Will a Jeff Flake Victory help the Liberty Movement?

[gerryb]

No, there isn't. Reason being, I'm not into hearing promises when people want to be elected, only to be burned when they claim they made a "pragmatic decision". The GOP is on a short leash with me. I won't say I'll never vote for a worthy GOP candidate, but I just don't know any right now...other than Ron Paul.

How are you goign to concentrate on "issues" if you can't even recruit like minded candidates at the VERY bottom of the totem poll in your area?

 

[tbone717]

How are you goign to concentrate on "issues" if you can't even recruit like minded candidates at the VERY bottom of the totem poll in your area?

I have to agree with gerryb here cajuncocoa. We've talked at length about this in other threads, but seriously no one running for school board, tax collector, township manager or sheriff you can get behind?

 

[tbone717]

regardless of whether the one is 'too far left' if it requires non military picked up on the streets here need a trial, which I think is in the Constitution as well, I think choosing to NOT vote away indefinite detention for American citizens for fear of having to give due process to foreigners picked up on the streets of the US (as we have historically done for criminals including deadly ones, including terrorists) is not the sign of a liberty candidate. And 'left / right' red meat terms don't persuade me.

Well perhaps Flake felt the Goebert amendment, which put the habeus corpus language in the bill was sufficient. One would have to contact his office for an explanation I would imagine.

Nonetheless, I still feel he will be an asset in the Senate and I'd wager that he'll be a fourth, fifth or sixth guy in those DeMint, Rand, Lee press conferences come January.

 

[cajuncocoa]

How are you goign to concentrate on "issues" if you can't even recruit like minded candidates at the VERY bottom of the totem poll in your area?

I have to agree with gerryb here cajuncocoa. We've talked at length about this in other threads, but seriously no one running for school board, tax collector, township manager or sheriff you can get behind?

Are you guys trying to be this obtuse on purpose?

Do we not have bills coming up for a vote all the time? When I say "issues" that's what I mean.

I'm not interested in getting behind someone in the GOP for school board or sheriff. Who cares? And I was never speaking about recruiting people to run for office.

 

[sailingaway]

How are you goign to concentrate on "issues" if you can't even recruit like minded candidates at the VERY bottom of the totem poll in your area?

I voted for and passed out lists of the central committee members when they were running in the primary. I will do the same with any I know are good liberty candidates, I'm just not going to wholesale adopt someone ELSE's list of who they are.

 

[sailingaway]

Well perhaps Flake felt the Goebert amendment, which put the habeus corpus language in the bill was sufficient. One would have to contact his office for an explanation I would imagine.

Nonetheless, I still feel he will be an asset in the Senate and I'd wager that he'll be a fourth, fifth or sixth guy in those DeMint, Rand, Lee press conferences come January.

I would call his office if I saw a possible way he was a liberty candidate. I care about Amash's rationale when I disagree with his votes. I don't care about Flake's because they are too frequent. Patriot Act, NDAA, there is a pattern.

 

[pcosmar]

I have to agree with gerryb here cajuncocoa. We've talked at length about this in other threads, but seriously no one running for school board, tax collector, township manager or sheriff you can get behind?

There were some in my area,, but the "Tea Party" endorsed a Big Gov rubber stamp that came out of nowhere.

I supported Glenn Wilson. Unfortunately not enough others did.
http://www.independentpoliticalrepo...ocratic-republican-political-mafia-in-new-ad/

 

[tbone717]

I'm not interested in getting behind someone in the GOP for school board or sheriff. Who cares? .

Honestly, most of us here should care. I detailed this elsewhere on the site, but sitting right here in my home I have one House rep, 2 Senators, 1 state rep and 1 state Senator. But there are 26 local offices that are decided here as well. County Commissioner, County Controller, Sheriff, Prothonotary & Clerk of Courts, Recorder of Deeds...I'd list them all but you get the picture. While the folks on the school board certainly don't determine foreign policy, they do determine what I am paying in school tax - it's important that those offices are filled my libertarian-conservatives as well.

 

[gerryb]

Are you guys trying to be this obtuse on purpose?

Do we not have bills coming up for a vote all the time? When I say "issues" that's what I mean.

I'm not interested in getting behind someone in the GOP for school board or sheriff. Who cares? And I was never speaking about recruiting people to run for office.

YOU care. You want a pure candidate. The only way to get a "pure" candidate is to recruit someone that is 100% in agreement with you and push them forward up the ranks.

Instead of supporting a candidate that is 80% or greater with us and will vote our way for all but the remaining 20%... you'd rather pursue issues and grovel at the feet of those who are against us 80% of the time?

How much effort has been put into Audit the Fed? A TON - and it doubt it will pass the Senate. It's easier to replace than to change their minds.

 

[sailingaway]

Honestly, most of us here should care. I detailed this elsewhere on the site, but sitting right here in my home I have one House rep, 2 Senators, 1 state rep and 1 state Senator. But there are 26 local offices that are decided here as well. County Commissioner, County Controller, Sheriff, Prothonotary & Clerk of Courts, Recorder of Deeds...I'd list them all but you get the picture. While the folks on the school board certainly don't determine foreign policy, they do determine what I am paying in school tax - it's important that those offices are filled my libertarian-conservatives as well.

Only if they are truly good ones. I will work for truly good ones, whatever their office. But I don't care about 'libertarian conservatives' of the watered down sort I don't consider liberty candidates.

 

[tbone717]

There were some in my area,, but the "Tea Party" endorsed a Big Gov rubber stamp that came out of nowhere.

I supported Glenn Wilson. Unfortunately not enough others did.

We actually have a nice little success story here. Our school board in made up of 9 folks. Every year like clockwork they raise the school tax. Not a huge amount, but still they raise it. And up to last year no one voted no. But this past year we got two strong fiscal conservatives on the board and for the first time the tax increase was a 7-2 vote. There are a few more seats up next year I think. Hoping that eventually, we can get it to 5-4 "no" vote.

 

[gerryb]

Honestly, most of us here should care.

Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty..

Someone said that once. He wasn't 100% pure, though.

 

[cajuncocoa]

If I knew someone like that, other than Ron Paul, I would push them. The problem is, people like that are rare....and they don't tend to run for office. Even if they do and get elected, the power goes to their head and then they do something stupid like endorse Mittens.

The majority of people who run for political office are lying hypocritical bastards who will say anything to get elected and them turn their back on you once they take the oath of office. That's why nothing ever changes.

 

[sailingaway]

YOU care. You want a pure candidate. The only way to get a "pure" candidate is to recruit someone that is 100% in agreement with you and push them forward up the ranks.

Instead of supporting a candidate that is 80% or greater with us and will vote our way for all but the remaining 20%... you'd rather pursue issues and grovel at the feet of those who are against us 80% of the time?

How much effort has been put into Audit the Fed? A TON - and it doubt it will pass the Senate. It's easier to replace than to change their minds.

audit the fed isn't all I care about. IF they perpetuate the Patriot Act and NDAA, they shouldn't be there, either. I will vote for my best choice, but there should be INCENTIVE to be a liberty candidate and to champion liberty issues. If we 'give it away' to those who only hit one of our issues, why should they bother to take on the difficutl stuff?

 

[cajuncocoa]

Only if they are truly good ones. I will work for truly good ones, whatever their office. But I don't care about 'libertarian conservatives' of the watered down sort I don't consider liberty candidates.

audit the fed isn't all I care about. IF they perpetuate the Patriot Act and NDAA, they shouldn't be there, either. I will vote for my best choice, but there should be INCENTIVE to be a liberty candidate and to champion liberty issues. If we 'give it away' to those who only hit one of our issues, why should they bother to take on the difficutl stuff?

I think you said what I meant a lot better than I did.

 

[tbone717]

Only if they are truly good ones. I will work for truly good ones, whatever their office. But I don't care about 'libertarian conservatives' of the watered down sort I don't consider liberty candidates.

I say libertarian-conservatives often to distinguish from the "capital L" Libertarians. That is actually pretty much where Rand is more so than a guy like Johnson or whoever else they ran on the LP ticket in the past.

 

[AJ Antimony]

I'm not interested in getting behind someone in the GOP for school board or sheriff. Who cares?

Well, then unfortunately you're going to be losing elections for the rest of your life.

It's amazing that you've been here since 2007 and still have ZERO idea how politics works. Are you telling me you have NEVER noticed the types of people who generally run for certain offices?

Who typically runs for US Senate? US Representatives.
Who typically runs for US Representative? State Representatives.
Who typically runs for State Representative? LOCAL office holders such as "school board, tax collector, township manager or sheriff"
Who typically runs for LOCAL offices? People like YOU who want to make a difference and change policy but who don't want to sit on their ass waiting for someone else to do it.

 

[gerryb]

IThat's why nothing ever changes.

Nothing ever changes because YOU don't change it. Why would a liberty candidate, or one who is close, run for office in your area? You won't support them, so it would be a waste of time.

We get the candidates we deserve.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty..

Someone said that once. He wasn't 100% pure, though.

Exercise some "eternal vigilance" by not labeling people who voted NDAA and the Patriot Act as Liberty Candidates!!

 

[NoOneButPaul]

I didn't do it, but it isn't 'disingenuous' at all. It is the tweeting of RON PAUL FORUMS and the site traffic here that makes thread titles get tweeted out and near the top of google searches. If RPF wants its thread titles to not carry appearance of endorsement of non RPF ideas, that is absolutely fair.

The problem is this is incredibly narrow minded for the site to do because now all of the sudden we're holding people to a forum standard... yes a forum with 40,229 people (perhaps not all of them even American citizens) now decides what the proper "standard" is for particular candidate.

Jeff Flake was 1st on the Congressional Liberty Index in 2010:
http://www.rlc.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/LI2009.pdf

He beat out Ron Paul who was in fact #2.

Say what you will about the rankings themselves what is clear is he's in the top tier of liberty republicans and to try to dismiss him because you don't like one or two of his issues is exactly the kind of absurd "standard" that will cause this movement to go NOWHERE.

The type of standard you're placing should be held against people when we actually hold the party and aren't still a tireless minority. The time to hold people to that standard is when we have 300 Jeff Flakes and not 10.

Is he perfect? No, no one is, even the people you think are perfect now, when elected, will do 1-2 things you don't like- then what? We destroy them to and change their thread titles and self-destruct all on our own?

Do you not see where such a ridicoulous standard will get you? We need to grow and in order to do that we have to vote in the most like-minded liberty people we can and sort out the best and the worst later. We won't even get to that point if we hold everyone to such a standard now.


And, on top of all of that, there's 42,000 members but how many are active really? 1-2 thousand?

So now we're holding the entire liberty movement to a standard that 1 to 2 thousand people on a forum decide?

This is total insanity.

A Jeff Flake Victory WILL help the Liberty Movement even if he's not a carbon copy of Ron Paul.

1-2 thousand people spreading the idea his victory WONT help the Liberty Movement will only suppress his own support and cause the opposition, who is clearly inferior, to win and HURT THE LIBERTY MOVEMENT.