Liberalism

Conservatives should stop playing by liberal rules.

I see it all of the time.  Take any issue. Conservatives come up with an idea for how to solve the issue. It sounds new and fresh and bold. Conservative representatives make some, if not many, concessions to more liberal leaning representation and the liberals stand up and take credit for solving the issue. We give them a soapbox and they bring in a microphone and turn off our loudspeakers. It wasn’t always like this. When conservatives were right in the 1980’s about the Communist state of the USSR and the way to defeat it, many, though obviously not all, liberals stood with, even behind Presidents Reagan and Bush. When conservatives pushed for and won welfare reform in the 1990’s, sure we gave President Clinton much of the credit, but there were many Democrats in congress who stood behind the legislation of the Republicans, while the Republicans stood out front. However, it is not like that anymore. Liberals, infected with relativism, don’t need to play by the same rules as conservatives do. We should stop giving them an opportunity to speak and take credit for our ideas. Without our talking points on ideas that we came up with, liberals make less sense when speaking to the American people, and therefore are less likely to be voted into office.

Another example: the Constitution. This is probably the most egregious example of where liberals change the rules in their favor, but I place it second, because I think conservatives need to start thinking more about the third issue. On the Constitution, the difference between conservatives and liberals is obvious. As conservatives, we think in this order: You write down some rules, (we call them laws), and for everyone to participate, we think, everyone must follow the rules. You may not win every time, but when following the rules you at least know how the contest is played and have a pretty good opportunity to win.  In contrast, liberals play like this: I WIN! Yes, like the little child in the movie Big Daddy, liberals simply avoid the rules to reach a winning result. Conservatives end up being the food delivery guy screaming about how messed up that is. Think about how liberals continually run roughshod over the Constitution, or constitutions, in order to achieve maximum results for their ideas while all the while proclaiming tolerance of everyone else’s ideas. This is how we need to explain our differing views, rather than citing the difference between the “living Constitution” and “Originalism.”

Finally, in the realm of life and the way that one lives one’s life, Conservatives have too often lived like liberals. We need to start living less like we are attempting to achieve the maximum amount of individual pleasure and instead focus on our responsibilities and again stand as role models in our communities. In this area, there is a lot of rebuilding to be done, but it is necessary because our ideas are tested by time, and if nothing else good comes from recent experience, our current national situation shows that our principles are right. Simple truisms and directives like: “Don’t spend what you don’t have,” “A child needs a mother and a father,” “Go to church,” “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” “What goes around comes around,” and  “Words have meaning, and Actions have Consequences,” are much more insightful and compelling than any campaign slogan that I can think of. Liberals, as relativists don’t believe in truisms because they don’t believe in truth. The quicker we, as conservatives, realize this, the easier it will be to begin operating in the world in its natural conservative framework once again. As Margaret Thatcher said: “The facts of life are conservative.”

Rush Limbaught often makes the point that conservatives need to stop arguing with liberals on policy solutions and start questioning the premises that underly their arguments.

As I look across these blogs, and so many others, I feel awash in class envy and hatred, and within that, an assumption that big government is a good thing for ordinary people.

Republicans have been such poor stewards of conservatism these last eight years, especially the mute President who just left office, who quite unlike Reagan and even Bush the elder, simply refused to explain conservative principles, challenge his critics -- and arguably failed to be a conservative on key issues, like the budget and immigration policy.

But reading about "taxing the rich" and "closing income gaps" is nothing more than a euphemism for confiscation. And on top of it, cheering on the expansion of the federal government into every corner of our lives -- it all seems shocking. What happened to the passion for indvidual freedom? Distrust of government and the centralization of power? These used to be characteristics of liberal as well as conservative thought -- they are rooted in the country's founding and in the thinkers who influenced them, like Rousseau and Burke.

Now we might as well read the Communist Manifesto as read these blogs... read about the proleteriat rising up to appropriate the means of production... transforming private property into the property of the people... appointing a dictatorship of the proleteriat, with the Party as its vanguard... throwing the jackboot of capitalism onto the ash heap of history!

Why did so many of us give up on the founding American principles? Why should we accept that people have given up on them? I urge posters on this board to challenge the premises and assumptions behind these malign arguments, and show how market economies really work for everybody when the right balance between state power and individual freedom is struck.

Krauthammer did a good job of challenging assumptions -- Obama's -- in his column today.

It slipped by everybody, but in his speech to Congress Obama pinned the cause of our economic decline on expensive health care, energy policy, and education policy. Krauthammer paraphrases and replies:

(Obama says) The "day of reckoning" has now arrived. And because "it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament," Obama has come to redeem us with his far-seeing program of universal, heavily nationalized health care; a cap-and-trade tax on energy; and a major federalization of education with universal access to college as the goal.

Amazing. As an explanation of our current economic difficulties, this is total fantasy. As a cure for rapidly growing joblessness, a massive destruction of wealth, a deepening worldwide recession, this is perhaps the greatest non sequitur ever foisted upon the American people.

In the speech, Obama did not mention as causes the "credit bubble, a housing collapse and a systemic failure of the entire banking system... improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of new and exotic debt instruments, the easy money policy of Alan Greenspan's Fed, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers, deceitful homebuyers."

And now, true to Thomas Sowell's formula in The Vision of the Anointed, we have a crisis, and the anointed have the solution, and anyone who questions his solution is benighted.

In that book, Sowell questioned many liberal assumptions and shibboleths himself. So rather than argue about with liberals on this blog about the distribution of wealth:

"To say that 'wealth in America is so unfairly distributed in America,' as Ronald Dworkin does, is grossly misleading when most wealth in the United States is not distributed at all. People create it, earn it, save it, and spend it."

Exactly.

To me "rich" means having so much money that you don't need to get up in the morning and go to work if you don't want to.

But I don't want those people punished. I want those people spending or investing their money, and the rest of us being able to keep as much of our money as possible so we can all do the same.

Obama and his ilk aren't really providing hope and change. In fact, they're just providing a lot more of the same old, same old (enough same old, same old to bankrupt us as a matter of fact). All of the bloated social programs will be inflating further. The economic handcuffs on small businesses and innovators will get tighter. Sure, there'll be new policies, but all of them are based on the idea that the American people need to keep sucking at the government teat, instead of the ideal that we can and should be responsible for ourselves. The real revolutionaries these days are the conservatives. We're the ones who want something we don't have. We are the rebels of responsibility. We believe in a federal government that doesn't try to be all things to all people. We believe there are still matters of conscience and spheres of influence where the government need not interfere. Yes, we want a government that listens to us, but we also want something of ourselves. We want to be a country where are worthy of exercising independence. We believe that actions have consequences, that bad behavior shouldn't be rewarded, and that frugality is a better alternative to living beyond your means. We don't want to see people on the street, but we don't want to subsidize someone living in a nicer house than we own or rent. Like it or not, these are pretty revolutionary ideas these days. So, if conservatives are the new revolutionaries, that can only mean one thing. Liberal is the new Tory. crossposted from The New Pamphleteers.

Michael at the PoliGazette has embarked on a couple of exciting opportunities in his native country of The Netherlands, one of which landed him on national TV there today.  Congrats to Michael for his hard-earned and well-deserved success!

Michael's call to action for his countrymen is simply, "Let’s conservatize this country!", a great message that could serve equally well in the United States as a rallying cry for conservatives and libertarians to come together and reclaim this country.

Doing so won't be easy.  While they agree on many fronts, conservatives and libertarians do not always see eye-to-eye on important issues such as drug legalization and the use of the military.

This was made clear to me yesterday during a conversation with a Christian friend with whom I often agree.  I was flabbergasted to hear him say that not only was he giving Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt - a wise choice, in my view - but that he felt as though it was time for the liberals to "have their say", particularly  in the court system.  I was stunned.  While those on the left would undoubtedly agree with my friend, additional movement to the left on the part of our courts is the last thing this country needs.

Judicial activism is rampant at all levels of the justice system and the Supreme Court is hardly immune.  Indeed, liberal excesses such as the 1960s Affirmative Action and the 1970s Roe v. Wade are still in place, upheld by the high court's rulings, many of which are based on what can only be called dubious interpretations of the Constitution.  This despite the fact that Republicans have controlled the White House during most of the last 30 years.  Do liberals "deserve" even more control over the judiciary branch?  Absolutely not.

That's why it's imperative that libertarians and conservatives find ways to work through contentious issues and form a coalition based on traditional, Constitutional values in order to restore what remains of the social fabric of this country, the strongest threads of which have been severely damaged by the left's misguided, radical takeover of the social agenda.

If this can be accomplished, perhaps the phoenix that is America will rise again from the ashes left behind by the liberal left's burning down of personal responsibility, the Christian church, marriage, and the nuclear family.  If not, the fire that burns in the belly of many Americans will go out completely, for liberalism offers nothing but all-consuming, destructive change that will stop only when there is nothing left to burn.

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.