A growing trend of people gettting fed up.
-------

By: Kevin Tuma

The Republican Party has been taking ideological conservatives for granted
for a long time. For years, the party elite has done so with no small measure of arrogance or disdain. "Where else are they going to go to vote?"
they have privately snickered, martinis in hand, "..To the Reform Party?"

The chickens are coming home to roost. The GOP needs votes now, badly, and the only strong vote-polarizing element on the political landscape, William Jefferson Clinton, is retreating into the fuzzy shadows.

The balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in Washington is razor-thin. Twenty GOP Senators are up for re- election, versus only fourteen Democrats. The party of the sitting President typically loses seats
during such midterm elections. The Republicans may well lose the Senate. And
in the House, the GOP precariously clings to a five-seat majority there as well.

What that means is that by 2004, the Republicans stand a very good chance of
losing the Executive Branch, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
This would represent a unprecedented loss of power for the Republican Party, and, with the state of political bias being what it is in the news media, possibly one that would have teeth for quite awhile.

The biggest problem is that the Republican Party has begun, more and more in recent years, to live up to its reputation as 'The Party of the Rich'. The GOP rich are not right-wing zealots; they are cosmopolitan and 'enlightened'--and they control what passes for conservative policy. The
ones who stuff their war chest come first; the populists and the gun owners and the constitutionalists ride in the back of the bus. Party elitists like to pretend that this exclusion isn't taking a toll, but they are in denial.
Like erosion, attrition grinds away slowly and steadily, until its afflicted target no longer has any foundation. The middle-class conservative base is walking away, and voting with its feet. This is the state of the current Republican Party that has turned its backs on the likes of Barry Goldwater,
not to mention the Founding Fathers. Only Third Party activists fret over constitutional principles anymore; the post- Reagan GOP ran off such rude philosophers a long time ago.

The Libertarian Party isn't much of a threat to the GOP now--but it could become one at any time. Right now the Libertarians are essentially a think tank as much as a political party, but much of what they think is close to the heart of what most real conservatives think. Libertarians believe in the sanctity of the Second Amendment--along with the rest of the Bill of Rights
in general---abolishing the Income Tax, and ending the War on Drugs.

How appealing is the relative wimpitude of a measly $1 trillion dollar tax cut, phased in slowly over a decade, versus the idea of abolishing the Income tax altogether? It can be done--but to abolish the current tax system would require courage---something that's in very short supply in the Republican Party these days.

(continued)

Another item: Nobody---but nobody---who is an ideological conservative supports the War On Drugs anymore. That's the case with virtually the whole right wing, including many Bible- thumping Southerners. In fact, a lot of people are getting pretty fed up with the whole idea. Conservatives do not
like the Bill of Rights being torn apart like tissue paper by Federal agents, with the only reasoning being the excuse "it's for your own good".
The War on Drugs is just as idiotic as Prohibition was--and just as empowering to gangsters and scalawags. Drugs should be
decriminalized...period. The same way they were throughout most of American history.

All it would take for the Libertarians to become as big a threat as Perot was in '92 would be for them to upgrade their publicity---tearing away much of what's left of the Republican base. They might try the logical gambit of appealing to the masses; indeed, with a movie star or wrestler running on
their ticket, they could even capture the White House.

Similarly, it would not take much for the Constitution Party to eviscerate the GOP, even if the Libertarians did not. Public exposure is all the party of Mr. Phillips needs to wash away much of the Christian, traditionalist Southern voting block that the elitists of the Republican Party find so very embarrassing to discuss at their upscale cocktail parties.

Of course, in the case of Third Parties, they don't have to win anything to
cause damages. All they need to do to strangle the GOP is get miniscule
little percentages that are bigger than last November's miniscule little percentages.

The larger problem is not Third Parties, but the fact that increasingly people are not voting for the Grand Old Party. For every 'fringe' voter who runs out to vote for Browne or Buchanan or Phillips, there are at least a dozen who sit home with a bowl of popcorn on Election Day, and vote for nobody.

The elections last year should have been a landslide. Bush should have cleaned Gore's clock. He didn't; he barely survived. The reason why? Because the right wing is getting fed up with the globalist, empty-headed puppets of the snotty GOP establishment. The GOP couldn't even get a red light for Clinton's impeachment from the electorate in 1998. The reason why,
obviously, was not because conservatives like Bill Clinton..! It was because
conservatives increasingly dislike the Republican Party.

(continued)

Since I am one of the many little hayseed peons representing the ideological
Right, please allow me the presumption to speak for what my fellow hayseed
peons want. You could call it the 'Hayseed Manifesto':

*We want more freedom, and less watered-down socialism fobbed at us with phony labels like 'compassionate conservatism'.

* We want stricter adherence to the Bill of Rights; each and every Amendment--including the Tenth Amendment.

* We want a smaller government, not a Federal Leviathan.

* We demand the repeal of all federal gun laws passed since 1981.

* We demand an end to the misbegotten War On Drugs.

* We want a demilitarization of the police forces in this country, and
federal reinforcement of the Posse Comitatus Act.

* We want a reversal of much of the damage done in the past decade involving
Federal land grabs, national monuments, and Presidential executive orders.

* We demand the long-overdue--and long-promised--dissolution of the
Departments of Energy and Education, and we want the taxpayer funds for National Endowment for the Arts cut off permanently.

* We have had enough of the GOP's judicial appointments, who vote on issue
after issue like liberal Democrats. We want jurists who do not use the bench
to make law, but instead protect the Bill of Rights.

* We demand that the 16th Amendment be repealed; effective immediately.

* We want a coherent foreign policy again; we do not trust Russia or China,
or any of their Washington apologists. We demand an immediate embargo on trade with China until such time that they learn to behave like a civilized nation.

* We are sick to death of the dictates of the United Nations being shoved down our throats; we demand that this meaningless international organization trouble our country no more. The only flag our soldiers should ever salute is the Stars and Stripes.

These are issues you might want to consider, Effete GOP Uppercrust, if you
want to maintain your power base in Washington. But you don't have to listen
to us Bible-thumping hillbillies and patriots and constitutionalist pot smokers. You can go right on ahead paying more respect and attention to the American Left than you do to us. In fact you may get a chance, soon, to pay them a whole lot more.

After all, can you say "President Hillary?"

We know you can.

Things wouyld be very diffrent now,if Perot would have been for real.Instead of taking votes from Republicans.This could happen agian,but not from someone who has already ran.Who would make a good third party?

Good post, Sooooo true!!

Please post a link to the article,
Thanks!

Libertarians [maybe the Constitutional Party]

I wish to live to see the day when one would have to decide on which candidates from the 2 major political organizations to vote for: the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party.

Oh yes, and for the die hards there still would be those other 2 parties that you could TRULY throw you vote away on.

I can think of a couple of Baptist Missionaries that would be on this list...  well, the husband at least, considering his wife and kid were shot down in that plane!!!  

PEROT? I am one of the REPUBLICANS who was pissed off at BUSH and decided to cast a vote
for PEROT. The singular most assine thing I have ever done!
W had better wake up, smell the coffee, read the Constitution, or he is going to end up a lameduck next November!

The person I got the article from said it was on
[url]etherzone.com/[/url]

I haven't been able to find it though.

Here's my recent email to the President.  I urge each of you to contact the Whitehouse viaphone, fax, email or letter and make your intentions and feelings clear.

[i]I see that you have given your support to the program started by Project
Exile and I think that this is a good thing.

However, I am greatly disappointed by your actions regarding the
so-called gun show "loophole" and the banning of high capacity
magazines.

You and I know that the code phrase "gun show loophole" refers to the
sale of firearms by private individuals and in reality has nothing to do
with felons or children obtaining guns.

Your support to extend the ban on high capacity magazines is especially
upsetting to me.  Again, this is a strictly "feel good" action that
deprives honest and law-abiding citizens of the same benefits  that are
afforded police and the military.

Is my life and the lives of my family worth less than that of a soldier
or a peace officer?  I'm not asking for an Abrams tank or a howitzer,
but a twelve or fourteen round magazine for my auto pistol would be
nice.  It would be even nicer if I could pay ten or fifteen dollars for
it instead of the forty or fifty dollars I'm  forced to pay due to the
artificial shortage created by Clinton and his supporters.

I worked hard to elect you.  Voted for you.  Urged my friends to vote
for you and supported you in many ways during the crisis in Florida. I
feel betrayed already.

You'd better find a way to get some courage and act appropriately
regarding Second Amendment issues.  We made the difference for you in
this last election and we can make the difference in the next.  You will
choose which way the difference will be.

You are now on notice.  We'll be watching.   We don't forget and we
don't forgive.


[/i]