So close, yet...
However, the implication seems to be that Democrats have been complicit in the twenty year success of the Stokes GOP.
Almost, but I think you missed the point. On one level, I guess it would be accurate to say that Democrats have been complicit, but only because the pre-1994 Republicans are Democrats. As far as County governance goes, there is no functional difference between Reba Elliot and Buster Robertson or between Steve Carroll and Willis Overby or even between Robert Mitchell and Eugene Lyons. All agree as to the size and function of county government. All are statists, who believe in involuntary redistribution of wealth and control of the local social and economic environment by coercion. All believe that public education is a fundamental right that deserves more importance than almost everything else. All believe that government has a role to play in solving socio-economic problems. All those things form the core belief system of the Democrats. When you roll away the pandering to the degenerate fringe, all Democrats hold those fundamental views.
There is a difference between the parties...
I hope you're not going to stand on support for homosexual "rights," race-pandering, and abortion for that difference, because once you strip away the demagoguery, that's all there is, and even that fades daily. And I'm not talking about the abstract principles on which the parties are supposed to be based. I'm talking about how the parties walk the walk. Ronald Reagan could no more garner the GOP nomination today than John F. Kennedy could the Democrats'. We have a single-party system with two factions. No more, no less.
...if/when you mark your ballot for Lankford, Carroll, etc that you will realize that the Stokes GOP team beliefs are more consistent with your political views than those held by local Democrats. Right?
Wrong as wrong can be. First, it's good you said "if," because my vote in the County Commissioner race this fall will be for "none of the above." I would be no more likely to vote for Ron Carroll or Ernest Lankford than I would for Tucker Miller or Reba Elliot. In fact, I will now be voting for three people this fall and only one of them is up for a county office.
When the fair rolls around in September I'll be standing with Roger Sharpe signs and wearing Stanley Smith buttons whereas Lankford, Larry Snyder, the Hamms and the loyalists will have the "W" proudly displayed with FOXX Country stickers, and maybe a Helms memoir or two beneath GOP tent.
All that has nothing to do with belief and action. That's cheerleading for your team. As an aside, I doubt you'll see Snyder around much after the trouncing Mike Joyce gave his boy, but you never know. But all you people could trade tents and buttons and balloons and slogans and the end result would be not a whit of difference in how the county is governed. Voters could throw darts at their ballots, blindfolded, and the outcome would be exactly the same: Taxes will go up, the health department will grow, social services will grow, and the schools will continue to waste more money and education quality will continue to decline. You cannot provide any rational evidence to demonstrate otherwise.
Will you (and other thoughtful Republican conservatives) be choosing between the lesser of two evils as you hold your nose and vote? Yes.
Ummm...no. First, I'm not a Republican (and haven't been for a while), and second, given the company of those who call themselves "conservative," I'm not one of them either. A blank ballot is a better choice than a vote for evil. I have long since abandoned that silly "lesser of two evils" notion. Remember, the lesser of two evils is still evil. I can't speak for "thoughtful Republican conservatives," but I think that others who believe as I do will likely abstain as well.
Had Democrats controlled the board through the late 80's till now I believe (as you might agree) that the county would be quite different today- not so much in terms of the tax rate perhaps...
Well of course it would have been. That time period includes the terms of Sandy McHugh (for a while, anyway), Joe and John Turpin, and me. Had we not served, I have no doubt the tax rate would have been well over $1.00 and the county would have resembled some of the nastier parts of West Virginia. But that's just the point, we aren't mainstream "Republicans." Had the board passed back and forth between followers of Buster Robertson and Reba Elliot during that time, the outcome would have been as I described above.
...but definitely in terms of developments.
That has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. That has to do with handing over control of county government to an unscrupulous real estate developer. Buster could just as easily have had a "D" after his name. In point of fact, the developer cartel around King is made up of more Democrats than Republicans.
However, it must be said that good Reagan-Helms, pro-growth, low tax conservative Republicans put the Buster-Willis cabal in office, not Democrats.
Now that's a hoot. For the sake of accuracy, Buster opposed Reagan in the 1980 primary. One of the major points of insider contention in the early 1990s party organization was the fact that Buster constantly bragged that he got as many Democrat votes as he did Republican. After 1994, it might even have been more Democrats than Republicans.
Here's a little tidbit for you, Robert. I'm sure you remember the infamous "every Democrat is Clinton" ad that ran in the local newspapers in the 1998 campaign season. Reba Elliot complained to Buster about the ad and Buster tried to get the party to apologize for it and have a retraction printed. Sam Hill, who was chairman at the time, got Buster and I together behind the headquarters and asked me whether I had a problem with doing that. I asked Buster when we started caring what Democrats thought about our campaign tactics. He went into his standard rant about having just as many Democrat supporters as he did Republicans and how the ad was hurting him. I stood my ground and I'm sure you know the rest. But resist the temptation to use that point to say that I proved Buster wrong on his support base. We heard from just as many Democrats as we did Republicans who told us the ad changed their votes. Buster's only mistake was in believing that Reba and Don Elliot, Terry Fowler, and Garry Merritt represented the thought processes of mainstream Democrats.
There is a considerable difference between the likes of men like Doyle Cromer, Worth Gentry. Etc and certain GOP primary candidates for sheriff and a former candidate/commissioner that defeated the two of us Steve.
That's just personality and ethics, Robert. There is a considerable difference between the likes of Rex Baker and Don East and a couple of superior court judges I could name. It's an accurate, but pointless observation with regard to partisanship.
Anyhow, I would like to hear the Brenneis plan for restoration or a libertarainization (is that a word?) of the Stokes GOP. Got one?
Actually, no. The GOP and I have parted ways permanently, I think. And it's not just because the current organization is unsalvageable. Look at this Thomas Jefferson quote:
I have come to believe that the party system inevitably leads to tyranny. It should be obvious from the direction we are moving that a two-party system will have no less a tyrannical result than the single-party systems of the Soviet Union or the PRC. Party politics are, in the end, a collectivist construct, i.e. they require the suppression of individualism for the good of the party (collective).
On a side note, Robert, when are you going to let me come talk to your class about being a libertarian? A teacher named McDonald (I think) had me come talk to his class about being a Republican and a conservative once. I think he was actually a little disappointed that I wasn't a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, but I don't think you're prone to the same prejudice. I know that might run counter to the leftist indoctrination egenda of the public schools, but it would be nice if a few of those developing minds were at least exposed to the ideas of Locke, Jefferson, Von Mises, Rand, Hayek, and Sowell, don't you think?
Almost, but I think you missed the point. On one level, I guess it would be accurate to say that Democrats have been complicit, but only because the pre-1994 Republicans are Democrats. As far as County governance goes, there is no functional difference between Reba Elliot and Buster Robertson or between Steve Carroll and Willis Overby or even between Robert Mitchell and Eugene Lyons. All agree as to the size and function of county government. All are statists, who believe in involuntary redistribution of wealth and control of the local social and economic environment by coercion. All believe that public education is a fundamental right that deserves more importance than almost everything else. All believe that government has a role to play in solving socio-economic problems. All those things form the core belief system of the Democrats. When you roll away the pandering to the degenerate fringe, all Democrats hold those fundamental views.
There is a difference between the parties...
I hope you're not going to stand on support for homosexual "rights," race-pandering, and abortion for that difference, because once you strip away the demagoguery, that's all there is, and even that fades daily. And I'm not talking about the abstract principles on which the parties are supposed to be based. I'm talking about how the parties walk the walk. Ronald Reagan could no more garner the GOP nomination today than John F. Kennedy could the Democrats'. We have a single-party system with two factions. No more, no less.
...if/when you mark your ballot for Lankford, Carroll, etc that you will realize that the Stokes GOP team beliefs are more consistent with your political views than those held by local Democrats. Right?
Wrong as wrong can be. First, it's good you said "if," because my vote in the County Commissioner race this fall will be for "none of the above." I would be no more likely to vote for Ron Carroll or Ernest Lankford than I would for Tucker Miller or Reba Elliot. In fact, I will now be voting for three people this fall and only one of them is up for a county office.
When the fair rolls around in September I'll be standing with Roger Sharpe signs and wearing Stanley Smith buttons whereas Lankford, Larry Snyder, the Hamms and the loyalists will have the "W" proudly displayed with FOXX Country stickers, and maybe a Helms memoir or two beneath GOP tent.
All that has nothing to do with belief and action. That's cheerleading for your team. As an aside, I doubt you'll see Snyder around much after the trouncing Mike Joyce gave his boy, but you never know. But all you people could trade tents and buttons and balloons and slogans and the end result would be not a whit of difference in how the county is governed. Voters could throw darts at their ballots, blindfolded, and the outcome would be exactly the same: Taxes will go up, the health department will grow, social services will grow, and the schools will continue to waste more money and education quality will continue to decline. You cannot provide any rational evidence to demonstrate otherwise.
Will you (and other thoughtful Republican conservatives) be choosing between the lesser of two evils as you hold your nose and vote? Yes.
Ummm...no. First, I'm not a Republican (and haven't been for a while), and second, given the company of those who call themselves "conservative," I'm not one of them either. A blank ballot is a better choice than a vote for evil. I have long since abandoned that silly "lesser of two evils" notion. Remember, the lesser of two evils is still evil. I can't speak for "thoughtful Republican conservatives," but I think that others who believe as I do will likely abstain as well.
Had Democrats controlled the board through the late 80's till now I believe (as you might agree) that the county would be quite different today- not so much in terms of the tax rate perhaps...
Well of course it would have been. That time period includes the terms of Sandy McHugh (for a while, anyway), Joe and John Turpin, and me. Had we not served, I have no doubt the tax rate would have been well over $1.00 and the county would have resembled some of the nastier parts of West Virginia. But that's just the point, we aren't mainstream "Republicans." Had the board passed back and forth between followers of Buster Robertson and Reba Elliot during that time, the outcome would have been as I described above.
...but definitely in terms of developments.
That has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. That has to do with handing over control of county government to an unscrupulous real estate developer. Buster could just as easily have had a "D" after his name. In point of fact, the developer cartel around King is made up of more Democrats than Republicans.
However, it must be said that good Reagan-Helms, pro-growth, low tax conservative Republicans put the Buster-Willis cabal in office, not Democrats.
Now that's a hoot. For the sake of accuracy, Buster opposed Reagan in the 1980 primary. One of the major points of insider contention in the early 1990s party organization was the fact that Buster constantly bragged that he got as many Democrat votes as he did Republican. After 1994, it might even have been more Democrats than Republicans.
Here's a little tidbit for you, Robert. I'm sure you remember the infamous "every Democrat is Clinton" ad that ran in the local newspapers in the 1998 campaign season. Reba Elliot complained to Buster about the ad and Buster tried to get the party to apologize for it and have a retraction printed. Sam Hill, who was chairman at the time, got Buster and I together behind the headquarters and asked me whether I had a problem with doing that. I asked Buster when we started caring what Democrats thought about our campaign tactics. He went into his standard rant about having just as many Democrat supporters as he did Republicans and how the ad was hurting him. I stood my ground and I'm sure you know the rest. But resist the temptation to use that point to say that I proved Buster wrong on his support base. We heard from just as many Democrats as we did Republicans who told us the ad changed their votes. Buster's only mistake was in believing that Reba and Don Elliot, Terry Fowler, and Garry Merritt represented the thought processes of mainstream Democrats.
There is a considerable difference between the likes of men like Doyle Cromer, Worth Gentry. Etc and certain GOP primary candidates for sheriff and a former candidate/commissioner that defeated the two of us Steve.
That's just personality and ethics, Robert. There is a considerable difference between the likes of Rex Baker and Don East and a couple of superior court judges I could name. It's an accurate, but pointless observation with regard to partisanship.
Anyhow, I would like to hear the Brenneis plan for restoration or a libertarainization (is that a word?) of the Stokes GOP. Got one?
Actually, no. The GOP and I have parted ways permanently, I think. And it's not just because the current organization is unsalvageable. Look at this Thomas Jefferson quote:
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
I have come to believe that the party system inevitably leads to tyranny. It should be obvious from the direction we are moving that a two-party system will have no less a tyrannical result than the single-party systems of the Soviet Union or the PRC. Party politics are, in the end, a collectivist construct, i.e. they require the suppression of individualism for the good of the party (collective).
On a side note, Robert, when are you going to let me come talk to your class about being a libertarian? A teacher named McDonald (I think) had me come talk to his class about being a Republican and a conservative once. I think he was actually a little disappointed that I wasn't a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, but I don't think you're prone to the same prejudice. I know that might run counter to the leftist indoctrination egenda of the public schools, but it would be nice if a few of those developing minds were at least exposed to the ideas of Locke, Jefferson, Von Mises, Rand, Hayek, and Sowell, don't you think?
posted by Anonymous | 9:20 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home