Very well-stated and well-itemized list of reasons to keep voting the Republican party line. I don’t think that I saw anything I disagreed with on the face. Yes, the lberals would try to do all those things to our country. And yes, all those terrible things that Democrat operatives do but Republicans don’t do during election seasons was true.

And yet, President Bush failed to do his job on literally hundreds of occasions, by not vetoing ridiculously bad legislation. And why were such terrible bills brought to his desk? Because a Republican-controlled House and Senate didn’t stop them.

I carry water for no political entity, only the truth. President Bush has an agenda that doesn’t get into print, to unite the U.S. with Canada and Mexico, the only plausible explanation for not acting more strongly to secure the borders. Why bother if there will be no need for borders in the not-to-distant future?

You said, rightly so, that Kennedy and FDR would not recognize their party today. I submit that at least Kennedy wouldn’t even align himself with today’s Republican party, because it is TOO LIBERAL. Who among the top Republicans nowadays makes one think of Kennedy’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, rather ask what you can do for your country?” Oh, they’re out there, but it’s a mighty short list.

Ahh, there is one thing about which I categorically disagree with georgej. “A vote for anybody but a Republican is a vote for the Democrats”. That is hogwash. I’m not talking about the 2008 presidential election, just the upcoming congressional ballots.

I’m not the least bit interested in changing anyone’s mind here, simply ranting for catharsis’ sake.

Now to flame the other side. Honora, what we are doing in Iraq is anything but needless. In at least half a dozen asian or middle-eastern ports of call during my military career, I encountered ex-patriat Iraqis who would all have loved to return to their home country. And EVERY ONE of them expressed the wish that the American military would get rid of Saddam so that they could.

Understand that througout Saddam’s nearly four decades in power, an average month saw in excess of 5,000 Iraqi citizens killed by the government for reasons unconnected with crime. Since we have been there, fewer non-combatant civilians have died than in slightly more than a single year of Saddam’s regime. The vast majority of deaths in the last year have been non-Iraqi insurgents, and the vast majority of Iraqi deaths have been at the hands of those same insurgents, or pro-jihad Iraqis.

I’m not going to spend any more effort on that, anyone who wants to know what has been accomplished there can find out for themselves, as long as your sources don’t include the NYTimes or ABC news and their ilk.

You misunderstood Netanyahu’s remarks and then shot from the hip. He did not say that U.S. Jews should move to Israel because the U.S. is intolerant. He said (essentially) that U.S. Jews should move to Israel because they cannot live a fully Jewish life in the U.S. and will ultimately dissolve into the melting pot. Netanyahu specifically cited the dangers to a U.S. Jewish future from “assimilation and intermarriage”.

Netanyahu’s fear for the continuity of the Jews of the U.S. is understandable. The current U.S. Jewish birthrate is below replacement level, 1.86. This rate is probably pulled upwards by the 10% of US Jews who are Orthodox and have birthrates of between 3.3 and 6. The overall rate for Jews in Israel is about 2.25 to 2.5 (from memory) and rising about 4.8% per year. U.S. Jewish population is also eroded by intermarriage and a big drop in observance amoung many Jews (although there is a also a rise in observance amoung a minority of U.S. Jews due to outreach by Orthodox groups such as Chabad and Aish Ha Torah).

The bottom-line is that in 20 years the U.S. Jewish population will probably fall from the current figure of about 5 million to 2.5 million (although the remainder will probably be more religiously observant).

One of the best recent popular articles on U.S. Jewish population is by Jack Wertheimer in Commentary.

A fuller account of Netanyahu’s remarks was given in the Jerusalem Post.

It is not accurate to paint Netanyahu (a man who grew up in the Philadelphia area and graduated from MIT) as anything but an admirer of the U.S.

Honora wrote:

“It’s interesting that so many people on this thread seem to believe that the best case scenario if to have power entirely concentrated in the hands of one party, indeed one portion of that party.”

Actually, you don’t “get it,” not at all.

YOUR party has been taken over by people whose ideology has been proven wrong time after time. From gun control (what the 2nd Amendment means) to abortion, from Adam Smith to confiscatory taxation (”redistribution of wealth”), and many others issue, what YOUR party stands for and believes has been proven wrong time, repeatedly.

I could write a book about the historical issues where the left has been not only wrong, but dangerously wrong.

But on the one that is most important to most Americans today, the security of the United States, the leftwing of your party since 1972, has consistently worked to undermine the nation. Actually “undermine” isn’t the right word. “Sabotage” is. And Jay Rockerfeller’s memo that was leaked to the press in October 2003 is proof of such deliberate sabotage.

The problem with your party is that it has been completely taken over by the angry left, driving out any moderation — not only with respect to ideology, but in terms of behavior.

It is the left that riots and resorts to violence when conservatives or Republicans *dare* to speak on college campuses, not the right. In fact, I cannot remember any “rightwing” led storming of the podium at a college or university, or “pieing” of a liberal speaker, ever.

It is the left that calls the terrorists, who murder the innocent in the name of Allah in Iraq and Afghanistan “freedom fighters,” not the Republicans or the right. Michael Moore, who openly admires the terrorist, whom your party gave a place of honor at your last national convention, is YOUR creature, not mine.

Further, I will remind you that NO REPUBLICAN has ever spit on the flag at one of its state party conventions and called the color guard “nazis” — unlike the 2000 NY State Democratic Party convention in Albany, NY.

NO REPUBLICAN has ever booed the Eagle Scout color guard at their national convention — unlike your 2000 national convention in Los Angeles.

And I can uncover NO instances of REPUBLICANS firing guns at local Democratic Party headquarters, or taking over and trashing them — which happened repeatedly to the Republicans in 2004.

Come to think of it, I can’t ever remember a conspiracy of Republicans to slash the tires of Democratic Party vehicles in Milwaukee — unlike what your party did to the Republicans.

And it is NOT Republicans that mob-protest YOUR national conventions, it is the DEMOCRATS that do it to the Republicans. So much for polity, eh?

When Clinton was president there were NOT repeated open “wishes” for his assassination; there were NO postage-stamp artwork showing a gun to Clinton’s head as there is today. There were no movies or plays openly advocating the assassinaton of Clinton. Unlike today. “Assination chic” is what DEMOCRATS do, not Republicans.

If FDR, Truman, or JFK were alive today they would NOT recognize the Democratic Party as the one they once led.

Your party has become a party of Brownshirts. And while I don’t claim to speak for others, it is why the idea of your party getting control of the government frightens me; frightens me to the point of wishing to see that your party is kept from power, under all circumstances and at all levels.

Until the Democrat Party turns its back upon the left, and tells George Soros (and his moveon.org and CREW), and Kos’s “nutroots,” and your “Gumbahs” Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala, and John Podesta, to go to hell, this former Democrat intends support the other party, exclusively.

In fact, let me state my feelings about the Democratic Party in real, blunt terms: Potestas Democraticorum delenda est!

georgej on October 7, 2006 at 5:45 PM

And these are the people who are poised to knock your side back in a couple weeks. Gosh, that must be discouraging. Saw Senator Danforth on TV last night. He is very worried about people like you, the ones who have driven comity from politics, the ones who are so sure they are right that they have lost control of their judgement and their humanity.

By the by, look for Dubya to begin the withdrawal from Iraq after the election. He, with the help of sycophants like you, took this nation into a foolish and needless war that will leave us and mideast worse off than before.

I don’t for a minute think this will change your mind. And I know you are sadly proud of your inflexibility. You know the problem with being inflexible don’t you? Ever been in a hurricane?

Don’t be a Dhimmi!

Mrs737 has a BabyGirl737 in her cargo bay and I don’t want either of them to be forced at gunpoint by some savage jihadi to wear a freakin’ burqa and howl at the moon five times a day. My family and I believe in Jesus Christ the Savior and will NOT bow to a satanic death cult. But we’re also not soldiers. America depends on it’s professional military to defend us and our way of life so that we may live in peace without having to fight this war in the streets of our own cities and towns. When the forces of the false prophet come to YOUR town you’ll be saying “Damn, why did I waste my vote on a guy who only registered .01 percent on the name recognition scale?” But hey, at least you voted your conscience, and that’s the important thing.

By the way, I’ve never seen or read Dune, but has anyone ever noticed the simularities between muslims and the Sand People of the Star Wars movies?

“It’s interesting that so many people on this thread seem to believe that the best case scenario if to have power entirely concentrated in the hands of one party, indeed one portion of that party.”

Actually, you don’t “get it,” not at all.

YOUR party has been taken over by people whose ideology has been proven wrong time after time. From gun control (what the 2nd Amendment means) to abortion, from Adam Smith to confiscatory taxation (“redistribution of wealth”), and many others issue, what YOUR party stands for and believes has been proven wrong time, repeatedly.

I could write a book about the historical issues where the left has been not only wrong, but dangerously wrong.

But on the one that is most important to most Americans today, the security of the United States, the leftwing of your party since 1972, has consistently worked to undermine the nation. Actually “undermine” isn’t the right word. “Sabotage” is. And Jay Rockerfeller’s memo that was leaked to the press in October 2003 is proof of such deliberate sabotage.

The problem with your party is that it has been completely taken over by the angry left, driving out any moderation — not only with respect to ideology, but in terms of behavior.

It is the left that riots and resorts to violence when conservatives or Republicans *dare* to speak on college campuses, not the right. In fact, I cannot remember any “rightwing” led storming of the podium at a college or university, or “pieing” of a liberal speaker, ever.

It is the left that calls the terrorists, who murder the innocent in the name of Allah in Iraq and Afghanistan “freedom fighters,” not the Republicans or the right. Michael Moore, who openly admires the terrorist, whom your party gave a place of honor at your last national convention, is YOUR creature, not mine.

Further, I will remind you that NO REPUBLICAN has ever spit on the flag at one of its state party conventions and called the color guard “nazis” — unlike the 2000 NY State Democratic Party convention in Albany, NY.

NO REPUBLICAN has ever booed the Eagle Scout color guard at their national convention — unlike your 2000 national convention in Los Angeles.

And I can uncover NO instances of REPUBLICANS firing guns at local Democratic Party headquarters, or taking over and trashing them — which happened repeatedly to the Republicans in 2004.

Come to think of it, I can’t ever remember a conspiracy of Republicans to slash the tires of Democratic Party vehicles in Milwaukee — unlike what your party did to the Republicans.

And it is NOT Republicans that mob-protest YOUR national conventions, it is the DEMOCRATS that do it to the Republicans. So much for polity, eh?

When Clinton was president there were NOT repeated open “wishes” for his assassination; there were NO postage-stamp artwork showing a gun to Clinton’s head as there is today. There were no movies or plays openly advocating the assassinaton of Clinton. Unlike today. “Assination chic” is what DEMOCRATS do, not Republicans.

If FDR, Truman, or JFK were alive today they would NOT recognize the Democratic Party as the one they once led.

Your party has become a party of Brownshirts. And while I don’t claim to speak for others, it is why the idea of your party getting control of the government frightens me; frightens me to the point of wishing to see that your party is kept from power, under all circumstances and at all levels.

Until the Democrat Party turns its back upon the left, and tells George Soros (and his moveon.org and CREW), and Kos’s “nutroots,” and your “Gumbahs” Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala, and John Podesta, to go to hell, this former Democrat intends support the other party, exclusively.

In fact, let me state my feelings about the Democratic Party in real, blunt terms: Potestas Democraticorum delenda est!

They intend to let Al Qaeda win in Iraq.

They intend to abandon (cut and run) Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

They intend to cut the military.

They will forever stop the NSA from tracking terrorists down as they plan their attacks against us.

They will forever end the program to track down Al Qaeda terrorists by following the money.

They will prevent interrogation of any terrorists we capture.

They will open the borders to illegal aliens and give them the right to vote in our elections. GEORGE J

Amen George, Amen. This is a worthy list that must be kept in the forefront of everyones mind as we hold our noses and vote Republican. However, we must kick the homos and RINO’s out once and for all. Not really conservative? Then GET THE HELL OUT.

If I were the RNC I would be concerned about this. There is a school of thought that the Dems will never regain power without breaking the hold the Rs have on the South. Emerging school of thought is forget the South, consolidate the NE and Midwest and make inroads in the West.

Sounds like a plan.

The R party is now where the D party was in the 70′s–the extreme wing disproportionately driving the agenda and the dialogue. I predict the same result. People at both the right and left extreme never seem to realize that in the end they need to play to the middle. We’ll see.

“It is going to take the GOP losing power for them to change.”

Don’t you understand that letting the Democrats win this November will result in serious national security threats to America and worse?

The Democrats intend to raise taxes beyond rolling back the Bush tax cuts, INCLUDING Social Security tax increases.

They intend to let Al Qaeda win in Iraq.

They intend to abandon (cut and run) Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

They intend to cut the military.

They will forever stop the NSA from tracking terrorists down as they plan their attacks against us.

They will forever end the program to track down Al Qaeda terrorists by following the money.

They will prevent interrogation of any terrorists we capture.

They will paralyze prosecution of Al Qaeda by giving them “miranda rights” and ACLU lawyers as if they are simple convenience store robbers NOT vicious murderers who have declared unrestricted war on all Americans.

They will open the borders to illegal aliens and give them the right to vote in our elections.

The world has been here before, you know.

The people of Germany voted in enough National Socialists in 1932 to make it possible for them to take over the government after the Reichstag burned down.

Like Germany in 1932, we have the vote. We can vote for anybody we want to. However, the Germans threw away their vote, those who voted for Hitler and his Nazis.

Because for all Germans, Hitler’s rise to power in 1932 resulted in ONE MAN, ONE VOTE, ONE TIME — for almost 2 decades.

And given the pattern that the Democrats are promising to implement, you, me, this blog, Limbaugh, Hannity, and so on, WILL BE SILENCED. The goal of liberls and Democrats, like the Nazis, is to get into power AND STAY THERE. It took 12 years, and 60 million lives to end Nazi rule in Germany.

We are at war and YOU intend to help the Surrender Party take control.

techno_barbarian regretted his vote for Perot because it gave us Clinton. Don’t make his mistake.

A vote for anybody but a Republican is a vote for the Democrats.

The New York Times, which has given the world such giants of fake journalism as Walter Duranty and Jayson Blair, now produces more lies about evangelical Christians: [I]f current trends continue, only 4 percent of teenagers will be “Bible-believing Ch…

The sexual perversion and infidelity that is commonplace in Washington has worn thin with many Christians. The Machiavellian GOP types who believe that we can’t go over to the Euro-Dems are only half right; we can sit or look for other choices that make moral sense.

More importantly, we can continue to look for local candidates that reflect our world view.

I believe you are the first person to make the connection between my alias and the Dune series. Yes, I too noticed the similarities between the current Middle East culture and the Fremen cultures in the Dune series. You could probably go even further and speculate that the Atreides were symbolic of the West, the Harkonnens were the evil Communists, and the Corrinos were the Eurpoeans.

I don’t specifically have any issues with the Middle Eastern people. It’s just their “religion of peace” and it’s adherents that I don’t care for. The Freemen in Dune were an honorable people unlike the Middle East fanatics we are fighting today.

It is going to take the GOP losing power for them to change. Why should they currently make any changes when they know the conservative will vote for them simply to keep the Dem’s out of power? There is no reason for them to.

However, if a large, large portion of the conservative base were to suddenly withdraw their support from the GOP and vote Constitution Party or Libertarian Party or some other 3rd choice, yes the Dem’s would win likely win the election. But it would also serve as the wakeup call for the GOP to return to it’s roots.

And who knows, if enough people were to turn their backs on the GOP and vote a more conservative ticket, the third party may actually make some waves.

maud’dib and others

I think we all share your frustration, but do you really think that this is the time to “send a message” to the GOP? Do you have any idea what we’ll be in for? Countless investigations wasting all of our time, calls for Bush’s impeachment, grandstanding, getting nothing done. I’m too tired at the moment to argue against this, and obviously it’s your right, but I don’t think in these times, handing the election to the Democrats because you’re pissed that the GOP isn’t conservative enough is a good idea. I’m terrified at what that will mean, and I see it as the beginning of the end. Just consider some things that have been passed in recent years that wouldn’t have otherwise. Consider how hard it was to pass bills with all the filibustering and obstruction when the Dems weren’t even a majority.

It is long past time to hold accountable that political party which presumes upon our loyalty while betraying our principles. I know I’ve said the same thing to friends and co-workers about how the Democrats use the black vote but don’t do anything which ever improves the “black condition”.

Moral integrity and principles do matter. I know the counter-arguments. If we split the Republican vote, the Dems win, and we get Speaker Pelosi and President Hillary.

The thing is, it just might require that to shake a party back to its foundation and begin to stand for the Constitution again. Or, a party already calling itself the Constitution party should begin to gain the loyalty of those whose principles agree with theirs. There are no ACP candidates that I know of on California’s November ballot, or they would have my serious consideration. It is time, and past time.

Off-topic, muad-dib, I was a huge Dune fan in my younger days; have you ever noticed how many terms and titles Herbert took from Islam, and from Iraq, for the Dune series? As an example off the top of my head, Muad’dib’s most trusted fighters were called the fedaykin (feh-dIe`-ken), and Saddam’s royal guard were known as the Fedayeen. Speaking of Saddam, the Emporer in the first two Dune books is Shaddam IV. Given when the books were written, some odd parallels.

PIMF

Losing a few seats will be a nice wake up call. I am more afraid of a GOP that does as it wishes than Democrats that will agitate and consolidate the base.

That’s your right and your choice, and I respect that. But I still think the stakes are way too high to satisfy ourselves with basically going to war with the dems to oust us out of power. How can we effectively change things when we’re the minority party?

I agree that we need better leadership. But handing leadership to the dems is outright dangerous right now. The dems will not do what needs to be done to protect and defend us. Quite the contrary, they will actively seek to make us just that much more hamstrung and vulnerable at a time when we need to be steely-eyed and resolute when dealing with our many enemies.

I voted for Perot and helped cost the GOP an election that put Clinton in the WH. I voted for Perot for the same reasons you say you’re going to vote for the Constitution Party, (never heard of that before). In the years since I’ve often regretted my choice back then. My vote is the only voice I have, and I choose to use it to keep the strongest party we have in power.

But you do what you think you need to. That’s the most excellent thing about America.

You make good points, and I agree with you and am frustrated too. But I really believe we have a moral obligation to our Nation and the world at large to keep the liberal dems from taking power right now, and especially in ‘08. Things are just too critical right now. We’ll fix the GOP. But we have to win this one first.

Sorry barbarian I ain’t buying it. I just moved to CA from Ohio. Were I still there I would be voting for Sherrod Brown(D) and Peirce(L)for Governor. The ONLY thing that motivates politicians is the vote. Losing a few seats will be a nice wake up call. I am more afraid of a GOP that does as it wishes than Democrats that will agitate and consolidate the base.

This November, I will be voting for the Constitution Party. Although some may think I’m throwing my vote away, I would rather vote for someone who shares my core convictions and be able to hold my head high with a good conscious than to vote for someone who has no clue what it truly means to be a real conservative.

It’s your vote and you should do what you think you have to. But I think you’ll find that trying to enjoy that high moral feeling you hold so dear will be pretty tough once far left dems take control of this country.

You make good points, and I agree with you and am frustrated too. But I really believe we have a moral obligation to our Nation and the world at large to keep the liberal dems from taking power right now, and especially in ’08. Things are just too critical right now. We’ll fix the GOP. But we have to win this one first.

Respectfully,

techno_barbarian

(No offense to you intelligent Righties in CA… You guys know you live in Looney Mecca.)