Republicans Enter the Second Period

by Jim, a Republican Blogger

IMMIGRATION

Jeesh, McCain really monopolized the conversation on this, probably because he is under a lot of fire from his stance on immigration that supports amnesty.  Giuliani's big push seems to be for ID cards, and a national database.  This to me sounds like a push for RealID. Cong. Paul brings up the fact that we subsidize immigration by welfare, education, birth right citizenship, and that creates a huge incentive, again, distinguishing himself from the pack. 

CONSERVATIVE VALUES 

Gilmore points out that Rudy McRomney is not Conservative - ouch!  But it's definitely true that the party has completely strayed from Conservative values, hence the big dissatisfaction with the "top tier" candidates.   Huckabee points out that asking about evolution is really irrelavent since he wouldn't write curriculum for schools, and I agree with that!  This whole discussion was a bit disturbing for me, since it equated Conservatism with Christian values, when the core value of Conservatism in my mind is an adherence to the Constitution and limited government.  Ron Paul did a great job highlighting that the Federal Government should not be making laws at all regarding religion, and these things should be done at the local level.  Once again, he demonstrates the best understanding of the Constitution.

ENERGY POLICY

Everyone seems to want to enact a top down energy policy other than Ron Paul, who says we need a free market in Energy.  He also pointed out that our foreign policy is built to subsidize oil.  This concept is the pink elephant in the room, and the next person questioned totally fails to respond to Dr Paul's assertion, which is absolutely correct.

DON'T ASK DON'T TELL

Ron Paul hits this one on the head with a discussion of individual rights vs. group rights.  We fight  for rights for different groups of people, which just creates contention and fighting, when all this could be avoided by instead focusing on individual rights.  No one supported an open policy for gays in the military.