Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Eyewitness to radicalization

I have a column in today's National Post explaining what I think is wrong with the American Republican Party.

7 comments:

Charles said...

"To me, if you're a Republican, it means you stand for the very principles which made America great, principles such as freedom, individual rights and tolerance ... Yet elements within my own party have a different vision of what it means to be Republican. They are more about imposing moral values than individualism, more about allowing government to dictate decisions on issues that should be a matter of personal conscience."

I think you're mistaken when you say that we social conservatives are against the things that made America great ; we just think that those rights referred to should extend to people who haven't been born yet.

Your guy Binnie could have easily run as a Paul Martin Liberal here in Canada.

Calling an evil deed a matter of personal conscience is the language of a bankrupt society.

Anonymous said...

People who haven't been born yet aren't people. They are clumps of tissue the government has no business 'protecting'.
SoCons are scum of the Right.

Anonymous said...

Maybe an more unbiases analysis of the race from a blog called libertarianleanings .com

New Hampshire Primary 2010 - Kelly Ayotte

Libertarian Leanings endorses Kelly Ayotte for the U.S. Senate seat now held by the retiring Senator Judd Gregg.

Libertarian Leanings gives the edge to Kelly Ayotte based on polls that show her defeating Paul Hodes by a wider margin than any of the other Republicans in the race.

It is a difficult choice between Kelly Ayotte and Ovide Lamontagne. If I could to vote for both of them I would. If fortune smiles I may get the chance – Kelly Ayotte over Paul Hodes in 2010 and Ovide Lamontagne over Jeanne Shaheen in 2014.

Libertarian Leanings prefers Kelly Ayotte over Bill Binnie. Again, it is a tough choice. Bill Binnie is an attractive outsider, but then so is Kelly Ayotte. Both are conservative. Both are good candidates. However, the campaign unfortunately descended into the negative and Bill Binnie came out of it looking the less attractive.

Vote for Kelly Ayotte.

Posted by Tom Bowler at 09:37 PM | Permalink

Anonymous said...

Let's be frank here, if you are not a social conservative then you are a liberal of some kind. That's assuming that you divide the log down the middle of course. At best you may be a moderate of one of those libertarian types. That is fine, but to me they are still liberals. The problem for a true conservative party is that while it can agree with libertarians, moderates and small 'l' liberals on certain issues it is still divided from social liberalism by design and inception. Who knows, maybe the US is moving more towards a multi-party system and we here in Canada are moving towards multi-parties on the right. Frankly, I welcome both. (real conservative)

Harold said...

Re: Eyewitness to radicalization,

So after conservative consultant Gerry Nicholls spent nine months running the failed campaign of Republican Senatorial candidate Bill Binnie, he resorts to name-calling and slamming the tactics of those who worked for and supported the winner, Kelly Ayotte. In addition to calling Ayotte's supporters radical, Nicholls then concludes the article by stating that she is unelectable. But based on a Rasmussen poll of last week, Ayotte is polling 7% ahead of her Democratic opponent. Although "conservatives" like Nicholls may be shocked by the "radicalization" of elements of the Republican party, the American people are voting the professional politicians out of office. The party establishment crowd always finds the power of the people hard to deal with.

Anonymous said...

The assertion by "Anonymous" that "if you are not a social conservative then you are a liberal of some kind," i.e., to be lumped with the Liberal or Democratic Party is ridiculous. Conservatism is primarily about a limited role for government in our lives and the importance of the power of the individual. A theocracy, which is what some on this blog site seem to be advocating, is all about coercion just as surely as is a socialist agenda.

Anonymous said...

@ Harold: do you have anything other than a series of non-sequitirs? Gerry's point is simple and right: the social conservative anti-choice agenda of these insurgents stinks.