AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

One small correction, RL. I don't think it was TUCC that gave the award; it was another organization. But Pastor Jeremiah Wright was the presenter of the award.

Because they have already invested their future in this guy, and it may be too late to resurrect another saviour for their movement. Unless Clinton can somehow figure out a way to wrest the nomination from Obama, they will circle the wagons around Obama and protect him at any cost. We see they did it with Clinton, and they will do it again.

If this was a Republican, he would have been history long before it ever came to this point, but because they used this guy for appearances sake and trumpeted his leadership based on what, giving a speech at the DNC, here they are in this pickle. He and his movement got a little too strong and is now in danger of wiping out the Clintons life long dreams. Obama mania seemed like a good bandwagon to jump on, but what to do now?

It may turn out to be a collossal disaster for the Democrats in November. The distinct possibility does exist if further scrutiny of Obama doesn't yield better results than Jeremiah Wright would indicate. It has been pointed out, McCain and either Clinton or Obama are in a virtual tie now without McCain even breaking into a sweat.

Trumpet Magazine was founded by Jeremiah Wright http://www.trumpetmag.com/pdf/mediakit_sept07/from_the_ceo_sept07.pdf

It is listed on the church website http://www.tucc.org/trumpet.cfm and his daughter is listed as the Publisher of Trumpet http://www.trumpetmag.com/publisher.cfm

Pastor Wright presented the award and was lavish in his praise of Farrakhan.

I don't think it is a separate organization at all. Trumpet is a piece of the TUCC pie.

Even if it were to technically have a separate incorporation in IL (which I doubt) , the ties to Wright are undeniable and inexcusable.

Thus the damage to 'Present' Obama is real and he is looking more like a deer in the headlights for his inability to make a decision to leave the church and denounce his 'mentor' Wright.

Correction to my immediately preceding post: The award to Farrakhan was given by Trumpet Magazine which, it seems, is owned and published by Barack Obama's church. Obama did denounce racism and anti-semitism when asked about it re Louis Farrakhan, but so far has not denounced any of the inflammatory rehetoric of his pastor. Now that clips of Pastor Wright's sermons are being regularly aired on primetime radio, the MSM will not be able to keep dodging that issue and maintain any credibility for objectivity.

So on the issue of conservatism, where do conservatives land on this issue?

1) First Amendment principles - Pastor Wright is entitled to his opinions no matter what they are?

2) Is guilt by association the guiding principle here?

3) Or should the fact that Obama has openly stated his affection for his church, bragged about his attendance, and declared Pastor Wright as his spiritual advisor significant? Could it not be concluded that if the Obamas had serious problems with the message, they would not have stayed in that congregation?

4) We KNOW the Left would not overlook this if the candidate attending this church was a Republican or declared conservative. Would conservatives overlook it?

You're right about the Ds quandary.

If the establishment trashes him now while he's ahead, all #@/* will break loose.

But it may happen. Look for the Clintons to lean hard on the supers about 30 days prior to the convention if this issue doesnt go away.

Hilly/Billy could still convince a sufficient number of supers to support her and win the nod at the convention.

I don't think they will. They'll likely win just enough of them over to deny either candidate a clinch on the first few ballots.

After that, it's time to call in a compromise candidate.

Wright is entitled to his opinions, but for anyone to vote for someone that is an admirer of his really raises some very serious questions. Guilt by association, no not entirely, but it does raise some very serious questions about what Obama may really think but apparently does not say. Would we vote for someone that is a close friend of a KKK member? I would not. Associations mean things. I think that Obama's affection for Wright probably means something, and it isn't very positive in my opinion. I think it is a safe conclusion that after years of listening to Wright that they would leave the church if there was alot of disagreement. I personally would not vote for any candidate that had close friends or advisers that spewed hate like this.

The most important factor here is that Wright is not just another supporter with a casual relationship to Obama, but apparently a long standing close relationship, and a church that Obama regularly attends and supports. That is the key thing to know here.

They finally let me out (really I escaped, but that is between me and you :wink: ) Looking forward to seeing ya'll again sometime. Tell Lola I still work with her ex brother in law. K and I talk about that old house all the time. I did an extensive study of the big "O" after that meet. He was quite a character and escaped to NYC too! You still there?

bill w said:

A real pleasure to hear from you again. We moved from Manhattan to Portland Oregon last spring (too many psychoanalysts in New York) and it's a pricey place to live. But damn, I do miss it.

Well done on the escape. Please tell your wife we say hi. Are you still in touch with pdiddie?

fox, okie and real life

Are you sure you guys want to continue on with this slime job? If you do, you're going to get it right back as regards McCain's connections with Hagee and Parsly and the others that will turn up.

Why not pick yourselves out of the gutter instead? Talk about something both relevant and important. Take your movement away from the old habits.

Mr. Mounty, not all the way back to the fridged north I see. I once wanted to go to Portland. From what I hear, the freedoms flow like a river there. I have conversed with PD for a long time now, but I am planning on a contact in the near future. I wouldn't be surprise if we don't get a couple of post from him here, too!

bill

We're about 5 to 6 hours from Vancouver by auto but also some 70 miles inland. That ends up making the climate in the two places quite similar though a tad warmer here and less precipitation as well. It's a very nice town with good eating and a very smart free and non-polluting transit circuit that runs through the main destination points. But after Manhattan, it's rather too granola, protestant and caucasian for my evolved love of diversity.

The Sharon Statement was adopted by
Young Americans for Freedom on 9/11/60,
at Bill Buckley 's house in Sharon, Conn.

( I used to be a chapter president )

Its conservative principles shud be carried forward into 2008 and Beyond:

The Sharon Statement
Adopted in conference at Sharon, Connecticut, on September 11, 1960.


In this time of moral and political crises,
it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths.

We, as young conservatives, believe:

That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use
of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from
the restrictions of arbitrary force;

That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist
without economic freedom;

That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the
preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the
administration of justice;

That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions,
it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised
for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it
from the concentration and abuse of power;

That the genius of the Constitution- the division of powers- is summed up
in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people,
in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand,
is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom
and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most
productive supplier of human needs;

That when government interferes with the work of the market economy,
it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation;
that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first,
the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure;
that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens
concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;

That the forces of international Communism are, at present,
the greatest single threat to these liberties;

That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with,
this menace; and

That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion:
does it serve the just interests of the United States?




It waddy been better if it made some negative remarks about gun control.
I guess thay didn 't think of that.




David

Conservatism is alive and well: NOT!


Conservatism Is Dying

By Eric Lotke

March 13th, 2008 - 8:48pm ET


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Modern conservatism is dying. There's still an election to be held, but conservatism as we've known it since Ronald Reagan is failing-ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China.

The American people are figuring this out. While conservatives repeat their time-worn slogans�-"small government, low taxes, high security"�-the American people are living the consequences.

We've seen eight years of a conservative presidency, six years overlapping with a conservative Congress, and 30 years of broadly conservative ideology. Now reality is showing how the values embodied in those slogans have been betrayed.

Conservatives say "shrink government." We get inadequate levees, exploding steam pipes and schools without textbooks. Conservatives say "deregulate," and now Thomas the Tank Engine is painted with toxic lead. Conservatives say "low taxes," but it primarily applies to millionaires, billionaires and crony corporations.

What follows is a history of these problems, and the direction people want to go instead.

Appealing slogans, disastrous results
The conservative shibboleth�-"small government, low taxes, high security"�-has timeless appeal, founded on genuine moral and constitutional values. But the application of those values by today's conservatives is frightening.

Shrinking Government

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
�-Ronald Reagan, First inaugural address, January 1981.
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
�-Grover Norquist, Executive Director, Americans for Tax Reform.
The modern conservative movement is united less by belief in small government�-a traditional constitutional value�-than by disdain for government. They don't just want to shrink it. They want to drown it in a bathtub. Such disdain courts exactly the kind of disasters we got.

Hurricane Katrina. A shrunken government failed in fundamental responsibilities when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Crucial levees had been left to rot and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been "systematically downgraded and all but dismantled." Reconstruction remains a forgotten promise.

Decaying Infrastructure. While government shrinks, America falls apart. A highway bridge collapses in Minneapolis and a steam pipe bursts in Manhattan. One out of four bridges is "structurally deficient or functionally obsolete." Commuters waste hours in gridlock. School roofs leak and children share textbooks. State colleges raise tuition at three times the rate of inflation as states cut back public support. "Starve the beast," conservatives say. But what they really starve are the triumphs of previous generations and investments vital to our future.

Free Market Faith
"The best minds are not in government; if they were, business would steal them away."
�-Ronald Reagan
"The average Halliburton hand knows more about the world than the average member of Congress."
�-Vice President Dick Cheney
Conservatives disdain government but they revere the private sector. They think that government involvement in private enterprise is bad, and that everything done for profit will be done well. Conservatives seem to forget that the purpose of profit is profit. Business interests might well line up with the interests of government and taxpayers, but they might not. At those moments, government is supposed to be on the side of the people. That push and pull makes the system work; a one-sided system works for no one.

Enron and Friends. Deregulation of electricity led to the Enron fiasco. Without government supervision, Enron artificially limited the power supply in California and drove up prices. The ompact of the ensuing inflation of Enron stock value with no real economic basis is best understood by Enron employees who lost their pensions when the company went bankrupt. But Enron was not alone. Worldcom, Adelphia and hosts of other business debacles prove that markets need grown-up supervision.

The Housing Bubble. Failed regulation of the financial sector brought us the housing bubble. It became rare for banks and other mortgage issuers to hold mortgages, so they no longer cared whether the borrower could pay the mortgage. Instead, these companies made their money from the fees they charged the borrowers and quickly sold the mortages into the secondary market. They loans were then packaged into mortgage-backed securities, which were in turn packaged into "collaterized debt obligations" and other complex assets that were sold around the world to investors, many of whom had no idea what they were buying. This new finance structure, in which those who put up the money had no knowledge of the value of the underlying asset, pushed up home values beyond the reach of ordinary buyers. In response, homebuyers turned increasingly to risky instruments that created artificial money to buy houses at artificially high prices�-until the bubble finally burst.

Consumer Safety. Deregulation of consumer products led to e-coli in our spinach, salmonella in our peanut butter and lead in our Barbie dolls. Agricultural inspectors sat on the sidelines while forklifts carried "downer cows"�-who cannot walk and are presumptively unsafe for human consumption�-for slaughter and sale as food.

Halliburton. The vice president's firm receives billions in no-bid contracts, despite marginal and often inadequate performance Most recently, a unit spun off from Halliburton provided water to military bases in Iraq that sickens troops.

Lower Taxes.

"Low taxes" as practiced under conservative rule is less about minimizing the tax burden on working people than about budget gimmickry that rewards friends and conceals deficits.

The biggest break for the richest people. Billionaire hedge fund manager Warren Buffett ends up paying taxes at a lower rate than his receptionist. Millionaires got an average $118,000 annual break from the Bush tax cuts, while average middle-income households got only $740.

Subsidizing record profits. Oil companies pocket billions in subsidies and tax breaks while racking up the largest profits in corporate history. Corporations get tax breaks for moving jobs abroad.

Moral Values
The moral values crusade has turned morality into a burlesque. Conservative leaders are obsessed with abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research�-issues that divide and confuse. They don't care enough about the morals we learned in kindergarten. Share. Wait your turn. Treat others as you want to be treated yourself.

And conservatism entirely misses the big picture. It doesn't see the greed and materialism tearing us apart. It doesn't see poverty and economic injustice, or refugees fleeing genocide. It doesn't care for the green Earth that earlier generations protected in national parks.

Terri Schiavo. Conservatives put her family through hell before honoring her husband's request to remove life support. Blinded by faith, conservatives cast aside honored principles of small government and states' rights.

Choice. Conservatives seek to deny women the right to decide whether to have a child on her own. They don't seem to care about the women's own decision, the risk to her health or the child's well-being after birth. And they insist on teaching only abstinence during sex education in schools, though a mixed curriculum shows better results. Abortion-obsessed conservatives even force their morals onto foreign policy by denying U.S. government aid to organizations in countries that allow abortion in addition to contraception, family planning or other health programs.

High Security

Cowboy-booted conservatives constantly tell us how much danger we're in and how much we need them to keep us safe. From crime to drugs to terrorism, conservatives wear the security mantle. Meanwhile, they ignore real risks, dismiss success stories and stir up hornets nests all over the world.

Iraq. Conservatives chose to invade Iraq on trumped-up charges of weapons of mass destruction. Now oil prices have skyrocketed, Baghdad has become a recruiting ground for jihadists, we're bankrupting ourselves, and American standing has never been lower in the world.

Slogans Have Consequences
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They Say … We get…

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Shrink Government -- The drowning of New Orleans
Collapsing bridges
Higher state college tuition
Stuck in traffic …


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Deregulation -- Housing bubbles
E-coli spinach
Toxic toys
Enron economics …

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Low taxes -- Higher tax rates than billionaires
Oil company subsidies for record profits…

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Moral values -- Terry Schiavo, yes
Stem cell research, no…

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High security -- Iraq…

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Conservative Policies: Not what people want
Behind the high-level principles lay specific policies. Here again, conservative choices diverge from policies people want. Here are some polls about some signature policies.

Health Care

Health care reform is a top priority for America's voters. A Gallup survey in November 2007 revealed 81 percent of Americans are "dissatisfied" with health care in this country, with 56 percent saying the health care system "has major problems." Health care routinely appears at the top of voter concerns, mixed in with Iraq and the economy, depending on the exact question.

When asked how to deal with health care problems, people do not respond from a conservative position. They don't talk about getting government out of the way or promoting individual responsibility. Quite the contrary, Gallup's survey showed an overwhelming belief that it is the federal government's responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage (64 percent to 33 percent). A Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters in October 2007 showed that voters care more about covering the uninsured than keeping costs down (53 percent to 41 percent), even though most voters (94 percent) are insured. People want our government to be involved, not to shrink.

A survey by CBS News and the New York Times went one step further, asking people not only if they want the federal government to guarantee health insurance for all Americans (64 percent yes vs. 27 percent no), but whether they would be willing to pay extra for it. Even with money on the line, people wanted expanded health care. Four times as many people thought the government should "guarantee health insurance" even if "the cost of your own health insurance would go up" (48 percent vs. 11 percent). Similarly, four times as many people said it was more important to expand access to health care than maintain the Bush tax cuts (76 percent vs. 18 percent).

Energy

Americans are tired of rising fuel prices, but they want more than just cheaper gas. They are deeply dissatisfied with the status quo, and they want an entirely new energy policy. Democracy Corps' survey of voters in April 2007 found 65 percent say our energy policy is "seriously off on the wrong track," compared to just 27 percent who say it's "headed in the right direction." A survey by CBS News and the New York Times in April 2007 revealed 63 percent disapproval of George Bush's "handling of the energy situation," and only 27 percent approval.

In addition to disapproving of current policy choices, Americans are pointing where they want to go. Surveys by Gallup and CBS News indicate a higher priority on conservation than production (Gallup, 64 percent to 26 percent; CBS, 68 percent to 21 percent). The Democracy Corps survey of voters shows they want to "act immediately" on global warming (64 percent). Nearly three out of four voters (74 percent) want to "move from oil to alternative fuels for our vehicles because it will cause less pollution, stop global warming and make us more energy independent."

Most tellingly, Americans do not view alternative energy as a threat. By an overwhelming margin (79 percent to 17 percent) voters surveyed by Democracy Corps believe that "shifting to new, alternative energy production will help America's economy and create jobs, not cost Americans jobs." Even if there were costs, people are willing to pay them. The CBS News/New York Times survey showed that 64 percent of Americans are "willing to pay higher taxes on gasoline and other fuels if the money was used for research into renewable sources like solar and wind energy." Fully three out of every four (75 percent) Americans would be "willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by renewable sources like solar or wind energy" in order to reduce global warming.

Taxes

Nobody likes to pay taxes, but the conservatives have manipulated that sentiment for political gain despite real world consequences, and people are starting to catch on. A January 2008 Wall Street Journal survey of adults shows more saying the Bush tax cuts were "not worth it" than "worth it" (45 percent to 42 percent). Democracy Corp's poll of likely voters in December 2007 reveals more frustration that taxes are "unfair" (56 percent) than that they are "too high" (39 percent). Tax cuts provide less a sense of relief than an indication of which side the government is on�-and people don't like what they see. The biggest tax problems were loopholes and inequality. These troubled likely voters twice as much as high payments, even in Republican districts (51 percent vs. 24 percent).

The Bottom Line: A Dying Ideology
These surveys show that conservative policies diverge considerably from public opinion. Although it's possible to win elections under such circumstances, it does not bode well for the health of a mass political movement.

Indeed, John McCain's presidential campaign indicates the weakness of the conservative estate. Sometimes McCain brands himself as a "true conservative," but he's famous for being a maverick, an independent who bucks the conservative party line�-and thus many "movement conservatives" have not rallied to his candidacy. Other candidates who proudly declared themselves conservative in recent months have not survived primaries or special elections. The March special election victory of progressive Democrat Bill Foster in the Illinois district that had been held by the fiercely conservative former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is a particularly dramatic example. That doesn't mean Democrats will win in November�-personalities, trust, personal attacks and get-out-the-vote efforts certainly matter�-but conservatism is far from alive and well.

McCain has publicly stated that he does not agree with Hagee on the most controversial issues. We are still waiting for Barack Obama to say that he disagrees with Pastor Wright on the most controversial issues.

Again, it is not the association that is problematic, but the appearance of endorsement of the philosophy that is problematic.

Advocate, would you pick a point or two from that article you posted and explain your rationale for supporting them?

egads blatham, sounds like my kinda town. 40-50 miles closer to Portland, and I would love it. Can you do year round golf? One of my must requirements!

By the way, here's a point for you foxy . ~ now, don't forget, two points make a line :wink: and then we could get high!

The article is simply-stated and completely true. Why don't you give us a point-by-point refutation, and I will reply accordingly.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Defending_Wright.html

Defending Wright


Obama, asked about his pastor -- whom the campaign appears to be keeping on a religious advisory committee -- by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, refuses to throw him overboard, as both campaigns have been doing at a furious pace with other supporters:

Q: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's all over the wire today (from an ABC News story), a statement that your pastor (the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side) made in a sermon in 2003 that instead of singing "God Bless America," black people should sing a song essentially saying "God Damn America."

A: I haven't seen the line. This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.

Q: What about this particular statement?

A: Obviously, I disagree with that. Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe.

It isn't cherry picking though Butrfly. Admittedly nobody is 100% evil/screwy/misguided etc. and iwill get everything wrong. And nobody is 100% good/smart/wise and will always get everything right. There is plenty of room to overlook the occasional un-PC slip up, objectionable phrase/term etc. and I have been a strong advocate that nobody on either side be condemned for these occasional gaffes. All of us are capable of them.

But radio stations across the land--it's now beginning to creep into the MSM too--have been broadcasting whole sermon clips, and this Rev. Jeremiah Wright is downright scary in some of the stuff he is saying. I have checked some of the shorter clips as much as possible to put them into the whole context and, within the whole context, sometimes Wright has been misrepresented in what he is actually communicating. But in a lot of this stuff he presumably means exactly what is being broadcast out there.

In the McCain/Hagee relationship, Hagee can preach a compelling gospel, but he is also inflammatory in some of the things he has said in a way that I certainly couldn't condone and/or don't agree with. McCain has been quite explicit that he doesn't agree with everything Hagee has said and has specifically pointed out some of the more controversial areas in which he does not share Hagee's views.

Nobody is saying that accepting an endorsement from somebody is the same thing as agreeing with everything the endorser stands for.

But Obama so far has not indicated that he does not agree with Pastor Wright that America is evil, that it gave AIDS to the world, that it deserves terrorist attacks etc. etc. etc. When Pastor Wright says things like "It's not God bless America, but God d*@m America for........" it does put people off. And for Pastor Wright to condemn Hillary's credentials to be president while extolling Obama's credentials to be president from the pulpit is downright illegal. And the Obamas have been sitting in that church listening to sermons like that for 20 years.

I think sooner or later Obama is going to have to deal with this or it could definitely be a factor against his political interests.

McCain has not sat through 20 years of weekly sermons by either Hagee or Parsley.

AFAIK he has not donated $22,000 to either of their churches last year.

McCain has not referred to either as his 'mentor' or 'spiritual advisor'.

In 1992, when Bill Clinton played golf at a Little Rock country club that had a racist policy, he was forced to withdraw and apologize.

Obama is a member of a racist organization. Live with it.

'Present' Obama cannot bring himself to make a decision to leave the racist church that he has supported for 20 years.

Can you say 'deer in the headlights' ?

Give one good reason why Obama should not immediately resign his membership in TUCC and sever all connections with Wright. Just one.