The House Republicans are facing two critical votes in the coming weeks: Obama’s proposal to go to war with Syria and the budget battle which includes the issue of ObamaCare. If the Republicans get either of these votes wrong, it is time for all conservatives to walk away from the Republican Party.
I had planned to write about the truth behind the latest jobs report today. As often happens, something else grabbed my attention. It is an important subject so let me leave a few links to some excellent articles that explain in simple terms how all is not as our government would like us to believe:
Now let’s talk about the Republican Party. It is also known as the GOP (Grand Old Party). Today it might better be called the OGOP (Once Grand Old Party).
In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell new comers to Asylum Watch that I washed my hands of the Republican Party about seven months ago. That was when I changed the name of this blog from Conservatives on Fire to Asylum Watch. (Please read the “About” page for a full explanation of my current thinking.) Frankly, I believe that I was very late in coming to that understanding. The first President for whom I have a clear memory is Eisenhower. If we were to take all the Presidents from Eisenhower through Obama and mix them up thoroughly in a vat and then let the mixture settle, there would be much cream to float to the top of that mess, would there? Ronald Reagan was the best of the lot, in my opinion,, and yet even he allowed the federal government to grow in size and cost. At least, he apologized for those errors in his farewell address.
Having said all of that, I know that there are still many conservatives, solid patriots who love American and who still hold on to the hope that conservatives can win control of the Republican Party away from the “establishment” politicians and over time turn this once great country around. To you, who still hold on to that hope, I dedicate this post.
Two blog posts that I read this weekend are what inspired me to write this particular post today. Norma Brown (Ooobie on Everything) has put up another in a string of excellent essays. This time it was at Patriot Update and the title was: The GOP: Do or Die. Norma is very concerned that the Republicans will cave-in to President Obama’s desire to attack Syria for “supposedly” using chemical weapons on their own people. This paragraph sums up her feelings on the matter:
Here is what I am thinking: should what I have suggested will happen does happen and the Republicans board the Obama train wreck, they must pay the price. There is an election next year and every one of us on the conservative side whose views fell on deaf ears need to make sure this time they hear us loud and clear. They take our votes for granted, warning that if we don’t get to the ballot box, everything will be run by the Democrats. Too bad. Everything is already run by the Democrats, as the opposition has ceded the field. We on the right are tired of being ostracized, criticized, ridiculed and ignored. So I propose that a “yes” vote on this matter should be the last vote any of these people take in Congress. We need to organize a massive boycott of the Republican Party at the polls in 2014 and instead throw our support to independent or third-party candidates who will remember that their power flows from the people and not the other way around. And perhaps from there we can move on to the creation of a permanent third party that will squeeze the Republican Party into oblivion.
My good friend, Brian, at Frankenstein Government has some thoughts on the same subject in his Sunday Collage titled: The 90 Day, Same As Cash War. Brian’s essay doesn’t mention the Republican Party. Brian gave-up on them years ago. But, his closing statement on this asinine war says volumes:
The 90 day, same as cash war. Financed by treasury bonds which we are hoping to sell to our enemies who are Syria’s allies. Countries like Russia and China. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?
Folks, the unintended consequences of going to war with Syria could be devastating to America and the world. Anyone who believes that we can walk away after 60 or 90 days of bombing Syria is not paying attention. I agree with Norma Brown. If the House Republicans DO NOT vote down President Obama’s request to attack Syria, every conservative should do everything in their power to see all of those Republicans that voted in favor of Obama’s proposal are removed from office at the first opportunity.
But, war with Syria is not the only critical vote coming up in the next few weeks for Congress. The budget battle is here again. The debt ceiling will be debated again. But, far more important, in my opinion, is whether the budget will include funding for ObamaCare. The full implementation of ObamaCare is schedule to start in October. The unintended ( or not) consequences of ObamaCare will be devastating for our country; especially on the middle class. The House Republicans have the power-of-the-purse. They can, if they are willing, pass a budget with everything the President asks for except ObamaCare. And, if Obama wants to veto it and shut the government down as a result, it will be all on him.
So, to any conservatives out there who still have hope of using the Republican Party to salvage our country, I say the following: if the House Republicans DO NOT vote down Obama’s desire for war or DO NOT vote to defund ObamaCare, then that should be proof enough that we DO NOT have a two-party system in America. Failure to vote down these two critical issues will be evidence that you couldn’t pass a laser beam between the Republicans and the Democrats. In that case, it will be more than time to throw the bums out!
Well, that’s what I’m thinking. What are your thoughts?
Asylum Watch 
We have a one party system. Our official religion is the Democratic party. It’s sacraments include redistribution of wealth and abortion. It’s priests are Democratic politicians.
Anyone who disagrees with the Democrats is a heretic and an infidel (hence the title of my blog.)
Oh, and on further good Obamacare doom news: IBM is moving it’s retirees off its heathcare system and moving them to the public exchanges starting next year.
Happy days indeed!
So, the mystery of the Manhattan Infidel is revealed. Makes sense, my friend. ObamaCare is the straw tthat will break millons ot camel’s backs.
the priests are teachers and professors tho
Unless things turn around very quickly, we will see the demise of America within a few short years. 😦
Obama’s fundamental transformation of America is a head-on collision with a brick wall.
The upcoming votes will determine our future or lack thereof,
In my opinion, the fiat dollar will collapse sooner or later. With an Obama war and ObamaCare it will happen sooner.
Be it for me to be a dissenting voice… but that hasn’t stopped me before. LOL!!
Imho, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with either the Democratic or Republican Party.
I think the fundamental problem plaguing the United States today is political polarization. It is the worst I’ve seen it in my lifetime.
Republicans and Democrats hate each other more than Florida and Florida State!
Polarization is so bad that the instant reaction to the smallest remark by a member of the opposite party is automatically vilified, not matter what they say.
It has gotten so bad that members of each party are turning against others within their own party (or the party itself) if they think they are violating the purity of their ideology.
The problem with that is each individual defines their party differently than everyone else in their party.
Polarization was growing before, but it went viral after President Obama took office. Obama has to should a good portion of the blame for that since he fans the fires of division practically every time he speaks.
It will come as great shock to many when people finally return to their senses and realize that everything everyone else says that they disagree with is wrong!
It needs to happen soon…
The budget and fiscal reform battle will be horrible over the next few weeks!
Politicians will finally stop talking about Assad and suddenly realize that it is less than a month before the U.S. will be forced to default on its debt!!! 😦
There is nothing inherently wrong with the Republican Party? Have you read the Republican Party platform? It’s very conservative. Do you see the majority of Republicans in DC voting like a conservative? Of course not! Democrats do support their party platform. Not so with most Republicans.
The US Government will not default and both you and President Obama know that.
It’s all theater by the absurd for the sheep Az. You go ahead and believe that nonsense, and when it’s all over they will have raised the debt ceiling again to some appropriate level that they will not have to deal with until,,,, lets say,,,coincidentally 2017.
Wow… There’s a lot to say in response to this post and the comments so far. Nice job giving food for thought, Jim. It seems to me that the problem is that the Republican party is divided into two factions: The establishment Republicans, and the libertarian-leaning, Tea Party Republicans. How often do you find yourself disagreeing with Rand Paul and Ted Cruz? Probably never. How often do you find yourself agreeing with John McCain? Probably never.
Think of it this way, some of us track the looming disaster (while it could be tracked back to Roosevelt) at least as far back as George W Bush. Too much spending, too much government growth under his “compassionate conservatism” (the argument should ALWAYS be that conservative principles of small government and personal freedom, mixed with free market capitalism, are the MOST compassionate way to govern because they lead to bring more people out of poverty and enhancing everyone’s lifestyle). Let’s not forget that, while he warned of problems with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, he was also very proud of his record of increased home ownership in an “ownership society”. We expect Democrats to be big spenders and to be addicted to using government to solve problems (which then get exacerbated by unintended consequences), but we don’t want that from Republicans. The establishment Republicans are big government Republicans. They may give lip service to the deficit and the debt and the increasing size of government, but in the end they thrive in an environment with more government and more money to throw around.
The serious people are the libertarian-leaning, Tea Party Republicans. They are not merely giving lip service to the deficit and the debt and the growth of the government and the administrative state. They are serious about the Constitution and Federalism. We need more of them. We need to elevate the good ones to positions of power within the party. People like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are doing a great job of bringing attention to themselves and making strong arguments. Which is the thing… Conservatism has extremely strong arguments, and we have them in every arena, from economics, to immigration, to equal opportunities, to health care… We need better spokespeople and to purge ourselves of the establishment Republicans as the voices of the party.
Losing, by the way, does us no good at all. Remember 2008 when people were saying they were going to stay home and not vote because, if the country elected Obama, we got what we deserved and that maybe driving the country to ruin was what was needed? How’s that working out? We’re getting the ruin, but it turns out we’re all getting hurt, and future generations are being hurt, and it doesn’t really solve anything. Shouldn’t we be looking for solutions?
Abandoning the Republican party is not the answer. Transforming it is the answer. Creating a third party? There are already third parties. What they do is pull themselves out of the national debate. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about them outside of a few die-hards who, at one time, said, “Hey, let’s form a third party because the other two parties don’t represent us.”
Good things, as I’ve indicated, are beginning to happen. Not only are people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul becoming the voices of the Republican party, but fossilized old establishment Republicans are becoming marginalized. Have you seen the response to John McCain regarding Syria? He’s influenced exactly nobody. I’ve only seen him being ridiculed, not taken seriously. The establishment Republicans, who are Democrat lite, are going to be marginalized and/or they’re going to die off. There is a new strain of Conservative that has a lot more in common with Libertarians than with the old establishment. What we need to do is help that faction grow and become the voice of the Republican Party. We need to do it at the grass roots level, electing Tea Party conservatives to everything from city councils and county commissions to state legislatures, and then to the House of Representatives. Have you noticed that the thing the mainstream media and the Democrats and the establishment Republicans hate the most is the House? Because the House is becoming increasingly dominated by the new Republicans. We need more of those people, and boycotting the Republican brand also means boycotting the good ones. How about we run new, Tea Party Republicans against establishment Republicans in primaries and beat their tired old behinds! We need to build the strength of the team, not abandon it. What we abandon is the individual establishment Republicans. And we can’t just default anything to the Democrats, because they WILL make everything worse.
Most of all, and this has to be at every level, from bloggers to elected officials from our neighborhoods to the House, Senate and the Presidential candidates, we need effective communication of why big spending, big government doesn’t work (or anyone), and why small government, free market capitalism, works for everyone. We need to re-explain Federalism and the Constitution.
If you want another good reason to start at the grass roots and elect the new breed Tea Party Republicans to state government, read Mark Levin’s new book! Utilizing the Constitution, we can make amendments to the Constitution that can help turn this thing around, and we can do it by bypassing the establishment in Washington D.C. in both parties. Intriguing, no?
I hear where you’re coming from, Pat. I should. I was where you are for many years. Too many, I’m afraid. Yes, we have Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. But, we lost Ron Paul and Allen West. The GOP of Florida gerymanded West out of office! What percentage of the Republicans in the House and Senate vote according to the Republican party platform? 20%?
Beyond that it comes down to mathematics for me. The Leviatan bureaucray is unmanageble even if an administration wanted to try. The national debt and the other $200 trillion in commitments can not be managed. If they let Obama have his war in Syria (the latest news indicates the Obama may be backing down) and if they do not defund ObamaCare, the end will come much sooner than people expect.
I understand what Mark Levin is proposing and I love the idea. It might have worked twenty years ago. Time is running out, my friend. And, if the GOP doesn’t wake-up, it will come that much faster, in my opinion.
There really is little difference between the two parties at this point. Sure the Republicans talk a good game about the Constitution and small government, but in reality they don’t care if the government grows, they just want to be in control of the bigger government. This is why I am working at creating the New Federalist Party, it is time for real change and neither party has the will to change. Sorry, I had to do a little self promotion here! 🙂
I sincerely hope hope there is time for you and your friends to get the New Federalist Party off the ground, Steve. If the RNC has their way, there will be fewer Tea Party candidates in the future.
Great food for thought, Jim. I seem to find myself wobbling back and forth on this, from hope for replacing the corrupted GOP and forgetting it altogether. I’m seeing some glimmers of hope toward the replacement side and zero hope for the third party side. The math is tough. And after confronting ny GOP representative who refused to defund Obamacare….I was so furious to watch him smugly toss aside his constituents who came to “beg” him to vote to defund….what a moment. So…as you say, time is running out. How many election cycles are left to save us? And what does it matter when K St. Is buying them off faster than we can replace them?
So…they vote the wrong way on Syria, amnesty, Obamacare, the debt ceiling, etc. We are ruined before we can undo the damage. There is no answer to this short term. Whenever I have this conversation I always end up at total implosion as the outcome. At the least we are in for long term pain with no good fix in sight.
My advice is do all you can do to kick out the scum in the GOP and at the same time prepare for the worst. I read today we are in for 30% inflation over the next few years and no way for middle class investors and retires to survive that. Obama and the banksters destroy the middle class on purpose…and wasn’t that the intention all along?
No good answers.
Thought provoking post. I think that it is quite safe to conclude that irrespective of one’s political affiliation the partisan divide presented is imaginary at best.
I don’t think we have time for a new party, sadly. Unless it got REALLY big REALLY fast, we’re just going to guarantee yet another liberal democrat in 3 years and then, after 4-8 more years of THIS, we won’t recognize our country.
I believe az has a point about the divide between the two parties being SO terrible, but I think the divide within the Republican party is worse, as some have said here. Everyone hates the other party and nobody’s really working together. This Syria thing is the first I’ve heard in years where the Democrats are not agreeing on everything, as they usually do. Republicans eat their young…because they actually consider the subjects, not just knee jerking.
This Syria thing and others have sure got us off Benghazi, huh?
Seems to me this president’s the king of diversion AND division.
There are two parties: Big Government & Small Government.
Big Government has a lot more members in all branches of government. They also have more members across the board because they have fooled the majority of Americans into believing that they are “two” parties that stand for something different, when in fact, the only difference is one branch (Dem) wants to fast-track what the other branch (Rep) will take their time with. But the goal is the same: Absolute power over personal liberty. And I refuse to debate “social” issues in this regard. When you get right down to it, if government were as small as it should be there would be no need and no money for them to be involved in social issues.