Eh, not sure how we got here on a thread about Colin Powell, but hey, it pisses me off when someone talks about minorities and gay people like they're anything but people.

How would homosexuals prove discrimination but in exactly the same way that blacks do it today. Require emloyers to report employment data based upon whose collection is required by the government. Are you really going to argue that militant homosexuals really do not want the government to add sexual preference on the form next to gender and race?

“You can make a claim about homosexuals but the problem is that the militant homosexuals want to apply the civil rights acts to homosexuals so that they can also get the set asides, quotas, and affirmative action.”

This is so bull; just patently untrue. I have never ever in all my years of being immersed in the “gay agenda” heard someone asking for a quota of gays at work, in college, etc, etc. What gay people want is not to be fired from a job they already have because they are gay. They want the benefits and responsibilities of marriage like straight people get. They want not to be beat up because of who they choose to sleep with. The younger ones want not to be kicked out of their home at age 16 when they come out, not to be beat up at school because they are different. “Militant homosexuals”? What the hell is that? “Goddamn it we WILL have Barbara Streisand! There will be gowns and makeup!”

Roro
It seems to be used every time a Republican strays from conservative orthodoxy or endorses a Democrat. Before Reagan there were liberal, conservative and moderate Republicans. The conservatives now dominate and demean those who stray by using that term. Its the same thing they did to “liberal”- which led many liberals to change to progressive.

Conservatism faces a natural disadvantage the more immature our society is, sadly; it is at something of a natural disadvantage, anyway, as it is perceived as naturally negative or pessimistic, while they doe-eyed youthful other side is seen as positive and optimistic. (Never mind that change is not the same as improvement.)

Moving conservative away from what the left perceives as racism means moving away from any idea of being conservative. If opposition to affirmative action, race based quotas, or racial set asides programs is seen as racist, then any conservative party will be seen as racist.

You can make a claim about homosexuals but the problem is that the militant homosexuals want to apply the civil rights acts to homosexuals so that they can also get the set asides, quotas, and affirmative action.

So, no, there is not hope for any conservative party. so the question then, is will the U.S. function with one political party or with two liberal parties where the argument is over which specific groups gets the most benefits and who gets stuck with the bills.

The size of Washington is in large part due to middle-class entitlements, more than the welfare programs and other appeals to “outsider” minority interest groups (of whom some “leaders” continue the perpetual-victimhood stance copied by far left activists). Just wait until we have Medicare for All, we even consider raising the “replacement ratio” of Social Security payments (that is, increase them), and our already-bloated entitlement system hits the demographic as well as financial brick wall that aging (not ethnicity or race) will eventually create.

Things are _already_ distorted beyond just limits. Just wait twenty more years.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/browse.html

Or maybe people should wake up to the fact that “conservative” does NOT have to mean “white person who doesn't like minorities” (or gays or young people or women or Muslims). So on one hand you have “let the conservative movement die” and on the other you have “move the conservative movement away from racism and bigotry”, and you've clearly chose your hand.

when people talk about the Republicans making a comeback, they need to explain how they are going to do it with the changing demographics in the U.S. I also point out the demographics groups who vote DEmocratic everytime someone claims that Democrats are all college educated intelligent people.

In the long run, no conservative party will be viable in the U.S. because of changing demographics. So the question is whether the U.S. becomes a one party state (my conclusion) or that somehow a political party to the left of the current Democratic party will breakoff from the Democrats, be able to bring large numbers of non-whites voters, and be viable in all 50 states.

Also: RINO is such a jerky term — it assumes that you know better than anyone else what a Republican is supposed to be.

When you consdier that less than half the children in kindergarten are white, there is no long term future for the Republicans. As the U.S. becomes a county with a diverse, one party state, voting will begin to breakdown even more on ethnic, racial, and, class lines. However, there will not be enough people interested in keeping the government small or in helping the private sector. The me-too Republicans just want to get a share of the haul from the government.

The real question is whether the U.S. can keep importing enough energetic immigrants who will do the work and pay the taxes for that more than 50% of the population can live off of government handouts.

That is general and broad in scope, obviously, and subsumes any contemporary political phenomena such as the much-hyped-and-hated Religious Right as a locus of GOP substance or activism.

* * *

As for the RINOs, they're Dems Lite and if people believe it's going to be a Dem year, why vote for Dems merely in drag when you can have the real thing? The RINOs, the Rockefeller Republicans (exemplified to this day by Bloomberg, who should be a Dem and whose current power-hungry behavior is disgraceful), the “neo-cons” in the older, more general sense (happy with Big Government in Washington as long as _they_ are in charge of it and it is aligned with _their_ goals) — the “me, too” entitlement-state Republicans and other establishmentarians happy with bloated Washington (at times including even otherwise-conservative parties like the Wall Street Journal), the post-1994 so-called “revolutionaries” that later fought term limits (like disgusting Bloomberg, the Silly Set's darling “Republican”) and have become lobbyists and lifers in DC, and who even have become Dem-like with corruption originating largely due to their “fixture” and perpetual-incumbent nature — this along with foreign problems was what led many GOP-leaners to cast Thumbs Down on the GOP in 1996 and if anything, will be more impressive in the same manner next month.

The conservatives would argue that expanding entitlements, open borders, and increased government spending to keep the RINO's happy is what has killed the Republican party. Trying to keep RINO from defecting is what the Repulbicans will go out of business faster than demographics alone would have. Maybe if the RINO would have called for less spending instead of trying to outspend the DEmocrats, the U.S. might have had a conservative party in the future.

the real question is where will you go in politics after the Democrats show you the back of their hand?

As an independent (not a moderate) who leans Democratic since Bush II, I must say cheers. Well written and well said.

For those who would like to know what Republican's used to stand for and be about, go read John Rodgers at Kung Fu Monkeys I Miss Republicans post. I reread it every time I read or hear about a Limbaugh or Coulter moment and it helps me realize that we used to have two parties that cared about America.

You remember the RINOs, right? The ones who supported crazy, wacky Republicans like the Maine Sisters and Christie Todd Whitman? Oh, how you all loved to deride and insult us. (Oh, neocons… is there nothing in American political discourse you can't immediately turn into a spittle flecked pissing contest?) So you continued to insult us until many of us finally packed our bags and left. But now SD is the designated judge as to who passes muster based on what position a given voter holds on various issues, eh? These are the bona fides we must demonstrate, apparently, to qualify as “real” Republicans.

SD, you write here frequently and eloquently about the pending demise of the GOP and how America is becoming a single party nation. If you ever find yourself wondering how and why that happened, go back and re-read what you wrote here in this thread, take a long, hard look in the mirror, and you'll have your answer.