Would you vote for Bush in 2004 if he .....

[Udaloy]

Rusty,



I agree, that was a little much. I should have phrased it differently but I'm at work so I'm trying not to spend a lot of time on here (it's not working too well though).



Coward wasn't even close to what I meant so I apologize if that's the way you took it. Perhaps conviction would be a better word. Basically, I just don't like watching our liberties being slowly taken away by people that are supposed to be on our side. I would rather fight tooth and nail against a liberal administration than to watch someone I supported let things go by without a fight. i. e. homland defense, CFR.



I think we agree on that don't we?

 

[Mike Ellis]

Head vs Heart Voting

Here's a hypothetical example to consider.



You and your wife are church mission leader swho take a group of high school age kids to Mexico, along with 5 similar groups from other churches. All riding in the same bus.



Crossing the border, the Mexican police find a spent . 22 LR shell under the drivers seat and promptly arrest you all. You are taken to Fleabag Prison #1.



In Fleabag Prison #1, the Warden offers you a choice. You can have either Guard #1, who will rape all of the adult women, or Guard #2, who will rape the women AND the young girls too. He lets you cast votes, majority rule.



Take the lesser of 2 evils gentlemen, and you STILL GET EVIL.



An extreme example? Perhaps unlikely to occur, but then again the movie Sophie's Choice made a whole generation of movie goers contemplate a true lose-lose scenario.



Our choices on the other hand are relatively risk free. If the Democrats take power, we will lose a bit of money to higher taxes. Our gun rights will get siphoned off about twice as fast as with the Republicans, but is that really all that big a deal... . IF you are able to send a message to the Democrat's opponents that you DEMAND protection of the Bill of Rights freedoms you were endowed with by virtue of your birth in the United States? Isn't there a possibility that they would eventually "get the message" and act to protect our rights (and their jobs) as so many local congressmen did following the NRA blitz in the Clinton years?



Apparently we are going to have to agree to disagree on this issue, but I would very much like for you to explain to me what incentive a politician has to change his ways if he knows you will STILL vote for him after he screws you, as long as he is only screwing you 25% of the time. Where's your leverage, if it isn't your vote? If you deny him campaign donations, isn't that flying in the face of pragmatic logic that his better-heeled opponent might wash him out of office?



What do you do, just smile, shuffle your feet, and say, "Gee, please don't do that again... "

 

[RustyJC]

As I said earlier, if you want to make an idealistic vote, go ahead. I stated that I can understand and respect that position. Too bad you can't understand and respect mine.



Rusty

 

[Mike Ellis]

Never said I didn't respect it, this is after all America and all are free to choose. For now, anyway.



I am genuinely curious about the strategies of those who prefer compromise and pragmatism, and how they decide when their representative's actions cross that invisible line so they wouldn't support him anymore. Hence the questions I have asked in my posts.

 

[RustyJC]

OK, for the sake of argument, let's say that we're looking at an election where Keyes, Bush and, oh, let's say Ted Kennedy are the candidates. Although from an ideological point of view, a vote for Keyes might look attractive, the reality is that such a vote could be considered irresponsible since, at the end of the day, it benefits only Kennedy.



Is it compromise to have Bush re-elected, or is it irresposible to cast a vote for Keyes and then, when Kennedy takes office, to stand on the sidelines and whine, "Hey, I didn't vote for Kennedy. It's not my fault!" I think the latter position is, to put it mildly, naive.



Rusty

 

[merryman]

Rustys last post says it accurately; A vote from the heart, however well intentioned is in FACT a great benefit to the person furtherest from your choice.



Those who idealisticly voted for Ross Perot, gave Bill and Hillary a great laugh------and eight years in the white house.

And it did not acheive an iota of the effect the single issue arguments try to suggest will be obtained; that approach to voting is the best thing Hillary will have going for her in "04. If she gives the clintons another 4 years in the white house, it will allmost certainly be in this manner.



That would be a hell of a price to pay so a few thousand people can feel self satisfied.



Vaughn

 

[Mike Ellis]

Tell ya what Rusty, if you can find some people who know me and have heard me spend much time whining on the sideline about ANYTHING, I'll chop up my Cummins engine and eat it with cereal. And merryman, I don't know if your comment was directed toward me specifically, but I don't do much of anything so I can feel "self-satisfied". I do what I think is right.



I don't spend much time on the sideline doing anything, or sitting on the fence either. I'm one of those guys who travels to the Capitol in Austin to put in my 2 cents when the legislators are doing something I don't like. I write letters, make phone calls, trying to make sure my representatives know what I expect of them. I do what I can, following the dictates of my conscience. Sometimes it gets me in trouble. I can live with it. My folks brought me up to do the right thing - not the easy thing, or the popular thing, or the pragmatic thing.



If those of you who tout the benefits of compromise don't want the 5% or so of us who vote principle to end up putting a Kennedy in the White House, all you have to do is pragmatically help us get the message to our leadership that we will tolerate no further erosion of our Bill of Rights freedoms. That will be tough to do though if the leadership knows you will vote for them regardless.



From The Freeman's Journal of Philadelphia, March 5, 1788: "The freemen of America will remember, that it is very easy to change a free government into an arbitrary, despotic, or military one; but it is very difficult, almost impossible to reverse the matter - very difficult to regain freedom once lost. "



If the nation keeps compromising gentlemen, your great-great-grandchildren will greatly appreciate the chains you help forge for them today, one small link at a time. We will likely never take action as a nation to break those links, because they accumulate so slowly we convince ourselves that they aren't really so cumbersome as to require action. Perhaps letting the opponents of liberty take power and forge the chains in one big swoop, will shock the nation back to alertness and let us break them in OUR time so posterity will not have to. Our ancestors bequeathed us freedom, and we have a moral obligation to our descendants to pass it on to them.



If, as a nation, we are willing to wear those chains and meekly watch the freedoms our fore fathers fought and died to secure, just fade from the scene - perhaps we no longer deserve those freedoms and it is time for the greatest experiment in free government of all time to fold up the tent.

 

[RustyJC]

Mike,



Insofar as our mock Keyes, Bush & Kennedy election is concerned, the phrase comes to mind, "Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. " Do you honestly feel that you are doing your grandchildren a greater service by putting Kennedy in power than Bush? I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me at all.



Just curious - are you a Republic of Texas member?



Rusty

 

[Mike Ellis]

Nope, not a Republic of Texas member. I am an American citizen, red-blooded - and that is good enough for me.



Still waiting for elaboration of how our leadership will "get the message" and start singing with the choir if the compromisers continue to support them after they have "compromised" our rights.

 

[RustyJC]

Mike,



Our leadership is going to migrate to where the votes are. They will never go as far right as you wish, or as far left as the ultra-liberals (read, the Naderites) wish because to do so means that they are, frankly, unelectable. The best we can hope to do is to put leaders in power who are as close as possible to our political philosophies. That's what a pragmatist tries to do.



Rusty

 

[Troll]

Dr. Keyes is the only candidate that stands behinds ALL his convictions all of the time, and will not skirt any issues. He demonstrated this superbly in the last election debates. He sent out pre-campaign literature, and in it he unequivocally stated his views and stood behind them no matter how the press or the other candidates tried to spin it. I voted for him in the primaries and wouldn't think twice about doing it for the presidency. Dr. KEYES FOR PRESIDENT!!! A man of such high integrity and values will however not be elected, thats just the politics of it. George Jr. is the next best we had at the time, but if he extends the AW ban then I am staying home on Nov. 5 2004, I also have my convictions. ***k Kennedy and Clinton!!!!!

 

[RustyJC]

Originally posted by merryman

Those who idealisticly voted for Ross Perot, gave Bill and Hillary a great laugh------and eight years in the white house.

Vaughn,



As you know, we saw the same thing in 2000 on the other end of the political spectrum. Had it not been for Ralph Nader, Gore would be sitting in the White House right now.



Rusty

 

[merryman]

Mike

I did not mean self satisfied in a derogatory way; I am just trying in a variety of ways to point out that the course of action you advocate only and allways leads to the oposite of the result you want. You only help the guy you like least; you may get satisfaction from your action, and you may serve you core beliefs, but you hurt your over all cause.

Its not about compromising, its about getting the best end result that is POSSIBLE; you will allmost never get the ideal end, but can achieve the least damage. The electorial process just does not function as you would like it to.

Unless you get appointed GOD, you will never get that ideal perfect candidate------and someone who is electable.

I agree Keys sounds like a great candidate, only one problem; a vote for him is in fact a help to the candidate furtherest from him on the issues.

Hypothetical;

If Bush's oponents next election are Hillary, and a third candidate who is your ideal candidate. Your vote for the third guy/gal will help elect Hillary, but it certainly won't "teach" Bush anything; he won't know who voted for the other guy and why, and should he be defeated, he will never run again-------and while you are feeling good about standing by your convictions, Hillary will be doing untold damage to gun owner rights.

Damage that will most likely never be undone.



With that, I have exhausted my efforts a persuasion :>)



Vaughn

 

[merryman]

Mike

I did not mean self satisfied in a derogatory way; I am just trying in a variety of ways to point out that the course of action you advocate only and allways leads to the oposite of the result you want. You only help the guy you like least; you may get satisfaction from your action, and you may serve you core beliefs, but you hurt your over all cause.

Its not about compromising, its about getting the best end result that is POSSIBLE; you will allmost never get the ideal end, but can achieve the least damage. The electorial process just does not function as you would like it to.

Unless you get appointed GOD, you will never get that ideal perfect candidate------and someone who is electable.

I agree Keys sounds like a great candidate, only one problem; a vote for him is in fact a help to the candidate furtherest from him on the issues.

Hypothetical;

If Bush's oponents next election are Hillary, and a third candidate who is your ideal candidate. Your vote for the third guy/gal will help elect Hillary, but it certainly won't "teach" Bush anything; he won't know who voted for the other guy and why, and should he be defeated, he will never run again-------and while you are feeling good about standing by your convictions, Hillary will be doing untold damage to gun owner rights.

Damage that will most likely never be undone.



On another angle;

Hillary surely won't run in '04, simply because she knows that baring something terrible, Bush is unbeatable. ----But------

Hillary surely will run in '08, and who will the conservative side have to run against her???????

There appears to be no one in the Republican party in good position to take her on.



Again but, look a Condoleesa Rice (sp); this Lady is a Lady, she is so intelligent she is off the charts, she is female, black and as far as I have heard tremendously respected by everyone who knows her. With her present experience, if she did a term as Vice President, she would be in line and an able person to take on Hillary in '08??



With that, I have exhausted my efforts a persuasion :>)



Vaughn

 

[Mike Ellis]

Gentlemen,



I understand your logic quite clearly, but I do not accept that making a stand on principle, or single-issue voting for that matter, will automatically result in failure on the national electoral scene. In past elections, for example, it was clear that the Republicans received a wake-up call from the people who voted for Ross Perot. The number of legislators bounced out by determined pro-gun forces in recent elections is another example - one the media reported on quite extensively. Would so many states have passed CCW without their legislatures waking up to the political power of a large bloc of voters uniting on a single issue? Probably not.



President Bush has 2 years to convince me and many, many thousands of people who think the same way. If all of you are so sure the witholding of our votes will put Hillary or Teddy in the White House, you've got 2 years to come on board and help that large bloc of single-issue voters convince President Bush and the Republican party its a bad idea to jack around with our 2nd Amendment rights. Give us a hand guys, its the pragmatic thing to do... right?



--------



A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

-Dwight D. Eisenhower



It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies.

-Arthur Calwell



He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own. "

-Aesop

 

[Mike Ellis]

I'll Even Give Ya A Form Letter

Dear President Bush,



I am a pragmatic conservative who wishes nothing more than to see you and your party return to the White House for a second term. Accordingly, I request that you CAREFULLY reconsider your plans to extend the so-called "Assault Weapons" ban and any other planned legislation or Executive Orders that might infringe upon our Bill of Rights freedoms.



Why? Because if you don't, there are a large number of intractable, illogical, and unpragmatic voters who are going to hand the White House over to the Democrats in 2004. Please, PLEASE put freedom first, Mr. President, and help us keep Mike Ellis, FATCAT, and others of their ilk from helping the Democrats sweep into the White House.



Cordially yours,



____________

Concerned Conservative

Somewhere, USA