Nope. Bringing guns to rallies is a dumb idea. Seems like a good way to get shot. And I don't want to overthrow the government. They sign my paycheck.
I'm pretty sure that both sides have a few crazies. I don't think it's fair to collectively lump all of us with the crazies on the right. Of course, now that you mention it, everyone on the left is setting bombs at SUV dealerships and throwing paint on people at symphonies. How about we stop stereotyping?
Yeah, but the CBO says it's best guess is that there will be even greater savings for the deficit, perhaps up to $1 trillion over the following ten years. So when you say, "I know it and the Democrats" (which I assume you mean that the Democrats know it also) I don't think you're correct. The democrats and the CBO think it will leader to even better deficit reduction down the line. And of course cost estimates can be off, but 1) I assume they learned a few lessons and have gotten better at cost estimating, and 2) since large portions of the bill aren't subsidized with federal spending, it shouldn't be so hard to keep it from ballooning the deficit. In fact, the only way for it to balloon the deficit is if it forces health care costs to skyrocket even faster than they are now. That's certainly possible, but I don't see most opponents using that as their basis for disagreement.
from josh -- The Tea Party Big Picture TPMDC's Evan McMorris-Santoro spent the day among the Tea Party crowd at the Capitol. And Christina Bellantoni filed this report on what the Tea Partiers are saying about 2010 based on interviews she conducted with the protestors. Both are great reads. And I'd suggest reading both of them. In many ways, though, what struck me most about today was what happened at the podium. This event began as a Tea Party event organized and galvanized by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the over-the-top, far-right congresswoman from Minnesota. As recently as Monday, the event was getting little more than polite, if tepid, endorsements from the Republican House leadership. We were on the organizational conference calls yesterday evening. And even then it was pretty much still her affair, with a mindset and affect to match. But something funny happened at the event today. Virtually every marquee member of the GOP House caucus, including Boehner and Cantor, were there up on the platform speaking to the crowd. (See a highlight reel of the speeches here.) Bachmann was the start. But basically all of them were up there with her. Early this morning The Politico got hold of a Republican Study Committee email asking staffers to send their members to the event but also to avoid words like "rally" and "protest" in favor of "press conference" or "press event". Clearly, there was an effort to sanitize the event and get away from Bachmann's high-strung rhetoric about a "last stand" against health care reform. So on the one hand the House Republicans wanted to take over the event. But they also felt the need to get out in front of it, to be in front of the crowd. It was a perfect, real-time illustration of the current struggle within the GOP, with the party establishment trying to harness but also control and not be overrun by the grassroots mobilization on the right. But taking it all in, with Boehner up there saying health care reform was the biggest threat to freedom he'd ever seen, the Dachau signs, the arrests and the rest, it seemed more like the institutional GOP again being overwhelmed by its base, caving to them, joining them -- the phrasing doesn't really matter. This was Bachmann's event. They may have been worried even last month about her effect on the party's image. But she's leading; they're following.
Look at America's public-policy problems, look at voting trends, and it's inescapably obvious that the Republican Party needs to evolve. We need to put free-market health-care reform, not tax cuts, at the core of our economic message. It's health-care costs that are crushing middle-class incomes. Between 2000 and 2006, the amount that employers paid for labor rose substantially. Employees got none of that money; all of it was absorbed by rising health-care costs. Meanwhile, the income-tax cuts offered by Republicans interest fewer and fewer people: before the recession, two thirds of American workers paid more in payroll taxes than in income taxes. We need to modulate our social conservatism (not jettison—modulate). The GOP will remain a predominantly conservative party and a predominantly pro-life party. But especially on gay-rights issues, the under-30 generation has arrived at a new consensus. Our party seems to be running to govern a country that no longer exists. The rule that both our presidential and vice presidential candidates must always be pro-life has become counterproductive: McCain's only hope of winning the presidency in 2008 was to carry Pennsylvania, and yet Pennsylvania's most successful Republican vote winner, former governor Tom Ridge, was barred from the ticket because he's pro-choice. We need an environmental message. You don't have to accept Al Gore's predictions of imminent gloom to accept that it cannot be healthy to pump gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We are rightly mistrustful of liberal environmentalist disrespect for property rights. But property owners also care about property values, about conservation, and as a party of property owners we should be taking those values more seriously. Above all, we need to take governing seriously again. Voters have long associated Democrats with corrupt urban machines, Republicans with personal integrity and fiscal responsibility. Even ultraliberal states like Massachusetts would elect Republican governors like Frank Sargent, Leverett Saltonstall, William Weld and Mitt Romney precisely to keep an austere eye on the depredations of Democratic legislators. After Iraq, Katrina and Harriet Miers, Democrats surged to a five-to-three advantage on the competence and ethics questions. And that was before we put Sarah Palin on our national ticket. Every day, Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don't appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder. Isn't that what happened in 1994? Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? What can they do to him other than … not listen? It's not as if they can vote against him. But they can vote against Republican candidates for Congress. They can vote against Republican nominees for president. And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, they will vote against us. Two months into 2009, President Obama and the Democratic Congress have already enacted into law the most ambitious liberal program since the mid-1960s. More, much more is to come. Through this burst of activism, the Republican Party has been flat on its back. Decisions that will haunt American taxpayers for generations have been made with hardly a debate. The federal government will pay more of the cost for Medicaid, it will expand the SCHIP program for young children, it will borrow trillions of dollars to expand the national debt to levels unseen since WWII. To stem this onrush of disastrous improvisations, conservatives need every resource of mind and heart, every good argument, every creative alternative and every bit of compassionate sympathy for the distress that is pushing Americans in the wrong direction. Instead we are accepting the leadership of a man with an ego-driven agenda of his own, who looms largest when his causes fare worst. In the days since I stumbled into this controversy, I've received a great deal of e-mail. (Most of it on days when Levin or Hannity or Hugh Hewitt or Limbaugh himself has had something especially disobliging to say about me.) Most of these e-mails say some version of the same thing: if you don't agree with Rush, quit calling yourself a conservative and get out of the Republican Party. There's the perfect culmination of the outlook Rush Limbaugh has taught his fans and followers: we want to transform the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan into a party of unanimous dittoheads—and we don't care how much the party has to shrink to do it. That's not the language of politics. It's the language of a cult. I'm a pretty conservative guy. On most issues, I doubt Limbaugh and I even disagree very much. But the issues on which we do disagree are maybe the most important to the future of the conservative movement and the Republican Party: Should conservatives be trying to provoke or persuade? To narrow our coalition or enlarge it? To enflame or govern? And finally (and above all): to profit—or to serve? http://www.newsweek.com/id/188279/page/4 What's funny about the whole situation is Republicans like to say that Bush's spending was a disgrace and that he wasn't a Conservative. But what did he do that was so different than the Messiah Reagan? Waste billions of dollars on unnecessary defense spending? Check Tax cuts for the rich? Check Foreign policy nightmares? Check Severe recession? Check Increase the debt level to disgusting size? Check Spend tons of money, create few jobs, and little GDP growth? Check Republicans hate big government hate the idea of spending a trillion dollars over ten years on healthcare reform but yet have no problem spending a trillion dollars A YEAR on defense. http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1941 The Republicans haven't changed a bit it's just everyone has realized what a failure their policies and philosophies are. Tax cuts for the rich don't work not in 1986 and not in 2001. Like Einstein said insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Ron Paul IMO is the only hope the GOP is. Throw another Reaganesque candidate out there and the TRUE conservatives will send him packing.
Why is a radical libertarian considered a "true" conservative more so than a social conservative or an old school WSJ type conservative or a neocon ideolouge? There is nothing conservative about imposing one man's crazy-ass conception of 19 or 18th century ideas on 21st century reality. In fact it's the opposite of conservative.
I don't necessarly agree with Paul either but he does have the most conservative record of all 3,320 members of Congress from 1937 to 2002. http://voteview.com/Is_John_Kerry_A_Liberal.htm But Sam you are most likely more knowledgble than I so in your opinion who would best epitomize a Conservative?
I was there on the "Republican establishment" side of the fence. We are not afraid of the monster. We welcome it.
Who would best epitomize a conservative? It depends on who you ask and what definition you are using. To me at least it seems the modern GOP conservatives have three major strains with differing ideological bents: religious/social cons, WSJ/big business cons, and libertarian/anti-gov cons. Using the dictionary definition of conservative, which is loosely based on "resistant to change", you can argue that none of these groups are truly conservative in that a lot of them want to impose a substantial amount of change (although some you could argue is a reactionary strain of change). I think the libertarian/Ron Paulists are the least conservative by that definition because a lot of their ideas are the most radical. It's not conservative to try to impose 18th century system on 21st century reality (I would argue it's dangerous and foolish, since our understanding of certain things has advanced considerably since then) - I mean it's never been done before. Hell, they want to abolish the post office, I mean Benjamin freaking Franklin established the post office.
then you will never win a national election again. moderates and independents are horrified at the direction the republican party is taking itself
Independents broke for the Republicans in NJ and VA at a rate of almost 2-1. When we run candidates that focus on fiscal issues, we win. 2010 is going to be a bad year for the Democrats, bank on it.
As I said you will never win a national election by embracing the crazies of your party. Oh, you'll pick up a few house seats and maybe a senate seat or two, but the teabagger party will never win the presidency.
Forty percent of Americans identify themselves as conservatives, only twenty percent as liberals. The Taxed Enough Already folks have a much shorter way to go than the liberals.
