2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

[geezer]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Why is it every knuckledragger out here wants to label themselves as some so called mythical traditional conservative and then claim the modern Republican party has nothing to do with them. Give it up people. Conservativism = George W Bush, The Boner, McConnell, DeLay, Gingrich, etc etc etc. These people and their policies (tax cuts for campaign contributors paid for by borrowing money, govt in your bedroom, massive military spending, do as I say not as a I do religious pandering) ARE conservatism. Any other former version is now dead and buried, as nobody is practicing it.

So by all means keep telling yourself that there's some old school Republican Jesus out there who will get you guys back to your traditional values, whatever the hell that means. However, when Mittens gets his head handed to him come election day this year, be assured you will be held to account for that.

You're clearly a party man, and you're sounding all bitter like Priceless. Shouldn't you be glad if conservatives won't vote for Romney (if they could, it would no doubt be a landslide). I'm an Obama voter, and I consider myself conservative. Why does this generate such a backlash from people who shouldn't care? Take your votes where you can get 'em. And face it, Obama is the most conservative* candidate in the race.
*(conservative used in its most simplified definition of "sensible")

 

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Careful. That sword is double edged, and the blade is very sharp.

Why, hello, Mr. Pot. This is Mr. Kettle. Thanks for calling.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

You're clearly a party man, and you're sounding all bitter like Priceless. Shouldn't you be glad if conservatives won't vote for Romney (if they could, it would no doubt be a landslide). I'm an Obama voter, and I consider myself conservative. Why does this generate such a backlash from people who shouldn't care? Take your votes where you can get 'em. And face it, Obama is the most conservative* candidate in the race.
*(conservative used in its most simplified definition of "sensible")

Not bitter at all as I'm looking at 4 out of 6 for the party I tend to agree with the most. However my point stands. Modern day conservatism in a political context = The Republican Party. If you want to talk conservative in the context of investing, alcohol consumption, etc that's a lot broader discussion. Priceless is 100% correct. Don't whine about the GOP not representing how you really feel but then vote for them every chance you get. As I've said before, any so called traditional conservatives (if there are any left) are better off becoming ConservaDems.

 

[geezer]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Not bitter at all as I'm looking at 4 out of 6 for the party I tend to agree with the most. However my point stands. Modern day conservatism in a political context = The Republican Party. If you want to talk conservative in the context of investing, alcohol consumption, etc that's a lot broader discussion. Priceless is 100% correct. Don't whine about the GOP not representing how you really feel but then vote for them every chance you get. As I've said before, any so called traditional conservatives (if there are any left) are better off becoming ConservaDems.

Do you really think it more noble to fit your views into an existing political party rather than try to shift the discussion/platforms/parties to fit your standards? This is why I could never call myself a liberal (and more accurately would be called a libertarian). I completely disagree. The parties can shove it.

In other words, in case you missed it: I think I have EVERY right to "whine about the GOP not representing me." Why wouldn't I?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Why is it every knuckledragger out here wants to label themselves as some so called mythical traditional conservative and then claim the modern Republican party has nothing to do with them.

Idea people, be they "conservative", "liberal", "progressive", whatever, are like producers of TV shows. They want to get their ideas "on the air."

Political parties, be they Republican or Democrat, are like advertisers. They use the ideas to sell their product, which is getting elected and staying in office once elected. They "sponsor" whatever "TV show" they think the public will watch, not because they care very much about the content of the show, but primarily because they want people to buy their product as a result of watching the show.

The primary purpose of political parties is to attain and hold office. They use whatever ideas they find expedient at the time.

The primary goal of "idea people" is to shape the way parties craft their message, to try to hold them accountable to follow through on what they promised (i.e., to get them to keep sponsoring their show because the public continues to watch, so to speak). While the two have some overlap, they are distinct from each other and have different methods and goals.

Is this concept really so hard for you to grasp?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

As I've said before, any so called traditional conservatives (if there are any left) are better off becoming ConservaDems.

Yes, the way they embraced Joe Lieberman in 2006 is quite instructive, eh?

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

I'm an Obama voter

Based on what I know of your postings that would truly make you an independent.

Yes, nicely put. You said it much better than I did.

I would add a bit more nuance to the definition of "conservative." I tend to phrase it more as "respect the wisdom of those who have gone before" and less as "tradition" because thoughtful conservatives (e.g., Burke) are not slavish devotees to "tradition" merely for the sake of tradition. It is more like Mark Twain's famous observation: "when I was 16, my father was an ignorant lout; but by the time I was 21, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned during those five years." It is more like "don't rush into anything rash without thinking it through first; there might be unintended consequences that are not yet apparent to you that are behind the reasons we currently do things as we do."

I do not consider myself a conservative; yet I have a great deal of respect for the conservative tradition, and I find conservative arguments useful in today's environment. Being a fan of expediency, I use them often because often they are effective.

At heart I am an old-fashioned liberal, and there are so few liberals left these days, we need to find allies wherever we can. People are getting frustrated and impatient, and want to take short cuts by "forcing" others to act "as they should" which is the antithesis of liberalism. Having that attitude egged on by cynical politicians on the left whose true agenda is to remain in power by any means possible adds a sense of urgency to my quest.

I find it sad and disturbing that so many people are fooled by this manipulation, yet knowing human nature as we do, the more you try to use reason to help them see what is going on, the more doggedly determined they become in their devotion. People generally would prefer to avoid the embarrassment of acknowledging that they were taken advantage of than admit they made a mistake, that's just human nature.

Also, we really need morality, self-discipine, and self-restraint as social virtues in this day and age, there is way too much self-indulgence to sustain a healthy and functional society for very long.

Perhaps I too respect the wisdom of elders, but I guess even more I get jazzed by the use of creativity to find a better way.

In From Dawn to Decadence, Jacques Barzun calls this "primitivism" and maintains it is one of the enduring themes recapitulated throughout the history of civilization. It's the longing to return to the pure root of things. We see this in a lot of religious reform movements, and even in things like Constitutional originalism. The basic idea is that time has corrupted an originally pristine state. The Fall of Man.

The biggest ideas are neither liberal nor conservative nor left nor right. They're much more important than those shorthand terms.

You may be right about the biggest ideas being neither liberal nor conservative. But I would say the mechanism by which they become reality is facilitated by the liberal POV (the push for a new way).

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Yes, the way they embraced Joe Lieberman in 2006 is quite instructive, eh?

He's still under the delusion that the Dems are an inclusive party.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

I guess they had the primaries in the NE while no one was looking. Yes these are not states he will likely win...but Romney didn't do quite as well as one would expect for being 'the guy'. As Juan Williams puts it:

In Connecticut, part of his New England backyard, Romney won easily with 67 percent of the vote but 32 percent of Republican voters made their point by supporting someone else.

In Rhode Island, the anti-Romney vote rose to 43 percent.

In Delaware, the resistance to Romney reached 44 percent of voters.

In New York, nearly half of primary voters, 48 percent, refused to get on the bandwagon.

In Pennsylvania it was a stunning 54 percent.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Idea people, be they "conservative", "liberal", "progressive", whatever, are like producers of TV shows. They want to get their ideas "on the air."

Political parties, be they Republican or Democrat, are like advertisers. They use the ideas to sell their product, which is getting elected and staying in office once elected. They "sponsor" whatever "TV show" they think the public will watch, not because they care very much about the content of the show, but primarily because they want people to buy their product as a result of watching the show.

The primary purpose of political parties is to attain and hold office. They use whatever ideas they find expedient at the time.

The primary goal of "idea people" is to shape the way parties craft their message, to try to hold them accountable to follow through on what they promised (i.e., to get them to keep sponsoring their show because the public continues to watch, so to speak). While the two have some overlap, they are distinct from each other and have different methods and goals.

Is this concept really so hard for you to grasp?

All this is tripe Fishy. Taking a stand against political parties. Wow. Never seen that before. I think any failure to grasp as you put it is probably due to the boredom I get from reading your post.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Do you really think it more noble to fit your views into an existing political party rather than try to shift the discussion/platforms/parties to fit your standards? This is why I could never call myself a liberal (and more accurately would be called a libertarian). I completely disagree. The parties can shove it.

In other words, in case you missed it: I think I have EVERY right to "whine about the GOP not representing me." Why wouldn't I?

Not at all. What I am saying is that people who claim a certain party doesn't represent them in public but then in private reflexively vote for that party are full of BS and need to be called out. Exposing hypocrisy is the noble cause here. If you truly are "vote splitting" good for you. Parties should work for your vote. I'm more calling out people who actively talked up a GWB type right up until his popularity nosedived, and now you need a search party to find anybody who admitted the voted for him twice. All the while they're claiming that the party has strayed from their view of conservatism. If it has strayed, why do they keep voting for them?

I personally have voted GOP for both statewide offices (as recently as 2010) and congressional offices. Can't say I do that often, but it happens when the Dems nominate an idiot (like their current Mass Governor). By and large though the national Dem party has gotten their act together a lot better so its easier to support them. However, if the day came when Little Ralphie Nader ever became the party's nominee, I in no way would vote for the Dem ticket because the guy is insane and his ideas unworkable. Essentually what's happened to the GOP is the equivalent of a Ralphie Nader taking over the party. If righties keep voting for the party regardless of how dumb the people running it are (The Boner and McConnell in this case) all the whining in the world isn't going to bring them back to sanity.

 

[Foxton]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Change can be either forward or backwards hence the importance of tradition to the definition whether it was stated with each point or not.

Yes, and he was against the newer 'traditions' that were coming out, stuff like indulgences.

Regarding Luther (and no won't debate religion here). One shouldn't believe that just because he was religious he was conservative...a number of Christians I know have taking care of the poor as their top policy priority and many like me love to move on from tradition. Also just because he didn't sleep around doesn't mean he was a conservative.

It comes down to support of tradition (per wiki)...Luther was either for the traditions of the church or not. The existing traditions were that the church could sell freedom from sin and that ultimately the church owned the meaning of the Christian word. As Luther's life was about the fight against those traditions and as such its hard to believe that change agent Luther was any conservative.

So anyone fighting against a current tradition is not a conservative. He wasn't bringing up anything new, Luther was going against over 1000 years of tradition, how far back does tradition have to go for it not to be existing for you? Might as well compare him to someone who wants to go back to the days of Roman power.

And do you get all your information from wiki?

I'm starting to think Foxton is actually a religion-bot. You mention religion at 5 in the morning on USCHO and DING there it is to argue.

I said nothing about his religion. It was irrelevant. The guy was the David Barton/Glenn Beck/name your nutjob of the day talking about going back to the way things were. His movement was as much political as religious.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Yeah the day GWB got a rousing, standing ovation at the Conservative Caucus (or Coalition...I forget) that pretty much destroyed any idea of a split between the conservatives and the GOP. Any person that has any real conservative ideas would not spit on Dubya if he was on fire and they Reaganites should have burned him for being a witch. The closest he came to Reagan was his last name being the same as Ronald's Veep

The Tea Party had a shot, but they sold out and let the derp talk for the party. Now they barely qualify as a caucus within the GOP. Too bad, I actually had hope for them. The two party system needs a wake up call and fast because the failure is reaching epic proportions now.

And before anyone says anything, I voted for Obama but that wont happen again. Since Minnesota wont go against the Dems I am leaving the Presidential box blank.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

The Tea Party had a shot, but they sold out and let the derp talk for the party.

This is a little tricky, though, since the derp is The Voice of (sniff) the People.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Perhaps I too respect the wisdom of elders, but I guess even more I get jazzed by the use of creativity to find a better way.

You and I are in complete accord here.

My concern is the stifling of creativity by the Procrustean creep of more and more and more regulation prescribing one and only one way to do anything.

There is a small circle of elites who truly believe they are the Chosen Ones and they and only they know the answer to everything and they will force it upon us no matter how much we protest because after all it is really for our own good and they know better than we do what's best for us.

 

[geezer]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Not at all. What I am saying is that people who claim a certain party doesn't represent them in public but then in private reflexively vote for that party are full of BS and need to be called out. Exposing hypocrisy is the noble cause here....
If righties keep voting for the party regardless of how dumb the people running it are (The Boner and McConnell in this case) all the whining in the world isn't going to bring them back to sanity.

Let's agree to agree.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

You and I are in complete accord here.

My concern is the stifling of creativity by the Procrustean creep of more and more and more regulation prescribing one and only one way to do anything.

There is a small circle of elites who truly believe they are the Chosen Ones and they and only they know the answer to everything and they will force it upon us no matter how much we protest because after all it is really for our own good and they know better than we do what's best for us.

I've met the people who are supposed to be this elite and I've never met anybody who felt like that.

However, Procrustean Creep is a great name for a band.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

I've met the people who are supposed to be this elite and I've never met anybody who felt like that.

Perhaps you've never "met" them...there are more than a few around...

Al Armendariz, the regional [EPA] administrator [for Texas, Oklahoma and other south-central states] says the agency's "general philosophy" is to "crucify" oil and gas producers....in [a] 2010 lecture. Mr. Armendariz explains that his staff's "philosophy of enforcement" is "like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years." The point is to "make examples" of alleged lawbreakers.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe released video of the speech on Wednesday as part of his investigation into the EPA's now-discredited claims of water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing, including in Parker County, Texas

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...92876696550.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop


Also, I refer you to the PPACA, which prescribes "allowable loss ratios" and says that only certain specified health insurance plans can be offered starting in 2014. You really don't think that saying "these plans and only these plans" can be sold is not an elite strangling innovation in the name of their superior knowledge?

 

[geezer]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

I've met the people who are supposed to be this elite and I've never met anybody who felt like that.

However, Procrustean Creep is a great name for a band.

while the point is exaggerated ("chosen ones", etc) I've found that the general attitude that smart people ought to be prescribing allowable behaviors to the masses 'for their own good' is a very common one in academia. The condescension is palpable.

Yesterday I overheard two profs congratulating each other over their wonderful idea that we should set up a panel to approve or decline permits for childbearing. Obviously this panel would be made up of people who share their exact same values and would approve children only to those couples who also share them, since no conservative person is going anywhere near this idea and if it ever passed, would either move out of the country or revolt. I hope. But they were sure elated about the idea. Since obviously conservative people could never raise their kids "properly".

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Perhaps you've never "met" them...there are more than a few around...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...92876696550.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

That isn't the least bit surprising. And even scarier, there's probably a chunk of America that would support such behavior.