1.17.2009

An Airing of Grievances


Over festivus I posted a rant on a column on the Daily Beast.
The column basically said that the Republicans lost because old white guys had to learn how to use computers to reach younger voters.

My response:
How does one write this column and comment on it and not mention Ron Paul? This is *exactly* what is wrong with the GOP. There was a massive internet-based movement of young people in the Republican Party that was completely ignored by the old men running the party (into the ground). Instead of even giving air to the ideas of limited government, the protection of individual rights, and a non-interventionist foreign policy - which should be the ideological basis of the Republican Party - they ignored this grassroots movement of several million largely young people who badly wanted to vote against the government expansion of both the Democrats and the mainstream Republicans. Simply put: the modern Republican Party has lost its way. True libertarian ideas are the only way to appeal to intelligent young Americans distinguish the Party from the government-expanding Democrats. Few young Americans favor the excesses of the Patriot Act, billions of dollars for a failed financial industry that does *not* operate in a free market on enlightened capitalist principles, nor do they favor torture and the Forever War. They will listen to reasonable arguments about the failure of the War on Drugs and the basic idea of Equal Rights and legal protections for everyone. The Democrats have gained a majority because the Republicans became the extreme caricature the opposition hung on them: religious extremist, war-mongering, fascists operating at the whim of big business and out of touch with the majority of Americans. The party got what they deserved. If the Republicans continue to cast aside libertarian principals and push intelligent people out of the party then they can try all the strategy and tactics they want but it won't do any good, we, the people they want, will already be gone.

2 comments:

Wayward Hatch said...

Nice. You've put pretty much everything I've tried to say to people into a concise form.

mikeray said...

It's just so frustrating to have these people use our libertarian beliefs to justify government-sponsored corporatism and ignore the people who understand the basis for the nation, rather than what they have let it become.