What is the Republican vision for this country?

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@FreeDuck,

Quote:

But it's not imperative to me that others agree with my views on sex or anything else that doesn't affect me directly or doesn't affect me in a way that I care about.

And it's not imperative to me that you and others agree with my views....you asked me for my vision and I laid that out for you. My vision is no less valid than yours. You should feel free to fight for your isolationist and me-centered vision and I will fight for mine.

Quote:

In what way should sex outside marriage and homosexual relationships be discouraged by government? What would be the desired result of placing so much emphasis on marriage, and how would declining to discourage other relationships detract from the integrity of marriage?

I don't want the Government involved in the process of discouraging homosexual or extra-marital sex. I want society, friends and family to discourage the practice. By the same token, I don't want the Government condoning homosexual or extra-marital sex by passing laws that permit the practice. "Declining to discourage" is, at best, equivalent to toleration (if not outright encouraging). How can tolerating or encouraging a contrary practice NOT detract from the integrity of marriage? Does not toleration of a few dandelions in an otherwise well-manicured yard detract from what that yard could and should be?

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@slkshock7,

slkshock7 wrote:

Does not toleration of a few dandelions in an otherwise well-manicured yard detract from what that yard could and should be?

are you suggesting it's any of your business or the government's business what anyone else does in their own yard or in their own life?

interference in others lives - that's pretty much the straight communist line on things

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@slkshock7,

slkshock7 wrote:

Quote:
But it's not imperative to me that others agree with my views on sex or anything else that doesn't affect me directly or doesn't affect me in a way that I care about.

And it's not imperative to me that you and others agree with my views....you asked me for my vision and I laid that out for you. My vision is no less valid than yours. You should feel free to fight for your isolationist and me-centered vision and I will fight for mine.

I simply answered your question. There was no judgment implied or expressed.

Quote:

I don't want the Government involved in the process of discouraging homosexual or extra-marital sex. I want society, friends and family to discourage the practice. By the same token, I don't want the Government condoning homosexual or extra-marital sex by passing laws that permit the practice.

I feel the same way. That's why I focused on this part of your vision. It seems out of place within the context of politics. If the government shouldn't be involved then it shouldn't be something to consider when voting for our elected officials, except maybe to consider whether the candidate agrees that the government should not be involved.

Quote:

"Declining to discourage" is, at best, equivalent to toleration (if not outright encouraging). How can tolerating or encouraging a contrary practice NOT detract from the integrity of marriage? Does not toleration of a few dandelions in an otherwise well-manicured yard detract from what that yard could and should be?

Depends on your taste, I happen to like wild and unruly landscapes. However the presence of a dandelion does not prevent flowers from blooming or grass from growing.

My point to all of this is that the legislation being pushed and actions taking by Republicans lately seem to all be geared to no clear governmental purpose. They seem designed to make some people feel righteous without any real thought to actual effects and real world outcomes. They aren't motivated by any actual problems or a desire for positive changes that would make the country safer, better educated, healthier, more prosperous. They're pure judgment. And that's what I'm trying to understand.

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@slkshock7,

I want government, society and nosy neighbours out of my bedroom. It's none of your or anyone's business what I eat for breakfast anymore than it is what goes on under the sheets.
In the eyes of any government a marriage license is a contract. Since I'm not privy to your contracts, in business or otherwise, why should you have control or a say over mine or anyone elses?
How can divorce and abuse not detract from the integrity of marriage?
If you can tolerate those dandelions, why make a fuss when more want to join the garden, and perhaps make it even more beautiful?

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there's nothing i love more than a lawn full of dandelions in flower, just cut them before the go to seed

also, the bees need them for their pollen

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I think what bothers me the most about Republicans is that they believe government can't do anything right. Then they go about doing every thing they can to make their beliefs true. If I owned a computer company I would not hire a employee who thought computers were useless and should be unplugged. I have no idea why people think people who do not believe in government should be running it.

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@slkshock7,

Except for the bit about sex, I would say that your perspective matches mine fairly closely.

I don't have a problem with sex without marriage, and if I did, it wouldn't matter one whit, just as it doesn't matter to most Catholics that the Pope forbids it, or it would matter to most Americans if a President Santorum expressed his displeasure with it.

Sex transcends simple lust and biological urges when love is involved, but, in my opinion, marriage is not required to elevate copulation to love making.

I'm not all that concerned with simple recreational sex, but I do believe the number of people who practice it are very few. Unfortunately sex remains a powerful force within the American psyche and there are far more people engaging in it for neurotic reasons than for simple pleasure.

The notion that "liberated" young women are, in great numbers, engaging in sex outside of marriage for pure physical satisfaction is ridiculous. Far too many are doing so to be accepted within a sub or micro culture as "cool" and there is no question but that the number of young women engaging in sex to be loved is legion.

I have a very big problem with hedonism. A mindless pursuit of pleasure through any source is destructive, and never satisfying.

I've really no problem with committed homosexuals getting married, but I do have a problem with the idea that in order to prove one's tolerance, one must not only accept monogamous homosexual relationships, one must tolerate the deviant element of the gay population.

The folks who march in Gay Pride parades in g-strings and Plaster-of-Paris phalli are deviants and I'm not going to "tolerate" them anymore than I will "tolerate" heterosexuals simulating or engaging in sex in a Carnival parade.

A gay gene seems to me to make some sense but I very much doubt it covers everyone who self-identifies as homosexual.

My liberal sister-in-law who would emasculate her husband if he cheated on her, has "empathy" for married men who cheat on their wives with men. This is what liberal thinking requires.

If you don't think cheating on a spouse is a big deal then the gender of the person your spouse screws doesn't matter, but if cheating is a fundamental betrayal, then you don't get a pass because you claim to be a long suffering gay man or woman.

And this leads me to an element of the conservative vision that you may have missed: Personal accountability.

Bi-sexuality is a hedonistic practice, not a "normal" state of being.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

That last line somehow got misplaced, despite the truth in it.

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@RABEL222,

This sort of response is a good example of why this forum is going to the dogs and driving away anyone with a conservative point of view.

First of all, let me say that you are hardly alone in this regard.

Silk posted, as usual, a very measured and rational response.

Whether or not there was an expectation of receiving knee-jerk visceral responses from almost everyone in this thread, I can't say, but that's what the post received.

I would love to say the originator of this thread, FreeDuck, responded in line with what her initial post promised, but, alas, no. Far and away much less aggressive than so many other members but if I were Silk I might be forgiven the sense that I was suckered into this discussion.

Whenever we see national polls that indicate that some 25% of Americans think Obama is doing a great job in all areas my wife rhetorically asks "Who are these idiot?"

I know who they are.

And Rabble, you are among the worst of the lot.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

I would love to say the originator of this thread, FreeDuck, responded in line with what her initial post promised, but, alas, no. Far and away much less aggressive than so many other members but if I were Silk I might be forgiven the sense that I was suckered into this discussion.

Just so I understand your meaning, what was it my initial post promised?

I don't intend to sucker anyone into a discussion, and I appreciate Silk, and even yourself, for responding and being willing to discuss it.

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A thread like this can only show how irreconcilable are our differences. When I contemplate a Republican vision of America, I see rock hard fundamentalism, of a sort that would use the power of the government it denigrates to force an economic and moral plan that conjures visions of Joe McCarthy and the robber barons of old. Anti science, anti personal freedom, with the exception of guns. Republicans see the left as unyielding socialists and worse. In the end, it will come down to political power and not persuasion that determines where we will go.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Thank you.

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@FreeDuck,

Freeduck wrote:

My point to all of this is that the legislation being pushed and actions taking by Republicans lately seem to all be geared to no clear governmental purpose. They seem designed to make some people feel righteous without any real thought to actual effects and real world outcomes.

Can you provide some examples? I'll admit I've been more focused on the Repub primaries that what Repubs in Congress have recently proposed as new legislation. Off the top of my head however, I thought the primary focus of Congressional Repubs for months has been reducing the deficit, which would seem far from your assertion that these actions are "geared to no clear governmental purpose".

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And to all who think I'm trying to control what they do in their own home or bedroom, I assure you that I couldn't give a hoot what you do there (well....assuming you're not building a bomb there or something of that violent intent).

Where I object is when someone takes such practices OUT of the bedroom and then, thru legislation, attempts to force acceptance of the practice in my own home.

1 Reply

@slkshock7,

slkshock7 wrote:

And to all who think I'm trying to control what they do in their own home or bedroom, I assure you that I couldn't give a hoot what you do there (well....assuming you're not building a bomb there or something of that violent intent).

Where I object is when someone takes such practices OUT of the bedroom and then, thru legislation, attempts to force acceptance of the practice in my own home.

Uh. When has that happened? Or, can you give an example of legislation that is designed to 'force acceptance' in your home, of something? Serious question here.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@slkshock7,

Sure. I should have probably started with those. Off the top of my head, I'm reacting to:

1)The general attack on Planned Parenthood. For example,Texas Gov. Rick Perry cost the state its federal funding for the Texas Women's Health Program by excluding Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program. His decision has a directly negative effect on the health of low income women. What was the benefit?

2)The introduction (and passage in Virginia and Texas at least) of bills to require unnecessary ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. And since most abortions occur very early in the first trimester, this means a vaginal ultrasound. The party of get the government out of my business wants to put the government in your vagina. The sole purpose of this procedure is to make the woman feel like **** about what is already a very very difficult decision. The benefit to society is what? (google "mandatory ultrasound bills" for details)

3) The introduction of bills in at least two states to expand justifiable homicide to include killing someone who is trying to harm a fetus -- arguably a legalization of killing abortion providers.

4) The Stand Your Ground laws introduced and passed in several states, often combined with looser concealed carry restrictions, expanding the rights to shoot people in public if you think you're in danger. The worst is Florida, which I'm sure you've already read about. Once again, there was no real problem that these bills were solving, but the effects seem to be very negative.

5) Bills introduced in several states to require drug testing for recipients of public aid or unemployment benefits. With no known epidemic of drug use among benefit recipients, we have increased the cost of administering benefits with no realized benefit. In some cases, we pass the cost on to the recipients themselves, in effect reducing their benefit (which is already not much) in order to satisfy the state's curiosity.

If I remember others I will bring examples. What these things all seem to have in common for me is that they don't solve a problem but do cause problems for at least some people. Fundamentally, Republicans don't seem focused on making our people better educated, freer, healthier, or more prosperous in general. So it leaves me wondering what they are aiming for.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

When I contemplate a Republican vision of America, I see rock hard fundamentalism, of a sort that would use the power of the government it denigrates to force an economic and moral plan that conjures visions of Joe McCarthy and the robber barons of old. Anti science, anti personal freedom, with the exception of guns.

Edgar,
I daresay you see what you want to see. Painting your opponent as evil-incarnate has always been used with great effect to rally others to your cause as well as justify your own actions (both good and bad).

However, if Freeduck's vision (in the opening post) or your own here was the actual Republican vision of America, I can say with some certainty that I'd be a Democrat (pro-life blue-dog Dem, though).

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@Cycloptichorn,

Sure, any of the several attempts by states to legalize gay marriage or to make "sexual orientation" a protected class such as race, religion or country of origin.

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@slkshock7,

Edgar's post is probably the only opinion I've disagreed with. While I'm often disappointed with the Democrats, I would always vote for them to prevent the Republicans from winning the presidency and naming Supreme Court members. That would be the worst thing to happen to the working classes.

BBB

1 Reply

What is the Republican vision for this country?

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