Just say no

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again but expecting a different result. If that is the case then the Republican party can be considered certifiably insane because ever since Ronald Reagan showed us how to build the Republican party into a majority and win landslide elections by simply applying conservative principles the Party has been nominating and electing non-conservatives yet expecting to get Reagan-like results.

It is time to start saying no.

The Republican party has seen fit to nominate another non-conservative to head the Party's ticket this November. Except that this time we don't just have another Bob Dole type "moderate" pretending to be a conservative. John McCain is a man who blames the Republican party in general and conservatives in particular for his humiliating defeat in the Republican primaries in the year 2000.

For this McCain has internalized the unshakable goal of damaging the Republican party and destroying the conservative movement within it.

The Republican party has clutched a viper to its bosom and in doing so has gone beyond mere insanity and become suicidal.

It is past time to say no.

Bob Barr, a former congressman and one of the "House managers" who prosecuted the impeachment case against Bill Clinton before the Senate, said no. He left the Republican party because of its abandonment of conservative principles. He has found a new home in the Libertarian party.

I was once a card-carrying Libertarian. I left that party because of their failure to grasp the importance of America's role as leader of the free world and its necessary function as world policeman - at least in those areas where our interests or those of our allies are threatened.

What Libertarians fail to understand is that if America abandons its place as leader and protector in the world that other nations will rise up to fill the vacuum of power that our abdication will create. China is building both its military and economic power for the purpose of challenging our leadership position and a resurgent Russia will soon resume the old Soviet Union's quest for world domination. And waiting in the wings is militant Islam which believes that Allah has given it the title deed to the earth and commanded it to use force to exert its rights.

Libertarians hate the idea of an American "empire" defended by a powerful military because they believe that it will be injurious to the people's individual liberties, after all "war is the health of the state".

They are correct as far as they go, but what they don't get is in the new world which is taking shape before our eyes that an America which has given up its leadership role today will have to sacrifice far more of its wealth and liberty tomorrow simply to maintain its existence.

However despite my differences with the Libertarian party I am glad to see Bob Barr announce his run for the presidency as a Libertarian. He will not win. In fact he will not even come close to winning. However he will show Republicans that they can say no.

He will show members of the GOP who are in despair because the Party for which they have worked and sacrificed has spit on them and trampled everything they hold dear into the ground that they don't have to just stand there and take it.

The Constitution party is also providing a place for Republicans who have been driven out of the GOP by its abandonment of conservatism. And if that were not enough I hear that Alan Keyes is considering an independent run.

The point is that there are alternatives to conservatives just sitting home on election day or "holding their nose" and voting for McCain.

It is possible to say no.

None of those alternatives to the GOP is perfect however the point is to demonstrate graphically to the GOP that it is in desperate need of reform and that reform needs to be a return to the conservatism which won it landslide victories in the 80's.

The one way which is absolutely guaranteed to ensure that the party never gets that message is to keep voting for whichever "moderate" or liberal the Party keeps pushing forward "because it is their turn".

We may fail but if we do not try the nation surely has no future as a free and prosperous nation.

So now, when it can still count, please say no.