AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

I maintain that it IS an extremist modern liberal concept to impose the will of the few, including those defined as 'morality' upon the few. Why else are some liberals so gung ho to look to the courts to impose their value system on the whole?

Don't like a religious statue in a public building or a creche on the courthouse lawn that the vast majority of the people enjoy? Get a court to demand its removal. Don't like an innocuous prayer before a public meeting or sporting event that 90+ percent of the people appreciate? File suit and get a judge to prohibit it. Don't like the idea of competitiveness among schools because some might come out on the short end--a measure that parents overwhelmingly approved? Get a judge to stop a voucher program. Don't like the people voting to defend a definition of marriage that has endured for millenia and the majority wish to retain? Get a judge to overturn it.

Unlike slavery or discrimination or women's suffrage, etc. which did take away freedoms or disallowed some to do what the majority does, not a single one of the forementioned issues or issues like them violate anybody's unalienable, civil, legal, or Constitutional rights. In every case, for the majority view, is no harm, no foul.

Conservatism looks at a statute or law and asks: 1) Does this law infringe on anybody's unalienable, civil, legal, or Constitutional rights? and 2) Does the majority oppose it? If the answer to both questions is no, then it is a good law, and it is wrong for any judge to overturn it on ideological grounds. In fact it is wrong for a judge to overturn any laws established by the people for anything other than a Constitutional basis.

What I said is that conservatism does not seek to require others to agree with my sense of right and wrong, good and bad, proper or improper. Therefore, whether coming from the extreme religious right or the extreme left or wherever, laws that impose the moral sensibilities of the few upon the majority is a liberal thing, not a conservative thing.

Foxfyre wrote:

What I said is that conservatism does not seek to require others to agree with my sense of right and wrong, good and bad, proper or improper. Therefore, whether coming from the extreme religious right or the extreme left or wherever, laws that impose the moral sensibilities of the few upon the majority is a liberal thing, not a conservative thing.

Neither conservatism nor liberalism requires any person to AGREE with another person's sense of right or wrong. You might think that homosexuality is immoral, whereas others do not. But the difference between your brand of "conservatism" and liberalism is that you WANT the state to criminalize homosexual conduct and liberals KNOW that doing so is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the STATE cannot throw consenting adults in jail for having sex in the privacy of their own bedroom. Doing so is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Because the STATE cannot throw the gay people in jail for having sex in their own bedrooms, you complain that the liberal extremists have imposed "the moral sensibilities of the few" upon you. That's so ridiculous that it boggles my mind how you can possibly believe that your freedom has somehow been violated because its not illegal for gay couples to be intimate in their own homes.

Conservatism looks at a statute or law and asks: 1) Does this law infringe on anybody's unalienable, civil, legal, or Constitutional rights? and 2) Does the majority oppose it?

You seem to be more delusional than usual re what others want, Debra. I don't know a single conservative that wants to invade the privacy of anybody's bedroom or who wants to criminalize homosexualty. Where do you come up with this stuff? Talk about prejudice and bigotry!

Perhaps liberalism doesn't require others to agree with liberalism, but liberalism does seem to take punishing those who disagree to the extreme. You don't see conservatives demanding that heads roll or people be fired or driven out of their livelihood or standing because of saying something offensive or politically incorrect.

So long as nobody's unalienable, civil, legal, or Constitutional rights are infringed or jeopardized, Conservatism pretty much takes a live and let live attitude about most things.

In the summer of 1995, Crane and his partner Randy began to plan their October commitment ceremony. In September, someone in Byron Center learned about the ceremony and word spread to school officials, parents and students. At the November school board meeting, angry parents attended the meeting and demanded that the gay teacher either resign or be fired.

You seem to be more delusional than usual re what others want, Debra. I don't know a single conservative that wants to invade the privacy of anybody's bedroom or who wants to criminalize homosexualty. Where do you come up with this stuff? Talk about prejudice and bigotry!

As the Huckabee illustration suggests, we believe that Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal constitute a conservative media establishment. We don't expect readers to find that claim either novel or in need of extensive documentation. In a world in which Fox's owner Rupert Murdoch has recently purchased the WSJ and in which Limbaugh's is the most popular political talk radio program, Fox the mmost watched cable network, and the Journal the second most read paper in the country, we instead see our goal as understanding how these outlets make sense of politics for their audiences and fathoming what their success means for the Republican Party and the democratic process. In this book we analyze the ways Limbaugh, Fox, and the editorial pages of the country's major conservative newspaper both have protected Reagan conservatism across a more than decade-long period and insulated their audiences from political persuasion from Democrats and the "liberal media."

Foxfyre wrote:

You seem to be more delusional than usual re what others want, Debra. I don't know a single conservative that wants to invade the privacy of anybody's bedroom or who wants to criminalize homosexualty. Where do you come up with this stuff? Talk about prejudice and bigotry!

Then why were so many American conservatives in 2003 so outraged when the Supreme Court decided Lawrence v. Texas? That's the case where Texas police had arrested John G. Lawrence and his lover Tyron Garner in the privacy of Lawrence's bedroom. The only reason for the arrest was that the two had sex with each other. The Supreme Court decided that by doing so, Texas had violated Lawrence's and Garner's Fourth Amendment right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures".

Why would conservatives oppose that -- unless they're okay with police arresting people in the privacy of their bedrooms for having sex that the government disapproves of?

Fox, you never did answer whether you think the parents demanding a teacher be fired just because he is homosexual are liberal.

I am not clear how we are supposed to understand the concept of "conservatism" when you keep changing the meaning.

Since you think all conservatives are fine with homosexuals forming family groups, does that mean you think James Dobson is not a conservative? How about the people of Arkansas that passed a ban on adoption by gay couples. Do you think they are not conservative?

It is hard to understand your definition Fox, when the people that vote conservative values and support the candidates that you support do things you say conservatives don't do.

(You are incorrect, however, about the constitutional basis for the decision. It was decided under the Fourteenth Amendment (due process and equal protection clauses) and not the Fourth Amendment. )

Now Parados, what, if any, of these fundamentals and principles do you have a problem with and why?

Conservatism was even more divided in the United States [then in Europe, which was described in the paragraph before]. Abortion, immigration, national sovereignty, and “family values” were among the issues that rallied supporters but divided adherents into various camps, from neoconservatives and “paleoconservatives” (descendants of the Old Right who regarded neoconservatives as socially liberal and imperialistic in foreign affairs) to cultural traditionalists among groups such as the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority. The camps battled one another as well as perceived enemies in the so-called “Culture Wars” of the 1990s, and, through it all, each faction was convinced that it alone was carrying the true mantle of conservatism into the next millennium.

You seem to be more delusional than usual re what others want, Debra. I don't know a single conservative that wants to invade the privacy of anybody's bedroom or who wants to criminalize homosexualty. Where do you come up with this stuff? Talk about prejudice and bigotry!

Perhaps liberalism doesn't require others to agree with liberalism, but liberalism does seem to take punishing those who disagree to the extreme.

You don't see conservatives demanding that heads roll or people be fired or driven out of their livelihood or standing because of saying something offensive or politically incorrect.

So long as nobody's unalienable, civil, legal, or Constitutional rights are infringed or jeopardized, Conservatism pretty much takes a live and let live attitude about most things.