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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2008 : 09:34:45
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Here is a good article from Salon.com:
The GOP's last chance: Become Democrats
With all trends running against them, Republicans' only hope is to reinvent themselves as pragmatists. That, or nominate Sarah Palin and go out in a blaze of glory.
Nov. 11, 2008 | Surveying the wreckage after American voters gave their party the bum's rush, Republican thinkers have pondered what went wrong, searched their souls -- and decided that the way to regain power is to move further to the right.
In postmortem conferences and symposiums, in right-wing journals and Web sites, on Fox News, the overwhelming consensus among Republican analysts is that the only thing wrong with conservatism is that it isn't conservative enough. In a morning-after National Review symposium titled "How the GOP Got Here," L. Brent Bozell wrote, "The liberal wing of the GOP has caused the collapse of the Republican Party." Richard Viguerie said, "Republicans will make a comeback only after they return to their conservative roots." Other contributors echoed these sentiments. If only McCain had attacked Obama on red-meat issues like immigration or abortion or cloning. If only Bush had not betrayed Reagan's legacy by expanding Medicare. If only conservatives had let Sarah Palin be Sarah Palin. |
Snip: The GOP faces two problems for which it has no answers. The first is that its two main branches are fundamentally incompatible. The right has always been divided between a libertarian, free-market, anti-government, no-tax wing, and a traditional-values, moral-issues wing. These are strange bedfellows. Libertarians abhor any kind of coercive policies, no matter how "moral" their aims, whether they're imposed by government or anyone else. They tend to be tolerant on social issues. Traditionalists, many of them devout Christians, regard their version of morality as the highest value and demand coercive governmental measures -- on abortion and gay marriage, for example -- to instill it.
Two things have always held these two branches together: national security concerns, and a sense that however much each branch might dislike some of the GOP's positions, the Democratic alternative was even worse. Both of these unifying factors have now waned, and they seem unlikely ever to return. |
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2008 : 10:16:01 [Permalink]
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| Pat Buchanan argued on the right-wing site Townhall that McCain lost because he was too deferential to Beltway decorum and refused to take the culture-war gloves off. Noting that McCain refused to raise the Rev. Wright issue and didn't hit Obama on Bill Ayers as hard as he could, Buchanan wrote disapprovingly, "Lee Atwater would not have been so ambivalent." |
Yes, this is why I still respect John McCain. Despite how negative a campaign he ran, he put the breaks on crossing certain lines, and I think he did so because he's ultimately a man of integrity.
"Fresh Air" had a wonderful interview yesterday with David Kirkpatrick, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. You can listen to it here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=11-10-2008
Kirkpatrick talks a lot about the awkward position that McCain was in, being himself a thoughtful and honorable person, knowing that all circumstances were in Obama's favor except for his race. Kirkpatrick's analysis of McCain's perspective on the whole thing I think is supported by how often McCain appeared ashamed of his own supporters at rallies and his very good concession speech.
| the GOP faces a wrenching choice: remain true to its increasingly irrelevant and rejected ideology and fade into political insignificance, or remake itself as essentially a more moderate version of the Democratic Party. |
I find this very ironic because I see the Democratic party as having once been in exactly this position, and having chosen the latter option with great success. All my buddies who are a generation or two my elder talk about how much more economically conservative the Democratic party has become. My Aunt from Cleveland often despairs about how in the 70's Dennis Kucinich's politics were mainstream for Democrats, while today he's seen as a fringe liberal. One friend of mine who is in her 70's insists that "The Economist" is a "very conservative" publication. Also, the popularity of Reagan - who I'd regard as very conservative both socially and economically - among many Democrats I think speaks to how much the Democratic party has shifted center. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 11/11/2008 10:16:33 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2008 : 11:15:05 [Permalink]
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McCain is not close to being an "honorable" person. He put the brakes on the hate speech and racism only after he saw that it was doing more harm than good to his campaign, and even then only half-heartedly. The only "line" McCain was unwilling to cross was the one that led into naked, unvarnished racism. He wasn't above more subtle, nuanced fear mongering and insinuation. I can't count the number of times McCain asked "Who is the real Barack Obama?" or pushed the weak Ayers association for his own gain.
Please. McCain is as dirty as they come and his reputation is sealed as a mud-slinging politician of the lowest order. A few words asking for acceptance and tolerance in a concession speech isn't enough to undo the damage he's done. It comes off as just more political posturing to save his own ass, which of course is exactly what it is. Way too little way too late.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 11/11/2008 11:16:49 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2008 : 11:43:31 [Permalink]
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A very good article, Kil, that parallels some of my less scrambled thoughts.
Coincidently, the last of the true prophets has some musings along that same line: 11/11/2008
Advice to Soul-Searching Conservatives: Stop Being Such Jerks:
What pissed off many, many Democrats for the two presidential elections before this one wasn't just that we lost. It's also that the wins could easily be viewed in a range from "illegitimate" (definitely in 2000, possibly in 2004) to "really, really suspicious" (definitely in 2000 and 2004). So when we got our lawsuit on and were pretty goddamned angry, it wasn't just sour grapes. It's that we thought we had won.
Conservatives can't claim that in any rational way this time. 2008 wasn't an electoral or popular vote squeaker. John McCain just fucking lost and Barack Obama won. While some conservatives have been downright gracious and others have respected the win while promising hearty opposition, there's also been a vomiting to the fore of the nutbags who think the apocalypse is nigh in the Reign of Obama. |
Let us pray for a Palin nomination in '12 and enjoy the sinking of the elephant into the La Brea of American politics.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2008 : 12:29:40 [Permalink]
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I think the GOP is already quite a bit on the right of the general American public opinion already moving further away will only increase their problem to connect to the electorate.
I think that the smarter most pragmatic among the Republicans understand that and won't accept their party being hijacked toward the high seas of deeper lunacy.
They will leave and we will see either the creation of a third party or a migration toward the right wing of the DNC.
I would expect more the former, a third party which would ally itself to Palin's GOPINO for some elections. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2008 : 03:46:30 [Permalink]
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Time to hear from the Free Republic people.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2008 : 04:07:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
Time to hear from the Free Republic people.
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Ah, the Freepers! Some of my favorite troglodytes. What a pity they don't visit us occasionally.
Me, I agree with 'em. I'm all for Sarah running for '12 prez. She would finish the job to a fair-thee-well.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2008 : 09:15:29 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Ah, the Freepers! Some of my favorite troglodytes. What a pity they don't visit us occasionally.
Me, I agree with 'em. I'm all for Sarah running for '12 prez. She would finish the job to a fair-thee-well.
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Funny line from the Real Time with Bill Maher show this past week. paraphrased of course. "80% of the Republicans want Sarah Palin to lead the party in 2012 and 100% of the Democrats."
Plowing right through that door with her creator in tow.  |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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hholdings
New Member
USA
23 Posts |
Posted - 11/23/2008 : 16:34:06 [Permalink]
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| There are no liberals in the Republican Party. There are only Evangelical conservatists and other conservatists to moderates in the Republican Party. They are now fighting one another and will eventually cause the party to dissolve. What might save them is to split into two parties with each consolidating its brand and, perhaps, attracting some democrats who do not feel comfortable in the democratic party but who would not want to join the republican party the way it is now configured. That of course would result in three parties: Democratic, Republican and a third (Evangelistic, Christian Conservatist, Libertarian, other). |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/23/2008 : 19:58:24 [Permalink]
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[gloat] First, I gotta say I've long seen all this coming, and predicted it in these pages. [/gloat]
Practically the only real fight in the GOP so far is between personal constituencies of reactionary knuckle walkers like Palin and Huckabee. Palin, except as a pure figurehead, is intellectually incapable of being the leader of the Party. Whoever takes the reins is going to keep the Party at least as far right as it already is under the NeoCon Bushies. The death spiral is becoming uncontrollable, with only rocky ground far below.
Honestly, I would much prefer that the Republican Party restored itself. It's bad for any government not to have a viable "Loyal Opposition." It's bad for the Democratic Party not to have its policies and actions looked upon critically by a real opposition. Among other things, a lack of opposition is an invitation to corruption.
The conventional wisdom is that when a party is soundly defeated at the polls, it reexamines what it was doing prior to the thrashing, and takes corrective action. That is what the GOP has always done in the past. But this time, instead of Machiavellian thinking guiding the Party into a come-back mode, we see ideological purists at the helm. True reactionaries, whose "if it don't work, do it harder" response to stimuli resembles abnormal psychology more than it does practical politics.
Although I could be wrong, it appears that the moderates, PaleoCons, and the libertarian conservatives in the GOP have no chance at all to regain the control they lost many years ago. I'm truly afraid the GOP is, and will become even more so, moribund.
But once the NeoCon coalition of fundies, military adventurists and plutocrats has shattered into its component parts, a time will come when a new right/center-right national party will be assembled, with the help of the plutocrats. (Whether or not that party is called "Republican" will depend on the damage done to the GOP in the interim.) And there will once again be a Loyal Opposition.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 11/23/2008 23:46:53 |
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Pondering the future of the GOP
