AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

okie wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I wonder where Okie got the idea that Free Enterprise is a natural course of action. This statement could not be farther from the truth, as for the vast majority of human history, there really was no such thing.

Is it whining when WE insist the laws are upheld, Okie?

Cycloptichorn

Its called "freedom."

At least it's not whining then...

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okie wrote:

I understand your point, and I will concede cyclops point, however you should be able to admit that there is alot of whining going on in regard to class envy, people want more of what somebody else has earned, and that the government is not treating them fairly, and there are alot of people that criticize the country. That is alot different than whining or complaining about specific policies or specific laws, I think, at least I see the difference.

Perhaps we should therefore define whining? I see whining as wanting what I want now however much it inconveniences or may be unfair to somebody else or whether or not I have earned or merit that which I want.

Slaves wanting to be free was not whining. Women wanting the vote was not whining. Both principles are embodied in the spirit of the Constitution. It took the nation awhile to accept that, but we did come around to the idea that race is an unjustifiable basis on which to judge a person's worth and gender is an unjustifiable basis on which to judge a person's right to vote.

I think the conservative point of view is to base public law and policy on what is justifiable within the spirit and content of the Constitution.

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To state the obvious, Fox, it was not conservatives who advocated women's suffrage or the abolition of slavery, or civil rights for African Americans, as guaranteed by the Constitution.

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username wrote:

To state the obvious, Fox, it was not conservatives who advocated women's suffrage or the abolition of slavery, or civil rights for African Americans, as guaranteed by the Constitution.

I think Abraham Lincoln was very much a conservative, he was a Republican at least, and much of the civil rights advancement was accomplished by Republicans and right minded conservatives. It might do you well to read the following:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1693196/posts

It has only been in the last few decades that Democrats have hijacked the civil rights movement as a tool to advance their socialist policies.

I don't know about womens suffrage, but if you want to include abortion righters, such as Sanger, she would not make you proud, I hope, so I would not go there if I were you.

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So, okie, would you say that in those cases it was good to break with "age old traditions"?

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okie wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I wonder where Okie got the idea that Free Enterprise is a natural course of action. This statement could not be farther from the truth, as for the vast majority of human history, there really was no such thing.

Is it whining when WE insist the laws are upheld, Okie?

Cycloptichorn

Its called "freedom."

Yeah, I know. Freedom is not the 'natural state' of mankind. I have no idea where you got the notion that it was.

Cycloptichorn

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old europe wrote:

So, okie, would you say that in those cases it was good to break with "age old traditions"?

Yes, but there are traditions and there are traditions, lots of differences. If tradition is based upon sound principles, I don't think change is called for.

Actually, I am in favor of change as well, in areas where sound principles are not being practiced, but liberals resist. I am not however marching in the streets or waving signs. I am instead going to work and minding my own business. I think it is best done through the legal accepted means of politics and legislation. So I am not out there whining in front of everybody about it.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

okie wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I wonder where Okie got the idea that Free Enterprise is a natural course of action. This statement could not be farther from the truth, as for the vast majority of human history, there really was no such thing.

Is it whining when WE insist the laws are upheld, Okie?

Cycloptichorn

Its called "freedom."

Yeah, I know. Freedom is not the 'natural state' of mankind. I have no idea where you got the notion that it was.

Cycloptichorn

Huh? I don't agree. Bondage is the state that will happen if people are not responsible as individuals, and it happens often, but I still think the natural yearning in every human being is to escape bondage, to have freedom. God gave us that drive and desire, although many instead choose the lazy man's way, to let somebody else take care of them at the expense of their own freedom.

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okie wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
okie wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I wonder where Okie got the idea that Free Enterprise is a natural course of action. This statement could not be farther from the truth, as for the vast majority of human history, there really was no such thing.

Is it whining when WE insist the laws are upheld, Okie?

Cycloptichorn

Its called "freedom."

Yeah, I know. Freedom is not the 'natural state' of mankind. I have no idea where you got the notion that it was.

Cycloptichorn

Huh? I don't agree. Bondage is the state that will happen if people are not responsible as individuals, and it happens often, but I still think the natural yearning in every human being is to escape bondage, to have freedom. God gave us that drive and desire, although many instead choose the lazy man's way, to let somebody else take care of them at the expense of their own freedom.

jesus, i think, was crucified solely because he offered hope to the common enslaved man, so was sparticus. Athens, the model of democracy was a city/state of 30,000 people of which some 300 were citizens benefiting from democracy.

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okie wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
okie wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I wonder where Okie got the idea that Free Enterprise is a natural course of action. This statement could not be farther from the truth, as for the vast majority of human history, there really was no such thing.

Is it whining when WE insist the laws are upheld, Okie?

Cycloptichorn

Its called "freedom."

Yeah, I know. Freedom is not the 'natural state' of mankind. I have no idea where you got the notion that it was.

Cycloptichorn

Huh? I don't agree. Bondage is the state that will happen if people are not responsible as individuals, and it happens often, but I still think the natural yearning in every human being is to escape bondage, to have freedom. God gave us that drive and desire, although many instead choose the lazy man's way, to let somebody else take care of them at the expense of their own freedom.

That may be true, but it is immaterial; the natural state of humanity is one of dominance and control, and it is a struggle to create and maintain a society which truly eschews the natural state. If freedom - and more importantly, the respect for others freedom - were a natural part of the human existence, we would live in a radically different world.

Freedom is a desirable thing, and something I love; but Free Enterprise is a relatively rare and definitely partial concept, which doesn't even really exist today. It certainly is not the natural human state; I think a survey of history will show you that arbitrary, onerous, and many times silly taxes, levies, duties, and government intrusion in the business of 'free enterprise' is the norm far more often then the exception. Hell, in our current world, it's the norm rather then the exception in many if not most countries.

Cycloptichorn

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username wrote:

To state the obvious, Fox, it was not conservatives who advocated women's suffrage or the abolition of slavery, or civil rights for African Americans, as guaranteed by the Constitution.

I think it was. If you study the lives and point of view of those who were pushing for change, they weren't wanting change for the sake of change, nor did they advocate giving up traditional values in which they believed. They were wanting to make all that was good and right better. They weren't the types to throw the baby out with the bath water. Without intense pressure from the Church, which in nobody's definition of liberalism was in any way liberal, neither abolition nor women's suffrage would likely have happened when it did. Did all the Church support these issues, no it did not. But enough did to make a difference.

This is one of the things I hoped to discuss in this thread: the components of what is and is not modern conservatism and the misconceptions about it. In short modern conservatism is the child of classical liberalism and shares most of those traits. Modern conservatism is in no way opposed to change for the better. It does oppose what it sees as change for the the worse.

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okie wrote:

old europe wrote:
So, okie, would you say that in those cases it was good to break with "age old traditions"?

Yes, but there are traditions and there are traditions, lots of differences. If tradition is based upon sound principles, I don't think change is called for.

In that case, basing our positions on "age old traditions" apparently also demands that we question the underlying principles. And if we deem the underlying principles to be wrong or not in accord with the belief that all men are created equal, it may be time to break with those "age old traditions".

okie wrote:

Actually, I am in favor of change as well, in areas where sound principles are not being practiced, but liberals resist. I am not however marching in the streets or waving signs. I am instead going to work and minding my own business. I think it is best done through the legal accepted means of politics and legislation. So I am not out there whining in front of everybody about it.

Many people who don't agree with you on the issues will agree with much of that, and many people on your side of the political divide will disagree. There are enough people out there waving signs that say "God hates fags".

Stereotyping all "liberals" as sign waving whiners and all conservatives as hard working, law abiding citizens doesn't really change that. In fact, painting everyone who disagrees with you politically as come kind of quasi-communist, tree hugging, sign waving liberal nut job probably won't help to determine why people are turning away from the current flavour of conservative ideas.

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Fox, I think you ought to study the lives of the suffragists and the abolitionists a bit more, because you're wrong. They were usually the progressives and the radicals in the context of the times. The conservatives thought women's place was in the kitchen, or even more brutally "barefoot and pregnant". The suffragists in particular were for social reform--granted at the time that often meant some of the early ones were heavily into Temperance too, but still they were NOT for traditional social forms. Maybe you should read a little Frederick Douglass too. And remember the Republicans were thought of as the dangerous radicals of the day. The conservatives were all for not rocking the slavery boat--or if there were really on the radical end of conservatives they were for the various Compromises, but for continued slavery.

I was personally involved in the civil rights struggles in the 60s, and I knew a fair number of the leaders and they were NOT conservatives. Conservatives thought things like public accommodations were too divisive and maybe by our grandchildren's time buses could be integrated. Constitutional guarantees had nothing to do with their thinking.

And your argument about the Church doesn't fly, either. FCor one thing, there was no one church, and many of the Protestand denominations that provided the most vocal activists were also the social reformers of the time (and that includes through the Civil Rights movement). That includes people like the Quakers (I worked with a bunch of them too, and conxervative they weren't, Unitarians, and Congregationalists, amongst others). What you think the history was just does not jibe with the history I experienced, or what I know.

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username wrote:

Fox, I think you ought to study the lives of the suffragists and the abolitionists a bit more, because you're wrong. They were usually the progressives and the radicals in the context of the times. The conservatives thought women's place was in the kitchen, or even more brutally "barefoot and pregnant". The suffragists in particular were for social reform--granted at the time that often meant some of the early ones were heavily into Temperance too, but still they were NOT for traditional social forms. Maybe you should read a little Frederick Douglass too. And remember the Republicans were thought of as the dangerous radicals of the day. The conservatives were all for not rocking the slavery boat--or if there were really on the radical end of conservatives they were for the various Compromises, but for continued slavery.

I was personally involved in the civil rights struggles in the 60s, and I knew a fair number of the leaders and they were NOT conservatives. Conservatives thought things like public accommodations were too divisive and maybe by our grandchildren's time buses could be integrated. Constitutional guarantees had nothing to do with their thinking.

And your argument about the Church doesn't fly, either. FCor one thing, there was no one church, and many of the Protestand denominations that provided the most vocal activists were also the social reformers of the time (and that includes through the Civil Rights movement). That includes people like the Quakers (I worked with a bunch of them too, and conxervative they weren't, Unitarians, and Congregationalists, amongst others). What you think the history was just does not jibe with the history I experienced, or what I know.

Church history is one of very few areas in which I do have a small degree of expertise so I know that I am not wrong about that. The Civil Rights movement of the 60's, the anti-Vietnam protests, along with the hippies' zone out, tune out, drop out social revolution was the birth of modern liberalism. Evenso, as I previously explained, Martin Luther King was no modern liberal. He was a classical liberal, i.e. modern conservative to the core. I was a marcher for civil rights in the 60's too as well growing up during the first of desegregation in our state and then later headed a large social agency with a prominently advertised imperative to "end racism wherever it exists and by any means necessary." I was no modern liberal then. And I'm not now.

IMO, it is usually incorrect to characterize modern Conservatives as non-progressive. It is sometimes incorrect to characterize modern liberals as progressive.

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Fox, you're confusing liberalism with, for want of a better term, progressive politics. Both have far deeper roots in American politics than the 60s. And you obviously have no idea what the hippies were all about, since the whole thrust of hippiedom was non-political (what do you think "drop out" meant?) You might do some research in, for example, muckraking journalism, the union movement, and the ideas that FDR implemented in his first term for some of the roots of modern liberalism that much predate the 60s.

The concept of "Christian" has been highjacked by the religious right. SOME churches have been in the forefront of change since the 1840s, but they weren't conservative, and, yes, they were Christian.

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And I gotta tell you I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that we might have marched in some of the same demonstrations.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Freedom is a desirable thing, and something I love; but Free Enterprise is a relatively rare and definitely partial concept, which doesn't even really exist today. It certainly is not the natural human state; I think a survey of history will show you that arbitrary, onerous, and many times silly taxes, levies, duties, and government intrusion in the business of 'free enterprise' is the norm far more often then the exception. Hell, in our current world, it's the norm rather then the exception in many if not most countries.

Cycloptichorn

Government provides the rules and framework, which may include taxes, etc., but free enterprise has always existed to an extent, I think. Cavemen probably traded, we know the modern Indian did, they traded and bartered what they had enough of for stuff they wanted and needed, as individuals, and probably as tribes or bands as well. And just as government has rules now, the leaders of tribes may probably dictated what individual members could trade or not. I don't think free enterprise has ever been totally without government oversight, I never claimed that, but I think there is a point at which government begins competing or usurping an economy, and at that point I think it is overstepping its bounds. Oversight okay, but competition not okay.

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old europe wrote:

okie wrote:
old europe wrote:
So, okie, would you say that in those cases it was good to break with "age old traditions"?

Yes, but there are traditions and there are traditions, lots of differences. If tradition is based upon sound principles, I don't think change is called for.

In that case, basing our positions on "age old traditions" apparently also demands that we question the underlying principles. And if we deem the underlying principles to be wrong or not in accord with the belief that all men are created equal, it may be time to break with those "age old traditions".

I can't disagree, but with one clarification, the modern liberal, and take the hippie movement of the 60's, it was in my opinion based on breaking up or out of many of the social constraints, apart from civil rights, but primarily sexual freedom or promiscuity whatever you wish to call it. The hippie movement was mostly about free love, drugs, and doing your own thing, shedding the shackles of traditional moral constraints.

The civil rights movement was a sort of side attraction to that whole thing in my opinion. I would like to make something clear here. I was part of that generation. I did not participate in the hippie movement, but I did believe in civil rights. I never marched, but it was the old Democrats of the south that resisted the most, perhaps you could call them conservatives holding onto their traditions, but their traditions certainly were not those of my family, and we were conservatives.

Quote:

okie wrote:
Actually, I am in favor of change as well, in areas where sound principles are not being practiced, but liberals resist. I am not however marching in the streets or waving signs. I am instead going to work and minding my own business. I think it is best done through the legal accepted means of politics and legislation. So I am not out there whining in front of everybody about it.

Many people who don't agree with you on the issues will agree with much of that, and many people on your side of the political divide will disagree. There are enough people out there waving signs that say "God hates fags".

Stereotyping all "liberals" as sign waving whiners and all conservatives as hard working, law abiding citizens doesn't really change that. In fact, painting everyone who disagrees with you politically as come kind of quasi-communist, tree hugging, sign waving liberal nut job probably won't help to determine why people are turning away from the current flavour of conservative ideas.

Correct, I can't stereotype all liberals, but I do believe most sign wavers are liberal in nature. Yes, you have right wing whackos, but they are not that large in number I do not believe. I believe there are far more organizations with leftists making it their life's work to agitate and push for many agendas, from environmentalism to all kinds of things that are too numerous to mention, and many of these people are just unhappy people with not much else to do in my opinion.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Evenso, as I previously explained, Martin Luther King was no modern liberal. He was a classical liberal, i.e. modern conservative to the core. I was a marcher for civil rights in the 60's too as well growing up during the first of desegregation in our state and then later headed a large social agency with a prominently advertised imperative to "end racism wherever it exists and by any means necessary." I was no modern liberal then. And I'm not now.

IMO, it is usually incorrect to characterize modern Conservatives as non-progressive. It is sometimes incorrect to characterize modern liberals as progressive.

Good points, and as you were no liberal then, neither was I or my family, and we certainly were not racists either, although we did not march. That is not what we did. We didn't have time. Too busy milking cows and doing farmwork.

One last comment, I firmly believe that instead of engaging in racial politics, if the black community or black leaders would have set about in more earnest fashion to become more educated in terms of percentage, they would be far more successful as a group now, and all of this racism concern would evaporate. Just as white people with no education languish in poverty, the same happens no matter your color. Also, the black people that became educated and have gotten good jobs and careers have succeeded very well, thank you, and they are to be commended, and there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions that have. Now if you quit school, do drugs, join gangs, and don't have a skill to offer society, what should one expect to succeed with? And the breakdown of family structure is largely to blame, thank you liberals and socialism for that. Even without an education, if you work hard and stay focused, don't quit every job every week or two, you will probably succeed, just as any person will, regardless of race.

In regard to progressive, the liberals, leftists, or socialists, are adopting that term because it sounds better, but it is not progressive, it merely returns to the failed policies of the past.

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okie wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
Please answer this question Diest TKO:
(1) do you now allege that the sun does influence the earth's weather?
(2) do you now allege the sun does not influence the earth's weather?
(3) do you now allege neither?

Diest TKO ,which one do you now allege:
(1)?
(2)?
(3)?

I've never said anything to even suggest 2 or 3, and I object to 1 because of the word "now." I haven't changed my stance on whether the sun contributes or not.

I've been very clear that I agree the sun contributes. I always have. So your inclusion of the word "now" is unnecessary because I maintain the same position as I have ever since I've posted here.

I even highlighted the post with red so you could see for yourself. Are you actively trying to ignore it? If you had read it, you wouldn't have bothered asking this question. The answer was already present and it was from months ago.

It makes you look really dumb to ask a question that was answered on the previous page let alone answered months ago.

T
K
O

You have never been clear on this, Diest, so don't claim that you have been.

It's funny that YOU choose to say this since, YOU were the one who decided to fish out the dialog from the other thread, and in the cut and paste ride over to this thread, you included the very clear explanation. I used to think you didn't read what I post, now I'm concerned that you don't read what YOU post.

T
K
O

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AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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