Neo-conservatives are recognizing this in their increasingly loud shoutdowns of the other end of the spectrum, using their 1960’s tactics to paint the paleo-conservatives as Isolationists. The paleo-conservatives, having been bested in the 80’s and 90’s, are already grumpy, but find their message at least being listened to and mentioned in the press. I believe that is so partially due to it being in-line with the founding fathers original intent .

Facts and musings aside, it really comes down to who delivers their message better. I give the advantage to the neo-conservatives, as they are masters of manipulation when it comes to painting their opposition as anti-troops/anti-america (when in reality the polar-opposite is true).

Well that’s a good reason to be happy. A people’s representative should represent them. If he’s a strong conservative, even better!

Still, none of that goodness will justify Lisa’s factual errors.

Chuck Gross wrote, “conservatives will fight over word-smithing by inter-party foes as a reason to hate a candidate.”

This dispute is not over word-smithing, but over factual errors. There is a crease in the Republican Party. It’s a crease, not a rift, because as you point out there is substantial agreement among the caucuses. These creases divide paleo-conservatives, neo-conservatives.

The disputes between the two camps is not trivial, as Chuck seems to think. While there is 95% agreement, the issues at dispute are quite substantial.

Neo-conservatives like big government; paleo-conservatives want a strictly limited government. Neo-conservatives are comfortable with government interference in society; paleo-conservatives want society to develop free of a “tyranny of experts.”. Neo-conservatives are supply-siders; paleo-conservatives advocate consumer sovereignty. Neo-conservatives accept the radical changes of the New Deal; paleo-conservatives want to roll back the entire edifice of the administrative state.

Chuck, if we can’t achieve agreement let us achieve clarity. Let us know each other’s position. Only clarity is a basis for cooperation on the 95% area of agreement.

Because Lisa Graas overreaches and distorts rather than clarifies, her approach will yield only discord.

We’re conservatives. We tell the truth and deal with facts as best we can. We don’t make stuff up.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/mar/01/00040/

All of us probably agree on 95% of issues (5% disagreement on Pro-America vs. Pro-Global foreign policy view), yet conservatives will fight over word-smithing by inter-party foes as a reason to hate a candidate.

Both Pauls have spent a lifetime advancing the philosophy of liberty laid out in the Declaration of Indep. They know that the Const. is a framework for protecting those liberties by restraining Gov & that every act of expanding gov undermines that. Anyone that promotes liberty like that understands two points. To respect liberty you MUST respect life, & to have rights you MUST have the ability to assert those rights by force (military) otherwise you have no rights. To the chagrin of some, rights also come with the responsibility to be justified in using force to defend them.

Rand gets the intent of the Const and the need to be strictly limited on legislation he would like to advocate vs what on the surface looks good but ultimately undermines the intent of the Const.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1pHQO1kJ0I

He’s going to win this race because he has a strong conservative spine and the people LOVE him.

Ron Paul calls for the disestablishment of the CIA. You infer that this means Ron Paul wants to eliminate all foreign intelligence gathering. That’s false. He wants to eliminate a hopelessly corrupt, unaccountable, and ineffective agency – and then replace it with something that works and is accountable. You’re just wrong on the facts. You say the idea is kooky. I watched the CIA wage an undeclared war on GW Bush. You must have been distracted, at the time.

But just think about this one thing: the CIA can’t keep secrets! I advocate putting all intelligence gathering into DIA. Under the UCMJ, leakers can be shot for treason and the entire system is under a unified, accountable command structure.

Rand Paul thinks we should consider moving Gitmo detainees back to their home countries. You think this “basically denies that we are at war” and entails releasing the inmates back onto the battlefield. This is false. In fact, your beloved CIA conducts rendition which is nothing more than sending inmates back to their home countries to face much more harsh interrogations than allowed by US detention facilities. Sending people to prisons back in their home country is hardly putting them “back into the battlefield.”

You also state that the Gitmo detainees are POWs. This is false. They are unlawful combatants who are not eligible for POW protections. The US, being a benevolent nation, has granted most detainees treatment as though they are POWs. You have the same mistaken reading of Geneva as the most radical European leftists.

Lisa, apparently some people here have lied about you. That’s unwarranted. Kindly give others the same treatment in your analysis.