Comments about ‘Readers' forum: GOP has been hijacked’

Amen.

But who will listen?

Good luck with that. It is these extremists who are destroying the country, including a Senator from Utah who hides behind the Constitution while he subverts it, refusing to allow votes on nominations and then complains when others try to get done the business of government. Heaven help us.

Yes, the Founders compromised in the difficult process of creating this country and its Constitution. But that's not what we need now. Compromising on vital Constitutional principles is what got us to where we are today -- an out-of-control government with out-of-control spending, and an ever-shrinking liberty. If Republicans are considered "radicals" for taking a stand against this horrible situation, then I say we need a lot MORE such radicals.

The GOP hasn't been hijacked as much as it's been co-opted. The difference between the Repubs and Demos is one of degree only, not substance. One promises to drive us over the cliff at 100 mph while the other goes "only" 90 mph. Yes, heaven help us all.

Today's GOP is in the thrall of Evangelical Christians, especially those who yearn for an American theocracy (note to my LDS friends, they don't include you in this vision.)

These folks not only don't believe in equal rights, evolution and the antiquity of the universe, they're not 100% sold on the Earth being round.

So long as conservatives willingly ally themselves with people who are disdainful of science, distrust critical thinking, and reject the notion that important public policy decisions ought to be made on the basis of reason and the best available objective evidence, the GOP will continue to tear itself apart and the rest of the nation will regard the party with a mixture of amusement, disbelief, and horror.

Earl's comment has the most merit.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats have abolished the Constitution as they write laws that fall far outside there authority.

Only a return to the principles upon which this nation was founded will correct that problem. Only by de-funding all programs that fall outside the authority of Congress can we establish a balanced budget. Only by limiting political debate to questions that fall within the scope of the Constitution can compromise be made.

Mike Lee is one of the few Senators who respects the Constitution. Those who disagree with him are quick to tell us that it he who is at fault. Those who disagree with him have abandoned the Constitution and they think that making accusations against Mr. Lee will somehow excuse them for being "king men" who care nothing about this country or of the laws that protect us from the government.

When God was faced with the problem of weeding out all the error that had grown in the Church since Christ was crucified, he chose to start over. He did not attempt to fix things. We need to start over by throwing out every sitting politician.

So according to the writer those who are fighting to preserve what the Founding Father's created are extremists and radicals?

Sorry, but I don't agree with that assessment and will stand up for the Constitution every single time. It's a shame when someone actually following the Constitution is called names and degraded.

What would you rather us do Mr. Fruit Heights? Ignore the Constitution? Tear it up? Look to other countries laws as a couple of the fruit loops on the Supreme Court have advised?

Seriously, if you work long and hard with your wife to create rules for your home that you think will provide stability, strength, freedom and love and then your children come along and want to step all over them, what are you going to say and do? Go for it?! I doubt it....

I'm all for the Constitution!!! I hope you are too!

@Esquire
"It is these extremists who are destroying the country, including a Senator from Utah who hides behind the Constitution while he subverts it"

Are you talking about Mike Lee? The one who actually voted against the Patriot Act extension and the NDAA? No, I think the real problem are the people who ignored the Constitution on these matters. President Obama said he would change the Patriot Act and then just signed an extension. Said he had reservations about the NDAA and just signed it. Mitt Romney has stated support for both things as well. Sometimes if you want to defend the Constitution you've got to depend on the extremists, it seems.

Re: Uncle Charles

"...fruit loops on the Supreme Court..."

Best comment I have read in a long time.

We definitely need fewer fruit loops in our judicial system who interpret the constitution according to the constitution and its author's writings not through the fun glasses of international law and court precedence.

'We need to start over by throwing out every sitting politician.' - Mike Richards

When using comparisons of God and 'weeding out' the problems, you realize one of the tools used...

was 40 days and 40 nights of rain?

How many people survived that?

We have examples of Genocide in the Bible. To continue to use such rhetoric about our political system, let alone our country, is insane.

This, is why the GOP suffered crushing losses in the Senate and House in 2008. And once they got the House back...?

They went RIGHT BACK to extremist views and voting 'No' on any legislation. Being factually Uncompromising.

And yet compromise, moves us all, forward.

Continue supporting extremism.

It is why you are alone.

The cries to "follow the Constitution" never seem to take into account that the Constitution's meaning has been subject to change now for two hundred years. What Mike R. and the others want is more like "Trust me and my small group of white male allies to interpret all constitutional questions for the good of ....all."

In the meantime, the Party has plans that are breathtakingly simple. First, all proposals, votes, rule manipulations and public statements must be in step with the single party goal - Retake the White House. When that day arrives, whether Congress is stocked with fresh-faced reactionaries or pliant octogenarians, the Party will roll out its plan for national success, reducible to three words: Prepare for war.

"We the people of the United States . . . ",

So begins the greatest document ever written that limits the power of government.

"We the people" hold all rights, except those explicitly given to government.

"We the people" have been endowned by by creator, not by the government.

"We the people" hold all authority and all power, not the government.

The Democrats and the Republican PARTIES are not "We the people". They are a percentage of "We the people". No political party has been given extra rights by "We the people". No political party has been excused from obeying the Constitution by "We the people".

There have always been those who tell us that the Constitution is outdated. That concept is not new. President Obama hates the Constitution and refuses to defend it against his own administration. Liberals and Democrats tell us that we need a "living constitution", disregarding the fact that, when necessary, the Constitution can be amended. Republicans too often have agreed with the Democrats.

"We the people" are responsible to our Creator for the way that we defend the Constitution against our own government. He gave us freedom. He expects us to live free.

For Americaâs sake, Donât Stop them.

The longer time they spend arguing over how best to destroy America, the better is our chance that real Americans will come along.

Mark B has outlined President Obama's plan - to the letter. He has defied the Constitution, thinking instead that what Bill Ayers taught him, what Pastor Wright taught him, what his grandfather in Hawaii taught him, what the schools in the Phillipines taught him, are all more precious than the words of the Constitution.

President Obama vowed to "change" America. His followers mock the Constitution and the principles for which it stands as they salute Obama.

Read Mark B's post again: "First, all proposals, votes, rule manipulations and public statements must be in step with the single party goal - Retake the White House. When that day arrives, whether Congress is stocked with fresh-faced reactionaries or pliant octogenarians, the Party will roll out its plan for national success, reducible to three words: Prepare for war."

He has quoted Obama's plan - to the letter.

You have a coherent Republican opposition, me. Our Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves because of it to. It's these US House radicals in office holding up the process of our government, and you to the poor and middleclass. But have they been accused yet of the banking giant they worked for of being involved in an international money laundering scheme involving billions of dollars. The bank used a series of fake accounts based on stolen identities to funnel money back to clients such as drug trade criminals. The complicit nature of the management of the bank running the scheme suggests that someone in government like the CIA or Federal Reserve must have been aware of the wire transfers. 1,000 pages of customer account records he claims are evidence of an international money-laundering scheme involving hundreds of billions of dollars by the global banking giant, which reportedly is under investigation by a U.S. Senate committee. That's 1,000 pages of evidence Sen. Hatch. Robert Bennett says "entitlement spending must change", but whose entitlement is the real question. Not ours. "We the people" are responsible to us, not the crooked lawmakers in Washington DC.

Our Country, our government, and indeed our very way of life are under attack from a vast conglomerate of left-wing extremists. All must be vigilant in the fight against these extremists. However, joining an equally extreme group on the right is not the answer.

Too many have lost sight of the facts that one of the primary reasons the Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War was to forever banish political extremism from this Continent. The Fathers intended for this Country to have a moderate government with moderate statesmen who cared more about the public good than their own ambitions. The Fathers would truly be appalled to see how modern politicians have simply exchanged imperialistic British extremism for an equally virulent American version.

The so-called tea party is named after an addictive, harmful substance. This is great symbolism, as this extremist group has managed to cause a large portion of the uninformed public to become addicted to the vitriol and outrage, which has no real nourishing value behind it. The public must return to the historic practice of electing moderates and rejecting extremists before it is too late.

The GOP was indeed hijacked. It was hijacked in the 1990s, and dragged over to the far right fringes of the political. Today, people are trying to drag it even further to the right. The true consrvatives from the 1990s are called RINOs now. Even Barry Goldwater, who once defined conservatiism and the far right reaches of the political spectrum, would be considered RINO now. Sad.

I WANT MY PARTY BACK

Is it any coincidence that the LDS 1st presidency sent a letter to all UTAH congregations, asking ALL members to be involved in the up-coming caucuses?

Think for a moment,
Would they have done that if they felt the uber-far-right-wing-radicals who have high-jacked the already dominate GOP Party was indeed on the "right" track?

I think this was a suttle shot over the bow to the "extremists" they have warned about in recent General Conference adresses.

See you at the Caucuses....

But perhaps more worrisome than the bubble that the GOP bursted is the fact the markets have become so manipulated and artificial that its near impossible to predict where things are headed. Personally I am absolutely certain that the kind of totalitarianism being pushed on us by our Koch Brother's GOP leaders will if allowed to persist and fester end with consequences which are way beyond anything the printing presses of our central banks could ever hope to contain. Communism failed badly. Why then are we arguably trying to resurrect a version of it, particularly in Europe? Are the banks so powerful that we are all beholden to them and the biggest nonsense of all that defaults should never happen (unless said defaults are trivial or largely meaningless)?. The crisis was caused by central bankers mispricing the cost of capital, which forced a misallocation of capital, driven by debt/leverage, which was ultimately exposed as a hideous asset bubble which then collapsed, destroying the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of relatively innocent people. Even all around America also.

We'll remember this November 2012, and, vote them all out of Office also in Florida.

My truthful views.

ReJCSpring
"uninformed public to become addicted to the vitriol and outrage, which has no real nourishing value behind it. The public must return to the historic practice of electing moderates and rejecting extremists before it is too late."

Amen

Norm Ornstein, Resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute:
"The Republican Party over the past decade especially has moved sharply to the right, and the divisions are old battles of the right, not the earlier ones that pitted major figures like Nelson Rockefeller or William Scranton against Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, or even involved pragmatic centrists like Richard Nixon (whose domestic program included a guaranteed annual income as welfare reform and a health care plan more liberal than the Obama one). If a candidate ran today on Ronald Reagan's record -- which included tax increases every year of his presidency after the first one, an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid, and other serious compromises on spending -- it is doubtful he could prevail in the new G.O.P. .......... The fact is that the dinosaur moderate Republican wing of the party has no home right now."
(2012)