The most important protection, the limitation on direct taxation by the federal government, is the true power behind the division of government. The 16th and 17th amendment changed the constitution to an extent that the map says it all. Our power today is limited to damage control in the off years.

President Obama has set a precedent for ignoring Congress. They serve only as a foil for him to justify his continued abuses of power. Yes we have gained power there, but it was never effectively used. If Congress does not risk shutting down the government to enforce their rights to control spending, what have we gained?

Given that the American people gave Obama a mandate any effort to curb spending now could be destructive leaving us with out any conservatives at all. Given that we handed Congress a mandate in 2010 and they did nothing with it when they could and not be blamed for the consequences I don’t understand how we can take a stand and survive it.

Agreed. Unfortunately, we may need to balance our ideologies. (Even typing this is a bitter pill. I voted with my heart, but my mind is taking over.) This is how America reinvents itself. We can fight it or take advantage of it by learning from the experience.

At the very least, we need to change our stance towards immigrants, because without the Latino vote we are at sea as a party. I don’t really think anything more is needed; it’s not like we lost this one in a landslide. But yes, small changes will have to be made to the party platform. Rubio in 2016 and a tack to the left on immigration is looking more and more like the winning strategy. If that’s the only change the party has to make to reestablish a winning coalition, I can live with it.

The Republic is dead. Long live the Republic. The 47%ers have realized Jefferson’s worst fears that they know that they can vote themseles largesse from the Treasury and do so at will. This was an election for freebies and big government, nothing else.

Many immigrants come from countries where all they now is tyranny they have no idea what individualism is. They have not been trained or taught that they are responsible for them selves.

It is very hard to believe that a country where the growth of the socialist population is growing faster than the free population will ever go back to a representative republic.

The dominance of the socialist voting class is taking over.

Columnists like Linda Chavez and Jeff Jacoby suggested we could advocate streamlining the legal immigration bureaucracy to make it easier for qualified Hispanic immigrants to come to America legally. (Currently all the paperwork and hoops to jump through can take many years.) That would show that we do welcome Hispanics who come here legally and want to contribute to this country.

The response from base conservatives? VERY negative. There doesn’t seem to be all that much support among the GOP base even for LEGAL immigration. Even though Hispanics who come here legally usually turn out to have a strong work ethic and a strong family ethic. They certainly *act* more like conservatives than like Occupy Wall Street protesters. Why don’t we welcome them?

Because over on National Review, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Reform continues to advocate shutting the door to all immigrants, even legal immigrants. He claims America is overpopulated already. But minorities will interpret his statement as suggesting that America has too many of *them* already.
We need to welcome *legal* Hispanic immigrants to this country, and to welcome them into the GOP. And we should stop listening to nativists like Krikorian.

A state like Nevada is now less than 60% white. Without minority votes, no Republican can win a statewide election there anymore.

We have the House.

The Senate confirms Supreme Court appointments and treaties that the President makes with foreign powers.

Since we’ve abandoned federalism we DO have a tyranny of the majority. As long as states ran most of their own affairs people were well insulated from the agenda of the opposition party but since we’ve federalized everything we conservatives in Red states have to worry about CA electing a Pelosi or Boxer and NV electing a Reid.
If we want to preserve liberty we have to return to federalism.
Read my diary for much more on this topic.