Robert Romano, ALG:
The controversial Breitbart headline, “RNC Declares War on Conservative Grassroots” drew a lot of heat from those who suggested [new RNC chief of staff Mike] Shields’ comments had been mischaracterized. A day later, RNC communications director Sean Spicer called Shields’ remarks “inartful” and said they were directed at “the beltway professionals whose focus is solely to make a profit off the party and movement and don’t share the same desire to win and enact conservative policies.”
[…]
Ironically, the “Growth & Opportunity Project” had identified a “multitude of effective third-party groups that we will refer to as ‘Friends and Allies’ that serve as critical components of the Republican Party.” These included “advocacy organizations to think tanks to political action committees to SuperPACs to associations. Most of these friends and allies are legally organized as 527s, SuperPACs or 501(c) (4) organizations.”
The RNC report hailed such groups as “valuable additions to the public discourse, as educators and helpers in the work of persuading Americans to believe in our Party’s principles, and as important conduits of our Republican messages and beliefs.”
Were these the “professional right” Shields reportedly said should be removed from the party? Are these groups only “valuable” if they agree with the findings of the “Growth and Opportunity Project”? Is dissent tolerated at all in the party, particularly when there may be policy ramifications from any rebranding?
Regardless of what was actually said at the meeting — the Ripon Society could confirm or refute the story easily by simply releasing a video of the event like it has consistently done for previous speakers — the story is emblematic of a bigger problem the Republican Party has.
That is, the conservative base of the party, its grassroots, has become increasingly distrustful of the party’s leadership in Washington, D.C. Even without a video, very few have had trouble believing the Breitbart story. And who could blame them?
Whether it is House Speaker John Boehner purging tea party members from committees, or Sen. John McCain out there calling the tea party “hobbits” and “whacko birds,” or Karl Rove’s American Crossroads declaring its strategy to wage primary battles against tea party candidates it deems to be unelectable — there really is a visible war between the establishment of the party and its base.
Adding insult to injury, more than 60 free market and limited government organizations took issue with the RNC’s new compressed presidential primary schedule and rules changes that critics argue will “centrally consolidate power” in the party.
Necessarily, it will also give even greater primacy to the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary — which are no longer red states as both voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Yet, no Republican in modern history has won the nomination without winning one of those two contests.
One could go on. Republican Governors John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Scott of Florida, Rick Snyder of Michigan, Jan Brewer of Arizona, and Bob McDonnell of Virginia have all laid the groundwork for Medicaid to be expanded by implementing Obamacare in their home states. Now, legislatures are the only thing that stands in the way of this massive increase of the welfare state.
Even more recently, Boehner has taken achieving additional spending cuts off the table by refusing to use the continuing resolution or debt ceiling votes as further leverage. In the meantime, Congress, with House Republican support, has suspended the debt ceiling until May 19, with no guarantee it will ever be reinstated — allowing the Obama Administration to borrow without limit as the national debt has soared to $16.8 trillion.
[…]
As far as the RNC’s makeover goes, with its visible calls for Hispanic, Asian, female, and youth outreach — critics are concerned that implicit in the GOP’s rebranding is that the party leadership is calling for it to switch its policy positions on taxes, welfare, abortion, immigration, spending, and unions.
In short, many wonder whether the party is trying to be more like Democrats to appeal to groups it has historically done poorly with rather than selling the free market principles that have attracted majorities over time.
This is nothing new. It all started with the ego of Theodore Roosevelt who ran third party in 1912, giving the country Woodrow Wilson, the Federal Reserve, World War I, the income tax, and the United Nations’ precursor, the League of Nations. We are still reeling as a nation from the fallout.
Almost 50 years ago, in 1964, Phyllis Schlafly penned “A choice not an echo” to make the point that in order to compete, Republicans needed to offer a clear distinction with Democrats.
Ronald Reagan would make the same point 11 years later to Young Americans for Freedom calling for a “a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people.”
This was the real autopsy of the Republican Party. Reagan was arguing against a third party, based on a belief that that the modern GOP could be saved from its me-tooism that had weighed down the Nixon and Ford administrations, creating the Environmental Protection Agency, abolishing the Bretton Woods gold standard, and initiating wage and price controls.[…]
Reagan failed in his 1976 bid to take the Republican nomination from Gerald Ford, but in 1980 when he won the nomination, the media immediately called for him to name Ford as a vice presidential candidate, to create what Walter Cronkite called the “co-presidency.”
Even before Reagan had defeated Jimmy Carter, the establishment wanted to neuter him. To placate the moderates, George Bush was named the vice presidential nominee, and the country has been dealing with the Bush dynasty ever since.
After a brief flirtation with getting back to foundational principles in 2010 — when the tea party helped Republicans reclaim the House majority on a promise to get our fiscal house in order — any pretense to rolling back the size and scope of government has gone by the wayside.
Today, Republicans appear as merely an echo, not a choice. A party whose grassroots supporters are begging for it to stand up and fight, and whose leaders worry that if they stand for anything, they will lose power.
It has a policy problem, something the RNC as the party’s political wing will be hard-pressed to do anything about. In fact, the solution lies with the very voters who swept them into power in 2010. The tension between the two positions is natural and palpable.
For the inside-the-Beltway Republicans, real limited government candidates must not be allowed to run. And if they run they must not be allowed to win. And if they win, they must not be allowed to govern.
Senators like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz who are turning Washington, D.C. upside down in defense of constitutional principles never would have been allowed to emerge in the top-down prescriptive, safe candidate approach advocated by the institutional Republican establishment.
The grassroots has been spurned for over 100 years now. Since World War II, there have been arguably only two conservatives presidential nominees to the party, and only one of them got elected.
The real question is can the marriage between organizational Republicans and the grassroots be saved, and does either partner want it to be?
I’ll answer: the partnership, such as it is, can and should be saved, but only out of expedience — and even then, only when it benefits the grass roots. Which is to say, it’s time to flip the script and let the establicans and the RINOs know that if they wish to vote for the lesser of two evils (from their perspective) — something they’ve been requiring of their base for years and years now — they’ll have to choose between conservatives/constitutionalists/classical liberals and big government statists on the left.
Typically, when called upon to do this, the establishment has worked to make sure conservative interlopers are defeated, if only as a way to punish the base for its temerity in nominating such creatures to begin with. This needs to end — and it needs to end by way of the grass roots doing what people like Rick Moran so clearly despise: purging from the party those statists who, like their leftwing counterparts, agitate for bigger government, and in so doing, work with Democrats and the media to demonize all those who don’t accept the paradigm under which the need (and public desire) for big government is a settled question.
Anybody can join the GOP. But that doesn’t mean just anyone should be permitted to run it — particularly when the ruling elite of the party seem to have more in common with Democrats than it does with those it ostensibly claims to represent. If it is the case that the GOP wishes to rely on conservative / classically liberal / libertarian support, it has to make concessions: and the most crucial of those concessions is that it relinquish control of the party to those who make up its base. Or else be forced out so that they can caucus with Democrats as Democrats or independents.
The contemporary GOP makes its money setting itself up against the Democrats — without actually having to set itself apart from Democrats in terms of how it governs once it claims power. This is the way they like it, too: DC runs smoothly when the power elite are “compromising” away your liberties and further expanding their own power. And which national party holds power at any given time is less a battle over principles as it is a kind of cliquish competition over who gets the better offices, who gets to pick committee chairs, or who controls the crony trough.
The time for electing Republicans just to get “our” numbers up is over. Either we elect Republicans we can rely upon to represent us and our constitutionalist principles, or we support challengers who will do just that.
Destroying the country in a bipartisan way does nothing to help the “rebranding” of the party. Nor does losing more slowly.
That’s a luxury we no longer have — and honestly? I’d just as soon lose with Democrats / progressives / statists at the helm so that when the real political autopsy is done — the one in which we look at what killed our country — the people who supposedly own the government won’t be confused by the likes of John McCain or John Boehner or Colin Powell and take the lazy view that blame deserves to be evenly spread between the parties.
Because as of right now, they’d be perfectly correct to do so. And that’s something the grass roots should never allow.
40% of firearms sales are don without a background check. GOOGLE IT!
*done
Meghan’s coward daddy all ate up with the jealous
that’s supposed to be him in the white house pissing away america’s freedoms
Yet another one needs to be flushed down the pan. Amazing the amount of floaters you see these days.
The IRA don’t need no stinking background checks.
The Rt. Hon. Turd from Seaford keeps his own set of laws, sdferr.
Bootlicking Republicans are flowing from out the woodworks, such are the stiffys they’ve got for their savior of Connecticut parents’ lust for revenge on anyone — everyone — in reaction to their undeserved suffering.
The Newtown parents are getting on my last nerve. What happened to mourning in private? Or is whoring the death of one’s child in order to help our Kenyan president ram through unconstitutional law the new black?
It’s the new half black, leigh.
Ah. I stand corrected.
But what do they lose if they turn from the grassroots? All the cool people are liberal, culture is liberal, cheap “photograph-able” morals are liberal. There’s no reason to gamble on our side. Enjoy your beautiful house and horrible children, McCain!
…which is to say, I think that’ll still need to get worse before there’s a real chance of it getting better, though I do see signs of it getting better. I’m just not sure we’re going to be able to push the climate of Washington itself back to sanity.
I’m rather hoping for a little anarchy in the USA.
So I confess I’m not clear what is best to do. My knee jerk inclination is to begin to build a new party which genuinely represents our political views from its inception — and we’d be required, of course, to militantly monitor such adherence right along, in order to prevent the sham of the sort the Republican Party has become from happening yet again.
But on the other hand, others suggest — and not implausibly, and in part as a matter of expedience, as opposed to as a matter of principle — that it’s better to attempt to seize the Republican Party back from the establishment insiders who control its funds, its efforts, its policy positions, its articulation (or lack thereof) of its “principles” and “purposes”, when these are actually articulated in public.
And there’s the problem confronting us as I see it.
This manner of presenting the problem does at least rule out the status quo ante, for the binary choice:
1) begin again [virtue: control of our own actions — detriment: takes time and effort which may not be timely to the national emergency]
or,
2) seize back the GOP [virtue: the efficiency of a standing apparatus and name, saving time — detriment: the potential waste of time in a losing fight with the extant holders of power within the Party now]
I’m content to grant there isn’t much nuance in this reduction. And if there are better views I’d be glad to hear them.
Here’s a bit of good cheer, for what it’s worth:
I’d say begin again, sdferr, but from a more clear one-issue party, like the NRA. Then you don’t have to compromise on your one principle, but explain to others why they shouldn’t be knee-jerk vote liberal or GOP.
I’m active in the Knights of Columbus, myself. And everyone knows my position on things, but they also know I’m reliable. Hopefully, that will start counting for something clear.
It doesn’t strike me as possible that a political party can be fruitfully depicted as one-issue, given the inescapable nature of politics itself William. Clarity, I believe, on the other hand, can be achieved regarding multiple issues: we only have to look toward the Federalist Papers as a preeminent example of such clarity.
Reminds me of that line from “Trainspotting”:
“In a thousand years, there will be no men and women, just wankers, and that’s fine by me.”
One thing Robert Romano missed was that John B. Anderson (Illinois Republican) ran against Reagan in 1980 as an independent.
Establishment types never worry about “splitting the vote”.
If the GOP is worth saving [and I’m no longer convinced it is, but I remain open-minded], then we should probably study how Disraeli overcame his versions of the RINO and Establishment types and remade the Conservative Party into a true conservative party, so that there was truly a difference between the Liberals and Tories.
While both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were successful in the short term, able to pull their respective countries back from the edges of the pit of Socialism, they were both stopped from leaving greater positive legacies by the backstabbing wets in their own parties. They were undermined by traitors from within.
While both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were successful in the short term, able to pull their respective countries back from the edges of the pit of Socialism, they were both stopped from leaving greater positive legacies by the backstabbing wets in their own parties. They were undermined by traitors from within.
Right, which plants something more than a mere seed of doubt in any plan to take the GOP back: we’ve seen this movie before (we’re living it, in fact) and it hasn’t turned out well.
Not a political party itself, Sdferr, but more of a way to better engage people that politics are a part of life, and not just a “once every four years tell half your friends they’re evil” sort of thing.
Meaning, if people were more engaged, that’d probably better recognize that a true republic is supposed to be blocked against bad gun law because of even worse populism.
So a “Federalist Papers” book club would be an idea. Get past the current, “You don’t have to read about the Founding Fathers, because they were Racist, and you’re smart. Now enjoy playing Angry Birds and trust us with your healthcare.”
I’ll confess that part of the reason I feel this way is that I don’t think there’s a national issue we can easily wrap around. The truest liberal thinks there’s less welfare and lower taxes, these days. So why are we bitching?
Or that the rich just need to start paying their “fair share” to solve all our problems. Opinions so stupid, you can’t begin to debate them.
. . . I don’t think there’s a national issue we can easily wrap around
Apologies for the truncation, but it seemed to me useful to cut to the chase, so to speak.
We are simply flooded with issues to which to address ourselves and the public. So, we ought not to have difficulty finding issues as such, and even little difficulty ordering them in a hierarchy of needs.
Christ, the government was built to “establish justice”, not to commit injustice. And yet, when the government steals from the very people it was built to protect and whose lives it was intended to make prosperous, promising all manner of “benefits” and delivering none of them as promised, but injury and disorder beyond our imaginations, how could we have a problem finding national issues?
OT: McConnell calls the dems Nixonian for bugging his headquarters. He also slams them for attacking his wife’s ethnicity and her patriotism.
sdferr says April 9, 2013 at 11:55 am
seize back the GOP
I’m not sure this is possible. From what I can see the establishment types will fight the grassroots with far more fervor (and money) than they ever use against the Dims. GOP leadership is fine with being party number 2, because they keep their seat at the table that way.
Only a little of the leadership/establishment is even elected popularly, and it seems like the biggest shake-ups in leadership happen when a new President is elected. Unfortunately the last two Republicans elected to that post were father/son, and neither were notoriously conservative or particularly confrontational with the Left .
I just don’t see us being able to get another real conservative nominated for President to affect leadership. The past two nominees have been the second-best-guy-from-the last-primary model that Republicans are so famous for, which to me indicates that the party has little-to-no difficulty getting their choice for the nomination through the primary process by spending like mad and tinkering with state level election rules.
[…] Please do take the time to click here and read the rest of Jeff’s remarks. […]
Right, which plants something more than a mere seed of doubt in any plan to take the GOP back: we’ve seen this movie before (we’re living it, in fact) and it hasn’t turned out well.
You couldn’t possibly disinfect it enough to be safe to inhabit anyway.
Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 6:
But little difficulty keeping it, once acquired, he says. So perhaps not the proper choice of analog? On the other hand, his motto, once again, is “one’s own arms”.
Because when you point to an obvious injustice, say, Benghazi, the media wraps everyone up with bad reporting or none at all.
But, fair enough, that’s when it becomes the Republican’s bad instincts that really loses. Obviously, only liberals can get away with “No one’s ever the body guy,” because it all sounds so nice without evidence.
The collapse of Social Security, or the rest of the progressive entitlement programs — and we know damned well this collapse is nigh, as do all the young people who vouch they will never receive back what they’ve been coerced to put in — is a more immediate injustice done to the greater number, despite the dangers the conduct of the Benghazi disaster may portend. For instance.
sdferr says April 9, 2013 at 1:04 pm
The collapse of Social Security
Is lied about and covered up regularly by the contemptible AARP.
But what has the AARP got to do with what a Sen. McLame says in any one of his many tv appearances? This isn’t about the AARP, or even about the Democrat owned media. It’s about the priorities, or lack thereof, that the GOP makes of its undeniable opportunities to lead.
Because the whole problem is that you can’t get people to connect the dots when they look outside and see a sunny day, and then a charming AARP spokesman comes on and soothes you that there’s no problems coming and, hey! reverse mortgage!
But I do agree with you, Sdferr. They should have pushed past these hurdles, been adults, and tried to correct the situation. But they still don’t understand where America’s headed, and honestly thought they’d “get their turn” again.
A losing and loser strategy.
“you can’t get people to connect the dots when ” you fail to mention what the dots are. Which is why we’re faced with displacing and replacing these utterly inadequate so-called “representatives”. Again, the AARP is a non sequitur in this discussion. We’re quite beyond that.
Fair enough. I know the current crop of GOP folks yield on obvious opportunities to avoid making waves. Just pointing out that pretty much whatever front you choose to fight has some pretty serious entrenched opposition waiting.
Oh, I forgot to mention the GOP’s part in helping to entrench that opposition.
*It has a policy problem, something the RNC as the party’s political wing will be hard-pressed to do anything about*
Its less of a policy problem and more of a “GOP leaders suffer from a complete lack of balls when it comes to fighting for said policies”. They’d rather “get along” and that’s not what we elected them to do. The only thing that’s going to save the GOP is to clean out the stables- get rid of the appeasers and compromisers like McCain and Graham. As Thatcher once said, “Consensus indicates a lack of leadership” and its not lost on us that McCain and his spineless buddies are constantly trying to find consensus.
We can at least console ourselves that ol’ spineless Johnny-boy would have made an absolutely terrible president, possibly even worse than Obama.
That’s not the point I’m trying to make, Sdferr. People care about the AARP and what it tells them because that’s a “neutral” organization much more than whatever connections I may or may not be able to provide for them.
Taking away America’s teddy bears and replacing them with graphs can win over people, I suppose, but the last time I tried, I just ended up with a friend arguing how I was taking Elizabeth Warren out of context.
Yet take my meaning William. While the point you are trying to make is true, let me stipulate, it has naught to do with what unrepresented concerned political observers and parties to the sovereignty of the people of the United States [us!] must do in order to obtain their own proper representation in their government.
Your point may have a great deal to do with swelling the ranks of such as us, to the extent that others remain unaware of the evils about to fall upon them — but our concern, here and now, is what we do to effect our own representation — an issue altogether aside from the education of the ignorant and lazy people among the voting population. That education is what we would suppose to take place only after we’ve been successful in finding proper representation and articulation of our principles and preferred policies in government. In the meantime, there are too damned few proponents of the unique American order of politics and governmental institutions.
Ah, okay. I see your point better now.
Yeah, I’d say in that case it’d make sense to try your best to infiltrate the GOP and try to get them back to their principles, and away from their endlessly “pledges to the future” nonsense.
I myself locally help a State Representative I trust, even though he’s not in my district personally. I also try to get people back to the “agree to disagree” standard and not the “disagree but don’t say anything cause maybe you’ll look like a jerk” standard of my parents.
html is not my friend today.
Clinton’s downfall came when the public caricature of him, already roughed out by previous “bimbo eruptions,” was put in sharp focus by a blue dress. Even so, it was less the factual basis for the caricature than the ease of superimposing it on the facts that did him in.
What is the most apt public caricature of Barack “The people who tried to prevent my fuck-ups are to blame for them” Obama? What are the most apt caricatures of Boehner, McCain, and Rove?
Identify a weakness, and hammer it. Relentlessly.
[…] “The GOP’s real grassroots problem” | Robert Romano |protein wisdom. “After a brief flirtation with getting back to foundational principles in 2010 — when the tea party helped Republicans reclaim the House majority on a promise to get our fiscal house in order — any pretense to rolling back the size and scope of government has gone by the wayside…The contemporary GOP makes its money setting itself up against the Democrats — without actually having to set itself apart from Democrats in terms of how it governs once it claims power. This is the way they like it, too: DC runs smoothly when the power elite are “compromising” away your liberties and further expanding their own power. And which national party holds power at any given time is less a battle over principles as it is a kind of cliquish competition over who gets the better offices, who gets to pick committee chairs, or who controls the crony trough.” […]
What are the most apt caricatures of Boehner, McCain, and Rove?
Gastroliths in lieu of teeth, they all have gizzards.
I just found out to my horror that 40% of my .357 revolver was purchased without a background check. And I had to wait two days too! So do I have to go back and get the other 40% taken care of or what? I doubt McBride’s even remembers the sale anymore. It was in 2002. I think… Do I get to pick which 40% of the gun gets confiscated?
This post is a thing of beauty.
Spot on, Mr Goldstein.
“It didn’t have eyes or a mouth but it was like screeching, making this noise.”
“It was weird. It sounded like a little alien.”
Tom Ridge rino pa: Unindicted Co-conspirator
more pa rino
Joe Manchin, Pat Toomey Key To Obama’s Background Checks Push
Mark Levin goes NUCLEAR: An up and down vote on the 2nd amendment is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
i feel better now
link
taking coal to newcastle
Michelle Takes Gun Control Tour To Chicago
proggtardia speaks
Wasserman Schultz: GOP Filibuster Is ‘Disgusting and Unconscionable’
Late to the party, but:
It doesn’t strike me as possible that a political party can be fruitfully depicted as one-issue, given the inescapable nature of politics itself, William.
I disagree. A political party based on the single issue of Freedom could be unstoppable. When the Establishment gives you no choice about who is programming your children, you want the freedom to choose an effective educator who won’t brainwash your kids to worship the State. When the Establishment gives you no choice about how big your soda cup can be, or how much sugar or caffeine or salt or fat or whatever you can consume, you want the liberty to choose what you eat and drink. When the Establishment steals 15% of your gross pay to give to your grandparents, you want the freedom to make your own retirement plans. When the Establishment mandates that you sit in the dark because electricity can only be generated using magical sources that don’t yet exist, you want the freedom to run a diesel generator to keep your food from spoiling. When the Establishment wants you to pay five figures in fees for the privilege of hiring an employee, you want the freedom to grow your own business on your own terms. When the Establishment decides what medical facilities and treatments you’ll be allowed to use, you want the freedom to choose a better alternative. When the Establishment decides that you must rely on its agents to protect your home and family, you want the freedom to carry the tools of your own protection. When the Establishment decides that certain topics are outside the realm of polite conversation, you want the freedom to speak your mind.
I could do this all day. Freedom is a winner, and it would attract every American worth attracting, if only there were somebody around to offer it.
“Issue” — at least in coversation with William — I took as something far narrower than principle. Yet even if we expand issue to conflate with principle, then as to principle it seems to me that we’re apt to defend equality as well as liberty, which is only to say that the purposes of politics necessarily involves a mixture of questions. The controversy over freedom as over against equality — such, for instance that we can make of freedom an ongoing “issue” or current controversy — is ever the question: in what ratio do we stress the one or the other, and not, I take, a question whether to eliminate the one or the other?
[…] “The GOP’s real grassroots problem” | protein wisdom […]
The equality I advocate is equality before the law — which was never a radical notion when I was growing up.
Any other equality, even ‘equality of opportunity,’ has to grow out of the first, else we once again invite politicians to judge the legitimacy of outcomes based on “fairness” rather than law.
I generally simply look to the Declaration for the plonking down of the principles as distinct items, which I take as a sort of gathering of axiomata, from which we begin.
Low information voters are subject to attempts to redefine “freedom” though. They like the sound of it, it but they don’t know why.
If a love of freedom catches on then the left only has to talk about freedom from gun violence (gun control), from greedy bank’s predatory practices (subsidized sub prime lending), from hunger and disease(welfare, food stamps), from poverty (progressive taxes), from a criminal culture(using courts to go after and intimidate party enemies), from obesity (nuisance luxury/sin taxes, bans), from child neglect (letting schools and public welfare control your kids life more then parents). Eventually they will get LIV’s to conclude that they cannot be free without a giant mommy government running everything and making their decisions for them.
Freedom from freedom: the ultimate freedom.
That’s why you push liberty, not freedom, and you make sure you define liberty in the affirmative.
As the late, great Breitbart said: “If you can’t sell freedom and liberty, you suck.”
Given a chance the left will redefine liberty as well.
Yep. Liberated from the tyranny of making decisions and the risk of looking stupid or making mistakes. That road is already well paved.
I think we should ask ourselves why is it that the co called “progressives” who blather on and on endlessly about the 21st century want to drag us back to the early 20th ? And why do they want to do it now that so much of that early 20th century experiment they seek to emulate has fallen apart and brought nothing but pain, terror, and misery to humanity? Why the FUCK do we want more Zimbabwes and Yugoslavias? Why do we want to risk more Che’s and Pol Pots coming along? WHY?
Progressivism has a lousy reputation for those who know it. More people need to know it. We need more Reagans and Thatcher’s who are not afraid to cut the cheese in front of the guests. We need the left to answer for their history every time they presume to try and fix our words for us. We need our anger. We need our war face. And we need to stop caring how many kids who can barely read give us thumbs down on cue because teacher likes it when they do that. Telling an authoritarian movement that it is full of shit, harmful, disgusting, and that it won’t like us when we are angry is very important and it unfortunately for timid and soft headed people like McCain and Romney, it cannot be done politely.
Let’s cut some cheese!
And I’m aware that Jeff said “make sure you define liberty in the affirmative”.
But I’m trying to clarify that I don’t think this is just about words. It is also about posture, a willingness to die on a hill, wisdom to see WHY the hill must be retaken if lost, and a lack of tolerance or gentleness towards the antics of those who would be quislings if we fail.
We don’t LOOK like we mean it right now. In 2010 we did. To the left right now, we look like a pussy with a black eye talking shit while we try to hail a cab home. We are not walking towards them. There is no sparkle in our eye. This is a mistake.
Sorry for my lack of editing. And I did “Thatcher’s ” as a plural which sucks. I just type like an asshole.
I’d like to hear RNC’s midnight confessions.
Thanks, I’ll hang up and listen for my answer.
I agree wholeheartedly, pala. Right now, the prevailing attitude casts the State as a benevolent mother, and the people are her helpless children, relying on her for their care and feeding. That shit is just wrong, and we need to shine a bright light on what is happening. I don’t believe that most Americans want to be treated as children, and I think they’ll get pissed off once they realize that their Moral Superiors are infantilizing them every chance they get.
I’ve no doubt that most will resist coming to the conclusion that they’ve been turned into helpless, dependent infants, but if we keep hitting them in the face with the facts, they’ll have no choice but to see the light.
The fact that we currently have nobody in Washington willing to advocate for liberty, independence, local control, self-reliance, and the like cannot be accidental. Nobody leaves such broad, popular, quintessentially American principles laying on the ground inadvertently. One need not wear a tinfoil hat to make the obvious connection.