What Do YOU Believe? Do We Agree 80% of the Time?

Ronald Reagan once said that if someone agreed with him 80% of the time they were political friends.  The Pink Flamingo complains all the time about the tea parties, but the blasted part of it is the fact that most of us agree most of the time.  That is what is truly sad, quit tragic.  The message has been so messed up with accusations and demands for 100% that good men and women are being trampled by shysters who simply mouth the right words.

The late, great Barry Goldwater once made the following remark about the religious right.  I think we just might be able to apply some of his sentiments to the tea party types, and the Glenn Beck all or nothings.

“…“On religious issues there can be little or no compromise.  There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs.  There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being.  But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly.  The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.  They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent.  If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.  I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D.  Just who do they think they are?  And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate.  I am warning them today:  I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.”..”

Evidently Barry Goldwater did not approve of different groups threatening members of the United States Senate if they were not 100% pure.  I gather he would NOT approve of the Glenn Beck, Tea Party, Ron Paul Bot types. Strange how these people respect Goldwater but denigrate what he believed.

“…Birch Society influence on US politics hit its high point in the years around the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who lost to incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Welch had supported Goldwater over Nixon for the Republican nomination, but the membership split, with two-thirds supporting Goldwater and one-third supporting Nixon. A number of Birch members and their allies were Goldwater supporters in 1964 and some were delegates at the 1964 Republican convention. The Goldwater campaign in turn brought together the nucleus of what later became known as the New Right, many of whom had been groomed by the Birch Society but whose more pragmatic members realized that the group’s conspiracism and its affiliation with racism and anti-Semitism were impediments to electoral success. Birch Society members also authored several widely-distributed books that promoted conspiracy theories and mobilized support for the Goldwater campaign:

A Choice, Not an Echo by Phyllis Schlafly, suggested that the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger banking conference, whose policies were designed to usher in global communist conquest. “A Choice, Not an Echo” became one of Goldwater’s campaign slogans.

The Gravediggers, co-authored by Schlafly and retired Rear Admiral Chester Ward of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, claimed that U.S. military strategy and tactics were actually designed to pave the way for global communist conquest.

None Dare Call It Treason, by John Stormer, sold over seven million copies, making it one of the largest-selling paperback books of the day. It decried “the concurrent decay in America’s schools, churches, and press which has conditioned the American people to accept 20 years of retreat in the face of the communist enemy.”…”

Let’s see where we agree:

1. Lower Taxes
2. Flat Tax
3. Lower Corporate Taxes
4. No Death Tax
5. No Capital Gains Taxes
6. Swap-off between lowering/ending state income taxes and a 2-4% increase in state sales taxes
7. Business taxes that are competitive with the rest of the world
8. Dump Social Security for anyone who was born after 1950
9. Dump Medicare for anyone who was born after 1950
10. Raise retirement age to at least 70 if not 75
11. Simplify the tax code
12. Balance the blasted budget
13. Stop spending so darn much money
14. Dump the health care thingie
15. No more bailouts!
16. Win the war on terror
17. Win in Afghanistan
18. Win in Iraq
19. Do not shamefully withdraw
20. Support the GOP
21. Secure borders (both of ‘em)
22. Strong US Space Program
23. Support for National Parks
24. Strong military
25. Shut down DOE (if possible)
26. Cut back on government pensions
27. Reduce the size of the government – get rid of people!
28. Prevent abortions
29. Protect American lives when necessary
30. Less government
31. Limit the power of unions
32. HONEST elections – prevent vote fraud
33. Get the heck out of our lives
34. Maintain highways, bridges, infrastructure
35. Maintain air traffic control
36. Maintain safe food, water
37. Reasonable environment regulations that protect, not destroy

That’s about it….