I find mowing the lawn a good opportunity for cogitation. Or maybe I just hate it so much I rationalize it that way. Anyway, herewith the latest Deep Thought, Yard Work edition:
Mitt Romney is not the RINO in this election. Nor were Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum.
Ron Paul is.
John McCain was not the RINO in the last presidential election.
Sarah Palin was.
Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were not the "real" GOP candidates they are painted as, but the Bushes were.
Anyone trying to claim that the GOP is the, or even "a", conservative party is fooling themselves, if by "conservative" they mean small, fiscally responsible government. Anyone claiming that the GOP or the RNC has "sold out" the GOP's roots, that it has "betrayed" Republican values, is wrong. At best.
Look, the Republican party was founded on the twin propositions that slavery should be abolished, ditto polygamy. Not exactly hot-button issues today. So the hot button topics the GOP has latched onto are simply different forms of government control from what the Democrats are pushing. Instead of government giving you everything it thinks you need, whether you want it or not, like the Democrats want, the Republicans want to prevent you from doing what you want, whether or not it might harm you, let alone someone else.
As the aphorism goes, the Democrats want government to be your Mommy, the Republicans want it to be your Daddy, and Libertarians want to leave you alone.
2 comments:
Hmm, Not sure - Democrats don't want you to have everything; at least not guns, or the ability to think for your self (minor nits - but Important ones). The rest sounds about right though :)
I've felt for a long time, the only significant difference between the two parties how they buy their votes. Democrats tend to buy their votes from the poor (via government giveaways) while the Republicans buy their votes from the rich & corporations via influence and tax breaks.
On day's I'm feeling generous, I'll grant that in general the GOP does a better job not screwing up the second amendment (but not by a lot). And that's only because they want to get reelected - if they thought they could subvert that right, they probably would.
They both have the same primary goal - Get Reelected. Everything else is a distant second, if they can do something that's beneficial for the country - it will likely only happen if it will also improve their chances of getting reelected.
The effect is most obvious at the national level ,and most obvious there in presidential politics, which is mostly what I was talking about.
Thus, pro-choice Republicans and pro-Second Amendment Democrats mostly show up in local politics, unless they're from a district where those sentiments are prevalent enough to appear in a member of the US Congress--usually in the House, although occasionally in the Senate.
Note that the track record of Republican presidents vetoing gun control legislation is not exactly stellar.
Yes, the primary motivation of the RNC/GOP is getting into office, and staying there. No surprise there, and looked at one way--i.e., from an organizational success viewpoint--this is correct and proper for them.
The average voter, of course, votes based on "What is the best position for me?", and all too often that translates as "Who will get me the most stuff?", not "What is best for the nation?"
So, the question may be, is it best to work within the existing system, or to try to reform the system?
Most of thee thoughts are hardly original to me, although I think I'm the first to suggest that we're mis-identifying the RINOs.
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