The GOP is Dead - proof inside

[Must_B_Free]

I just started at a very conservative global enterprise company outside Atlanta. When the subject of politics came up, do you know what everyone said?

"I more of a Liberatarian, myself"

"Yeah, the republicans try to hard to legislate morality"

No republicans. Even conservative southerners are ashamed to be associated with the Bush Tarbaby. Liberitarianism is a way to excuse yourself from Republicanism without admitting you were wrong in the first place.

[banana republican]

1. TARBABY I like that

Let's tar & feather his ass and run him out of town on a rail...

[The Blue Knight]

2. Yea, a lot of my Rethug friends claim to be "Libertarians"

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. The Dems are flopping on the bank, gasping too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=434036&mesg_id=434036

[brokensymmetry]

4. I think you're right.

It cuts across all economic and social strata. * may have created an historic shift in electoral demographics.

[Fenris]

5. Can I ask a question

Just what is a tarbaby? Because the only time I've ever heard that term it was used as a racial epithet. Although I do remember it as a character in olf Brer Rabbit cartoons, which may or may not have been racist themselves.

[htuttle]

10. It's not an epithet -- More of a fable

It's been about a zillion years, but as I recall, the 'tarbaby' was a character in the Brer Rabbit stories. They were made out of tar (don't recall why, however). When someone (don't recall who, but probably not the rabbit) decided to fight the tarbaby, the more they fought against them, the more they stuck to them. I should probably have googled all this first to refresh my memory, but that's what I still have handy in RAM.

It's kind of like a 'quagmire'. Sort of.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. Br'er Fox made the Tarbaby

and stuck it out so that Br'er Rabbit would fight it, which he did, and got stuck. Br'er Fox came out and said he was going to eat Br'er Rabbit, or do something awful to him. Br'er Rabbit said anything was fine as long as he wasn't flung into the briar patch. Of course, that is what Br'er Fox did; and Br'er Rabbit got away, because he was "bred and born in a briar patch."

[DrWeird]

24. It is also a racist epithet.

It's like "spearchucker", which is an actual tool but has been coopted as a racist epithet.

[jjmalonejr]

11. You grab a tarbaby...

...and it sticks to you. You're stuck to it. It's a mess. You're covered in tar! YUK!!

Damn this TAR!

Damn that TARBABY!!!!

[comsymp]

12. Tarbaby- "baby" made of tar

IIRC, short version- Br'er Fox made it, Br'er Rabbit mistook it for a person, said Howdy and when it didn't answer things escalated to the point that BR took a swing and got stuck in it, enmeshing himself further and further.

So "tarbaby" basically = quagmire

[sweetheart]

16. it is also a trap

The story was to trap braer rabbit, was it not. The tar baby was
both a quagmire, and a deliberate trap to foil someone who is taken
off course by their emotional hot headedness and egotism. The
tar baby is not an accidental quagmire like a swamp, but a trap
like a claymore.

[comsymp]

22. Absolutely right

Thanks for bringing that up- I made the mistake of hitting this thread after visiting GD-Primaries for the first time in a long time and I was... uh... not totally focused on my response here.
:puke:

[T Bone]

20. rick astley died ?

just noticed it in your sig line...

[Skittles]

6. I always thought that being a repug

was a pc way of being a bigot.

[Must_B_Free]

13. Yaeah

I recognized that too. Remember in the 70s when people were "bigots"?

Nobody is a bigot anymore, they're just Republicans, with a little Archie Bunker in every one of them.

[ithacan]

7. Republicans are the party of the Religious Right...

and the Religious Right vote is only about 15 percent of the population. BUt this small and extremist minority has managed through strategy, skill and deception to take over the republican party. )For details see http://www.TheocracyWatch.org/ )

The only good thing is that these kinds of religious/morality issues are an excellent wedge issue to hit Bush with.

Too many dems are afraid of these issues, but it's the achilles heel of Bush.

For example, some brave reporter MUST ask him in a live press conference, "DO you believe in the separation of church and state." And they have to demand a straight answer.

No matter what Bush says, he loses. He'll piss off either the religious right types or the secularist libertarian types.

[blurp]

26. Repubs had to accept them, or continue losing

and the Religious Right vote is only about 15 percent of the population. But this small and extremist minority has managed through strategy, skill and deception to take over the republican party. )For details see http://www.TheocracyWatch.org / )

The only way the Repubs could have politically survived was to adopt the religious right. I don't think it had anything to do with the religious right being politically clever.

Take away that 15% and the Repubs are complete losers again.

[RandomKoolzip]

8. Being Libertarian excuses you from the responsibility

of being Human. How convenient. Now they can continue to lay waste to the earth in the name of "rugged individualism" while covering their asses with a veneer of "more freedom for all." But it's a lie. As I once told a Libertarian ex-friend, a Libertarian is a asshole who's too chickenshit to admit he's a republican.

[comsymp]

9. Hate to shoot a hole in the theory but

I lived in Atlanta from 98-00 and they were using the Libertarian line then too. As best I was able to interpret it ATT, it meant that they were racist, xenophobic flat-earthers who either a) smoked dope and/or b) had an active sex life.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

14. I actually despise Libertarians more than the GOP.

all they do is go one about the "statists", their guns, and how bad "government" is, and how unconstitutional everything is.

They are more an enemy of the Democrats and liberalism than the GOP are.

At least Republicans are somewhat pragmatic, and remain democrats (with a small d). Libertarians distrust democracy as "mob rule".

[humble truth]

15. I agree, but

let them fight amongst themselves. If libertarians can take some votes away from the GOP, more power to them. But they are a scary group.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

18. Encourage your conservative friends to vote Libertarian

those are votes Bush won't get.

[DavidMS]

23. With all due respect...

I will take an anarchist (aka libertarians) over a flat-earther any day.

Anarchists at least can be reasioned with.

[Nlighten1]

19. I wonder though...

it is mixed where I am right now. Some 2000 Bush supporters where I work say they won't vote for him in 2004, others still think he is great. A true sign that the conservative base is rejecting Bush...my parents said they won't vote for him again...they ALWAYS vote Republican.



I think enough people are going to vote Democrat that previously voted Republican in 2004.

[sweetheart]

21. Libertarians are no GOP stooges

I have supported the libertarian party ( www.lp.org ) in the past
though i have never voted for them.

I don't see them as evil, and myself am more libertarian than
democrat, though my politics would be best described as "libertarian
socialism". My social policies are completely libertarian, and my
economic policies are a bit more socialist.

I'm a Kucinich voter. Wow... evil incarnate.

I think you guys need to level some more serious criticisms of
libertarianism, (realistic libertarianism) than bigotry that i'm
seeing in this thread.

Sounds like most of y'all libertarian bashers, are speaking about
the (captal) *L*ibertarian party. I am a small *l*ibertarian who
believes that individual liberty and responsibility are the core
issues beneath the quagmire we live in today, and that to restore
these values in institutionalized society is the core to reempowering
democratic choice.

Put up or shut up... this libertarian bashing is childish without
a more focused critique. As it sounds, the LP bashers are bogus
bigots, who seek to drive libertarians away from supporting democratic candidacy.

THAT is dumb!

Between the 2, bashing libertarians on DU is more friendly to
republicanism than being libertarian. The irony speaks volumes.

[Viking12]

25. They're bashing anarcho-capitalism

which is currently the most potent and popular incarnation of Libertarianism.

Here's a good site with some thoughtful critiques of the libertarian philosophy/philosophers:

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

On edit: and, yes, they are GOP stooges. See for instance the Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and other anti-regulation right-wing front groups.

[sweetheart]

27. Therefore all libertarians are assholes?

Hmmmm. not.

I'm no GOP stooge, i'm voting for Mr. Kerry.

I agree with the CATO institutes work on ending the drugs war.
Its too bad no democratic party has the balls to be so honest about
a policy base that has done nothing but destroy the nation from within. To say that the wisdom is invalid because "CATO" is evil
makes y'all sound like the Xtion fundies that "we" claim to despise.
Ad hominem is not very becoming... all because CATO makes some
very compelling arguments that dems cannot refute... so better to
attack them and ignore the arguments.

That site you quoted, ain't worth much that it mistakes the capital "L" libertarian party with real libertarian people and concerns. Free market "darwinist" capitalism is hardly what i
support, any more than you do.

My point is that there are very few big "L" libertarians next to the
much more common small "l" libertarians. You sweepingly include
us all in the evil GOP stooge bucket and discount our constructive
input towards making a better country.

The bigots sound distinctly not libertarian in this regard, and rather "democratic" were the word to handle such an abuse.

Read this thread, and pretend you're a person with libertarian
sympathies. Who's the bigot? Who's vote are you winning?
Whose vote are you losing?

Since Dennis Kucinich is not the candidate, why should i vote for
kerry, a man who i have very little politics in common with, except
a distinct interest in deposing the most anti-libertarian president
in modern history (*).

Better to re-wire the sales pitch on this thread to constructively
win over libertarians. As it stands. Democrats with no coherent
policies or serious think tank backup go about bashing folks who
have thought out their polices more coherently. Don't bash CATO,
post your own link for a "democratic" solution.

As it stands, it sounds terribly like bigotry from this angle.