In 1994, the Republican Party was hijacked by the religious right who, once in the position of power, began to shape the Party into their own image. Evidently, these extremists forgot the Commandment that they were not to create graven images or serve other gods.
Well, maybe they didn’t see themselves as serving another god, but the “other god” was created to serve them. They alienated those who were in line with the old Republican Party—the GOP, as it was known—and drove many of them into the ranks of Independents. There, some became lost in the liberalism of the left leaning wing of the party, and the real GOP was lost in the mix.
Today, it seems that the religious right has so destroyed the Republican Party that there is little hope for a conservative to be nominated as the candidate for President.
It would appear from NH to SC to FL that the liberal Independents have invaded the Party and handed the nomination to the most liberal of the candidates, John (Amnesty) McCain, unless something radical occurs on Super Tuesday.
In polls, most Republicans view illegal immigration and stopping the invasion as one of the most important issues facing a new President, regardless of the Party. Yet the votes are going to the man who would open the borders, give amnesty to those already here, and continue to welcome the flood of illegals coming into this country day after day. Most Republicans also view spending cuts as a very important issue, but the vote has gone to one who voted against tax cuts. On spending, McCain has stood more in line with the Democrats than with Republicans.
Factories are closing, jobs are bailing out to foreign countries, and the trade deficit continues to increase, but the most liberal of the candidates and the current leader for nomination, John McCain, will continue to expound about Smoot-Hawley. For those not familiar with that Act, Smoot-Hawley was the Tariff Act of 1930 that raised tariffs to historically high levels and has been blamed in part for the Great Depression, or at least for not helping to avoid it. It provoked a storm of foreign retaliatory measures, which have created for the most part the trade deficits that have occurred in the past and haunt us to this day. However, that does not seem to bother McCain. He was quoted as saying to the auto manufacturers and workers: "When
you study history, every time we've adopted protectionism, we've paid a very heavy price."
The further consequences of this Act have brought about NAFTA, GATT, and WTO, which McCain voted in favor of. Even the Democrat candidate, whose very husband was responsible for the NAFTA, has begun to question the NAFTA Paradigm. But not the liberal McCain.
Eisenhower and Nixon came to office determined to extract this country from a war where the costs were beginning to outweigh the possible end results, but McCain is talking about the possibility of 50 more years in Iraq. Bush, even in his misguided placement of NATO and its missiles on the doorstep of Russia, severely disturbing Vladimir Putin and undoing the more peaceful Russian relationship that Reagan had established, sounds more like McGovern, the peace candidate of the 60s. The current liberal Republican McCain can’t wait to “get in Putin’s face.”
There are three issues that seem to have destroyed this Administration — the war, the border invasion, and a failed trade policy that has left foreigners buying up America at what Pat Buchanan described as “fire sale” prices. McCain is in favor of continuing all three of the issues.
Going into the California primary, liberal Governor Arnold Schwartzeneger (R-CA) gives his blessing to the liberal Republican candidate, McCain.
Where the current President was best, at Judges and taxes, the liberal candidate on the right, McCain, was schmoozing and voting with Hillary Clinton on the left.
Along with a lot of other voters who find neither Clinton nor Obama of the Democrats acceptable, I am now asking which of three ways I should go. Do I hold my nose and vote for the liberal of the right — McCain; do I not vote; or do I perhaps vote for a third party? So far, there is no third-party candidate worth voting for, so it would seem that the likely choice is no vote.
It appears that there are no longer two Parties in this country, but simply the Left and the Ultra Left, and we have the Ultra Right to thank for that.
On a personal note, I feel the Democrats threw their best candidate, Bill Richardson, out with the bath water. And the liberals on the right have hijacked the Republican Party and any hope for Romney to be nominated, at least at this juncture. I suggest blowing both the Democrats and the Republicans out of the water and running a Romney-Richardson ticket. It sure beats the choices we have now. What say you?
9 comments:
Ticker,
I saw Newt tonite say it is not even a close call about the choice if McCain winds up as the nominee of the GOP and Hillary/Obama is opposing. He says easily he would take McCain even despite some major differnces. And I am with Spagnoa in his message to Sean Hannity, STFU !
Politics and parties in this country will undergo further transformations and I suspect that the conservatives will one day asscend again, so all this purist rhetoric is simply helping the Democrats and these guys, Limbaugh included should zip it . They are free to continue espousing their beliefs but these tantrums are unbecoming and harmful.
Fred, as it stands at this moment, there is no two party system in this country to evolve into anything. It is one party representing the bad or the worst. I'll stand by my statement that it has been destroyed and will stand by the statement that the far right was a great contributor to that destruction. Dick Armney was right when he said back in 06 that the Republicans had sold out to the religious right and that it would come back to bite them in the butt. The results are clear. There is no mainline Republican party. The far right remains with it's "value voter" agenda and the other part is only one step from being a Hillary Clinton Democrat sub-party. Look at McCains votes and see what I mean. He's more Democrat than some Democrats and running as a Republican. Who care if the farright conservatives ever re-appear. I see a need for the main line GOP , the party of Ike to reappear. One that is concerned with overspending and is also concerned with the national defense. If you remember Ike also had the answer to the immigration situation. He shipped them back home and dang sure didn't give them the McCain amnesty treatment.
A choice between McCain and Hillary is no choice.
Ticker,
Sorry if you and your readers may have misunderstood my noting Sam Sagnola's comment on Sean Hannity.
Ticker it was not directed at your post. These are trying times for conservative Republicans like myself ( which I have been all my adult life )
Sam is a local attorney in Greensboro, NC who happens to be a proud Republican .
He is smart and can present good arguments. He has two blogs, as if one wasn't enough. His statement and the one I referenced was posted on his " Conservatinve Alternative " blog . I have linked it below. Hope this clears any confusion I may have caused.
Shuttup
Personally I would love to attend the funeral, it's long over due. For many years I have seen party platforms created in a vain attempt to present a united front. They force people with innovative ideas to toe the party line as defined by the power brokers or worse, the majority.
The majority is about the status quo. The majority is comfortable belonging to a group of like thinkers. The majority abhors change. The majority is best defined as the unthinking masses. To belong to the majority is to accept mediocrity as a way of life.
I abhor labels of all kinds. Labels attempt to create group think. They are insulting to a blockage to innovation. In recent years labels have been used like curse words to immediately brand others as wrong, end of discussion, debate over, we don't want to hear what you people have to say, what do you know anyhow?
I'm no business man but I do know about brain storming where a bunch of people get together and toss out ideas. This is the opposite of group think and we need a whole lot more of it in politics.
What we have now are a bunch of manipulators trying to second guess who is the most electable regardless of whether or not that person fits with the image of the right way to go.
Perhaps it is impossible in times of great peril which call for the efficiency of dictatorship. Thus the power hungry will perpetrate war as a way to gain and hold more power.
I say warfare as an extension of diplomacy as a method of resolving conflict must go the way of the horse and buggy. If life on earth is going to survive and prosper peace is needed, a lasting peace that requires no more arms races, that breeds cooperation as a mode of behavior instead of competition.
"Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative." Dwight D. Eisenhower
Thomas, we have always had some sembalance of parties in this country and others as well before the US existed. They were intended to be a group which gathered to toss about ideas WHICH those there REPRESENTED showed concern about. UNFORTUNATELY it has become as you say " a bunch of manipulators trying to second guess who is most electable....." So now regardless of how the people feel on issues it is who the heck can beat the other fella. For the most part they throw out some sound bites that sound good to the uninformed and hope it sticks on the wall long enough for them to get elected and then it is so long suckers until next election. Even in the days of smoke filled back rooms, those gathered there had enough brains to pick someone who carry through on what the people of their party were asking for and the one they felt had the best chance of carrying those issues out. It was not just who is the most popular and can throw out the best sound bites. We have lost that and it is unfortunate. The farright hijacked the Republicans in 94 and the farleft hijacked the Democrats in 2000. We are left with nothing worth voting for and that was the premisis of my article. It is now vote for bad or worse and that is simply a shame.
" The farright hijacked the Republicans in 94 and the farleft hijacked the Democrats in 2000. We are left with nothing worth voting for and that was the premisis of my article. It is now vote for bad or worse and that is simply a shame. "
It looks like I'm gonna be voting republican if things don't shape up pretty soon...
The cander and rigormorole gets tiring in the non-stop debates by these imbiciles... yada, yada, yada, over and over...
I can honestly say, I do enjoy Hillary getting pissed...
I also enjoyed watching John McCain's facial expressions at Romneys comments about him the other night...
I wish these idiots would just stay honest about the issues, and discuss the issues, instead of trying to beat each other down...
They can't, they are professional liars and cheats...
We are doomed...
I understand what has always been. I don't care. This is the past you speak of. The fact is the system as it stands in is a state of stasis. As pressure builds from beneath the demand for action grows with it. If the governing body does not respond..well sir this is the stuff of revolutions. Hopefully if/when that day comes it will not be a violent event but a sudden realization that IT'S TIME NOW NOT TOMORROW and those in power will hear.
At this very moment I would, if I had the power, call a constitutional convention, no politicians invited. A fantasy? Perhaps but desperate times demand desperate actions. If powerful people feel threatened enough to take action other than trying to shore up this or that political hack, who knows?
I basically believe the government we see is not the government that really runs this country, never has been right from day one. I can't prove it but a little research will uncover other minds that will reflect this. The idea is not mine alone.
"I wish these idiots would just stay honest about the issues, and discuss the issues, instead of trying to beat each other down..."
Larry, you said it all. From very early on in this blog that is exactly what I have been saying. From the first poll(and the only poll) on this blog I addressed issues that folks want to hear the candidates actually talk about and not some, as you so aptly put it, yada yada yada. Guess what? It ain't happening! But I believe you said once before in another conversation Larry, we get what we pay for. Pretty well sums it up. Thomas you said it was a group of people who sit around and see if they can come up with somebody to win a popularity contest regardless of the issues. They just want to see a verbal slug fest. Well, by dang this year it looks like they are getting their money's worth.
I appreciate what both of you have said because neither of you have missed target at all. You have both hit it dead center.
The poor choices in this election bring home a really important point: that the "average" U.S. voter favors a mixed-economy that is slightly left of where the U.S. is today.
While there are some defenders of individual rights and Capitalism, their arguments do not have much traction today. Perhaps it is the mood of the country -- depressed by the end of the Internet bubble and the housing bubble, and by the war in Iraq. Depressed by these things, people do really want something done about them; but, the predominant political philosophy of the average Joe assumes that government will do the doing.
I agree, Ticker, that the religious right took the GOP in the wrong direction. In truth, the GOP was never a great champion on Capitalism -- always a bit apologetic about it. Still, the right direction would have been to strengthen the defence of Capitalism and individual rights.
Still, one has to grant that the "deal" with the religious groups is what enabled the GOP to come to power now and then. From this, I conclude that adequate underlying support for free-enterprise does not exist in the U.S.
Unless many more people change their basic ideas about the role of government, I don't see any party making a huge difference.
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