Cranberry's resident crank

As to shame and blame, I’m confused.  Was Butler the U.S. and Cranberry, Texas, or was it the other way around?

The letters from veterans covered the waterfront and I have little to add other than to say it's folks like Metcalf that drove us out of the Republican Party.  Even so, I was shocked at the most recent poll concerning party identification.  Twenty-eight percent seemed rock-bottom for the GOP for quite a while.  But thanks to guys like Metcalf the new number is twenty-two percent.  So again I say, let 'er rip, Darryl.  Add "traitors" to the list of labels for former Republicans like my Army veteran husband and myself.  Music to the ears, really.

ciejai:

You call yourself a former Republican, but you don’t say you’re a Democrat.  Fair enough.  I’m curious – seriously – if the Republican party, let’s just say, returned to its senses, would you go back?  To what extent are you and others like you *attracted* now to a more liberal message, or are you simply turned off by present goings on?  

If you’d care to share.

Callsign:  I am a registered Democrat and I don't foresee in my lifetime the Republicans  adopting the sort of values that would pull me or my independent husband back to that party.  That said, on the local level we might be inclined to vote Republican-- frequently there is no choice.  On the national level we have not voted Republican since 1988.  We are socially tolerant people, environmentalists,  Keynsian in our economic views and inclined to read in order to form our opinions.  I don't think we have changed our values so much as the GOP has embraced everything we despise.  We were at ground-zero when that happened.  We lived in Virginia with Pat Robertson ninety miles to the east of us and Jerry Falwell ninety miles to the west of us.  I remember thinking this is nuts, surely these zealots won't succeed.  Finally almost thirty years later....

ciejai:

Thank you very much.

callsign: Thanks for asking.  Would you mind answering a couple of  questions?  Are you satisfied with Democratic leadership at this point in the legislative cycle?  What are your priorities?  Are they being effectively addressed?

ciejai:

Your questions, too, are fair.  I'll be back in a few hours.  Thanks.

I find it just incredable that there is so much talk about the lack of values within the GOP and so high a set of values for the DEMS in this blog.  Do you not hear about or know about what the DEMS do/did?  Both side have people that do/say the wrong things.  You need to look past those on the edges of the parties to what the leadership in those paraties are pushing.  If you are happy with Nancy and Harry etc then ok.  I don't pay any attention to the folks down in the trenches.  The leadership tell you about the party not some low level clown, be he/she from either party.

ciejai:

I have identified myself as a product of the sixties, although I missed two peak years, drafted before it was a lottery.  I’ve spent the last four decades working for harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding, no more falsehoods or derisions, and American interests in the rest of the real world.  

From the posting times, some people keep very tough hours, or I’m not the only one who doesn’t live here/there.  I come to you from a geodesic temporal region far, far away, where it is always tomorrow.  I get back, of course, and am wired with an abundance of family and friends, but my perspective is different and I find that both valuable and maddening.

So, my direct, narrow answers to your questions would be (1) hardly;

(2) our place in the world, the American political experiment, and liberal-type social fairness, and (3) yes, as a start.  

Distinct, I hope, from whatever has emerged heretofore from my comments, I have tried to not make them about me.  I hope this was not too much more than you wanted to know.

my opinion:

I have not been deaf to your “we’re your neighbors” plea in several locations around here.  But now, if I understand you (I’m not sure), if we just disregard a certain large mob and compare leaderships, we’ll see how much worse the Democrats are.  Is that it?  Do you know regbunny?  He was telling us recently – say, has anyone seen him? – that it’s conservatives who are “more for the underdog” and “care more about all folks in society than the cynical left.”  

I share the liberal frustration with President Obama, hallowed be his name, but is anyone allowing that perhaps he is, as hoped, effecting more fundamental change and that takes time?  Could it be, Deo volente, that his overt bipartisanship, Buddha-like patience and Christ-like magnanimity toward even his most rabid foes are affording *them* – those un-American Americans doing everything in their power to bring down a duly elected American president, who are *not* being confined to free-speech zones or arrested and strip-searched for their signs, T-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers or firearms – the opportunity to fully expose the intellectual destitution of their greed-driven, hate-and-fear-fueled, ignorance-enhanced “ideas,” the easier then to sweep them aside, Insha’Allah, forever?

Is it possible that he’s got this?

And wouldn’t that be magical?  

Let us sing.

P.S. – Mugsy:  Some words are for those to whom they apply.  

P.P.S. – People here were right.  This way is more fun than ignoring them.  Sorry to be late.

This latest comment by Daryl Metcalfe only goes to show that he has splinters in the windmills of his mind.

As for the Republican party returning to the old ways, I think that the Libertarians come closest to it.

I am registered as non-partisan, and I voted for Obama, simply because I did not want 4 more years of neo-con blathering in the White House. I would have love to have seen Ron Paul get in, but IMHO, he made too much sense and he would have given those who are behind the scenes and really running the show a really good run for their money.

Reg--thank you for "The Butler did it".   That made my day.

I think the worst choice the Republican Party has made in recent years in when they chose W. over John McCain in 2000. This choice and his administration's subsequent leadership of the party away from traditional conservative positions and principles has done long-term harm. Many, many conservatives feel abandoned by their party, and extremists like Metcalfe are continuing to push the rational wing of the party away.  

callsigntourist -

Aquarius!

(We are coeval.  In the eyes of the neo-cons, co-evil.)

ceijai--I wouldn't put too much stock in the low numbers of voters who call themselves Republicans these days.  A lot of them prefer to think of themselves as "independents", and register as such.  That way they can avoid having to pay attention to primaries and just go to the polls in December and vote for whomever the GOP insiders have picked for them.  Their pundits encourage this, convincing them that "independent" means free-thinking, thoughtful, etc.  It gets them out of the way until they're useful.

tourist,

This former Republican finds no solace with the Democrats.

Look at the vote that gave GWB the ok to invade Iraq. It was bi partisan. And look at the people who are advocating attacking Iran and stiff arming now “capitalist” Russia.  The Democrat Party is just as infected and controlled by Neo Cons as the Republican Party.

Perchance Jack Kelly lives in Cranberry. ? That would figure.

regis:

I had never thought in terms of a major party *wanting* its troops to register as independent, keeping them out of the primaries – out of the way, as you say.

What’s probably foolish, for those who participate thoughtfully from either direction, is to register as independent as a statement.  Again as you say, by the time the election comes, most people have no real choice, the one Democrat or the one Republican.  The choice was during the primaries, as to which Democrat or which Republican.

Show me a state legislator -- from either party -- of whom we should NOT be ashamed & I'll be happy to explain why you're wrong. Some of them just don't bother to be sneaky & hypocritical about it. I guess we have to give Metcalfe a little credit for that.

Jane Orie?

myooz - When the legislature voted themselves (and the judges, et al) a huge, middle-of-the-night pay raise, Orie prided herself of not taking it. Not good enough.

Her job entails keeping the public informed before it's too late, which she failed to do. She could have notified the media before it was too late but she chose not to & then has the nerve to act like she's better than the other scoundrels.

She has other shortcomings as an elected official, but that's a quick & easy example.

callsigntourist

"I have not been deaf to your “we’re your neighbors” plea in several locations around here.  But now, if I understand you (I’m not sure), if we just disregard a certain large mob and compare leaderships, we’ll see how much worse the Democrats are.  

I guess I will have to be more careful in my wording because if you got your above quoted comment  from what I wrote then one of us is in trouble.  Either I can't write clearly or you twisted my meaning to satisfy your needs.  I promise I will take more time to write my comments to be more percise, and I hope you try harder to read what is there.