"Americans and their elected officials have constitutional authority to make marriage policy. "

If you could cite where, in the constitution, where the government should be regulating what is a combination of contractual obligations (the civil union) and religious ceremony (and I seem to remember at least one amendment that disagrees with this aspect), then I'll stand corrected.

Furthermore, there's this line: "Marriage has public purposes that transcend its private purposes." Substitute anything on the progressive/liberal agenda, and it sounds just as hollow, tries to justify the intrusion into a personal decision, and attempts to force a particular morality onto people

Now this is not to take away with any justification for the positions staked out above, most of which I agree with on similar moral grounds. But since marriage was not generally recognized by the state (and really only became a national issue initially because of income taxes (a century AFTER the Constitution), there's no constitutional basis for creating legal definitions for what was considered matters for churches, or at most, the states (subject to 14th amendment limitations)..

No, I DIDN'T get the president I wanted for the next for years? I COULDN'T EVEN GET CLOSE to the president I wanted for the next 4 years. I DIDN'T HAVE A FUCKING CHOICE as far as you were concerned. So fuck off with the bitching.

Don't blame me, I didn't vote for Marxism. Or the idiot the GOP flung up there who couldn't even beat Obama. Are you going to bitch about this for the next 4 years (and never see me vote GOP again)?

Just a reminder, most tyrants, from Hitler to Saddam also liked to use children to put a happy face on their attacks on individual liberty. Now all we need is the kids singing a song to dear ruler like they did for Lenin, or Mao, or like they do for whichever Kim is running North Korea.

I've been arguing for years how the GOP can avoid shooting themselves in the foot. They did so anyway. Do you, like Mike, expect blind adherence to whatever the will of the party is?

Throughout our history, parties have dies, and parties have been reshaped. The current GOP went all-out in fighting that reshaping this year. And that, more than anything, is what pushed me out. I can deal with some disagreements on positions. But when the GOP is operating under the same premise as the Dems (with mostly rhetorical differences where it matters), then either major changes have to happen, or we're voting for Demorat lite.

Romney was much more than "not my choice," he was by the end, the antithesis of my choice. Do you vote for poisoning over a shotgun blast to the head because the poison is slower? That's why I walked the hell away.

I didn't ignore the point. Reagan would have done what it took to avoid people running to a third party or opting out altogether. You ignored that and flung out a quote, which is correct. The danger of a third party is that it is an indication that you are losing your base. That means fixing it, not pissing and moaning when they don't suck the party dick.

Because you can't have blind loyalty to party and expect the party to adapt, grow, and win elections. And that means looking at where you and the GOP went wrong, not lashing out and attacking the people who left because you stopped listening.

And it's not about "not getting what I want", it's about the GOP taking steps to marginalize people like myself. Look at it through the lens of economics. If you raise taxes on a business, then add regulations, then mandate their behavior, then rip them for not falling in line with what you want, do they have ANY incentive to be more productive, or do they have every incentive to move their HQ the hell out of the country.

In short, stop blaming the people that left. Figure out why they left and how you can get them back,

Which reminds me of another Reagan quote that I'll paraphrase: I didn't leave the GOP, the GOP left me.

And finally, I'm not irrelevant because you can't win without people like me.

I love it when you miss my point.

Wait, no I don't because it means Marxists win. Thanks to bastard politics.

Reagan would have never made the mistake of pissing off the libertarians (especially the passionate and crazy core of the Ron Paul supporters). He would have worked to bring them into the party, not demand blind loyalty after shitting on them at the convention (which is what happened if you were paying attention), then blaming them when they justifiably walked away.

What part of the whole big tent thing did you forget about?

Ok, then fuck the GOP, I'll come here and shill for every idiot Demorat, since this is EXACTLY the narrow, stupid, mindless, dumbshit view that cost the GOP the damned election in the first place. Furthermore, if your thought process is the one predominant in the GOP, I predict that 1. the GOP will justifiably die, and 2. other countries will laugh at us when we talk about freedom in the future.

And if you hadn't noticed, I don't walk every time I don't get my way. But on the other hand I also will not allow myself to be taken for granted. You (and Romney, apparently) still miss this crucial point.

Although, before I go, only to come back to be a pain in your ass (because that's the only way I can act in the mentality in which you operate), I will ask this: What would Reagan do?

Betrayed my principles? Do you actually listen to the shit you say sometimes?

First of all, I didn't betray my damned principles. I did in 2008, when I sucked it up and voted for that idiot McCain. And if you looked at the numbers, my vote (and every GJ vote combined) would not have mattered. It did in Flori-duh. And it sure didn't in the second best LP showing (that was 1980, by the way)

Second, having checked the vote totals, Romney did worse than McCain, against a known and disastrous Marxist piece of shit. So either 0bama really pulled off some vote-switching, or the GOP itself failed to win. Don't go screaming about "useful idiots" when to often you've supported them (I'm sure you would have said people should vote for Boehner if he was unopposed.

Third, and most important, I cam back to offer help in fixing the mistakes. I would like to see the GOP get their heads out their asses and become the party they're supposed to be. But instead, I get blasted with vitriol, when there is a common enemy that is going to fuck this country for 4 more years. Are you really so stupid as to be unable to figure out that attacking potential allies is never going to help get people to come back?

Seriously, do you want the people that waled away this year to come back, or do you want us to tell you and the GOP to fuck off?

To be honest, I didn't think the state of Ohio was this stupid. And the state of our nation will get a lot worse before it gets better, if we survive it.

First, to reiterate a point you made, it has never been balanced media. But it's easier now than back in the day of Reagan, because there are so many options, so many outlet, so many ways to push a message, from the social media, to the blog, to Youtube vids, to gallons of SuperPac money.

It comes back down to candidates.

Solid, principled conservative, tea party, and libertarian candidates, have, in 2010 and this year, gone on to victories where they weren't guarantees. And well-challenged candidates with weak or waffly records (ex. Scott Brown and Romney himself) have failed to win. Add to that idiots like Todd Akin, who say completely batshit crazy things or Richard Mourdock, who say easily twisted social things, and it's bound to drive away all the marginal voters needed to win.

Now this is not a call to ditch all principles and be what the voters want. It means two things have to happen. First, figure out where the GOP can and must hold the line (the economy) and where public opinion is going to cost Republicans victories because they either have lost the hearts and minds of the undecided, or their positions are untenable in the face of the idea of a limited government (much of the social agenda, which means nothing if the country is lost). Second, replace the asshat GOP congressmen with principled fiscal conservatives, Tea Party radicals, and libertarians. Anyone who can passionately explain why the road we've been on for over a decade (yes, that includes the big government idiocy of the Bush years) is utter suicide is a good candidate. Idiots who have been hanging onto the gearshift (or other prominent shaft) as the White House has swung the nation toward the ditch have to go (For FSM's sake, Boehner ran unopposed).

The GOP has been failing to be a big tent for a long time now, focusing all laser-like on niche issues that excite the base but piss off the people needed to win. If/When the GOP leadership and the base finish sorting their priorities and send candidates that stir within the desire f