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“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”

Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).

John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com

PS – And “Mr. Worldly Wiseman” Rush Limbaugh never made a bigger ass of himself than at CPAC where he told that blasphemous “joke” about himself and God.

“Regarding abortion too, the platform should support meaningful but Constitutionally sound restrictions on abortion, while also promoting practices that can help reduce the demand for abortions.”

Agreed.

Wait, does this mean I'm a Republican under your vision?

You have to have read in the newspapers where the executive branch is firing corporate executives and trying to manage mergers. There also is a massive stimulus program that will get the federal government more involved in local infrastructure.

The real question for the future is whether the economy can keep producing enough to feed the growing levels of the government. The other question is how do the Democrats plan on a massive expansion of entitlements while maintaining open borders and unlimited immigration.

You nailed it, CStanley.

Am I really in the minority in being equally skeptical about both parties? To me it's a no brainer- of course the politicians pander, and then often fail to follow through on their promises. Sometimes that's because their intentions are good but they don't gain enough power to override their opponents, and sometimes it's because they never really had any intention of following through. Or, a third possibility is that they actually do deliver on promises, but the result turns out not so good for the constituents (be careful what you wish for.)

To me it's terribly naive to think otherwise of either party, and I have to think that a lot of people have just become conditioned to see it on one side but not the other. I wish we could get away from voting on that basis- presuming that one party has scoundrels and the other doesn't really isn't a logical political philosophy. We ought to make them make their case in a positive manner for why their policies might be better than the other guy's.

For years the GOP has agreed with the anti-abortion forces to oppose pro-abortion legislation, but I don’t believe the failure to outlaw abortion makes the religious right “victims”.

I like to use words that have specific meanings, like in previous threads where I argue against using the words “torture”, “Nazi” and other words that have definitions, history and deep meaning incorrectly for shock value.

When I wrote about democrats making minorities a “victim”, I chose the word carefully and meant it in the traditional sense that these minorities have had a crime committed against them by the democrat party.

The most major of these crimes is the democrat party’s preventing inner-city children from receiving an education in order to protect incompetents in the teacher’s union. Liberals cry about the fleeting discomfort of waterboarding terrorists, but blissfully ignore hundreds of thousands of minority children being subjected to a lifetime of ignorance and poverty because a democrat needed the votes of the teacher’s union.

Hang your collective heads in shame, liberals (criminals).

“Individually, the social issues might not be enough to sway people who have voted one way for their entire lives, but collectively, if the case is made that the democrats have been making them a “victim” and using them without giving anything back for years, a sea change just might occur.”

Not trying to take you out of context, but can't the same argument be made about Republicans? I mean, the Religious Right has been promised anti-abortion laws by the Republicans for years? It's not like pro-choice has been elasticated, has it? In 8 years, the Terry Schiavo case is the only thing that followed this groups tenants, isn't it? It seems to me Republicans are every bit as guilty as you say the Democrats are.

Now, get back to me after a few more years of complete Democratic control of Washington DC and we'll compare notes on who's been 'played like a fiddle'.

Examples include closing GitMo, a U-Turn on class war by the GOP on behalf of rich folks and management against labor and laborers. GOP loves to talk about “class war”, but since the majority are on the other side of the financial divide, that doesn't play well for them any more.

As for a “responsible stance” the GOP has not shown such a stance for over 30 years, and we the people see that. After growing this huge wealth gap, the majority are no longer receptive to “trickle down” which is what the GOP is still offering.

Sure, power corrupts, but let's get beyond that jingo. MONEY corrupts, and as long as corporate support of politics and politicians is protected for “corporate persons” these corporations will feed the politicians and expect the laws to favor them. It's not about small or large government. It's about bribery.

As for “small government” perhaps you are tricked by the GOP lip service to that. I'm not. They played you like a fiddle. They cut the number of government employees by paying their buddies to do what government employees did or could do. So instead of American soldiers protecting the Green Zone, we had $900/day mercenaries. We paid 3 to 4X as much to contract out disaster relief and other legitimate government functions, and this is very widespread. “Small government” is a shell game of outsourcing, just as much as is raising GDP by cutting American jobs through outsourcing.

And the GOP is not just being “up front” about being “pro business.” They have compromised public safety and health, the environment and our infrastructure by putting lobbyists in regulatory positions and pushing “deregulation” at all costs. You have to admit, even though Dems take money from corporations too, they have been far more pro-regulation, which generally puts public health and welfare above corporate interest.

The GOP has not lived up to a single promise made, including fiscal responsibility small government, non-intrusive government, individual rights, or the rule of law. And it didn't trickle down. “What's good for business” was not good for America. Pick ANY area of supposed GOP superiority and they have proven to be complete failures at delivering.

And if that didn't work the GOP could just shoot itself in the head, which is about as likely to work.

Of course, conservatives will have their traditional views on fiscal matters – smaller government, lower deficits, free market, low taxes, etc., but if we hold to the traditional social values, it could very well help to swing certain demographic groups to our side.

The most anti-gay marriage segment of society is African Americans, followed closely by Hispanics. Among white voters, age is more a factor than party in approval of gay marriage, as young republican voters are ambivalent on the subject. If a new crop of congressional and senate contenders unite in a theme to portray the democrats as the “Gay” party, it could help to swing these groups to the GOP.

Naturally, just the gay issue isn’t enough to bring traditional democrat voting blocs into the republican column. Issues like education and health care will also be large factors. Candidates vying for office will need to explain why rich white children and Obama’s kids get to go to good private schools, while the black inner-city youth are expressly forbidden to receive the funds to do so. Once health care is debated, liberals will need to show how having a government bureaucrat or insurance company employee tell these minorities what kind of care they can receive instead of being able to decide and pay for services with dignity for themselves from individual health care accounts.

Individually, the social issues might not be enough to sway people who have voted one way for their entire lives, but collectively, if the case is made that the democrats have been making them a “victim” and using them without giving anything back for years, a sea change just might occur.

What exactly does “embrace social moderates” mean? If you mean that the social conservatives haven't changed their mind because they just experienced the loss of the candidate that they were told they should suck up and support, why would they? The candidate didn't represent their views very strongly and he lost- so why would their opinion then change as a result of that? If anything, by your logic, they're the ones who should be asking why your group is not now embracing them (not saying I agree with that, but based on the loss of McCain- though I guess you could counter by saying that having Palin on the ticket hurt his chances, if you think that's what happened.)

If anything though, the people who seem to be the most strident post election are the fiscal conservatives, especially the ones who are anti-amnesty who opposed McCain due to his immigration stance.

Regarding trust, I hear you. And in some ways I think that's the biggest argument for starting over with a new party- but then the problem becomes how do you keep enough of the old coalitions together (presuming your not going to find brand new ones) without bringing all of the old baggage along? Somehow we have to go through at the very least some kind of Chapter 11 restructuring- throwing off old liabilities, but then leveraging the remaining assets.