Paul Flocken
Posts: 290
Joined: Dec. 2005
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| Quote (skeptic @ Feb. 27 2008,20:01) | | Actually, I would say that the special interests that conservatism panders for are more compatible with each other because they're all still based upon underlying principle. |
People who call themselves economic conservatives think that liberty is a priority; in this specific case economic liberty, but liberty nonetheless. People who call themselves social conservatives don't believe in liberty at all, as enactment of their agenda would curtail privacy and freedom to live by ones own choices to an unprecedented degree. This is the most basic incompatibility between principles I can think of. Econonomic conservatives are very willing to accept a class based (based on financial status) society. Religiously based social conservatives* are showing glimmerings that such is society is quite contrary to the teachings of Jesus. That would be a second incompatibility between basic principles. I wonder how many more can be drummed up.
| Quote (skeptic @ Feb. 27 2008,20:01) | | I admit I'm biased but that's the way I see it. In contrast, there's not a underlying set of principles that guide liberalism but a composite set of individual ideas. |
I don't necessarily disagree. But this is also not necessarily a problem with the party. In my view.
| Quote (skeptic @ Feb. 27 2008,20:01) | | Take abortion and capital punishment as an example, both examples of the exercise of individual liberty but with exactly opposite outcomes. |
The same is exactly true for conservatives. How can they hold that all life is sacred with one statement and then turn out around and support judicially sanctioned revenge murder.(Disclaimer, I happen to support capital punishment, but I still think "judicially sanctioned revenge murder" is the appropriate description of what is going on.)
| Quote (skeptic @ Feb. 27 2008,20:01) | | I know we're not going to agree about this at all and that's ok, even desirable as that very fact actually widens the solution pool to an problem or challenge. I'm just letting you know how it looks from the conservative side. One other thing, try not to get conservatism mixed up with the Republican party; they're two very different things. |
And yet in your original post you did not refer to the Democratic Party pandering but of Liberals or Progressives pandering:
| Quote (skeptic @ Feb. 27 2008,16:47) | | As far as liberals refining their stances, I was unaware that that had happened. IMO, the liberal or progressive agenda has been in steady decline since Bobby. I see it now as nothing more than pandering to vastly different and often opposing special interests. |
You don't like Conservatives and Republicans to be confused with each other but you will do the same?
| Quote (skeptic @ Feb. 27 2008,20:01) | | Actually I would say that both the Republican and Democrat parties are the two single biggest obstacles and threats to both the conservative and liberal agendas. |
OK, I am almost willing to accept that as a correction. I also tend to agree.
| Quote (skeptic @ Feb. 27 2008,20:01) | | And just to let you know there is some objectivity left in me I fully intend to vote for Obama in both the state primary and the general election. How's that for craziness? |
I was registered as a Libertarian until North Carolina decertified the Libertarians as a party. I have been unaffiliated ever since. I realized last week that Billary plans on tearing up the party for the sake of her ego so I plan to vote Obama in the primary as well. I wish the Democrats could take a page from Reagan and Romney and think that the party is more important than the egos of the candidates. Unfortunately since the Republican nomination process is essentially over and North Carolina has an open primary system I can imagine that many republicans will be voting Billary on the Democratic ballot come May 6. That she may actually be counting on republican votes is indicative of her integrity.
| Quote (Paul Flocken @ Feb. 27 2008,20:48) | | I was prepared to defend your use of sarcasm when you used it here to note how friendly AtBC is and everyone deliberately refused to recognize you were being sarcastic. Now I am not even certain you know what sarcasm is if you can't recognize a reference to dripping sarcasm. You must suck at Pictionary. |
I am willing to retract that as the statement you made could have been ironic rather than sarcastic (even though irony works well in the service of sarcasm). You'll still have to prove you don't suck a Pictionary.
*I am willing to accept that not all social conservatives are religiously motivated, but the percentage must be miniscule.
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"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."-John F. Kennedy
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