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musik_knut

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Location: Third Stone From The Sun
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:16pm

phineas wrote:

So the Republicans in office are not, in fact, Republicans... No, wait, I see — they're simply unprincipled Republicans.

Full Disclosure: my personal view is that politicians, of all political stripes, actually seem to be of only one stripe — the big white one down their backs. I just wish they'd stop digging for grubs in my begonias.

I don't like to think of unprincipled elected officials, but undisciplined fits.

phineas

phineas Avatar

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:16pm

sirdroseph wrote:

Really though, I think ultimately it is our fault for believing the lies of both sides based upon our own unrealistic expectations, prejudices or just plain selfishness; we want what we want, fear what we fear and hear what we want to hear. {#Hungry}

I think I just heard you say "Hey, I'm buying the next round!"

On this, we are in complete agreement, and the world is a just-slightly-less hostile place...

phineas

phineas Avatar

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:14pm

musik_knut wrote:

Fiscal Conservatism is not a Republican hypocrisy, it's a principle Republicans holding elected office, vacated.

sirdroseph

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Location: Not here, I tell you wat
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:12pm
Mark_E_DeSnow wrote: Yes! Yes! We're in complete agreement. My initial judgement of you was too hasty. Now that you are making perfect sense, the Mark E. humbly apologizes. Good on ya, Mate.

sirdroseph

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Location: Not here, I tell you wat
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:11pm
Really though, I think ultimately it is our fault for believing the lies of both sides based upon our own unrealistic expectations, prejudices or just plain selfishness; we want what we want, fear what we fear and hear what we want to hear.

samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:07pm
fuh2 wrote: Fiscal conservatism is one of the Republicants biggest hypocrisies. So is balancing the budget. Every time Repubs get in power they spend like drunken sailors and cut taxes on the top rich 1%. So they have to heavily deceive the middle class to get them to vote for them. The Democrats dont have to lie since they represent the interests of other 98%. Now do you get it?

musik_knut

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Location: Third Stone From The Sun
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:06pm

fuh2 wrote:

Fiscal conservatism is one of the Republicants biggest hypocrisies. So is balancing the budget. Every time Repubs get in power they spend like drunken sailors and cut taxes on the top rich 1%. So they have to heavily deceive the middle class to get them to vote for them.

The Democrats dont have to lie since they represent the interests of other 98%. Now do you get it?

Fiscal Conservatism is not a Republican hypocrisy, it's a principle Republicans holding elected office, vacated.
Democrats don't have to lie. But, they do. As do elected Republicans. Are you blind? Because I do get it...

musik_knut

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Location: Third Stone From The Sun
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:04pm
jadewahoo wrote: Another fluff nomb response to an intelligent expose' of your ridiculous narcissism. whatever...psssssssst...I have no desire to defend myself against your image of me...fair enough?...

fuh2

Location: Mexican beach paradise
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:02pm

musik_knut wrote:

Of course, one could author the reciprocal thread: Democratic Lies and Hypocrisy. But in this forum, that thread would perish from rusting over, given the general feeling among most RP types.
Until some realize their Party does what they blast the other Party for doing, they will be silent hypocrites to their own Party's lies and hypocrisies.
Both Parties are more or less, the same and in so many ways...Republicans of recent vintage spent too much money, Democrats, having seen the bet, raised it substantially.

jadewahoo

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Location: Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 5:01pm
musik_knut wrote: whatever Another fluff nomb response to an intelligent expose' of your ridiculous narcissism.

musik_knut

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Location: Third Stone From The Sun
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 4:59pm

jadewahoo wrote:

These are such overly broad generalizations as to be nothing more than hyperbolic fluff. There are how many thousands of RPeeps? And of these, how many are posters in the forums? And you would hold posters to be an accurate representation of the general feeling (without even specifying what that general feeling might even be)? And just what is an 'RP type'? Is this based upon their blood type, something quantifiable and subject to scrutiny? Or is it just another fluff bomb? As for me, I prefer to recognize that there is no such 'type', rather that RPeeps are a vast affiliation of people who, as individuals, have their own unique tastes and opinions. I have never seen a homogeneous anything here on RP. Not even in regards of the music we all listen to. Yes, I know... you are a clique of one, standing firm against the world of insidious liberalism and wrong-headed thought, Tip o' the hat to you, there, Mr. Knut. Yours is a lonely stance and no doubt brings you great pleasure and satisfaction. Why else would you hold such a self-appointed task?

whatever

jadewahoo

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Location: Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 4:58pm

musik_knut wrote:

musik_knut

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Location: Third Stone From The Sun
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 4:27pm

GeneP59

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Location: On the edge of tomorrow looking back at yesterday.
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 1:33pm
dmax wrote: Sure. The author just has to go back to the first post and change the title there. Totally possible! I don't think that's possible. The pancakes have gone to his head.

(former member)

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Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 1:28pm
genepicard wrote: Hey, is it possible to rename this forum to: Chairman Mao's Democratic twisted yellow screaming me-me's Sure. The author just has to go back to the first post and change the title there. Totally possible!

GeneP59

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Location: On the edge of tomorrow looking back at yesterday.
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 1:16pm
Hey, is it possible to rename this forum to: Chairman Mao's Democratic twisted yellow screaming me-me's

fuh2

Location: Mexican beach paradise
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 1:08pm

justin_thyme wrote:

An arch-conservative rails against the ultra-right-wing takeover of conservatism:

February 18, 2010

WHY I'M NOT AT CPAC

by Mickey Edwards

American conservatism embraced a Constitution that separated and constrained powers, that specified — highlighted — a few of the protected liberties of the people coupled with clear assertions that all undelegated powers — all other unsurrendered liberties — remained with the people rather than the government. A Constitution that placed unambiguous limitations, including direct prohibitions, on the attempted exercise of governmental authority.

Today there are few things that set a "conservative's" teeth on edge more than a defense of "civil liberties"; yet that is what American conservatism was all about - protecting the liberties of the people. It was a system designed to protect the people from an over-reaching government, not to protect the government from the people. American constitutionalism was a historical high-point in recognizing individual worth.
Stop at CPAC today and you will find rooms full of ardent, zealous, fervent young men and women who believe the government should be allowed to torture (we condemned people at Nuremberg for doing that), who believe the government should be able to lock people up without charges and hold them indefinitely (something Henry VIII agreed was a proper exercise of government authority). Who believe the government should be able to read a citizen's mail and listen in on a citizen's phone calls, all without a warrant (the Constitution of course prohibits searches without a warrant, but nobody cares less about the Constitution than some of today's ersatz conservatives).

I'm not at CPAC because I believe in America. I believe in liberty. I believe that governments should be held in check. I believe people matter. I believe in the flag not because of its shape or color but because of the principles it stands for - the principles in the Constitution, the principles repeated and underlined and highlighted and boldfaced and italicized in the Bill of Rights. The George W. whose presidency and precedents I admire was the first president, not the 43d. It is James Madison I admire, not John Yoo. Thomas Paine, not Glenn Beck. Jefferson, not Limbaugh.

Ronald Reagan would not have been welcome at today's CPAC or a Tea Party rally, but he would not have wanted to be there, either. Neither do I.

I'm, not sure which is more dangerous, this guy who is a Nordquist/ Libertarian "Drown the Government in a bath-tub" type economic Conservative or the Social Conservatives, who want government in our private lives, he rails against.

—————————————————————————————-

To Norquist, who loves being called a revolutionary, hardly an agency of government is not worth abolishing, from the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration to the Education Department and the National Endowment for the Arts. "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

justin_thyme

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Location: Windward O`ahu, Hawai`i
Gender: Male

Posted: Feb 20, 2010 - 11:59am

An arch-conservative rails against the ultra-right-wing takeover of conservatism:

February 18, 2010

WHY I'M NOT AT CPAC

by Mickey Edwards

I was asked yesterday whether I would be going to CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which is currently being held a half-hour's walk from my office in DC. It was a logical question, not only since the meetings are so close at hand but also because for five years I chaired CPAC.

CPAC brings together conservative activists from every corner of America. As national chairman of the American Conservative Union, a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, and director of the policy task forces for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, speaking at CPAC and shaping the program were high priorities on my personal agenda every year, even while serving in Congress.

But the answer to yesterday's question was "no"; no, I'm not going to CPAC. And, truth be told, most of the folks there wouldn't want me there. They wouldn't think I'm a conservative; many wouldn't think Barry Goldwater was a conservative; many, had this been three decades ago, might have been seeking a "true" conservative to run against Ronald Reagan. I don't begrudge these activists their views and they are entitled to use the term "conservative" to describe themselves if they so choose. But the views many of them profess have little in common with the distinctly American kind of conservatism that gave birth to CPAC and the modern American conservative movement. Instead, what many of today's self-proclaimed "conservatives" proclaim is an ideology borrowed from what Donald Rumsfeld famously dismissed as "old Europe." Winston Churchill, one of Europe's better-known conservatives, was half-American and his incredible strength of character helped Great Britain survive World War II, but when asked to define conservatism, Churchill responded that conservatism was about reverence for king and church. But America has no king and has no national church. That distinction is crucial and one in which today's so-called conservatives have switched sides; crossed the ocean, if you will.

What distinguished modern American conservatism was that it had its roots not in the British kings but in John Locke and Adam Smith and other champions of individual liberties and individual empowerment. European conservatism - the kind that has now become the rage for the American Right - was top-down and centered on state power. The rise of modern American conservatism, on the other hand, had a distinctly Madisonian flair, embracing the fundamentals of American constitutional limits on central authority. European conservatism found its voice in magisterial decree, religious edict, and acts of parliaments in which members may or may not have ever visited the communities they were presumed to "represent". American conservatism found its voice in a Constitution that placed every major power in the hands of the people, through their representatives, and ensured that those representatives would actually be residents of the communities that elected them. American conservatism embraced a Constitution that separated and constrained powers, that specified — highlighted — a few of the protected liberties of the people coupled with clear assertions that all undelegated powers — all other unsurrendered liberties — remained with the people rather than the government. A Constitution that placed unambiguous limitations, including direct prohibitions, on the attempted exercise of governmental authority.

Today there are few things that set a "conservative's" teeth on edge more than a defense of "civil liberties"; yet that is what American conservatism was all about - protecting the liberties of the people. It was a system designed to protect the people from an over-reaching government, not to protect the government from the people. American constitutionalism was a historical high-point in recognizing individual worth. Stop at CPAC today and you will find rooms full of ardent, zealous, fervent young men and women who believe the government should be allowed to torture (we condemned people at Nuremberg for doing that), who believe the government should be able to lock people up without charges and hold them indefinitely (something Henry VIII agreed was a proper exercise of government authority). Who believe the government should be able to read a citizen's mail and listen in on a citizen's phone calls, all without a warrant (the Constitution of course prohibits searches without a warrant, but nobody cares less about the Constitution than some of today's ersatz conservatives).

I'm not at CPAC because I believe in America. I believe in liberty. I believe that governments should be held in check. I believe people matter. I believe in the flag not because of its shape or color but because of the principles it stands for - the principles in the Constitution, the principles repeated and underlined and highlighted and boldfaced and italicized in the Bill of Rights. The George W. whose presidency and precedents I admire was the first president, not the 43d. It is James Madison I admire, not John Yoo. Thomas Paine, not Glenn Beck. Jefferson, not Limbaugh.

Ronald Reagan would not have been welcome at today's CPAC or a Tea Party rally, but he would not have wanted to be there, either. Neither do I.

————————————————————————————————————
Mickey Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years and a senior member of the House Republican leadership (chairman of the party’s policy committee). After leaving Congress he taught at Harvard (at the Kennedy School of Government and at Harvard Law School) for 11 years, where he was voted the Kennedy School’s most outstanding teacher, and later at Princeton (the Woodrow Wilson School) for five years. He is currently a Vice President of the Aspen Institute, where he runs a political leadership program for elected officials, and teaches both defense policy and foreign policy at George Washington University. He has been a regular weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers and a weekly commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

Edwards served for five years as national chairman of both the American Conservative Union and the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and was one of three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation. In 1980, while a member of Congress, he directed of more than a dozen joint House-Senate policy advisory task forces for Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. His most recent book, “Reclaiming Conservatism,” was published in 2008 by Oxford University Press. He is a director of The Constitution Project and has chaired task forces for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution and served on the American Bar Association task force that condemned President George W. Bush’s use of presidential signing statements to circumvent federal law. He was a foreign policy advisor to the Bush campaign in 2000 but endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.

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