I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and went to Barnes & Noble to get me some political speech.
Rights Of Man it was called, but the damnedest thing happened. I pressed my ear down to it and didn’t hear anything.
Guess it wasn’t political speech.
Can you quote the part of the SCOTUS decision that says “money is a form or speech”.
Liberal policies do make it harder to run a business. Labor unions, labor rights, environment protections, higher taxes, etc. Conservatives tend to oppose these things.
So that is a kind of win on their part. On one hand, yeah it does make it easier to run a business. But we do need some of these things. Environmental toxins can cost more than the cost of not dumping them in the first place. Labor rights reduce workplace deaths, etc. The way conservatives present all labor rights, environmental rights, taxes as fundamentally bad is absurd, but there does need to be a balance on these issues so that businesses do not go under.
Other than that, no idea. Maybe the fact that conservatives are more realistic about the limitations of social engineering, whereas some liberals seem to think that many major divisions (gender, race, etc) is a social construct.
It is important to keep in mind that you can’t really tell based on party. The republicans were the liberal party 150 years ago.
All of the humans that made Citizens United, prior to their lawsuit. Here is their Board of Directors:
Officers and Board of Directors
David N. Bossie, President and Chairman of the Board
Burtonsville, Maryland
Michael Boos, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
Manassas, Virginia
Brian Berry, Director
Media Consultant
Austin, Texas
Ron Robinson, Director
President, Young America’s Foundation
Reston, Virginia
John Bliss, Director
Attorney
Denver, Colorado
Kirby Wilbur, Director and Treasurer
Duvall, Washington
That’s six, for the price of one.
You have to distinguish between true conservative politics and those of the recent Republican party at least on the national level. They aren’t the same thing at all.
There have been many great conservative thinkers and there will be more in time. We are just in a political lull that produces fewer good ones right now but it is cyclic on all sides.
The absolute, most valuable conservative idea in my opinion is fiscal responsibility in general. We can argue about what that means and I agree that many federal Republicans haven’t followed it but it is a must if you want a stable nation in the long-term. You can’t just run the printing presses for decades and expect anything other than disaster in the long-term. Everything runs on money, not good thoughts and wishes. I would personally give up every benefit I have if Congress would just fix the budget deficit in a reasonable amount of time because I know it will eventually destroy my kids and grand-kids at the current rate we are going.
Strong protection of the Constitution is another. Some fairly liberal groups like the ACLU help with that as well but mainstream liberals and progressives seem to just regard the U.S. Constitution as just an old piece of paper and that is extremely dangerous. The U.S. Constitution can be changed but not on a whim and there is a procedure for it.
I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican but I do believe in many conservative principles as long as they are carried out honestly and competently. I couldn’t care less about social issues like transgenderism and I think they are a waste of time to debate on either side. Save fringe issues like that for therapists that specialize in it. I honestly believe those types of fringe issues are just being used as a smoke-screen to hide the real problems that need to be addressed.
Make no mistake, Liberals and Progressives make horrible decisions as well. It took somebody like Bill Clinton to pass welfare reform although it was obvious for decades that those so-called benefits were just creating a crime-riddled dependent class of people with no hope.
Similar things are happening today with new social programs. True conservatives tend to think that most people can succeed at some level if you just give them the opportunity and motivation. It is hard to tell what the various classes of white liberals and progressives think but, as far as I can tell, they believe that they are the chosen ones and the only kind thing to do is to enable those that they deem hopeless to not die on the streets if not for the kindness of their overlords. None of that is true.
Trade liberalization?
I know both parties are throwing out more and more protectionist rhetoric, but the GOP, up to very recently, has been the more trade friendly party. Right?
You’re speaking of the beliefs of a reactionary. Because someone calls themselves conservative doesn’t mean they get to be one.
Everyone wishes to be known as fiscally conservative. What’s the opposite of that? Spendthrift? Many want the mantle of social conservative, which in this country just means devout Christian.
The conservative policies we should be addressing, whether for good or ill, are by in large not proposed or supported by any member of the GOP.
Of course, as Supreme Court decisions go, rarely are propositions ever stated that concisely, but this might be the closest: “The interest in equalizing the financial resources of candidates competing for federal office is no more convincing a justification for restricting the scope of federal election campaigns. Given the limitation on the size of outside contributions, the financial resources available to a candidate’s campaign, like the number of volunteers recruited, will normally vary with the size and intensity of the candidate’s support. There is nothing invidious, improper, or unhealthy in permitting such funds to be spent to carry the candidate’s message to the electorate.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 56 (1976).
The opinion is very dense given that it is analyzing a statute very closely and features five concurring in part separate opinions. The underlying issue in the case was a challenge to a federal election campaign act that established numerous limits on both individual/group contributions as well as set a formula that limited the campaign expenditures of any campaign seeking federal elective office (which is what the paragraph above is focused on).
The presidency, Senate, and House of Representative races each had their own separate cap, with presidential candidates limited to $10 million for the primary race and an additional $20 million for the general election. The purpose that the Government argued for this law in unsuccessfully defending this part was that it would serve to equalize candidates and prevent an independently wealthy candidate or a candidate who had disproportionate financial backing from the rich to overwhelm any other candidate via campaign staff, offices, ads, fliers, etc. and prevent campaign spending costs from continuing to skyrocket.
No, they did. I understand what they said and they are wrong. I fully expect that future court decisions will reverse Buckley v. Valeo and all of the bad decisions (including Citizens United) that followed from it.
Buckley will join Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, Lochner v. New York, and Korematsu v. United States as examples of when the Supreme Court got it wrong.
That’s not the same thing as “money is a form of speech”, and it’s not even the case people mean when they make that claim. Of course, Nemo was talking about Citizens United.
Well, in an effort to divert this from becoming another Citizen’s United thread…
Sometimes the death penalty is a good idea. It’s almost never implemented in a rational manner, admittedly, but it could.
I fully supported Bush 1 when he evicted that nasty smelling Broccoli from the white house. Now there are some conservative taste buds that I can respect! I fear that Obama ruined that too. Thanks Obama.
Are we talking about classic conservatism or current US Republicans? Do Libertarians fit in here anywhere?
Classic conservatism was on the side of slow, deliberate change, and thus liberalism could include good ideas and a lot of crazy ones. To the extent that conservatives helped weed out the bad ideas, in theory, the conservatives are helpful and a good part of a balanced governing system. For this I am assuming reasonable people who are concerned with keeping things stable, not ideologues who refuse to entertain change at all.
Looking at the recent history of the campaign promises and legislative action, the Reps have pushed for less health care, less reproductive health care and education, more control over women’s reproductive health, and less taxes on wealthy and big business. They have put partisan tactics ahead of the good of the nation, and have been extremely hypocritical in their disrespectful treatment of the President. Also, among the presidential staff, the number of criminal indictments under the Reps has been enormous compared to the Dems over the last 40 years. I think Obama is still at 0, Reagan was in the hundreds, and I truly believe that Bush/Cheney committed war crimes getting us into Iraq. But they still had the time to impeach Clinton over a blow job, have a bunch of investigations of Benghazi and vote to repeal Obamacare about 50 times. So, the “conservative party” has a pretty bad record as of late.
I would echo someone else who said we don’t have a conservative party right now. I would add that what we do have is a drunken spoiled irresponsible tantruming child-like reactionary party and an unhappy to have to be the responsible one when everyone else gets to have fun moderate party. The problem is, the “responsible” one is only 16 and barely able to take care of them self. And for some reason these kids are fighting over who gets to hold the flame thrower, while making sure grandma’s retirement savings does not get burnt up.
I like broccoli, but I was with Bush on this one: when you’re President you shouldn’t have to put up with people telling you to eat your vegetables if you don’t want to. Otherwise, what’s the point of being President? (And Ogden Nash agrees with me.)
David Bossie.
Regards,
Shodan
A wise move!
And unwise opinion. 
In a perfect world there would be no life sentences (w/o the possibility of parole), only death sentences.
However, the, relatively rare occurrence of someone getting absolved for a heinous crime they didn’t commit makes more of a pragmatist on the matter.
I still maintain that, with a confession, the Chinese method of execution is neither cruel nor unusual and should be the standard practice.
When it comes to crime sentencing in general, I tend to side with conservatives.
My philosophy is that once a person has reached the point where he is committing serious crimes, it takes a lot of resources to rehabilitate him and turn him back into a non-criminal. Those resources would be better spent on a dozen other people who haven’t committed crimes and helping them improve their lives before you help the criminal improve his life. In the long run, helping those other people will do more to reduce the crime rate than rehabilitating that one criminal will.
The flaw in this philosophy is that conservatives push heavily for the former(not wasting money on rehabilitation), and completely drop the ball on the latter(spending the money on helping people improve their lives instead).
Bear in mind that 25% of people exonorated by DNA tests by the Innocence Project confessed to a crime they didn’t commit, and that the Reid interrogation technique, which is prone to creating such false confessions, is in use by thousands of police agencies across the country.
I’m speaking of policies that have become conservative dogma for decades. At a certain point, you don’t get to call No True Scotsman when everyone’s a Scotsman. During this last round of platform debate put out by the RNC, a conservative gay member of the committee begged them to take out language that was anti-gay. Even omitting it without supporting it would have been a step in the right direction. Of course they ignored her and put it in anyway. Whether you want to admit it or not, what I’ve listed is what conservatism is today and has been for a long time.
This is another example of where conservatives hijacked the language. “Fiscal conservative” doesn’t mean fiscally careful, or fiscally prudent. It means you don’t spend money even for things people need. Want an example? Southern Congressmen voting against Hurricane Sandy relief but demanding money when their cities flood. Or cutting volcano monitoring funds and then a volcano erupted. Or cutting security funding for foreign embassies and consulates and then our Benghazi consulate gets attacked. Well skip that last one, it was a smart move, it allowed the GOP to go on a witch hunt for a non-existence conspiracy for the sole admitted purpose of lowering the approval rating of our next president.
The opposite of actual fiscal conservatism would be spending money on things that are needed. “Spending” isn’t a bad word. If you have money, you spend it on stuff you need. Cutting taxes is bullshit when that’s your only solution to any budget problem. That’s modern fiscal conservatism, and its bullshit
They don’t exist, or they are the fringe. In today’s world, that ideology means nothing when there’s zero chance of it passing as law. Like it or not, the GOP represents what conservatism means and it has tarnished any chance of conservative laws being a good thing.