Posted on 09/24/2004 12:33:11 PM PDT by NCSteve
My definition of a "true" conservative is pretty simple:
A political conservative is someone who believes that the least government is the best government. A political conservative believes the only valid function of the US Federal government is to provide for the common defense and to regulate interstate trade. A political conservative believes that anything more than this leads to tyranny and must be resisted at all costs.
A political conservative also believes that the sovereignty of the US is sacrosanct because it was purchased with the blood of her children. A political conservative believes that treaties and trade agreements that violate that sovereignty are anathema and those who support them are treasonous.
A social conservative believes that the US was founded on traditional Judeo-Christian values. A social conservative believes that personal responsibility is second only to fealty to God in importance as a personality trait. A social conservative believes that the traditional family is the most important social construct and is fundamental to the survival of our society.
A fiscal conservative believes that you have first rights to the fruits of your own labor. A fiscal conservative believes that just as we all must live within our means, so must the government. A fiscal conservative believes that it is immoral for the government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens in order to redistribute it, no matter what the reason.
A "true" conservative is a political, a social, and a fiscal conservative. Simple as that.
bumpkin
Tell that to the early Christians in Rome. In the end, the best thought will overcome force. Those willing to die, provide the greatest testimony.
You make the mistake in assuming that force always has a physical component to it. It does not. Countering a threatening action with self-defense is not aggression. Threatening takes many forms, most of them are not physical. If I know someone or something is coming to do me, my family, or my country harm, I have every right to stop that action before it takes place. This is consistent with libertarian principles.
I tend to agree. A Christian theocracy is no less tryannical than a Muslim one. To ignore that is to ignore the reason for the foundation of our country. Make no mistake, I am most emphatically and profoundly a Christian.
I believe that conservatism is a guiding principle for creating a more perfect form of government. I believe, as I said to Repairman Jack, that conservatives must balance their principles against the steep and slippery slope toward tyranny. We must be guided by our religious scruples and it must be the framework upon which we build our society. I believe that if our ideas are superior, they will be adopted. It is simply up to us to make the case.
Not at all. Communists believe their economic system is an inevitability. To that end, they believe that slow infiltration of capitalist systems to be one way of accomplishing that inevitability. If the end result is that we are brought under the thumb of communism, then that is no different than if it was accomplished at the point of a gun. No physical force was needed, just an insipid, osmotic approach, but force nonetheless. I believe it is our right and even our duty to counter that, with force if necessary.
As I said, I don't believe modern libertarians necessarily embrace a passivist stance, but that stance is, in my opinion, an inevitable corollary of a non-aggression philosophy.
I also think that the non-aggression stance leads modern libertarians toward a pro-choice position on abortion, a stance that no conservative, and indeed no civilized human can support.
I'm not sure that is a valid comparison. The first century Christians were hardly in a position to raise much of a resistance. Also, if you read Eusebius, you will find that going like lambs to the slaughter was not what they considered optimal strategy. Finally, it was only a few centuries from Nero to Constantine and from lions eating Christians to Christians burning heretics.
I don't see that as a bad thing. It is much better than an opposite stance of being openly militaristic in times of peace. In times of war, that is a different story.
I also think that the non-aggression stance leads modern libertarians toward a pro-choice position on abortion, a stance that no conservative, and indeed no civilized human can support.
I will not touch this one except to say I don't agree.
There the line between social and political conservatives gets bright and wide.
The grand total of two words ("the other") you replaced with an ellipsis were key - you distorted my words. Of course government should act to support institutions. That is the position of the original conservative, Edmund Burke.
While it is obviously self-evident, Jefferson and other writers of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights thought it necessary to enunciate it anyway.
I'm glad they did.
I agree with them, and believe that no statement of what true conservatism in our modern era can omit the unalienable right to life and be complete.
This is THE defining principle within the electorate; much more so than any other issue.
Sounds like a good way to encourage manufactures and promote the general welfare.
"Supporting institutions" is like (or within) "promoting the general welfare". It is an objective, not a power. They may exercise their powers to that end, within the limitations inherent in the power.
I haven't a clue how one gets a theocracy from my post.
No shortage of gas on this thread.
. The Federal Government was set up with very important functional roles, relating to Commerce, avoidance of problems between the States, and protecting all of them from foreign dangers, etc.. The day to day interaction of Government with respect to questions of health, safety and morals--the Police Power--was left to the States; or better put, not delegated to the Federal Government.
In short, moral rule setting was never intended to be a Federal function.
"Moral rule setting" was never intended to be a primary function of State or local government either. We were to have a republican form of government in the States, where our individual rights to life, liberty, & property were not to be infringed. Moral rule setting by majority will is against all of our basic Constitutional principles.
The Fourteenth Amendment has been the avenue by which the Federal Courts have interfered with the exercise of State Police powers, where someone claimed, on one of various rationales, that they were unfair.
After the civil war, some States were violating the individual rights of former slaves, using the 1833 Marbury opinion as their rationale. The 14th attempted to stop those violations.
The problem is that the Fourteenth Amendment has been the vehicle to apply restrictions originally put on the Federal Government, which was not supposed to act in certain fields, to the States, which from time immemorial have had the role to act in those very fields.
State & local governments can reasonably regulate public behaviors, using Constitutional methods. -- See Art. VI, as to how all Officials are bound to support our Constitution as the Law of the Land.
In this application, the enemies of our traditions have achieved a certain societal anarchy. While some, around here, have mistakenly confused this with Libertarianism, it actually flies in the face of the rights of a free people to protect themselves from societal anarchy (the very opposite of the Libertarianism of the Fathers).
'States rights' advocates claim that our BOR's does not apply to local/state governments. -- This is "social anarchy", -- the opposite of our libertarian principles.
What the ACLU and other groups have succeeded in doing, via the Fourteenth Amendment, is to do away with the right of self-Government, with respect to promoting religion, protecting babies, dealing with certain forms of criminal activity, and protecting the family, educating children, etc.. William Flax
Flax, you are sounding more socialistic every day in urging more government to promote all of the above.
>> Moral rule setting by majority will is against all of our basic Constitutional principles.
It is better that it be determined by the ACLU and leftist judges, right, tpaine?
Oh my hind foot. A man's relationship with Christ is absolutely an individual matter. Prayer was not outlawed in school, ever. Prayer organized by public schools was ruled unconstitutional. There's a world of difference.
I am happy to confine discussion to prayer organized by public schools. One of the most outrageous Supreme Court decisions, ever.
In your world, Christianity is not a cultural matter. It is not something shared in the community and passed on to the next generation in community activities such as athletic events, school. Your world is thereby impoverished.
Impoverished? No. Free? Yes.
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