tresspassers; the emergency rooms are being overused because of the dearth of medicos that are willing to accept medicaid, leaving no alternative other than emergency rooms especially for the elderly.
IMO, in order for Democrats to be successful in forthcoming elections, they have to recognize that the "compassionate conservative" agenda is the Republicans' Achilles heel.
Conservatives don't really believe in compassion as a governing principle. They think compassion enables dependency. Their operating principle is self-sufficiency. But the GOP cannot win national elections with religious conservatives, CEO's and white male gun owners alone. They'd like to say to hell with all this caring and sharing bullshit but they can't because those swinging suburban women expect the government to do things to affirmatively better the lives of citizens who need help and that includes racial minorities. The Republicans don't expect to win non-white votes, but they have to win a few of those whites who are sympathetic to the cause and it's not easy with the confederates expecting Bush to honor the unspoken promise that if they stay quiet, he'll deliver.
I think one of the fundamental mistakes the Democrats have made in recent years is to assume that when a Republican talks about "caring" they mean it in the same way that they do. Conservative ideology holds as a principle that people are best off when left to manage their own destinies. To "care" for someone means to free them from the outside influences of government. Thus, to the conservative mindset, cutting off government benefits is compassionate since it releases them from the bonds of slavery to the state. It's called "tough love".
Karl Rove is smart enough to know that this philosophy doesn't sell very well to the middle-class white suburbanites. So they obfuscate the issue with ambiguities about exactly what they mean by "compassionate conservatism". They fool the swing voters into thinking that what the Republicans are offering is the same kind of "caring" that the Democrats are offering, with the added benefit that they will offer it without all that pesky government interference that everyone complains so much about.
Less filling, tastes great!
Fantasy
There has never been a compassionate conservative. Even Lincoln said if it would have avoided war between the states he would have left slavery alone...
Re: Fantasy
ZedSquared wrote:There has never been a compassionate conservative. Even Lincoln said if it would have avoided war between the states he would have left slavery alone...
Lincoln didn't fight the war to free the slaves, he freed some of the slaves (those only in states or counties fighting for the Confederacy), and only as a measure to cause problems for those states.
And of course you are right; all conservatives through history have thought, believed, spoken, and acted exactly as did Lincoln.
PDid, All the democrat leadership needs to do is to spell out very simply that GW has done nothing for the middle class, the poor, the seniors, the children, the minorities, the investors, the environment, and the US. His tax cuts goes primarily to the rich, the tax exemptions on dividends that he calls double taxation is a smoke screen to help the rich. We all have double taxation: After we earn our income that is taxable, we pay sales tax, state tax, gas tax, utility tax, cigarette tax, liquor tax, excise tax, etc., etc., they're all double taxation. WAKE UP PEOPLE! He's helping the minorities by outlawing affirmative action in colleges. Only the part that affects minorities is going to be outlawed. Ever wonder how GW got into Yale/Harvard? GW talked a big game when Enron and WorldCom officers and directors were caught with their hand in the till, but how many of those crooks actually landed in jail? Is that a good question, or what? Why is he so determined to go to war with Iraq when most of the world doesn't? Why does he have no problems spending billions and exposing our military to danger when Iraq poses no security problem to the US? Is it their oil? What about the world environment? What has GW done to take care of our environment for our children and grandchldren? The answer? "Nothing." He calls himself a christian. I wonder what bible he learned his lessons from? c.i.
snood
USA's conservatives are not compassionate.And they never will be commpassionate
Communist Castros's Cuba is more compassionate than USA
Ask any of the neighbour who were born in Culcutta( Mother Theresa's death place.
Medical services are billion time better in CUBA than in Germany or India.
Forget about the Candian neighbour which had damaged the whole admosphere around the globe.
I am
Rama
