Traditional Conservatism: Back away from the edge...

[Hard Truth]

If someone offers you less than you can live on as payment for your work they are not taking life from you, but simply offering you a crappy deal.

It is not exactly theft when one takes advantage of a desperate person's willingness to take a bad deal, it is EXPLOITATION, which is also immoral and should be illegal in certain situations.

 

[AngryOldGuy]

Hard Truth I want to applaud you for being 100% wrong on every point.
Truman was not a Conservative (for extra credit whose vice president was he?)
The haberdasher presided over the start of the cold war and the stalemate in Korea
It could be said that half the reason Kennedy was killed was his plan to get us the heck out of Nam
but contrary to revisionist Liberal history his utter failure during the Bay of Pigs invasion lead directly to the Cuban missile crisis and nearly turned the cold war hot.
LBJ escalated and them mis-micro-managed our involvement in Nam (oh if only Barry had been elected instead) so now we've another Democrat losing a war. Nixon had to preside over the loss of the Vietnam war and a host of other messy problems left him by the demonrats, as for civil rights LBJ opposed it as any good old southern boy would It was the Republicans that passed it. Then after Ford we got the second worst President in recent history and we didn't get to have a good decade until Ronnie got the job in 1980

 

[AngryOldGuy]

It is not exactly theft when one takes advantage of a desperate person's willingness to take a bad deal, it is EXPLOITATION, which is also immoral and should be illegal in certain situations.

When the government puts a gun to your head and takes half of your income that is social justice

 

[Hard Truth]

Hard Truth I want to applaud you for being 100% wrong on every point.
Truman was not a Conservative (for extra credit whose vice president was he?)
The haberdasher presided over the start of the cold war and the stalemate in Korea
It could be said that half the reason Kennedy was killed was his plan to get us the heck out of Nam
but contrary to revisionist Liberal history his utter failure during the Bay of Pigs invasion lead directly to the Cuban missile crisis and nearly turned the cold war hot.
LBJ escalated and them mis-micro-managed our involvement in Nam (oh if only Barry had been elected instead) so now we've another Democrat losing a war. Nixon had to preside over the loss of the Vietnam war and a host of other messy problems left him by the demonrats, as for civil rights LBJ opposed it as any good old southern boy would It was the Republicans that passed it. Then after Ford we got the second worst President in recent history and we didn't get to have a good decade until Ronnie got the job in 1980

Nearly all the presidential foreign policy decions you mentioned were following the agenda and direction of the CIA, Pentagon and other defense and security agencies. In other words, the recommendations of these established institutions were accepted by the Presidents mentioned. By definition that is a conservative policy.

 

[AngryOldGuy]

I bet you win every time you play twister doncha?
I recall it was Eisenhower who warned us of the military industrial complex
and he WAS a Real Conservative !

 

[APACHERAT]

The modern conservative party is a walking contradiction to itself.

Modern progressivism is also a walking contradiction of itself.

Evidence seems to show that most who claim to be progressives are actually something else hiding behind the label of being a progressive.

 

[AngryOldGuy]

Well dang if we could do away with those socialistic redistribution schemes and cut defense by two thirds
we could pay off the entire U.S. National Debt in five years!

Now that sounds Conservative to me


link to article

 

[polgara]

Modern progressivism is also a walking contradiction of itself.

Evidence seems to show that most who claim to be progressives are actually something else hiding behind the label of being a progressive.

Greetings, Apacherat! :2wave:

You may be on to something. Throughout the US and Europe, it has become obvious that socialism is an abject failure. That is why socialists will no longer use that word to describe themselves. They've all become progressives, liberals, populists, environmentalists, or something else, but never socialists! Same ideas as before on how the world should be run, they just call themselves something different now. It's not really a problem, though, because in their thinking, we are sheep that need their guidance. That hasn't changed! :thumbdown:

 

[Hard Truth]

I bet you win every time you play twister doncha?
I recall it was Eisenhower who warned us of the military industrial complex
and he WAS a Real Conservative !

I'm glad to finally see some conservatives supporting drastic cuts to defense spending. Moderate Eisenhower was quite right when he warned us of the military industrial complex, which is why liberals like to use that quote when discussing the issue with conservatives. Unfortunately the conservatives and moderates of both parties have continually opposed defense spending cuts despite numerous calls to do so from the few genuine liberal representatives in Washington.

 

[APACHERAT]

Greetings, Apacherat! :2wave:

You may be on to something. Throughout the US and Europe, it has become obvious that socialism is an abject failure. That is why socialists will no longer use that word to describe themselves. They've all become progressives, liberals, populists, environmentalists, or something else, but never socialists! Same ideas as before on how the world should be run, they just call themselves something different now. It's not really a problem, though, because in their thinking, we are sheep that need their guidance. That hasn't changed! :thumbdown:

Hi Polgara :2wave:

You and I aren't old enough to remember America's era of progressivism. It started around the 1890's and seemed to die out at the beginning of the Great Depression.
"Progressivism is a general political philosophy based on the idea of progress that asserts that advances in science, technology, economic development, and social organization, can improve the human condition."
And all progressives were racist, they all believed that the Northern Europeans were the elite and better than any other ethnicity or race.

The two most famous progressives in America was Theodor Roosevelt and Woodward Wilson. President Wilson was a racist to the max.

The 1924 Immigration Reform Act was written by the minority (progressives) and would be America's immigration laws until 1965.

True progressives are very nationalistic. Usually they were referred to as nativist.
Progressives were Democrat and Republican so not one political party could claim them as their own.

Now most of those today who call themselves progressives are actually something else hiding behind the label of progressivism. Most are probably Marxist or socialist.

When all of those "New Left" activist who were nothing more than a splinter group of Communist Party USA who broke away from the commies back during the 1950's, they entered the Democrat Party starting in the late 60's. They couldn't get elected to public office calling themselves what they really were, socialist so they hid under the label of calling themselves liberals. When they dirtied that label they decided to hide behind the label of progressive.

BTW: The New Left was founded in England during the 1950's. In America the New Left were the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and leftist terrorist organizations like the Weatherman later on known as the Weather Underground. Today they all hide behind the labels of either liberal or progressive.

So every time I see someone on the DP who identifies them self as being a progressive, I always feel like asking them if they are true progressives or something else ?

 

[Paschendale]

Society needs both Conservatism and liberalism to survive. This nation has prospered when it has applied both principles. You cannot have constant change in every little thing and you cannot be stagnant all the time.

What liberal platform has ever been to "change every little thing"? I know of absolutely zero situations where there was a problem and the solution was to not fix it. The only contribution conservatives make in the discussion is to deny that there is a problem because it doesn't affect them personally.

There are problems in our society. There are hungry and sick people. There are dangers in the air and water. There are flaws in old technology. The liberal answer is to solve these problems. The conservative answer is not to. Explain how that viewpoint is helpful to the people of this nation.

The right to life doesn't mean that you have a right to get what you need to survive from others, but instead means that you have a right to be free from the aggression of others towards your life.

If someone offers you less than you can live on as payment for your work they are not taking life from you, but simply offering you a crappy deal.

Says someone who has all the things he needs.

We lost more men, almost half a million in WW2, vs 60 K in Vietnam... I know which I would rather fight. Hitler and Germany killed perhaps 20 million total, whereas the Communists have killed over 100 million, starved, worked to death, tortured and murdered of their own peoples.

I wonder how many imperialist capitalism has killed. Start with several centuries of Africans, both in colonies and kidnapped as slaves. Add Asians and Hindus in colonies. How about the genocide of American Indians? How about the myriad deaths in the middle east from wars started or fostered to further western capitalist interests?

The people who died fighting the Nazis died to protect the world from real oppression and tyranny. Those that I mentioned, just like the dead in Vietnam, died to protect the profit margins of the rich.

Being a slave means someone else owns you, that you cannot just run away, that you work for them and that you are not paid. Wages, or payment for work, would contradict that scenario completely...besides which, if you do not like your wages , can find higher elsewhere, or just if you want to, you are free to go. Freedom and slavery, just like wages and slavery, are not a compatible mix... so yeah, complete contradiction in terms.

Being a slave means you have no choice. You have no power. You have only the options that others give you. You think yourself free because you can choose between Coke and Pepsi, but all the power is held by those who decide that those are the only two choices. The only choices right now are to toil for the profits of a rich person, or to starve. That is not liberty.

and now tell me who is it that decides what is the moral minimum this vaunted wage slave deserves

Enough so that people can live and not suffer needlessly.

When the government puts a gun to your head and takes half of your income that is social justice

Liberals and conservatives do that. The difference is that liberals try to give it to people in need, and conservatives ensure that it all goes to rich people. And that rich people don't pay any the aforementioned taxes. How does that square with any of the ideology that you describe?

Well dang if we could do away with those socialistic redistribution schemes and cut defense by two thirds
we could pay off the entire U.S. National Debt in five years!

You realize that most of those "socialistic redistribution schemes" are for giving massive amounts of money to drug companies, hospital owners, and other rich people right? That the poor, elderly, and needy benefit from these programs is almost incidental. And letting those rich companies charge outrageous prices on those benefits just goes to transfer more money from the working class of this country to the owners.

 

[TheNextEra]

What liberal platform has ever been to "change every little thing"? I know of absolutely zero situations where there was a problem and the solution was to not fix it. The only contribution conservatives make in the discussion is to deny that there is a problem because it doesn't affect them personally.

Sometimes doing something makes the problem worse. As for your generalizations, they are as stupid as is your viewpioint. You see everything, like other partisans, as a "us" versus "them" with no thought that BOTH help this country.

There are problems in our society. There are hungry and sick people. There are dangers in the air and water. There are flaws in old technology. The liberal answer is to solve these problems. The conservative answer is not to. Explain how that viewpoint is helpful to the people of this nation.

Wrong, while I disagree sometimes with the methods conservatives want to solve the problem by volunteering help and not being forced to do it. They believe in charity and giving people a hand-up and not a handout. We have some families that have been on welfare for three generations. How is that solving the problem?

When you are partisan such as yourself, you view the world as "you're right" and "they're wrong" without even understanding that ALL people are different and don't follow a lock in step attitude and that includes both liberals AND conservatives.

 

[Paschendale]

Sometimes doing something makes the problem worse. As for your generalizations, they are as stupid as is your viewpioint. You see everything, like other partisans, as a "us" versus "them" with no thought that BOTH help this country.

Doing nothing never makes anything better. You can certainly argue for applying different solutions to a problem. But ignoring a problem doesn't actually make it go away.

Wrong, while I disagree sometimes with the methods conservatives want to solve the problem by volunteering help and not being forced to do it. They believe in charity and giving people a hand-up and not a handout. We have some families that have been on welfare for three generations. How is that solving the problem?

Arguing for charity as a solution is just plain dishonesty. It's fighting for the convenience of the giver, with no regard to whether or not it actually helps the people in need. And we have families that cannot escape welfare because, despite the attempts to help them, conservatives keep sabotaging those attempts and imposing more difficulties. Hence why wages haven't really gone up in forty years while the cost of living has quadrupled. But please remember, nearly 80% of welfare recipients receive less than two years of benefits in their entire lives. Welfare programs, like social security, are doing their jobs and providing a safety net. But there is so much of our predatory system dedicated to stripping working people of what they have that it becomes harder and harder not to fall and need a net.

When you are partisan such as yourself, you view the world as "you're right" and "they're wrong" without even understanding that ALL people are different and don't follow a lock in step attitude and that includes both liberals AND conservatives.

Awww, how cute. I'm just a partisan. Nevermind that I essentially don't share the same basic philosophy as anyone else and don't even agree with other socialists, a lot of other liberals, and even a lot of other atheists (though it's easy to agree with most of them because there's basically only one core tenet of atheism). Bigots are wrong. Selfish and greedy people are wrong. Religious people are wrong, but they sometimes have right ideas about other things. Political affiliation doesn't make someone right or wrong. Having right or wrong ideas does. Conservatives by no means have a monopoly on bad ideas. They just never seem to have any good ones.

 

[Henrin]

Says someone who has all the things he needs.

Well yes, I have all the things I need. What of it? Does the amount that I have or don't have actually matter to the discussion being had? Does that somehow make your right to life an obligation on others to keep you alive? Does that somehow make an arrangement you signed up for on your own free will slavery? Please explain to me how my situation has any bearing on the arrangements other people make on their own free will?

 

[Hard Truth]

I prefer the term liberal over progressive, because I value liberty over progress, but these days they usually mean the same thing. These days "progress" is usually defined as moving towards equality, justice and opportunity for all and an end to poverty, disease and other impedements to a good life.

"Progressivism is a general political philosophy based on the idea of progress that asserts that advances in science, technology, economic development, and social organization, can improve the human condition."

That is a philosophy that I can support. It is actually contradictory with racism, because science has proven that racist beliefs are factually wrong. Today's progressivism is opposed to the racism, bigotry or elitism that may have been associated with it in the past.

 

[AngryOldGuy]

everyone knows that 'progressives' are danged commies
and that the Real Conservatives are a dying breed
so at the end of the day all that will be left are various shades
of Totalitarian Statists fighting over the carcass of our once great nation

 

[Gaugingcatenate]

I wonder how many imperialist capitalism has killed. Start with several centuries of Africans, both in colonies and kidnapped as slaves. Add Asians and Hindus in colonies. How about the genocide of American Indians? How about the myriad deaths in the middle east from wars started or fostered to further western capitalist interests?

The people who died fighting the Nazis died to protect the world from real oppression and tyranny. Those that I mentioned, just like the dead in Vietnam, died to protect the profit margins of the rich.

Why don't you tell me what the human score is? I ll tell you why, cause you got no real idea. The west never murdered on the massive scale of Lenin, Stalin, Mao et al, Ho Chi Minh, Castro and Pol Pot... your socialist/communist buddies murdered,tortured, worked and starved to death to the tune of over 100 million in just the last hundred years, nothing compares to that.

Add to that your National Socialist buddies under Hitler, yes socialists, lefties, and you have at least another 20 million...so no matter how you stack the bodies, your folks were, and still are, super efficient compared to capitalists in this one area.

Africans were enslaved, yes, we will put aside the fact that many were captured and sold by fellow Africans and many Muslims in the slave trade...many indeed died in the trip over, [ nothing like the numbers of those evil commies tho ] but it was in the best interest to keep them alive and healthy, same with those who purchased them, it was a hefty investment probably the equivalent of purchasing a single engine aircraft these days. You do not damage your investments usually.

Most of the Native Americans died as a result of European contact, but with no evil nor capitalist intent, it was from disease. They were also a warrior culture and were not desirous of assimilation into our culture, decided to fight, bad move, we were ready to fight as well. So, give up your Zinn induced ghostly evil apparitions, he was a prevaricator of the first order, as is Chomsky.

Study a little bit of history man, with a bit more critical eye… your side comes up the real bad guys... by a long shot.

Being a slave means you have no choice. You have no power. You have only the options that others give you. You think yourself free because you can choose between Coke and Pepsi, but all the power is held by those who decide that those are the only two choices. The only choices right now are to toil for the profits of a rich person, or to starve. That is not liberty.

You are so deceived and misled. I can drink water, I can have juice [ love cranberry grape myself ]…heck, I can get just about any kind of drink anybody could ever think of in the history of the planet. Lobster, shrimp, NY strip steaks, I eat whatever the heck I want.

Take advantage of your education and you have power. Work hard and you have power. Go into business for yourself or with a partner, obtain power… you sound like a little child wanting mama to take care of you… Slaves have their work and product taken from them and get no payment in return. When you work for wages, you are not a slave. Many, almost all, start out on the bottom but most quickly, with hard work, gaining skills and education move up the ranks to the middle class [ where most of us are ] and above…its undeniable. If you don’t like it here, move somewhere else, you are free to do that, slaves are not. With not a high in money making job I still have a house here and a house in Panama, I get to travel there once a year for a month or so, I eat well, have a fairly new car… what the heck are you even griping about… if you don’t know that most the people who have ever lived were dirt eating poor…and we are magnificently rich compared to them… people a hundred years ago in their dreams of utopia could not imagine what wonders and riches we ordinary Americans have today… quit your bellyaching and start appreciating what you have, not what you don’t… the whole world is improving due to capitalism, where ya been, how is it that you cannot see that?

 

[AngryOldGuy]

Gaugingcatenate your hegemonistic running dawg diatribes never fail to bring a wry smile to this curmudgeons face :surrender

 

[Gaugingcatenate]

Gaugingcatenate your hegemonistic running dawg diatribes never fail to bring a wry smile to this curmudgeons face :surrender

Thanks again... I have fun running down these ill informed and over fed ingrates. The only reason they have time to complain is that the system allows them leisure.... if it were a hundred years ago, these folks would be out there having to work their tails off six to seven days a week, lots of times in the hot sun, making piddling wages [ altho here, on average, it would have been better than the rest of the world ], never wandering maybe more the ten miles from their birthplace...walking or, if you had some money, on a horse out in the open, rain or shine...now we can tool down the road in our smooth riding air conditioned cars playing the tunes we like....blah blah blah....you know the score...but they still cannot bring themselves to be appreciative....talk about your curmudgeons....lol....

have a great night Angry....

 

[Henrin]

Actaully, it's not. That it seems so to you points to your ignorance, not enlightenment, nor morality.

Actually, it is. Slavery is the concept that one is forced into something without agreement, choice, or any alternative and becomes someone else’s property. Wages are the consequence of freedom. More importantly, it is a consequence of free trade between mutual individuals.

When you sell your labor on your own free will and on top of that you are given something in return, you are neither in servitude of someone else or their slave. There is many things to call an arrangement that is insufficient for it's purpose, but to call it slavery is not one of them.

"Religion & Ethics – Modern slavery: Modern forms of slavery". BBC. January 30, 2007. Retrieved June 16, 2009.

That is all very nice, and looks nicely put together from what you shared, but it has little to do with the concept of wage slavery.

Wrong, that is only true if there are more jobs than job seekers. Again, your statement is devoid of the morality which the right claims as their high ground. One must eat and have dignified housing, therefore one must work. There is no agreement if the only job available does not pay a living wage, there is no choice. Starving in the street is not an option.

Wrong? No, when you walk through those doors looking for work that is a voluntary action on your part and when you agree to the terms for employment that is again an action you're taking on your own free will. You do not have to work anywhere if that is what you desire and if you know what you're doing you can start a business with very little down.

Hiding behind the letter of the law is not a moral position, it's a soulless one. Especially when you feign ignorance of the labor market as treating people like a commodity instead of living humans and ignore that wage slavery is not only not a contradiction, it's being practiced. It IS a reality.

If I'm hiding behind anything it's reality. All you're doing here is spinning a nice little web of lies that voluntary arrangements are slavery if the arrangements are poor.

 

[Beaudreaux]

All of the politicians your mentioned were moderate conservatives, not liberals. Kennedy and Johnson supported the liberal's side on civil rights (when they saw it was likely to prevail) and were liberal on welfare etc., but especially with foreign policy, they were not liberals overall. Nixon/Kissinger sabotaged the Paris peace talks, bombed Cambodia, seriously considered nuking Viet Nam (but was probably stopped by widespread anti-war protests) and continued the war for six years after he was elected.

Kennedy wasn't a Liberal? Wow... Unlike many protectionist Liberal's of today, Kennedy understood the threats of the Soviet Union, Communism, Socialism, and the dangers of progressive nationalism, as it exists today. He hated war. As do most people that have ever served in combat. Me included. That doesn't mean that when it's necessary that even a Liberal President who is also a combat veteran wont do what's required. Look at what Obama's doing, and he is arguably one of (if not the most) Liberal President we have ever had in modern times. And he isn't a combat veteran, much less a veteran of anything more dangerous than community organizing in Chicago, which I guess could be comparable to a combat zone at times.

Listen to the Nixon tapes and then get back to me about how Nixon really felt about Vietnam. Suffice to say, your depiction is not exactly correct. Nuking Vietnam? The JCS wanted to, but Nixon thought they were nuts for even mentioning it. As for using it as a threat to stem the tide of Chinese and Russian troops into the AO? Of course. Ever heard of disinformation?

 

[Beaudreaux]

Nearly all the presidential foreign policy decions you mentioned were following the agenda and direction of the CIA, Pentagon and other defense and security agencies. In other words, the recommendations of these established institutions were accepted by the Presidents mentioned. By definition that is a conservative policy.

No disrespect intended... that one made me laugh. Thanks. I can go to bed in a good mood now.

 

[AngryOldGuy]

Beaudreaux how different would it have been if in 64 Goldwater had been elected and promptly marched our troops right up to the Chinese border and then threatened them with being nuked or better yet if MacArthur hadn't been recalled and had won the Korean war (then we'd not have that pudgy silly lookin' dude in North Korea?) Or if as my mom told me (after serving as a Naval officer in the Pacific theatre) that the returning vets ( and General George S. Patton) were all clamoring: "what the heck are we doing we've got all the stuff over there the job isn't done we have got to whip the Rooskies too"!

The cold war ended but somehow we've always found a way to ship our young men overseas to die for no real purpose.
Guess there's always this silly war on terror to keep the military industrial complex running along eh?

Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. :boxer

 

[iguanaman]

Actually, it is. Slavery is the concept that one is forced into something without agreement, choice, or any alternative and becomes someone else’s property. Wages are the consequence of freedom. More importantly, it is a consequence of free trade between mutual individuals.

When you sell your labor on your own free will and on top of that you are given something in return, you are neither in servitude of someone else or their slave. There is many things to call an arrangement that is insufficient for it's purpose, but to call it slavery is not one of them.



That is all very nice, and looks nicely put together from what you shared, but it has little to do with the concept of wage slavery.



Wrong? No, when you walk through those doors looking for work that is a voluntary action on your part and when you agree to the terms for employment that is again an action you're taking on your own free will. You do not have to work anywhere if that is what you desire and if you know what you're doing you can start a business with very little down.



If I'm hiding behind anything it's reality. All you're doing here is spinning a nice little web of lies that voluntary arrangements are slavery if the arrangements are poor.

Actually it is worse than slavery when you can starve on the wages you are being paid. Slaves were valuable property and would not be starved for fear of losing their value.

 

[AngryOldGuy]

If someone is starving in the (formerly) richest country on earth I'd say he's got a real problem.

Personally my living wage isn't providing me with a porsche gtr rsr and a ukrainian supermodel mistress
so I'm really teed off I gotta tell ya!