Back in 1994, I left the GOP. A large part of the reason was the party’s caving-in on the 1994 “Crime Bill”, which served as sort of a high-water mark for gun control legislation. It (along with the 1996 Counterterrorism Act) was an attack on civil liberties like George W. Bush never attempted in the lefties’ most fevered deliria; sweeping-yet-irrational gun bans, wiretaps, property forfeiture and a shopping list of other atrocities against liberty.
The Republicans – as opposed to conservatives – went along with it. So I left.
“The GOP”, I told people who cared – which in those pre-blog days was pretty much nobody, “is perfectly happy to take us gunnies’ contributions and use up our shoe leather. But turning around and gutting the Second Amendment? Huh?”
Larrey Anderson at AmThink is finding the same problem with conservatives and the GOP in general.
Conservatives are the engine that drives the party…:
The GOP heavily (almost exclusively) relies on conservatives for grassroots campaign workers and financial support. But the Republican Party has a long history of exploiting conservatives’ efforts and misusing conservatives’ financial contributions. In many ways, the situation is reminiscent of an abusive marriage. Is it time for conservatives to finally recognize the lies and abuse and move out of the house? Or is some sort of reconciliation still possible?
Anderson notes that there’s really only one answer to that question:
I will make my position clear from the outset. A divorce by conservatives from the GOP would be a disaster for all of the parties involved. Just like most marriages, the grass may look greener on the other side of the fence — but it almost always isn’t. This is true for the GOP and for conservatives.
Conservatism is the heart, the muscle and the feet of the party.
The problem lies with too many people at the “Brain” (scare quotes intentional) level:
The “big tent” speeches may be staple rhetoric of the GOP hierarchy; but, if conservatives pack up and leave, the GOP will be a big empty tent. (This mass migration would include the growing number of black and Hispanic conservatives in the GOP. These good hard working people are in the GOP because they understand and live by conservative principles — not because they are part of some equal opportunity RNC scheme.)
There’s a great point: minority conservatives are like Minneapolis and Saint Paul conservatives; they have to swim upstream, and hard; the black, hispanic and asian Republicans I’ve met have been intense and very, very considered in their conservatism. Most of the dimmest RINOs seem to be the same crowd that makes the most obnoxious liberals; as white as a Bachman-Turner Overdrive fan club.
The GOP needs to understand, and it needs to understand this soon, that there is no Republican Party without conservatives — and conservatives need to start acting on this fact…Here are some tough love suggestions for how this can be done:
(1) No more money. The first thing conservatives must do is stop giving any money to the GOP. All contributions must stop — at least for the short term. We have all received letters from the RNC that ask for money to help fight “liberal tax and spend Democrats.”
Heh. The joke’s been on us.
(2) No more excuses. Conservatives must stop making excuses for the GOP and start demanding change. I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of defending the lightly veiled socialist policies of “compassionate conservatism.”
I’m gratified to see some conservative GOP activists actually following through – moving to hold Republicans’ feet in the fire. The shredding of four of the “Override Six” at caucuses (four were denied endorsement; two retired, two lost at the polls) was, for all of Lori Sturdevant and the Sorosphere’s caterwaling, a wonderful sign. The rank and file does get it.
They just have to follow through.
(3) No more manipulation. Republicans have manipulated conservatives for far too long with empty promises of governmental reform. John McCain received a standing ovation from the delegates at the RNC when he proclaimed the end of big government spending. In less than two months he suspended his campaign to fly back to Washington so that he could work and vote for the first bailout bill — the largest single government expenditure in peacetime history…
Senatitis kills.
(4) New leadership now. The GOP must dump its current crop of congressional leaders. These men seem to be comfortable being in the minority. They know how to say “bi-partisan” and “compromise” — but they have no clue about how to say the simplest of words: “No.”
Listen to House Minority Leader John Boehner’s take on his recent meeting with then President-elect Obama on the next trillion-dollar bailout. Listen to the words from his own website. Boehner wants “to craft a plan [trillion-dollar bailout — the sequel] that can pass in a bipartisan fashion.”
Here, I’m going to differ from Anderson – but only for a moment.
Boehner’s a legislator – and he’s in the minority. The very word “politics” at its root means to compromise. While Boehner isn’t necessarily my choice to lead us in the House, it’s not his fault that the GOP fell flat in two straight elections – at least, far from his fault alone.
It is the GOP’s fault that over the past four years it has, at most levels,marginalized conservatives. Boehner is the symptom.
(5) Finally, let’s take this bull by the horns. Conservatives need to start running for office. I know. I know. This is a daunting idea. But stop and think about it for a moment.
And not just Congress.
That’s been my big push this past year,and will be a bigger one this year; conservative Republicans need to get involved in local politics, especially in liberal gulags like Minneapolis and Saint Paul. They need to run for community councils, school boards, library boards, whatever is available. They also need to seek and accept the myriad appointed positions that abound at all levels of government; sitting on budget boards, community planning and zoning councils, library boards, school board advisory committees, and on and on. This is not only how conservatives get to control parties; it’s how communities led by generations of intellectually corrupt fearmongering ideologues (I’m looking at you, Twin Cities) realize that conservatives don’t drink the blood of infants, sacrifice old people, and light their cigars with bills pilfered from the poor.
If Nancy Pelosi is fit to be the Speaker of the House, then at least 90% of the rest of America’s citizens are qualified to run for some public office. (This includes 99.99% of America’s conservative stay at home moms. Run ladies run!)
Of course, then there’s the little matter of helping them withstand the character assassination that faces any woman or ethnic or social minority that comes out as a conservative
But that’ll be a “smile problem”.
It (along with the 1996 Counterterrorism Act) was an attack on civil liberties like George W. Bush never attempted in the lefties’ most fevered deliria;
Bull.
Suspending Habeaus Corpus, creating fictional legal ideas, creating secret prisons, spiriting people off secretly are FAR worse offenses, unless you think ‘dissappearing’ people is simply less offensive than restricting your access to guns, or you losing property (which frankly I profoundly disagreed with but I don’t need to create asinine exagerations to make the point).
Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.
Different day. Same off topic shit.
Seriously – I’ll bet the comment above is word for word the same as at least one other such logorrheac outburst.
If I nod my head and wearily chant “yes, Peev”, will you get a new idea?
I’m just spitballing for ideas here.
Lot to chew on, but your point about finding conservative candidates in St. Paul and Minneapolis is spot-on. The Republican Party has written these places off, but there is a lot of latent conservatism to tap in these places. If you talk to people who live in the inner cities, you find that their immediate concerns differ very little from people in the suburbs. And you’ll find that a lot of people resent the way that some liberal politicians tend to pat inner-city people on the head like they are cocker spaniels instead of people. I attended a church in Frogtown for years and saw this first-hand. The problem is that Republicans have always assumed such neighborhoods are lost causes, which makes the belief a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ed Matthews (who ran an excellent campaign against Betty “Rubble” McCollum in the last cycle) is an excellent example of the sort of person that the Republican Party needs. He’s in the running for a party leadership position and I hope he gets the job, because he understands what is possible and will fight for it.
[Off-Topic post deleted. Not just for being off topic – I mean, doyyy, Angryclown – but for the sense of arrogant entitlement exhibited]
“Suspending Habeaus Corpus, creating fictional legal ideas, creating secret prisons, spiriting people off secretly are FAR worse offenses”
All of which have or shortly will be done by Democrat presidents as well.
Mitch, this post had me worried up until the end because it sounded like another call to sit out the election of stop donating to the GOP, all of which was done in the last couple of election cycles. There has been some positive result, such as conservatives talking about how to take back the party. But the other result is the DFL control of the house and senate and a 225 vote lead for a former comedian that makes Kathy Griffen look like A list material.
The only solution is to get involved at the local level and network like crazy.
It’s so cute when Pernicious Peev acts like he serves an official purpose on Mitch’s blog.
BTW Mitch, it’s spelled logorrheic, and using 25 cent words STILL doesn’t make you either right, or logical.
Badda, your official purpose is to not have a purpose other than to expose your OCD issues about my presence on this blog. That’s sad for you.
And Mitch, I don’t point out your spelling mistake to be critical, merely to point out the irony of your having taken a shot at me for being wordy or scatter-gunned or whatever it is your bitch of the day is – when you post 4500 words about how you left the Republican party because it wouldn’t take up your extremism, in the same breath that you complain about leftist extremism.
“Squelching dissent” ??? – I swear I get more embarassed for peev every time I read his comments …..
Peev,
Two things:
1) You are the last person who should be correcting someone else’s spelling.
2) Multiple posts on this thread and you’re still off topic. Mitch is asking for his readers’ views on what should happen next. You aren’t contributing to this discussion; all you are doing is throwing turds in the punchbowl and pursuing your strange vendettas. It gets old, which is why you get banned all the time. About the only value you bring to this forum is serving as a piñata.
I’ve said it before — get help.
I pledge $25 to ban peeve for at least 3 months.
Charity of your choice or into your own pocket.
BTW Mitch, it’s spelled logorrheic,
If it’s used as an adjective, you’re correct.
I’m using the noun form: Logorrheac, as in “one who suffers from logorrhea”. “-ac” is a nominative suffix in words derived from Greek; see “Hypochondriac”.
I don’t point out your spelling mistake to be critical
Nor should you.
Ding the English major’s English, get your peev handed to you.
Kerm,
To be fair, I make mistakes. Everyone does.
“Logorrheac” wasn’t one of them.
Remember when Bubba had Oklahoma John Doe #2 disappeared to a secret prison so he wouldn’t get one of those activist show trials like the ’93 WTC bombers got?
Didn’t hear the Leftokrats complain, then, didja?
/jc
The ones that did all got disappeared, too.
You don’t mess with Bubba.
Together we’ll live with the sadness… Someday I don’t know when we’re gonna get to that place where we really want to go…
Vince Foster was going to go public about John Doe #2.
Shouldnt Peeve be making a “I Pledge” video somewhere? Or to be more precise, somewhere else.
“# President Lincoln’s action suspended the habeas corpus rights of U.S. citizens. The Military Commissions Act of 2006, signed by President Bush, stipulates that the right of habeas corpus should be denied only to aliens “detained by the United States.”
# Both suspensions of habeas corpus applied only to persons held in military prisons and tried before military courts. The habeas corpus rights of persons tried in civilian courts were not affected.”
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/habeuscorpus_2.htm
interesting article. Over Peeve’s head, of course, but interesting.
Thanks buzz Says for the interesting article link.
I wish the article had elaborated further as to the effective benefits suspension of habeus corpus provided to Lincoln.
Likewise, I am not persuaded that suspending habeus corpus is somehow more acceptable if it only applies to non citizens of the US. If we agree that habeus corpus is important for citizens, it would seem reasonable to posit it is equally important to non-citizens.
Just because Lincoln suspended habeus corpus does not automatically mean it was a good decision that should be repeated, or that it accomplished what was intended.
I’m not saying it did or didn’t – I don’t happen to know, and I would need to do some further reading to have an informed opinion on Lincoln’s action. Just pointing out what I think is more the actual crux of the argument over the pros and cons of suspending habeus corpus.
I started following the steps outlined in this post last summer with nary a qualm (no money especially). The steps are all good and they’re all do-able….and I think if enough people do this, it will get Republican’s attention. If not, let them go their merry way and start voting with whoever matches up best with your deeply held beliefs (Constitution Party in our case). I voted McCain against my better judgement and will not do anything like that again….apparently I should have started on the “no manipulation” bit along with the no money, no excuses part. Not saying I voted that way because I was manipulated, but there was some psychology going on saying “what if we actually can win-maybe I better vote R”.
Interesting questions, Dog Gone Says.
Something to consider, though… should the Constitution protect the God given rights of people all over the globe? The whole thing, or just some? What about the individual states? What is their role?
If I may respond Baddda, I think we should have a consistent way of dealing with rights under our constitution. We don’t have control of the rights of people all over the globe, but we do have control of how we conduct our legal system HERE – for EVERYONE here.
If we believe our system is a desirable way to handle both civil and criminal law, then we should be proud to set that example for our own citizens, and for any citizens of other countries having business with our legal systems. ALL legal jurisdictions.
I seem to remember the Pledge of Allegiance referencing “with Liberty and Justice for all”; it does not differentiate between citizens of the US and citizens of other parts of the world.
Either we mean those words, or we should change that Pledge of Allegiance. I hope we mean those words.
Should we have those words mean the same for folks who fight us, in an illegal fashion? In what way does civil and criminal law apply to illegal combatants?
“I started following the steps outlined in this post last summer with nary a qualm (no money especially). The steps are all good and they’re all do-able….and I think if enough people do this, it will get Republican’s attention.”
You (incorrectly, IMHO) assume two things. First that the absence of something is an attention-getter, and it isn’t. If I throw a party, invite 50 people and 25 show up, I assume the others found something better to do, or didn’t want to come, or aren’t party people. I do NOT assume that they detest me or the kind of party I’m hosting. Now, if a few of those people show up and loudly berate me or my party, I pay a LOT of attention.
Second, worse but not as obvious, you assume that Republicans are NOT putting up good conservative candidates, or trying to elect them, or trying to advance the conservative agenda. Every one of our elected officials goes through a process of endorsement and/or primaries, and then wins a general election. If the conservative base of the Party picks them as the best (usually the most conservative) candidate they can find, who are you to complain? I hate to break it to you, but even in primaries, let alone general elections, the most conservative candidate does NOT always win– far from it. The Republican Party is everybody that wants to call themselves a Republican, and sometimes even that is hard to do in the face of slings and arrows. Collectively, they are trying to advance conservatism as best they can. You can help or you can stand outside and throw rocks.
Badda –
How do we determine who IS an illegal combatant and who is not, if we do not actually process them through any kind of legal system that evaluates exactly that? I would respectively suggest that this is exactly WHEN habeus corpus IS most important.
Judging by the relatively small number of people who will ever be prosecuted, compared to the number of people that have been held in places like Gitmo who were subsequently released, suspending habeus corpus was not very effective in addressing ‘illegal combatants’.
It has done worse than nothing to win the hearts and minds of those who had not yet sided with Islamic terrorists. If I read the news reports correctly, the military surge has only been effective for example in conjunction with gaining the cooperation of Iraqis who had previously been opposing us. With guns. Illegally. Supposedly we are tryiing to initiate an Iraqi democracy. “Do as we say, not as we do” sure doesn’t seem like the way to go about that.
If we have rules for trying dangerous, armed criminals who are subsequently convicted, why not have those same rules for everyone else? Our system deals quite well with bad guys with guns, if you will excuse that oversimplification.
Either we mean Liberty and Justice for all, and believe in it working, or we don’t. Dumping it for expediency is not a very practical endorsement.
DG, “with liberty and justice for all” is part of the Pledge to the flag of the United States of America. It therefore follows that the codicils contained in it apply to citizens of the USA. Not Canada. Not Mexico.
Respectively Kermit,
the pledge says we are giving our allegiance to the flag, and the republic for which it stands. It excludes no one from Canada or Mexico or anywhere else. It would therefore follow that Liberty and Justice for all applies to how the United States conducts its legal matters. ALL of them.
If your position is correct, then we should amend the wording to state with liberty and justice ONLY for all US citizens, and then only when we don’t find it expedient to suspend them selectively.
As the article from “buzz” compared the suspension of habeus corpus by Lincoln and by Bush, and as the Pledge of Allegiance wording is often referenced to Lincoln and his writings – particularly to Lincoln’s Gettysburg address – this seemed appropriate to the discussion.
A brief addendum. From a brief perusal of historic information, it appears that when Lincoln suspended habeus corpus, it was decided by the courts that a military tribunal could not try someone when a civil court could do so. Lincoln was determined to have acted improperly.
This seems similar to the findings of our current courts regarding Bush and Gitmo, and does not appear to support the premise that habeus corpus applies only to US citizens.
But heck, if anyone has pursued this subject in greater depth, I’m open to your information.
How are lawfull combatants excluded from habeus corpus?
DG,
Do the protections afforded by the US Constitution extend to non citizens? Particulary non citizens not within our borders?
DG,
The flag in the Pledge is the flag of the United States of America… not Canada, the European Union, and not the USSR.
J.Ewing…both my husband and I were delegates to the County Caucus. I know how it works. A first-timer to the precinct caucus from our area went on to be a National Delegate…a first-timer. He was about as conservative as you could get (some of you maybe heard of him-Gus Booth-he challenged the IRS re tax exemption for speaking from his pulpit). He came back from the National Convention very disheartened and disallusioned because he saw a lot of people without conservative values get ahead….just like McCain. How the HELL did he get the nomination?
So, although I have worked through the “regular channels” and we send folks from this area (N MN) who mirror our values and beliefs, once you get high enough up there, the big boys have it all worked out amongst themselves and you can forget about having a voice. Money is the only thing they hear.
Dog-“If we have rules for trying dangerous criminals….why not have those same rules for everyone else?” Ok, why not use those same “rules” on illegal aliens right here in the U.S. first? Meaning, if you want all criminals treated fairly, then surely you can`t be for the U.S. policy of basically being very aggresive when going after your normal felon, but looking the other way when it comes to going after illegals. I`m sure you`ll be complaing about that “unfairness” in your next post.
John McCain received a standing ovation from the delegates at the RNC when he proclaimed the end of big government spending. In less than two months he suspended his campaign to fly back to Washington so that he could work and vote for the first bailout bill — the largest single government expenditure in peacetime history…
That is such a HUGE point.
“once you get high enough up there, the big boys have it all worked out amongst themselves”
Once again, the “big boys” got there because they were elected by the conservative base of the party, all the way up and down the line. You are trying to say that there is a diffence between the Republican Party and “us,” but WE are the Party. If it isn’t going the direction you like, you can try to change it. If you don’t succeed it is because too many of the rest of us disagreed with you. You can continue to try to persuade, of course, but saying that some conspiracy is at work is, well, a bit unrealistic.
jimf says “why not use those same rules on illegal aliens”.
Hope I don’t shock you jimf, but I would actually agree we should, and not look the other way.
Both ends of the political spectrum claim they want to have smaller government. Good. Isn’t one way to actually do that in practice to keep it simple, have one set of rules / laws, and apply them fairly and equally?
I’m all for fewer laws, fewer loopholes and exceptions, and lets enforce those laws we do have.
Badda, I do know the pledge, I’ve said it many times – with sincere feelings of patriotism. It says that we pledge not only to the flag but goes on to state that the flag is the representation of the country, “one nation under god indivisible and with liberty and justice for all.” It does not reference treating non-citizens differently, it says all. It is a pledge, not a law, but it was included with the Flag Code by congress back in the early 1940s, after originally being merely a presidential proclimation, so it has a serious official status. I think it is a very beautiful statement of our ideals, a desideratum. While Gitmo is not within the borders of the US, it is considered as officially belonging to the US as any territory or embassy, etc., is under our jurisdiction and control and therefore should be party to our laws and legal processes.
Oh, I see J.Ewing…you’re not a conservative…you didn’t agree with “us” so tough noogies, eh? I guess you’re right, which is why we’re all leaving. Agree with each other all you want.
Heh heh. Mitch said “Boehner.”
DG,
How should we conduct military and covert operations around the world? Based on our laws, based on the laws of the country in question, or by another measure?
“Oh, I see J.Ewing…you’re not a conservative…you didn’t agree with “us” so tough noogies, eh? I guess you’re right, which is why we’re all leaving.”
Colleen, you know not of whom you speak. If you’ve been around the grass roots of the Republican Party as long as you claim, you would know that it’s the most conservative bunch you will find anywhere, and that includes a Ron Paul rally. I understand what you are saying, that we’re not conservative if we disagree with YOU. Odd that we think exactly alike on that, isn’t it? But that’s the trouble with the Republican Party– too many people looking for ideological purity and not enough willing to actually get good people elected that can advance /most/ of the agenda. Squabbling among ourselves is healthy up to a point, that point being where we have selected a candidate and platform and now need to win an election. After that, you do the best you can to help the elected official govern wisely, NOT pretend like they are suddenly the enemy. YOU selected them, YOU got them elected, they are YOUR representatives. If they aren’t voting right, it’s YOUR fault!
So it’s Colleen’s fault that Bush and McCain both backed amnesty for illegal immigrants? And that both of them endorsed a bailout for financial houses that engaged in shady lending practices because they were ‘too big to fail’?
I’m not a registered Republican so I can speak as something of an outsider.
Where has all this compromise on principal gotten the GOP? Where has it gotten conservatives? Compromise fails to gain and keep a majority plus you lose your principals.
Hewitt has a radio commercial that features the Gipper saying “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem!” After a decade of a spend-spend-spend Republican congress, two terms of Bush, and listening to Candidate McCain blather on about American Greatness as though its an underfunded Federal bureaucracy you have no idea how jarring that sounds.
“So it’s Colleen’s fault that Bush and McCain both backed amnesty for illegal immigrants? And …” No. It’s Colleen’s fault that McCain did not win the Presidency, because she preferred to vote against McCain on amnesty rather than against Obama because of, well, everything. It’s Colleen’s “fault” that the amnesty bill went down in flames, too, because she and other conservatives got engaged at a time when it mattered, not just on Election Day. Who knows, if more Republicans like Colleen, who thought that the “bad” of McCain’s immigration (and a few other) stands outweighed his positives, had gotten involved more deeply and more convincingly during the primaries and caucuses, we might have had a different and better choice last November.
As for compromising on principle, I would just say that at least Republicans have principles they can compromise, though they shouldn’t.
Badda asks how we should conduct military and covert operations around the world – first and foremost, wherever we are, we should be acting consistent with whatever accord or convention applies to which we are a signatory, such as the Geneva conventions and the usual internationally accepted rules of conduct; certainly we should remain consistent with our own various legal codes and standards of conduct. If we are guests in the role of an ally in another country, there may be additional requirements and limitations with which we have to comply.
I have been fortunate to travel throughout North America, and to a lesser extent in Europe and the middle East. I canont imagine worrying about being denied due process in the ‘first world’ developed countries; that is a concern for living – or traveling – under the control of governments in third world countries, dictatorships, etc. And apparently, the US.
The US has held aproximately 800 people, give or take, in Gitmo for the past 6+ years, and still retain around 250 there. Many of those will be either relocated back to their original country, a new host country, or here, with relatively few being either prosecuted for ANY crime whatsoever. Most of those individuals were held for most of that time ‘incommunicado’, without any access to legal representation of choice or family or friends. When any other country behaves in that manner, we are highly critical. Had those individuals been allowed due process of law, we would have either fish or cut bait in deciding what to do with them long before now.
Terrorism is an unfortunate risk of modern life. We would do well to develop a lot more backbone and demonstrate a lot less hysteria in response to that hazard. Time to deal, get on with life, and don’t throw out our fundamental principles because we’re soooo skeeeered.
“The sky is falling, oh boo hoo” is, IMHO, the antithesis of leadership, and I’m hearily sick of my country’s government sounding like a bunch of babies. I’m equal parts fed up with seven plus years of fear mongering as a device to manipulate fools, and with the same bunch of people inadequately assessing and responding to genuine dangers.