uber-liberal FDR oversaw WW2, it was the conservatives who were isolationists during that period and wanted to end that war.
In the current climate, conservatives are too ideological to really protect the US. The US was attacked by Al Qaeda operating from Afghanistan under motives that the US wanted to invade Islam. The neocon response was to invade Iraq and piss of Muslims.
Either way, many many leaders of the neocon movement are chickenhawks. That or they shoot first without thinking.
Liberals like myself tend to think conservatives are hostile to freedom for a wide range of reasons.
For one thing, lacking economic stability and living in an oligarcy/plutocracy makes many of us not feel free. Conservative economics invariabily places the interests of the wealthy, powerful and well connected ahead of everyone else. As a result many of us are too insecure and busy trying to rub nickels together to really enjoy life.
I would feel much much more free if I had the health care system available in Canada, Germany, France, the UK, etc. With universal health care people are free of worrying about bankruptcy, free to change jobs and start their own businesses, free to retire.
Conservatives are hostile to social safety net programs like universal healthcare, so they are seen as enemies of freedom.
Other laws to protect the weak from abuses by the strong (child labor laws, environmental laws, consumer regulations, labor laws) are nearly universally opposed by conservatives.
One of my coworkers who is deeply conservative lives in a rural area that is experiencing intense pollution from a local animal farm. How is he more free because of being exposed to toxic pollution which destroys his property value and possibly his health? However conservatives in teh state government have fought to prevent people like him from having legal recourse to stop the abuse. Basically, he is being abused by a corporation and conservatives are trying to prevent him from fighting back. How are conservatives keeping him free?
Secondly, conservatives (especially the modern variety) tend to be anti-egalitarian and authoritarian. They tend to believe that white male christian heterosexuals are superior to non-whites, gays, non-christians, women, etc. So they want to redact and prevent laws from being in place that treat people with decency.
Jim crow was perfectly fine by conservative ideology, but federal law abolishing it was abuse in the conservative mind. Liberals feel the opposite. Jim crow was abuse and the abolishment was fine.
Conservatives don’t keep gays free by trying to deny them the same rights they take for granted. Ask a gay person how much freedom conservatives have given them. The same applies to blacks, women, latinos, and endless other groups.
Plus conservatives tend to be very pro-military and pro-police, wanting to ‘untie’ the hands of these authority figures to investigate and dominate people both domestically and internationally. The people calling for more police power to investigage, interrogate and abuse people tend to be conservative, as shown by the recent Arizona immigration debate or the torture debates under Bush.
So you may feel conservatives fight for freedom, but many liberals feel they fight to stop freedom. They fight to prevent people ‘below’ them on the socio-economic totem pole from being free and live with dignity, they fight to prevent people from having economic stability and security by always siding with the wealthy and powerful, they fight to allow the powerful to abuse the weak w/o regulation and recourse, and they fight to give authority figures the power to abuse the public.
Your definition of freedom is different than mine. I honestly can’t think of a time when conservatives fought for my freedom.
And again, it was liberal FDR who led the fight against the Nazis. The conservatives were isolationists at the time. And under conservative free market ideology, who knows if we’d even have the industrial capacity to fight another world war, so many of our companies are in china now. Maybe China will sell us our tanks back and let us use them against them.
As an addendum I didn’t read this whole thread before I posted that. So I missed the part about conservatives being opposed to low flow toilets.
Liberal accomplishments: abolishing child labor, women’s suffrage, ending jim crow, establishing medicare and social security, progressive taxation, universal education, making human rights an integral part of foreign policy, promoting environmental sustainability
Conservative accomplishments: opposing the low flow toilet
Either way, I do think you need a balance of regulation and unregulated markets. Regulations can and do drive up costs and cost jobs. But they also save money by improving productivity, savings on cleanup, lower spending in other sectors of the economy, etc.
But I think today’s conservatives take it too far and are too ideological on the issue of regulation.
I concur with this–and add the issue with the Republicans that I’ve noticed in my lifetime is an increasing tendency to believe that power overrules principle. This is starting to happen with the Democrats as well (as encouraged by many, “play the game by the rules they made” etc) and I don’t much like it, preferring to see less attack politics and not more.
I also feel like “what passes for conservatism” in the US is essentially turning into Authoritarianism and Dominionism, neither of which I find to be compatible with the set of viewpoints I would consider “conservative”.
Hyperbole is fine in the pit -even empty hyperbole I guess-, but FTR I see no reason to believe that Der’s vitriol extends to violence. Quite the contrary. The Facts OTOH…
Yes on the national level, no on the state and local level.
Wesley Clark, thanks for post 182. That was excellent.
And I hope your mother gets raped with a chainsaw.
I see a lot of people agreeing with me, a few conservadroids, and several squishy phony liberals afraid to deal with logic and think about reality.
All of those things are more properly done by either parents or by the community. Not by some pedophile in a collar.
I know you hate me and I’m not bothered a bit. This is war, between those who want to improve the human condition and those who want to drag us down. It’s natural that both sides hate each other.
The good news is, your side will lose, and a thousand years hence people will look upon you the way we look at people who endorsed slavery or other primitive practices; which is to say they will shit on your grave and regret that you died in peace.
Have a nice day! :):)
And by community, you mean government. Hi, jackwad. Conservative here. Maybe in your us vs. them world, no doubt springing form your profound ignorance of facts and history, you have failed to notice that there are many different kinds of conservatives.
I am sorry to say that many folks these days who label themselves conservatives are merely shills for the plutocrats who exploit the fears of the bigots and the zealots to wangle their way into positions of power, but rest assured that there are many among us, those who consider ourselves true conservatives that look at these people with alarm and disgust. As one conservativehas been calling them, “the creeps”. That is, to distinguish them from the people on the left, “the nuts”.
I am a conservative that is not a bigot, but supports the control of our borders. I am an athiest, who supports freedom of religion. I support a woman’s right to an abortion, but consider the act barbaric. I support the conservative interpretation of the 2nd amendment, but have never fired a gun. I support severely punishing criminals, but am a huge critic of police (as many on this board will attest 
).
I oppose government subsidy of corporations and corporate farmers. I support the progressive income tax, as did Marx. I believe we do owe some help to those members of society who are in trouble.
But there are limits. Just because I think that sick people should be cared for even if they cannot pay, does not mean that I think the government should control the entire health care system with thousands of pages of regulations and the expansion of bureaucracy.
I think the government should keep it’s nose out of people’s bedrooms, and mind their own business about what sorts of substances they put into their bodies. I think that gays should have the same government sanction to marry that straights should have, none at all. Marriage should be a private matter or something conducted voluntarily with the cooperation of the participant’s chosen ecclesiastical affiliation.
I think the department of defense should be just that. I think we should be armed to the teeth, but that all of our soldiers should be right here on our own soil, for the sole purpose of defending it, should the need arise.
But more than all that, I think the government spends way to goddamn much money and spends it, by and large, wastefully. Can anyone seriously argue that our schools are better now than they were before education became federalized? Can anyone seriously argue that departments like Energy and Agriculture do any real good? How many examples of obscene waste, and we have had thousands, in public expenditure must we witness, how many millionaires and billionaires must we allow to line their pockets at the taxpayer’s expense, before somebody says ENOUGH ALREADY!
Well, that is what this conservative is saying. I hope more will join me. Because the alternative is to sink further and further into a system where more and more of the productive output is siphoned off into the government abyss, and we basically collapse into a permanent state of poverty and serfdom.
All levels of government are guilty, from the very top to the local level. Google “Bell California” for all kinds of news about a rotten to the core government in a small town here in Southern California. Read about the city manager who was making almost $800,000 a year, and will now retire after ten years of service and collect an estimated six million dollars in retirement. Read about the cops and prison guards here in California, who’s retirement is based on what they earn in their last year of service, who proceed to rack up incredible amounts of overtime in that final year and retire on quarter million dollar a year pensions. The public sector is sucking us dry, and how are they getting away with it? Your friends, the Democrats, those noble guardians of the public trust and the general welfare, ALLOW it to happen, because they are on the public employee union gravy train.
We need to restore the idea of public service, where public employment was a secure career with modest rewards, rather than what it has become, a gold encrusted gravy train. Do you think Nancy Pelosi is going to be spearheading that? Unfortunately, I don’t see any Republicans lining up to take on the challenge either.
Yeah, we’re pretty much screwed :rolleyes: but your kind of idiocy isn’t going to get us out of the jam. You are just another deluded lamb to the liberal slaughter. Wake up and realize that NEITHER PARTY has your interests at heart. They are both bought and paid for by the powerful, be the giant corporations, or the massive unions that really call the shots in this country. We conservatives need to take back the Republican party from the creeps, and you liberals need to take back the Democratic party from the nuts. Then maybe we can make some of this progress you keep bleating about.
Is that what you see? What a joke. What color is the sky in your world?
I have no idea whether you’re serious or just yanking people’s chains. Either way you’re a waste of bandwidth and your ignorant position has been shown for the ludicrious bullshit it is.
I don’t think he’s into chains. Several people have mentioned that he seems to define conservatives as people who disagree with him. And people who agree with on some issues but not all as no-true-liberals. It does seem consistent with a certain fanatical personality type. Notice how he’s been given an explanation at least 3 times and he chooses to ignore them completely. I’d assume someone out for a laugh would like to engage people, instead of… well, blabbering demands for people to explain something that only exists in some twisted internal fantasy world of his.
I’m guessing schizophrenia. The narcissism would fit… the delusional mindset… clearly distanced from reality… hostility… paranoia. Not a mental health professional… but I do know some truly fucked up people. Anyways, you’re probably right, talking to him is likely as useful as talking to a crazy homeless guy worried about lizard people walking among us.
Wellllllll,
I was in the military for four years. I vote. I work for the government, and have worked on both NASA and military programs/projects. an I am a liberal.
Here’s what I am for (a short list)
Freedom of religion for everyone, including non-Christians and Christians of the “wrong type”. and also freedom from religion for those so inclined.
Freedom to assemble peacefully, without the “need” for free speech areas or permission/permits/etc.
Freedom to own firearms and ti use them for sporting (target or hunting) and defense purposes.
Freedom to hold and express opinions, even those that are stupid and/or unpopular.
The right to trial by jury, in an open public court, with the ability to confront accusers - no GITMO, and no secret tribunals.
The right to a decent wage for work done, and the right to get whatever retirement was promised (not fire the last year of a career)
The right to medical treatment and the expectation that the health provider/insurer will not pull any rescission bullshit.
That’s the abbreviated short list. There’s a lot more.
And finally, freedom form those who PRESUME tothink they know best for me, PRESUME to know best what I should be allowed to do, PRESUMEto know what opinions I will be allowed to have, and PRESUME to protect me from myself or bad guys.
I’m a liberal, and I don’t need any flag waving dominionist assholes pretecting me from anything or telling me anything. Live your own life and stay the fuck out of mine.
That’s the liberal perspective from me.
Well, fuck, Steve, why don’t you just ask for a candy-coated pony while you’re at it?
Thanks for your post. I agreee. If we allow our only choices to be one pile of shit of corruption or the other we are bending over for them. Time for decent honest people of both parties, and no party, to start getting rid of the lying corrupt dirtbags from both parties.
Liberals did that in the 1980s and early 1990s, culminating with Clinton’s “Sister Solljah” moment. Generally speaking, liberal policy initiatives are backed by solid data and scientific investigation. It’s the conservatives who quote climate and supply-side cranks. Liberal cranks have been thoroughly marginalized – seriously, they only pay attention to them on Fox News.
Put another way, in South Korea or Germany my politics would be right of center. But in the US, I’m at the extreme left wing of the political spectrum.
A good followup would be What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America’s Greatest President, by Michael Lind (fewer vampires, more zombies).
The Facts: Whether you ‘need’ conservatives is irrelevant. In a free society a person’s right to exist and to believe what he or she wants is unequivocal. You don’t live in a goddamned tribe, you small-minded idiot.
The level of hate speech towards conservatives on this board is starting to get out of control, and it’s starting to make me wonder if I can continue to participate here any more. Life is too short to waste my time wading through wishes of my death along with the usual condescension and snark anyone on the right has to put up with here.
Too many of you are hate-filled bigots wrapped in blankets of self-congratulatory bullshit, who think you know far more than you really do.
Oh, come on. There have been two anti-conservative screeds recently, and IIRC the same poster started both.
That isn’t to say that conservatives don’t get an extra helping of shit here, but I don’t see it being bigger than the one you’ve always gotten.