In response to an accusation that “hate” the Republican Party, I responded thusly:
I don’t hate the Republican Party, I hate what the Republican Party has become.
I hate the fact that George W. Bush has been the biggest spender since Lyndon Johnson.
I hate the fact that the Republicans in Congress spent six years letting him become the biggest spender since Lyndon Johnson.
I hate the fact that nobody in teh White House or Congress did anything to address the size, scope and power of government for eight years.
I hate the fact that George W. Bush has increased the National Debt in 8 years by the same amount that it took every other President 224 years to build up.
I hate the fact that because of Bush and the House and Senate Republican leadership, the voting public no longer looks at the GOP as the party of fiscal conservatism and small government.
I hate the fact that the Republicans have let themselves be taken over by forces of intolerance and bigotry and that they’re on the wrong side of the gay marriage debate.
I hate the fact that the Republican Party no longer follows the principles it claims to be founded upon.
The only good thing that will come out of 2008 is that a massive GOP defeat at the hands of John McCain will lead, hopefully, to a battle for the soul of the party that, hopefully, will result in real libertarians and fiscal conservatives taking the party back from the Theocon Christianists and Neo-con warmongers.
I don’t think I’m alone.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
No, you are not alone. Not at all.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Excellent response. Couldn’t have said it better myself. You make nearly the exact same argument that caused me to walk away from the Republican party not too many years ago.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Bravo!! Nicely said, and no you are not alone.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Excellent response Doug. I get the same thing. If you dare critique the current candidate or the Bush regime, you are branded “liberal”. I blame it on the talk radio stars, Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin. They carry water for everything with an R behind it. If only they would argue for principles and not just the party!
October 8th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
No Doug, you are not alone about the GOP.
The current Republican party is quite simply repulsive and deserves to be annihilated in less than four weeks.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
“Taken over by the forces of intolerance and bigotry”? Oh, so now anybody who stands up for traditional family values and morality is intolerant and a bigot? You have drunk too deeply of the liberal kool aide. I’d say your brain has been taken over by the forces of idiotic immoral godless heathen.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Problem with your analysis is it’s entirely bass ackwards.
The Republican Party sucked in the 1980s. It sucked way into the early 1990s. It was an unwelcome environment for libertarians and libertarian ideals. Things started changing in and around 1993, 1994. They started letting us libertarians into the Tent.
Today we are a very active and welcome member of the GOP team. We’ve got Republicans falling all over themselves these days to call themselves “libertarians” and to identify themselves with the libertarian movement, and even the Libertarian Party.
That wasn’t the case, back in the days of Ed Meese, Pat Robertson, and the glory days of the Religious Right.
For you to say that the GOP has “gotten worse” for libertarians is utterly absurd. You are obviously grossly misinformed about the Republican Party of 2008.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:45 am
You say that you hope for a McCain/Palin defeat. Interesting, that we now have for the first time in US History a bonafide libertarian with impeccable libertarian credentials, (having attended two Libertarian Party meetings, and having graciously accepted the endorsement of top leaders of the LP for her Governor’s race), as a VP candidate, and you want her defeated.
Sheesh, shows where your head is at. One could even say, not only have you become anti-Republican Party, a Republican-hater, but also libertarian.
This blog poses as a libertarian site. How can one honestly call themselves “libertarian,” if they openly hate libertarians, and lobby for their defeat?
October 9th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Another fact to consider:
Never, in the history of the Libertarian Party going back 37 years, has there ever been a Presidential candidate or Vice-Presidential candidate of a major party, who has been affiliated in any way with the LP, before Palin.
Reagan never attended any LP meetings.
Ford? Certainly not Carter, nor either of their running mates.
Nixon? Nope.
The Bushes? No. Though, Bush II did assist Ron Paul with his election in 1996, while he was Governor. So, he’s the closest to having a bonafide association with Libertarians. But still that doesn’t come close to Palin.
Clinton? Gore? While Clinton famously joked twice about “being a libertarian on that issue,” (Gay Rights), he never had any affiliations with the Libertarian Party.
Kerry? Edwards. No, and no.
Barack Obama? No, as a matter of fact, just yesterday it was revealed that Obama was a member for a brief period of the Socialist Workers Party in 1996. Biden? No, nothing on the LP front.
John McCain? Again, like Bush II, he came close. He was the guest speaker at the very libertarian Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. But there’s no record of him every attending a Libertarian Party meeting.
Which brings us to Sarah Heath Palin.
In 2005/06, then candidate Palin was the guest speaker to not one, BUT TWO, meetings of the Alaska Libertarian Party in Anchorage. (One was a candidates’ forum outside of Anchorage, and the other was the weekly Libertarian Supper Club meeting held at the Denny’s in Anchorage every Tuesday night.)
Not only that, but the leadership of the Libertarian Party decided to endorse her, the last few days of her campaign in 2006, INCLUDING HER LIBERTARIAN PARTY OPPONENT IN THE RACE BILLY TOIEN, who famously told his supporters, “Don’t vote for me… Vote for Sarah.”
One of the very first groups Sarah Palin thanked on election night for her victory, in front of 3,000 people at the downtown Anchorage Egan Center, was the Libertarian Party. Immediately after her victory speech, she went over to Billy Toien, and LP Chairman Jason Dowell, and gave them both a big bear hug in front of all the TV Cameras, and thanked them again, for “putting her over the top.”
And now, unbelievably, we have some libertarians, well, some folks who claim to be libertarians, actively opposing her candidacy.
It’s almost like slicing your own wrists. It’s like bash those people closest to you: If someone reaches out to you with a hand of friendship and cooperation, you react by swatting that hand away, and adding a big ‘F’ you on top of that to that person.
And people wonder why Libertarians never succeed in politics?
October 9th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Inside Beltway’s Editor/Publisher Doug Mataconis, actively hopes for a crushing defeat of Republicans in 2008. Thus, he wants libertarian Republican candidates to go down, like Tom McClintock running for Congress in California, Allan West in Florida, John Sununu for US Senate in New Hampshire, and scores of other libertarians running for Congress, State Legislatures, and other offices at all levels.
He’s now become the Anti-libertarian. He wants libertarians to be defeated.
The word Traitor to the movement comes to mind.
But even worse, he fails to realize that with a crushing defeat of the Republican Party, and with it, libertarians on the GOP ticket, there will be little hope for freedom after 2008. ACORN, Moveon.org and other far Left groups who are closely affiliated with Obama, will no doubt work to institutionalize their voter fraud efforts, and work to silence any Rightwing critics, including libertarians.
In 2010? Republicans will need to win elections with 60% of the vote, not the current 52 or 53% we need to win currently, due to ACORN’s voter fraud efforts. With 52 or 53% we still have a fighting chance in some races. With 60% we have little if any chance. The only Republicans who will win with those requirements will be a tiny handful of tokens leftover in overwhelmingly Republican districts who the Dems keep around just to say they’ve got a real “democracy.”
Recall, even in the heydays of the Soviet Union the Soviets kept two other political parties around, the Peasant’s Party and some other puppet group, just to say to the world that they actually did have competiton.
Doug Mataconis is now actively advocting for a return to the glory days of the Soviets. A farce of a democracy.
Oh, and what does Mataconis believe will come of the Libertarian Party in such an environment. Does he honestly believe that the ACORNers will allow the LP to survive? Does he honestly believe they’ll be “tolerant” on ballot access rules? Judging by their actions this year, in actively blocking Libertarian Party petititoners nationwide from gathering signatures for ballot access, not very likely.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Eric,
Name one libertarian policy that the Bush Administration has enacted in eight years. Just one. I’ve been asking you to do this for weeks and all you do is keep telling me that W appointed Gayle Norton Secretary of the Interior.
What part of Sarah Palin is not the Presidential candidate don’t you understand ?
John McCain is the man at the top of the ticket, his record is the only one that matters.
Even is she is the “libertarian” you claim her to be, which I doubt, she’s just the lipstick on the pig that is the McCain for President campaign.
I honestly don’t care how many LP meetings Sarah Palin spoke at, the only real question is whether she would be qualified to become President if John McCain died — and the only reasonable answer to that question is a clear, and emphatic, absolutely not.
John McCain would be a disaster for libertarians if he became President just as assuredly as Barack Obama would be. Let him lose as far as I’m concerned.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
John Doe,
When you take a position that prevents free individuals from living their own lives the way they want to — yes, it is.
Yea, I figured you’d say that.
But, as Billy Joel once said, I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints…….
You don’t have to approve of homosexuality, you have no right, however, to use the power of the state to prevent homosexuals from enjoying the same rights that everyone else has.