AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Foxfyre: I'm sorry, but I don't see how your posts answer my question. When you defend hetero-only marriage, opposition to no-fault divorce, and opposition to immigrants -- are you saying that these things are good

I've checked in here occasionally to notice a bunch of people piling onto Foxfyre's pretty reasoned posts, and I have stayed out of it, but Foxfyre opposed to immigrants, Thomas, I am pretty sure that Foxfyre is not opposed to immigrants. She is very likely opposed to illegal immigration, big difference.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

I look at income taxes much the same way. While I think a graduated tax system does punish success and is therefore counterproductive, I don't see that it violates any uniformity law as long as the same kinds of income are taxed the same uniformly throughout the country. I also think income taxes are a different kind of tax from duties, import, and excise taxes. (Our founders probably would have frowned on the idea of an income tax in their day, but then they couldn't see into the future and changing circumstances either.)

I agree!

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
I defend the traditional definition of marriage.

"Traditional" as of when? The American marriage laws of which year, or which span of years, are you defending?

You didn't read my response did you.

Or the thread title?

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Fox wrote:

Quote:

I defend the traditional definition of marriage.

Defend it from what? What is there to "defend?"

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@okie,

okie wrote:

Thomas wrote:

Foxfyre: I'm sorry, but I don't see how your posts answer my question. When you defend hetero-only marriage, opposition to no-fault divorce, and opposition to immigrants -- are you saying that these things are good

I've checked in here occasionally to notice a bunch of people piling onto Foxfyre's pretty reasoned posts, and I have stayed out of it, but Foxfyre opposed to immigrants, Thomas, I am pretty sure that Foxfyre is not opposed to immigrants. She is very likely opposed to illegal immigration, big difference.

Thanks Okie. Thomas has joined the ranks of Parados, CI, TKO et al in requesting comments and then ignoring whatever I respond but just keeps piling on more questions or dismisses me as whatever while accusing me of all sorts of things I didn't say. It's darn challenging having any kind of discussion with these liberals. Smile

You're absolutely right though. In highschool I volunteered for the small band that played the National Anthem for new immigrant swearing in ceremonies. Since then, I have personally been involved in helping three separate families immigrate to the United States and worked with them to help assimilate them into American culture; I have taught citizenship classes to immigrants and attended (proudly) their swearing in as new citizens, and come from a long line of immigrants myself. To accuse me of being anti-immigration is about as myopic and disingenuous as it gets. Smile

However, as a conservative I believe it is necessary to be a nation of laws not to restrict our freedoms but to protect them. I believe that immigration laws should provide an orderly, fair, and effective system to bring in new immigrants who will be assimilated into and enrich our uniquely American culture. In my opinion, illegal immigrants usurp that process with some detrimental results both for our citizens and the immigrants themselves; therefore it should not be tolerated. I will say that some conservatives do not agree with me on that and more closely align themselves with President Bush who preferred to ignore the problem or solve it with amnesty.

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
I look at income taxes much the same way. While I think a graduated tax system does punish success and is therefore counterproductive, I don't see that it violates any uniformity law as long as the same kinds of income are taxed the same uniformly throughout the country. I also think income taxes are a different kind of tax from duties, import, and excise taxes. (Our founders probably would have frowned on the idea of an income tax in their day, but then they couldn't see into the future and changing circumstances either.)

I agree!

You do? I thought we were quarreling (in a good way) about the concept of what contstitutes a uniform tax. Smile

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
Libertarians support an order to civilization with sufficient laws and regulations to enforce it.

This has never been true of all libertarians or classical liberals. This tradition had anarchistic proponents since Godwin (1793), and has continued to do so through Thoreau (1849), Tucker (1881"1908) Rothbart (1962), and Friedman (1971).

But on sexuality, libertarians have consistently disagreed with your general attitude, whether they thought the state necessary or not. Jeremy Bentham argued for the legalization of gay sex in 1785, when it still was a capital crime. John Stuart Mill, Bentham's student, did not write about homosexuality as far as I know, but argued passionately that the Mormons in Utah had a right to polygamy (On Liberty, 1859).

So the libertarian position on sex and marriage has traditionally been permissive. By arguing for the restrictions that you do, you are dissenting from 200 years of classical-liberal and libertarian tradition. I am not saying that this is necessarily good or bad. But either way it's what you're doing -- you're helping noone, certainly not yourself, by refusing to face up to it.

I have no problem with gays and you won't find a post of mine anywhere that makes any kind of case that I do. My attitude about gays has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to preserve the traditional definition of marriage as one man and one woman.

I disagree that libertarians have 'consistently disagreed with me' on that since both Williams and Sowell agree with me ; also the large majority of my friends, family, and associates of libertarian bent who also oppose changing the definition of marriage in the law.

Here's Sowell's argument which really tickled me since he used a lot of the same arguments that I used on another thread on this subject a couple of years ago or so. I would appreciate you pointing out any place in which his logic is flawed.

Quote:

Jewish World Review Nov. 5, 2008

Affirmative Action and Gay ‘Marriage’
By Thomas Sowell

The politically clever way to get special privileges is to call them "rights"" especially "equal rights."

Some local election campaigns in various states are using that tactic this year, trying to get special privileges through affirmative action quotas or through demands that the definition of marriage be changed to suit homosexuals.

Equality of rights does not mean equality of results. I can have all the equal treatment in the world on a golf course and I will not finish within shouting distance of Tiger Woods.

When arbitrary numerical "goals" or "quotas" under affirmative action are not met, the burden of proof is put on the employer to prove that he did not discriminate against minorities or women. No burden of proof whatever is put on the advocates of "goals" or "quotas" to show that people would be equally represented in jobs, colleges or anywhere else in the absence of discrimination.

Tons of evidence from countries around the world, and over centuries of history, show that statistical disparities are the rule, not the exception" even in situations where discrimination is virtually impossible.

Anonymously graded tests do not show the same results from one group to another. In many countries there are minorities who completely outperform members of the majority population, whether in education, in the economy or in sports, even when there is no way that they can discriminate against the majority.

Putting the burden of proof on everybody except yourself is a slick political ploy. The time is long overdue for the voting public to see through it.

Another fraud on the ballot this year is gay "marriage."

Marriage has existed for centuries and, until recent times, it has always meant a union between a man and a woman. Over those centuries, a vast array of laws has grown up, all based on circumstances that arise in unions between a man and a woman.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that law has not been based on logic but on experience. To apply a mountain of laws based specifically on experience with relations between a man and a woman to a different relationship where sex differences are not involved would be like applying the rules of baseball to football.

The argument that current marriage laws "discriminate" against homosexuals confuses discrimination against people with making distinctions among different kinds of behavior.

All laws distinguish among different kinds of behavior. What other purpose does law have?

While people may be treated the same, all their behaviors are not. Laws that forbid bicycles from being ridden on freeways obviously have a different effect on people who have bicycles but no cars.

But this is not discrimination against a person. The cyclist who gets into a car is just as free to drive on the freeway as anybody else.

The question is not whether gays should be permitted to marry. Many gays have already married people of the opposite sex. Conversely, heterosexuals who might want to marry someone of the same sex in order to make some point will be forbidden to do so, just as gays are.

The real issue is whether marriage should be redefined" and, if for gays, why not for polygamists? Why not for pedophiles?

Despite heavy television advertising in California for "gay marriage," showing blacks being set upon by police dogs during civil right marches, and implying that homosexuals face the same discrimination today, the analogy is completely false.

Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus because they were black. They were doing exactly what white people were doing" riding a bus. That is what made it racial discrimination.

Marriage is not a right but a set of legal obligations imposed because the government has a vested interest in unions that, among other things, have the potential to produce children, which is to say, the future population of the nation.

Gays were on their strongest ground when they said that what they did was nobody else's business. Now they are asserting a right to other people's approval, which is wholly different.

None of us has a right to other people's approval
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell110508.php3

2 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Fox wrote:

Quote:

I have no problem with gays and you won't find a post of mine anywhere that makes any kind of case that I do. My attitude about gays has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to preserve the traditional definition of marriage as one man and one woman.

She doesn't see her own contradiction.

0 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

To accuse me of being anti-immigration is about as myopic and disingenuous as it gets.

I understand completely. One wonders if people cannot grasp such simple concepts, whether any reasonable debate could ever be successful? Even Occom Bill has called me a bigot, etc. based upon me opposing illegal immigration. I would not dream of going to Mexico to live indefinitely without a valid permit or citizenship to do so, and even Mexico actively opposes illegals from further south. I totally believe you have done what you say in regard to immigrants, and I have the same feeling, hey I lived in New Mexico many years ago and the hispanics virtually ran most of the state, I loved the culture, the food, and the neighborhood I lived in, the neighbors I had, I know many people of hispanic heritage, heck they settled much of the state originally.

Some of the opinions I see here sometimes are bizarre to say the least, and I sometimes wonder if there is any hope whatsoever for the country, given the lack of ability to even reason cogently anymore? Political correctness taken to the illogical extreme is really wreaking havoc.

1 Reply

@okie,

You're lucky Occam only called you a bigot. He called me far far worse and still takes shots at me to this day. Smile

It was in New Mexico when I played the National Anthem for new immigrants. It was in West Texas in the heart of some of the world's most redneck country that I helped some very good folks immigrate into the small towns in the Panhandle. The ones I worked the most closely with were political refugees from Castro's Cuba during a period in which he was doing unbelievably cruel and savage torture to his citizens. Maybe he always has. I don't know. It was in Kansas that I taught immigration classes.

At any rate this country was built by immigrants and we do need to continue to bring folks in now and then. I would like to see the process streamlined more to make it less of a nightmare for folks. But they gotta do it legal. It just isn't right or a good thing any other way.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

I think alot of the immigrants are more patriotic and harder working than the people that have grown up here, Foxfyre. We would do well to learn a few things from many of them. Not the drug dealers and gangsters, not them, but they could have been filtered out if we would have had any kind of a reasonable enforcement policy during the last few decades. Washington has failed us miserably on that count, and it is still costing us big time, and will for the foreseeable future.

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@Foxfyre,

I thought we were debating in a good way not quarreling in a good way. ('~')

Either way you convinced me to agree when you added the underlined condition: "I don't see that it violates any uniformity law as long as the same kinds of income are taxed the same uniformly throughout the country."

For example, I interpret that to mean: the tax rate on salary income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the salary income; the tax rate on dividend income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the dividend income; the tax rate on capital gains income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the capital gains income; the tax rate on lottery income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the lottery income; the tax rate on social security retirement income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the social security retirement income ... etc.

If you meant something else then let's continue the debate ... uh ... quarrel ... "in a good way".

Otherwise, let's debate/quarrel in a good way what is necessary--not necessary AND sufficient--for one who claims to be a conservative to want to conserve.

2 Replies

@ican711nm,

ican, I brought this up on the economy thread, but this matter of waiving taxes to a company to build a plant in a city, county, or state, while the competition already there continues to pay taxes, this strikes me as going right to the heart of what you are talking about in regard to "uniform" taxation. For example, auto manufacturers are wooed to an area by waiving their taxes for a time. This practice I have long been amazed has not been outlawed, as I see it as downright crooked, a form of bribery. It is unethical at best, and should be unconstitutional most definitely. Lawyers, how come this simple principle has not been enforced in the courts?

2 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Here's Sowell's argument which really tickled me since he used a lot of the same arguments that I used on another thread on this subject a couple of years ago or so. I would appreciate you pointing out any place in which his logic is flawed.

Well, to begin with, he starts with false premises. While it is true that marriage has been existing for centuries, millenia even, it is not true that it has always meant a union between a man and a woman. It did once include unions between a man and many women, as every reader of the Old Testament knows. Moreover, Sowell's wording, "an array of laws has grown up", obscures that these laws have changed profoundly as people changed their mind about marriage and what it should be.

For example, as I mentioned earlier, a woman and all her property once became the possession of her man when she married. This was true until liberal reformers changed the definition of marriage so that women retained their legal identity in marriage. That was a much more profound change than allowing same sex couples to marry. Sowell chooses to ignore this perpetual change in the definition of marriage.

Because of the false premises Sowell starts from, he doesn't need flawed logic to draw mistaken conclusions. But he indulges us anyway. Sowell's only argument against gay marriage is that since marriage is impossible for same sex couples, and has been historically, it ought not be made possible. This is a century-old fallacy we call the "ought-is-fallacy". Just because something is, it doesn't follow that it ought to be; it's fallacious to claim that it is.

3 Replies

@Thomas,

Thomas, I wish you well - in playing word games with Fox. Her pseudonym is a warning. LOL

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Sowell’s premise is not false but your assumption in your rebuttal is. He is quite well versed in (and has written a lot about) American history as well as ancient history, and I can assure you that he is quite aware that marriage has not always been restricted to one man and one woman. Nor did he say that it was. He said that marriage has always been between a man and a woman. That some cultures allowed a man to marry more than one woman is irrelevant. The marriage itself was still between a man and a woman. You don’t find anywhere in history that marriage was between guys or between gals.

Also Sowell did not deal in the perceived roles of men and women in marriage in the past because that is also irrelevant to this discussion. Marriage has always had a simple basic purpose: to unify property holdings and to establish a traceable lineage within families. I have defined modern American conservatism as being very close to classical liberalism which preserved what was tried and true and proved to be beneficial while changing what needed to be changed for the common good. Classical liberals did not change things just for the sake of change. They would have considered that reckless and foolish.

But if those liberals of which you seem to be so fond thought that same sex couples should be included in the marriage contract, why do you suppose they didn’t deal with that in any way when they were correcting some other things that needed to be corrected?

Both Sowell and I are now dealing in the here and now of the 21st Century and not in the historical culture of some ancient land nor the 17th Century nor the 1950's. And Sowell was quite correct when he said: “Marriage is not a right but a set of legal obligations imposed because the government has a vested interest in unions that, among other things, have the potential to produce children, which is to say, the future population of the nation.”

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

I thought we were debating in a good way not quarreling in a good way. ('~')

Okay, I can accept that.

Quote:

Either way you convinced me to agree when you added the underlined condition: "I don't see that it violates any uniformity law as long as the same kinds of income are taxed the same uniformly throughout the country."

For example, I interpret that to mean: the tax rate on salary income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the salary income; the tax rate on dividend income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the dividend income; the tax rate on capital gains income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the capital gains income; the tax rate on lottery income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the lottery income; the tax rate on social security retirement income throughout the USA must be the same regardless of the magnitude of the social security retirement income ... etc.

If you meant something else then let's continue the debate ... uh ... quarrel ... "in a good way".

I suspect we are pretty close, but I'm not certain we are quite on the same page yet.

For me, 'uniformity in the tax code' looks like this:

- when a duty is imposed on say imported champagne, that exact same duty must be paid uniformly in North Carolina, Texas, New York, or any other state that imports the champagne. If any state, person, or entity should be exempted from the tax, it would then be a non uniform and unconstitutional duty.

- when an excise tax is imposed on say the manufacture of gilded carriage wheels, that exact same excise tax must be imposed in Virginia, California, Minnesota or any other state that manufactures gilded chariot wheels. If any state, person, or entity is exempted from paying any part of the tax, it would then be a non uniform and unconstitutional tax.

I do not think it would violate the spirit or intent of the law, however, if the tax kicked in at a certain level: say you could bring in one case of champagne dity free but the second and subsequent cases would be subject to the tax. As long as that was universally applied, I think it would still be uniform.

Perhaps the hobbyist making one set of carriage wheels as a favor to a friend could be exempt from the tax while the person making two or more sets of carriage wheels would be considered a business and would be subject to the tax. As long as the rules are uniform throughout the land I think it would still meet the Constitutional test.

The income tax is not the same thing as a duty or excise tax and can be treated somewhat differently, but I think the spirit of the law would dictate that it must be uniformly applied throughout the land. It is for that reason that I think the first X dollars of earned income can be exempt, the next X dollars would be taxed at a lower rate, and the next X dollars at a higher rate and, so long as the taxes were imposed uniformly and indiscriminately on that basis, it would be a uniform tax. (Whether such a system is the most fair, effective, efficient, or productive is a different debate as we are dealing only with presumed legality here.)

Quote:

Otherwise, let's debate/quarrel in a good way what is necessary--not necessary AND sufficient--for one who claims to be a conservative to want to conserve.

Okay are we still in agreement? Or do we keep on debating/quarreling in a good way? Smile

1 Reply

@okie,

okie wrote:

ican, I brought this up on the economy thread, but this matter of waiving taxes to a company to build a plant in a city, county, or state, while the competition already there continues to pay taxes, this strikes me as going right to the heart of what you are talking about in regard to "uniform" taxation. For example, auto manufacturers are wooed to an area by waiving their taxes for a time. This practice I have long been amazed has not been outlawed, as I see it as downright crooked, a form of bribery. It is unethical at best, and should be unconstitutional most definitely. Lawyers, how come this simple principle has not been enforced in the courts?

I am honestly torn on this one. I agree that government granting favors to some and not all is a corrupting influence, but lets take some little podunk town in West Texas (or anywhere) that is in a state of decline. The people know and care about each other, their homes are there, and they do not want their school or hospital to close because of a dwindling tax base. If they vote to give away a chunk of publicly held land and waive taxes for X number of years to entice a large rendering plant to locate in their community and bring jobs and people to the community, I would hate to deny them the ability to 'bid' for new industry in that way. They may have little or nothing else to offer industry to locate there.

1 Reply

Has this replaced the "Bush supporters" thread? Who are probably too ashamed to admit it now.

Has any administration ever done more harm to the country than his?

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Has this replaced the "Bush supporters" thread? Who are probably too ashamed to admit it now.

Has any administration ever done more harm to the country than his?

I earnestly wish that I coud have elected Ron Paul or Bob Barr President.

I never liked either Bush, tho I voted for both of them
each time that thay ran, so as to do my best to stave off
the scary authoritarian collectivism of their opponents.
I liked McCain LESS than either Bush, but I voted to try to stop obama.

I am satisfied that each of those votes was the best available
option in the circumstances; I have not the slightest degree of
shame, as u put it.

That is like being "ashamed" to keep your hand out of fire.

David

0 Replies

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