REVOLT on the Right

They think they're bulletproof on this. "Where else can you go?"

That's the thinking.

 

Consider the source World Net Daily, my thinking is that most conservatives will imagine Kerry and Edwards as president and run to vote for Bush. For them that is simply more then they can stomach.

BTW, Bush isn't evil as the article suggests and niether is Kerry for that matter. They have ideas and policies we may not agree with but I truly think they are trying to serve folks in a manner they think is right/ best.

 

Galatian,

Oh, we know "where else you can go". We also know what the real world effect will be when enough of you do: President-elect John Kerry the day after the election. And we know that you'll blame Bush, Kerry, and anyone but yourselves when it happens.

 

I wrote a commentary about this very topic on July 3rd of this month. In fact I mailed it to Worldnetdaily on the 4th. I'm not saying this is where they got the idea for "Revolt on the Right" but it clearly demonstrates that many conservatives are thinking along the same lines. Here is the article I wrote:

Thoughts on Freedom and Government

The question of voting this year has given rise in my mind to a number of complex issues about government. To begin, let me share with you a recent situation here in Hillsborough County, Florida where I was let down by a man whom I thought shared my values but didn't act on the values he advertised. Ken Hagan ran as a republican Hillsborough County Commissioner in 2002. In his campaign material he advertised the fact that he was an " an active member of Idlewild Baptist Church" so I voted for him. Earlier this year, a group of different churches gathered over 10,000 petition signatures to ban public nudity in Hillsborough County. The goal was to get rid of the nudey bars and strip clubs that the Tampa area is overrun with. In a meeting on June 2nd, 2004, Commissioner Ronda Storms (member of First Baptist, Brandon FL) introduced the motion to the other commissioners so it could be put up to a vote. Ken Hagan wouldn't even second the motion. The motion died right there on the floor and didn't even reach a vote because no one would second it. Quite a few people believe that it was predetermined not to get a second so that no one would have to vote on it. 10,000 signatures from churches all over the county in favor of a new ordinance and the "active member of Idlewild Baptist Church" wasn't willing to step up to the plate and allow the motion to be voted on. It blows my mind. Where's the democracy in that? Needless to say, I won't be voting for Ken this year.

Here's a reality check: Abortion continues against the wishes of many States. So called "same-sex marriage" is now legal in Massachusetts because the Supreme Court and other activist judges have overstepped their bounds and now create law and interpret them whatever way they want despite what it says in black and white. Sodomy is now "legal" (Thanks again to the supreme Court) and considered by many in our government to be diversity rather than perversion. Our taxpayer funded schools and universities continue to teach the erroneous theory of Darwinian evolution, despite the fact that the theory has more holes than Swiss cheese. Our judicial system and quite a few legislators consistently side with groups like the ACLU who use the legal system to force their twisted ideologies on the rest of us. These days the ACLU has stooped so low that it's fighting to legalize teenage nudist camps in Virginia.. all in the name of "free speech".

We currently have a Christian president, a Christian Attorney General and a Republican controlled house in congress, but the nation continues to head down a path into legalized moral anarchy. Some things we should ask ourselves when we vote are: Will the leaders we vote for and send to office be effective? Are they really doing everything within their power to stop abortion and gay-marriage? Does the federal judicial system hold too much power over the individual states? (yes) Are you voting for people who are willing to act upon the values they advertise? Two sayings come to mind: "If you continue to do what you've always done, you'll continue to get what you've always got" and "Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall." - Jesus, Luke 11:17

Nothing could be more true about America today. Culturally, morally, religiously, and politically we are living in a very divided nation. Our "Republican -VS- Democrat government" is a reflection of that. These two parties are locked in such a bitter struggle for control that each party has taken on a life of its own. Isn't it true that when we think of our United States Federal government we often view it as a separate kind of entity rather than a government made up of our own people? In terms of voters, the Rep and Dem parties are about evenly split. The result is that we have two enormous political machines grinding against each other for control and having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars apiece to get a president elected. This process reminds me of a wildlife documentary I watched the other day. A type of garter snake feeds on newts, a lizard-like creature, in order to survive. In order for the newt to survive, he protected himself with a toxin so the snake would be in for a surprise if he ate him. The snakes immune system adapted so he was able to eat the newt. The newt responded by producing more toxin. The snake increased his immune system to handle the additional poison. The newt produced even more toxin. This battle continued and now the newt is so poisonous that it contains enough toxin to kill a human being many times over. Now, when the snake eats a newt, its body becomes so overwhelmed that it goes into a coma-like state for several hours while it breaks down and digests the poison. The end result is a dead newt and a snake that has to put itself into a coma just to eat a meal. I believe our two-party nation has become somewhat comatose in the same way. They both hold a lot of power, some with good inentions and others with corrupt, heartless intentions, but when mixed together, they oftentimes cancel each other out. The result is beaurocracy and stagnation. I think it would do this nation good if the power base in Washington was watered down with some fresh thinking - thinking that realizes the states have the sovereign ability and right to rule themselves. I believe the federal government holds too much power over the 50 states. Don't get me wrong - We need to have a strong central government in place for a number of reasons such as national defense, but there comes a point when the system as a whole grows too powerful, too lopsided, too cumbersome, and too disconnected from the people it is governing. The Federal Government has become less and less a facilitator of government by the people and for the people. At the same time it's taken on too much of a life of it's own. I think its time for the people in America to swing the pendulum back in the direction of self-rule and an empowered people. I'd love to see some brave governors and city mayors rise up, and sovereignly declare that despite Supreme Court rulings they WILL NOT under any circumstances allow abortion and gay marriage to take place within their states and towns - period. As states with a large degree of sovereignty it's our right to reserve such powers for ourselves and to enact and enforce such laws as we see fit. The Supreme court and other federal judges will just have to get over it.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." - 10th Amendment

These days elected legislators and representatives are not needed as much as they used to be. Back before the days of cars, planes, telephones, the Internet, and electricity, it was necessary to elect a representative to travel to Washington to represent the majority of people. Those days are long gone however. We are now living in an age of computers and the Internet - the information age. It would be very much within our ability to put proposed laws and key decisions to a vote over the internet and let the people of America have much more of a direct say in the way they are governed, rather than attempting to pump the will of the American public through the political machine in Washington D.C. and then filter whatever comes out through the judicial system several times only to have it defeated. Such a voting system could work on all levels of government and would be as simple as a trip to the nearest public library. Security measures could be put in place to ensure each person or social security number only gets one vote. I believe this idea demonstrates that government by the people and for the people has the potential to be far more of what it's supposed to be rather than what it is presently is.

Let this be a challenge to the American people, to our state governors, and to our city mayors. Use the power and authority you already posses to govern yourselves freely. If a state wants to outlaw abortion and gay marriage and actively enforce such laws, they should proceed because it is within their God given power to do so. The authority to protect and preserve God-given life and God-instituted marriage between a man and a woman is a right from God that cannot not be infringed upon by any person or government.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." - Declaration of Independence

 

This sounds kind of like.."You're going to vote for the right guy, but there aren't enough of you, so one of the wrong guys will get in, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Huh?

 

Yeah. As though it's not Bush's own fault that he is a leftist and therefore I can't vote for him.

 

AC18.ORG,

You make some good points, thanks for the article. I would caution, though, that your proposal for internet government is a highly dangerous concept. It amounts to direct democracy, which is a very bad and dangerous form of government.

 

PA Jim,
Not to get us off on a tangent here but the direct democracy of Switzerland has lasted a lot longer and remained a lot truer to its original foundings than has our republic. There are methods to ensure direct democracy works - one is decentralization. So, on the one hand I would agree in that as long as we continue this slide toward centralized control, direct democracy will not work. But, if we continue this slide, the republic is doomed to fail as well (perhaps already has) so it makes little difference.

 

http://www.constitutionparty.org

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I question the idea of putting the Libertarian Party on the conservative side of the political spectrum. It seems to me--using the above example of closing the go-go joints in Tampa--that the overwhelming majority of Libertarians would say that you can't legislate morality and that the go-go joints should stay open. It seems to me that the majority of Libertarians would legalize prostitution, drugs, same-sex marriages, plural marriages, pornography, etc. Therefore, I myself classify Libertarians as essentially permissive and therefore on the left side of the political spectrum. Their reason for wanting to reduce the size of government is not only to save tax money but also as an expression of their indifference to moral depravity. In other words, Libertarians want a Holland but not a welfare-state Holland.

 

In defense of liberterians - they are not a group that acts in unison of thought. There are some who are most certainly desiring no hindrance to their sin. But, then again, isn't that true of virtually every political party? OTOH, there is a very large group of liberterians who would argue against federal level laws in these areas and that the individual states should decide such matters in line with the 10th amendment. To say we should decentralize our laws is quite different from saying we should do away with them.

As an aside though, I would go with PA Jim and say we should support the CP rather than the liberterian party. The CP is a bit more centralized than I would like but they at least have some agreement amongst themselves on how much centralization we should have and they do decentralize more than just about any other party.

 

I think direct democracy is most effective at the city and county levels and its effectiveness would taper off as you go towards the state level and then the national level. As with many things, there just needs to be the right amount of balance. In an Internet voting scenario obviously not all things would be up for a direct vote, but the power should tipped in the direction of the poeple so that we can at least originate laws and vote them up or down.

The internet serves as a great equalizing force. It levels the playing field. Worldnetdaily and the blog commentaries on the Internet are an example of that. Used effectively, I'd bet that that if some people began putting together some software to model a system of government that it would gain popularity if it was advertised as system to compare and contrast the will of people to the actual government.

 

It is true that the Libertarians are splayed all over the spectrum. That is the reason that I said that a majority of them are permissive on moral issues and therefore the Libertarian Party should be counted as leftist and of no reliable help to conservatives. I doubt if you could count on Libertarians to picket an abortion clinic, a go-go joint, or an adult bookstore.

As for the idea of some sort of technological democracy, I would be against it as it would be mob rule sooner or later. The Founding Fathers gave us a republic, which is superior to a democracy.

 

Not if it included a system of checks and balences. The Judicial, executive, and legislative branches all have checks and balences, why not have a check/balence that keeps the people empowered as well?

 

A republic is superior to a democracy. I am empowered through my representatives. I am secure under the rule of law that the mob would like to take away from me. If this country were a democracy, the people would take us back to pagan times and you would be watching lions eat Christians on the internet and patting yourself on the back because of the technological superiority of the American internet because the bloody lions would be so sharply visible in gory detail.

 

I agree with CMG on this issue. This is one of the reasons I could not support Ross Perot, from what I understood of his policies, he was in favor of moving to a democracy.

 

I got news for you.. The republic you believe is so secure has allowed 40 million babies to be butchered since 1973. The "mob" is already having their way. All of this conversation goes to prove what Jesus teaches "A divided nation will fall".

I guess to look at things in reality, true Christians and the corresponding morality are the minority. Then you have all the Christians that are indifferent and oblivious to such things. Sigh..

 

I got news for you.. The republic you believe is so secure has allowed 40 million babies to be butchered since 1973. The "mob" is already having their way. All of this conversation goes to prove what Jesus teaches "A divided nation will fall".

I guess to look at things in reality, true Christians and the corresponding morality are the minority. Then you have all the Christians that are indifferent and oblivious to such things. Sigh.. </font>[/QUOTE]The majority of the people in American believe we are a democracy, so the politicians use that to pass laws and buy votes. They say that if the majority want abortion, then so be it. They don't have the principles to say the majority is wrong, and because we are not a democracy, we will do what is right regardless of what the majority wants.

I started a thread here about the issue of abortions and people, including Christians being "indifferent and oblivious" to the issue.

 

We are a democracy in the long view. We just have a number of safeguards to slow down the tryanny of the majority.

We elect repreentatives to make laws for us, although initiative, referendum, and recall exist in some states.

We can, given the time and a large majority, even change the Constitution.

But stupid, oppressive, or pointless stuff usually can't get a majority for very long.

In the end, the power is still with the voters.

It's why Washington was in favor of a bicameral Congress. He likened it to pouring hot coffee into a saucer to cool it.