I'm now a temporary conservative.

Normal Craven wishes he had said that and also wishes that he won't ever use 3rd person self-reference again.

I think the founding fathers were trying to avoid stuff like government sanctioned inquisitions, I understand the concerns of those who are worried about religion creeping into government but my earlier comment that lack of religion can be as bad stands.

Some Christian groups feel like the secularization of the world is a threat to their religion, some take it so far as to seek mountain refuge replete with firearms for safety.

Stuff like Waco doesn't help calm those fears.

look at that we agree:

That shouldn't come as a surprise, it's not temp conservative craven's rationale.

You won't find me complaining about the separation of church and state much.

Read the first 50 posts or so, then jumped to here. It probably comes as surprise to no one that I'm a "Secular Conservative". I strongly favor a SEPARATION of Church and State, something very different from the current paradigm of Prohibition of State Interaction With Religion. The Founding Fathers were by and large a Godly lot themselves, and had tollerance, respect and regard for religion, things largely lacking in today's socio-political infrastructure. I believe the original Constitutional intent was to prevent The Government from affording undue favor or other attention from, to, or with any one particular religion. Many of the initial European Immigrants to The Colonies in fact were religious refugees. At the time, folks all over The Continent and The British Isles were busily slaughtering one another in The Name of God. Plenty of folks undertook the arduous, perilous, almost certainly one-way journey to a virgin continent specifically to avoid religious persecution. I seriously doubt the signatories to The Constitution intended The Government to discriminate equally against, and to sanction no official interaction with all religions. For instance, I see nothing wrong with Faith Based Initiatives, per se, provided that the religious entity performing a given service or function be held to the same work environment, accredidation and licensing standards as would apply to any secular entity charged with the same responsibilities.

I have just read the whole topic and am inspired to post that I too have had, if not such distaste as Craven's, discomfort with dueling links as a way to discuss questions. Part of that stems from friends sending me links on articles with never a note on their own opinions, or how the weather (etc.) is in Los Angeles. I don't care what the LA Times thinks! More correctly, I like to hear what the LAT thinks well enough, but also want to know what the friend thinks.

The whole linking thing has become a substitute for writing full sentences yourself; it is so much easier when the columnists write so well. This is not to get after PDiddie or anybody else, just a general discomfort I have had.

Uncomfortable as I am with the link thing, I am personally intellectually impovished as far as rapid pickup of summary statements from my own mental filing system in order to coherently prove whatever argument point I wish to make in a wellhewn fashion. So I find it something of a challenge to speak thoughtfully, originally and convincingly, and have sympathy for others trying to do it too.

Most humans do some kind of shorthand about their takes on different aspects of society - it makes daily life more workable, survivable. What goes on for some of us, the constant reevaluation and refiling, fine-tuning, and even abrupt change of opinion when evidence hits some kind of borderline....that is almost a luxurious sort of thought processing. We don't always argue perfectly, we generalize too much almost as part of the thinking process. And, we do have separately here on a2k different life experiences that we react to, some of us have seen the caricatures described here as insulting by (each) side.

I have a left take on things, with conservative pockets, and see both sides around the middle. I don't agree at all with either side on the extremes, but have more sympathy in my tummy for the left extremes, spare though that sympathy is.

As I've read all these pages of the topic, I have been working out the Conservative Osso. It's hard, but I might have some ideas to express on it tomorrow.

But Timber - your founding parents escaped religious persecution only to launch it immediately themselves, as people like Anne Hutchinson soon discovered!

I confess I do like to see governments eschew religious affiliations - although I can see the point of those who feel things have gone a little far - after all, our christian cultural heritage is an important thing to many Americans and Australians, just as other cultural traditions are to others of us.

I have no sympathy for those wishing to have government sanctioned religion, however slight the influence. Like anything else in government, if given an inch they grab a mile.

I think that to simply post a link, say "this is what I think" and leave it at that, is not conducive to the flow of exchange of thought that we enjoy here. After all, we all read ( I read more newspapers than I do anything else), but isn't a large part of the reason we come to these boards to get to know the people - to grapple with the ideas of the people - to become enraged at the differences, to revel in the similarities? To simply post a link in answer to another's point, or to make your own just seems lazy to me, and it certainly is irritating.

Re link posting...

Some years ago, one of my writing teachers (he's now the Poet Laureate here in Canada) pointed out how commonly one can hear statements of the sort, "I think I'll write a book, I have lots of stories to tell." He was posing the rhetorical question of how it is that folks assume this is an undertaking not much more unusual than breathing or cleaning house. He thought it might be because we all use language, the same basic tool a writer uses.

The problem with insulating our discussions to our own noggins (not providing exterior viewpoints and analyses) is that we can often simply fall back on cliches and untested assumptions. How would any of us have even known about the influence of the Wolfowitz/Perle/Cheney/Rumsfeld etc "neo-con" group were it not for the infusion of this information through external sources?

Each of us read different media, and cumulatively we read a huge variety of sources. It is nothing but beneficial to bring such a range of information and viewpoint into our discussions, even if sometimes we choose to omit a full or even partial read of what has been offered up.

There are very few, if any, instances here where someone only posts links and does not add in his/her own thoughts.

Really? I thought Pdiddie did it quite often. In any case, those are the only instances that bother me (when a link is posted not in addition to, but instead of, an answer).

I am not bothered by links that provide information, in themselves, or have an author developing a scenario for what is going on in a described set of circumstances, but I am uncomfortable with only those. I am saying that coming up with a substitute for these - or addition to these - of one's own original thoughts, is not all that easy. Anger and cliches freefloat even in the wisest minds from time to time. Plus, some generalizing is part of our making sense of our environment.

So I think it is hard enough to express your own political ideas well and harder to do changing political sides as a temporary exercise. That people on this thread come up with what they have heard from the other political side(s) doesn't offend me at all; it is what they hear.

I've been thinking a bit this morning about how to develop what conservative filaments might be in my thinking to show off a neo con osso,
and am having the damndest time finding any. Back later.

I had that problem too, Osso. Then I've gotten to the point where what self-described conservatives are doing in real life is so morally repellant that I can't think of any funny to say about them (much less imitative of them), wouldn't know how to be one, and would just as soon stay away from them. As for expressing one's political ideas, most rational souls' political ideas range across a wide spectrum, but we're not into wide spectra these days. We're into polarities. Political polarities just aren't interesting nor, in practice, funny...

I think you'd be hard-pressed to prove that conservatives have an exclusive on "morally repellant" behavior.

I've been making the same point scrat but it's unlikely to make any difference.

I hear ya, Craven. As long as people are boxed into a "us and them" mentality, there can never be a meeting of the minds. I think that there is something positive to learn from the entire spectrum of political thought, if
we only took the time to listen respectfully to views that are different from our own. So many people are invested in reinforcing their own beliefs, that they wouln't know a good idea if they fell over it!

IMO, this is unjustified generalization. I am a conservative, and I am eager to know which morally repellant actions do I commit in my everyday life. I do not say that I am an angel in flesh, but considering me being a "morally repellant" type, IMO, is a excessive exaggeration.

Of course it is. The problem is that excessive exaggeration has replaced cogent arguments and rational thought within most political discussions today.

Well, I do not think that I permit myself doing this; I think that am able to distinguish between quasi-liberal bigots and people having ideas different from mine.

Agreed, steissd.
Bigots come from all sides of the political spectrum.

Following ossobuco. I value many of your statements, and look forward to the unveiling of Temporary Conservative ossobuco.

PDid-- Whenever I see someone publicly analyzed, I put my Mommy apron on-- I know you're aware that you've had great contributions here, and that many members support you personally, no matter where they fall on the c and p issue.

Sincere thanks to Craven for this thread.

<feeling group hug thingie coming on, and Rae's not even here>

If hugs break out I'm gone.