# Poll For Conservatives **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 13, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681 "2009-02-13T14:48:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/21 "2009-02-13T21:00:13Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > [They voted on it without reading it.](http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=43478) > Hell, I refinanced my house last year and read every little line!! You are aware that that’s not unusual, right? Congresscritters rarely read the entire bill, but that’s not to say they don’t know what’s in it. ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/22 "2009-02-13T21:01:01Z")
The Patriot Act wasn’t read either. Way too much paperwork to go through page by page. Common sense would say they’d read anything they’d vote on (just the way you or I would read every line of a contract that would entail putting your financial well being on the line forever). But again, that’s common sense… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/23 "2009-02-13T21:07:51Z")
Fiscal conservative, social libertarian here. I hope it succeeds in that I want the country to pull out of this economic mess and get back on track. I also hope that some of the more egregiously porky aspects of it are weeded out. And I hope we learn something for next time. I’m not too confident about that last part, though. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/24 "2009-02-13T21:15:07Z")
I hope Obama and his stimulus package fails, the quicker the better. I hope the plans to restructure the banking industry succeed. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/25 "2009-02-13T21:16:02Z")
> [@clayton\_e](#): > > The Patriot Act wasn’t read either. > > Way too much paperwork to go through page by page. > Common sense would say they’d read anything they’d vote on (just the way you or I would read every line of a contract that would entail putting your financial well being on the line forever). But again, that’s common sense… :rolleyes: Yes, but I don’t think the Patriot Act was passed in 12 hours, was it? No, I’m not debating (nods reassuringly to **Czarcasm** ), I’m just asking for confirmation. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/26 "2009-02-13T22:01:10Z")
re: “They voted on it without reading it” H.R. 1’s been making the rounds for two and a half weeks now. I seriously doubt it’s so radically different everytime a new version comes out that one must read 100 percent of the most current version in order to make an informed vote on it. The Patriot Act was introduced in the house on Oct. 23, 2001, passed the house Oct 24, passed the Senate Oct 25, and was signed by the President Oct 26. Now _that’s_ shit through a goose. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/27 "2009-02-13T22:10:15Z")
I’m a fiscal conservative – beyond that it gets complicated. I hope it succeeds. I hope it succeeds beyond his wildest expectations. I would say the same thing if Rush Limbaugh were president and his plan involved having the Easter Bunny put rare Ethiopian stamps in our easter eggs. I want to see the problems fixed, and I don’t really care who fixes them or who takes credit for fixing them. As long as the plan doesn’t break more than it fixes, I want to see it work. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/28 "2009-02-13T23:32:09Z")
I guess I will add that, if it does fail, I hope this is apparent immediately. Adding a trillion a year to the national debt is bad enough the first year. It gets progressively worse every year after that. Of course, if you define “fail” as “not make it thru Congress”, then I am desperately eager for Obama to “fail”. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/29 "2009-02-14T00:37:16Z")
I hope Obama’s plan for the economy succeeds, because I hope there’s work out there after Korea and grad school that doesn’t involve dishwashing liquid or Lysol. The more I hear about this plan, though, the less bright and shiny are my thoughts. And Rush Limbaugh is an aging, thrice-divorced, hypocrite, druggie hack who nowadays mostly attracts people whose ideas of intellectual pursuit involve drunken misspelled posts on FR while trying to figure out Larry the Cable Guy jokes and the plot lines to Knight Rider reruns. On edit: Just wanted to agree with **Shodan**. IMHO, it’s going to do way more harm than good, and I hope it doesn’t pass. If it passes–and I think it will–_then_ I hope it works. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/30 "2009-02-14T01:50:45Z")
> [@mack](#): > > The Patriot Act was introduced in the house on Oct. 23, 2001, passed the house Oct 24, passed the Senate Oct 25, and was signed by the President Oct 26. It’s a good thing no one had any buyers remorse afterwards then, huh? You would think that the folks who decried that as a botched rush job might be mindful of repeating the error… **Shodan** makes a good point - how are we defining Obama “failing”? If it’s failing to get this bill passed, then hell yes, I hope he fails; I seriously doubt that this bill is going to do any good to anyone. If it means he passes it and it still doesn’t work, then of course not. No one, not even us Republicans, thinks to themselves “Gee, I feel envious that we’ve never experienced the great depression first hand. I sure hope we get another big depression.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/31 "2009-02-14T03:49:50Z")
> [@](#): > > “Gee, I feel envious that we’ve never experienced the great depression first hand. I sure hope we get another big depression.” If nothing else, we’d have to go back and revise all those history books. Think what a pain it must have been when the Great War became World War I. Now we’d have to change all references to the Great Depression into Big Depression I. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/32 "2009-02-14T06:25:07Z")
I would love for it to succeed but I’ll bet 1000 to 1 that it fails. If it succeeds I have more money, my friends and family have more money, there’s much less chance of our enemies starting up with us (as in 1979 and 1941) and, maybe best of all, I get to learn something new. What’s not to like? ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/33 "2009-02-14T06:27:43Z")
Having said that, I want to add that I think it was much different for leftists during the W days. I really had the sense that a lot of them wanted the US to fail economically and militarily. It was painful for me to be around it. I still don’t know what was behind it. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/34 "2009-02-14T13:42:20Z")
I hope the economy recovers, and I hope it does so in such a way as to make obvious the need for more economic freedom & less government intervention. Fiscal & social conservative, of course. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/35 "2009-02-14T15:38:16Z")
> [@Plan\_B](#): > > Having said that, I want to add that I think it was much different for leftists during the W days. I really had the sense that a lot of them wanted the US to fail economically and militarily. It was painful for me to be around it. I still don’t know what was behind it. I don’t know a single person to the left of Karl Rove who wanted the US to fail economically during the Bush years, maybe because that would have caused everyone to be in danger of starving in the street personally. I don’t doubt that there were some committed hard-core Marxists who rooted for an economic collapse, so maybe you could cite a few of these leftists so we could judge whether they’re true revolutionaries? A mere half-dozen would suffice. As to military failure, a lot of patriotic people foresaw a military disaster no matter what, given Bush’s flawed premises in invading Iraq, and wished it to come sooner (and cheaper) rather than later (and more expensive, both in terms of US lives lost and in terms of economies destroyed.) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/36 "2009-02-14T16:12:40Z")
[Moderator Admonition]This isn’t a debate about the liberals, this is a poll for conservatives. Take this other topic to Great Debates, please.[/Moderator Admonition] ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/37 "2009-02-14T16:40:10Z")
I’m a fiscal conservative, and I hope it succeeds. I’m a little worried about aspects of it, but on the whole, the pork seems to be limited (better than I expected, anyway) and it’s as targeted as one can hope for. I actually hope that it, or at least the economy, succeeds in a big enough way that Obama picks up a lot of politcal capital. The US needs to decrease its liquidity in the long run\* and Obama seems to be first president who can do so. I hope he has enough popularity to do so after the economy recovers. He has talked about sacrifices enough that I want to believe he will. I also hope that the spending results in long term benefits for the US, rather than just being a short-term shot in the arm. - the way Canada has been doing under both Martin (a liberal) and Harper (a conservative) - this isn’t a partisan issue ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/38 "2009-02-15T02:53:16Z")
I hope it ‘fails’ in the sense that the economy recovers quickly, and that it’s apparent that the ‘stimulus’ package had nothing to do with it. I hope it succeeds if you believe that it needs to succeed for the economy to recover. My worst fears are that A) the economy will tank even worse, but the Democrats will decide that it’s not the fault of this blunder of a bill, but that the economy needs even more democratic spending programs to recover, or that B) the economy begins to recover on its own, but the Democrats will take all the credit, saying the stimulus bill was really what did it, and this will set the stage for the government to react to every little economic hiccup by throwing bags of money at it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/39 "2009-02-15T03:22:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Having said that, I want to add that I think it was much different for leftists during the W days. I really had the sense that a lot of them wanted the US to fail economically and militarily. It was painful for me to be around it. I still don’t know what was behind it. I think your sense of that may have been wrong. I doubt very much that there was any significant number of liberals who wanted the United States to fail under Bush. Sure they probably were a few hundred liberals way out on the fringe who said this just like I’m sure there are a few hundred conservatives who want to see America fail under Obama. And their ideological opponents call as much attention as possible to these extremists. A lot of conservatives probably feel about the stimulus the way a lot of liberals felt about Iraq; they don’t want it to fail but they think it will. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681/40 "2009-02-15T06:34:43Z")
I wish I had bookmarked my prediction from a few months ago. I said that regardless of who won the election, the economy was going to recover enough by the next election to make the incumbant look good. I voted on the basis of who I thought would fuck up the economy less in the long run. I fear that the spending bill that went through will fuck up the economy. I hope I’m wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-for-conservatives/485681.md?page=3)