Is Reagan conservatism dead?

[Dutchcedar]

Gads, I hate saying this, but yeah, Reagan conservatism is dead for now.

The Republican leadership has kicked it to the curb and with McCain as the new leader of the party, its pretty much toast.

[tucker]

Gads, I hate saying this, but yeah, Reagan conservatism is dead for now.

The Republican leadership has kicked it to the curb and with McCain as the new leader of the party, its pretty much toast.

Sad but true

Looking at the bright side we have two candidates that we can shred this time around…

[Dutchcedar]

Looking at the bright side we have two candidates that we can shred this time around…

At least four years of talkin' smack...

We're good at it... we'll be fine.

[AMDScooter]

Gads, I hate saying this, but yeah, Reagan conservatism is dead for now.

The Republican leadership has kicked it to the curb and with McCain as the new leader of the party, its pretty much toast.

Eh.. I would not say dead per-se. But no one who still buys into those principles is in a position to do anything ATM.

[BlackDragon24]

Anyways, the point I was trying to make in my back in forth with Scooter was that conervatives have been essentially blackballed in this country because of the failed/less than impressive policies of Bush, who painted himself a compassionate conservative, when in actuality he was neither....and now the true conservatives are paying the price for it, when they probably don't deserve it.

They were "duped" essentially. Its most likely the reason why guys like Huckabee and Romney didn't fare too well.....

[Orangutan]

I would hope Huckabee failed because he's bat-shit insane, not because of some perceived backlash against Republicanism.

[AMDScooter]

Anyways, the point I was trying to make in my back in forth with Scooter was that conervatives have been essentially blackballed in this country because of the failed/less than impressive policies of Bush, who painted himself a compassionate conservative, when in actuality he was neither....and now the true conservatives are paying the price for it, when they probably don't deserve it.

They were "duped" essentially. Its most likely the reason why guys like Huckabee and Romney didn't fare too well.....

Duped? I'm not surely not making that claim. Neither are any conservatives I know. I'll stand by my vote for GW. It was a choice.. GW or the Goracle. GW or Kerry. So.. not really a choice IMHO.

[BlackDragon24]

Duped? I'm not surely not making that claim. Neither are any conservatives I know. I'll stand by my vote for GW. It was a choice.. GW or the Goracle. GW or Kerry. So.. not really a choice IMHO.

Was that double negative thrown in there to confuse me?

[AMDScooter]

Was that double negative thrown in there to confuse me?

[tucker]

It seems to me this is an appropriate thread to rehash with campaign 2012 already starting to heat up.

In my opinion if the republican party follows the lead of the fringe left wing RINO leadership thereby nullifying all of the gains made in the last election Reagan conservatism is indeed dead in the republican party.

Unless fiscal and social conservatives can create a well organized well financed 3rd party I think Reagan conservatism could easily disappear.

It seems to me with the help of the republican party leadership Reagan conservatism has morphed into something Ronald Reagan wouldn’t recognize or approve of.

I think the hiatus of Reagan conservatism started with Booshy senior and continued with Booshy junior.

At some point hiatus turns into endangered species and extinction.

Mr BD might have hit the old nail right on the head when he started this thread... Damn I hate it when BD is even close to right...

[AeroSim]

Honestly, tuck- I'm not sure it's a party issue as I think we have no Ronald Reagans to vote for.

I'm not seeing what that "outside-the-box" is and I think big inflating money is making sure we don't have one.

[kbohip]

It just doesn't matter who wins anymore, Republican or Democrat. The US is a country with what I now believe to be insurmountable problems. Let's take defense for instance. The sheer number of people that are employed in this country by defense, either directly or indirectly are incredible. Defense is a HUGE drain on our economy year after year but nothing can be done to stop it. One of the things I've always wanted to see is 90% of US bases outside of the US closed down. These cost us an incredible amount of money every year. One big problem with this though. Where do the people who were employed by these bases go for a paycheck then? The US can't wind down defense spending because it would DESTROY what's left of the economy. We can't keep the defense budget at the same rate (or higher) it's at now either so things will get worse and worse regardless.

The city I live in for instance may as well be one large military base. EVERY person I know either works for the military, is a contractor to it, is retired from it and drawing a big pension, or has a relative that's employed by it. When I say every one I mean EVERY one. A big defense spending cut would decimate this city.

Then we have the welfare state. It's also employing a lot of people. The government can't stop sending these people checks either because there are no jobs for most of these people out there. Those jobs are now in third world countries. If the checks stop going to the welfare recipients the government knows there will be riots the like of which we've never seen before. Even worse is knowing the number of these people are growing rapidly every year.

So to recap, we live in a country that manufactures very little anymore and can't reduce ANY spending in the two most important areas we MUST reduce spending in to avoid a future economic implosion. This will never happen with either party though so I'll just continue to sit back and wait for it to happen while continuing to vote third party. Of course the rest of the country who's employed by the two sectors above will continue to vote us into obliteration.

[tucker]

Honestly, tuck- I'm not sure it's a party issue as I think we have no Ronald Reagans to vote for.

I'm not seeing what that "outside-the-box" is and I think big inflating money is making sure we don't have one.

You’re right there is no Reagan on the horizon but Reagan conservatism is a political philosophy/movement that didn’t die with Reagan. If it isn’t a party issue the republicans should quit using Reagan as their political messiah.

I think "outside-the-box" is finding a candidate and a party that is willing to fix “big inflating money” instead of kicking the can down the road like the democrats are doing.

I know you’re going to come back with the federal reserve as the culprit and I’m going to say the Fed doesn’t disappear until the law makers make them disappear…

[tucker]

It just doesn't matter who wins anymore, Republican or Democrat. The US is a country with what I now believe to be insurmountable problems. Let's take defense for instance. The sheer number of people that are employed in this country by defense, either directly or indirectly are incredible. Defense is a HUGE drain on our economy year after year but nothing can be done to stop it. One of the things I've always wanted to see is 90% of US bases outside of the US closed down. These cost us an incredible amount of money every year. One big problem with this though. Where do the people who were employed by these bases go for a paycheck then? The US can't wind down defense spending because it would DESTROY what's left of the economy. We can't keep the defense budget at the same rate (or higher) it's at now either so things will get worse and worse regardless.

The city I live in for instance may as well be one large military base. EVERY person I know either works for the military, is a contractor to it, is retired from it and drawing a big pension, or has a relative that's employed by it. When I say every one I mean EVERY one. A big defense spending cut would decimate this city.

Then we have the welfare state. It's also employing a lot of people. The government can't stop sending these people checks either because there are no jobs for most of these people out there. Those jobs are now in third world countries. If the checks stop going to the welfare recipients the government knows there will be riots the like of which we've never seen before. Even worse is knowing the number of these people are growing rapidly every year.

So to recap, we live in a country that manufactures very little anymore and can't reduce ANY spending in the two most important areas we MUST reduce spending in to avoid a future economic implosion. This will never happen with either party though so I'll just continue to sit back and wait for it to happen while continuing to vote third party. Of course the rest of the country who's employed by the two sectors above will continue to vote us into obliteration.

In BD’s words “we are so screwed”.

It’s not just military spending it’s social security, medicare, Medicaid, education, housing and a hundred different nanny state programs. The federal governments most important job is defending the country and the people, thus we have military spending. The frigging problem is this country is being destroyed by the enemy within.

I think we are seeing the end of representative government and the birth of Soviet Union style communism.

We have a front row seat to the biggest event in the history of mankind. I hope we all live long enough to tell or great grandchildren about the USA before communism…

[BlackDragon24]

Mr BD might have hit the old nail right on the head when he started this thread... Damn I hate it when BD is even close to right...

Think of it like this tucker....

Would Reagan even survive a primary in the climate that is the republican party right now?

My vote would be for "no chance in hell"

Therein lies your answer.

If you want to take some solace, you can rest assured that Obama, as much as you guys like to say is a socialist left wing union thug, is actually a lot more like a republican than any democrat out there.

Obama is looking like a 2008 Republican

Carville is generally crazy, but I challenge anyone to refute any of his points with facts.

Two things the republican party could do right now to make themselves popular again:

1) Ditch Grover Norquist
2) Ditch the pro-life movement

Once you do that, you can actually focus on job creation. Cuz its obvious with the legislation that is floating around the house these days, those two factors are the only things they really care about.