Will You Fight, Flee Or Just Read?

These are unique times in our Nation's politics, good and bad. Driven by economic factors, we're at a potential pivot point that could direct America's future for years, if not generations.

There is one political party with a firm grip on our government for a minimum of two years. Government just spent more money in one Bill then ever before in our history. Talk of everything from a revived Fairness Doctrine to an Auto Industry mostly guided by a government hand weighted down with ideas on Global Warming, to talk of nationalizing our banking system is now routine. And as with the recent spending, government has shown a willingness to act without hearing from the American people, or giving them time to think.

At the same time, technological advancement has empowered American citizens in ways only imagined just a decade ago. Most of you know all this because you are here reading a blog. But simply reading is really only an adjunct to fleeing. You can bury your head in a thousand opinions lambasting our situation, or spout off in comments to no real effect. In the end, you will have accomplished nothing more than if you had simply fled.

To enable you to fight while taking advantage of new technology like that mentioned above, the GOP has launched two new efforts. 

The GOP TechSummit Grassroots

and for Facebook members:

The GOP TechSummit Facebook Group.

You can get more information on these efforts here, if needed.

But at some point ask yourself, will you fight, flee, or just read?

Comments

[Steve J.]

To enable you to fight while taking advantage of new technology like that mentioned above, the GOP has launched two new efforts.

LOL! Two more cases of GOP FAIL.

[WBestPresidentEver]

OBAMA IN YOUR FACE STEVE. Stick that comment where the sun don't shine you bafoon idiot.

You damn right the people will get enought and will eventually band together. I feel it, I hear it and I am seeing a lot of new things going on.

Many people are afraid however. Afraid of what others may think of them and afraid they will be followed are harassed and threatened. And..That is not a joke.

Will the new Obama police force protect us. Will we still have free speech ?

What is next on this mad mans agenda ?

[Mark Turner]

I live half way around the world from the US, but I still made a point to vote (absentee) in this past election, and believe me, it wasn't for Obama. The GOP will be resilient, maybe even mount a charge like in 1994, but they need solidarity in the voting base -- enough people to get excited, or angry with the status quo, just like the Dems did this time around. I doubt there is any more of a mandate for extreme liberalism now than there was in 1992-94; Clinton got slapped hard because of it and I believe that Obama will feel that sting too. The GOP cannot lose focus, though; get out the vote, get out the message --- let RINOs win where true conservatives can't (they're better than a very liberal Democratic alternative), but stay true to the core values of the party...and remember that media image matters!

[Mark Turner]

I figure that if the GOP can win back much of what it lost in this past election -- especially in the House of Representatives, we may be able to hold Obama to something like a post-1994 Bill Clinton. If not, we can expect Jimmy Carter on steroids, with a vengeance.

[Bruce]

The GOP will start to do better when they start acting like the GOP.

[egoist]

The cynic in me says that – like sending letters to my representatives – it will, at best, be a misread data-point (read by an intern) and dropped in a finger-in-the-wind bucket to gin up a non-committal form letter that coagulates a million disparate views.

Pragmatism (anti-principle on principle) and altruism is driving this Neanderthal culture. How the hell do you turn that around when it’s so ingrained?

[Rollory]

Are you f*cking serious?

That party did every single goddamned thing it could to PUT the current party in power. Its nominee refused to fight AT ALL, overtly lied about his own traitorous views, and was a monumental ignoramus on the most pressing issues besides. It is a party of liars and swindlers who USE your search for representation to fill their own pockets and snatch a bit of power. It is part and parcel of the evils of democratic government the founders kept warning about and which the American people have not had the self-control to resist.

The _only_ moral course of action is to refuse to uphold or give loyalty to this government in any form, and wait for the whole thing to crumble once enough people come around to the same view. That won't take long, the way it's currently operating.

DO NOT GIVE THEM ONE RED CENT.

[gopgovernor]

As the Republican Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger supports the massive federal spending, since it will help me with his little budget problem.

In fact, Republican governors of 22 states support Obama's spending plans, since he's bribed them with billions in federal revenues confiscated at threat of arrest from the nation's suckers ... er, inhabitants. It's the lead story on MSNBC this morning.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29230543/

Republicans are not against massive federal spending by Democrats. They're just against massive federal spending when they don't get to write the checks and reap the "campaign donation" bribe money.

So, if you want to use Tech to solve the problem, I suggest a Tech 9.

[ajacksonian]

It would be great if I thought my local Representative would listen to the voice of the people... but representing over 500,000 people means he can pretty much do as he pleases while ensuring that some pork contracts gets him enough kickbacks to drown out his opposition in the district. And I've pretty much had it with door-to-door 'activists': they are giving me an itchy trigger finger.

I've had it with 'activism'.

An active public requires that we can know our representatives, be heard by them and not a flunky, and have that representative have some fear of losing my vote. At 1:500k that just doesn't work and even an 'activist' group only gets heard by *numbers*. With a much smaller district the number ONE would matter. Small districts are the only way to make sure the people are represented and don't have Incumbistanis to send back time and again. You don't get that with 'activism' - you get it with local politics that people can care about, not this National garbage that should be limited to the National side and have little to nothing to do at the local end.

Why are Americans afraid of more representative democracy?

And just why is it we let the House set its own size?

49% of eligible Americans didn't vote this time around. They didn't leave it up to 'better, more informed people': they didn't want to reward the two parties, activists, the crony system or a system where they have NO SAY that will get a hearing by someone they KNOW in the government. Remember that? Local, representative democracy that looks out for you to keep National government in check? That was the idea behind a large and unwieldy House. We let it make 'progress' to be 'efficient' and now cry when it slickly passes such gobstopping amounts that will put us in debt for two more generations. It was VERY EFFICIENT, no? Representative democracies are not supposed to be 'efficient', they are meant to keep power in check.

Good luck on that 'activist' deal, I tell ya.

I've had it with 'in your face' whining and cajoling from both parties.

Bring back local, representative democracy that will keep the National government in check from 'bailing' us all out. They aren't plugging up the holes, and some swell fools are taking buckets of water from the sea arouond us and throwing it *into* the ship. We call those latter: activists and their earmark brethren. Too bad the new Captain has decided that the ship needs more water on the inside... and far too bad that so many are now in place to start the bucket brigade from the side of the ship to its hold and throwing more water in...

You wanted 'efficient' representative democracy? We now have it.

Thanks.

For nothing.

[Zach]

It's not helpful to put this in such apocalyptic terms, nor is it helpful to continue to pursue party über alles. That is partly what got us here in the first place. We need to get better candidates on both sides. Which is difficult. It seems that one half of the country has become so embittered, spiteful, and full of hate, that they will say anything to destroy their opponents, and the other half needs to guard themselves carefully, or run the risk of doing the same thing. Let those who are that hateful eat their schadenfreude pie, and we'll see how satisfying it is to them in the long run. We need to work with the representatives we have. New tools are fine and dandy, and we need to use them, but let's not forget the old tools of speaking to our friends and neighbors, studying the issues, and engaging in friendly discourse with those who will listen. We need hope, and hard work, not "LOLs the R's suck" or "let's wait for the inevitable revolution."

[rememberer]

Let's not forget who got the Billion-Dollar Gravy Train a rollin' ... Republicans!

George W. Bush.

Republicans, led by Bush, pushed through $350 Billion to Wall Street millionaires, who then turned around and used that money to plan Vegas junkets (Wells Fargo) million-dollar office renovations (John Thain), billion-dollar bonuses for millionaire junk salesmen (Bank of America).

Let's also not forget that it was Republicans who made possible Barack Obama's Trillion-Dollar Gravy Train II.

Three Republicans abandoned the party to give Obama the winning margin: Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine. Without Republican assistance, the Obama stimulus would not have passed ... so in this sense, you can say that it was the Republicans fault.

If they had voted the way they claim to believe, the stimulus package would not have passed.

So, don't give Republicans money. They're cheating you.

[Christopher Rampley]

We will soon see how much people really value thier liberty. Jefferson said that a well educated citizenry was essential for a successful democracy. Instead we have handed over virtually the entire educational system to one partisan side. The same side influences the majority of influential media. I am losing faith that the majority of my fellow citizens value thier individual freedom, or even think in those terms. Even a cursory knowledge of history doesn't bode well for the next couple of generations here. And I don't blame the current President - he was clearly unhappy with America throughout the campaign - this long march has been going on with the people's approval for the past forty years.

To fight, to flee, to read - I hear more and more people quietly preparing to leave, thinking about at least being prepared to leave should the tipping point come. Fighting only works when the people are willing to die for thier principles or have flat out run out of chances to flee, and we're not there yet.

And honestly it's beginning to feel a lot like we'd be fighting over who got to sit on the first class deck - of the Titanic.

[Yes We Did]

STOP IT!

Stop your racist, hateful attacks on our new Leader!

It's all over. We won, you lost, and you will never get another chance.

Get over it and get with the program or just shut up and go away.

WE LOVE YOU, BARACK!

[Reno Sepulveda]

You had me right up until you mentioned the GOP. If the GOP truly is the only hope for liberty in the United States, they should have behaved as such these last five years. Instead it was their greed, corruption, hypocrisy and most of all incompetence that has turned the country over to Pelosi, Schumer and Obama.

Don't blame the Democrats for thoughtless spending and trying to consolidate their power and silence their critics. That's what they do. Blame the party that gave Americans no alternative but to empower a bunch of Bolsheviks.

[What Did You Do, Again?]

No doubt the Republican party was willing to throw the nation's finances into disarray, suspend civil liberties, and recklessly risk a million casualties, just to end slavery. If they'd only submitted to the Democrats, think of where we would be today. And it's not as if the Dems weren't willing to compromise. They'd have freed their chattels just as soon as hell froze over. "And you'll never get another chance."

But that was then. This is now. I miss the Whigs.

[Thomas Casey]

It's not this party or that party. Americans have been acting like spoiled children for the last 40 years, thinking they are the center of the universe and there are no consequences for bad thinking and worse behavior. "We have found the enemy and he is us."

Lecture someone else...I suspect that I have been swimming against the current a hell of a lot longer than you have. And I have the scars to prove it.

[Ferd]

Hey "What" - don't just miss the Whigs, join up! modernwhig.org.

And "Yes, We Did", you mindless sycophant - please provide a quote of the so-called "racist" attacks mentioned on this page. I'd say go back to work, but I'm sure Welfare dollars are providing for you so you can sit on your computer all day and make stupid comments.

[Ferd]

Hey Rememberer,

I think your remembering is wrong. Please indicate who was controlling Congress in 2007-2008 in the run-up to this fiscal crisis. Please indicate who came up with the $1 trillion spent in so-called "stimulus" last year. I am not thinking it is Republicans. True, GWB did sign it, but what this should show a lib like you is that GWB was nowhere near as conservative as you made him out to be. Not that there weren't other examples of this.

I would also like to get your memories on Jimmy Carter and the development of CRA, or Bill Clinton expanding CRA, and how that allowed folks who make $25,000/year to buy a $500,000 house, though they could never afford it. How about Barney Frank's and Chris Dodd's affirmations up until last August that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were solid?

Please help me with remembering this.

Thanks

[Paul A'Barge]

in one Bill then ever before should read "in one Bill than ever before".

Oh by the way, your "Remember personal info?" ... still not working

[Paul A'Barge]

belay that ... apparently it is now working.

[Jim]

So, NOW the GOP is concerned about spending, debt, bailouts and corruption? SINCE WHEN? Since January 20th? For a decade you spent and borrowed and printed and connived for your own ends, but now suddenly you're frugal, honest patriots? Good grief, what astounding hypocrisy. Your rotten party is just as corrupt as those rancid Democrats. Republicans and Democrats may give off different stinks, but you both come out of the same statist sewer.

[Sean de L A]

I'd like to second this opinion regarding the GOP: "their greed, corruption, hypocrisy and most of all incompetence that has turned the country over to Pelosi, Schumer and Obama."

[prsTM]

Flee? To where?

[Tennwriter]

Will the RINOs take their deathgrip off the steering wheel or be removed forcefully? Because otherwise I'm not sure what the point is.

[Sean]

The US is too big. The cultures and values or the red and blue states are now almost entirely foreign to one another.

Time to dissolve this puppy. She's had a good run, but it's just too damned big and unmanageable. Politics today are the politics of cultural domination of one area over another.

Let's part amicably now, before the economy totally collapses, and we part ways in anger.

[John]

You are dreaming. We won't see a repeat of 1992, because the people know that the GOP did not deliver when it controlled house, senate, and white house last time, and it will not if given another chance.

Its all about who gets the best parking spaces isn't it?