I demand PURITY!!!!!

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Crossposted at Daily Kos

     Demand purity? “But that’s crazy talk!” you say.

     Of course it is! I’m not talking about purity for the Democrats, you sillies. I’m talking about purity for the Republican party.

    I demand MORE of it! MORE Republican purity is the BEST thing the Democratic party and the progressive movement could possibly hope for.

     There is NO possibility of recalling The Wing-nuts-          

     You see, there is no such thing as liberal purity. Put 100 random liberals in a room and you will have 100 different views of how the world should be.

     Conservatives, on the other hand . . . .

     More below the fold

     Egged on by the FOX/Rush know nothings and out of office all stars off the GOP’s past, the 2009 incarnation of the party of Reagan has decided that purity is the most important battle they can fight, along with making sure that President Obama fails.

    It turns out that the only real PUMA’s were in the Republican party, and that party unity can only exist if every one in the party agrees on everything, no questions asked.

    When Democrats call each other out for the crime of being a purity troll it is usually because we don’t want to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Democrats, Progressives and Liberals understand the need for compromise. We know how to play nice with each other when we need to. The problem is that we, as a group, tend to forget when it is time t unify and attack.

    When Republicans call each other out for being a purity troll . . .

    Well, that’s just the thing. They don’t!

    In fact, they call each other out for being, well, impure.

    Xenophobic, sexist, racist, lacking intellectual curiosity, certain that only they are right and everyone else is wrong and unwilling to admit that it is their Conservative philosophy that has brough America to it’s current state of despair, the Republican party not only has no new ideas, they don’t even want new ideas. They have hit their collective thumbs with the hammer of FAIL, and their first reaction is to swing the hammer harder next time.

There is no inclination for strategic thought.

     The only lesson the Republican party has taken away from the 2008 election ass whupping they got from Democrats is that John McCain wasn’t conservative enough and Sarah Palin makes people see star bursts.

     What wingnuts fail to understand is that all of small town America, ya know, the real America, is NOT FRAKKING ALASKA. In the case of the modern Stalinistic purging of moderates from the Republiican party, the GOP may gain ideological purity of essence, but they will lose electability. Worse, elected Republicans have ZERO control over the true leaders of the Republican party, namely, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. This means they can NOT reign them in, and even when they try to rebuke the Beck’s and Limbaugh’s they pay the price by having those same figures attacking the sensible (if such a thing exists) Republicans who understand that you can NOT win national elections with the farthest right candidate possible. Just take the NY-23 election for instance, it is certain that the GOP will go farther right if they win, since they will simply see it as going with what works, and similarly they will go farther right if they lose, since they will certainly blame it on running a moderate instead of the more conservative Hoffman in the first place.

Purity Of Essence

    I understand that Democrats need to be able to run the best candidate for each district. Though the Ben’ Nelson’s of the world make me insane as a Progressive Activist, I understand that he is literally the best we can get in his district. At some point, if we want to win elections and keep a majoirty we have to compromise.

    I also understand that different parts of the country have different political needs. What works for a Democrat here in New York will not necessarily work in Alabama or Missouri.

    But there is a point when the left MUST exert quality control. If a Democrat is so ineffective either as a leader or a member of the caucus that they are consistantly undermining the Democratic platform or the President’s agenda (Baucus), or if they are so corrupted by the power of being a politician that they are damaging the party or the most vital issues facing America (LIEberman), then they should be removed from office by the electorate or expelled from the caucus. If we do not exercise any quality control we will quickly become the Republican party, sans the racism and hatred.

    But that is not purity trolling, it is quality control, and there is a big difference there.

    Plus, Democrats, Liberals and Progressives have big enough majorities that we can afford to do some weeding in small patches. In fact, we must, lest we mistake a garden of weeds for a garden.

    The Conservative political movement within the Democratic party MUST be addressed at some point if we are to govern effectively and yet differently from Republicans. I have NEVER met a Blue Dog voter. Though I respect concepts like fiscal responsibility I have ZERO patience for conservativism in any of it’s forms amongst Democratic Politicians because, in my opinion, Conservative politicians in the Democratic party are simply small government free market Republicans without the socially conservative counter agenda. In my opinion they undermine the Democratic platform and perpetuate the myth that conservative ideas can work. It is fine if one must run for office as something other than a liberal, but it is NOT helping when Conservatives can dominate an agenda in a non conservative party.

    I am not saying we should not, as Democrats and Progressives, welcome people with different ideas into our party, I am simply that Democrats should not let their agenda or party become overwhelmed by the weight of the ideological purity of Conservatives within their own party. Conservatives should be welcome aboard the ship, they should NOT be allowed to chart the entire course or refuse rowing if we will not alter our course to suit their whims.

    But the Republiican party, unlike the Democratic party, can not be reasoned with. They live in a sound proof alternate reality of their own making, tailor made to insulate themselves from things they do not want to see or hear, detached from the sectors of the population they think themselves to be above, and without ideasother than the ideological purity of a movement that has failed and been debunked by reality. When conservative insist, as they are doing so right now, that the failures are NOT in their ideas, but in the people who are not carrying those ideas out properly, because they are not “Trying hard enough” or “staying pure enough”, they are just dismissing the obvious, which is that their ideas have FAILED. Swinging the hammer harder does no good when you are still aiming it at your thumb, and not the nail.

    And that leaves us, as a nation, where we are now. We have a two party system where both parties have a conservative element that is pushing bad ideas that have FAILED. The party that figures this out first and then moves on will evolve and continue on, the one that does not will FAIL and become more and more irrelevant.

    What Republicans do not realize is that they are wrong, dead wrong. By seeking ideological purity they are simply ushering themselves into political oblivion that much faster. They have been left behind by an evolving planet and an evolving America, and though they think they can walk again, they do not realize that their time and their make beliieve world is coming to an end.

    And to that, I demand MORE REPUBLICAN PURITY!

    Just don’t tell the Republicans why I want them to pursue their own purity. Then again, it’s not like they’d listen to you anyway.

   Also crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com