Why bother with the GOP if this is all it has to offer?

[BugI02]

It's the damned purity tests that kill chances of winning. Gay "marriage" and people's past are the two pieces creating a chasm between the Evangelical base and winning. Unless someone dies with a picture of Reagan on their chest they aren't good enough. If the right candidate was gay they "can't be Christians."

Matthew 5:17-18 King James Version (KJV)
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

No matter how much you want gays to be able to join the 'Christian Club', they can't because they won't follow the 'bylaws'

For the record, I have no desire to exclude gays from enjoying any aspect of society. I know quite a few gays in social circles and it just isn't a factor. I don't, however, need to know anything about what goes on behind those closed doors nor do I like being pressured to give approbation to the lifestyle choices they have made. Disapproval of one's choices in life =/= discrimination. I don't believe they needed to be married in a 'church' for any other reason than they wanted to, and the state's involvement in the recognition and administration of marriage opened the door, analogous to if there were a small group of Catholics who wanted everything changed to accommodate a desire be freemasons

All trans people have demonstrated to me is that they are profoundly unstable individuals who tend to react violently to those who won't join them in their delusions that they can be something they are not and that society as a whole must be forced to recognize such. I must say, I do not know any trans people socially and even the gays I know seem to want to keep distance between themselves and the trans minority. I find it a dangerous conceit that society as a whole's failure to affirm their dementia leads to greater rates of suicide and/or risky lifestyle choices and thus we are somehow killing them. Non sequitur, they are killing themselves - and suicide and especially the threat of same is usually a strategy to attempt to control the behavior of others via emotional blackmail

 

[INPatriot]

Messaging will not fix this. The left took over education, most young have no idea the width and breadth of states rights, they were taught government has two teats to suck on, the big one and the little one…

You are 100% correct, for the rest of your life and each successive generation that comes after.

But, we need to find a solution. And we need to start somewhere and I'll gladly start with my six children.

 

[Ziggidy]

Simply having and/or being diagnosed with a mental illness does not prohibit someone from owning firearms or even getting a LTCH.



I'm going to need cites for this.

Is it not delusional to believe you are a different gender? How about those who claim they are cats or other furries? Is that not schizophrenia? Should untreated schizophrenia be able to buy/own a gun? I think there is a reason to prohibit gun ownership to individuals who have untreated delusional thoughts.

Mental illness should not be the rule of measure but rather the reality in which one lives. I do not trust individuals who live in a fantasy world to own a gun.

 

[Ingomike]

They just don't want to face the consequences of holding those beliefs, thus cognitive dissonance,

Otherwise known as normalcy bias…

 

[INPatriot]

Matthew 5:17-18 King James Version (KJV)
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

No matter how much you want gays to be able to join the 'Christian Club', they can't because they won't follow the 'bylaws'

For the record, I have no desire to exclude gays from enjoying any aspect of society. I know quite a few gays in social circles and it just isn't a factor. I don't, however, need to know anything about what goes on behind those closed doors nor do I like being pressured to give approbation to the lifestyle choices they have made. Disapproval of one's choices in life =/= discrimination. I don't believe they needed to be married in a 'church' for any other reason than they wanted to, and the state's involvement in the recognition and administration of marriage opened the door, analogous to if there were a small group of Catholics everything wanted everything changed to accommodate a desire be freemasons

All trans people have demonstrated to me is that they are profoundly unstable individuals who tend to react violently to those who won't join them in their delusions that they can be something they are not and society as a whole must be forced to recognize that. I must say, I do not know any trans people socially and even the gays I know seem to want to keep distance between themselves and the trans minority. I find it a dangerous conceit that society as a whole's failure to affirm their dementia leads to greater rates of suicide and/or risky lifestyle choices and thus we are somehow killing them. Non sequitur, they are killing themselves - and suicide and especially the threat of same is usually a strategy to attempt to control the behavior of others via emotional blackmail

Marriage was out in quotes for a reason. Marriage is between a man a woman for the purpose of creating a family. Families can't always be created or are not always created.

I don't believe government should be in the business of marriage. I don't promote homosexuality. I don't wish for it. But the government need not be involved.

In all of our bloviating, we all sometimes forget that individuals causing no harm to others do have the right to be left alone.

 

[INPatriot]

I believe the average GOP voter is whistling past the graveyard as hard as they can. They know we are already ensconced in communism light and they are familiar with the adage that you can vote your way into communism but have to use a different method to extricate yourself. They just don't want to face the consequences of holding those beliefs, thus cognitive dissonance, and a substantial fraction of the GOP in congress is primarily devoted to maintaining their own sinecure rather than trying to fix anything

Normalcy bias will be the death of us

You may be right. I hope you are not. I pray you are not. I've got a family to raise and I teach them daily that part of stewardship is passing along to the next generation, in better condition, something that has been passed to you.

 

[jwamplerusa]

And now, the states have the opportunity to decide.

As it should be in accordance with the 9th and 10th Amendments.

 

[Dean C.]

The GOP should be for maximum personal freedom.

If letting the states decide leads to legalization, and you don't want it illegal because you believe it to be a losing issue, which is shaping up to be the case because bans do not work, then you should be a champion of letting the states decide. And now, the states have the opportunity to decide. Why is that so idiotic?

I would like states to decide but unfortunately they cannot do so in a collective and coherent manner see abortion, guns and marijuana for examples.

Then you have states like Indiana that do not allow voter initiatives on the ballot for whatever reason. Seriously I would like to invoke a constitutional change to the constitution of the state of Indiana to allow ballot initiatives. It would be an interesting way to get the laws of this state away from our geriatric politicians.

 

[Ingomike]

Seriously I would like to invoke a constitutional change to the constitution of the state of Indiana to allow ballot initiatives. It would be an interesting way to get the laws of this state away from our geriatric politicians.

Ballot initiatives are simple democracy and that is bad as Ohio just found out. It should be very difficult to amend the constitution of the states. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner. It is that simple and why our founders gave us the representative republic, to keep simple majorities from eating others...

 

[Twangbanger]

...Then you have states like Indiana that do not allow voter initiatives on the ballot for whatever reason. Seriously I would like to invoke a constitutional change to the constitution of the state of Indiana to allow ballot initiatives. It would be an interesting way to get the laws of this state away from our geriatric politicians.

"...But, but, but you cannot do that because "Representative Republic." "

 

[Dean C.]

Ballot initiatives are simple democracy and that is bad as Ohio just found out. It should be very difficult to amend the constitution of the states. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner. It is that simple and why our founders gave us the representative republic, to keep simple majorities from eating others...

What exactly bad happened in Ohio that is so bad? They have legal access to more things, therefore more freedom. How is that a bad thing?

 

[indyblue]

Ballot initiatives are simple democracy and that is bad

I’m trying to figure out how the school referendums are allowed, they’re just glorified ballot initiatives and I’m tired of them.

 

[indyblue]

What exactly bad happened in Ohio that is so bad? They have legal access to more things, therefore more freedom. How is that a bad thing?

Because it’s the slippery slope to mob rule. What you consider more freedom can too easily be used and abused against you. 49% will never prevail over 51% once it gets there.

 

[Ingomike]

What exactly bad happened in Ohio that is so bad? They have legal access to more things, therefore more freedom. How is that a bad thing?

Millions of outside dollars flowed into Ohio to win the vote so it was not done be the state by itself. Libertarian does not work in the real world. How would you feel if the 51% wanted to ban guns?

 

[BugI02]

Violently eject the religious fundamentalists I am sick of the GOP being ran like the party of Christianity. Drop the idiotic stance on abortion that does nothing but tear away swing votes. Drop the idiotic stance on Marijuana legalization and run on a platform of fiscal responsibility to tame the out of control inflation and bring the economy back under heel.

The GOP would actually WIN for the first time in almost 20 years, because this party needs the outdated electoral college system to even have a chance as the GOP has not won the popular vote since GW.... It's ****ing embarrassing is what it is, the party might as well be ran from the nursing home it's views are so outdated.

Incorrect. Three of the four greatest areas of FedGov spending support transfer payments and the Military Industrial Complex while the fourth is the cost of debt service. Good luck getting the recipients of such largesse to vote for their own impoverishment

CBO: U.S. Federal spending and revenue components for fiscal year 2022. Major expenditure categories are healthcare, Social Security, and defense; income and payroll taxes are the primary revenue sources.

What you need to do is convince an unstoppable majority of the electorate, of both parties, that debt is an existential threat and must be brought under control by every means possible - at which point most congressmen from both parties will fight to weaken the strictures enacted to protect their chosen groups who support them and try to leverage distaste for austerity for political gain. Humanity just does not respond to a future crisis, only the ones that are (or they feel are) already upon them

 

[Twangbanger]

The Midwest is nice and kind.
The East Coast is kind but not nice.
The West Coast is nice but not kind.

EC Man will help you change a tire but call you an ******* idiot for getting a flat.

WC Man will express his condolences that you have a flat tire but do nothing to help change tires.

Midwest Man will express his condolences and help change tires.

From the Clinton Administration to the Obama Administration, the GOP fell for people that were nice, but not kind.

GOP "values voters" use social values as an "authenticity stamp" for candidates. This makes it very easy for the GOP to slip a Wolf in under the Sheep costume. Perfect example was Dan Coats. Highest-rated candidate by the Pro Life Lobby that you could hope for. He goes to Washington and supports gun control, spending, etc., etc. The voters even sent him back a second time.

The factors that are hurting small town America, like free-trade job losses and drug abuse, continue to get worse under GOP policies because there's nothing in the GOP platform that prevents them or works against them in any meaningful way. The GOP platform actually encourages and exacerbates the cause-factors for these issues. But by God, the GOP is Pro Life and against those darn Transgenders, so let's vote them in. The GOP knows it can't stop things like transgenderism; but the candidates talk those issues anyway because it gets votes.

And so Plantation State America is perpetuated. China owns more and more of America; the typical rural American town has less jobs and more addiction, and on, and on, and on. Cheap Labor/Free Trade and the Values Voter Kabuki Dance are all the GOP has really invested its efforts into during the last 20 years.

And meanwhile - the Transgender Movement keeps right on marching ahead. Because there's nothing the GOP can do to stop it, and there never was.

...Far too many GOP voters can't get over the fact that what takes place in someone's love life isn't anyone's business. It took a 2008 conversation with a gay man, who was incredibly conservative, for me (an Evangelical conservatarian) to understand.

This is Indiana in a nutshell. Because of historical migration patterns northward from places like Kentucky, a lot of GOP voters in Indiana tend to be high-school educated trades-oriented folks who never got the chance to go to college and "have that conversation" with someone different from them. They believe the "denial of state approval of," if not the outright "regulation of" proper individual sexual conduct, is an appropriate use of the power of the state. Just go back and look at the INGO thread for the State Gay Marriage Law in Indiana during the Mike Pence era. He is justly regarded as a stiff prayer-breakfast buffoon, today, but back then, he was able to command a majority in Indiana. And the tortured faux-Libertarian arguments presented on INGO in favor of that law were legendary.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with these people. I'm just saying, for a lot of them, their life experiences are limited, and unless they got into the military or a job that allowed them to travel and experience other viewpoints, all they know about gay people is what they hear on conservative podcasts.

Flame away people... ...but prove me wrong.

 

[Twangbanger]

Millions of outside dollars flowed into Ohio to win the vote so it was not done be the state by itself. Libertarian does not work in the real world. How would you feel if the 51% wanted to ban guns?

But there was also outside money on the Pro-Life side. The previous initiative, which was a Pro-Life project intended to raise the initiative bar to 60%, was mostly funded by Richard Uihlein from Illinois.

It the Pro-Life side spent their money trying to _win_ the election - rather than trying to rig the rules - maybe the outcome could have been different.

"Outside money" is now a way of life in all kinds of elections, and is a game that must be played.

 

[Ingomike]

I’m trying to figure out how the school referendums are allowed, they’re just glorified ballot initiatives and I’m tired of them.

That was an apapeaeasment to get the constitutional amendment passed to lock in the 1% homestead tax rate. I hate it too because again the 51% can and usually do win these things demonstrating why amending the constitution should be hard.

I have read that the way these referendums are done, that yes wins statistically more often. Yes is positive, no is negative before the issue is even thought about…

 

[INPatriot]

Thought provoking posts. Respectful discourse. Valid arguments.

In a time when the security of a keyboard and safety of a screen reign supreme, INGO has provided a platform for spirited debate that the Founders and Framers would admire.

For that, I am thankful.

 

[Timjoebillybob]

Is it not delusional to believe you are a different gender? How about those who claim they are cats or other furries? Is that not schizophrenia? Should untreated schizophrenia be able to buy/own a gun? I think there is a reason to prohibit gun ownership to individuals who have untreated delusional thoughts.

Mental illness should not be the rule of measure but rather the reality in which one lives. I do not trust individuals who live in a fantasy world to own a gun.

Quite possibly delusional, but delusions alone does not mean schizophrenia. Who decides what mental illnesses cause a person to be a prohibited person.

As for someone with untreated delusions owning a gun, I'm pretty sure you want someone who fits that description to have their finger on the nuclear button.