OK. Here is the proverbial first step on the journey of reinventing the Republican party.
Why? Why would I want to change the party? Because the party changed, that’s why. Some where down the line, Republicans abandoned the core principals that made them different from Democrats. Those core principals are outlined in the Conservative ideology. So, the party changed, so know we must change the party back.
Why? Why did the party change? I think it boils down to two key factors. 1.) At some point Republicans became Politically Correct and 2.) a liberal mainstream media bias. Now, those two points are tied together tighter than David Caradine’s hands a can of sardines. In order to get better press, the Republicans quit “telling it like it is”. They traded in their testicles for a pass in the media. Look at McCain. He was the media’s darling after the 2000 election because he went liberal. Then, during the ’08 clusterbag he tried to be conservative again. True conservative’s didn’t buy it, but the media dropped him faster than the value of my house. The problem? There has to be consistency. There has to be a black and white. There has to be a right and a wrong. There can’t be this idea of moral liquidity. That idea is what has lead to the wussification of
This leads me to my first principle of conservatism:
There is a right and a wrong. If the people have no vision, they all perish. It takes guts to stand up and say something is wrong when you know the media will lambast you and call you a racist/bigot/homophobe, etc. I mean, you can (and talk radio does) create a montage of all the major news outlets and the repetivness of their talking points. It’s hilarious.
Principle number two coming soon.
I think the change also had a lot to do with pandering to a relatively small number of powerful evangelical leaders that controlled flocks of followers that would be sure to deliver the goods to any politician that was for sale. Corruption is not a family value.
ReplyDeleteNo way. I think what changed is they got AWAY from those family values. I think youa re totally opposite on that one. And of course corruption is not a family value, which is another reason that the Republican party,m as well as the Democrat party, sucks.
ReplyDeletePandering is the same as corruption. It's equivalent to buying votes. It doesn't matter what the platform for pandering is, if you run on a platform tailored to a specific audience and promise to essentially reward that audience for supporting you, that is corruption. A representative in government is supposed to fairly represent their entire constituency, not only the people that voted for them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I know I brought it up, but family values is a vague term and I don't know how it really applies in politics except to legislate social issues. Not to say that somebody shouldn't promote healthy values, but I don't want to see them legislated.
Very much looking forward to principle #2.
Politics is pandering. To have a conservative POV is pandering to conservatives. To have a liberal POV is to pander to liberals...following your example.
ReplyDeletePriniciple #2 up tomorrow.