Doom

[rjd970]

If the RNC wants to be relevant nationally, they need to move libertarian on the social issues and be the party of strong fiscal conservatism.

You can't spout about being the party of freedom and independence and be so strongly against things like same-sex marriage. You can't be for freedom and support things like the Patriot Act. You can't be for freedom and support stupid drug laws.

Yep. I really think the first party that rides on the drug decriminalization bandwagon can jump out front in the next election.

 

[theutvolunteers]

If the RNC wants to be relevant nationally, they need to move libertarian on the social issues and be the party of strong fiscal conservatism.

You can't spout about being the party of freedom and independence and be so strongly against things like same-sex marriage. You can't be for freedom and support things like the Patriot Act. You can't be for freedom and support stupid drug laws.

Agreed

 

[theutvolunteers]

I think there is a large enough centrist middle class that genuinely cares about fiscal responsibility that could overcome the lower end vote buying if the GOP would let go of its social agenda nonsense.

Agreed

 

[BenGrimm]

JFK would be considered a right wing extremist by today's Democrat party.

The hyperbole on this board is hilarious. Are you just trying to flip the Reagan couldn't get nominated comment Obama made during the primaries.

Seriously, Bush started a war on false pretenses, didn't pay or it, and still won a second term. You all act like reforming healthcare (using a republican designed plan btw) is somehow worse.

Although the EC was a landslide the popular vote is narrow enough to suggest that the GOP can still win an election in the future. They just need to do some soul searching and decide are they going to clog to petty issues like gay marriage or are they going to adapt to the change in society.

 

[Bezdomny]

They just need to do some soul searching and decide are they going to clog to petty issues like gay marriage or are they going to adapt to the change in society.

Didn't Obama oppose gay marriage until 6 months ago? Did Romney actually bring up gay marriage?

 

[BenGrimm]

Didn't Obama oppose gay marriage until 6 months ago? Did Romney actually bring up gay marriage?

I was just mentioning gay marriage as one example. Obama made the right flip on that. And IIRCC he was already for civil unions. He adapted unlike the GOP. Moderates don't care about issues such as these. At least not enough to vote based on it.

 

[CSpindizzy]

Fiscal conservatism needs to be redefined as well. You cannot be a fiscal conservative championing less handouts when you give out breaks and incentives to businesses either. If you believe in free markets then act like it. Government handouts create moochers whether they are poor unemployed or fatcats. Those in the middle are less inclined to support Republicans calling themselves fiscal conservatives when they give breaks, etc. to their major donors.

If you call yourself a fiscal conservative it needs to be one up and down the line.

 

[BenGrimm]

Fiscal conservatism needs to be redefined as well. You cannot be a fiscal conservative championing less handouts when you give out breaks and incentives to businesses either. If you believe in free markets then act like it. Government handouts create moochers whether they are poor unemployed or fatcats. Those in the middle are less inclined to support Republicans calling themselves fiscal conservatives when they give breaks, etc. to their major donors.

If you call yourself a fiscal conservative it needs to be one up and down the line.

100% accurate statement. Corporate Welfare should be frowned upon just as much as any other entitlement. If the GOP combined that with a loosening of social issues they would easily be back in the whitehouse.

But no, they will swear that it creates jobs despite what history suggests and the middle will drift further away from them.

 

[Weezy]

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

Trending true...

Wiki disagrees. Accredits it to maybe Alexander Tytler, but most likely an op-ed piece from the 50s.

 

[gcbvol]

I was just mentioning gay marriage as one example. Obama made the right flip on that. And IIRCC he was already for civil unions. He adapted unlike the GOP. Moderates don't care about issues such as these. At least not enough to vote based on it.

True. Romney had actually supported civil unions at one time, but switched to opposition - likely to align with the party and obtain the nomination.

Looking at the election results, Obama obviously made the right choice. Three states passed same-sex marriage, while another rejected an amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The GOP must adapt to an evolving society.

 

[Bezdomny]

Wiki disagrees. Accredits it to maybe Alexander Tytler, but most likely an op-ed piece from the 50s.

Hmm, got the de Tocqueville attrib from Goodreads. I would quess it's inspired by dT's Democracy in America quote, "A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it."

Rings true none the less.

 

[KoachKletus]

I think there is a large enough centrist middle class that genuinely cares about fiscal responsibility that could overcome the lower end vote buying if the GOP would let go of its social agenda nonsense.

Bingo. The true 3rd party that this country needs. Centrists that believe in conservatism, but don't "pray" that social ill's just go away.

 

[PKT_VOL]

Maybe the GOP will finally learn their lesson, drop any pretenses of social conservatism, and nominate someone who is willing to tell the religious right that the government is not their to institute and reinforce morality.

:yes:

The GOP will either radically change its position or it will split. Ball is in their court.

 

[marcusluvsvols]

You libs always think you have it all figured out. Every dang conservative on this board has just told you that Romney wasn't about social issues...He dodged em because he is a mormon...you refuse to admit that THE REASON OBAMA WON IS BECAUSE HALF THIS COUNTRY IS ADDICTED TO HIS HANDOUTS!!!! You can deny that as long as you want to...doesn't make it any less true. Half of us work our butts off and the other half live off of us. Period. It will be our downfall. Good night America...its been fun.

 

[PKT_VOL]

You libs always think you have it all figured out. Every dang conservative on this board has just told you that Romney wasn't about social issues...He dodged em because he is a mormon...you refuse to admit that THE REASON OBAMA WON IS BECAUSE HALF THIS COUNTRY IS ADDICTED TO HIS HANDOUTS!!!! You can deny that as long as you want to...doesn't make it any less true. Half of us work our butts off and the other half live off of us. Period. It will be our downfall. Good night America...its been fun.

1) Ryan was the cosponsor of parenthood rights for fetuses. Let's not act like Romney/Ryan wasn't socially conservative. They just tried their damnedest (unsuccessfully) to distance themselves from social issues.

2) Not conservative because he was Mormon? Really? Mormons are the most conservative people I have ever met.

3) Romney did not lose because of the entitlement issue.

4) Immigration was way more important than entitlements in this election.

5) Romney was a horrible candidate and ran a terrible campaign.

6) Obama (Axelrod) ran an absolutely brilliant campaign. Give credit where credit is due.

 

[milohimself]

You libs always think you have it all figured out. Every dang conservative on this board has just told you that Romney wasn't about social issues...He dodged em because he is a mormon...you refuse to admit that THE REASON OBAMA WON IS BECAUSE HALF THIS COUNTRY IS ADDICTED TO HIS HANDOUTS!!!! You can deny that as long as you want to...doesn't make it any less true. Half of us work our butts off and the other half live off of us. Period. It will be our downfall. Good night America...its been fun.

I've said it before, but if you really believe that then the only logical conclusion is that the country is irrevocably on the path to self-destruction and if you don't find somewhere else to live then you're going down with it.

 

[gsvol]

The hyperbole on this board is hilarious. Are you just trying to flip the Reagan couldn't get nominated comment Obama made during the primaries.

Seriously, Bush started a war on false pretenses, didn't pay or it, and still won a second term. You all act like reforming healthcare (using a republican designed plan btw) is somehow worse.

Although the EC was a landslide the popular vote is narrow enough to suggest that the GOP can still win an election in the future. They just need to do some soul searching and decide are they going to clog to petty issues like gay marriage or are they going to adapt to the change in society.

Didn't Obama oppose gay marriage until 6 months ago? Did Romney actually bring up gay marriage?

Here is an interesting take on that, in depth:

The Enemy Within Is Hiding Behind The Enemy From Without | The Brussels Journal

There is a saying that civilizations are more often destroyed from within than by armies attacking them from without. And it is in this context that one particular question has been puzzling me for quite some time: Who poses a greater threat to the fabric of Western society and our individual liberties such as freedom of speech, the Islamists or the Political Correctness (PC) brigades? For isn’t there palpable public resistance to sharia law in the West, but scarcely any opposition to the abominations of the sexual revolution? Except when a scandal like that of the late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile surfaces and reminds us of the dire condition of children in 21st century Western society, sparing not even hospitalized quadriplegics from pedophile abuse. Despite all this, the erotocratic PC elites keep dominating universities, governments and the mainstream media with their agenda in favor of LGBTIQ - this never quite complete acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer advocacy groups. However it seems nothing can stop the train of the top-down global sexual revolution. This amounts to nothing less than the left version of colonialism – political dominance via international policy bodies such as UN and EU.

I wonder how the left manages to lead conservatives by the nose into the Islamophobia trap. A prime example is the Benghazi disaster with the US ambassador and three staff killed by highly armed Islamists with perfect logistics reeking of Al-Qaeda. For it has been framed persistently by the Obama administration as a spontaneous protest against the You-Tube video produced by an islamophobic Californian Christian. You see, supposedly the assault has nothing to do with Al-Queda spotting poor American security provisions in Libya, but everything with conservative hate speech fueling Muslim extremism. The solution obviously is curbing free speech in the West. Mark Steyn has exposed the security gap in Benghazi during the night before the September 11 attacks and pointed to the Obama politicizing spin.
-----------------------------------

This would explain why we have witnessed, after the allegedly final Western defeat of the Soviet Union two decades ago, the ascendancy of Barack Hussein Obama as the supreme leader of the West, a leader who vigorously attempts to transform America into a European-style entitlement society and detests Israel. Has Obama taken up the mettle which the English Fabians had to drop after WW I setting the US on a course of decline like that we have seen with the British Empire?
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But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.

Fourthly we are still left with Fatwas against Western critics of Islam and with Islamic terrorism to boot. However we have to remind ourselves that the latter are emulating our Western terrorist groups of the 1970ies. After all Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda emerged after and learned from the much earlier Western terrorist groups like the Baader-Meinhof gang, The Brigate Rosse, the Basque separatists, the IRA and many others that our security agencies dealt with and will continue doing in the future.
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Gender mainstreaming is the agenda of imposing on 98% of the populace a completely alien and to most of us utterly offensive set of values.
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This reminds the philosophically proficient to the Nazi brand of existentialism namely Martin Heidegger who shared the presumptuous German feeling of betrayal that drove Nazism.
-----------------------------

To sum it up: Butler and the LGBTI activists want their cake and eat it too. For they regard themselves as being eligible to any sex identity and entitled to have sex with anybody and in any number or combination of people as a basic human right. Now since this unlimited promiscuity involves lots of health risks, they are asking the taxpayer to cover those risks. Even pedophile sex is back on the agenda for being decriminalized by the erotocratic lobby.
-------------------------

This lobbying machine has managed to push through sexual education from cradle to grave, which is all but implemented. This is also true for antidiscrimination laws, including the ruling out of critique as “hate speech”. The intolerance toward public discourse of the LGBTIQ agenda has reached a level of organization and legal codification that it makes Muslim intolerance look as peanuts with the exception of the UN, where both are successful. With the new “hate speech” legislation well under implementation, rendering opposition to the LGBTI agenda as a crime, classical liberties are now at stake in most of the West.

 

[BenGrimm]

WOW! Just heard on NPR some conservative consultant saying they will never again nominate a big business moderate that isn't willing to tackle social issues such as abortion. They just don't get it.

 

[tim]

Imo Romney was too far left and didnt excite the base. Most americans identify themselves as conservatives who want smaller government.

If the Republicans move further left there would be no difference in the two parties. If there is not a significant shift to the right with the next candidate I will vote 3rd party.

 

[marcusluvsvols]

Imo Romney was too far left and didnt excite the base. Most americans identify themselves as conservatives who want smaller government.

If the Republicans move further left there would be no difference in the two parties. If there is not a significant shift to the right with the next candidate I will vote 3rd party.

The only hope for the country is just that. Hopefully Americans figure out in 4 years that the left is the cause of the financial and moral crisis our country will be in and choose to get as far away from that as possible. Republicans can nominate an Evangelical who is a fiscal ultraconservative and excite the base like he is the second coming of Christ...its our only hope. Unfortunately fror that to happen Obama will have to truly wreck this country to the point where citizens start to actually feel the consequences of his policy in their homes and lives...instead of mythically large numbers talked about on tV, no check in the mailbox

 

[Danl]

You libs always think you have it all figured out. Every dang conservative on this board has just told you that Romney wasn't about social issues...He dodged em because he is a mormon...you refuse to admit that THE REASON OBAMA WON IS BECAUSE HALF THIS COUNTRY IS ADDICTED TO HIS HANDOUTS!!!! You can deny that as long as you want to...doesn't make it any less true. Half of us work our butts off and the other half live off of us. Period. It will be our downfall. Good night America...its been fun.

You can naysay all you want. It is very obvious that the electorate will not elect a candidate who stands on an extremely socially conservative platform. Look what happened in multiple states in regard to gay marriage and drugs. Look how the ever-growing Hispanic bloc voted. Look at the way women voted. These blocs are not getting smaller, they are expanding. Face it: the extreme religious right is shrinking as a voting bloc.

 

[BenGrimm]

You can naysay all you want. It is very obvious that the electorate will not elect a candidate who stands on an extremely socially conservative platform. Look what happened in multiple states in regard to gay marriage and drugs. Look how the ever-growing Hispanic bloc voted. Look at the way women voted. These blocs are not getting smaller, they are expanding. Face it: the extreme religious right is shrinking as a voting bloc.

Thank GOD!

Wish it had been that way in 04. May have averted some of Bush's mess if the religious right hadn't come out in force.

 

[theutvolunteers]

The only hope for the country is just that. Hopefully Americans figure out in 4 years that the left is the cause of the financial and moral crisis our country will be in and choose to get as far away from that as possible. Republicans can nominate an Evangelical who is a fiscal ultraconservative and excite the base like he is the second coming of Christ...its our only hope. Unfortunately fror that to happen Obama will have to truly wreck this country to the point where citizens start to actually feel the consequences of his policy in their homes and lives...instead of mythically large numbers talked about on tV, no check in the mailbox

No to all this.

 

[hog88]

You can naysay all you want. It is very obvious that the electorate will not elect a candidate who stands on an extremely socially conservative platform. Look what happened in multiple states in regard to gay marriage and drugs. Look how the ever-growing Hispanic bloc voted. Look at the way women voted. These blocs are not getting smaller, they are expanding. Face it: the extreme religious right is shrinking as a voting bloc.

I wouldn't say that, I would say they are getting more concentrated. Particularly in the north east and west coast but I still don't think social issues were Romney's downfall.

 

[theutvolunteers]

Social issues are a big problem for the GOP.