AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

You continually insult people you disagree with. I never insult people first but I will insult in response.

When you are presented with documentation that contradicts you, you dismiss it as being from a liberal source. Your dismissal is, in and of itself, an insult.

What is the point of documenting anything to you if you reject the documentation . . . generally because the source cited is an educated person with an advanced degree!

And the Democrats are not liberals.

This country has become more conservative in a uniquely American way and that conservatism is responsible for the Gulf Oil Disaster and for the economic disaster. Both are products of the laissez-faire philosophy that in one of the legs on which American conservatism stands.

You show no respect for others here on this forum.

If a person says that s/he is not a liberal, you should accept their self-identification.

When I was in college and graduate school, I began to hear from would-be suitors, "I am a social liberal but a fiscal conservative." Of course, I would never date that man, but, I accepted his assessment of himself. I think that were you to question, in a respectful manner, some of the posters here who say they are not liberals, you would hear them say something similar.

Why are you so dismissive of others and so disrespectful toward them?

That statement is just one of the many proofs of why your credibility is near zero, pom. You do not deserve to be taken seriously at all. If you interpret that as an insult, so be it.

Do you know any physics? Do you know that two things can not occupy the same place at the same time?

Where is the place holder for ignorance?

Complete and total nonsense, pom. Why don't you just go to Cuba or North Korea and be done with it, go live where you will be happy, and quit posting nonsense here.

I feel that the right has caused the American education system to deteriorate. I see it every day.

Another knee slapper, pom. The Left is in control of the educational system and is clearly responsible for the sub standard educational system.

Let's see, you have a degree in geology and you have read next to nothing.

Yet, you claim to define American politics in way that Emily Dickinson might describe as "seeing things slant."

When people correct you, you either dismiss their sources as being liberal or you ignore them.

You refuse to learn anything. Why are you here?

More to the point, you have the unmitigated gall to say that people lie when they discuss their own weltanschauung, when they reveal the inner workings of their minds and hearts! Are you a mind reader? That is what you imply! Omniscience! You are not omniscient.

When people use metaphor or inference, you do not understand. When I told you about the irony of the Texas GOP's platform, the information floated over your head and you dissolved into your usual tirade of insult.

I suspect that you have never been married and have no children. However, it is parents on the right who demand ridiculous things like the abolition of levels (sometimes called tracking) because they think it would save money that is responsible for the lessening of our education system.

It is the left that is responsible for the elimination of music and art and marching bands. If you think that music and art are unnecessary, look up El Sistema.

POM, I would have thought that you'd be opposed to tracking; after all it has a substantial negative effect on low income and minority students. It does have a positive effect on the upper class, predominately white children though.

I guess I thought you'd be opposed to a program that produced such disproportionate segmentation.

You should know better. I think I have told you before, but I have been married once and only once, and still married to the same woman that loves me. Not 50 years yet, but seriously working on it. I have children and grandchildren, so lay off the nonsense about me not knowing anything about schools. My wife was in fact a school teacher for some time. I have relatives and friends that either teach or work in schools, and so I know alot about what is going on.

I also have a mother that is still living, in her 90's, that attended a one room school, but never finished high school, not because she failed but because in those days a high school diploma was not considered necessary for her life path. I also know that my mother is far more proficient in math, history, and many other subjects than most people today. At least she balanced her check book her entire life, which is more than your average kid or even our president can do anymore. Anyway, the conclusion of all of this is the current school systems are a disaster, compared to a few decades ago. I have more comments and ideas than I have time for today, pom.

Why doesn't the word anarchism appear twice because conservatism in its most extreme form contradicts the notion of government? Furthermore, why would you, of all people, put anarchy on the left side of your equation?

The Democrats are centrists.

People naturally have different abilities. They should have text books and assignments that match their abilities.

While it is good to challenge kids from ignorant families, some of those kids need to begin their climb upward where they are.

Why give the top students texts that are too basic for them and why give the slow students texts they could never hope to read?

I have heard right wingers demand the abolition of tracking in order to save money! Really? Tracking does not mean that more text books are purchased, just that different texts are made available to students according to their ability to read. Tracking does not mean that more teachers are hired.

Many righties think kids on the slower end of the scale should not be required to take science.

The motto of the right is let's keep the stupid stupid and let's dumb down the bright.

If your schooling was so excellent, why can't you write an English sentence with any consistency? Why do you know nothing about history? Why can't you understand the political system? Why does logic escape you?

My two older kids went to a Montessori elementary school. In fifth grade, they studied how a bill becomes law. My daughter's class researched drilling for oil in the ANWAR. The kids found such drilling a threat to the environment and, on a trip to DC, presented their findings to Senators Kennedy and Kerry.

They again studied government in seventh grade when they returned to public school.

I was educated in Catholic schools and we were required to take government and economics in high school. If schools in Michigan could not find a qualified government teacher, they were allowed to substitute "Constitutional history" for government. An acquaintance had such a course and she said it was without value as it was just another retelling of the American Revolution.

You claim education today is inferior to education in the past but my own children were given a superior education, but, since I am their mother, I would not have settled for anything else.

My ex-husband may be your age: he was born in 1942. Educated in Massachusetts, Florida and Maine, he attended public schools with the exception of two years at a prep school in Maine. He never had a course in government nor in economics. I consider the education he received inferior to mine.

And, I was never told by you that you are married. I am surprised. It is hard to imagine a woman putting up with the crankiness you exhibit here.

I don't disagree with your thoughts on tracking. I myself was in advanced placement classes in school and benefited from them.

However, there was not a single black or Hispanic student in any of those classes which even then I thought something was wrong.


Anyway, I'm just surprised that you're ok with it given the disparity that is prevalant in systems such as those.

I'll add that I've never seen/heard that the 'rightys' are more responsible for abolishment of these programs than the 'lefty's are. I find that part of your post to be unproven and I believe it to be likely wrong.

Wrong. You claim to be an expert on politics, and you ridicule me for supposedly knowing nothing, yet you make the above statement with apparent sincerety. Your statement actually does demonstrate the arrogance of liberals, you think your opinions are the only correct ones and that you are the moderate and center of the road position, which I believe is so far wrong as to be laughable. If the Democrats were taken back to the 50's, they would have been considered oddities and freaks, and so extreme as to not be taken seriously by hardly anyone at that time, at least in the area that I grew up. One of the reasons I believe I am correct on this is the fact that I grew up in a Democrat household and we talked politics virtually every day. Yes, my parents were staunch Democrats, and other Democrat friends and neighbors thought much the same. I remember those conversations also with friends and neighbors, commonplace in the house or the yard with those people, that was our way of life on the farm. I fully recognize my experience represents only a slice of the culture of the 50's, my experience was that of the rural and agricultural part of society, and we resided in the heartland or what might be considered nothing more than fly over country by many politicians now. Nevertheless, I believe my experience deserves very serious consideration as being very valid for what it was.