Prove that they do. They work, they pay taxes - without getting many benefits; they contribute quite a bit. WE are exploiting THEM, not the other way around.
And I see no reason to think that “controlling our borders” would be anything other than an over expensive disaster.
How could I exploit them if they were dead? But you’ve got it wrong any way, liberals are all about unsustainable ‘organic’ farming that would leave most of the world to die in the name of philosophy.
No, conservatives are in favor of the death penalty for everything.
Now you don’t even know what you’re saying. Conservatives believe in teaching abstinence, you said it yourself. Plus Catholics are liberals. Duh.
Oh, guess I was wro…oh, tricky. I’ve seen those Boca-burger thingies. Nice try.
See? Liberals are all about stealing, going with the crime thing. Thanks for proving it.
Actually - I agree with you. I consider a border wall to be a waste of resources. However, in other threads people talk about just spending money - so I tossed that out. Bad hijack, I should have left it out of my response.
As the guy who has to sweep up all the straw when you two get done knocking down your straw men, I am asking that you two just knock it off. It is not contributing to this discussion, (other than to prove that every group can provide doctrinaire dogmatists).
I draw a distinction between principled conservatives and libertarians and the anti-reason, anti-intellectual, big government right wing that defines the Republican Party. It is unfortunate that authentic conservatives —although I disagree with their philosophy – are brushed with the same broad brush.
What gives fundamentalists power is their absolute unwillingness to compromise. They will vote against their own self interest before compromising on narrow value issue despite science, the law, or contradictory bible scripture. I would say the right wing is unwilling to try new or different ideas and market the same failed policies every election cycle, but principled conservatives aren’t necessarily blinded by dogma.
In the book Unequal Democracy I linked to earlier I believe Bartels (the author) tried to account for the “lag” (my word) between presidencies in his numbers. That is, he shifted their terms forward 6 months (or a year…I forget) because day #1 of (say) Bush’s presidency cannot really lay claim to the economic numbers the eight previous years of Clinton got. There is a delay till their policies take effect and trickle through the system. Even with this correction Democratic administrations have overall done notably better than Republican ones in the economy.
I am not sure why no one harps on this more. Liberals are supposedly “tax and spend” and want to be “big government” and have some Robin Hood complex wanting to take hard working American’s money and so on. Yet the country prospers more, and decidedly so, under their rule more than conservative rule. The last eight years are a massive punctuation mark to all of that. Yet people are here still arguing the patently and provably failed policies of conservatives is the best course.
Boggles the mind. Really is more an article of faith, or religious thing if you prefer, to them. Glaring evidence to the contrary is just glossed over.
Here’s one of the greatest, most amazing secrets in the entire world of business, finance, and government :
When people are happy and secure, they are more productive, and prosper.
The best thing for capitalism is liberalism. The conservatives who claim to love capitalism so much are actually actively killing it when they attack social programs, labour laws, and other hippy dippy values.
Yeah, there’s this silly meme in the US conventional wisdom that liberty must be balanced against security. But of course, security, real security, is often a prerequisite for liberty–certainly greater personal security is freeing in a personal sense.
Somewhere along the way, perhaps in some mid-1900’s argument that got too overheated for both sides, Americans started defining “security” as “lack of liberty,” & “liberty” as “insecurity.” :rolleyes:
Oh, can I just ask that kidchameleon not be banned? He’s obviously making the most extreme distortions just to troll the thread, but I think if we call him on it, he may get over it.
This thread really should have been shot upon creation. It’s obvious that some liberals and conservatives are willing to rethink their ideas and that some are not. Looking at the political parties, the Democrats are not the fierce federalists that Jackson created nor are the Republicans the party that Lincoln cobbled together. Conservatives go to college and become liberals. Liberals get old and become conservative. Some people change, others don’t.
Well, apart from the shooting the thread bit, that’s right on the money.
I used to be a conservative. But then, I realized the people calling themselves conservatives in my world were anything but. And the only people who saw the folly of financial anarchism, libertarian insanity, and letting the lunatics run the asylum truly seemed to be liberals.
Any cite in which you prove that Catholic priests have, as a group, a greater tendency to have sex with minor than other similar groups (e.g. teachers, social workers, daycare workers)?
I don’t know if there’s a cite, but shouldn’t Catholic priests, sworn servants of their parishoners and defenders of morality with a direct line of communication to Almighty God have a lesser tendency to have sex with minors, perhaps even approaching zero?
No, or the other way around. It’s not something that has good data available. Which is why I used the term “defend doing so” as well, which the Catholic priesthood most definitely did.
And it seems rather more likely that a group of people who make an organized effort to hide and protect child molesters are going to have more of them and indulge in molestation more often than a group that doesn’t. And the Catholic priesthood is known for other, similar behaviors, like the widespread rape of nuns ( and coerced abortions when they get pregnant ) in countries where nuns are often young and attractive. And the widespread financial corruption and dishonesty within the church speaks a lot about their general morality.
In other words, there’s no reason to expect any better of them.
So abstinence only doesn’t work because kids still have sex?
(Not that I’m necessarily wedded to abstinence only education, which is merely a response to sex ed that does in effect encourage kids to have sex, but instead to point out to Der Trihs, if he gives the answer I expect, how this assessment is wrong.)