Paperwork

I signed this.

I am a delegate for my Republican precinct caucus here in Orem. I haven't sent a dime to the RNC since about six months before last election, including member dues.

I've explained (at length) why not in numerous letters and email messages to my state and the national Republican powers - that - be.

They will get my money for doing things that remotely support, oh, I don't know, the party platform or maybe get serious about Illegal immigration.

Social security reform would have been nice. Of course, it would have been a lot easier to sell back in the mists of time (say, two or three years back right after the Republicans gained seats in the midterms...). Have you taken a look at the markets lately? (that's a live link and will change with time - today's DOW is another record at 12621.77). Go here to look at employment numbers. WE ARE AT FULL EMPLOYMENT nationally, with some regional outliers in areas dependent on auto manufacturing or trapped at the top of housing/real estate bubbles. Amazing economy, isn't it? Just what did the nominally Republican majority government do to make these things happen?

It began to fight back in the Long War. It cut taxes in ways that most benefited those people who make jobs happen for other people. No sweeping government babysitting programs. No "investments" in nannystatism (well, o.k., there's TSA... and the Medicare Prescription benefit, even though the latter may actually be more efficient than first thought). But all that was before America decided that Republicans weren't governing as conservatives. That's Republicans from the President all the way down.

My last five trips to the Emergency room, either as a patient or taking somebody in, I waited behind illegal immigrants. Granted, once I admitted that my chest MIGHT hurt that one time I shot right into treatment. I don't expect to see more than pennies on any of my of Social Security dollars, if that - the math is patently unworkable that the system can be maintained as it is run now.

But boy you can buy a lot of votes selling bridges to old folks, if you are in to that kind of thing. Alaska isn't the only place they build bridges to nowhere.

The Republicans in particular and conservatives in general are in the grasp of a leadership crisis.

We need new blood to bring back the old ideals - Reagan's ideals - to the leading edge of American political thought.

The GOP got lazy and got righteously thumped. The stakes are too high to merely allow the Democrats the next two years to embarass themselves; the country cannot afford a seventies flashback. Not with a nuclear Iran and still with a chance to end Islamic fascism without having to irradiate a quarter of the world's surface.

GOP - if you want me on your donor rolls, get back to being Republican. If that is too much to ask, just don't bother calling.

(via Instapundit )