Comments Posted By Travis Monitor
Displaying 131 To 140 Of 175 Comments
IF REAGAN TOLERATED MODERATES, WHY CAN'T TODAY'S CONSERVATIVES?
"My latest article is up at Pajamas Media and it’s already attracted the usual cast of thick headed numbskulls who think that “moderate” is a dirty word."
"Moderate" or "RINO" Republican is a dirty word today to the grassroots, and for good reason. That is the problem and namecalling people wont fix the lack of trust that is well-deserved.
It wasnt so in the 1980s, when many moderate Republicans voted for key priorities the President needed. But in 2003-2007, key issues were not delivered on - due to moderate defections. In the 1980s we never had a Congress and President at the same time. This is important, because 2005 SHOULD have been the 'conservative moment' when in fact it was a dud. And what made it a dud, policy-wise for conservatives? 7 RINOs in the Senate, including Specter, who made such policies impossible.
On issue after issue - ANWR, immigration, making tax cuts permanent, judges, earmarks, etc. we saw a failure to live up to conservative hope. Rick, understand that if we lose to Democrats at least we know they are the enemy, and most govern as they ran. But for some of the RINO Republicans, they govern NOT as they ran, but almost as if they want to do the least amount possible to live up to their promises. We feel like pidgeons in a con-game.It's men like Specter who ensured the losses in 2006, split the party, disenchanted the base by failing to deliver on key issues, over-spent and failed to perform. "Moderates" in the GOP who were often unprincipled more than anything else ruined the GOP brand.
THAT IS THE PROBLEM. It' a complete loss of trust due a breach of promises. We dont want of need moderates because a majority with moderates is no majority at all, its prescription for the same failures. IF YOU DON'T FACE UP TO THAT PROBLEM, THE REAL REASON THE GRASSROOTS DOESNT TRUST THE LEADERSHIP AND RINOS AND MOD POLS ANYMORE, YOU WILL NEVER HEAL THE GOP!
Rick, I'm sorry but if you are falling for the trap of using the Reagan precedent, remember: Ronald Reagan tolerated moderates if they were part of the team. And some of them were helpful. But RONALD REAGAN RAN AGAINST A SITTING "MODERATELY RIGHT-OF-CENTER" REPUBLICAN INCUMBENT PRESIDENT, GERALD FORD. Reagan was no less of an insurgent conservative as Pat Toomey.
Reagan also lost a key vote - Bork - in 1986 and it was just a *start* of the awareness of conservatives that sometimes Republicans wont help us WHEN WE MOST NEED THEM. Do you know who one of the turncoats was who stopped an excellent man from getting on SCOTUS? A man who voted FOR Ginsburg and practically every Clinton nominee? Who gave us that first taste of knifing the GOP base and turned the tide against the vote that would have crucially moved the court in a better direction?
SPECTER.
A turncoat who should have been expelled 30 year ago? As Palin would say "You betcha."
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2009/05/howl-of-rinos-and-rebuilding-gop.html
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 4.05.2009 @ 21:35
#6:
"The second is that in times of great crisis many (most?) Americans want more government involvement in finding solutions, not less."Government CAUSED the problems, and Obama's misgovernance is making the problem worse.
We need people to explain and articulate that fact if we are to turn things around.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 29.04.2009 @ 23:34
#7: "When do moderates EVER spend their time and money supporting conservatives?"
"When their positions on issues we care about are more in line with our views, than those of the Democrats."As an individual voter, it's your right. But in two cases, conservatives beat RINOs in primaries and then said RINO turned around and endorsed the Democrat. (eg Harris vs Gilcrest in MD-1). Thus, after a career of selling out on Republican votes when we need them most, we find these RINOs knife us in the back. It begs the question of why the grassroots should be loyal to such opportunists when the amount of loyalty THEY have is NIL.
The point about Toomey supporting Specter is well-taken; conservatives have helped get moderates elected, but the game has worn thin when those same moderates FAILED to support us on key basic things, like tax cuts and spending limits.
The issue is with how the party defines itself.
This is not about social conservatism btw, as none of these RINOs are in ANY way conservative, and in specter's case are more liberal than mere moderate.We lost in the Northeast because the northeast candidates refused to run on social issues, so that was no reason to vote GOP, second on national security Iraq made the GOP claim untenable (may reclaim it soon due to Obama stupidities), and fiscal/economic issues - these moderates were big spending folks who could not credibly claim to be for fiscal responsibility.
In short, we lost in the Northeast because the GOP LOST THE MANTLE OF FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY and as a result has NO ISSUES TO RUN ON!
Rick Moran is acting surprised that the conservative base is abandoning these RINOs and saying 'good riddance' even at a cost of a majority coalition. The conservative base are no more than battered housewives to the GOP elite - who even now are going to try to edge out Toomey as 'too conservative' for PA. The same elites who pulled behind Specter in 2004. Phooey. The fact is that when we were the (nominal) majority we didnt get the agenda we needed ... so Mr Moran the result was doubly bad - we lost both the agenda AND we lost the majority.
You can only put humpty together on the backbone of a conservative unity platform. big-spending RINOs do more harm than good.
I suggest Mr Moran gets back to basics. Reagan 1975, after the 1974 wipeout - "Let them go their way":
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 29.04.2009 @ 23:30
http://reagan2020.us/speeches/Let_Them_Go_Their_Way.asp
The thing conservatives need to recognize is that at this point “conservative principals” have also failed.
Lower taxes did not lead to a smaller government, even when conservatives controlled all branches of government.
Conservative governance is like abstinence as birth control - it works every time it is well and truly applied.
First, conservatives did NOT control all branches of Government at any time. The opportunist RINOs held the balance of Senate and House power when the GOP was in nominal control. Result: Higher spending, failure to make tax cuts permanent, too many earmarks, failure to deliver on agenda, and pushing of non-conservative items (like amnesty), etc. Bush may have been conservative on some items, but he failed to be a true fiscal conservative. That is one reason for the disrepair of the GOP brand.
#10 manning: Good stuff.
Here is simple definition of fiscal conservatism: A fiscal conservative believes in lower tax rates and less spending.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 29.04.2009 @ 23:08
1. Federal Government should spend no more than X% (IMHO 12%) of GDP. Until such a time as we get to that level, government spending should not grow faster than inflation (ie let the economic growth reduce burden of govt).
2. Tax system should be simpler, flatter, fairer, with goal to collect revenue at minimal burden to economy and people.
With our leviathan govt and huge sprawling tax code, we will never in our lifetimes be in a position where the 'fiscal conservatives go too far', so the whole idea of worrying about (fiscal) conservative extremists is ... odd. I mean, really, do you think you will EVER wake up in the middle of the night, going "OMG, the Federal Govt isn't spending enough money!"
WATERBOARDING: THE S.E.R.E. STRAWMAN
One other thing: this is not liberal vs. conservative. It seems to have escaped the notice of many conservatives here that Obama is against prosecution.
Uh huh and monkeys will fly out of my butt, dear leader knows exactly what he is doing he knew full well once he released those memo’s that the knuckle heads such as yourself would do the heavy lifting for him.
Yeah, what he said. Obama opened the Pandora's box by his foolish decision to unnecessarily make public these memos. Obama's credibility is further undermined by the fact that we now know they were SELECTIVELY released to elide the very pertinent point that intelligence that saved American lives was gleaned from this process. That's what got Cheney's danger up and rightly so. National security was endangered so Obama could score some political points.
Now Obama is simply scared off by the polls from taking this further and is in back-pedal mode:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics2/58_say_release_of_cia_memos_endangers_national_securityFifty-eight percent (58%) believe the Obama administration’s recent release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangers the national security of the United States.
Sizable majorities of Republicans and unaffiliated voters say the release of the CIA memos about the interrogations hurts national security. Democrats are evenly divided on whether the release hurt national security or helped the image of the United States abroad.Obama is a pathetic non-leader. He does stupid things without thinking about the consequences or the next step in the process, and practically everything he has done on foreign policy has hurt not helped America's standing, sovereignty and security.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 25.04.2009 @ 19:52
Anyone who defends torture is just mentally sick."
Argument ad hominem. And torture was not used according to many of us.
"The fact that its inhumane and against the law means nothing to these people."
False. The record shows that serious effort went in to ensuring everything was within the law.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTRhM2E2MTE0NjQ3MzYwNWM2ODJjMTgwNWQwMmVkYzc="How about the people that were tortured that turned out to be innocent? "
Name them. This statement is cetainly false. Waterboarding was used on only 3 individuals all of whom were well-known serious AQ terrorists with definite knowledge on future terror plans. One of them was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, responsible for 9/11 attack itself. Name the innocent individuals and the so-called torture used."Probably just collateral damage in the minds of the hardcore right. "
False. You express only your own ignorance. The only desire here is to defend US security and keep Americans safe."John Yoo was basically told to write up some legal mumbojumbo that would make breaking the law, legal."
False. He and other DOJ lawyers were asked to determine what could be done legally and that is what they did.
"My mind jumps to the point in Frost/Nixon"
After a parade of fictional statements, logical fallacies and strawman attacks, your mind jumps to a Hollywood movie. Egads, you've got a fiction-based worldview."Bush and John Woo can’t make law on the fly, this is far from being over and Bushco better start lawyering up."
If any official act that was deemed legal but is found to be ex post facto illegal is cause for prison, the possibilities are endless ... So when we find out that Gietner and Obama are violating the 5th amendment of the US Constitution by their takeover of US banks in converting pf shares to common, a clear 'taking' under the 5th, we can impeach and try them too and send them all to the same prison? Goody. Bring it on.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 25.04.2009 @ 15:11
Bringing up SERE is not a strawman; it's a valid calibration point to assess what's really going on. I don't think waterboarding is torture as we commonly use the term, but wont quibble with parsing of law; I'll let lawyers figure that one out.
The point is: Signing up to be a Marine is not intended to be a signup for cruel and unusual punishment or practices during training that go outside the bounds of human decency, nor would our military deform or disfigure trainees or impair them mentally. What you are left with is a practice that can scare the heck out of you for a *short* period of time. It's a helpful reminder that what the left wants to prosecute is an act of treating KSM - killer of 3,000 American innocents - in a way that is not worse than what we put grunt Marines through.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 25.04.2009 @ 13:51
DEMOCRATIC PARTY PARTISANS TO 'OUT' GAY REPUBLICANS
President Clinton committed perjury, lying under oath in a sexual harrassment suit. It’s appalling to think that perjury and keeping one’s private life private are the same line.
And all law-breaking must be prosecuted. Right?
Like, say, conspiracy to torture? I really want to hear your answer here.
Laws should be enforced equally to all, and no person, even the President should be above the law.
As for your rather trollish insertion of inapt analogies:
President Clinton's perjury broke the law, and he did so for the selfish reason of protecting his own skin.All of the actions in the global war on terror that are now being questioned were good faith attempts to defend the US from terrorist attacks. It's pretty clear that in fact the heavy interrogation methods used, ie waterboarding, not only were extensively reviewed by DOJ/WHC lawyers and okay'd, but were used sparingly on only 3 individuals AND helped uncover the Al Qaeda network and saved us from terrorist attacks. So the charge is "conspiracy to waterboard KSM - the murderer of 3,000 innocents on 9/11 and the guy who personally beheaded Danny Pearl - and two other AQ terrorist suspects in order to gain information to stop terrorist attacks" ... go ahead, try that case ... let's just make sure the jury are American patriots and not leftist twits out to get us defeated in the GWOT.
And BTW, if you want to retroactively impeach former Presidents for over-zealousness in war, go ahead and impeach FDR for his massive violation of the civil rights of tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans by putting them in internment camps. Unlike the Bush admin and GWOT, FDR's action had zero benefit to our war effort and was just based on paranoia. Think: Flyspecks, planks, and eyes.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 25.04.2009 @ 09:27
#30:
The whole idea is about outing hypocrisy. ... We are only out to expose hypocritical behavior in politics, REGARDLESS of the party affiliation!!! Let me say that again. We are exposing HYPOCRISY, and it doesn’t matter the political party.What the identity politics activists call 'hypocrisy' is really those members of the 'group' who dare to dissent from the Party Line. See #25. You speak of "gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered issues" as if there is one One Right Way for a gay person to think about such things. Open-minded people call BS on that. Consider the possibility that closeted gay politician voted based on their consciences or different personal viewpoint.
Once you unwrap the faux moral-superiority built around this phony 'hypocrisy' claim, you are left with naked political bullying combined with the arrogant an prejudicial attitude that members of a group should "stay in line" with the Group Identity Party Line. The 'escape hatch' for any such closeted gay is to Vote the Party Line, So the threat becomes: "Do as we want - OR ELSE." As such, its modern political Brown-shirt-ism.
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 25.04.2009 @ 08:57
Another thought struck me - the Clarence Thomas precedent:
Conservative gays have wide ranging opinions on what constitutes gay rights. For Rogers to set himself up as an arbiter of opinion among conservatives - gay or not - about what people should believe is an astonishing demonstration of arrogance.
The point here is that conservative gays are NOT lock-step with the "Gay Agenda" so to speak. They may not think, for example, that gay marriage is necessary nor desirable.
#10 says: "That consensus hinges on the idea that gay marriage etc. are predicated on full and equal human rights. Anything less than that would be seen as a betrayal of the community."
So what we have in gay conservatives are individuals who go AGAINST THE GRAIN OF GAY IDENTITY POLITICS, just as Clarence Thomas when against the grain of black identity politics (or for that matter Sarah Palin goes against feminist grain). Such individuals are considered even worse than the white/male/hetero conservatives - they are traitors to their 'group'.
As such, the outing can be seen as an attempt to personally destroy any individuals (ie gay conservatives) who hard-core identity politics leftists think are illegitimate. That expression of illegitimacy we see in the false charge of 'hypocrisy'. (NB it is not hypocrisy to have an opinion about the rights of a group that goes agains the identity politics grain; it is merely a DIFFERENT opinion!)
Comment Posted By Travis Monitor On 24.04.2009 @ 20:35
