What we need in the next election is a truly Conservative candidate
to run for President. McCain was not a conservative and neither was GW Bush.
Put a real Conservative in the race and you’ll see a landslide victory
and Powell can eat his own words.
Go back to the core beliefs of being a conservative and lose the religious nonsense, do not cater to any group based on skin color. Powell lost my respect entirely.
Bring back Barry Goldwater!
I agree with you.
McCain was horrid, and while I like Sarah Palin on a certain level, I’m not sure she should be a head of state.
The Republicans are floundering because they are not conservative. They are fractured and confused by the Christian Fundies in the party spouting socialism but pretending it is conservatism.
They need to forget worrying about abortion, worrying about prayer in school and 10 Commandments in the courtrooms, and get to a stripped down, lean secular conservatism.
Huh? 
As someone who definitely could be described as a right-wing Christian fundamentalist, I could not possibly agree more strongly. The majority of that category is hell-bent on cutting off their nose to spite their face over the issues of abortion, gay rights, etc.
The evangelical Christian community has somehow decided that legislation is an acceptable method of evangelism. I attribute this mostly to cowardice, fear, and a complete lack of the appropriate combination of faith and testicular fortitude. As a whole, they’ve done such a poor job of preaching the Word and spreading the Gospel that (it’s hard when you don’t practice what you preach) that they’ve given up and hope to enforce their beliefs through law. They’ve lost sight of the idea that we need to lead people to the Lord and let Him change their hearts, not just legislate them into falling in line.
Meanwhile, they’re alienating the middle so much, and being painted so unfavorably by the media, that all they do is keep the group that’s more favorable to them out of power. Because they refuse to accept that the government might have to recognize that not everyone shares their belief system, they won’t compromise and end up with a government that is outright hostile to their beliefs. Go figure.
I guess I’m not tracking…
From my perspective, “evangelicals” - whatever the hell that is… have tried to do nothing buy hold the line against the liberal leftist weanies that would have us all bend over to all of their nitwittery.
For the most part, with all due respect to the previous poster, I believe that his diatribe is part and parcel of the lie that the left would have conservatives swallow. The truth is, we lost the last election because we abandoned those principles and tried to paint McCain as a ‘moderate’. Placating the enemy, in this case the leftists that would have us lower our flag to the greater part of the EU and other social leftists/greens/etc…does nothing for conservatives. Except of course to put us in a easily beaten position politically. We offered no real conservative solutions grounded in values and principles to the pablum that was served up by the leftists, thus we lost.
I don’t understand how defending principle is somehow something we should be afraid to do.
Very well said.
Obviously you equate: Republican Party = conservative = Christian
That equation is not working out so well - the proof is in the election results.
Very well said Sir. I agree with you on all fronts, and especially those which I have highlighted.
It seems the real conservatives (which are basically borderline libertarians, or at least classic liberals) are so concerned about alienating the rank and file Religious Right that they won’t ditch the non-secular platform which the party has adopted over the last 20 years in favor of what would truly benefit the party and the nation as a whole, a return to the fundamental core beliefs with which this country was founded upon.
I would much rather be deciding between a Federalist and a Democratic Republican, rather than a Social Democrat (or in the case of BHO an evolutionary socialist) and a Christian Funda…er…Republican.
ETA: for those who may not be totally up to speed on political ideology, Classic Liberal DOES NOT equal Modern Liberal (ie BHO, Hillary, Bill, etc.). A good example of a Classic Liberal would be Thomas Jefferson or John Locke
Negative. The religious takeover of the Republican party is well documented and goes back a long way. The religious side of the Republican Party is who ensured Bush’s wins. Even Barry Goldwater spoke about the religious people taking over the Republican Party. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met that decried Palin’s idiotic stance on abortion and abstinence only teaching.
We are not a theocracy and the Republican Party needs to get rid of the religious stuff and let the preachers worry about it.
Agree!!
Agree again!!111
No, my equation is this:
Republican Party = conservative talkers but quasi-liberal walkers = Christian placaters.
In other words, they are neither conservative by any stretch of the imagination nor are they Christian. In the past, they have tried to garner the votes of Christians by the party platform of pro-life. But to date, they have done nothing to further that plank. In fact, if anything, they’ve done all they can behind the scenes to remove the plank outright or minimize it. McCain and company lost the vast majority of Christian voters. The vast majority of the Christian voters were sickened by McCain’s squalid attempt at election and many rightly chose to stay home rather than vote for him.
Swallow the liberal lie if you will.
And conversely largely ensured that McCain didn’t win?
Agreed. Having said that, I don’t see where the Retardicans ever promoted ‘religious’ stuff.
That is some nice verbage. But please tell me specifically what you are talking about? In other words:
what is the non-secular platform you speak of?
what would truly benefit the party and the nation as a whole?
What have the Jesus-freaks tried to legislate? The Jesus-freaks just need to work on their public image. The press is more than happy to paint them as snake-handling, minority-hating, gun-loving bumpkins. Get out there and tell the true story about how conservatives and churchgoers donate more time and money than the compasionate liberals.
Powell and the East Coast Intelligensia “conservatives” hold the moral conservatives in contempt, and are the first to tit for the financial bailout. So if you aren’t in the moral part of the conservative party, and you aren’t in the fiscal part of the party, what are you?
Sure, there is the bible-thumper museum in Kentucky that has dinosaurs with people, but is that any a faith-based science than the current idlol of Global Warming.
2)Two things:
A departure from the Keynesian style economics which this country has adopted on a unified bi-partisan front (bail outs, sub-prime interest rate tampering, etc.), and a return to a laissez faire style free market economy which is driven by supply and demand and not the federal government.
A reaffirmation of the ideas and concepts initially presented in the Declaration of Independence (government with the consent of the governed; state of nature; rights of life, liberty and property) and further emphasized in the Bill of Rights.
Ah, so you really can’t ennunciate any “non-secular” party platform planks by the evil Christians.
And just to be clear, the Founders wanted to keep government from dictating via a state-sponsored “religion” what the people could and couldn’t worship. They did not mean to take “God” out of government. Far from it. But thats really another point and doesn’t have anything to do with the current Retardican platform.
Well on this we agree. The Retardicans have surely let us down when it comes to true conservative fiscal principles.
Actually there is no universal moral code that all human beings subscribe to.
Moral codes come from various places but the most powerful is a belief in a higher being and the goodness of human’s as children/offspring/creations of this higher being.
There is ample data to support this. But I may just call attention to the fact that religious people are more likely to be generous with charity, help out fellow humans out of their own pockets/resources and to be more honest and ethical in their dealings.
If you look at the asian countries, especially China, but my wife, who is from Japan, says Japan has similar problems and has a continual list of tales from the online japanese newspapers she reads to support it, anyway, the asian countries do not share a judeo-christian background like most western countries and their “business ethics” are basically non-existent. And if you look at most of the western country crooks and unethical business partners, they have no influence from religious belief.
Almost all the great failures of humankind in the last few hundred years (communism/nazi-ism/etc) come from ideas that here is no greater good and no greater being – do not come from a religious background. There are some counter examples of zealotry being used to justify bad behavior (islamic terrorist etc) but I would put forth that those who do that are using faith as an excuse for political power.
Good people exist everywhere but the culture of the people in general is reflective of their “secularist” or “faith based” history and background. Those that have a background of faith in God tend to be more generous, more ethical cultures and as that faith is diminished in the name of “secularism” that goodness and ethical basis diminishes.
I am not talking about a specific church. The founding fathers wanted to get away from the corruption of state sponsored “churches”. They did not want to get away from true faith.