This is why you just can't talk to liberals...

[Tallpine]

Traditional conservatives will listen to an argument for change, and then decide whether that change is a good thing, or whether the status quo is better, with a bias towards maintaining the stability of the status quo if it's not broken.

Traditional conservatives will listen to an argument for change, and then call you a druggie, insane, coward, America-hater, Ron Paul Toadie, etc ... 

The only difference that I see between liberals/Democrats and conservatives/Republicans is that they each have a slightly different agenda of the things they want to control in your life.

[Manedwolf]

Tallpine, read Barry Goldwater's Conscience of the Conservative.

[Nitrogen]

We all have our countries best interests at heartl it's just that some of us are wrong about it.

No, we don't all have the country's best interest at heart.  Wife-beaters say they love their wives.  And they think they really do. 

Are you seriously comparing people you disagree with to wife beaters? 

Yes.  Are you seriously trying to make me feel bad about it? 

I actually don't know how to respond to that.  All I'll say is that I don't equate most people I disagree with wife-beaters.

I'm just hoping it's a sloppy conparison, and you don't mean that people that you disagree with should be arrested, and lose their 2nd amendment rights, etc.

Strangely enough, many liberals feel the same way about wingnuts.  Not many liberals have any reason to hang out with wingnuts to actually get to know them, and actually understand what makes 'em tick. 

Actually getting to meet people you disagree with makes one feel a bit less nastily toward them.

[Len Budney]

The only difference that I see between liberals/Democrats and conservatives/Republicans is that they each have a slightly different agenda of the things they want to control in your life.

Quoted for truth. "Welfare" is the liberals' pet cause, while "law and order" or else "national security" is the conservatives'. If you refuse to be enslaved for either purpose, you're a whacko--and a druggie, terrorist-supporting whacko at that.

--Len.

[Paddy]

The people who call themselves 'conservatives' today, from Reagan to Bush Jr., are as far from Barry Goldwater as night is from day.  Goldwater was not a stooge of the religious right (It's wonderful that we have so many religious people in our party, ... They need to leave their theologies in their churches.) 

In fact, he truly disdained the religious activist fanatics ("And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism.")

and ("Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.")

He had no problem with 'gays' in the military (You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.)

He viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, offlimits for government intervention. He supported an Arizona initiative legalizing medical marijuana.

And for those of you who think Kucinich seeing a UFO is funny, here's what Goldwater said on that subject ("Now, with the millions of planets that we know are up there, it's hard for me to believe that ours is the only goddam one that has things that can think walking around on it. So when people tell me they've seen UFOs, I don't say they haven't. In fifteen thousand hours of flying, I've never seen one, but I've talked to pilots who have. I talked to an airline crew that swore up and down that an object came alongside of them one night, and before they could do anything it vanished. We lost a military pilot who went up to intercept strange lights and never came back. His airplane disappeared, too. I won't argue for or against.")

A few years before his death he went so far as to address the right wing, "Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican Party much more than the Democrats have."

You chuckleheads who think the current crop of corporate stooges, from Reagan to Bush Jr. are 'conservatives', need to educate yourselves.

[roo_ster]

RileyMc:

Might want you educate YOURSELF on AuH2O and decide which AuH2O you like best (Pre-'64, POTUS Candidate, Post-'64, Post-Senate).  Or, you can do as you have done and pick & choose his positions over the years that coincide with your current positions.

[Paddy]

Or, you can do as you have done and pick & choose his positions over the years that coincide with your current positions.

Since Goldwater's conservative credentials are unquestioned, my agreement with him makes me a conservative also.

Most self-described conservatives today mistakenly believe Reagan and Bush Jr follow in Goldwater's footsteps.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  For one thing, both Reagan and Bush Jr expanded the size and power of government to previously unprecedented levels.  They both incurred unprecedented massive debt. Those are hardly conservative principles.

In Reagan's case, he transferred the tax burden from the very wealthy to the middle class.  Hardly a populist position, despite the myth.  During his administration, the income tax on America's most wealthy was cut in half, while the Social Security tax doubled on people earning $30,000 or less.  The latter was the largest tax increase in history, and hit exclusively working people.  Again, hardly a conservative principle.

But Reagan had a problem.  His huge tax cuts for the wealthy didn't leave enough income to support his historical spending levels.  There was, however, huge amounts of money in the Social Security fund.  Here's where Greenspan bailed Reagan out.  Just 'borrow' the money from the Boomer's social security fund, and because you're borrowing 'government money' to pay 'government expenses', you don't have to report it as part of the deficit.  Nobody will know what you did until 2006, when the Boomers begin to retire.

So Reagan stole the Social Security surplus, as did Bush, and Clinton and Bush Jr after him.  That's trillions of dollars that we Boomers have paid in that have been ripped off and squandered by your so-called 'conservatives'.

[Perd Hapley]

We all have our countries best interests at heartl it's just that some of us are wrong about it.

No, we don't all have the country's best interest at heart.  Wife-beaters say they love their wives.  And they think they really do. 

Are you seriously comparing people you disagree with to wife beaters? 

Yes.  Are you seriously trying to make me feel bad about it? 

I actually don't know how to respond to that.  All I'll say is that I don't equate most people I disagree with wife-beaters.  I'm just hoping it's a sloppy conparison, and you don't mean that people that you disagree with should be arrested, and lose their 2nd amendment rights, etc. 

It is not at all a sloppy comparison.  Rather, you are interpreting my comment in a very sloppy fashion.  I didn't say that every liberal is like a wife-beater and should be arrested, and so on.  In fact, I never specified which group did not have "the country's best interest at heart."  You could apply the comparison to conservatives or any other group, if you like.  I merely gave an example of another, completely unrelated group that professed love, while hurting the object thereof.  This is merely to demonstrate that, even if we think we love something, we might not. 

[Perd Hapley]

Or, you can do as you have done and pick & choose his positions over the years that coincide with your current positions.

Since Goldwater's conservative credentials are unquestioned, my agreement with him makes me a conservative also. 

Except that you don't agree with Goldwater. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Thankfully, they also don't see the coming backlash.

The backlash is coming against conservatives.  It's already started in Australia, and will continue until 'conservatism' is small enough to take what's left of it into the bathroom and drown it in the toilet bowl.

Sorry to distreact y'all from arguying who's more conservative than the other, but did anyone happen to hear the speech Sarkozy gave to our Congress a few weeks back?  And have you been following the recent strikes in Paris? 

What about the recent victories of Koehler and Merkel in Germany?

Even here in American the Left can't gain any traction.  The only election the Democrats have won recently was won by moving to the right.  Leftists like Pelosi and Reed are in the tanks.  Recent polling shows that any Republican nominee for President would beat Hillary, the inevitable Democrat nominee.

I find it hard to accept your notion that there is a coming backlash against conservatism, when notably leftists countries like France and Germany appear to be swinging to the right, and America seems to be consistent in choosing the more conservative candidates on the ballots. 

[Paddy]

And have you been following the recent strikes in Paris? 

You mean working people rebelling against the corporatocracy Sarkozy threatens?

and America seems to be consistent in choosing the more conservative candidates on the ballots. 

There haven't been any conservatives elected to public office in the last 30 years, HTG.  Reagan was a fraud, as is Bush Jr.

[MechAg94]

Riley, are you talking about the essentially govt workers who work on the subsidized railroad over there?  That don't really fit your definition.

[MechAg94]

I believe in decentralization of power, local control, and free choice, but within the context of accountability, equity, and protection of the public good.

I picked this sentence out of that original quote on page 1.  The first part of that sentence sounds really good and is very consistent with some left leaning people I have known.  Ideally, they believe in some good stuff.  The 2nd part of that sentence is also consistent with some liberals I have known in that they are willing to compromise a lot.  They say they believe in the former, but they are willing to compromise endlessly because of the latter to the point that the former is forgotten or lost.

People who consider themselves conservative fall in the same traps in a lot of cases though in different ways and for different reasons.

[MechAg94]

Also Riley, I never thought Bush was conservative.  I have met few who really did.  I just thought he was a closer fit to me than the other candidates.  I thought that when he ran for Governor as well as when he ran for President. 

If I remember right, Reagan was considered fairly liberal as a governor.  As a President, it is some of his economic changes and his foreign policy that he is remembered most for among Republicans.  But I am sure you knew that already. 

[Perd Hapley]

There haven't been any conservatives elected to public office in the last 30 years, HTG.  Reagan was a fraud, as is Bush Jr. 

Wow.  You've researched the political philosophy and/or record of every one of the thousands of elected officials in the United States for the past three decades?  Or did you refer to the whole Earth? 

Either way, that is impressive. 

[Paddy]

I just thought he (Bush) was a closer fit to me than the other candidates.

So did I.  Not only did I vote for him twice, I actively worked the get out the vote phones for him in 2000.  Needless to say, I'm sorely disappointed.  Not only disappointed, but betrayed.  You see, I've voted Republican since 1968, beginning with Nixon.  I (foolishly) bought into the conservative v. liberal, right v. left, republican v. democrat philosophy which continues to this day.  I've finally seen the light and now understand all that is simply a ruse, a smokescreen, a red herring, pap for the masses. 

The real story, the truth, is that this government, our government, since Reagan, has been actively shifting income from the (former) middle class to the already wealthiest.

IOW, there is and has been a huge income inequality in this country.  The most direct way to illustrate that fact is by way of results.

The most telling statistic of what it all means comes from the U.S. Department of Commerce. It states that wages and salaries as of April 2006 constituted only 45.3% of GDP, a decline from 50.0% in 2001 and 53.6% in 1970. Furthermore, as the U.S. government itself estimates, each percentage point now equals about $132 billion!

In other words, the roughly 8.3% drop (53.6-45.3) in labors share by 2005 represents an annual shift in relative income today of about $1.09 trillion. Thats $1.09 trillion that now occurs every year, and is rising.

That $1.09 trillion shift is equivalent to every one of 108 million non-supervisory workers in the U.S. today writing out a check each year, every year, for $12,100 and signing it over to the other 24 million upper-class householdsabout 40% of which would go to the wealthiest 1.4 million families.

And not yet included in the $1.09 trillion annual figure are additional income transfers from labor to corporations as a consequence of employers shifting a greater share of the costs of health care to their workers in recent years; the destruction and only partial payouts to workers from the discontinuing of tens of thousands of defined benefit pension plans since the 1980s; and the transfer of hundreds of billions more every year in workers payroll tax payments (i.e. deferred wages) from the Social Security Trust fund to the U.S. general budget since the 1980s.

'Conservatism' no longer exists.  We have been screwed by every administration since Reagan.  I can only strongly urge you to register, and vote, Independent.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

There haven't been any conservatives elected to public office in the last 30 years, HTG.  Reagan was a fraud, as is Bush Jr.

Isn't Ron Paul supposed to be a "real" conservative...?

 

[Paddy]

There haven't been any conservatives elected to public office in the last 30 years, HTG.  Reagan was a fraud, as is Bush Jr.

Isn't Ron Paul supposed to be a "real" conservative...?

 

Don't look now, but there's nothing left to 'conserve'.  It's been stolen and squandered by self appointed 'conservatives', from Reagan to Bush Jr.

IOW, HTG, you've been had.  You just haven't figured it out yet.

[Perd Hapley]

Riley, have you published your results of studying three decades of candidates?  And I'm still curious whether that's nation-wide or global. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

There haven't been any conservatives elected to public office in the last 30 years, HTG.  Reagan was a fraud, as is Bush Jr.

Isn't Ron Paul supposed to be a "real" conservative...?

 

Don't look now, but there's nothing left to 'conserve'.  It's been stolen and squandered by self appointed 'conservatives', from Reagan to Bush Jr.

IOW, HTG, you've been had.  You just haven't figured it out yet.

And you have?  Gimme a break. 

You're the one who seems surprised by the fact that the rich are getting richer, a fact which would be self-evident to any true "conservative".  Money begets money, as it should.  Wealth is created by investment, and it's the wealthy who are in the best position to invest.

You also haven't seemed to figured out one of the fundamentals of conservatism, the fact wealth isn't a zero-sum game.  Wealth isn't a finite quantity, it is an ever-increasing quantity that is created, not just shifted from one place to another.  Your misapprehension that the rich are getting richer by taking it from the middle class (and worse, that there's a deliberate government conspiracy making this happen) is evidence of your ignorance.

Your beliefs sound an awful lot like resentment born of not making as well as you wanted to.  It's always easier to blame someone or something else, even crazy conspiracies, than to look at oneself as the root cause of one's life conditions. 

Make no mistake, conservatism exists.  You just don't know what it is.

[Paddy]

Riley, have you published your results of studying three decades of candidates?  And I'm still curious whether that's nation-wide or global. 

Just keep drinking the Kool Aid and paying your taxes (especially your 7.65% social security).  And don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.
 

[Paddy]

You're the one who seems surprised by the fact that the rich are getting richer, a fact which would be self-evident to any true "conservative".  Money begets money, as it should.

No, the founding principles of this country rebel against the very nature of aristocracy.

  Wealth is created by investment, and it's the wealthy who are in the best position to invest.

Wrong again.  'Investment' does not exist without labor. 

You also haven't seemed to figured out one of the fundamentals of conservatism, the fact wealth isn't a zero-sum game.  Wealth isn't a finite quantity, it is an ever-increasing quantity that is created, not just shifted from one place to another.  Your misapprehension that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the middle class (and worse, that there's a deliberate government conspiracy making this happen) is evidence of your ignorance.

And your ignorance has yet to catch up with you.  I seriously doubt that your are rich, or even wealthy.  I suspect my net worth is far greater than yours. (Maybe an unfair comparison, as I'm 61 years old, and you are probably much younger).

The rich are in fact getting richer at the expense of the middle class, as I outlined in my Reply #40.

Either directly contradict those facts, HTG, or STFU, because you have nothing to add but the party line.

Your beliefs sound an awful lot like resentment born of not making as well as you wanted to.  It's always easier to blame someone or something else, even crazy conspiracies, than to look at oneself as the root cause of one's life conditions.

Again, young fella, I'll compare my net worth with yours anytime you want.

Make no mistake, conservatism exists.  You just don't know what it is.

Conservatism as a viable and active philosophy is dead.  It hasn't been practiced in over 30 years.

[Paddy]

.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Lots of interesting tidbits in that last post, Riley.  Where to start...?

EDIT: On second thought, this stuff probably belongs in another thread.  Feel free to start one, if you'd like to continue this discussion.

[Tallpine]

Apparently, one can't talk to Riley