Thank you, Dave in Texas at AceHQ. I hope to always be this honorable:
Something that cuts to the core of most Americans is our strong sense of fairness. We conservatives suffer a lot at times because of it, our unwillingness to dive down into the truly nasty and vicious tactics used by our opponents. We have a strong sense of the rightness of fair play. It’s the kind of thing that makes us shrug when a player on our team commits an obvious foul on the field, we man up and say “yeah, he was holding”, or “no, his knee was down”. We just do that because we know in our hearts it’s right.
Being able to admit when we’re wrong. Yup, pretty much our exclusive domain as conservatives.
But for every 100 of him we have Ann Coulter…
To paraphrase one of Ace’s commenters: There’s a difference between two teams following an agreed-upon set of rules and one team trying to play by an out-of-date rulebook while getting stomped into the dirt by the other team, which consists of a bunch of ruleless, bloodthirsty random hooligans wearing sharpened cleats… Being polite to these people is not politeness, it’s fucking cowardice.
To use your reasoning, when our convoys were hit with IEDs in Iraq, we should have blasted the neighborhood it was set up in, because that would be the tactic our enemies would use if they had the chance.
You don’t necessarily have to stoop to the level of the thug to beat them.
You fight smarter and more boldly than your enemy. You don’t become a thug.
People are fighting smarter and more boldly, but none of them are in the Republican Party’s inner circle.
I’m beginning to think that we should stop calling squishy conservatives RINOs, as it diverts us from the real problem — that most of the Republican establishment are Conservatives In Name Only, and yet these are the very people that hold all the political clout in the conservative arena. The real conservatives no longer have a party that speaks for them, nor do they have the money, clout, or name-brand recognition to establish a viable separate party.
I’ve been forced to vote for people, like John McCain (just to name an obvious example), who don’t really speak for me and don’t seem interested in representing me in DC. I can’t in good conscience vote for Republicans anymore — I’m just going to vote against the Democrats. And something tells me that if the Republicans are content to go on with seeming merely the lesser of two evils, they’re going to lose what support they still have.
I think that at some point, people are going to get sufficiently nihilistic to start saying, “Ah, to hell with it, let’s just go with the worse of two evils and get this fucking mess of a country over and done with already.”
Jake, the GOP, or any organization of that size, is going to seem glacially slow in changing its course, but I can report that it is learning, because I know some of the people who happen to be teaching it the lessons. I also know the GOP is recruiting all of its first-choice candidates and that a lot of really good conservative candidates have thrown their hats into the ring and are doing well in the polls. There is progress being made and you don’t hear about it because no one’s paying attention.
New conservative rallying cry: FUCK THE GOOD OLE BOYS
My own definition of Conservative is to examine all the evidence and make up your own mind in as unbiased a manner as possible, and if there’s not sufficient evidence to make a clear judgement, you go with the more traditional option.
Think it through, and if you can’t reasonably decide, go with what your grandparents did. Don’t re-invent the wheel unless you need to.
Jake’s right….I’d add more , but he hits the nail on the head for me.
Yay, Gary’s here — wilkommen!!!!
If I were trying to come up with a battle plan, what I’d say is this: Start a conservative party from scratch – call it whatever you want, but I’d suggest “The Conservative Party,” and find yourself a state with a small population and relatively old-fashioned values. (I’d suggest Wyoming right off the bat, but DO NOT go to Utah, wherever you go!) Run your Conservative Party candidates against Democrats and Republicans alike. Since it’s a small, unimportant state, you can probably win relatively easily and relatively cheaply, and – bang – you’ve got representation in Washington. You’ve suddenly become a national party, albeit kind of a footnote of one, which no one thinks much about.
Then you make up a platform of values you WILL NOT compromise on, and ones that are important, but talkable, and ones you really don’t give a damn about. You can develop some staying power by (A) not screwing up your home state and (B) functioning as a congressional swing vote for democrats and republicans on your ‘talking point’ issues when they come up. This makes you not an enemy to the established powers, but a potential added weapon to both, and it gives you some independence.
The problem, really, is that when new conservative parties start up, they get co-opted by the Republican party, and digested by it. Democrats have the same problem with extremely liberal minor parties.
Maybe – just spitballing here – maybe it’s time for Conservatism to separate itself from the Republican Party and go its own way? Just a thought to explore, not saying I’m in love with the idea.
Do third parties always result in a Democrat win?
I don’t think in Gore’s case re. Nader’s standard meddling.
Third parties are generally perceived as vote-splitters because they represent the more extremist section of a party jumping ship. A lot of people think that Bush lost in ‘92 because Perot robbed him of the loonie vote. Similarly, Gore was done in by Nader getting the tree-hugging loonie vote.
Ostensibly, this is entirely due to a radio station in Florida, WMNF.
If there were a *Real* 3rd party, though, not just an ad-hoc one that was clearly only gonna’ be around for one cycle of elections, it might play out differently.