I agree that the neocons under Bush & Cheney really screwed up the GOP. However, the GOP does have good ideas:
* fiscal conservatism
* free market competition
* low taxes
* small government
* strong military
* pro-life
These are all things I believe in. Unfortunately, the GOP believes in those things, but has strayed from those core principles greatly during the last decade.
The Rs strayed long before the last decade:
zfacts.com
Starting with Reagan, the Rs have not been fiscally conservative....if they ever really were. In fact, Clinton was more conservative fiscally than Reagan.
Of your list, only two are true for the Rs....a strong military and pro life, and of those two, only pro life is not a plank of the Dems.
Are you starting to sell yourself on something that is fictional instead of real?
They spent like drunken sailors. They forgot that free markets need to be regulated and that laissez faire is a path to oligarchy. They lowered taxes when we couldn't afford it.They actually increased the size of government dramatically with their deficit spending. Then on the foreign policy front, they totally screwed up the two wars, wasting money in Iraq and failing to kill Osama Bin Ladin when he was surrounded in Tora Bora.
All that is true but what's more true.....and more important in my mind.......is that there is no quality in their leadership. It was not by chance that the best the Rs could do was come up with McCain and Palin.....and before them, Cheney and Bush. There is no depth to their leadership. I am not saying that the Dems are all Einsteins but there is a lot more quality Dems then there are Rs.
So yes, as a Party, the GOP failed miserably in the last decade. But those core principles are still worth fighting for. If the GOP can get it's head out of Limbaugh's, Beck's, and Palin's asses, perhaps the party can go back to being a center-right party and do some good for this country.
Its going to take a decade for the party to come back once it figures out it has a problem.....and right now, it doesn't think it has a problem. Read Inode's posts if you doubt that fact. |
