Conservative or Liberal?

I am a conservative because I believe in traditional values, and also I don't think it is the government's job to distribute or re-distribute wealth more evenly. I think in a free society, we should all have an equal opportunity to go out there and prove that we are the right person for the job and earn our wealth. If someone doesn't want to hire me because I am a Jew or a Christian, or any other group, then I don't want to work for that person and certainly don't want to be the token Jew to fill their affirmative action quota. I also certainly don't want to work for someone who is being forced to have me there. I want to work for someone who really wants me there.

Joseph Botwinick

 

I agree with Joseph.

 

Joseph took the words right out of my mouth

 

The economy is not a zero sum game. The economy is not a fixed sized pie. When one person gains wealth that does not mean another person loses wealth. In an expanding economy which a free market creates the conditions for, everyone has an opportunity to gain more wealth. Those nations that claimed to be spreading the wealth equally - such as the old Soviet Union, Eastern European nations when under Communist control, and North Korea today - are examples of what happens when the government calls the economic shots. They ended up with very few people at the top of the government being extremely wealthy and everyone else standing in line to buy bread. They didn't spread the wealth, they spread the poverty.

 

I am afraid that your "textbook" definition of conservatism, and liberalism for that matter, is very flawed. I definitely want to change the status quo. I don't want to preserve the Big Brother/Big Nanny government that we have today.

If any group want to preserve the status quo today(Big Brother/Big Nanny government) it's liberals, especially groups like the National Education Association(NEA). Any reforms that people want to make to improve government schools are immediately attacked by the NEA as the NEA has no desire to see any changes made to their fiefdom.

 

We do have a problem with corporate greed, but it's hard to change the way people feel inside. Greed is a sin that occurs when one starts putting their own ambitions or status above that of others and especially above that of God. We can not change people by forcibly making them give up more of their money. All this leads to is deeper corruption and high-level thiefing; i.e.Martha Stewart, Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and any number of CEOs and other filthy rich thieves.

I agree with the above brethren. You know, the USSR began as a labor movement to give the power back to the working class and make them all equal. Well, it did. The working class were all equally poor and the politicians became rich and cruel tyrants.

To borrow part of your quote, "the problem with" liberals is that they think money will change everything. Now who's greedy? People want to take money that was legally earned and worked for by someone else. This would usually be called robbery, except when it's the government taking it from the rich on behalf of the poor.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for taxes and such...after all, that is one of the prices we pay for living in such a great country. We do have the option to leave. However, it seems like the liberals will not be satisfied until the poor are the rich and the rich are the poor. If they really cared about the poor, then John Kerry and Ted Kennedy would donate the vast majority of their estates to some worthy cause. Do they really need to live on their $500 million, or there about, family fortunes?

Anyway, I think the liberals need to put their money where their mouths are instead of our money where their mouths are. If they really want equality, money wise, for everyone then they would give away their family fortunes to level the playing field. Of course, we all know they are good at talking the talk. However, they are both crippled when it comes to walking.

I am a conservative, and I'm proud to say I'm against the Robin Hood programs. As studies have proven, they do not help as much as the liberals would have us believe they do.

 

I forgot to add this, maybe someday someone will quote me in a book or something.

Equality isn't something taken from the pockets of others, but something that starts in our own hearts.

Now THAT'S a quote.

(I now float away with my large head leading the way)

 

You need to do something with that grain. My father in law owns a feed lot and is doing well. My dad was a dairy farmer and did well.

 

Then why do voting statistics indicate that urban voters tend to vote for liberals and that rural voters tend to vote for conservatives?

Priscilla Ann, be careful about listening to liberal campaign rhetoric. When you do, remember to keep a very tight grip on your pocketbook.

Liberals have developed the politics of class warfare into a fine art. They try very hard to win elections by pitting one group against another group. Perhaps that is why Sean Hannity's new book is entitled, Deliver Us from Evil : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism.

 

You don't like drug companies, eh? I guess you don't ever take drugs when you are sick or when you have a headache - like Tylenol or Aspirin or Tums or antibiotics of any kind?

I think you are a good liberal, Priscilla Ann, as you are getting the divisive class warfare rhetoric down pretty well already.

But we conservatives are not afraid of empty liberal rhetoric. To quote the man who is the current hero for liberals(at least until he gets clobbered in the November election), John F. Kerry -

BRING..........IT..........ON!!!!

 

By the way, Priscilla Ann, I thought you said you started this thread simply because you were curious why people are liberals or conservatives. I didn't know your real intent was to make it a defense of liberalism.

 

You're preaching to the choir. I came from the same line of farmers. Except, my family has improved their situation over the last, well, one generation.

My grandmother came from a sharecropper family. Meaning, they didn't even own their farm. They didn't even own all the cotton that they picked, which gave them permanent scars on their hands from the briars, BTW. They were dirt poor before the great depression and still poor afterwards. Their "car" was a wagon up until about 1940. My grandparents moved to Houston for more opportunity. My grandfather was a military policeofficer. He sold used cars and was an alcoholic. My grandmother never learned how to drive. They bought their first home for $10,000. It was a 2 bed 1 bath home, no a/c(in Houston heat!!!). 2 parents and 2 kids...my mom and my aunt. They weren't poor in their minds, but today they would be considered poor. One can of Tuna fish was the entire meal for the whole family. My grandfather didn't finish Jr. High school, he was one of 16 children who, like my grandmother, came from a poor sharecropping family, though in Georgia. He picked cotton on his family farm until he was drafted. My grandmother, one of 10 children, was the only girl in her family, and one of only two siblings, to finish high school...only 11 grades back then. My mother fisnished high school with no plans ever, not that they could afford it anyway, to go to college. She didn't get her own car until she married.

My dad came from an abusive family in East Dallas...the hood. His family never owned a home. His parents were both drunks who were arrested dozens of times for trying to literally kill each other. Grandma actually sliced Grandpa open twice using a hook-billed knife. She was aiming for his throat, but thankfully he wasn't so drunk that he couldn't raise his arm, allowing her to cut it open instead of his throat. Grandpa slapped and hit dad, and his other kids, when they "got out of line". Grandma was as bad if not worse. She would whip them until they bled. She would hit them with branches, not switches, from trees. Dad was attacked in his predominately Mexican elementary school and actually kicked the eye out of the socket of one kid, before being beaten by the boys 5 or so friends. Dad was actually shot in the chest, accidentaly, by his older brother. It is still lodged in his chest.

Grandma left the family when dad was about 11. Dad quit school when he was 13. Grandpa died in a motel bathroom when he was just 45. Dad, at 15 then, had to climb in a window and pull Grandpa's body from the door to let people in. Grandma heard about and came back for the funeral. She brought her boyfriend and her new child, whom dad's older sister then had to raise, after Grandma left again. Dad lived on the streets, stealing Bologna and bread when he needed, with no one who cared for him at all...his older siblings were grown with their own families. He never did drugs or drank...he couldn't afford either even if he'd wanted to.

At 16, he moved to Houston with his older brother and got a job in the Air conditioning business. He's been doing that ever since. He met my mom that summer and they got married the year after she graduated. She wanted to drop out of school and marry him, but he wouldn't hear of it.

Dad has owned his own a/c company for 30 years now, and that was done through hard work, no thanks to anyone, liberal or conservative.

When I was growing up, dad had to work 2 jobs to support my mom, brother, and myself. He eventually got his GED. I myself never had to do without, though I probably wouldn't have known it either. We had 3 meals a day and a roof over our heads in a typical small suburban neighborhood. Dad has faced bankruptcy a couple of times, though he has willed himself out of it, again no thanks to liberals or conservatives. He has worked hard all of his life. I remember many nights when they would have to work on a job all weekend, night and day, nonstop. And I mean no coming home or anything. That was just to support us.

We haven't been given anything from anybody here on earth. God gave my family a strong will to succeed, albeit our version of success and that of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy is a lot different. We wanted to survive, while they wanted us to pay more taxes to help benefit the "true" poor people. what a crock.

Anyway, I just thought that since you wanted to bring up sob stories that I would bring mine in. Just because someone is poor doesn't mean they are liberal or in favor of liberal programs.

BTW, I forgot to mention that my great-grandfather, the sharecropper with no car, had been a lifelong democrat. His middle name was actually Cleveland, after the Democratic President. When FDR took office, just before Papaw's death, he changed parties because, though being very, very, very poor himself, he recognized that the liberal policies of FDR's administration were not the way to end hunger and joblessness in this country. I'll grant you that it temporarily fixed the problem, though only because WWII broke out, supplying thousands of jobs, but the problem has continued to arise in this country over the years since. Liberal policies put a band-aid over the broken leg.

How does the verse go? Give a man a fish and eats for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

Is taking money from the rich, and middle class, and giving it to the poor going to feed them for a lifetime or for a day?

 

Conservative on some issues; Liberal on most issues. I know that many here do not agree with me, but that is the way I see it.

BTW, these beliefs are not anchored in cement; I have and probably will continue to change as I see things in different lights. Only a fool thinks that they have figured all of these issues out completely.

 

As someone who has worked for an oil company for almost 26 years and whose dad worked for an oil company for over 30 years, I must challenge you to defend that remark about oil companies. Either present your evidence or retract the statement.