Feel free to refute any of the facts in the article at your leisure.
Twin, you are right. The article is factual. However does the republican party of Bush, Cheney & Delay have much in common with Lincoln and Teddy?
Does the Democratic party of Kerry & Gore have much in common with the 1850’s version that was utterly evil?
I don’t like the current Dem’s much, but I hate the major republicans and the religious right wing. Give me another Teddy Roosevelt please. Oh wait that is not going to happen is it?
Jim
snerk So…because they only tried, and were rebuffed, that makes them better?
It is way too early, but I’ll try. A fetus isn’t a citizen. It isn’t an anything. Yet. And, they wouldn’t be guaranteed the right to life even if you got Roe v Wade overturned. Fully half of them won’t adhere to the uterine wall and will be gone at the end of the month. If I were you, I’d start a scathing email campaign and boycott Intelligent Design til the designer corrected its mistakes.
I urge you not to. The Republic needs an honest conservative party, like a car needs brakes. There is nothing dishonorable about approaching change and progress with caution and prudence. Obstructing progress is a whole 'nother kettle of fish heads, but there is nothing inherently evil in honest conservatism.
Unholy bargains have been made, and must be undone. This will, necessarily, mean a temporary loss of power. Those who made these bargains believed the cost was worth it. It is up to Republicans of standing and conviction to repudiate those bargains and force the bitter medicine down unwilling gullets. We’ll all be the better for it.
I am a political radical, I favor fundamental change in our nation and our society. But before that, I am a Tom Paine patriot. I believe in democracy: not that it is so efficient, which it most certainly is not, but that it is the most just. If offered the magical opportunity to force the changes I advocate on an unwilling people, I should hope I’d have the decency to refuse. Sudden and extreme change is usually bad, it offers opportunity to ambitious scoundrels and naive ideologues. Progress from the center is the only sensible option.
Without a viable and rational conservative party, this is impossible. An independent party will take too long to grow viable, and in the meantime, one party rule will hold sway, with all of its attendant pitfalls and temptations. As much as I admire a number of Democrat politicians, there are none that are candidates for sainthood. And that much power is too corrosive, too corruptive.
WWGD? (What Would Goldwater Do?)
Darn it Maureen, there you go using logic and humor to fight ignorance. 
I am sure Twin won’t appreciate either, as he thinks blacks are ungrateful to the current Republican Party.
Jim
No. I was just pointing out that both sides have made questionable decisions.
It is alive.
I don’t understand. Are you comparing miscarriages with abortions?
jrfranchi, please don’t put words in my mouth.
::Points and laughs at Twin’s inability to look up a dictionary. ::
I know! This is why I grapple. . .and grapple. . .and grapple. Sometimes over a hearty breakfast of eggs and scrapple.
Sorry.
Anyway, I hear you. You have expressed the reason why I’m still a member of the Republican party. I was at a function last year and a guy came up to me and started chatting. The conversation eventually worked its way to my favorite social conversation taboo, politics. I mentioned I was a Republican who had grown frustrated with my party’s antics as of late and was seriously considering leaving. He literally grabbed me by the shoulders and begged me to not only stay but to get more involved with the local Republican party. He, too, was a Republican and, much like me, had grown weary of bipartisan bickering (yes, I know, it cuts both ways. A mature individual seeks to clean his/her own house before casting stones at others’, however). So I kept part of his request. I stayed in the party. I have no time to become involved in local politics, however. I have kids to raise and a living to make. I really, really wish I could, though.
We light our candles not for the thanks, but for the sake of those groping their way through the dark sea of fundamentalist misinformation in the hopes they will eventually see the light. No matter how unwillingly.
Well. That and because it’s fun, of course. 
So’s my daughter’s goldfish. That doesn’t entitle it to the rights of a U.S. citizen. Not even here, in California.
No. I’m pointing out some facts of human reproduction that you choose to overlook. And they aren’t really miscarriages, they’re just fertilized eggs that don’t adhere to the uterine wall. That’s not even considered a pregnancy.
Truly impressive cornucopia of quotes, George Kaplin. Thanks for sharing.
We don’t get anywhere by calling the Republicans names. There are plenty of good Republicans out there, they just have lost control of the party to the loony tunes. I hate Bush as much as anybody and view him as the only genuinely evil president we’ve ever had, with the possible exception of Jackson. But the brush used here is far too broad. I’m as interested in getting rational people in charge of the Republican party as I am in getting a Democratic majority. Either event would be a positive step, but name calling is going to just galvanize those that we’re trying to win over.
Wow, you and Scylla have that reflexive responding down pretty damn good. It’s like something I just read on Huffingtonpost.com (bolding mine):
So, good on you. Don’t think, just be reactionary. Don’t evaluate the best course for the country, just decide based on whether you dislike individuals in one party or another. Don’t acknowledge massive corruption in your own party, just believe in false equivalences, or the Democrats will win! :eek:
Here’s a novel idea: Be a man of integrity and make decisions on your own. Democrats can do it - why can’t you?
Perhaps I shouldn’t make it more challenging for you guys, since you are so weak about the matter, but I can’t resist: I’m a liberal, most closely aligned with the Democrats, and I think the Republicans (at least as represented by the leaders they have supported and continue to support) are swine cunts as well.
Thanks for the information. It’s given me something to consider that I hadn’t really thought about before.
Reasonable reconsideration based on empirical information and polite argument. And this came out of a lunatic rant about pig’s vaginas. This is why the Dope rocks.
And Twin, I think most people who didn’t sleep through History class know that neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party are anything even remotely resembling what they were 150 years ago. You would’ve been better off citing the Democratic Party, especially the Dixiecrats of 40-70 years ago…oh, wait, a lot of those folks are Republicans now…never mind…
Cool! Good on ya for being open to differing view points. That’s rare enough here to make me feel all tingly when it happens. Or, on preview, what Atticus Finch just said way more diplomatically.
We now end this hijack and return you to our regularly scheduled spitting vituperation.
Well said, An Arky.
(I meant the excellent post on page one…)
I don’t understand when rants are “mistaken” for prinicples and party platforms. Isn’t the Pit where we are supposed to blow off steam, no matter the side of the aisle we favor?
IMO, most Republicans are too embarassed to much more than attack back, really. I feel for them, I do, but none of this was rocket science back in '04–the lies and “mis-statements” were obvious then, as were the unprecedented vicious attacks on opponent’s character and personalities. It was a disgusting display of Machievellian politics that turned me from an Independent to a Democrat. I do not trust the GOP one iota–and I have no respect for a party that pulls shit like Swift Boats, smearing McCain, and “re-districting Texas” etc. Yeah-so maybe it wasn’t the GOP directly re Swift Boats, but they backed it in spirit and only feebly protested the campaign waaaay after it had been successful.
Why would anyone vote for such people? It isn’t Christian, it isn’t moral, it isn’t patriotic. I remain baffled by the blinders that some Reps have on.
Ah, humor can say so much with so little.
That strip pretty much sums up my take on the GOP at present.