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GOP Platform: We're all Big Government Conservatives Now

Discussion in 'Free-For-All Archives' started by JGrubbs, Aug 27, 2004.

  1. JGrubbs

    JGrubbs New Member

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    The 2004 Republican Platform Committee finished its work this afternoon. It wasn't a pretty picture.

    You have to give the Bush political operation credit: they badly outflanked the party conservatives. By the time delegates gathered here in New York for the platform committee work, the game was already over. The Bush operation made certain that the committee, selected by state parties, was packed with loyalists. Any chance of a conservative uprising over the platform was DOA.

    The most controversial plank in the draft platform was on immigration, specifically President Bush's proposal for a guest worker program for illegal aliens, a plan that also would put those who entered America unlawfully on the path to U.S. citizenship. This idea is wildly unpopular with grassroots Republicans and the Bush people know it. So the fix was in. Any effort by the handful of conservatives on the rubber-stamp platform committee to amend or delete the offending plank on immigration were trumped by a series of strong-arm tactics and procedural maneuverings.

    Not that the bullying tactics mattered much. The platform delegates comported themselves like a flock of obedient sheep. Taking their cues from committee co-chairmen Sen. Bill Frist and Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, delegates even rejected amendments drawn word-for-word from the 2000 GOP platform.

    While there is much in the platform to please conservatives, there is also plenty to infuriate. Just eight years after the GOP platform called for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education, the 2004 platform boasts, “President Bush and Congressional Republicans have provided the largest increase in federal education funding in history and the highest percentage gain since the 1960s [only a last-minute amendment deleted a reference to LBJ at this point] . . . Support for elementary and secondary education has had the largest increase in any single Presidential term since the 1960s – an increase of nearly 50 percent since 2001.”

    A Texas delegate, introducing an amendment to delete this mind-boggling big government boast, said it sounded like something out of the Democratic Platform rather than anything identifiably Republican. The amendment was overwhelmingly crushed.

    And that's how it went here in New York. I guess it's true: We're all big government conservatives now.

    SOURCE
     
  2. church mouse guy

    church mouse guy Well-Known Member
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    One could take the CP more seriously if they had posted a thread about how terrible the Democrat Party platform is. It must be tough for the CP worrying all the time if they can get 98,001 votes this year--one more vote than in 2000. And look at all the money they wasted getting on 41 state ballots. They want the government and the taxpayers to pay for their ballot access because they don't want to spend any of their money for something like ballot access. [​IMG]

    Dear CP members, please join my church: the First Indianapolis Church of the Unwashed Dirty Raggedy Stinking Hypocrite.
     
  3. JGrubbs

    JGrubbs New Member

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    CMG, you should actually read the articles and follow the links to the source. This is not a CP article, or a CP supporter that wrote the article, the last time I checked the ACU was still endorsing Bush. The American Conservative Union is the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization.

    I know it's hard for you to stay focused on the issues of each thread due to your hatred for Michael Peroutka and the Constitution Party, but you should try to see that not every thread is about the Constitution Party.
     
  4. church mouse guy

    church mouse guy Well-Known Member
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    [​IMG] Okay, CP Party boss. You didn't start this thread. I am glad that I am not as smart and as well-educated as you. What did you say about old men should stay out of politics because they couldn't stand up to highly intelligent young militia members like you? [​IMG]

    PS: Enjoyed your thread about the Democrat Party platform. [​IMG]
     
  5. Scott J

    Scott J Active Member
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    NP, The libs didn't accomplish a strangle hold on the country in a day. They did it over time with patience and a great deal of pragmatism.

    I wish the CP could be competitive this year... but it can't. It will take time to move the "center" to the right. The key issues to win are not the economic issues but rather the social issues. The addiction to government benefits is deep and wide... anyone who uses the words "change" and "social security" in the same sentence today cannot win any more than someone 20 years ago could have won using "homosexual" and "civil union/marriage" in the same sentence.

    Like it or not, if we lack patience things will only continue in the current direction of momentum- to the left.
     
  6. Jul

    Jul <img src=/7068.jpg>

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    I think the answer is in education...somehow educating people as to what they are voting for and what the long term repercussions might be of the various outcomes. People just don't seem to care for the most part - until it directly effects them personally, and of course, by then, it is too late.

    My 30 yr old niece and her husband own a nice business, they are decent people (although not of any faith) she told me this week that she is not a member of any political party - but that she leans progressive - because she's been told that "conservatives" want to stick to "the way things were" and liberals want to try new things - to make "progress" so she's a liberal, she guesses. I told her that being a liberal is very expensive. I think she is the poster child for the average voter.
     
  7. The Galatian

    The Galatian Active Member

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    We need to be patient. But how long have conservative Christians supported the GOP, only to be shoved to the side when it came time to govern?

    A larger-than-expected turnout for Peroutka would be a shot across to let them know they are sailing in the wrong direction.
     
  8. church mouse guy

    church mouse guy Well-Known Member
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    Nothing personal, but your 30-year-old neice must be a lot older than you are based on your picture where you look very young!
     
  9. StraightAndNarrow

    StraightAndNarrow Active Member

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    Reagan was a big government conservative. He was elected promising that he would significantly reduce the size of government but instead he significantly increased it.
     
  10. Pennsylvania Jim

    Pennsylvania Jim New Member

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    I agree. They took a step at a time in the direction that they wanted to go.

    So why should we continue to support a party and president that is continuing to take steps in the same direction?

    I'm all for patiently taking a step at a time in the right direction, with a look at the long term. But the GOP is now fully in the wrong direction, so I must look elsewhere.
     
  11. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    Party platform doesn't mean squat. Is not binding on anyone.
     
  12. Scott J

    Scott J Active Member
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    We need to be patient. But how long have conservative Christians supported the GOP, only to be shoved to the side when it came time to govern?</font>[/QUOTE] Having grown up in the south and watched most of my extremely conservative Baptist relatives walk into the voting booth and pull a straight Democratic ticket... I would say about 10 years.

    I actually agree. But quite honestly I have evaluated that it would be better for me to vote for a person who by all "close" accounts is a genuinely faithful Christian but who I disagree with on several issues than to register a protest vote thus contributing to a Kerry win in MO.

    Frankly, I like GWB.
     
  13. Scott J

    Scott J Active Member
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    Reagan wasn't perfect. Goodness knows that he made deals to get the tax cuts and military spending he wanted... but only Congress can set the budget. The President recommends it. Democrats controlled both houses for most of his tenure and the House for all of it.
     
  14. Pennsylvania Jim

    Pennsylvania Jim New Member

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    I think he'd be a good neighbor or fishing buddy, and in that respect I like him too.

    I just don't like that he spends us into oblivion.

    Or takes the biggest step ever to federalize education.

    Or repeatedly appoints homosexual activists to high level positions, and demands federal death benefits for "partners".

    Or pushes for amnesty for illegal aliens, and leaves our borders open for historic levels of immigration, both legal and illegal.

    Or strong-arms for a medicare bill with HUGE increases in costs, hiding the true cost until after passage.

    Or passes all sorts of untruths about WMD's, terrorist connections in Iraq, nuclear capabilities, etc.

    Or that he sits silently by as abortion continues unabated.

    That's the "only" part that I don't like.
     
  15. church mouse guy

    church mouse guy Well-Known Member
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    The fact is that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in order to build a bomb. Only Kerry and Peroutka seem to want to deny that. Peroutka is too ill-tempered to even be a good fishing buddy. As soon as someone asks him for an answer to a question, Peroutka starts yelling what a good Christian he is.
     
  16. Pennsylvania Jim

    Pennsylvania Jim New Member

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    Peroutka is actually a real plesant guy, and can play the guitar and sing. I don't know if he fishes or not, but I'd be happy to go fishing with either him or GW Bush.
     
  17. church mouse guy

    church mouse guy Well-Known Member
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    Well, anything to keep you in the CP. The GOP is trying to win and attract voters, not put forth some rich lawyer from Maryland's idea of where the far right wing should go next to kick the common man deeper into the gutter.
     
  18. Pennsylvania Jim

    Pennsylvania Jim New Member

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    Sounds like Democrat rhetiric to me.
     
  19. KenH

    KenH Well-Known Member

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    Yes, PA Jim, it's clear now that church mouse guy is not a big government conservative but a big government liberal. He will not take a stand to balance the federal budget or to eliminate the trade deficit.

    Those two problems must be dealt with, along with entitlements and health care delivery in this next administration, and folks like church mouse guy are not going to be helpful in solving any of this.
     
  20. church mouse guy

    church mouse guy Well-Known Member
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    Ken, you are getting to be as slick as Galatian and Pennsylvania Jim. You know perfectly well that you are trying to change the subject in a debate in which you were not even involved. Such tactics as you employ do not deserve an answer and your charge that therefore you are justified to draw a negative conclusion about me is fundamentally illogical and unfair. It is debate tactics like that that has soured many people about the CP.
     
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