and cannot pass a Budget amendment with only one House.

Otherwise, we have the high ground as even the Sen. and little o have agreed to no new taxes and cuts to go along with any other deal.

is crushed under the weight of the debt? In either case, it’s no longer habitable, eh?

Yes, every battle has its’ flaws. That’s where we get the saying “No plan survives contact with the enemy”. It’d be nice, though, if Boehner and the GOP would actually stay for the whole battle…

Mew

n/t

We do not have a debt crisis, we have a spending crisis. And you can stop the spending by stopping authorizing spending.

Your goal is to get Republicans elected in the next election. A worthy goal in normal times, these times are far from normal. First understand that I do not want Democrats ever to be in charge. That said, I am not worry about the next election I am worried about fixing the problem. While the Republicans are playing a political game of words, Obama is playing politics the way Clauswitz understood politics.

And there in lies the difference. You believe the worst that can happen would be Obama gets re-elected. We agree, re-electing Obama is a bad outcome but right now it is not the focus of the battle. The focus of the battle SHOULD NOT BE the ELECTION. The focus of the battle must be saving the country from Marxism, as you so aptly described. There are two things required. First is the Washington domestic regulatory bureaucracy must be dismantled. It is a power that can be abused, and you cannot trust anyone with that much power. In this case, it isn’t Obama that is the problem, but the existence of way too much power that he can abuse.
The second thing you must destroy Obama’s political career. You cannot do this by defeating him in the election. He will not go away, he will simply stand aside and using the power of his position as leader of the loyal opposition, undermine every effort to reform government. Do you really think that Republicans once they are in control will dismantle the marxist bureaucracy plunging America in to a recession. With Obama running commentary on every action dominating the MSN, Republicans will be hamstrung, be made to look like fools and take responsibility for every real and imagined disaster that comes along.

And in 2016 Obama will be running for President again. And he WILL BE the most experienced Democrat available. After four years of invented incompetence by Republicans, invented or manipulated by Obama and his allies in the Legislature, Obama will run and win big, with a mandate that makes 2008 pale by comparison.

And you can kiss your liberty goodbye.

So yes, we disagree on the objectives. We must defeat Obama’s policies now. We must force him into the corner and leave him crooning helplessly while the government flounders and the economy tanks. NOW, while he is in the White House and he HAS to save it. Then when it becomes obvious he is bereft of ideas and full of nothing by failed ideology and lies Republicans can step up and save the country. Not be restoring the bureaucracy as we know it, but by restoring economic prosperity. The kind of economic prosperity that comes from the elimination of regulatory barriers. You eliminate the barriers by refusing to re-authorize the agencies that give the federal government so much control over our lives and the lives of our children.

Like it or not, we have one chance to undo this, and that chance ends when the Republicans put through a budget. Until then this is Obama’s mess and his mess alone.

Can’t get it done the other way? Let’s see them spend what they can’t even borrow.
Machiavelli was Not a practitioner of real politick. He preached Against it in “The Prince.”

but it makes sense. We netroots, nutroots, wingnuts etc better take the time to ask ourselves a simple question; “Am I hurting or helping the cause?” and “Am I exploiting all opportunities offered by my opponent?”.

and in the very near future we MUST seek to get more republican Republicans.

In other words, if we are successful in handing D.C. back to the Republicans in the 3 active chambers, but the chiefs are more of the pro-life statist variety than the constitutional conservative variety, what have we truly accomplished?

We must multitask. Sure, we cannot off our nose to spite the face. BUT we must continue the work of moving the bar AWAY from those more happy to “make deals” with the left rather than defeating the left.

The work will continue. 2012, 2014, 2016…we do not have the luxury of resting any longer, certainly not while there are $ Trillions in debt hanging over the heads of our next two generations — and the statists are all to happy to obfuscate and press the pedal of socialism further into the floor. We must move the Republicans to the party of conservatism and educate the public why this is the party of Liberty.

A Kos Kid did a good job of cutting and pasting my diary so that he would go to mojo heaven. He did a decent job of editing since I wrote the thing at quite a late hour and would have done better with a clearer mind lol.

Of course he got the entire point wrong, but some of them got is right. I guess everyone gets their day in the sun. I would not have guessed I would hit the top of Kos before the top or RS. Well, maybe I have reached the top of RS but forgot it, you know, that age thing. Anyway, I would never want my wine induced scribble to supplant what Lineholder wrote. I don’t need any more reccos, that is not my game. But hitting the top spot at Kos was interesting, a few of them actually got my point.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/02/1002285/-Conservatives-Delighted-That-Left-Is-Blowing-Itself-Up?via=siderec

every now and then…
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Kudo’s Good job. Keep up the fine work.
Mark

Congratulations Doc!

Strategy is the ability to use the individual battles – whether won or lost – to win the war. My fear is that our leadership in the Senate and the House do not have a strategy to win the war. They are more interested in the status quo than in advancing closer to victory. I think McConnell’s primary goal is to be majority leader – not because it will put the Republicans in a position to do anything but because he will be majority leader. Unfortunately, Boehner has never adopted a position from which he did not plan to retreat.

In the Civil War, as in all wars, the initial period of engagement is the best time to figure out who our wartime leaders should be. Lincoln went through countless generals in an attempt to find someone who would fight to win. In the process he had to fire people like McClellan who simply liked to play war and be a general. He also had to fire a lot of braggarts like Pope, who talked a good talk about whipping Bobby Lee but never did much. We are still in the phase of the war where we need to evaluate our war time leaders and replace those who are not competent under fire.

We are the Union forces the day after the First Bull Run or Antietam. Do we really want to stick with these leaders? Or, do we want to look for a Grant and a Sherman?

Sharron Angle had a lot of help from “fellow” Republicans and even some conservatives in her loss to Harry Reid. That is, they helped her lose, just as they helped Christine O’Donnell lose in Delaware and as they almost helped the Democrat win in Alaska.

You are right about the goal–to win.

And you are right that a “balanced” budget isn’t the goal, but it’s the means to an end–smaller government, which is the goal because with it comes less tyranny and more freedom. A bigger government by definition leaves us less free than does a smaller one.

on any Republican who would have voted for this bill; he’d have done anything it took to prevent it, if that was his decided goal. Machiavelli, for all his warts, was above all a patriot. That’s why he took his ‘ends justify the means’ philosophy so far. Machiavelli would have played Obama, Reid and Pelosi like fiddles. (My sides hurt from laughing at the idea of anyone currently leading the conservative movement in this country doing that. Won’t happen; they’re not capable of it. Though Gov. Christie and Walker do seem to come close.)

Point is, Machiavelli was an ideologue; purity was one of his hallmarks. His flexibility was in the tactics used to bring about his ideal (the unification and strengthening of Italy), not in the ideal itself.