A Serious Question about the GOP and the Tea Party

[derk]

I believe if a national conservative came to the forefront and convinced the teaparty movement that he was the more fiscally conservative candidate to run they would compete directly with the republican party no matter what. Remember this is not the republican party. They still take themselves serious at the grass roots level. THEY WOULD SPLIT the ticket out of principle. In the end it would be the republicans who would cave under Boehner and go along with the TP. in order to defeat the Democrats.

 

[kaz]

Well it's a byproduct of an institutionalized two-party system. Unless the TP faction is willing to give the Democrats greater control in--at least--the next couple decades of elections, they'll have to do the "lesser of two evils" card. Their best strategy would be to stay within the Republican fold and try to effect change from within. Splitting and running separately would do damage to the entire right, with the Dems being the winners.

You fundamentally don't understand the tea party movement. The movement is a takeover attempt of the Republican party, it is not a Republicans are better then Democrats so we'll support them. That's why the Republican leadership regularly opposes TP candidates and TP candidates will send non-TP Republicans down in flames.

I do agree with you though that to be more effective they will have to cross party lines and attract more Democrats. It's possible since they are less socially conservative and less militaristic to reach the Democrats who Reagan attracted, but it's not happening yet in any large numbers.

 

[Sheldon]

Well it's a byproduct of an institutionalized two-party system. Unless the TP faction is willing to give the Democrats greater control in--at least--the next couple decades of elections, they'll have to do the "lesser of two evils" card. Their best strategy would be to stay within the Republican fold and try to effect change from within. Splitting and running separately would do damage to the entire right, with the Dems being the winners.

You fundamentally don't understand the tea party movement. The movement is a takeover attempt of the Republican party, it is not a Republicans are better then Democrats so we'll support them. That's why the Republican leadership regularly opposes TP candidates and TP candidates will send non-TP Republicans down in flames.

I do agree with you though that to be more effective they will have to cross party lines and attract more Democrats. It's possible since they are less socially conservative and less militaristic to reach the Democrats who Reagan attracted, but it's not happening yet in any large numbers.

This:

The movement is a takeover attempt of the Republican party,

is the same as this:

Their best strategy would be to stay within the Republican fold and try to effect change from within

What they're doing now--labeled as Republicans, winning congressional districts and then setting up their own caucus with a uniform agenda, influencing the party's priorities from the inside--is an effective strategy. For the near future, electing a Republican to the Presidency who isn't ideologically identical to their checklist but is at least willing to listen to and seriously consider their Congressional agenda, is the best way to get their ideas into government. It's going to take time but the progress they've made for their cause in this short time is pretty impressive.

 

[Oddball]

If the TP faction splits and puts up its own candidate, it will guarantee a second Obama term. Both the establishment right and the TP noobs know this. So far the TP has done an effective job of pushing the debt issue front and center, and pulling the GOP right--at least rhetorically. They have to be pleased with what they've accomplished so far.

Ultimately having their own candidate as a third option in the general election would just be an empty threat. A second Obama terms is too much of a price to pay for ideological purity in a Republican nominee. They WILL have to settle for a less-than-perfect candidate who can win the middle, because he/she would be better for their cause than a second Obama term. And they will vote in large numbers for the less-than-perfect candidate because I think the anti-Obama sentiment is a powerful driving force in the movement; it's more of a vote against Obama than a vote for their not-perfect guy.

This is the chickenshit "logic" that gave us eight years of Chimpy McShrub.

The repubs nominate another "it's his turn" party man beltway insider used car salesman, like Juan McQuisling or Bob Olde, and TP people will stay home.

Well it's a byproduct of an institutionalized two-party system. Unless the TP faction is willing to give the Democrats greater control in--at least--the next couple decades of elections, they'll have to do the "lesser of two evils" card. Their best strategy would be to stay within the Republican fold and try to effect change from within. Splitting and running separately would do damage to the entire right, with the Dems being the winners.

With losers like McSame, Chimpy, Huckster, Pawlenty & Romney, who needs democratics?

 

[Greenbeard]

Ron Paul will bring them together if he gets the Nom.

Republicans (voters) will be happy because they have a real conservative with a record and the TP will be happy because well, it's Ron fuckin Paul. Indies and Dems will be happy because many will vote for RP too.

What's Ron Paul's record?
Besides being a loon and accomplishing nothing?

Aren't those the criteria for admission to the Tea Party?

I kid, I kid.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Democrats - socialists

Sorry, but Democrats are not Socialists. You really ought to figure out what a Socialist is before you go throwing the term around for everyone you happen to disagree with. Other than a minority group of far left wingers, most Dems are pretty much Centrists that understand that government and the private sector do work hand in hand, yet the government is not there to control the private sector, but to make certain that it operates in a reasonable manner that protects the rights of its citizens. There are many moderate Republicans and Independents that fit that mold also.

Actually you don't like the word, and you don't know what it means. Socialism is a centrally planned economy. Rather then arguing the definition of words, why don't you give me an example of anything that Democrats have actually supported during the Obama administration that is not further government control over the economy. Since they are not socialist and they are centrist, they should be pretty split. But I'm only asking for one thing that is not socialist central economic planning that they proposed or actually supported. Go.

Here's an academic definition quoted from "A Glossary of Political Economy Terms; see:

Socialism: A Glossary of Political Economy Terms - Dr. Paul M. Johnson

want more?

Socialism
A class of ideologies favoring an economic system in which all or most productive resources are the property of the government, in which the production and distribution of goods and services are administered primarily by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which any remaining private production and distribution (socialists differ on how much of this is tolerable) is heavily regulated by the government rather than by market processes. Both democratic and non-democratic socialists insist that the government they envision as running the economy must in principle be one that truly reflects the will of the masses of the population (or at least their "true" best interests), but of course they differ considerably in their ideas about what sorts of political institutions and practices are required to ensure this will be so. In practice, socialist economic principles may be combined with an extremely wide range of attitudes toward personal freedom, civil liberties, mass political participation, bureaucracy and political competition, ranging from Western European democratic socialism to the more authoritarian socialisms of many third world regimes to the totalitarian excesses of Soviet-style socialism or communism.

The above is from Auburn University.

Definition is important, partisan definitions are bullshit.

 

[Sheldon]

This is the chickenshit "logic" that gave us eight years of Chimpy McShrub.

The repubs nominate another "it's his turn" party man beltway insider used car salesman, like Juan McQuisling or Bob Olde, and TP people will stay home.

Well it's a byproduct of an institutionalized two-party system. Unless the TP faction is willing to give the Democrats greater control in--at least--the next couple decades of elections, they'll have to do the "lesser of two evils" card. Their best strategy would be to stay within the Republican fold and try to effect change from within. Splitting and running separately would do damage to the entire right, with the Dems being the winners.

With losers like McSame, Chimpy, Huckster, Pawlenty & Romney, who needs democratics?

Meh. I think if, hypothetically, Romney got elected to President, he'd understand that the faction represents a not-insignificant sect of the right and would be more open to their ideas and doing just enough to appease them than Obama, who would never get TP votes anyways. FWIW, I'm just talking from a realistic strategy standpoint, not about how I wished the political world worked.

 

[kaz]

want more?

Socialism
A class of ideologies favoring an economic system in which all or most productive resources are the property of the government, in which the production and distribution of goods and services are administered primarily by the government rather than by private enterprise...


Definition is important, partisan definitions are bullshit.

Definition is important and you just demonstrated I'm dead on. Who is the owner of an asset? The person who controls it. Having another name on the deed but the asset is controlled by government isn't ownership. Ownership is control. And who can control all assets? Only government. You just provided no dispute to my definition at all in any way. That government hasn't nationalized all industries in this country is irrelevant, they are controlling them with oppressive taxes and regulations. That is central planning, that is de facto ownership. That is socialism and it's what the Democratic party is tirelessly fighting for.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Here's another definition from the same source, always a pleasure to help educate the self defined know-it-alls.

Communism 1.
Any ideology based on the communal ownership of all property and a classless social structure, with economic production and distribution to be directed and regulated by means of an authoritative economic plan that supposedly embodies the interests of the community as a whole. Karl Marx is today the most famous early theoretician of communism, but he did not invent the term or the basic social ideals, which he mostly borrowed and adapted from the less systematic theories of earlier French utopian socialists -- grafting these onto a philosophical framework Marx derived from the German philosophers Hegel and Feuerbach, while adding in a number of economic theories derived from his reinterpretation of the writings of such early political economists such as Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo. In most versions of the communist utopia, everyone would be expected to co-operate enthusiastically in the process of production, but the individual citizen's equal rights of access to consumer goods would be completely unaffected by his/her own individual contribution to production -- hence Karl Marx's famous slogan "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." The Marxian and other 19th century communist utopias also were expected to dispense with such "relics of the past" as trading, money, prices, wages, profits, interest, land-rent, calculations of profit and loss, contracts, banking, insurance, lawsuits, etc. It was expected that such a radical reordering of the economic sphere of life would also more or less rapidly lead to the elimination of all other major social problems such as class conflict, political oppression, racial discrimination, the inequality of the sexes, religious bigotry, and cultural backwardness -- as well as put an end to such more "psychological" forms of suffering as alienation, anomie, and feelings of powerlessness.

2.
The specifically Marxist-Leninist variant of socialism which emphasizes that a truly communist society can be achieved only through the violent overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" that is to prepare the way for the future idealized society of communism under the authoritarian guidance of a hierarchical and disciplined Communist Party.

3.
A world-wide revolutionary political movement inspired by the October Revolution (Red Oktober) in Russia in 1917 and advocating the establishment everywhere of political, economic, and social institutions and policies modeled on those of the Soviet Union (or, in some later versions, China or Albania) as a means for eventually attaining a communist society.

 

[kaz]

Here's another definition from the same source, always a pleasure to help educate the self defined know-it-alls

I personally define communist as someone who adheres to the principles of the Communist Manifesto. The Democratic party does. Now Democrats like to get all in a huff and say they aren't like the Soviet Union so they aren't communist. The Soviets were Communist, for sure, but that doesn't mean that everything they did was Communist motivated. They were also ruthless dictators. But adhere to the principles, every plank of the Communist Manifesto the Democratic party does in spades.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Kaz, spin all you want. You're not gonna convince anyone but for the CrusaderFranks and other willfully ignorant persons. We have a mixed economy, lassiez faire doesn't exist except as a archetype in the heads of fools and charlatans.

 

[Oddball]

Well it's a byproduct of an institutionalized two-party system. Unless the TP faction is willing to give the Democrats greater control in--at least--the next couple decades of elections, they'll have to do the "lesser of two evils" card. Their best strategy would be to stay within the Republican fold and try to effect change from within. Splitting and running separately would do damage to the entire right, with the Dems being the winners.

With losers like McSame, Chimpy, Huckster, Pawlenty & Romney, who needs democratics?

Meh. I think if, hypothetically, Romney got elected to President, he'd understand that the faction represents a not-insignificant sect of the right and would be more open to their ideas and doing just enough to appease them than Obama, who would never get TP votes anyways. FWIW, I'm just talking from a realistic strategy standpoint, not about how I wished the political world worked.

Realistically, eight years of Chimpy pretty much showed us that there's not a dime's worth of difference between remocrats and depublicans.

Nominate another inside-the-beltway ruling class windbag like Romney and a significant portion of the TP crowd stays home...Mark it down.

 

[kaz]

Kaz, spin all you want. You're not gonna convince anyone but for the CrusaderFranks and other willfully ignorant persons. We have a mixed economy, lassiez faire doesn't exist except as a archetype in the heads of fools and charlatans.

Yes, it's my crazy ideas again:

- The owner of an asset is the entity that controls it

- A communist is someone who believes in the principles defined in the Communist manifesto

Wow, when I write it down and read it even I think I'm completely nuts...

 

[Mr.Nick]

If the TP faction splits and puts up its own candidate, it will guarantee a second Obama term. Both the establishment right and the TP noobs know this. So far the TP has done an effective job of pushing the debt issue front and center, and pulling the GOP right--at least rhetorically. They have to be pleased with what they've accomplished so far.

Ultimately having their own candidate as a third option in the general election would just be an empty threat. A second Obama terms is too much of a price to pay for ideological purity in a Republican nominee. They WILL have to settle for a less-than-perfect candidate who can win the middle, because he/she would be better for their cause than a second Obama term. And they will vote in large numbers for the less-than-perfect candidate because I think the anti-Obama sentiment is a powerful driving force in the movement; it's more of a vote against Obama than a vote for their not-perfect guy.

This is the chickenshit "logic" that gave us eight years of Chimpy McShrub.

The repubs nominate another "it's his turn" party man beltway insider used car salesman, like Juan McQuisling or Bob Olde, and TP people will stay home.

Well it's a byproduct of an institutionalized two-party system. Unless the TP faction is willing to give the Democrats greater control in--at least--the next couple decades of elections, they'll have to do the "lesser of two evils" card. Their best strategy would be to stay within the Republican fold and try to effect change from within. Splitting and running separately would do damage to the entire right, with the Dems being the winners.

Split from what?

The only ones that are running are the neo-cons.

There is no divide in the Tea Party....

I'm sure we all have different morals, however we are all in cohesion with the notion the Constitution is the law of the land - especially the Bill of Rights.

In theory we're not even a political party we're the defenders of liberty and we're defending a document - those who oppose the Constitution and Bill of Rights are the political parties.

It's your defiance that makes you political.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Kaz, spin all you want. You're not gonna convince anyone but for the CrusaderFranks and other willfully ignorant persons. We have a mixed economy, lassiez faire doesn't exist except as a archetype in the heads of fools and charlatans.

Yes, it's my crazy ideas again:

- The owner of an asset is the entity that controls it

- A communist is someone who believes in the principles defined in the Communist manifesto

Wow, when I write it down and read it even I think I'm completely nuts...

No you don't. Think, that is. You didn't read either academic definition (not that I'm suggesting they are absolutely correct on each point) and that makes you one of the willfully ignorant. Frankly, I don't care how you define Communism, you've shown yourself to be a partisan and unwilling to consider opinions which challenge your own. That's sad and not a prescription to consider anything you post as anything but your opinion.

 

[Mr.Nick]

Kaz, spin all you want. You're not gonna convince anyone but for the CrusaderFranks and other willfully ignorant persons. We have a mixed economy, lassiez faire doesn't exist except as a archetype in the heads of fools and charlatans.

Yes, it's my crazy ideas again:

- The owner of an asset is the entity that controls it

- A communist is someone who believes in the principles defined in the Communist manifesto

Wow, when I write it down and read it even I think I'm completely nuts...

We could say a communist is one who believes all assets should be controlled by a central authority and be redistributed equally with authoritarian fashion.

You can bet 90% of the DNC agrees with that notion. They just can't rationalize or equate their ideas with that of being communist.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

That's what I'm trying to get an answer to. I guess I didn't word it correctly.

No, you worded it correctly.

Many who responded have an issue with comprehension and/or blinded by rightist dogma.

But that’s correct: the TPM is merely the re-branded Old Bush Base, part of the GOP.

They will come together; they always do when there are factions within each party. The problem is that there are going to be some bruised egos on one side or the other, tea party or moderates, depending on who the nominee is. Some of those people will likely stay home on election day, and that will likely be enough to get Obama re-elected.

Sorry, but Democrats are not Socialists. You really ought to figure out what a Socialist is before you go throwing the term around for everyone you happen to disagree with. Other than a minority group of far left wingers, most Dems are pretty much Centrists that understand that government and the private sector do work hand in hand, yet the government is not there to control the private sector, but to make certain that it operates in a reasonable manner that protects the rights of its citizens. There are many moderate Republicans and Independents that fit that mold also.

Well said and correct, on both counts.

Referring to democrats as ‘socialists’ is as idiotic as referring to republicans as Nazis, if not more so.

 

[Oddball]

That's what I'm trying to get an answer to. I guess I didn't word it correctly.

No, you worded it correctly.

Many who responded have an issue with comprehension and/or blinded by rightist dogma.

But that’s correct: the TPM is merely the re-branded Old Bush Base, part of the GOP.

You're out of your mind.

The TP is an adverse reaction to the neocons, not a part of them.

 

[Modbert]

Split from what?

The only ones that are running are the neo-cons.

There is no divide in the Tea Party....

I'm sure we all have different morals, however we are all in cohesion with the notion the Constitution is the law of the land - especially the Bill of Rights.

In theory we're not even a political party we're the defenders of liberty and we're defending a document - those who oppose the Constitution and Bill of Rights are the political parties.

It's your defiance that makes you political.

Which is why the vast majority of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress voted to extend the Patriot Act.

 

[Si modo]

That's what I'm trying to get an answer to. I guess I didn't word it correctly.

No, you worded it correctly.

Many who responded have an issue with comprehension and/or blinded by rightist dogma.

But that’s correct: the TPM is merely the re-branded Old Bush Base, part of the GOP.

You're out of your mind.

The TP is an adverse reaction to the neocons, not a part of them.

As a neocon, I agree.

However, I do not agree with some of what the TPM stands for; but I will settle for the majority of what they stand for - domestically.

For example, the TPM is very much against what Obama is doing in Libya, where as I am not.

With respect to the military and foreign relations, I completely disagree with the TPM, which is to be expected if one understands both platforms. Other than that, fiscally they are better than anything pertaining to domestic matters than I have seen in some time.