Thanks for the link. It raises some good points.

If you look at http://www.alternet.org/election04/20606/ you will see that there is no way that Bush got 44% of the Hispanic vote. It was based upon faulty exit polling data.

Karl Rove convinced the Republicans that they could be the second, big government, big spending political party in part because they thought Hispanics would vote for big spenders. What the idiot Rove forgot is that the Democrats can always outpander the Republicans for non-white votes.

Supporting open broders and unlimited immigration is a supporting much higher taxes and larger government. Look at how California has done under the avalanche of illegal aliens.

“But even the failure of Obamaism will probably not be enough to win them back as long as splenetic conservatives feel they can dictate who can join their little club. Pro-Choice? Not in my house! Pro-Gay marriage? Surely, you joke. Immigration reform? Round ‘em up! War on Terror? Kill the Muslims!”

I know the people you’ve run into, most certainly online and at Republican organizations.

I think they need to be differentiated in some part from those cultural conservatives who are very deeply committed to the cause. I’ve gone to a university filled with former homeschoolers, and met parents who thought it was really healthy for their kids to spend their entire childhood and a good portion of their adult life only at home, listening only to their parents (I’m not putting homeschoolers down here. Notice that I’m critiquing something specific).

There are at least, then, two forms of idiocy in cultural conservatism: there’s the active form, which you’ve rightly pointed out is aggressive and hateful, and then there’s a passive form.

The passive form is interesting because the people who are into it will read things like “First Things” and “The New Criterion” - they’re not dumb, not by a long shot. But they end up in conspiracy theories and all sorts of kookery “intellectually.” They read more intelligent things, but they don’t read them well, but rather dogmatically.

In terms of dealing with both of these groups, both of whom have a “we’re more Catholic than the Pope”-type attitude, there’s a simple solution: work around them, keep doing whatever you’re doing but swell the ranks. You can put them in situations where they can’t act like 10 year olds who didn’t get their way.

For those of us who are right-wing bloggers, the major challenge is to get beyond the same-old audience. You can even see how the right-wing blogosphere creates this problem: we’ll all post on the same thing, and the same commenter will post nearly the same comment on 3 or 4 different threads in order to see where he can get a response the fastest.

We’re not DailyKos. We can’t just hit a fever pitch of rage and maintain it. We need something else: i.e. if we’re really dedicated to the free market, how about a crash course in economics by someone online, in blog entries? Anything that might get a more general sort of reader to go “hey, there’s something to be learned, the world isn’t just about me venting.”

In terms of long term change irl for “splenetic conservatives,” it’s not going to happen. It always feels like it can because they articulate so much that’s exactly right, but the truth is that we’re at battle with another sort of fundamentalism, one that’s more dangerous. The right to vote for the Left has become the right to be ignorant - “I feel Obama is good, so I have the right to exercise my uninformed opinion and oppress the rest of my country.” We need a way of undermining that cheap populism, and I think we have it: inasmuch as we know things as individuals, we have much to share and give.

b) Why does “how have hispanics affected me” matter to the issue?

It doesn’t. It’s a bullshit question designed specifically to set up one of the two canned responses he had. Once he delivered lame response A, or Logical fallacy B, the script would be over and you would been called some clever name derived from liberal and retard, and not spoken to again in the thread. It’s a type cast, but it’s usually spot on.

Currently, I live in Los Angeles, CA. I have lived here for going on 2 years, although having moved here for a job and with that job ending, I am most likely moving in the near future (possibly/probably back toward the East Coast, NE Pennsylvania A.B.E. God willing). Here, as a Caucasian, I am clearly the minority ethnic group.

a) Where do you live?
b) Why does “how have hispanics affected me” matter to the issue? If I’ve been affected by hispanics then they ARE the negative drain on the GOP that Bet claims? We’re talking about a nationwide political party — what you’re talking about sounds like a personal grudge.
(to answer the question, I don’t know that that they have affected me, aside from making it difficult to pull into the Home Depot parking lot. They don’t cut ahead of me in line, when I order a hamburger at McDonalds I get it, when I pay for gas I get correct change.)

@Superdestroyer:
that may well be the count . . . in Texas. AS I said above, the 44% number was a nationwide count. I haven’t seen any of the many debunkings — can you refer me to one/some? I agree that statistics can say whatever you want them to (my brother-in-law is a profesor of statistics), so I like to see the actual reports if they’re available.
“smaller government” — you recognize that the last 8 years of Republican government (6 with a Congressional majority, 2 with impotent Dems) led to an increase in government and government spending? The Reoublican “ideal” is admirable, but the difference between the mythic party and the actual Reds in government is night and day.
Nobody wants to pay taxes. Everybody supports smaller taxes. Running two wars, increasing spending, AND cutting taxes is a poor fiscal policy.
I support the free market. I got to visit the Soviet Union before the dissolution, and know that Socialism does not work. By supporting the free market, do you think that the banking collapse is just the cost of doing buisness? That the government shouldn’t try to impose/enforce some regulations to prohibit situations like this?
Do you support laws? Then you support the government telling you what to do, at least in some things. Do you want passable roads? working bridges? Then you want the government to handle at least some aspects of daily life. Would you rather have law enforcement paid by the government, the lowest bidder, or the highest bidder? Then some things should not be left to the tender mercies of the free market. If a company wanted to build a sewage treatment plant next to your house, would you say “well, that’s the free market for you” or would you want your kids to not have to grow up smelling that every day? If you wouldn’t want it there, then you support some level of regulation.
Does all this equal Soviet-style Socialism? The government telling you what to do? Big Government ruling your life? Nonsense. There are other gears on the car between Neutral and 6th.

Another thing that must be considered is if non-Republicans can continue to nominate mamby pambys like John McCain for the Republican Party to run as their candidate for president, you can be assured that the base will not turn out, and that means a Democrat win. All this talk about moderation seems odd considering that the moderate and spineless “Republicans” in Washington seem to be more the problem than the solution. Ronald Reagan didn’t set forth moderate ideas or confusing double-speak, on the contrary he was very bold, forward and steadfast in his convictions, and this is what attracted people to him and the Republican Party of his day! Today’s Republican leaders for the most part are hesitant, weak and unsure at best, in what they believe or if they believe anything, and have very little propensity to stand on solid principles that at one time sustained the party and still would if our leadership and party members are convinced enough to once again stand on timeless moral principles.

May God once again grant us the fortitude to stand on the solid conservative principals that we once stood for!

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

If the GOP stopped “obstructing” and became just another Obama ass-kisser (your point #3), it would CEASE to be a party. It would have no reason for existence. Which, I guess, is your point.

Thank God there are some in the GOP who still understand their role. Which is to make sure the liberals don’t run amok and turn us into Venezuela. Virtual one-party rule - what Rupert seems to dream of - is never good for anybody, no matter what party is at the helm.

1) Admit what you have done wrong. Stop apologizing for torture and why we invaded Iraq and how great it is. You need to say “We were wriong”

2) Apologize. Apologize to the passengers in your car that you just drove into a ditch. Make it big. make it kissy. Make it soon.

3) Start cooperating with Barack Hussein Obama the Duly elected president of these United States of America. Stop Obstructing.

4) Rid your party of the anti- immigrant anti gay gay baiting bigots.

5) Stop partying over uneducated, low IQ populists. Reclaim SOME intellectual foundations.

Ok. Hope this helps.

In other words, lie down and die. And while you’re doing that, thrust your right hand in the air yelling at the top of your voice “Zieg Heil, Obama!”

Right. Obama winning an election does not repeal the first amendment nor does it keep those who don’t agree with him from taking action to obstruct what we feel to be policies that are dangerous and inimicable to individual liberty.

ed.

I wasn’t talking about an electoral strategy necessarlly. Obviously, for that you need centrists to win. I was talking about Republican Congressmen who ran as conservatives and then when the brand was driven into the ground in recent elections have scrambled toward the center. That’s what I meant by “milquetoast” - politicians who ran as righties who chickened out when the going got tough.

And you have a thinner skin than I do if you are offended by the term “milquetoast.”

ed.