Political crap over here!
POSTED BY: Spookyjesus
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 06:11
VIEWED: 5045
PAGE 4 of 4
You know somethin strange, DT? I've always considered myself a conservative, in the strictest sense of the word.
I want to conserve wildlife, forests, human life and such.
I believe in small, efficient government.
I think welfare needs major reform.
Corruption and nepotism needs to be eradicated.
The only place I'm liberal is socially, where I think the government has no place tellin' us that our civil rights can be limited or changed as the government (our employees!) sees fit, or that marrage is defined by gender or species.(last part was a joke-don't get weird)
So all this 'conservtive'/'liberal'/right wing/left wing stuff seems like a big funny to me.
There's peeps that want our government and this world to make sense, and those that have unseen or twisted agendas guiding their decisions, as far as I can see. Democrat or Republican really don't matter IMHO.
I'm really glad you showed up here at the RWED, dude. Keep shootin' down the clay pidgeons that get tossed up, you do it well.
Chrisisall, for Truth, Justice, and the real American way
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... Sadly, it seems, far too many people in the US feel a need to "define themselves", and place themselves in one of these two huge categories of "conservative" or "liberal" (aka "progressive").
... Before I moved out of the country, I used to think of myself as a "conservative", only because I was so weary of the "lefties" running amok, not because of any definate ideas I had in my own head.
... Move 10 thousand miles away and watch from a great distance . . . and things start to clear up as the years roll by. At least they did for me. Left or Right, Lib or Con . . .It's not nearly that simple, is it? (rhetorical question).
... For example, I am appalled by the stories I hear from friends back home who have kids going to public (gov't run) schools... for a great many reasons (I am as opposed to the idea of the book "My 2 Mommies" as I am opposed to that farce, "Intelligent Design"). I don't know where to put my son... Japan is no good. China is questionable... America... having serious doubts . . .
... Sadly, most people laugh off the "True Faith" (Libertarianism 
). It's not among their two options. Most people are sound byte, 10 second attention span, reality-TV addicted moronic zombies, so maybe it's too late . . . 
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OOC (out of curiosity) where abouts are you? How is the education system where you are? And, is it public or private?
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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The problem with corruption is that it is universal, no matter what party is in charge. Power corrupts, and every rare time a good honest person is put in office, there are about 20 greedy opportunists and idealogical extremists lurking in their staff. Same goes for a bad leader. Honesty and corruption run on both sides of the aisle, but are generally greater in the party that is in charge, just because that is where the money and power is.
...Not that the current president is one of the former...
---------------------------------------------
"Pretty lights...angels.... [thud.]"
"That's why I never kiss them on the mouth."
"When do I get to get sexed up?!"
"This is my most favorite-est gun..."
"Y'mean she's a witch?!" ...." She's in Congress?!?!"
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Chrisisall,
Thanks. I have to shoot down a clay pigeon here though. Restricting civil liberties is Bush, but it's not conservative. It's pro-big-govt., which antithetical to American conservatism.
I just spent all day reading the wikipedia entries of the presidents, one by one. It was pretty interesting. The one thing that struck me was this thing people have been saying "oh the parties switch, left is right, right is left" is hogwash. It's simply not so. The GOP have been solidly in the same ideological position since John Quincy Adams, and the Dems have been more or less in the same place since Andrew Jackson. There's been a little shift of the Democrats towards the center, and less shift in the Republicans.
But what there has been are aberrations. Someone will get elected on a ticket who isn't really a Republican, or isn't really a Democrat. This looks at first like a shift in the party, but it's really just an abnormality. Afterwards things tend to return to what they were before.
Example: Herbert Hoover was economically influenced by European Socialism. His policies were an effort to bring some of what he saw as positive changes in Europe into the American economy. It worked like a well planned disaster. History would prove those changes didn't all work well in Europe either, but they worked a lot worse here. He was a Republican by virtue of being on a GOP ticket, but he wasn't a small r republican in the sense of believing in the ideology that Adams, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Taft had believed in, which was similar to, and derived from, Jefferson's idea of 'republicanism.'
After Hoover, the GOP reverted to what it had been before, and Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford followed close to the model of those who came before Hoover, discounting Hoover as a glitch to be skipped over. To a lesser extent Reagan and a greater extend Bush Sr. continued in this vein, and now we have Baby Bush, who is another abberation. With luck things will eventually return to normal. But I don't believe in luck, so I plan to work so that it becomes so.
Another thing which worries me slightly, is that Hoover was followed by 20 years of Democrats. Not that I really can't stand Democrats, just that I don't tend to like having them as president. I had real hope for the Democratic party with Carter, who I quite likes, and thought was both taft-style internationalist, and eisenhower-style business minded. I thought the much-maligned Chrysler loan was actually a work of brilliance.
But now I look at it and it looks as if Carter was the abberation, the Democratic Party's Hoover. A glitch to be skipped over and corrected. Now the Democratic Party has reverted to what it was before. It's agenda is globalist, social militarist, and it's economic ideas are based on state control and regulation, with little trust placed in independent enterprise.
Looking back at past conservatives, the respect for individual freedoms is definitely greater than in Democratic presidencies. But I tend to be more a small 'r' republican, I vote for the person who has bacic conservative jeffersonian republican (ie. as jefferson defined the word) values. Usually I expect that person to be on the big 'R' Republican ticket, but if they aren't and happen to be on the Democratic ticket, then that's the ticket I'll vote for. Kerry wasn't that ticket. I Kerry seemed much more a Johnson or Truman. But Bush isn't that ticket either. He's another Hoover, a ringer for a different ideology.
Hopefully we can get back to what we used to be.
From wikipedia
Quote:
Jefferson's term was marked by his belief in agrarianism, individual liberty, and limited government, sparking the development of a distinct American identity defined by republicanism.
If I could add something to that, things I believe to have been part f\of the initial value set, fiscal responsibilty and respect for process.
Here are some important ideas added to the philosophy by some GOP presidents:
John Quincy Adams, restraint, the idea that we should not lend ourselves to the ide
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rue,
who are you asking?
trainee,
I don't believe it does. Power, corrupting, that is. I'm with Nietzche, I believe the corrupt gravitate to power, and push the corruptable with them. I agree Bush has no power, and lots of corruption. But I think most people, even most people in office are decent folk. What we have at the moment is a problem. A particular corrupt circle which is in power, and either it is one entity in two parties, or it is two entities one in each party, but if so, both are descended from the same circular conspiracy, and it's just an inner squabble, they'd all much rather see the rest of us burn than their buddies. Just want to make sure this doesn't get boiled down into "they're all bad, what can you do?" because I don't think that's the case.
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