Mass. Brown campaigning for AZ McCain

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Holding out has sure proven successful, hasn't it?  We narrowly averted a disastrous health care nationalization, and card check, cap and trade, and Lord only knows what other bits of Marxist sunshine.  If not for electing one more Republican at the last possible moment these abominations would have been reality.

This past week has been a reality check for anyone who cares to see it.  We saw in black and white just what kind of difference one more Republican can make.  You're strategy of voting out Republicans without regard to consequences is shown to be reckless folly.  The only question that remains is if you're going to acknowledge it and act accordingly, or hold on to your knee-jerk anti-Republican biases.

[Monkeyleg]

HTG, I think that some of these "bring on the end of the world so we can start over" types either didn't live through the Carter years, or forgot about them.

My first mortgage was at 17%. Car loans were going at around 20%. I got raises pretty often, but only because food prices went up so quickly. At least I had a job, though.

If Obama, Reid, Pelosi & Co. are somehow able to push through their health care bill, cap and trade, and other items, the Carter years will look like a walk in the park.

We wouldn't be the first country to have 100% or even 1000% inflation rates. If Obama keeps strangling business and borrowing money, the Russians and the Chinese will convince the rest of the world to abandon the dollar. Then we're in really deep trouble.

Japan and Israel are already making nice with the Russians and the Chinese, and who can blame them? There's a good chance our days of being the economic superpower could end very quickly.

A cleansing of our system won't be invigorating like some shampoo commercial. It will be hell on earth.

The Republicans have some very talented people out front, and it would be advisable for people to listen to them. If you listen to Obama's plans, you're pretty much reading the Communist Manifesto.

[Perd Hapley]

You first.

Nope.  I'm not the one pretending to offer a solution, which turns out to be nothing more than a vague goal with no plan on how to get there.  

When it comes to Sergeant Bob's goals, we seem to be on the same page.  It's just that I don't confuse the goal with the plan.  Where's the plan?  

[MicroBalrog]

How old are you, fistful? It's a serious question, not an attempt to disparage you based on age. But, seriously, how old are you?

[Perd Hapley]

33

[MicroBalrog]

33

And, how old do you expect to be once your plan of returning America to her Constitutional roots is complete, assuming your most optimistic view of things? How old do you expect your children to be?

Answer that, and you will understand my viewpoint better.

[Perd Hapley]

Did I say I had a plan? 

How long do you think your plan will take? 

[MicroBalrog]

Did I say I had a plan?  

How long do you think your plan will take?  

Optimistic view? 1-2 decades.

Pessimistic view? We're going to be free, but I'm going to be old and wheelchair-bound by then. But this assumes my plan isn't accepted by anybody other than a tiny minority, and the world proceeds as it is.

Ultra-pessimistic view? America becomes Sweden with NASCAR.

[alex_trebek]

It is way too early to count all those bills dead. Graham and Kerry are supposedly working on a bipartisan cap and trade.  Kerry has hinted at more than one R vote.

This will all depend on the reconciliation process. Health care will happen eventually, once the government has more than 50% of the market, which will happen as more baby boomers retire.

If everyone keeps voting for RINOs just to keep Dems out, don't be surprised when you wake up one day to a republican party that is just as progressive as the Democrats.

The republicans helped to add ~6 trillion to the deficit.  This doesn't count the healthcare cost for wounded soldiers, which is an unfunded liability I believe.  IMO ignoring the republican contribution to resulting inflation is myopic. Obama et al. surely will make it worse. I just don't see any reason why Republicans can be trusted to not make it worse.

When the R's put up Mccain for president, and Steele as the chairman, then I assume that the party now believes in what those two stand for (if anything).

I am not claiming to have a plan, or that people who vote R are evil (or D for that matter).  I am simply sharing my reasons why I will not vote for any R that isn't a true conservative, and has a record to stand on.

[Perd Hapley]

Optimistic view? 1-2 decades.

Pessimistic view? We're going to be free, but I'm going to be old and wheelchair-bound by then. But this assumes my plan isn't accepted by anybody other than a tiny minority, and the world proceeds as it is.

Ultra-pessimistic view? America becomes Sweden with NASCAR.

Well?  If you haven't started an MB's Plan thread, pray do so.  Or if you have, link please. 

[Balog]

How can you criticize others for not having a plan when you don't have one either?

That being said, you all are looking at the effect and ignoring the cause. Supporting people like McCain and Steele as the face of the Republican party is why so many Dems get elected in the first place.

[MicroBalrog]

Well?  If you haven't started an MB's Plan thread, pray do so.  Or if you have, link please. 

I've elaborated my plan many times.

In effect it is this:

1. Educate people on alternative policy solutions [freedom]. As a natural effect of more people becoming educated, the political spectrum will shift your way.

2. Support the most freedom-friendly candidates you can, run them for office. In some cases, be ready to lose if it means avoiding a socialist Republican being elected.

3. Incorporate the radical wing of your movement into your movement in some way, train its members to become political activists, precinct captains, etc.

4. Make sure every political campaign, every political effort, becomes an investment. Retain your organization after each campaign to the fullest extent possible, like the Goldwaterites did. It was this method that allowed Nixon and Reagan to be elected.

5. Utilize every legitimate means. Sue. Protest. IF you can find a hero to become a civil disobedient, by all means do so.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

How can you criticize others for not having a plan when you don't have one either?

Fistful is not the one criticizing anybody here.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/scorecard.html

Getting the right people elected is not a win. It's a START.

From there we have to fight and explain to people that Social Security/Medicaid/Medicare is driving us off a cliff. We have to wake people up.

We know socialist policies eventually run out of money. We have to convince the people of that as well. George W. Bush made the first attempt at fixing Social Security. Unfortunately, while he may be the Decider, he's not the Great Communicator.

We need someone who can lead, but also one who can persuade. Congress cannot fix things the majority of people don't think are broken yet.

We need to convince them things are broken or breaking. We need to keep in mind we are fighting against people trying to do the opposite.

The Democrats just proved you can't go against the public.

We have to win the people first, not just the elections, and THEN fix the problems.

I must have missed this the first time around.  This is dead on right.

Wonder why things are they way they are?  Wonder why certain people get elected, certain policies get pushed, why any of this stuff plays out the way it does?  It's mostly because that's what the population wants.

You have to bear in mind that most of the population wants soft pleasant nanny statism.  Politicians of any stripe will cater to that, or they won't get elected.  Liberty minded folks are a minority.

Times appear to be changing slightly, with opinion polls showing conservativism in an ascendancy.  The politicians seem to be reacting to it, some slowly, some more efficiently.  Either way, as mak says there won't be a real change in politics until the population as a whole changes its opinions on what government should be.  The best we can do until then is hold on to what we've got so that once we've managed to persuade enough people, there'll still something left worth preserving.

[Perd Hapley]

How can you criticize others for not having a plan when you don't have one either?

Then take another look at what I said.  I don't claim to have a plan, although I've been thinking along the lines of MicroBalrog's plan, above.  

What I object to, is all this rambling on about how bad the Republican party is, or how stupid people are for voting for McCain; yet the grumblers have no clear idea on what to do.  They tell us not to vote for RINO"s, but they can't tell us who to vote for.  They might tell us to vote for third parties, but this hasn't worked very well, either.  

Either way, as mak says there won't be a real change in politics until the population as a whole changes its opinions on what government should be. 

I agree with this, which is also the first step in the MB plan.  I wish our politicians were all true believers, but the Founders didn't design this to be a nation of followers led by Great Statesmen.  Our leaders are supposed to do as we say, kept in constant fear of losing their seats should they displease us.  For all I care, every politician on Capitol Hill could be a flaming Communist, so long as they shudder at the wrath of a liberty-loving people. 

[MicroBalrog]

Either way, as mak says there won't be a real change in politics until the population as a whole changes its opinions on what government should be. 

I disagree.

A vocal minority can be the impetus for change too - the political process rewards a person who is active and turns out more than it does a person who votes once per election cycle.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The vocal minorities comprise part of the sum total of a populations opinions.  Their opinions get mixed in with everyone else.  Things change when the entire mix reaches a tipping point.  Electoral changes follow this tipping, they do not cause it.

[MicroBalrog]

HTG. I am not sure I understand what you said. Please explain in more detail. I'm not trying to be combative, I just don't understand at all.

[Monkeyleg]

I think what HTG is trying to say is that the vocal minorities opinions become part of the total mix of opinions in the population, and are not themselves responsible for change. Things change when the total mix of opinions move in one direction and cause changes in elections.

The tea parties didn't cause the Brown victory, although tea party members' opinions were part of the mix of opinions that moved for change.

There's two ways to change our society: by force, or by making the society want change. Making the society want change demands that you give people a reason to want the change you propose. It can't be a negative. You have to tell them what's in it for them. You have to sell them something.

What are you selling? Our opponents have been selling free stuff for decades. Selling freedom isn't easy because people don't like too much of it, as freedom demands much of an individual.

Reagan was a salesman, Bush was not. Obama is a salesman, but it's looking like the product he's selling isn't what people really want.

[MicroBalrog]

This is true, but consider this:

In a democratic Republic, social change is a product of different factors. One of them is sheer number of voters, but it is not the only factor. Political power is not just a function of how many people support you, but also how wealthy these people are, how well-positioned they are in society, and how active they are. The fact that public school teachers and college professors, for example, are often liberal, has done a lot for the Left. The fact that libertarians are more active and dedicated to their ideas, and that many of them are educated middle-class people, has allowed that group to box above its weight class and achieve social change.

So I contend that increasing the sheer amount ofp eople on our side is not the only way to victory.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I think society as a whole has a body of beliefs.  The society's beliefs are the "average"  or the "sum" of the individual beliefs held by the members of the society.  For the past 20 odd years, American society has believed in such things as soft nanny statism, immediate consumption, and so forth.  British society seems to have slightly different opinions.  Iranian, Japanese, Brazilian, Russian societies all have differing beliefs still.  Etc.

Some people within the society can influence the overall societal beliefs more than others, perhaps due to greater personal prominence or resolve or whatever.  I think this is consistent with your idea of the vocal minority.

Where I diverge from you is in the matter of how elections are decided.  Elections aren't decided by who has more votes.  Elections are decided by whatever force determines who people want to vote for.  I think that force is dominated by how well a given candidate mirrors the society's prevailing beliefs at the time of the election.  There are sundry other minor factors that are always at play, but for the most part it's a question of which candidates the population as a whole likes and finds comfortable.

Individuals have very little direct influence on this process, vocal or otherwise.  The effect of individuals is to influence the societal beliefs, thereby swaying the overall beliefs in one direction or another.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The tea parties didn't cause the Brown victory, although tea party members' opinions were part of the mix of opinions that moved for change.

Take it a step further.  Tea parties didn't cause brown to win.  But there was something that caused the tea parties to occur.  Whatever that something is, it's probably also able to cause a man like Brown to win an election.

I suspect that the mysterious something was a change in the society's overall beliefs about government.  I can't be sure of this, and I'm willing to entertain other possibilities, but I'm convinced that somewhere deep down there is a root cause, and that it operates on the public consciousness.

There was another significant change in society's overall beliefs a year or two ago.  I mentioned earlier that American society for several decades has believed in immediate consumption.  This changed a year or two ago, and the implications of that change are significant.  This change in societal beliefs is probably even more significant than the change in political beliefs.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

So I contend that increasing the sheer amount ofp eople on our side is not the only way to victory.

Ok, I'll agree with you that it's not strictly necessary to have a high volume of people.  All that's really necessary to influence change is affect things on the margin.

For instance, it wouldn't have taken half of the electorate to influence the last presidential election.  In a country of 300 million people, a mere 5 million people switching their votes would have reversed the outcome of the election.  

What's more, any factor that could induce 5 million people to change their mind could have altered the outcome.  In terms of societal beliefs, you wouldn't have to persuade the entire population ot change their minds.  You would just have to drift things one way or enough enough to reach a small tipping point where a small number of people change their minds about who better reflects what they believe.

[RevDisk]

OK.  Tell us how to fire all these RINO's.  And while we're at it, tell us how to fire the Dems, and fill the whole federalist govt. structure (state and national) with freedom-loving, red-blooded American patriots. 

We're waiting. 

Sigh.  Well, as the resident democrat, I suppose I'm obligated to make a suggestion.

Start with establishing some short and medium goals that are actually reachable and reasonably noncontroversial.  Reducing regulation on small businesses, eliminating the double SS tax on self-employed, modest welfare reforms (focus on fraud/waste/abuse), etc.

Win some victories from above.  Doesn't have to be much. 

Find some sugar daddies and mamas.  Secured funding.

Set up a group of professionals dedicated to getting acceptable candidates elected.  Professional organizers, lawyers, support staff, IEW experts, logistical staff, sociologists, etc.  Support solely contingent on behavior.  You break the platform, you are done, period.  Not a dime goes to unacceptable candidates.  At first, keep the go/no-go list pretty loose.  No attacking of RINO, just no funding or support.  Pressure them as mildly as possible.

Start making slightly bolder, but still pretty manageable goals. 

Rinse, lather, repeat.  Once you get enough folks, start striking at the base of support of the opposition.  Unions, neoluddite environmentalists, etc.  Drain the swamp. 

[Fjolnirsson]

As a whole, I see confusion among those who want more liberty, more adherence to the principles of the Founding Fathers. That confusion has to do with the difference between strategy and tactics, and how to use each. Strategy relates to or overall goals and ideal results. Tactics are the "boot on the ground" actions we take to bring about our strategy.

Strategy=use the means at our disposal to remove RINOs from office and replace them with actual conservatives(or what have you).
Tactics=Well, that's a bit more complicated. I believe what Micro has outlined makes sense, but it doesn't go deep enough, and misses the root cause of our current situation. I think seeing the shrinkage of government to acceptable levels within 20 years is wildly optimistic, as we have to first halt the acceleration of socialism, and then reverse the damage it has already done.

What we have to do is change a culture, a nationwide culture. It is stronger in some areas, and weaker in others, but make no mistake, America has become a nation of entitlement. Since at least the 1930s(and some would argue the late 1800s), progressives have worked their agenda to steadily undermine the principles this country was founded upon. Cultural change takes time, and effort, and frequently is less pleasant than beating ones head against a cement wall.

It begins with education. The things our children are taught in school will stay with them their entire lives, barring some life altering revelation or a determined effort by a trusted mentor. We MUST take back the schools to succeed. By that, I don't mean ban the teaching of evolution, or require daily bible study, or clubbing homosexuals in the schoolyard(all of which I have seen suggested in one place or another). I mean we must teach critical thinking, rather than rote memorization of "facts". Man-made global warming/climate change is now taught in schools as fact. The victimization of Africans and Native Americans(not sayingit didn't happen, but I take issue with the myth of the great enlightened savages), Columbus as the first white man in the new world, FDR as the great savior of our country, these things are taught as fact.

Our school system has created generations of drones who believe what they are told by authority figures without question. When they leave home and finish school, who takes the place of teachers as authority figures? All too often it is the media, and we all know how that works. We MUST teach children to think for themselves, with true objectivity, if we are to stop the ruination of our country. Entire generations have been brainwashed to the point where they can not say why they don't like something, but merely repeat what they hear on TV.

Other actions are needed, such as reclaiming state sovereignty and getting the federal fingers out of so many pies, as well as the things micro suggested. There is no quick fix available to us at this time. We have to dig in our heels and get down to work, if we wish to save this country. That requires unpleasant tasks. We may have to run for office ourselves, if we don't see anyone worth voting for locally. We may have to spend time away from family to knock on doors for those candidates we believe in.

RevDisk has some excellent suggestions there, as well.