The New Republicans

After reading the letter titled; GIVE ME MARRIAGE EQUALITY, OR GIVE ME DEATH on this post at The American Spectator and AmSpecBlog, I had to weigh in.

I am more than willing to admit that I am not a Republican from old. I was a Democrat for many years.

As I grew older, after 9/11, I discovered that I really did believe in a number of Republican principles. Capitalism, self reliance, a very strong military and domestic protection. I do not have a problem whatsoever with the so called "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", as I feel they were only used after "soft" interrogation had failed. I also feel that they prevented many deaths. And in my opinion, were not torture.

I want an extremely strong border. But, I am not opposed to immigration, done legally. We are a country of immigrants, our country was built from the ground up by immigrants and except for the Native Indians, every single citizen of the United States ancestors, came from another country.

I stand by our second amendment rights, as a necessary protection, in the event of a rouge government takeover. Yes, I do believe that is possible. We are no more immune to a dictator than any other country of the world. In the event this happens, I want to know that I and my neighbors have the ability to nip it in the bud.

And there are others that I agree with.

But, I disagree on the subject of abortion. I believe it should be kept legal. For extreme cases where the mother's life is in danger, a girl has been raped or a victim of incest and in some cases regarding domestic abuse. I absolutely oppose it's use as birth control. It is 100% possible to prevent pregnancy these days.

Gays? Read the above letter. I fully agree with him.

And there are others that I disagree with.

The government needs to stay out of our personal lives, if what we are doing is not hurting or infringing on others rights. (Isn't this one of our complaints about the Democrats?)

And those rights, do not include others "feelings". We have freedom of speech. The use of freedom of speech, hurts others feelings, all of the time. Are we going to eradicate freedom of speech?

Each of us have our own moral belief's. That is our right and I intend on keeping mine.

I do not believe in all of what Republican's believe in. So where does that leave me and the thousands of others out here like me? Without a right to a political party?

You see, by virtue of the fact that there are thousands of us out here and growing, it is telling.

How many of "us" are out here, as opposed the "them"?

Are we required to be force fed the extremely conservative belief's, just so we can vote? I'm certainly not going to vote for the Democrats. They have become a socialist party. And where socialism breeds, dictatorship is not far behind.

It is time for the Republican's to lighten up and change with the times. Or, you will lose many thousands of votes to that empty place, in the middle.

Of course, there will always be those people out there, stuck in their extremely conservative way's.

Then again, maybe it really is time for a third party.

Gays and Christians are Western

We need to heal the "culture wars" between Christians and secular - progressives. When the absolutes of "sin" and "rights" get invoked, we can find no common ground; we are divided and weaker as a nation. Culturist pragmatism asks that we frame the discussion around what best fulfills our historic mission of carrying forth liberty. We invoke compromise in the name of what is best for all of us. By focusing on what helps the West best survive in this hostile world, we can find some common ground and have rational discourse. Demonizing the other is not moving us forward.