Greetings, RINOs and Friends of RINOs.
Tomorrow, November 19, RINOcracy.com will have have been up and running for six months. That is a rather modest milestone, but perhaps an appropriate time to pause and consider where we’ve been and where we might go.
First, though, I would like to express my appreciation for the help and support of my Board of Editors: my wife Angela, our daughter Heather Parker, and Our Dear Friend in Philadelphia. While I am solely responsible for the views expressed on RINOcracy.com, they have each made helpful comments and have been relentless in attempting to find and correct my stylistic and typographical blunders. Extra special thanks must go to Heather, who provided great encouragement from the very start and then found herself spending countless hours not only getting the site in operation but addressing various technical problems along the way. In addition, she has contributed all of the illustrations that have enlivened our pages.
So, what have we done? We have published 19 Blogs and 11 Special Bulletins. As I hope might be evident, many of them required a fair amount work in the research and writing. It is work that I have enjoyed doing and that I hope you have enjoyed reading. It is my sense that most of the followers of RINOcracy.com are generally sympathetic to its views. But I hope that even those who found themselves in disagreement may have discovered some information or a perspective they had not previously considered.
Has RINOcracy.com had any impact at all on the political world? Well, no, and it may never. Some may think that attempting to bring moderation and a broader perspective to today’s Republican Party is a quixotic venture, and perhaps it is. Nevertheless, I prefer to think that RINOcracy.com is still in the laboratory with its potential still unknown, and that the Republican Party is not beyond reform and rehabilitation. My intention at the moment is to continue, for at least a while longer, in much the same fashion. I am, however, open to suggestions, and I would welcome comments, critiques or questions. If you think there is something that could be done differently or better, please let me know. You may send in your views for publication, but if you wish your thoughts to remain private, just click on “contact” at the top of the page and type your message on the form that appears.
According to our website service, RINOcracy.com posts have received 4,500 views. Although that provides some assurance that we are not a tree falling in a forest with no one there to hear it, it is very small potatoes as these things go. (I have seen it reported that the Drudge Report gets 21 million views a day. Yikes.) Certainly, we would like to expand the audience and that is another place where I would ask the help of subscribers and friends of RINOcracy.com. If you find the site, or a particular blog to be interesting or helpful, please let others know. The easiest way to do that is by clicking on the email icon at the bottom of each post, and if you are comfortable with social media, you might also recommend us on Facebook or one of the other popular outlets whose icons are displayed.
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There may be another posting before Thanksgiving, but I will take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! For, despite the vexing problems that are the steady diet of this site, we all have a very great deal to be thankful for.
Doug Parker
a/k/a Chief RINO
Doug……. I have thoroughly enjoyed your many Posts……they make me think back to the brown bag lunches at Cornell L school when various topics would arise and when it was your turn to comment, you would usually say something equivalent to your current Posts……reasonable, interesting and relevant….carefully considering Both Sides of the issue.
Another way to look at your posts: it keeps you from retiring….boring, boring. As Norman Mailer said ” I don’t want to retire. I’m not good at crossword puzzles”
So skip those puzzles and keep your RINOS coming…..best bkb
Keep up the good work, Doug. Your writing is refreshing. So clear–so unlike legal documents! Mr. Hughes would be beaming with pride.
Doug: great stuff: insightful analysis of knotty issues. I await your take on the recent decision to rejigger the senate’s rules on filibuster.
Happy Thanksgiving!
This is a noble endeavor, Doug. The writing is clear and expressive, the ideas consistently thoughtful and the approach rational, balanced and fact-based. Even when I disagree with a point you make, when I’m tempted to write a rebuttal of some sort rising to the level of clarity in your presentation, I am reminded what a remarkable undertaking this is. Keep it up.
Hey Doug, thanks for the good commentary and Happy Thanksgiving! Larry
Doug, et. al., You have produced an amazing series of thoughtful, informative commentaries. I appreciate your willingness to “put yourself out there” and share your positions with all of us. I agree with just about all of them, but could never produce politically meaningful prose in such comprehensible and succinct form and style.
Hi Doug,
Happy turkey day to you as well.
Just to keep politics in perspective, enjoy all these historic quotes:
1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
— John Adams
2. If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
— Mark Twain
3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But, then, I repeat myself.
— Mark Twain
4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
— Winston Churchill
5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
— George Bernard Shaw
6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man; which he proposes to pay off with your money.
— G. Gordon Liddy
7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
— James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)
8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
— Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University
9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
— P.J. O’Rourke, Civil Libertarian
10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Rockwell”>– Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)
11. Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And, if it stops moving, subsidize it.
— Ronald Reagan (1986)
12. I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
— Wil l Rogers
13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!
— P.J. O’Rourke
14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
— Voltaire (1764)
15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you!
— Pericles (430 B.C.)
16. No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
— Mark Twain (1866)
17. Talk is cheap…except when Congress does it.
— Anonymous
18. The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
— Ronald Reagan
19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
— Winston Churchill
20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
— Mark Twain
21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
— Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903 )
22. There is no distinctly native American criminal class … save, Congress.
23. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
— Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)
24. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
— Thomas Jefferson
25. The biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is the spelling.
— Anonymous
while i am not quite a DINO, being mostly a left tree-hugging 60’s hanger-on, i do appreciate your views and have recommended the RINO blog to several people – because the information is well-researched and generally reasonable. moreover, it gives us hope for a more collegial future.
In our increasingly polarized political world, clear, sensible voices of reason and moderation are needed on both sides of our political fence. I find RINOcracy as a breath of fresh air adding some sanity to current political dialogue. Hope your readership continues to grow, and I wish you much success in adding more clarity and wisdom to our partisan battles.
I have heretofore preferred to send any comments I may have to my long-time friend/former colleague Doug personally, inasmuch as (1) my writing is too embarrasingly inferior to his to warrant publishing my remarks; and (2) no one should care what I think anyway. That said, as a “centrist Democrat” (DINO, in some circles), I relish the Doug-RINO blogs, and look forward to receiving more. Congratulations and many thanks, Doug (and Heather, Angela and “Philadelphia Friend”), for a beautifully-written, important and thought-provoking 6 months of commentary.
Monica
We’ll probably never agree on economics until you read Hayak, Schumpeter, Friedman & Laffer.
BUT I do agree with you on social issues, And am glad you are creating this conversation.
We at Beach road continue to look forward to RINOcracy each . Thank you one and all. Well done. Happy Thanksgiving.
“Where there’s gains there’s pain.”
Competent leadership in side the beltway is lacking. Perhaps my optimism comes from these two fellas who wrote “Dollaracy”. It starts with grass root folks who are starting to care and are making a difference…… RINO crowd included.
Press on!
Great job, Doug! I agree with you on almost all your opinions onsocial issues but I am more to the right of you on fiscal matters. It contnues to blow my mind about the waste and inefficiency of the Federal government and, Obama already sticking it to the”rich” with the tax increase last year, I sure as hell don’t want to send any more of my “hard earned money”to those idiots in Washington. Best to Heather and Angela . I hope you keep up the good work. Thanks again for all your efforts in putting out this entertaining (I know, you would prefer I said educational) blog.
Fred
Nicely said. T
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