Just stop calling yourself a Republican
 

I found this opinion piece worth reading.

Reagan architect declares war on GOP
Viguerie says withhold money, stop calling yourself 'Republican'
Posted: August 8, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Richard Viguerie
WASHINGTON – One of the architects of the Reagan Revolution is calling on fellow conservatives to withhold support of the Republican Party establishment – including most GOP incumbents in Congress this year.

In "Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause," Richard Viguerie, the man who invented the idea of using direct mail as a means of going over the heads of what he considered to be a biased establishment press, says it's time for radical action to save the Republican Party from itself.

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No matter how you slice it, Viguerie says, Bush makes Clinton look like a spending piker by comparison. For instance, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in New York keeps records that show how much the federal government spends on average each year for each person in the country.

When this standard of measurement is used, the comparison between the two administrations is even more pronounced.

Cumulative growth in federal expenditures, adjusted for inflation, during the Clinton years actually shrunk by 1.1 percent. Yet, in the Bush first term, it rose 15 percent.

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51421

Tech, I can't believe it, but I actually agree with you. Us conservatives have been sold out by our leadership. They have taken their eye off the ball and have become the very folks they replaced in the Gingrich Revolution. I guess if any party gets too comfortable this is innevitable. So what next? Maybe we do need more than two viable parties. They have become merely two sides of the same coin. I would love to see a third, fourth, fifth? party upset their little applecart. Of course, if the apathetic voting public simply quit electing the same old comfortable incumbants, we could achieve the same thing.

Yup. Which is why I say that I've got severe problems with W, but he was the least bad option. To be fair, however, growth as a measure during the tail end of the Clinton "recession" is not an objective measure. Once tax-cuts and other economic stimuli took hold, you're then spending from revenue increases with less tax burden.

Nonetheless W has spent (gross oversimplification, I know)money like a drunken sailor, especially on education (WTF? We need to further entrench a failing education system and its typically-Liberal special interests?) and social programs. He ought to have vetoed a whole bunch of legislation, especially earmark-heavy bills.

But he's trying to be a "uniter"... and indulge the fetishes of his adversaries. Yeah, like the Left would ever give him a chance or any credit for anything he's done right or they'd support (remember all the kudos for increasing education spending by double digits? Me neither). There's never going to be detente with the Angry Left; W mollifies Howard Dean or Chuck Sc{h}um{er}. Foolish to even try.

ATEOTD, it comes down to Nat'l Defense, there's really no choice at all (assuming you're pro-National Defense :D).

I'd have voted for Joe Lieberman, believe it or not.

JP

You'd feel better about agreeing if you knew I campaigned actively for Barry Goldwater back in the day.

Unfortunately, it's not only spending that violates the true conservative principles. It's growth of the Federal government and increased intrusiveness into our lives. So without changing my principles, I find there's a better fit for me in the Democratic party.

One point of his that I liked is the principle that the executive and legislative need to be different parties. Looking back, the best years were those where the least legislation was passed.

What makes our Financial System tick is LIquidity of Capital...after 911 W or any other "GUY" would have to "Spend like a drunken sailor" to keep the boat afloat.

So GW gets a pass on that one from me...

Iraq on the other hand goes to GWs leadership style and that is one of using trusted subordinates who are presumably experts on their subjects to come up with policy. Eisenhower was another prime example of this style of leadership.

tabs -- I don't disagree with your first point (as I alluded to in my reference to spending in his first term). However, to spend that much money on education (eg) doesn't efficiently make for liquidity, and effectively cuts his own throat.

JP

Sorry, GW was already coming up with huge budget increases before 9/11 (and before he could bother to take a single meeting about terrorism).

You're also completely wrong about Iraq, since Dubya was on the record as calling for forcing regime change in 1999. In fact, the only word in your post that seems correct is "presumably."

Good old Barry Goldwater!!

My buddy had a VW back then and we made a big pair of horn rimmed glass frames for the front of it. Barry was one of the last true Republicans. We shall not see his likes again.

+1

tabs, you're off your game dude. You need to get out more.

Or less, not sure.

"Presumably experts" is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? How about "blind loyalty to old friends"? The only member of the inner circle with "expertise" was sacked.

Politics is a dirty business.

Oh, this goes beyond politics.

The president's apparent notion that "qualification" mainly means people he has met through Bible study (Michael Brown) or who are friendly with people he knows (Julie Myers) or who have done him big political favors (Chertoff, Roberts) is just bone-headed.

Tech:

I think we would have to say there is "politics" and then there is "Politics". And, blind faith & loyalty, either practiced by leaders or followers, is equally dangerous.

Now, there you go, muddling a completely valid argument posited in your first post.

The federal budget works in two years cycles, he was working off of Clinton's budget...so you're saying you have the inside scoop on Bush's plans two years in advance?

I tip my hat.

As I've been asserting for a long time, even Richard Viguerie, Jesse Helms chief fund raiser among other things, has been forced to see that George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives are very much left wing liberals.

In the old days I would get tired of arguing with the Retards, there is just no trying to make them see as they are so fixated with their own myopic view of the world. As an end result I just resorted to pushing them down the stairs at least then they were forced to deal with the reality of thier falling.

GW is a DELEGATOR...Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice...Rove

GW is NO FAITH BASED CONSERVATIVE Repblican....just look at his family tree and the school he went to ...Yale come on BOyz get a grip name one other Faith Based Repblican that came from Yale???? GW only plays lip service to those FB Repblicans...hes far more East Coast Establishment....with a twist of Cowboy Diplomacy thrown in...

Rummy and Cheney go back to the Ford administrations...these guys have been around the block and know how to stick in a knife or two.

No need to tip your hat, just do some reading.

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In Defense of Reason - Donald Rumsfeld requests military budget increase - Brief Article - Editorial
Los Angeles Business Journal, July 23, 2001

AEROSPACE and defense executives from Long Beach to Lancaster have found much to be optimistic about with the ascendancy of George W. Bush and an administration that has promised no less than a major overhaul and upgrade of the U.S. military.

Following through on Bush's campaign promises, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld earlier this month asked for an additional $18.4 billion in defense spending in 2002, raising the total estimated budget by 10 percent to nearly $330 billion, or a whopping $33 billion more than this year's outlay.

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The last worthy conservative was Reagan. He upheld the ideals of smaller government, less services, and a certain legitimacy of the U.S. on the world stage. Clinton was a uniter above all other things - at least the country wasn't nearly as split as now when Clinton was in office.

So the perfect fantasy president would comprise Reagan and Clinton - deft-like purpose to always put the country's overall best interests forward, while uniting everyone behind the country so that the idea would suppress all naysayers. Back when the Berlin wall fell, one did not dare say ill against Reagan. Even Bush I had something on the ball, and he was a distant second in visibility to anyone in office.

Bush II is a very poor example of Conservative leadership. It isn't even conservative any longer, but instead NeoCon vitriol.

What I wish is for the world to not take the U.S. or Bush very seriously - only the terrorist enclaves and their host countries seem to have the balls to do that. But as to Bush's legitimacy, hell, my avatar has more legitimacy in the WH than Bush.

I wish you were correct, but in fact Reagan shrank nothing at the federal level, and increased expenditures across the board. In fact, until Bush II took office, Reagan had been the alltime leader in government spending without being in a declared war.

A new issue of The American Conservative is devoted to this very subject. I've linked those authors I enjoyed the most, but all can be viewed via the link at the end.