Well, its beena long time since 1994 (when the Republicans took control of Congress0, and the results have not been good. We have a president who has plunged this nation into a costly, pointless foreign war. A governemnt that is spending us into bankrptcy, and Federal bureaucracy that keeps on growing! When i think back on what the republicans promised us:
-no more foreign entanglements, we could finally free ourselves from the post WWII alliances (bring the troops home from Europe, Korea)
-devote the savings (from maintaining our globe-circling armed forces) to building up this nation
-reduce the goverment(eliminate the Federal depts. of Education,Post Office, etc.)
-reduce the power of Congress to flood us with laws
=enact tort reform, and free us from the tyranny of lawyers
Well, after 12 years NONE of this has happened-the Federal bureaucracy is alive and expanding; the deficit is heading for the sky-and the OBLIGATIONS of the federal govt. are beyond calcualtion
The same rotten, corrupt system goes on in Washington.
So, i admit it-the Republicans BLEW the one chance we had to have meaningful reform.
So, i think reform is impossible. instead, i want the system to get MORE bloated, to hasten its inevitable collapse!
¡Viva la Revolución!
I’m well past the point where I expect any party or policitician to deliver “change.”
Without this delving into a debate, do you think it’s even possible anymore?
Another disillusioned conservative here. I like to call myself a recovering conservative. It is amazing how far and how fast I have swung left of center.
Crazy, man…
But just remember as the Dems com back into favor, they will say what you want to hear too. It’s power for power’s sake and it is ruining this country.
I agree, instead of concentrating on fiscal issues and the business of the country, the Powers of the Republican party worried about social issues, derailing existing environmental legislation and of course getting us involved in an Asian Land War.
I am more than disappointed, I think the Moderates Republicans and Fiscal Conservatives should be able to toss the Ruling party out of the Republican party. We can call them the Bible Thumping party or the Party of Evil.
Jim
I never thought I’d live long enough to say the words “I miss Gerald Ford.” 
Jim…Jim…Jim…I expected more of you.
“Party” and “evil” are mutually exclusive. Everyone knows this.
Instead, their figurehead has already given the splinter group their name, albeit in naming ANOTHER gang of thugs.
We toss the rulers out and call them “The Axis of Evil”
Or the Bible thumpin’, rootin-tootin Axis of Evil.
Or just “The crazy bastards”
Larry (Still somehow a card carryin’ republican, though god knows anymore)
I want my party back, dammit!
I want a party that stands for fiscal conservatism, small government, keeping their noses out of people’s private lives, and non-imperialism abroad. I never thought it would be the Democrats. 
Perfect, I knew there was many reasons I really liked you. Here was another.
BTW: calling them Crazy Bastards is an insult to Crazy Bastards. I have some friends that are Crazy Bastards and they do far less harm. So Bible thumpin’, rootin-tootin Axis of Evil it is.
I’ll top that, I miss Nixon. He would be refreshingly better than Bush and the Bible thumpin’, rootin-tootin Axis of Evil. He is also a nicer person than Cheney. I cannot believe I could say that about Nixon.
I think I am leaning more and more towards the idea that truly just governance cannot exist beyond a community where everyone knows everyone else. It’s just too easy for strangers to ignore one anothers’ human rights and needs and concentrate on grabbing as much as they can take. Ideology means very little when you have to explain to your neighbor’s face why they can’t marry their loved one or why they take home a paycheck with chunks gouged out of it to support the latest cause du jour.
I’ve never been a fan of the Republicans. I grew up when the Religious Right took control of the party. But that doesn’t mean I have to like the Democrats either. Any party that stays in power for too long will begin to fester with corruption. Any party that stays in control of all three branches of government will poison the entire nation. The checks and balances of our three branches mean nothing if the members of the different branches aren’t willing to put nation ahead of party.
Lord knows I’m not a republican but I think you have problems when either party is in power for two long.
I don’t think it’s a good idea when either party has control of the presidency and both houses.
I’m inclined to think it’s not a good idea when either party has control of anything at all.
I’m so over-the-top unhappy with the Republicans at the moment though that I’d like to see the Democrats control a big chunk of it. Briefly.
too long.
How about Dems control Congress and then the Senate for the next 4-8 years and McCain & Rudy Giuliani form the Next Admin beating out Hillary?
I know I am a little crazy, but I still want the Bull Moose Party back. Where is the next Teddy Roosevelt?
eek!
How about Dems control Congress and then the Senate for the next 4-8 years and McCain & Rudy Giuliani form the Next Admin beating out Hillary?
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I really dislike McCain, but I’d be tempted to take that. I don’t think Hillary will be the nominee anyway. The majority of dems don’t even like her.
Ha! I’ll see your “I miss Nixon” and raise you…um…uh, OK, you won. Take my chips.
Nixon, apart from his personal paranoia, was a pretty effective president, I still say. And you’re right! Cheney makes Nixon look like Miss Congeniality!
And since you asked, exit 7A. 
I’m a liberal Democrat who lived through the Nixon administration and Watergate, and as I happily watched him resign, I figured we couldn’t possibly see a president worse than him.
What a fool I was!
Then again, I was just a teenager. In retrospect, I long for the days when Nixon and Goldwater were considered the day’s arch-conservatives and the standard-bearers of the Republican party. I now know that they were much wiser and more rational than I thought they were at the time, and that they had some very good ideas. Today, I actually admire them both, as do many of my liberal friends.
But I’m sure you conservatives and Republicans realize that both Nixon and Goldwater would today be considered far too liberal for the GOP. They would be run out on a rail by the Young Republicans, for example, and could never win a primary against a modern Republican. Hell, Nixon even started the EPA and environmental regulation, of all things, and Goldwater was a staunch pro-choice advocate! What pinko commies they’d be considered by today’s Republican standards!
This rapid devolution of the formerly honorable GOP into first Reagan and now Karl Rove’s freakishly hate-fueled Bible thumpin’, rootin-tootin Axis of Evil is well explained in Goldwater’s own contribution to John Dean’s highly revealing, social-science examination of this process in his recent, best-selling book: Conservatives Without Conscience (see this FindLaw review: The Demise of Conservatism, and The Rise of Authoritarianism: A Review of John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience). In July, I started a thread on the book here. (Unfortunately, it wasn’t very productive)
Nixon was never really part of the conservative wing of the Republican party; he was strongly anti-Communist and iffy on civil rights but those were pretty centrist postions back in the 50s and 60s. And even on those issues he moved his position to stay with the center of the party.
Goldwater was a genuine conservative. He actually believed in the principles he espoused. And he espoused the principles he believed in even when those principles differed from those of the majority of the voters. Goldwater thought it was more important to stay true to your principles than to win an election.
And that’s what’s lacking in American politics today. Many Republicans may talk about the conservative principles but their real principle is to hold on to power regardless of what it takes. It’s not that the Democrats are inherently more moral - it’s just that any politician with an eye on the main chance has seen that jumping on the conservative bandwagon has been the best opportunity for the last twenty five years.
I grew up in a household where Republican was a dirty word. So I became an independent thinker. I intrinsically knew that one side couldn’t possibly be 100% right all the time.
It worked until I reached voting age. That was right about the time we stopped voting for the best choice.
We lost our innocence with Watergate. We discovered there were no “best” choices, only least worse.
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power, corrupts absolutely.”
Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton-1834-1902)