminuous civil contract whose appropriate forum for dissolution is the courts. Whether or not God goes along with that is a matter best left between you and your god.
As far as "hate crimes" go... I think they are bullshit. Crimes should be defined by the criminal act not by the motivation behind them. If you kill a man for the color of his skin or his sexual preference he's just as dead as if you killed him because he was an asshole. Emotional distress, or the freedom from, is not a civil right.
"People who will now be compelled to compromise their own beliefs - say you don't want to rent your home, apartment, car, banquet hall, whatever, to a gay couple or homosexuals in general."
Is a little more of a gray area... running a 500 unit apartment complex is a little different than renting out your summer home. Make a distinction between private and corporate rights, and I'm in agreement with you. The government already makes distinctions between small, medium, and large businesses.
"They've even found room for bedrooms in your kid's textbooks and after school clubs"
Which should be under the control of your local school board, not the federal government.
If compromising your beliefs means not letting people live outside them, well then we are in violent disagreement.
Unless, conservatives stand up for a 50% reduction in the fraud, waste and abuse we call the DoD Budget they can't consider themselves serious about Deficit Reduction.
But, what we saw during the debates and election cycle was any talk of reducing our Blue Water Navy was weakening America. "Horses and Bayonets" was an unpresidential thing to say according to the Right.
The Warmongers have captured us. Look at how liberals seemed to have lost their anti-war identity in 2009.
So like Rome the weight of our standing army and foreign empire will bankrupt us.
Ducky: "This was probably as big a change as '84."
Change? Where? Obama is still President, The Democrats still have the Senate, and Republicans still have the House. Nothing is one bit different than it was a week ago except the election's over and my phone isn't ringing off the hook. ( Unfortunately it wasn't affected by the power outage )
We've condemned ourselves to the same intractable problems being dithered over by the same intransigent politicians. Where the hell do you see change?
@ Gene
Try reading A.T.Mahan and get back to us about the Navy.
And you seem to have a homosexual fixation. You should get that looked at.
By who? Your "political correctness" counselor or your boyfriend?
Beamish...do you know what a libertarian is? You're preaching to the choir
Like most libertarians, I was libertarian before I knew there was a word for people who answer "Government should _______" with "go way."
Marriage is a religious ceremony, the associated civil effects stem from a coterminuous civil contract whose appropriate forum for dissolution is the courts. Whether or not God goes along with that is a matter best left between you and your god.
Agreed. Metaphysical imprimatur aside, you've still got a natural world where you can find both homosexuality and cannibalism in the animal kingdom. We're above the animals, as the saying goes, but now - whether you like it or not - government will, implicitly or explicity at gunpoint, discriminate against you, religious beliefs or not, on behalf of homosexuals in an ever growing number of areas. The "hate" crime laws are ripe to expand to become "hate" civil laws. Then comes the government quotas. Hire a homosexual or be sued. Offend a homosexual and get sued. BE a homosexual or get screwed.
Why have sex at all? We can continue the population via artificial insemination... nice, clean, and laboratory-like.
None of that messy animal stuff.
Fact is, we're all members of the animal kingdom whether we're on top of the food chain or not, whether we've been granted dominion overall or not.
I already told you my position on hate crime laws, I don't disagree with you, so I don't know why you repeat yourself.
Frankly what Billy does to Bobby is irrelvant, unless they are doing it on your front lawn.
If you want to go back in time and make public displays of affection a crime, that is a subject for discussion... but the law applies equally to all. You can't have heterosexual public display and outlaw homosexual public display. Equal protection...and all that other inconvenient constitutional stuff.
The fact that Bobby kissing Billy in the 7-11 bothers you more than Bobby kissing Sue is your problem.
You, however, seem to want liberty and freedom on your terms, in accordance with your belief system, which believe it or not, is not held by the majority.
I'll tell you the same thing I tell liberals, no one has the right not to be offended.
SF's seems to be correct, you appear to be fixated on the topic.
Why so threatened?
Gene... unless progressives stand up for a 50% reduction in entitlement programs (which I might point out are two-thirds of the budget) they can't consider themselves serious about deficit reduction.
50%? Your ignorance is astounding... you just pull that number out of your ass or do you have some logical rationale behind it that other's might be interested in hearing.
You're right about the Republicans. The leadership are RINOs more concerned with getting invites to all the best parties in Washington instead of doing what's right for America.
We will carry on. Reduced of course to former superpower status. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm going to enjoy Europe whining that we aren't protecting them anymore.)
And it's going to be fun being the subversive.
Why so threatened?
You have to ask this in a nation that enforces its social engineering agenda with firearms?
I suppose people won't have to worry about government using its vast arsenal of financial sanctions against people who don't want to submit to the government's intrusion into marriage both within and outside - remember the government already explicitly impugns the motives of anti-homosexualists as "bigotry" and "hate" (just as its logic-deficient, useful leftist idiots[*] like Sissydiddle play the "homophobe" card) - so now "tolerance" morphs into "accept sodomy in your face or be excoriated." Don't really have the right to bitch about what goes on in your country if you don't own one.
[* = isn't Sissydiddle's obsessive rants against progressivism just a big ol' neon sign that he's a progressive? ;)]
The leadership are RINOs more concerned with getting invites to all the best parties in Washington instead of doing what's right for America.
Can we put a moratorium on the term "RINO" (Republican In Name Only)?
It's abundantly clear a "real Republican" believes conservatism and conservative principles are something you toss aside when the "severely conservative" founding father of gay marriage needs your vote.
You, however, seem to want liberty and freedom on your terms, in accordance with your belief system, which believe it or not, is not held by the majority.
Legal recognition of gay marriage was banned in 2004 by the Missouri Constitution by amendment passed by a 71% vote of the people.
[We've since amended our state constitution twice to prohibit compliance with Obamacare - let the civil war begin!]
@You have to ask this in a nation that enforces its social engineering agenda with firearms?
Is what you're proposing any different? Isn't it simply a different agenda?
Is it in your face? Or in your mind?
Truth is, unless you live an unrealistically sheltered life, you've probabably been in contact with more than your realize.
Honestly? We'd all be a lot better off not wearing our sexuality on our sleeve and if we kept more of our opinions of others to ourselves. It used to be what was considered polite.
Legal recognition of gay marriage was banned in 2004 by the Missouri Constitution by amendment passed by a 71% vote of the people.
Good for you, I support the right of the people of Missouri to ban legal recognition of gay marriage.
I'd also say, that constitutionally, you ought not be giving heterosexual marriage any special privileges as well.
The easiest constitutional way around this is to separate the civil and religious aspects of marriage completely.
Get government out of the marriage business.
Finntann: "The Republican Party needs to stop pandering to social conservatives. The fiscal conservative-libertarian model works, the social conservative model does not."
Vibernum: "I'll second that motion."
Free Thinke: "Me too!"
Silverfiddle: "Amen!"
Looks like we're all in agreement. Myself, I have *far* more quarrel with social conservatism than with fiscal conservatism. I think a republican party as Finntann describes would present a far more tempting option to a lot of voters, so hooray! All we need to do now is find a sturdy closet for Beamish to lock himself into, where where he'll feel safe from the hordes of homosexuals this election result will undoubtedly summon.
When they legalize pedophilia, jez will be making the same argument.
Now where did my eromenos get off to? Those silly catamites of mine simply can't be left alone...
My eromenos has rights, and I will DEFEND them!
Free the children! Let THEM discover their OWN social genders INDEPENDENT of their genetically assigned sex!
from the UN Charter...
10 The child shall be protected from practices which may foster racial, religious and any other form of discrimination. He shall be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace and universal brotherhood, and in full consciousness that his energy and talents should be devoted to the service of his fellow men.
Sexual/gender discrimination MUST be combatted. How else can the eromenos system of the socialist Spartan agoge be sustained?
Finntan said: "Our problem isn't a Republican-Democratic problem, it isn't a liberal-conservative problem, it is an Urban-Suburban/Rural problem."
No it an information/low information problem. And since those in rural areas usually only get their information from places like Fox News, guess who is the 'low?'
Every GOP cretin from Akins to Allen were sent packing this week. The only one to survive (pending a recount) is Michelle Bachmann which is further proof that there are actual morons out there.
You want "proof that there are actual morons out there."?
67% of single women voters believed that Mitt Romney was going to ban their access to contraception and restrict their "right" to abortion.
Wow.
94% percent of African Americans believed that Mitt Romney was going to put them back into "chains"
Wow.
Thank you very much for the linky love, Silverfiddle.
btw - 100% of homosexuals believe that the RNC is going to lock their genitals into a chastity belt and throw away the keys.
Wow.
Cleansing the nation of liberal/progressives ideology is the only way back.
And with the looming economic collapse, it’s inevitable.
Most of you won't agree, but the hand writing is on the wall.
Sad day for your country Silver. Nothing else to say.
I think i'll pick Principled crank, I'm thinking i should take angry extremist too.
I need another drink.
Mark: I wish I could agree with you, but I cannot.
People mired in misery voted for the man unable to pull them out of it.
And when the crash happens, the lemmings will flock to the same people who caused it.
Yes, SF they will flock to the same people who caused it, but they will find there won't be anyone at home. History has proven such.
Sandy's aftermath is a telltale vision of just that.
Silverfiddle said: "You do realize that calling people "tea baggers" is itself a form of hate, right?"
So why did Fox News coin the phrase?
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/enough-whining-teabaggers-actually-i
btw- before you jetison "social conservatives" from the party, you might want to consider the future costs of social sexual libertinism. Social conservatism kept the AIDS and STD. numbers WAY down, but since you've agreed to pay for the lefts medical expenses, I' m sure that you won't mind paying for triple/quadruple the abortion and sex selection procedures that are sure to follow.
btw... I'm sure that there are now thousands of old dyckes just dying for fertility treatments so that they can have some welfare babies to raise... good luck telling them no... they vote.
Libman: I was kicked out of kooks and criers. They are liars.
Anderson Cooper, himself a teabagger of a different sort, is the one who hung the phrase on the tea party.
It's a vulgar, hateful phrase, so it doesn't surprise me that lefwing loonies like you are still using it.
What's more, it's by now a very old joke (it was hardly Swiftian in its subtlety and wit to start with).
Let the writing of a new Dunciad begin!
"So why did Fox News coin the phrase?"
Because they didn't. The TP used Tea Bag as reference to the movement and bagging the president’s policy.
It was actually coined by Maddow when she put the two words together and added the 'er' at the end, and then laughed about the phrase she had just spewed, as a reference to a gay sex act…. That coming from a homosexual….
The left can try and spin this BS back, but it would be a lie, as usual.
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