TexasCHLforum.com

RoyGBiv wrote:I voted for Cruz before I got on an airplane on Friday...
I debated voting against HRC in the D primary, and I debated voting for Rubio, because the weight of the party seems to be swinging in that direction and ousting Trump would be preferred. In the end, I decided to for FOR a candidate rather than against.

I hope things go well for Mr Cruz on Tuesday. I'll be watching from afar.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

J.R.@A&M wrote:Lastly, while I would not presume to tell somebody else how to vote (especially in the primary), conservatives who vote 3rd party in the general election will mathematically help elect the greater of two evils. We're all free to make out own choices, but the consequence that I just described is pretty predictable.

I understand that. All of it. And in both 2008 and 2012, I said the very same thing on the pages of this website. I no longer care.

I don't mean that I no longer care about voting, or about elections. I mean that I no longer care about parties.....including the republican party. I haven't been a republican since 2012. I'm not a conservative. I haven't been one since sometime around 2010. When I call myself a "liberative conservatarian", I say it kind of tongue in cheek, but I'm also serious. I am a social conservative, with a libertarian viewpoint about whether or not I have a right to force other people by means of legislative acts to live my socially conservative values, backed up by the gov't's ability to force it at the point of a gun. I have come to believe that the federal gov't is irrelevant in most things except for where it can force you to do things at the point of a gun.....regardless of which party holds the reins of power. I believe that it acts immorally in most situations......regardless of which party holds the reins of power. I have come to believe that the purpose of a state government is to protect its residents from the federal government. I have come to believe that the only gov't having relevance is local gov't.

We'll just have to respectfully disagree with one another about the republican party's need for MY vote. If they really needed it, they wouldn't tolerate buffoons like Trump, they would clean their own house, and the national leadership would pay closer attention to the grassroots. I have a long time friend who has been a lifelong republican.....I mean ALL her life.....and she's in her 70s now. She has been a conservative grassroots republican activist all of her life. She has worked in the campaign offices of multiple senators, representatives, legislators, governors, and presidents over the years, in the states of Texas, Kansas, New York, and New Mexico, where she currently lives. She has worked in party call centers, walked precincts, answered phones, licked envelopes.....all of it, and ALWAYS for the republican party. A week ago or so, she posted on her Facebook page that she had given up on the party. I had only been a republican since 1996. She has been one for 50 years or more. The party loses someone like me.....no big deal. To them, people like me come and go. But when they lose a bedrock conservative who has devoted her entire adult life to the party.....and I mean DEVOTED to it.....not just voted for it.....someone who put her money where her mouth is for half a century, then that party has lost a gem, a core individual, a true believer. And my friend is probably far from being the only one who feels that way today. The republican party brand no longer has any value, because the national leadership has run it into the ground.

No republican will want to hear this, and I understand why - because the issues really are terribly important - but maybe what the party needs is to get its butt handed to it so very very badly, with all of the attendant fallout for the country, that the national leadership will wake up and realize how badly they have led the party astray, and they can start running candidates who will actually stand for republican values (if that term still means anything these days) once they've been elected. Maybe this nation needs a dose of medicine SO bitter that it is forced to face the truth and the people gain enough testicular fortitude to accept hard choices in the name of saving the country.

If the republican party cannot do that, then it cannot save its brand, and maybe it isn't worth saving then. Either way, unless the party makes a sudden shift to the philosophically libertarian viewpoint, I am not interested in its fortunes. Yeah, I know that they could lose. They're going to lose anyway, but not because of me or people like me. They are going to lose because they are incompetent, and they take loudmouth buffoons seriously. My vote isn't going to change that. in fact, it will merely enable more of it.

The Annoyed Man wrote: Interesting thing.... Democrats nominate whom they want. Republicans nominate whom they think is electable against a hard left candidate. Democrats have won the last two general elections following that strategy. Back when republicans followed that strategy, they won two general elections. Even if they win, getting a "60% republican" each time simply shifts the nation further left each election cycle, but at a slightly slower rate. I'm an independent Liberative Conservatarian these days, and I am no longer holding my nose to vote for the lesser of two evils. The country I grew up in is finished anyway, so I might as well vote my conscience.