I agree we've lost some of that in our message, however, I think it oversimplifies when he says that the public sees benefits as disconnected from taxes.  Running high budget deficits, for which Republicans deserve some of the blame, does disconnect it somewhat, and R's lost the stronghold on the issue of fiscal conservativism partly because of that and partly because Bush and our own member voted to expand government directly and got caught in the earmark game.  If people purely liked their benefits, Republicans wouldn't have paid as dearly for those expansions.

That said, we are dumb if we believe that people don't like some of the benefits of government.  Social security is the one where the perception that R's attacked it (they didn't really) hurts. People understand the price of some benefits and still want it - perhaps because they've paid the price for so long they feel their owed it (valid) and perhaps because they're willing to pay for some safety net and security.  Republicans need solutions that don't dismantle that security and safety net, but do increase choices, make the programs more responsive, and less costly or more efficient.  This requires a Kemp-Gingrich-JC Watts type of thinking.

I truely believe we are in a period of socialist/democrat domination for many years with their intent to destroy this country and the ideals of our founding fathers.  We will become just another spineless country dependent on the UN.

I have seen personally the salivating by democrats who can't wait to rip the Constitution apart.  Hate is a great motivator and they have sufficiently motivated enough hate at Bush and anything conservative.  

The republican party is finished and will be a minor player for years to come.  Hopefully Libertarians can take their place and many conseervatives will find a home with them.

The rhetoric gets old.  "Republicans have lost their way"... yadda yadda yadda.  

The Republican party, like the Catholic Church, the YMCA and the Boy Scouts are just a group of individual people.  I am no more defined as a Catholic by the pedophile priest or loudmouth racist than I am as a Republican by the big-spending Joe Schwarz or lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  

I am also not defined by this trash talk about how all is lost for Republicans, particularly when it's spun by left-wing media or third party hacks with something to benefit from talking down and making people despair.

I am a Republican, plain and simple.  I'm working towards the goals I see as necessary to move the country forward.  Do we have hurdles?  Sure.  Do we have RINOs?  Sure.  I think I can do more good working as a Republican than a third-party nobody shouting from the sidelines like some high-school athlete "coach! coach! put me in coach! you're gonna lose the game!".

The sad part is that the few conservative democrats that helped Clinton achieve that have been lost to the Republican revolution, and now, it seems, the majority of people in Congress are either ultra-liberal Democrats or RINOs. The FEW Republicans who voted against the bailout have a large number that won't talk about real spending cuts when telling the electorate "what needs to be done" (sorry to be so hard on you Mr. Walberg - I think you are a good man, but we NEED spending cuts more than anything else...period).

I believe an answer for those of us who swing libertarian can be found here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v30n5/cpr30n5-3.html

It's interesting to note that Howard Stern is a Libertarian 'leaning' celebrity.

There are many areas where an agreement can be found if one looks over what a 'party' promotes as their platform.

John Galt, the main character in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, would never have advocated government policies. Galt undermined the nationalizing of America's industries; returning the "producers" wealth to them, and encouraging them to leave their businesses (which were being stolen by the government anyway) behind.

And, please define "the other side." If you mean Democrats, then I would ask why you and others here continue to support a Republican party that wants to increase federal spending, nationalize industries (like Banking), inflate the monetary system through artificially low interest rates, etc.? What Jason, and others, including me, are advocating is a Republican Party returning to their roots. I seem to remember a certain GOP candidate that proposed the same thing - and y'all didn't like him very much.

For all of the Ayn Rand types who keep saying I shouldn't use this handle; I don't see you advocating revolution.  I don't see you urging the producers to go underground.  You advocate voting third party as the sole solution, selling only dispair and not any kind of vision.

I am not a party. I am an individual.  I am a Republican by my ideals and my values.  Other people have their ideals and values.  I am not defined by the Treasury Secretary or the President, with whom I may disagree with.  I am a Catholic, and I disagree with pedophile priests.  I am not defined by the Spanish Inquisition, and I'm not defined by a $700+bn bailout.  I'm defined by my work in moving things towards my vision and my goals.  

And, in the end, we all agree we need a government.  We have a government.  It's more productive for me to work within the established framework to make things better than proclaim to tear it down and rebuild it.  Look at how successful those people have been.  Ah, not even as successful as the Libertarians.

I have stated numerous times here that I am planning on voting for McCain. I am one who is being persecuted at work for my Republicanism (you all would know that had my blog submission been posted). I am the one who is advocating, not revolution, but a return to the small government roots of modern Republicanism (not Lincolnian Republicanism, which believed in a strong central government who would dictate policy that every state would follow).

For you to claim Galt's name and hold the "vision" that you do is like Obama posting here under the moniker of Thomas Jefferson, except that Jefferson was a real person. Oh and btw, Rand wasn't anti-government. She despised the anarchists within classic liberalism. She supported Goldwater, and Reagan as governor of California. She was critical of Reagan in later years, but remained a Republican, a limited government conservative who believed in free markets, free from government intervention and regulation.

Jason and I do not have to be revolutionaries, for we did not choose the pseudonym of one. You did, and don't deserve it.

Being surrounded by Liberals at work sucks.  And that's just a small microcosm of the entire electorate.  I'm sure many of your coworkers aren't dumb or stupid.  But what model have they been given?  

Labor unions breed on the propaganda their leadership gives them.  Poor families here about tax breaks for the rich.  People with no health care get a bill they toss on a pile that they won't ever pay.  Democrats have a message for these folks.  What's your message?  Telling someone "suck it up, free market baby!" isn't gonna work.

The problem Republicans have is telling people what programs they'll cut - and still getting elected.  You're gonna cut aid that goes to some organization doing something their electorate feels good about.  You can spend all day talking about how inefficient it is, or how there's four others doing the same thing.  

How indeed do we fix our problems, John? You want to use an Ayn Rand character, but you don't want to talk about Ms. Rand? What's up with that?

Am I wrong that Obama is a socialist? Prove it! The simple fact that he advocates nationalizing health care even more than it already is, taxing productivity (which lowers it), and increase regulations (central planning baby), in my opinion, proves he's a socialist. Prove otherwise, if you can.

I do not support many of the things that McCain advocates (cap-and-trade, CEO pay limits, the bailout, the continued devaluing of our economy by the banking industry, to name a few); but, I do agree on a couple of issues, which is more than I agree with Obama on. So, I'll vote for him because there's no one else that's viable. Isn't that what you've argued all along?

Yet, now I have no right to try to get our Republican nominees to return to a limited government, free market ideology? I have to just vote McCain, and allow him to destroy our economy, like Bush is doing?