Confession
Posted on April 28th, 2009 by Brad
I’m getting tempted to register as a Republican simply because I feel sorry for them.
Also, we do need two functioning parties in this country in order for our democracy to remain somewhat successful, and I’d like to help move the GOP at least marginally more toward the center so the next time they’re elected they don’t start performing resurrection rituals on Terri Schiavo.
Basically, what I’m saying is this country would be vastly better off if both major political parties ignored the GOP base. Who’s with me?
Brad, I know the feeling but just think of the children!
No thanks. Let ’em die a natural death, and leave an ecological niche to be filled by some political party other than the Neo-Confederate Propertarian League of the South.
Agreed. These crazy MFers actually make me long for the days of Reagan and Bush The Elder, sad as that is.
Ah, sorry, no. I’m just vindictive enough to want to see the Republicans splinter into tiny, one issue parties with no power or relevance whatsoever. But them, I’m a Gay guy, so I have a couple axes to grind….
I’m getting tempted to register as a Republican simply because I feel sorry for them.
Well, that makes one of us.
It’s funny — when Grover Norquist talked about drowning government in a bathtub, he didn’t realize that what would actually happen is that his own party would get smothered with a pillowcase.
Nope, this is too much fun. (wheeeee !!!!!)
Down here we have open primaries so I’ve been known to vote in their primary just to fuck with them, but actually register as one of them? When pigs fly.
in my neighborhood, the polling place has lists of all registered voters taped to the wall outside. each entry has the person’s name, address, and political party. i’ve been voting there for seven years and can only think of a few times when i’ve seen a republican.
i couldn’t live with the shame, if the sweet little old ladies who run the place were to see that word beside my name.
I’m getting tempted to register as a Republican simply because I feel sorry for them.
Word to the wise: it’ll stain like the dickens and you’ll never get the odor out.
Primaries.
Meh. They have to finish their self-destruction first. They haven’t learned a thing yet. They’ve even forgotten how to keep their blithering idiocy to themselves long enough to get elected.
If they begin to arise again now, before their current leaders – the Rush/Beck wingnut wing – are utterly discredited, destroyed and disposed of, it’ll be because they decided to keep their blithering idiocy quiet again. But it will still be there.
So while I agree with your basic premise, the current Repubs have nothing to offer to civic and political debate that isn’t barking mad insane.
Why not start a left-wing party? What, too low a blow?
Brad for RNC chairman!
“Why not start a left-wing party?”
Now THERE’S an idea worthy of some consideration.
Well, I’ve been saying this since shortly after the election. Yes, absolutely, the country does need a bare minimum of two viable parties in order to succeed at any level. But no, I don’t see any reason to believe that one of them has to be the Republicans.
We don’t need “two functioning parties” to have a functioning democracy. We have the neo-Confederate GOP, and the always-dysfunctional Democrats. Jon Tester, Jim Webb, Dianne Feinstein, (soon) Al Franken … These people are already all over the map and hell, the Democratic agenda could barely get through the Senate with 58 votes in favor.
The Democratic Party has always been literally incapable of overreaching, because of its diversity and its propensity for navel-gazing.
Don’t worry about dictatorship any time soon.
What, are you nucking futz?!
Ha, losers! We’ve got you just where we want you! Bookmark it, bay-bee!
Perhaps it’s time to bring back the Whigs
In other news, Joe Lieberman has rejoined the Democratic Party. So we’ve won two oppportunistic weasels in one day!
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/04/oy_16.php
While I am full of glee that through their own stupidity and fealty to a failed ideology they have actually achieved the exact opposite of their own intentions, I actually have to side with Brad. One party rule breeds complacency. The dems lost control of the house and senate in ’94 because they were viewed as a party of stale ideas with too much corruption. It will happen again… I ain’t concern trolling (at least I hope not), I just hope that the dems don’t get too comfortable with power too soon and actually deliver on their promises. I’m somewhat hopeful with healthcare and the progress made in Iraq, but in 2005 Karl Rove was still thought to be the genius who would bring about a new gilded age of Republican rule. Who knows what the 2010 or 2012 elections will be like?
I ain’t concern trolling (at least I hope not), I just hope that the dems don’t get too comfortable with power too soon and actually deliver on their promises.
I agree, and the good news is, there is an underlying force in politics called “Duverger’s Law” which practically demands a two-party (no more, no less, like the Sith Lords) system in America.
Judging from the troll(s) on the previous thread, no, let ’em burn.
The Democrat Party is Toast:
The modern Democratic Party cannot survive the reelection of President George W. Bush and another four years of Republican control of both Congress and the White House.
No brag. Just fact.
The modern Democratic Party is the party of government. Its growth is the health of the state–and vice versa. Over time, all the party’s building blocks are dependent on continuous support and reinforcement by the power of the central government. Trial lawyer money is now a major part of the Democratic Party, but it is wholly dependent on legislators and courts maintaining the present tort laws that allow lawyers to interject themselves into any and all contracts and relationships.
They siphon off some $240 billion a year–$40 billion of which stays with a few thousand lawyers. Labor unions, once the godfather of the Democratic Party but now displaced by the richer and more photogenic trial lawyers, cannot maintain their $8 billion in compulsory union dues without the laws that make such payments mandatory. Both wings of the dependency movement–those locked into welfare dependency and the bureaucrats who get paid well to manage others’ dependency (and make sure none of them get jobs and become Republicans) are wholly dependent on legislators halting further welfare reform. Big city political machines thrive on federal grants and state-granted powers. And the coercive utopians–the radical environmentalists, animal-rights activists, feminists, and others who would use state power to force on us tiny non-flushable toilets and cars too small to hold families, take away the circus and our pet cats, and otherwise impose more fussbudget impositions on our lives than Leviticus–all depend on government grants to use and misuse federal and state power.
But outside state power, the Democratic coalition withers and dies. Without effective control of the government, the Democratic Party is like a fish out of water, a vampire in the sun, Antaeus held aloft, an appliance unplugged. In the past, the Democratic Party could afford to lose the presidency and remain connected to its source of power–the state–through control of the House of Representatives, and often the Senate as well. Little damage was done to the structure of the Democratic Party during the interregnums of the Eisenhower, Nixon, and George H.W. Bush administrations, because their moves could be checkmated by a Democratic Congress. With the end of 40 years of Democratic gerrymandering, states in which a majority of the congressional popular vote goes to the GOP now award a majority of congressional seats to the GOP, too. Republican-led redistricting in Texas will add an additional five to seven Republican House seats over the next few cycles. Redistricting in Texas and throughout the country ensures that Republicans will continue to control the House through 2012. Over time, the Senate–thanks to those wonderful square states out west–will trend toward 60 Republicans as the 30 red states elect Republicans and the 20 blue states elect Democrats. The anomaly of four Democratic senators hailing from Republican North and South Dakota will come to an end, as will the Republican-held Senate seat in Rhode Island.
With Democrats lacking a beachhead in Congress, four more years of Republican governance with President Bush in the White House will badly damage each of the pillars of the Democrat establishment. In the first term, the Bush Labor Department wrote modern, clear, and updated regulations as to who earns overtime pay, and when and how. Trial lawyers had used archaic and unclear rules to sue companies claiming that workers who had been salaried for decades should actually have been considered hourly workers all those years and subject to overtime pay. Dozens of similarly unclear federal rules have been fodder for trial lawyer enrichment. Simply rewriting regulations to make them clear to all will cost the trial lawyers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Other shifts in national policy will also occur. Abroad, four more years under President Bush will move America and the world towards greater free trade, spreading prosperity throughout the world and bringing more countries into the trading systems that require property rights and rule of law, draining the swamps that breed radicalism and terror. At home, a second Bush administration will permanently abolish the death tax, which not only threatens to confiscate up to half of your parents’ lifetime earnings, but also leads to the creation of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford Foundations that inevitably are taken over by liberal bureaucrats. And a steady increase in the number of honest gun owners will continue to reduce street crime and make America safer. We now have 38 states with “shall issue” concealed carry laws, and Bush just signed a law to allow all cops and retired cops to carry their guns across state lines. Over the next four years, Congress will bring such sanity to Washington, D.C., and expand the number of Americans who can carry across state lines. Less crime means fewer prison guards and parole officers, shrinking the government workforce which tends to be 10 percent more Democrat and less Republican. Solving problems without hiring a lot of government workers is a virtuous cycle.
We’ll also be able to shrink the number of government workers already on the payroll. Over the next few years, a high number of middle managers in federal and state governments will become eligible for retirement, allowing government at all levels to reduce the middle management bloat that the private sector shed in the 1980s–but through painless attrition rather than bitter mass layoffs. This will save taxpayers billions and make government more competent and accountable.
Meanwhile, four more years of GOP control means four more years where labor laws are not changed to force workers to pay dues to join unions they don’t wish to join. Twenty-two states have Right to Work laws to limit compulsory unionism; that number will grow, and the decline of labor unions from 33 percent of the workforce in the 1950s to 20 percent in 1980 to 13 percent today will continue. Every worker who doesn’t join the union is another worker who doesn’t pay $500 a year to organized labor’s political machine.
Four more years of President Bush will also accelerate one of the most important demographic changes in America over the past 20 years: the number of Americans who own stock. In 1980, only 20 percent of adults owned stocks in mutual funds, 40lks, IRAs and direct contribution pensions. Today, that number is over 60 percent and growing. Bush wants to create Retirement Savings Accounts to allow every American to sock away up to $5,000 for retirement tax-free; similarly, the president has proposed Lifetime Savings Accounts allowing Americans to save $7,500 for education, housing, or health costs during their working lives.
Every American who owns his own mutual fund is decreasingly susceptible to the siren call of class warfare. (How did Dick Gephardt do this primary season?) According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, if you own $5000 in stock you are 18 percent less likely to be a Democrat and more likely to be a Republican. Every demographic group, including race, gender, age, and income, becomes more Republican with stock ownership. Four more years of more and bigger individual retirement accounts, heath savings accounts, RSAs, and LSAs means four more years of more Republicans and fewer Democrats.
Last, a Bush-Cheney victory in November will create the conditions for a constructive contest among leading Republican governors and senators for the presidential nomination in 2008. Dick Cheney’s heart troubles mean that he will retire with Bush in 2009. Usually the sitting vice president is the natural enemy of all ambitious politicians of his party, but now all Republicans want a Bush-Cheney victory in 2004, so they can run for an open presidential ticket in 2008. The Democrats face the opposite dilemma: Every ambitious Democrat hopes Kerry-Edwards fails, so that the presidency will open for her (or him) in 2008 rather than in 2012, 2016, or 2020. A Bush-Cheney win will lead to Republican governors from Colorado, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York to compete to be the most Reaganite governor–a positive result no matter who wins. And a Bush-Cheney win in 2004 will leave Terry McAuliffe and Bill and Hillary in complete and unchallenged control of the Democratic Party at least through 2008. This is good for the Republicans, if not the republic.
This is the way it will go down.
“Grover Norquist dies in tragic bathtub accident. Film at 11. Celebrations at 11:05”
Grover, 2005: Every American who owns his own mutual fund is decreasingly susceptible to the siren call of class warfare
Yet, Grover remains employed. Sure shoots that “meritocracy” argument all to hell.
” … others who would use state power to force on us tiny non-flushable toilets and cars too small to hold families, take away the circus and our pet cats …”
Woof! I want a case of whatever Grover has been drinking. (Unless it’s bathwater, of course.)
“Grover Norquist dies in tragic bathtub accident. Film at 11. Celebrations at 11:05?
Yesssssss.
Disgusting sicko Dennis Prager thinks the Left – Michael Moore I guess – needs to answer nine questions about torture.
Unless self-styled Southern Republicans can find common cause with secular (mostly leftist) revolutionary types, the GOP dies with Limbaugh.
It’s certainly a nice idea to try and free one of the major US political parties from the influence of right-wing morons, but wouldn’t it be easier to start with the Democrats?
needs to answer nine questions about torture.
Let me guess – one of the questions is “then what will I use for masturbation?”
…this country would be vastly better off if both major political parties ignored the GOP base.
All their base are belong to them. And that’s all that belong to them.
And this is a good thing.
Agreed that we need two sane, functioning parties, but we aren’t going to have more than one for the foreseeable future because a) the Republican party has been reduced to nothing more than assorted nuts and b) those nuts long ago purged anyone with anything resembling sanity or intelligence from the ranks of elected officials. The ones remaining have no choice but to dance with them that brung them – who would be their dance partners of choice in any case.
I’m picturing an analysis along the lines of the ol’ Redbook “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” At the current moment, the answer appears to be “no.” So why put the kids through any more of the bickering and nonsense?
Answer for Dennis Prager:
UR DOIN’ IT WRNOG.
Name one person on “Teh Left” that approved of Saddam’s torture. You even managed to find the nut when you ask about gradations of torture. It’s perfectly reasonable to oppose torture strenuously and simultaneously to oppose unprovoked random Wars of Choice even more.
Partly because war tends to lead to torture.
They’re so weakened, this is the perfect time for every gay, lesbian, bi, and transgender American, as well as their friends and families to register Republican and take over the party.
And when I say party, I mean par-tay!!!
“Answer THIS, libs!”
Well, politics was certainly better when the battle was between Eisenhower and Stevenson, between the Rockefeller wing of the GOP and the New Deal wing of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately in those days, there were the scummy trolls skulking in both parties, Goldwater and McCarthy in the GOP, Thurmond, Wallace and company in Dems.
Yeah, I’d love to see what is now the GOP base driven from polite society, but it ain’t gonna happen. I’d prefer the current re-alignment of the centerist, semi-progressives in one party and the drooling reactionaries in the sinking ship. Then we can get on with building a viable left.
Maybe if Prager’s wife would fuck him more he wouldn’t be so obsessed with torture.
“I’m getting tempted to register as a Republican simply because I feel sorry for them.”
Spoken like a true Liberal. Always thinking of other people’s feelings rather than your own. And having the same drawback of short sightedness as well.
“Balance in all things.”
Even here.
Disgusting sicko Dennis Prager thinks the Left – Michael Moore I guess – needs to answer nine questions about torture.
Well, he numbers them one through nine, but it’s really just the same question over and over: “Isn’t moral relativism great when my side does it?”
“Answer THIS, libs!”
No kidding. It’s like listening to a twelve year old come up with a “If the ground was bubbling lava (or “bubbling laza” as we said when I was 12) and only Nikes could withstand the heat, and all you had was Keds, would sewing a Nike logo on the shoes save you?”
Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican Party.
“Balance in all things.”
Hey, let the Paultards have their shot.
“. . . the president has proposed Lifetime Savings Accounts allowing Americans to save $7,500 for education, housing, or health costs during their working lives.”
Norquist boasted about that? The ability to save enough money to (tax free I presume) to pay for one and a half quarters of college? Or maybe enough to pay the anesthesiologist needed during heart by-pass surgery? Woo hoo. Shout it from the rooftops. That sure solves all my problems paying for education and health care.
OT: Best Specter comment I’ve seen so far:
“Arlen Specter is moving back and to the Left”
The Specter defection just proves that the only way to save the GOP is by demanding more ideological purity. If there were stronger discipline and stricter requirements to suppress all individuality for the greater good of the shadowy overlords – this would never have happened.
You sure you spelled that right?
The Republican national committee needs to strictly enforce the Party Platform amongst all Republican elected officials. If any Republican Senator or Congressman votes against the Party Platform, they should be withheld RNC support and be forced to face a conservative primary challenger.
This would ensure Republican dominance in politics and would see to it that conservative orthodoxy is enforced within the Party.
Shorter Dennis Prager:
“No one could imagine that overthrowing a regime because the leader tortured could lead to a war where we had to torture. Admit it–burning someone with a cigarette is much less painful than using a blowtorch. Look, if we confess we did something wrong once the CIA agents will be afraid to get back up on their horses, ever. We got KSM to admit that he participated in plans to attack America. Also.
Going through some old stuff on my site and found this wonderful headline.
Just a stroke, Righteous Bubba. Just a stroke.
This Specter thing is kind of a disaster. He’s already promising to vote against Dawn Johnsen’s nomination. Johnsen’s an actual liberal, you see.
two oppportunistic weasels
Good name for a real-ale pub.
I’m surprised Dennis Rager can count that high. He must have had help.
two oppportunistic weasels walk into a bar…..
“Arlen Specter is moving back and to the Left”
Oh SNAP! 🙂
I wouldn’t mind the appearance of a Labor party to the left of the current Democrats, like Canada’s NDP to the left of their Liberal Party.
He’s already promising to vote against Dawn Johnsen’s nomination.
Vote against Johnsen, or against cloture? That’s the real question. Voting for cloture effectively hands the nomination for Johnsen, even if Specter finks out on the floor vote.
because of its diversity and its propensity for navel-gazing.
“I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
Will Rogers
It would be good to have more than one political party, but I think it might be best if the Democratic Party split in two (with the caveat of always caucusing together against the Shrieking Moron Party). Then we might see better politicians instead of “hey, at least he’s better than Shrieking Moron #6”.
There’s not a lot of point to that nationally as long as the electoral system gives the guy with the most votes the win. Once those rules change a third party can be a force instead of a spoiler.
I hear that job is gonns be opening up soon
If only conservatives had excised the hard-left sleeper cells in their ranks earlier. Perhaps if they purge enough Islamofascist liberals from their ranks, the Permanent Republican Majority will come to be!
In writing about the horror of Democratic Madame Defarges who want revenge against the Bushies for torturing detainees who were kept in prison for years without being charged, Barone comes up with this gem.
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2009/04/27/the_lefts_angry_mob_recalls_madame_defarge?page=2
Truly they do not even listen to themselves.
A Shrieking Moron Party sounds even more fun than an Angry Party.
A Shrieking Moron Party sounds even more fun than an Angry Party.
But not as much fun as the Extremely Silly Party.
LOLWUT?!?!
Specter crosses the aisle & Lieberman whines & scratches at the door until he’s let back in, which should tell you something … they may be opportunistic but they’re not dumb. They know a dead horse when they smell one – & you want to saddle up on it?
I think you should focus on doing what Obama said to do: hold him to his words. Especially the ones about making public figures accountable for criminal acts – & how America is a democracy that values its liberties.
As regards silly little things like habeas corpus & busting people on torture, he’s acting like a GOP sleeper-agent right now, & Americans need to let him know that he can wind up doing for the Dems what Bush did for the Republicans if he decides to try being everyone’s buddy at the expense of ethics & justice.
I think the writer is suggesting that the new party be the second party, while the Republican Party, in this optimistic projection, remains so near death that it numbers at best among the “third” parties. This is a different argument.
Jim has a point. We can only promise this supermajority until the 2010 elections. We may not have the chance in 2011. Obama has a clear path to his economic agenda now, so we ought to make sure he doesn’t forget that America needs to rebuild its moral capital as well.
It doesn’t seem to matter to our Madame Defarges that it’s not clear that Bush officials violated any criminal law.
Okay, start off with a blatantly incorrect assertion. I understand that. What I don’t understand is what the fuck is he talking about after that? Or, perhaps, what argument does he “think” he’s making?
Neither, so I apologize for my earlier statement. All he said is he is “opposed” to her nominiation. Who knows what that means? I don’t see this helping the Democrats much, despite the MSM claiming it’s a blow to the GOP. I am enjoying the idea of much hand wringing and whining at Fox, though.
Barone:
Yes, it’s always been obvious that we hate them for no reason rather than some reason.
Yes, yes, yes, a million bazillion times yes!
coworker-
Aww. It’s cute to see Baroney think he still has relevance.
Lieberman whines & scratches at the door until he’s let back in
And someone was stupid enough to open the door? GAAAAAAAAH
Yeah, Baroney! That’s certainly not, um, crunchy of them! Cuz libruls are soggy!
This clown makes Tom Friedman look like he’s researched something.
Let the GOP die. It’s more or less in Schiavo-mode right now, and there’s no reason I can see to unduly prolong the agony. It’s time for one or more new parties to form in opposition to the Democrats – I’d go with Ron Paul, as long as I could do it incognito. Other than Olympia Snowe, the few people left in that Party are those who have lost their minds or their morals (or both).
OT: Moonie Times floats fragrant air biscuit of wrongness, which wafts unfiltered into RedHate.
I think it arises less from revulsion at interrogation techniques — who thinks that captured al-Qaida leaders should be treated politely and will then tell the full truth?
Yes, the only possible methods are either coddling to torture – just like in Norquist’s fever dreame where cars are either city-sized or teeny tiny European plastic jobs. (Hint, Grover: if your car might not be big enough for your family, don’t have any more fucking kids.)
Other than Olympia Snowe, the few people left in that Party are those who have lost their minds or their morals (or both).
Which begs the question, why is she sticking it out?
Which begs the question
Why are you trying to provoke us logical-fallacy pedants? Do you have nothing better to do, no trolls to argue with?
Couldn’t get elected as a Dem, I assume.
Why are you trying to provoke us logical-fallacy pedants? Do you have nothing better to do, no trolls to argue with?
Well, it was the cyberequivalent of hissing and pointing at your open fly…
justme said,
April 28, 2009 at 21:49
You sure you spelled that right?
…meet me after work, sweetheart, and I’ll show you.
I wish the Democratic Party had a sort of quarantine area (the Pennsylvania for Specter Party? a Ghostbusters style ectoplasm containment unit?) in which it could pen Specter until it’s clear that he’s had a true “Road to Damascus” moment, rather than just doing the math. As far as Joementum coming back into the fold… WTF?
I give Snowe another three months, tops, before she’s drummed out for not taking some kind of loyalty oath.
You know, maybe the problem with being liberals is that we will accept just about anybody
I think that at least two viable parties will emerge from this, just due to the nature of things.
I can see either the GOP splitting in two, or failing that, the Democrats doing the same, and splitting into a moderate vs. progressives wing.
ONE PARTY! ONE NATION! ONE LEADER!
I am lefter than all of you.
Meh. Let the GOP shrink and become the party of nutjobs and be supplanted by the Libertarians. Then we can at LEAST stop bickering about outdated views on many social issues.
You could always register Green instead and then we would have liberals and conservatives…
Yeah, we need two parties. The Democrats and a leftist one.
“Also, we do need two functioning parties in this country in order for our democracy to remain somewhat successful.”
We need multiple parties – no one ever said two was the limit. That said, the Republican Party should not be one of them. In the 21st century, a movement conservative party has as little use as a monarchist one.
Let’s be honest; the GOP hasn’t contributed a damn thing to the country since Abraham Lincoln, except for the thirty years of moderate rule (1952-1980) during which they adopted the Democrats’ positions on the welfare state, unions, and regulation – while the Democrats adopted their one-time positions on civil rights and they, instead of leading the charge on that issue, backed away from it and began a slow slide into becoming the Confederate States Party they are today.
When the best thing a political party has done in the last one hundred and forty years is to temporarily adopt the platform of its worst enemy, it’s time for that party to go.