We've only got two parties--

[John A Roark]

--and they are: The Republicans and the Democrooks.
Attend me now.
NO THIRD PARTY EVER SUCCEEDS!
All any third party ever does is to divide conservative votes and power.

I was guilty of abandoning the Republican party for a few years, too, until some reading on Jeffersonian political philosophy made me realize that the old paradigm is dead, that historical dead-end that tells us that Jefferson's party, the Anti-Federalists, morphed into the Republicans (as opposed to Federalists), which then supposedly became the Democrooks.

Except that the times and the principles have changed enormously. What Jefferson stood for (low taxes, free markets, massive personal liberty) is what the average conservative stands for today. Since the only way to regain power is through one of the two parties extant, we, as liberty-loving, individualistic conservatives MUST TAKE BACK THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!

The time for bitching that 'neither the Republicans nor the Democrooks are worth a damn' is over. Unless, of course, we want to wallow in the political backwater and whine that we have no influence. Third-partiers are a wonderful idea within a parliamentary system of government. Not here.

If the Democrooks are just repulsive, and their left-wing leftovers are unacceptable, then we must drift to the Republicans... and make our voices heard in loud enough form that it regains its status as the 'Conservative' party, one that respects free markets, free speech, and begins to roll back the legislative tide.

[Tom Palven]

The paragraph below is from No Treason, 1869, by Lysander Spooner
The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes — a large class, no doubt — each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a "free man," a "sovereign"; that this is "a free government"; "a government of equal rights," "the best government on earth," and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.

—————-

[John A Roark]

uhhh... yeah.

[Tom Palven]

What would you call a government that taxes average wage-eaners to bail out the management and stockholders of bureaucratic General Motors, or huge Wall Street banks and insurance companies? Would you call it a collectivist country or a capitalist country? What would you call a system that feels it needs to tax average wage-earners so it can continue killing people and breaking things in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan? Capitalistic collectivism? Collectivist capitalism? I really don't know. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that it isn't anarchism or individualism.

Did George Bush and the Republicans in general play any part at all in governing the US, or has all this been the result of rascally Democrats who lack proper bipartisanship? You're sure that Republicans are going to provide change you can believe in after you "take it back"? uhhh...yeah.

[John A Roark]

I know you read slowly, so I won't type fast:
The whole idea of 'take it back' is to reshape the party.

Now, 'reshape' means to give it a new direction with new policies and new ideas, see? It's easy if you just read, and think.

'New' means something that has either not existed before, or, in some cases, has not been present for a long time (reNEWed).

I will provide definitions for any other big words you need help with.

So far as this Spooner clown's take on the Constitution: if he was trying to be funny, he wasn't, and Twain could've showed him how. If he was trying to be serious, he failed miserably. What bearing the insertion of that quote had in the discussion remains undiscoverable to all rational men.

Sit still, and be instructed. You need it.

[Tom Palven]

When Ronald Reagan was on the stump he promised to abolish the Fed Depts of Education and Energy. After the conservatives "took back the country" he increased the size of both agencies and size of the Federal government in general, just like he increased the size of the California government as governor. And then the Republicans "took back the country" under Bush, What happened to the federal budget and the federal deficit? You want to hitch your wagon to the Republican Party, and tell me that I have a lot to learn?

[John A Roark]

WHAT IS IT YOU'RE NOT UNDERSTANDING, HERE?!?

The idea is to reform the Party on different lines.
I should think you can see that I don't give a RAT'S ASS what the Republicans have done in the past--nor do I let that affect where I think the Party should go.

I admired Reagan, but have no particular need to see a return to 1980.
Bush was tolerable, but his brand of statism is well sent to the dogs.

What we have to have are free-market Capitalists with a firm grasp of the limitations that respect for individual rights brings. A third party can't do that, not in America. Our brand of representative government (ha! these days?) is not based on the Parliamentary model, and thus, a third party only divides conservatives and libertarians.

My humblest apologies for my ad hominem bullshit--it lowered the level of my discourse and you have remained above it. My respect, sir.

But please, please, please understand that my idea is to REMAKE the Party, not relive it.

[Tom Palven]

I spent a lot of time as a political activist, first at the Cornell Conservative Club, and later with the LP. I now view all that as just spinning my wheels, but it was probably a better hobby to have than, say, casino gambling, so have fun reshaping the Republicans, but try not to donate too much money to them.

"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."
H. L. Mencken
US editor (1880 - 1956)