# "We need conservatives" why? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 29, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524 "2010-07-29T23:44:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/301 "2010-08-07T14:56:55Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The tea party is ‘anti-grownup’? > > Forgetting the blowhards and the clowns, the tea party (which has the sympathy of about 50% of the country, btw) is the party that wants more personal responsibility, less coddling from government, which doesn’t want to pass debt on to its children and grandchildren, and which doesn’t want its basic needs ‘cared for’ by the nanny state. I’m sorry but if any of that were true, where were the Tea Partiers during the last administration? You know, the one that expanded government powers to unprecedented heights and turned a government surplus to record deficits? Call them what they are: Republicans that have been whipped into a frenzy by misinformation and propaganda. They are being used as a tool by the Republican party and the day Republicans take back control of government, suddenly everything will be okay again even though nothing will have changed. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The anti-grownups are the people who want the government to protect them from themselves, to protect them from the negotiations of the marketplace, to make sure they have shelter and health care and food and all the other basics of life without having to pay for it, and who are willing to abdicate their liberty to a bureaucracy for a promise of financial comfort and security. Liberals don’t want to protect people from themselves. They believe one of the roles of government is to protect the weak from the powerful. If government doesn’t do that, what will? > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Big government infantilizes the citizenry. The very word ‘entitlement’ means that you feel entitled to goods and services you did not earn, simply because you think you deserve them. That attitude is more common in children than in adults. Or you can say that liberals believe it is one of the roles of government to make sure everyone have a fair chance at improving themselves. No one owes you success but I don’t know about you but I would like to live in a society that gives everyone the same shot at trying. Let their talent and luck see where it takes them. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/302 "2010-08-07T15:34:21Z")
I’d like to point out that, in Alberta at least, it was the conservatives who abolished health care premiums. It is conservatives who want me to have health care without paying for it. I’d have happily paid double if it meant mitigating the problems caused by decades of conservative governance somewhat. It was also conservatives who decided, during a massive windfall due to high oil prices, that it was appropriate to gift every Albertan with a few hundred dollars of financial comfort instead of, you know, using it to run the province. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/303 "2010-08-07T15:37:51Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, it’s the party that doesn’t want anyone _else’s_ basic needs cared for by the nanny state. Remember “keep your hands off my Medicare”? I think this bears repeating. The Tea Party are a bunch of ignorant, selfish, angry at the world morons. They don’t want nanny state taking care of anyone else, when it should be taking care of them. Morons and hypocrites. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/304 "2010-08-07T16:32:03Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Oakminster](#): > > > > Keep talking, Fred. You’re a fucking bigot. > > If I’m Fred, then you are Hitler. I have just as much basis to compare you to Hitler as you have to compare me to Fred. > > Funny how it’s only liberals who get called bigots for daring to disapprove of other political positions… No. You admit hating approximately 50% of the country, for no reason other than they disagree with you on political matters. You indulge in outrageous hyperbole, perpetuate stereotypes, and otherwise use the same sort of rhetoric Fred Phelps and his ilk do, you just target a different segment of the population. You’re a bigot and a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/305 "2010-08-07T16:37:24Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Funny how it’s only liberals who get called bigots for daring to disapprove of other political positions… Or he was calling you a bigot because you are one. Not all liberals, not all democrats, just you. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/306 "2010-08-07T17:57:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I mean that businesses, as such, want to make a profit and that’s their whole agenda. Most (not all) would do business with or in a Communist country if that were a practical option, if its goverment allowed it, and if there were a way to do so profitably, and quite regardless of whether that might strengthen the international Communist movement. > > **Businessmen,** of course, often do have some sort of personal social or political agenda. Henry Ford is a prime example – in fact it has been said that his career was driven more by his sociopolitical ideas than by the profit motive. > > But mostly it’s the profit motive. A CEO might espouse economic-libertarian rhetoric, but that won’t stop him from hiring Washington lobbyists to preserve whatever un-libertarian regulations or tariffs or subsidies happen to serve his particular corporation’s bottom line. Okay, you’ve made it clear. Thank you. 🙂 _ **- Jack** _ ---
**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:** [August 7, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/307 "2010-08-07T18:40:41Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I’m sorry but if any of that were true, where were the Tea Partiers during the last administration? You know, the one that expanded government powers to unprecedented heights and turned a government surplus to record deficits? Call them what they are: Republicans that have been whipped into a frenzy by misinformation and propaganda. They are being used as a tool by the Republican party and the day Republicans take back control of government, suddenly everything will be okay again even though nothing will have changed. The Tea Partiers were around. Why do you think Bush only had a 34% approval rating? He had the religious right and a few die-hard social conservatives on his side, and that’s about it. Believe me - there was a lot of grumbling about Bush on the right, especially regarding his spending. > [@](#): > > Liberals don’t want to protect people from themselves. They believe one of the roles of government is to protect the weak from the powerful. If government doesn’t do that, what will? So… Bans on trans-fats in New York and smoking bans? Protecting the weak from the powerful? Campus speech codes? Who’s the powerful being protected there? And are you really suggesting that the public labor unions represent ‘the weak’? Who is the powerful they are protecting you from? You might want to have a look at what liberal policies do in practice, not just in theory. It’s the powerful who benefit. Goldman Sachs and BP have the ear of legislators, and bend regulation to their benefit, AGAINST the ‘weak’. > [@](#): > > Or you can say that liberals believe it is one of the roles of government to make sure everyone have a fair chance at improving themselves. No one owes you success but I don’t know about you but I would like to live in a society that gives everyone the same shot at trying. Let their talent and luck see where it takes them. So you would oppose government policies that give extra benefit to the middle class, as opposed to just helping the poor? Or do you think a professional making $50,000 per year still needs ‘help’ from the government to have a fair chance at improving himself? Because Democratic policy today has gone far past helping the poor and downtrodden - it’s really more about increasing entitlements for people who are already doing just fine. ---
**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:** [August 7, 2010, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/308 "2010-08-07T18:48:49Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I’d like to point out that, in Alberta at least, it was the conservatives who abolished health care premiums. It is conservatives who want me to have health care without paying for it. That would be the Stelmach government, which isn’t particularly conservative, and which is now undergoing a major challenge from the right by Albertans unhappy with it. The Wildrose Party would win an election in Alberta if it were held today. It would win in a landslide, in fact. The Stelmach government is also responsible for the idiotic 2 billion dollar carbon capture project. Not particularly conservative. > [@](#): > > It was also conservatives who decided, during a massive windfall due to high oil prices, that it was appropriate to gift every Albertan with a few hundred dollars of financial comfort instead of, you know, using it to run the province. Using it to run the province? At a time when we were running record surpluses and were putting money in the Heritage trust fund, and after we had already gone through several years of double-digit increases in government spending? Thank God the government gave the people’s own money back instead of spending it - or we’d have a much bigger government today and would have been in even more trouble when the oil revenues plummeted. But this is typical of the left - they think that the money belongs to the government, and not the people. Alberta gets a windfall? Hey, that’s the government’s money. It should just spend it and grow bigger. Because Lord knows, it doesn’t belong to the people of Alberta. And if we give them their own money, it’s a ‘gift’, because they don’t really have a right to it, you know. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/309 "2010-08-07T19:03:03Z")
And as always, to leftists any word associated with that side of the aisle ukltimately means “good” to them. And so, anything which they ever do not like is automatically “conservative” or “right-wing” or “reactionary.” I suppose it must be convenient to have such a short memory. ---
**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:** [August 7, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/310 "2010-08-07T19:55:44Z")
Eliminating the Alberta Health Care premium was actually done at the behest of the left in Alberta. Alberta Health Care was complained about as a ‘regressive’ tax because it was the same for everyone. It was the equivalent of cutting unemployment insurance taxes or FICA taxes (i.e. benefitting mostly low-income people). It’s strange that someone on the left would use that as a criticism of the Stelmach government. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/311 "2010-08-07T20:28:05Z")
So if you favour a handout it’s your just deserts and God’s doing, but if I favour it (which I didn’t) I’m expecting the government to support me (which I don’t). Also, Stelmach takes sugar on his porridge. Got it. But if a consequence of my not being driven around in an ambulance and bleeding to death while the driver looks for an ER that can fit me in right fucking now is listening to you complain about some undefined but apparently frightening Big Government, well, I can buy earplugs. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524/312 "2010-08-07T22:14:10Z")
Sorry for the lack of quotes, the nested quotes became a nightmare but let me just say that I never claimed everything that was done in the name of “liberalism” was right or done well. We are talking about world views here and I believe mine is better than, presumably, yours. Re: the tea party. You are equating grumbling to a telephone pollster with the craziness we have now? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-conservatives-why/548524.md?page=15)