The difference between liberals and conservatives.

This must be satirical. It's too full of %3*! to be legitimate.

 

I won't attempt to speak for liberals but he seems to have some grasp of their ideals... although I would not characterize them as "good" at all (the ideals). In fact, they are much more cruel than even his depiction of conservatives.

On conservatives, he conveniently ignores a great number of inconvenient facts... like the "FACT" that conservatives are the group that give the most private money to charity. Further, conservatives believe that they have a God-given right to rob others? Rationality without good intentions? Those are absolutely ludicrous claims.

There are no "bad intentions" involved in selling a product and employing people to do it while making a profit yourself. Jesus himself used the rich man in a positive light in the parable of the talents. He was due a profit on his investment and rightly punished the servant who failed to produce one.... that's called justice and justice is both rational and well-intentioned.

This is either abject ignorance or else an intentional lie.

It would be more accurate to say that conservatives have no patience for the "less fortunate" who are that way because they do deserve it... ie. laziness, irresponsibility, immorality, etc. There is absolutely nothing compassionate about facilitating self-destructive behavior.

 

You know James. I am really pretty surprised that you would honor someone like this and his conclusions considering how he paints Christians with a broad brush and effectively judges us for believing in standards and justice. Further, he deceptively claims that Christians aren't generous toward the poor. That isn't true. We just don't agree with liberals that we have a right to confiscate wealth from those who earned it and give it to those who didn't. That is basically the reverse of what Jesus praised in the parable of the talents.

I think it is basically true that liberals think they have a right to dictate to everyone. However, I think many if not most conservatives recognize that responsibility comes with freedom... and one responsibility is to help those in genuine need (vs those who won't help themselves).

BTW, he failed to mention anything about liberals buying votes with taxpayer dollars.

 

Conservatives conspicuously lack esthetic sensibility, a love of beauty being a concern of women and homosexuals. Show the conservative an Arcadian idyll of rolling fields and ancient oaks and he will see a site for several garish hotels, a parking lot, and a Wal-Mart. Like a congenitally deaf man watching the inexplicable sawings of a symphony orchestra, he is puzzled by conservationists. A dolphin, an elephant, a panda he calculates in terms of cans of dog food at thirty-seven cents per, and, for an additional three cents a can to cover legal contingencies, he would pack his grandmother. He sincerely has no faint idea why anyone might object.

This is slander, libel, or whatever one would term it. I know nobody like this, and I refuse to hangout with liberals, as a matter of principle.

 

Yes and no. Yes. I do laugh at myself and things worthy of laughter. No. I don't think that particular article was very funny. It broad brushed conservatives and Christians as hateful, callous people. This is an untrue stereotype that liberals have indoctrinated the gullible into believing.

Read a list of policies the "Christian Right" stands for and the majority of Americans will agree with them on each issue and also a majority of the issues. Ask them without qualification if they consider themselves members of the Religious Right and many will answer no... some will recoil in horror at the notion.

The left has successfully demonized people who value morality, human life, the biblical work ethic, rights, liberties, and responsibility...

Nothing that helps perpetuate that propaganda is funny.

 

That was hillarious!

Basically, conservatives are barbarians and liberals are... oh, there's certain words I would love to use but this being the baptist board I have to refrain.

Conservatives are barbarians. liberals are...wimps. That's the nicest word I can use.

Better to be a barbarian than a tree-hugging, whale saving, mother-hen wimp!

Time to get out my bow and go squirel huntin'! And I got my Bible to back me up!

If Hillary Clinton becomes president we would be the "wimpiest" country in the world!

 

The real difference between liberals and conservatives is liberals love big government and big spending and conservatives love big government and big spending but the conservatives have better "reasons" for it.

 

Actually, I am not talking about people who say they are conservative to get elected then behave as liberals to stay elected. I am talking about real conservatives in the real world.

Politicians can't be trusted and that is one of the best possible reasons for decentralizing and diluting power.

One of the best ways I can think to diminish lobbyists' influence and corruption is to make the number of congressmen roughly the same proportion to the number of votes as it was in 1800... or at least 25% of that representation. For us to have the kind of access and control needed to reign in gov't... there should be several times more representatives than there are.

I don't think the founders ever intended for the people to have to express their consent through high-priced lobbyists and political insiders with access. They didn't even intend that we should have to go through a political party to get heard. We should have access. They should be visiting our towns and neighborhoods personally to talk to us. More reps, less staff and lobbyists.

On a related note, Congress should only be allowed to be in session 2 weeks per month... lessens the opportunity to do damage and ensures that they come back to talk to us before voting rather than listening to lobbyists... or worse selling their vote to the highest bidder.

 

Scott for POTUS!!! You'd have my vote brother!

 

I think he's pointing out the differences between deomcrats and republicans, not liberals and conservatives.

 

Maybe you are right so I'll amend my statement.

The difference between democrats and republicans is that democrats love big government and big spending and republicans love big government and big spending but the republicans have better "reasons" for it.

How's that?

 

I now feel somewhat guilty about the bad time I have given you on occasion...

If you vote for me, I promise that I will not be a member of the Skull & Bones, Illuminati, or Knights Templar... and certainly won't kiss the Hapsburg crest.

 

The actual reason is the same... to buy votes with taxpayer dollars.

The main difference is that there are a few conservatives among Republican politicians... actually they'd be statesmen rather than politicians. I'd put Coburn from OK in that category for instance.

There are few statesmen or conservatives in the amongst Democratic politicians right now.

The only Democratic statesmen I can think of in my lifetime were Moynihan, Zell Miller, and possibly Lieberman... though Lieberman lost alot of respect from me when he teamed up with Gore.

 

That was funny and the first half was true!

 

Hey fagitabotit Scott! Just make sure you stay away from Bohemian Grove too that's non negotiable!!!

 

The following article by columnist Holmes Alexander was published 30 or more years ago. It presents the best definition of true Conservative philosophy that I have read. It is not only appropriate for all who are confused about what constitutes the true Conservative philosophy.

OldRegular

‘The Bobbs-Merrill Company, book publishers of the American Heritage Series, have acted better late than never in recognizing the conservative movement that has been booming along for nearly two decades now. The Heritage Series has previously put out books on the New Left and Black Nationalism, agrarian revolt and civil disobedience, literary radicalism and the libertarian theory, and now "belatedly," as the editors admit, they have made William Buckley the collector and commentator of an anthology called "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking” which gives excerpts from the writings of 25 conservative authors.

As might be expected, the best passages in the volume are those written by Bill Buckley himself. You won't find here any thumbnail definition of conservatism, but will be shown samples of what it is, and be warned away from what it is not. The samplings show that conservatism, among much else, is a form of non violent dissent against — well, materialism, statism, godlessness, immorality.

Conservatism has a lot to do with free enterprise, little to do with Big Business. Conservatism is a discipline, and thus the enemy of permissiveness It is law-and-order, but not repression. It is good manners and social responsibility, but it has few rules — stops short of maudlin pity for the poor and the minorities. It regards Communism as an unmitigated evil, calls Fascism its “illegitimate” brother, and treats Socialism as an obnoxious poor relation of both.

Conservatism is individualism, which is to say, personal freedom. The basic freedom, as Gary Wills writes in this book, is that of the human will. It cannot be killed unless the man himself is killed or reduced to a sub-human condition, as has been done in both ancient and modern times by tyrannous states.

But the individual has an obligation to use his freedom. never to abuse it, as some of our demonstrators of today have abused and debased the freedom of speech.

The ideal state, says the conservative, is one which recognizes that freedom is not given to anybody by his government, but is protected by the laws of the land, as well as by the policeman on the corner. The state, as the conservative sees it, ought to be the servant and the convenience of the free citizen.

The state is not even a leader, or should not be because it always fails in such efforts except in time of war. Dr. Milton Friedman. for example, points out that when the government sets out to help the I poor by passing minimum wage laws, it ends up creating unemployment. The welfare laws have merely perpetuated the poverty and idleness of the supposed beneficiaries. While no conservative could be an anarchist, he would eternally be for a government that is as unobtrusive as possible.

A good many conservatives — two or three in this volume — came to their present beliefs by way of Communism, the god that failed them. Not all of them embraced the Christian religion by way of reaction. As Buckley notes, it is possible for a conservative to disbelieve in a personal God, but it is impossible for a conservative to despise God. The surest synonym, — if there is any — for conservatism is morality. A man cannot be a materialist, or an egocentric, or utterly ruthless, or rudely arrogant and still qualify as a conservative.

Thus in a famous review of "Atlas Shrugged” Whittaker Chambers, then associate editor of the National Review, read Miss Ayn Rand, the author, completely out of the conservative movement. "Out of a lifetime of reading," Chambers wrote, "I can recall no other book in which the tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained." And the National Review itself publicly excommunicated Robert Welch first because the editors found his conspiratorial theories to be unsound, and second because to keep silent about Mr. Welch under the circumstances might seem to give consent to his unsound ideas.

I said that conservatism is a dissent, and you will find in this book that it is a dissent against ideas and persons that attempt to enslave the individual.’

 

Cool OR! Now define fascism for us. Enquiring minds would like to know.