Liberalism

I, Mr.L, subscribe to the Newt Gingrich philosophy regarding the bailout plan. That is, simply, I think it sucks. The main reason that I'm against this bill is because there's no proof that the billions will actually solve the problem. A friend of mine recently reminded me of the old saying which applies to this economic problem at hand.

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

The punch line to that is, if anyone says that to you, run and don't walk from them.

Help? It's a four letter word.  It is how we got here. The "I gotta help" mentality of liberalism. Jimmy Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act. Bill Clinton and the so called Clinton "changes" in his administration in 1995 which advocated for subprime loans. Liberals like Barack Obama who worked for law firms Miner, Barnhill & Galland who were hell-bent for leather trying to get minorities in homes. These firms "helped" by suing the banks with discrimination charges if they didn't lend money to unqualified black or Hispanic buyers.  You know, the mentality of giving them the home due to the color of their skin and not the color green in their wallets!

The same liberals, Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Frank, Reid, who wanted to CUT AND RUN in Iraq are now trying to CUT AND RUN from their own irresponsibly horrid ideologies and economic policies. They want to CUT AND RUN from the blame and pawn it off on Bush, Republicans and Wall Street Tycoons. Now, I'm not saying that the Wall Street money honeys and daddies don't deserve the blame, but what about the ordinary irresponsible average asshole? They are not immune from being corrupt. They are just as much to blame for running the country's economy into the ground. They did so by taking bad loans, buying "McMansions", not understanding the terms of loans, having bad credit and then, for some close to 1 million illegal immigrants, literally walked away from their responsibilities and went back to "their country".

None of them are mentioning the average citizen. They keep saying "rich bankers", "wall street tycoons" etc. They're actually advocating for more bad lending practices and offering MORE HELP to distressed homeowners.

Do you personally know anyone who has been forclosed on? I don't. Not only do I not know anyone but, I don't know ANYONE who knows anyone who has.

It's liberals & even Bush who are using fear and leaving behind reason by bascially claiming that, if this bill doesn't pass, the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride up on America. According to them, business won't be able to make payroll, people won't be able to buy cars and home prices will drop. Bullshit!

I would think that actions could be taken to help small business owners make their payroll if need be. I think most will agree with me when I say that home prices NEED to come down. Currently, in the suburbs of New York, a two bedroom co-apt or condo in an good area goes for roughly a cool 300k. That's absurd. And a homeowner can't come and cry to me that they want to sell and "can't get what they want for it" . There's a owner on my block who bought his 2 family house in 1970 for 50k and wants 800k for it. Wake up! The days of "flipping" are over.

And what about liberals like Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi who, all of a sudden, care about the automotive industry and whether or not you can buy a car? I would think that liberal greenies wouldn't give a crap whether or not the auto industry could go under. After all, that would mean less cars on the road would help global warming, right?

What exactly did people do before credit when they wanted to buy a car or a house? They had to save money. Put their own money into the deal. You know, something called a down payment. It might be that Americans will have to be introduced to an old concept that they don't quite like and that is, fiscal conservatism. You want a car? Well, you're going to have to save for it. If you can't make a down payment, well, you're going to have to buy a shabanger instead of a Lexus and fix that baby up until you can buy a better car.

It's clear that fiscal liberalism has run a muck. Fiscal conservatism will save the nation. It's going to take time. But just like this crisis began took over ten years to come to a head, it will take that long to fix it. No quick fixes. No easy solutions.

No more help.

http://mrltavern.podomatic.com

 In 1990, a Republican president, George H.W. Bush, got the Americans with Disabilities Acr passed. For millions of folks with physical disabilities or visual or auditory limitations this was a big thing and a good thing. Sadly, we got the usual ambulance chasing lawsuits out of this, but that's a sign of the times I suppose.

I'm sure none of the bill's sponsors thought the purpose was to help out homicidal psychos, but that's exactly what is going on in CT.

- David Messenger, a resident of Connecticut Valley Hospital, filed a lawsuit Monday against the city and Mayor Sebastian N. Giuliano for, among other reasons, infringing upon his religious freedom and that of members of the First Church of Christ.
Giuliano said he was served sometime Tuesday with the suit, filed with the U.S. District Court, and said it's a request for "equitable relief and money damages."
The suit does not specify the amount of damages.
In 2005, Messenger, who was not found guilty of the manslaughter of his wife by reason of mental defect, requested he be allowed out of the psychiatric hospital on temporary leave Sundays for church services and activities.
The suit is a result of the mayor's objections, which caused hospital officials to deny the request for leave. The suit alleges Giuliano discriminated against persons with disabilities and requests damages for harm and injury

www.middletownpress.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19894665&BRD=1645&PAG=461&dept_id=665530&rfi=6

More on poor old Mr. Messenger. The reason he is in CVH is he beat the rap on beating his pregnant wife to death with a fireplace poker.  He is from a rich family and hired a top lawyer (who later was convicted of defrauding clients, BTW )

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct--homicideontape0806aug06,0,3168877.story 

(BTW, I'm getting a tad bit tired of sociopaths "finding Jesus" after they commit crimes. Why weren;t theyy looking when it mattered) 

Evidently, by the standards of my "brethren' in the legal community, ten years is all it takes to go from maniaical murderer to being able to go to church whenever one pleases unsupervised.  Why is it had this happened in FL this guy would have been tied to a hospital gurney by now?

So why is this a national issue, and not just one town not wanting unsupervised psycho killers roaming its streets?

a) We have a very liberal former consitutional law professor running for President

b) He believes in a "living consitution" and opposes "discrimination".

c) He will appoint our judges and the people who will enforce "discrimination: laws.

d) the impetus behind this debacle came from a "Christian Left" church akin to Trinity Chicago.

Will America be a nation where deranged murderers have rights while our rights to petition over grievances and free speech are squelced through lawsuits?

Just consider the impact of applying "discrimination" laws against efforts to protect public saferty. The inevitable result is: we wont have any safety.  Obviously, the destruction of urban street life already wrought by emptying the mental hospitals goes unnoticed by the highfalutin in the Bar. It's all collateral damage essential to protect "our" rights,

The inmates literally are already running the asylum when it comes to the legal community in many places. Do we need to put one of similar ideology into the Oval Office?

Crossposted at Right Minds

Great thoughts from Mark Tapscott. -Patrick

It's not often that one gets the opportunity to be among and converse with several hundred of the smartest people in the world, but that is precisely what I was able to do last week as a participant at Personal Democracy Forum 2008 at Rose Hall in New York City's Lincoln Center complex.

It was my first PDF and, despite only being able to attend the second day, it was a memorable experience because I came away with a heightened sense that we are on the cusp of profound, even revolutionary changes in government and public policy thanks to the Internet. Being a conservative, I don't use that word "revolution" lightly.

I was in fact continually reminded throughout my time at PDF of Alexander Hamilton's prophetic observation at the outset of The Federalist Papers, America's most important contribution to serious  political thought:

"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."

Wired magazine, known for it's zealous focus on the latest crazes, takes a look at the latest environmental craze and what people think they should do about it. They don't actually look at the validity of the anthropogenic issue or the dire consequences debate, but at least they add a little bit of objectivity to the climate of climate change.

Putting aside the absolute lie known as 'the coming ice age'. And ignoring the food shortages and high prices caused by biofuel mandates, not to mention the slashing and burning of rain forest in Brazil because of their extremely high biofuel mandates. And forget for a moment the economic impact on the timber industry because so-called scientists failed to realize that spotted owls will fornicate anywhere (they just happen to prefer old growth forests the way hippies prefer rock concerts). The list goes on, but lets ignore all that for the moment. I'm starting to wonder which will be the next abject failure of the environmentalist movement.

I'm addressing this to the local liberal set who go crazy over the crazes. Since they're like most liberals they never really think things through. Let's hope that this gets them thinking instead of reacting to whatever bright ideas blow their way.

One of the major problems Republicans have over Democrats is the fact we as Republicans have been united behind ideas we call “Conservative” and Democrats over ideas we call “Liberal”. If you spend time studying political science you learn that the truth is something very much different. Wikipedia provides us with some good starting points for discussion

 

Liberal conservatism is a political philosophy which generally means combining elements of "conservatism" with elements of "liberalism". As these latter two terms have had different meanings over time and across countries, liberal conservatism also has a wide variety of meanings. Historically, it often referred to the combination of economic liberalism, which champions laissez-faire markets, with the classical conservative concern for established tradition, respect for authority and religious values. In this way it contrasted itself with classical liberalism, which supported freedom for the individual in both the economic and social spheres. Over time, the general conservative ideology in many countries adopted economic liberal arguments and this sense of the term "liberal conservatism" fell out of use, and "conservatism" was simply used instead. This is also the case in countries where liberal economic ideas have been the tradition, such as the United States, and are thus considered "conservative". In other countries where liberal conservative movements have entered the political mainstream, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" may become synonymous (as in Australia, in Italy and in Spain). The liberal conservative tradition in the United States combines the economic individualism of the classical liberals with a Burkean form of conservatism (which has also become part of the American conservative tradition, for example in the writings of Russell Kirk).

And this is also important

Conservative liberals differ from social liberals for some main reasons: * First, they are more concerned with economic liberalism, adopting libertarian or neo-liberal policies, while the second ones tend to be more keen on Keynesian solutions and on higher taxes, though still supporting individual liberty as well as decentralization. Conservative liberals, in contrast, are staunch supporters of the free-market, small government, less bureaucracy, deregulation, privatizations and the lowering of taxes, often proposing the flat tax or the fair tax. * Second, they are usually socially liberal on such social issues as same-sex marriage, abortion, and euthanasia but may place less emphasis on them than do most social liberals. * Third, they are mostly strong supporters of economic globalization and tend to be more skeptical about international organizations like the United Nations or European Union[citation needed]. Most conservative liberals support the foreign policy of the United States and, in NATO-member states support that political alliance[citation needed]. * Fourth, conservative liberals are often in favor of stricter punishment of illegal immigrants and are usually tolerant but not enthusiastic about multiculturalism, of which social liberals are strong supporters. Conservative liberals often identify as law and order-parties, which are tougher on crime and support higher levels of punishment and are more committed to fighting terrorism, while social liberals tend to emphasize prevention and are more committed to civil rights. * Fifth, historically, conservative liberals tended to be more skeptical about universal suffrage than social or classical liberals[citation needed]. One should not confuse conservative liberalism with liberal conservatism; indeed, the latter is a variant of conservatism. Liberal conservatives tend to be more committed to authority, tradition and established religion, while conservative liberals are supporters of the separation between church and state. However it is possible to classify some parties as both conservative-liberal and liberal-conservative. Conservative liberalism differs from libertarianism in several ways. First it is far less radical in its economic program. Second it is supportive of an active defense policy and military interventions in contrast to the libertarian non-interventionist policy. Most conservative liberals supported the American-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan[citation needed]. Second conservative liberals are tough on crime and are more willing to sacrifice civil liberties to fight terrorism and crime[citation needed].

If we were to examine American Conservatism we see a fusion of both Conservative Liberals and Liberal Conservatives within the tradition of American Conservatism. As the two wikipedia articles point out while their are clear differences in both of these schools of thought they do bare a great deal of similarities. Which is why Individuals like Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich were very good at leading American Conservatism forward. However in approaching Liberal Conservatism we also have a third group that is Conservative on Social issues and how the government intersects with Society. This group on the surface one could (and some are arguing this point) has no connection to the other two. But this Social Conservative group comes from an age of our culture where Christianity (their religion of choice) and Protestant Christianity (their particular Christianity of choice) is driven not around the community but around the individual. While Individuals in this Christian tradition do come togther to work on projects, they don't focus on a larger collective identity. Only with Catholicsm (where we see competition with the Democratic party) does the communal side of Christianity grow in Strength. So Individualism united all three wings of American Conservatism. Respect for the family and their ability to act unites all three wings. Though when we get into strengthening the family in areas like gay marriage some aspects of American Conservatism grow weaker. Smaller government unites two outside of the box but when linked with smaller taxes and respect for the family American Conservatism is again united.Respect for the rule of law unites two wings of the party out of the box again, and with some tweaking Conservative Liberals come to the table as they may have issues when Law and Order politics is played with what they deem unjust laws. A Foriegn policy driven on American Exceptionalism unites the Liberal Conservatices and the Conservative Liberals and depending on the mission can unite all of the wings of American Conservatism.

So the key ideas at the largest level which make the American Conservatism we know and love all still sell well today when you start to examine what American Conservatism really is, and where its ideas come from. You see big ideas which the Republican Party isn't running on and you see the Republican party being rejected by conservatives who don't vote for a Obamamination offering Free Healthcare, Free Job Training, and a Free Pony they just stay home. And instead of saying "why are we losing Republicans" we see a Republican party say "why are we losing Americans" When the ideas which made the Republican party great in 1980 and 1994 are still relevant and potent to Americans if we would simply have a party that applies them. The Libertarian Party will peal off some of the Conservative Liberals and the Liberal Conservatives in this election if the Republican party does not get on the Stage at the National Convention and be a American Conservative party.