TIME FOR THE GOP TO TAKE A STAND

Faced with a popular President who will continue to receive adulatory coverage from the MSM, how should the GOP respond?

First, we should stop the navel gazing says Bill Kristol. There are plenty of opportunities for principled opposition for Republicans, and we should take them.

Second, according to Fred Barnes, we should not be afraid to be the party of 'no'. Again, it's about principled opposition to policies that go against our core values as conservatives.

Third, and this is related to both of the prior recommendations, Pat Buchanan says we need to be a fighting party. That means using whatever political means are at our disposal to oppose and block those Obama and Democratic policies that are most obnoxious, especially when we have a majority of public opinion behind us.

The GOP squandered a good deal of it's political and moral capital during the Bush years. It's time to start building it back up. How? We need to ask ourselves a few simple questions. If we can agree on the simple answers, then we can start going about the business of building up popular support to see our vision succeed, and the other guy's vision fail.

Do we believe that the government which governs best, governs least? If so, we should oppose nearly all new spending programs or programs that expand government and, moreover, we should advocate true spending cuts and program eliminations.

Do we believe that taxation, at it's core, is the concept of using the coercive power of the state to extract money from it's citizens? If so, we should always wish to use that power sparingly, only to fund those things which we cannot do privately.

Do we believe that to ensure the peace, we should be prepared for war? The world is a dangerous place, filled with tyrants and fanatics, who not only are not susceptible to our ideas of democracy and liberty, but actually reject those ideas.

If we agree on those simple things, then we have a place to start, and start we must, right now, before President Obama and his allies move us so far down the road to real Socialism, that we will be unable to find our way back.