The Republican model needs to be shattered, and the shards swept into the trash, and then burned. And then pulverized, and then launched into outer space, along with the country clubbers whose inept captaincy capsized the ship.
Step 1 of the rebuilding effort
Stop talking about religion. The anti-abortion plank should stay, because it is a legitimate point of debate over the fate of human life in its most innocent form, but any politician caught uttering the word rape should immediately be sodomized with the microphone he used to blurt out his moronic remarks. He should then be horsewhipped, branded with garish and graphic naked women tattoos on his face and forearms, and released into the angry feminist heart of academia, where he will be made to endure lectures from stern women sporting armpit hair and PhDs in Gender Studies.
Towards a More Libertarian GOP
The GOP must abandon its agenda for the last millennium (does anybody know what the GOP stands for?) and adopt a simple libertarian one. How libertarian? No more so than the founding fathers. They have a ready-made list of issues known as the Bill of Rights. Granted, we don’t have to worry about the government quartering soldiers in our homes, but many amendments need to be loudly and repeatedly restated and expounded upon. Does it bother anyone on the left besides Nat Hentoff and Glen Greenwald that the 4th Amendment is dead?
Throw in the rest of the constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, and you have an excellent program for electoral success that cuts across all racial, cultural, religious gender and sexual preference lines. The Left-Right model is old and needs to be scrapped. The new debate is where to place the boundary between sovereignty of the individual and sovereignty of the state. Liberty is a winning issue. The GOP should try it.
The God Thing
Here is what the GOP position on Christian morality should be:
We support the right of all churches and religions to preach their message in the public marketplace of ideas, and we reject all government violations of their religious beliefs.
This is not controversial. Unitarians, Methodists and Episcopalians are free to perform gay marriages, while Baptists, Mormons and Catholics are equally free to refrain from doing so, as they preach the evils of homosexuality. It’s an ecclesiastical and theological controversy, and therefore no business of the state.
That’s it. No more. The GOP should not be a Christian party, but rather The Constitutional Party. A staunch defense of the Constitutional rights of all Americans is the best way to preserve your own religious rights.
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's (Mark 12:17)
36 comments:
NOT discussing issues is NOT politics. Its dogma.
You want a secular religion, found your own atheist party.
Oh wait, the Democrats already have one. Never mind.
Me, I'll support the "free speech" party.
I would proffer that a Christian party already exists...the "Constitution Party"...not that they're of much note.
But I agree all points in your post. Religion is a private matter; where it does not concern mattes of public safety...or has no secular value....it should not be the basis for legislation.
Liberty and religion are quite often at odds, but neither should trump the other. We have a GOP that preaches liberty but allows religious tenets to trump it.
The GOP says they have to change but in fact they really don't want to. They will bluster and pretend to change but they won't fool anyone. They are done.
If this President didn't kill the Democratic Party , then I'm speechless .
Absolutely the best answer I ave seen so far to our woes!! Congratulations, Kurt. It is perfect and, sadly, that is why it won't happen. But, I for one could support that party!
I am with you. The first party I joined at age 21' when quite naive, was the constitutional party. At the time, the Birchers had found a home there, later to find out.
I believe 50% of the GOP's "Problem" with religion was media/leftwing instigated, putting them on the defensive((don't forget, we're all nasty rightwing christians with pitchforks, we hate gays and we despise women AND the needy, right? :-), but I think much of what you say is true and so I just sent your blog link to two excellent teachers at my high school. We teach kids to THINK.
Thanks for these excellent posts...
"we don’t have to worry about the government quartering soldiers in our homes..."
Only if we become more vigilant than we have been.
I certainly agree with Constitutionalism, especially the Bill of Rights.
"but any politician caught uttering the word rape should immediately be sodomized with the microphone ..."
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Threatening to cut off his unit with a power tool would be more effective but it skirts the issues.
These knuckle draggers are out there and will make themselves known in some fashion. Enjoy.
"Does it bother anyone on the left besides Nat Hentoff and Glen Greenwald that the 4th Amendment is dead?"
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Maybe the most ridiculous bite you've posted in some time.
Certainly there is no one on the left (certainly not me (Irony flag is UP)) who objects to stop and frisk or the militarization of cops or the surveillance state or the way #occupy was stomped on (where was the freaking right on that one?).
Please stop.
FJ: "NOT discussing issues is NOT politics."
And discussing topic "A" which precludes anyone listening to you when you try and discuss the rest of the alphabet is not 'politic'.
The new debate is where to place the boundary between sovereignty of the individual and sovereignty of the state.
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And when we try to do that here I believe it reveals our better natures.
@NOT discussing issues is NOT politics.
No, but making it part of your political platform is. "You want a secular religion,"... no, we want a secular government.
C.I sums it up nicely with "We have a GOP that preaches liberty but allows religious tenets to trump it."
Scrap it? Nah. Just redefine it. Not as a libertarian gig, because a few of their ideas are somewhat aligned with the left.
It needs it's establishment scrapped and/or brought in line with Conservatism.
Conservatives come in many shapes. Fiscal, social, constitutional, etc.
I have been hoping that the GOP would get more in line with and champion for the Bill of Rights.
Most all conservatives do. It's the establishment moderates who want to cave occasionally to the lefts idea of what our nation should be.
Thats screwing up election in favor of the left.
A more important question may be how many Republicans actually advocate and support republican principles?
There are far too many authoritarian statists among us who wish only to advance their social-religious agenda through legislation.
"There are far too many authoritarian statists among us who wish only to advance their social-religious agenda through legislation."
YUP! And they come both sides of the aisle. Our enemy is neither the DemonRats or the Republicans; it is the all-too-human lust for POWER and CONTROL. Let's face it every person would love to be in a position to call ALL the shots, if he could.
It's humanity's greatest failing.
Here it is outlined in terse verse:
CHOOSE YOUR TYRANT
The Democrats want all our money
The Chirstocrats tell us whom to call, "Honey."
Both factions would have us be slaves
From our cradles right on to our graves
To a form of ideology
That denies our right to be free.
Neither a Nannycrat or a Theocrat
Can tell ME where to be at
And so
Each party has become our foe.
The lust for power and control
Is careening now on a roll.
Oh how I yearn
To know where I should turn!
~ FreeThinke
And discussing topic "A" which precludes anyone listening to you when you try and discuss the rest of the alphabet is not 'politic'
You want to cede all arguments to your opposition, that's your choice. Just don't tell me to "follow your lead."
There are legitimate arguments against the "rape" exemption, the punishment of the innocent unborn child being but one. I largely oppose it because it will over-criminalize unprotected consensual sex... but don't believe me, just ask Wikileaks founder Julian Asange.
Don't wear a condom... go to jail.
And if a woman can ONLY get an abortion IF she claims to have been "raped", somebody is going to jail if she gets pregnant and doesn't want to deliver the child.
And in a day and age when women can already get an abortion for ANY reason... does this make ANY sense at all? What's the crime? Wasting "taxpayer" medical resources (as must be the Swedish case)?
@FJ No one is ceding any arguments, but you can't persuade people who aren't listening. There are other important issues to address where we probably can make some headway, if we're not being shouted down by single issue voters.
Wow, Julian Assange, that certainly bolsters your case.
I'd make an exception for abortion for rape if YOU were the rapist, FT. A woman who had spent time with you should qualify for free unquestioned abortions for LIFE.
I'd still have you arrested, though. No women in her right mind could EVER be suspected of having given you her consent.
It's all well and fine to be uncomfortable with abortion. But you shouldn't even be "anti-abortion." Sometimes abortions are necessary medical procedures. People are against drugs, for instance, but you can be damn sure they want some morphine before that back surgery.
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On the Fourth Amendment, I notice you use Hentoff, who complains about annoying things, like airport screening and such, and his points are fair, but he seems to have no answer for the question, "Well, then how do we keep psychos off planes?"
In a way, it fits your point. Remember, thanks to the Republican reaction to 9/11, the airlines and terminal owners and operators themselves are running a lot of the security, and doing a lousy job of it in some cases. So, yeah, big GOP FAIL there.
But all that trifling nonsense aside, if the GOP wants to talk about the Fourth Amendment, perhaps it should start reining in the Police State. Colorado and Washington, a Purple state and a Blue state, both just made it clear they are sick of the war on marijuana, something that far outweighs airport silliness and such when it comes to our rights being violated and the lifelong suffering of multitudes that can and often does come with that.
On top of that, we sanction people in all sorts of ways beyond the Fourth Amendment. For example: How does it help anyone to take away a person's drivers license because they owe money for some fine or back child-support payment or because they sold a friend a bag of weed? How does it help anyone to lock these people up? Yet we do that by the thousands every day, not just here and there at this airport or that, but THOUSANDS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY EVERY DAY. Think of the drag on upward mobility, the lost productivity, the wasted opportunities, the welfare money and the penal money? What a waste! What's "conservative" about that? I know a lot of your conservatives agree with me on this.
If you're going to be consistent, then look at the Fourth as you do the Second. Any sane person would worry more about the kid selling the gun to the other kid than the kid selling the dime bag to another. And any wise person would know that if you take the illegality of marijuana out of the question, the need for any kid to buy that gun in the first place would be negated.
Then there's all this property confiscation... think about that.
When you guys start taking the Fourth Amendment seriously, you'll only find friends here on the left.
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Your religious concerns are too blurry. I don't know what you're driving at there. We can't simply say, "Hey, whatever crazy religion you believe, you can do anything you want in the name of it without recourse of the people." That sounds insane to me. As with every right, there are limits. You can't punch me in the nose with your religion just as you can't with your fist. You just can't and shouldn't. There's no difference between freedom from religion and freedom of it. Same thing.
JMJ
Jersey: We're closer than you think on this one.
I don't like the police state Bush set up and Obama continues to preside over.
And "kids" do not have the same rights as adults, so I don't know why you mention them along with the 2nd Amendment.
And my point about religion is that so long as a practice doesn't violate the constitution, it's no business of the state.
While you're SAVING the ELEPHANT, would you please KICK the ASS?
Thanks.
~ FT
JMJ: There's no difference between freedom from religion and freedom of it. Same thing.
And the way to have both is to stop being fearful of other peoples beliefs. Not every person speaking out of religious convictions is an assault on your liberty, or an attempt to impose a theocracy. They have a right to their world view just as you do, and it's unreasonable to expect them not to be motivated by it.
So Teabagger All Star Scott Brown (aka the most left-wing Republican Senator in recent history) lost his seat for being too far right?
I dunno Steve. Running the founding father of gay marriage and pioneer of taxpayer-subsidized abortions as a "severe conservative" was quite a divisive fairy tale.
It may well behoove actual conservatives to hear everything these poseurs have to say, catalog it up as an indictment, and purge them from the Republican Party.
Obviously you've never lived in Massachusetts, were even conservatives are liberal.
I grew in Alabama. Five nuclear power plants... trains astronauts for space flight... environmentally pristine...
Massachussetts just seems kinda backwards to me.
Yeah isn't it wonderful engineers can travel freely about our country.
Wel you know what they say... the pessimist finds the glass half-empty, the optimist finds the glass half-full, the engineer finds the glass twice as big as it needs to be...
The elephant is dead, long live the TEA Party.
What you say seems to make sense, but there is such an important connection between social and economic issues that it's almost impossible to sever them (a moral people don't engage in infanticide as birth control any more than they leave their children and grandchildren with inconceivable debt).
Where the GOP fails in areas such as the ill-conceived and pretty nutty DOMA. God has already defined marriage, the government does not need to do so. We are ALL so dependent on government, so removed from our unalienable rights that we actually believe government can mandate God's will and word. Silly. Pointless.
Government should have nothing to do with religion. At all. Ever. Not legislating leftist OR conservative values and beliefs. Look at that. Let it sink in. Can government really ever legislate values and beliefs? Nope. They don't come from government and can't be granted by nor revoked by government. However, because we know--for a fact--that this administration is dead set on doing just that, we have to fight back . . . for freedom, not religion.
[quote]We support the right of all churches and religions to preach their message in the public marketplace of ideas, and we reject all government violations of their religious beliefs. [/quote]
This is not needed. Period. We have, already, in our Constitution the right to our "free exercise" of religion. That this has been limited by the Supremes doesn't change that basic fact; we can always go back to them, with new complaints, and challenge those rulings. Unlike God's laws, Congress's laws and the Supreme's rulings are not enduring, nor are they Truth (with a capital "T"). The left knows this far more than conservatives do (that's why they aren't content with one "win"--they need layer upon layer to protect their perfidy).
"A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO LOSE"
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