Around the turn of the century social Conservatives were Progressives. Socialists. Huckabee is a remnant from that era.

BTW thanks for the links. And my reaction to your comment was that you were being flip.

You were right to be paranoid.

"in all my years on the planet I have never once seen anyone's position changed from what we call "pro-life" to what we call "pro-choice"

What about the orginal Jane Roe? She changed her mind. There are others over the years, as well as this one from last week....

http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/68441827.html

From what I saw on the floor yesterday, whatever this abortion bill will and won't, does and doesn't provide; it is going to be changed in the backrooms starting today. What they agreed to is not what they're going to end up with.

And Joseph Cao showed his immaturity by believing he can trust Obama at "his word".

What that has to do with RINOs? Nothing. There's something about DC that ruins men. All that power completely corrupts them. When you have fools like Frank and Grayson (yes Dems not GOP) go on record with the insanity they regurgitate and no one having either the balls to stand up and correct them....well, there it is.

We call all chant the mantra but no one there is going to adhere to what needs to be done.

My further thought was - a deal killer in the bill - no Republican would be stupid enough to vote to take the deal killer out of the bill.

How wrong I was.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that doctrine makes people doctrinaire i.e. stupid.

Here's what I said,

I have never once seen anyone's position changed from what we call "pro-life" to what we call "pro-choice" -- or vice versa -- as the result of an argument.

It is absolutely true, and I say this as someone who has seen a lot of people subjected to many an argument on both sides of this issue.

They just become more determined and yell louder.

When I have seen people change their minds on issues, it's usually because of a personal experience, as opposed to being convinced by an argument.

Don't you think the argument may have initiated doubt to grow in their mind?

I contacted my RINO Friday AM and was assured by his staff that he was AGANST 3962.

He lied. He voted for it. I let him know my disapproval.

I have to agree with you. They are all RINOs and total frauds.

Only blind, deaf, and dumb asses would re-elect any of this ilk.

So, I guess we know what is going to happen fellow mice?

"If the anti-abortion litmus test more important than stopping socialism?"

Apparently. I was hoping for a "present" vote from the GOP. When the stakes are high, taking risks are required - like damaging your perfect NRLC rating. Having said that, not supporting Stupak's amendment, shoving it in their faces, may have been just enough to peel away a few of his supporters - final Bill, sans amendment, guaranteeing passage anyway. I’d have taken the risk.

As I have stated in comments before this bill is not about health care, it is about government power and control.
When the government controls health care the government controls life, anyone who is not satisfied with the care blames the government.
Socialized health care will only be considered successful when they have a cure for death.
We can expect the administration of this monstrosity to cost almost as much as the health care, maybe more as in Canada and Britain.

I've been reviewing a lot of "feminist" sites and let me offer an alternative reason for some Republican support for the amendment ... ie it has the Left up in arms over "denying a woman's rights". Maybe it was a cynical move to fracture the support for the bill in other quarters.

Just a thought after reading some real hysteria over Stupak.

1. Many people oppose abortion even more than they oppose government control of the health care system. One of them is theft; the other is murder. Most people can see that one is worse than the other.

2. Removing government funding of abortion will generate a lot of ill-will from feminists.

I didn't really think about what my position was until the McCain campaign called me to ask.
My spur of the moment answer?
I don't want to tell other people how to live.

If you think life would be better without a little "mini-me" running around, you are probably right.

That's my libertarian position.

There is a fundamental fact that explains all of this. The DNC is composed of lunatics and the RNC is composed of ***holes. With those types making up the leadership what else could you expect accept for idiocy in government.

There is also the possibility that the Republicans voted based on principles rather than tactics.

Heh. Even I don't believe that.

But I seriously don't know what to believe. There is, after all, a reason the GOP is called the Stupid Party, after all. It's entirely possible they thought the bill would go down in flames if anti-abortion was in there. It's entirely possible they thought that if the bill was gonna pass anyway, they had better ensure it did slightly less damage than it's already gonna do.

And it's possible that Republican congresscritters have IQs hovering at the level between that of an idiot and a moron. Collectively.

Gregory,

LOL. In a regretful sort of way.

I guess this sums it all up....played them like a fiddle.

http://tinyurl.com/yj94np3

Mr. Obama, during his private pep talk to Democrats, recognized Mr. Owens election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers. According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

Another freshman Democrat from New Mexico, Representative Martin Heinrich, said the president’s comments overall were reassuring. “If you want to see a recipe for failure,” Mr. Heinrich said, “don’t do the things you talked about in your campaigns and turn your back on your base. All the independent voters in the world don’t matter if the Democrats don’t turn out.”

“This is an opportunity to do something as big as Social Security,” he added. “And me, personally, I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history.

Several Republicans did figure the trap set by the anti-abortion folks,....they recommended voting PRESENT on the amendment so it would fail...the problem was such a vote would be used against them in the next election as J6P (joe six pack) would not understand the tactic...J6P barely understands why the sun comes up...got to give the democraps a hand...they used the power of leverage to get a very bad bill passes....forced the Republicans to vote an amendment in...knowing they would strip it out in confernce since they have the majority....the amendment would not have passed if the Republicans had simply voted PRESENT...happened too fast for the Republicans to figure it out..once the amendment was in place, conservative democraps were given cover to vote for socialized medicine knowing that it would be taken out later on...they could say they did not support the removal. Republicans got hood winked...the people got screwed.

Considering that social conservatives and neo conservatives pretty much run the party now, and they are not against state power, then no, it's us classic liberals that still believe in Reagan's principles that are the RINOs now.

After all, to be a social conservative in the first place you must by definition believe the state has the power to take decisions out of your hands, that's why they are social conservatives in the first place. The state is there to enforce their morality. Such a view is inconsistent with liberty or allowing individuals to decide and make their own contracts.