News and Politics Forum

Due in part to the party spending so much time obsessing over not letting the fags get married that it has no energy left over to deal with the little things; like fiscal responsibility, standing up for Freedom, saving social security, formulating a wise energy policy, getting control of our borders; or any of those trivial items.

But THANK GOD that those fucking fudge packers are being kept in line!

EscapeVelocity wrote:

I predict a super majority in the Senate for Dems and the White House taken by Obama, seats gained in the House.

And THAT is going to be due in large to part to whiny, bitchy CHILDREN who are so  miffed about McCain not being conservative enough for them; they they're just going to take their ball and go home. (Not vote, and let the Democrat party have the election.)

And then of course, they wont have the good grace to shut the fuck up for the next 4 years. They'll keep whining anyway.

What happened?

Jesus Is My Pilot wrote:

Sorry, but if the GOP isn't going to reflect its base it deserves to lose.

If you are going to get into the business of deciding who deserves what, you may conclude that americans deserve the punishment of the kind of government protest voter like EV will put in office.

The idea that the repubs expended scarce political capital on SSM and is therefore sapped of the energy needed to win a general election has two enormous problems.

The general problem with that is that political capital is often accumulated by conflict and advocacy.  Gingrich accumulated influence and credibility by clearly stating a partisan position.

The second more specific problem with that idea is that opposition to SSM is bipartisan, DOMA having been passed under a dem president and supported by all credible candidates for presidential nominee of both parties.

zukiphile wrote:

Gingrich accumulated influence and credibility by clearly stating a partisan position.

Hey...
I was there. I remember the Contract with America, and I remember (and voted for) Reagan before that.

I don't remember Newt being obsessed with the fags.


But it's not just SSM. That's merely a highly observable symptom.



The problem is that there was a time, and this was pretty fucking recent; when God and Religion was something that was involved with a persons PERSONAL life. It was about who they were as a PERSON. Somewhere along the way it because who they were as REPUBLICANS.

It's a microcosm of the same stupidity that says this is a Christian Nation.
No...
It is a nation that was founded by people who were mostly Christians, and to this day is still inhabited and run by people who are mostly Christians.

NOW...
You'd be hard pressed to find people who actually understand the distinction that I'm making.

I knew we were in trouble when a woman in a grocery store told me that she voted for Republicans because of Family Values. I was actually stupid enough to ask her what she meant, and she said; "Well, they're Family Values." In an act of even greater stupidity I said; "Yes, but what do you MEAN by that?" What family values are we talking about.

You see, I didn't recognize that she was one of those people who was in the vanguard of the sort of people that dominate the Republican party now. I though it was only the DEMOCRAT party that was lousy with idiots who can't think for themselves and whose main talent was the absorption and parroting of talking points.


And it's not that I don't respect people with different ideas and opinions than those which I hold...
You know that you and I differ on plenty of issues and you certainly recall my lengthy discussion with Seth; who was wrong on damn near EVERYTHING. OK, I joke...
He was only wrong on most things. OK, not most... but definitely many.


MY problem is with people who, when you peel the onion to get to the core of what THEY think; have nothing there.


Unfortunately, the Republican party figured out that it was much easier to pull the same kind of pandering bullshit that the Democrat party has been pulling for decades.

So now, instead of "The Religious Right" being a PART of the Republican party, they think they actually ARE the Republican party. And frankly, at this point; they're probably right.

chiscot wrote:

The republicans have not been obsessed with SSM. At the federal level they haven't devoted much time or political capital to it at all. They've devoted orders of magnitude more time to border issues and illegal aliens. You are the one being petulant about republican feelings over SSM, so much so that you want to distort their efforts and falsely scapegoat the issue. Give it a rest. The party you support disagrees with you on SSM. Get over it.

Praise inbound...  The fact that nak started two threads to argue for the fudge-packing that he puportedly doesn't agree with sends up huge red flags for me.

What I've seen is two things:

First, while holding all the cards, the Republicans bowed to an obstructionist Democrat party and bought into the propaganda NYT news feeds, rigged opinion polls, move-on rhetoric, etc.; effectively squandering the only shot they've had like this since around AD 1910.

Second, after loosing their good hand, the Repubicans decided that it was fun to spend all our kids money, and had a president that gave the nod to every and any pork project that came across his desk in the name of "joining hands across the aisle."  In doing so, they seriously alienated their base, to the point where we are about to suffer the effects of a political coup (and yes, that is what we are close to facing -- especially if O wins the big house).

As for where time was devoted -- I see MOST of the time being tied up in BS procedural calls that made absolutely NO sense, and NO forward progress.  It was a lame duck Congress from day 1.  The only bills that actually got passed were the ones the Liberals had shelved awaiting their dream scenario -- which just happened to be a Republican Congress and President, ironically.

At the very least, Republicans should have solidified their power while they had it.  They could have gerrymandered political boundaries for maximal voting block effectiveness.  They could have rallied their base ala the Great One, Ronald Regan.  They could have dropped bulldozer blads in Iraq and Afghanistan and leveled all the rat holes within 6 months, then rebuit what was left -- we're doing so anyway.  They could have returned some power to the citizens of this nation, both on public lands and on private lands, not to mention aspects like marriage, state's rights, etc., but again, they did not.  The one gain they did make was in the area of taxation, but even in that, they failed to parlay that victory into a base-rally.

In a sense, they never gained the upper hand in the debate, which is the first rule -- ISN'T IT NAK?

That isn't the point I was making.  My observation is that the idea that controversy and advocacy depletes political capital is wrong.  It isn't like spending money, each dollar spent being one you can't spend again.
That would depend entirely on what you are advocating.




I see no indication of a current repub obsession with SSM.
Can I move to your planet?
Because here on earth it's gotten ridiculous.




Which would make it a christian nation in much the same way Isreal is a jewish nation.
I'm sorry, but that's VERY different. Seriously Matt, stop sniffing the toner.
Israel was SPECIFICALLY founded to BE a Jewish Homeland.
The USA was SPECIFICALLY founded to be a nation of Laws. That it happened to be founded by Christians does not make it a Christian nation.




This just shows that you don't know enough repubs.
And THAT just shows that you forget that you move in much more intellectual circles than most people do.



I'd say that people who compose a party can come to a conclusion without it being pandering or BS, even one we do not endorse.
Which fact does not and did not prevent the Republican party from the same type of pandering that the Democrat party has been doing for decades.



If they were right, how did McCain become the party's nominee?
The same way Barack became the other party's nominee. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it was too late to stop it. Both McCain & Obama can consider themselves the luckiest bastards in politics.




Something dems have historically done better than repubs, imo, is [text deleted for brevity] ... but they understand politics...
Yes. They understand that if you promise the people Bread & Circuses that they will support you. A lesson that the modern Republican Party has learned FAR too well.



The republicanism of my youth before Reagan had that quasi-religious-social flaw.
You and I have the same youth, or more accurately; lack of it.
The current "quasi-religious-social flaw" is far worse.



I think that kind of exclusiveness misses the purpose of politics.
POLITICS is the art of telling someone to go to Hell and having him believe that it was his idea.
I'm not talking about politics, I am talking about the Republican party in particular and in a way' the US in general.

This is a REPUBLIC. Our leaders are supposed to LEAD. The moment they forget that is the moment when we start sliding downhill to an Athenian Democracy. The day that the Democrat party succeeds in eliminating the Electoral College is that day that our Republic will die; and we are FAR closer to that than practically anyone realizes.


Or to rephrase my entire argument to make it more accessible; Reagan didn't pander. He led.

glfredrick wrote:

Praise inbound...  The fact that nak started two threads to argue for the fudge-packing that he puportedly doesn't agree with sends up huge red flags for me.

You see that Matt?

THAT'S what the Republican party is stuck with these days.


People so obsessed with their own personal prejudices that they have long since stopped paying attention.

It seems to me that if you limit your core principles you can attract more people. For example, if you're group is for small government, personal freedoms and free markets, you cast a wider net and attract more people. However, on the flip side, it also seems like you get more political power and influence and attention when you make it a point to be more divisive and partisan. So to that end you'd need to find more and more issues on which you can take a side.

It's odd that as somebody who subscribes to the basic core principles that I outlined above, I feel like a minority in a republican party that is more concerned with other more specific issues.

zukiphile wrote:

You do understand that my use of the word "church" was not a references to actual churches, right?

No. He didn't.




EDIT: Just to clarify glf...
I didn't post that because I was trying to throw you under the bus, although I realize that is exactly I end up doing anyway. I just want to make clear that it wasn't my motivation for doing it. In other words, it wasn't a gratuitous shot.



.

Last edited by MC Escher (06-05-2008 03:09 PM)

zukiphile wrote:

I think that yours is a libertarian argument ...

Mine is an argument that a Libertarian might make. That does not make it a Libertarian argument.

But actually, what I asked you was if you think that my MOTIVATION was libertarian zeal.

MC Escher wrote:

I see no indication of a current repub obsession with SSM.
Can I move to your planet?
Because here on earth it's gotten ridiculous.

Any obsession is apparent on both sides isn't it?

For every righty arguing against, there is a lefty(or a libby) arguing for.


& FWIW, this is how the 08 Presidential hopefuls stood on SSM:

Biden - Voted for the Protection of Marriage act in '96. Opposes a federal ban.
Clinton - Opposes SSM, but favors civil unions & rights. Against federal ban.
Dodd - Supports civil unions & opposes a fedral ban.
Obama - Believes marriage to be between man & woman. Supports civil unions. Opposes federal ban.
Brownback - Opposes SSM. Supports federal ban.
Edwards - Same as Clinton
Giuliani - Same as Clinton
Huckabee - Opposes SSM
Hunter - Opposes SSM
McCain - Opposes SSM. Opposes federal ban - leave it to the states.
Richardson - Opposes SSM. Supports civil unions. Opposes federal ban.
Kucinich - Supports SSM.
Thompson - Believes marriage is between a man & woman. For states rights.
Sees room for civil unions.
Romney - Opposes SSM. Supported civil union rights in Mass.
Gravel - Supports SSM
Paul - Similar to Thompson.