The American Right Must Get Off The Pot on Israel, War, and Draft

"...the man's a former Senate candidate"

Your logic of his value reminds me of the old Dennis Miller joke about how Mondale only got 3 electoral votes: "That's just three more than I got...and I wasn't even running!"

Sorry, I went by the website.
I have absolutely no knowledge of the divisionso f the Lutheran Church in America. The only Lutheran Churches with which I am vagely familiar are the Swedish and Danish ones.

I would summit that all REAL conservatives are on the fringe. It is fringe to suggest that Social Security should be abolished, but that is the only REAL conservative position. It is fringe to suggest that Medicare should be abolished, but that is the only REAL conservative position. It is fringe to suggest that the income tax should be abolished and replaced with nothing, but it is the only REAL conservative position. And people on both sides of this argument should quit fretting about Israel and Palestine because the only REAL, small government conservative position is nonintervention and non-entaglement, and we should give neither side one dime of foreign aid and mind our own business.

You guys live in a delusional happy little world where the GOP is conservative and good and the Dems are liberal and bad, but the truth is one is the party of outright social democracy and the other is the party of slightly less social democracy. If you are OK with being a mainsteamer content with arguing over degrees of social democracy, then have at it. I will continue to work on the fringe over here and try to actually bring about some REAL conservative change.

Sorry for the late date of this reply. I was alerted to this thread in an e-mail group.

If you chose to reply, it would be nice for you to explain to me how there can be any conservative position on the issues above short of the ones I suggested. Instead of just something along the lines of "ha ha ha you're on the fringe ha ha ha."

Using words like 'delusional' describing those differing with your viewpoint(s) gets you nowhere insofar as persuading someone of your stance. Further, acting is if you're somehow the arbiter of 'REAL' conservatism is a bit grandiose, don't you think? The platform you describe as REAL conservatism sounds suspiciously like the Libertarian platform. How many major elections have Libertarians won? Oh, I remember now: none. How many policies do they influence? None again.

You also wrote, "because the only REAL, small government conservative position is nonintervention and non-entaglement, and we should give neither side one dime of foreign aid and mind our own business."

The primary purpose of government is to protect its people and their interests. We support Israel because it is simply the morally and strategically right thing to do to bolster the only real representative democracy in an otherwise volatile, authoritarian region. We give out foreign aid dimes because money equals influence, and it is in our national interest to ensure--as much as we can--a Middle East willing to hear us out, if not bend to our will. Head-in-the-sand, isolationist policies have proven wrongheaded in the past. So by all means, stay on the fringe, without power or voice. I like you out there.

I am not a Libertarian because of the social issues, esp. abortion. I support the Constitution Party, which you were ridiculing, and the various Southern Parties in the Confederate States. But on matters of government spending the conservative perspective and the libertarian perspective should be virtually the same because the Constitution does not authorize any of those expenditures. It doesn't authorize foreign aid either.

I never said my party had much influence. In fact, I freely admitted my positions were fringe. Like I said, you are busy influencing the debate on how much socialism. I will gladly stick to my principles and work hard for change and pray that the conservative movement will come around, while you are selling out.

I'm sure you want me to stay on the fringe, because having the truth pointed out to you that the modern conservative movement is a monumental fraud is uncomfortable to hear.

All issues of practicality and electability aside, are Social Security, Medicare, etc. constitutionally authorized? Am I wrong that abolishing both is the only real conservative position? If not, why not?

Also, it takes a lot of nerve to say that me suggesting what is really conservative is grandiose, when the whole first part of this thread was an exercise in hysteria that someone might have posted an article that was guilty of wrong think. And then it turns out the whole thing is an excuse to ridicule the Constitution Party. Lets look at the GOP platform and the CP platform line by line and see which one is more conservative. But that will require you to learn something, not just make fun of people like some latency aged schoolboy.

Finally, I'm sure Wilson would agree with you that a policy of nonintervention and non-entanglement is a bad idea. Historic American Conservatism is on my side, however.

'Historic American Conservatism', by which you mean nonintervention from WWI onwards, would've made slaves of us all. Either learn from history or get rolled over by it. The oceans just aren't big enough to keep the world out anymore.

So, you're sharing the same party with whatshisname, the vicious anti-semite who wrote the article kicking off this thread? Hope you like the company you keep.

I also notice you're big on insults, always the weapon of last resort for those unaccustomed to reasoned argument and genuine debate. News, sport: don't enter a battle of wits unarmed.

What statements did I make that prove I am witless? Do I only have wits if I slavishly follow the GOP party line?

And insults. I said you live in a delusional world. I said you were selling out. And I accused you of mindlessly trying to stamp out wrongthink.(A clever reference to George Orwell's 1984. Not bad for a guy with no wits.)But I did not call you a name or insult you personally. Yet you said I was grandiose and witless. So who is insulting who here?

Would have made slaves of us all? You can't just assert something like that. That is no different than the state worshiping history textbooks you read in HS that asserted that Robber Barons caused the Depression and FDR saved us from it. But they both happen to be inconveniently not true.

You share a party with pro-aborts Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chafee, etc. and I'm supposed to be ashamed of Pastor Dankoff? I have met Pastor Dankoff at a couple of party functions, and we are in a common e-mail group. I have no problem saying that he and some others focus more on the Israel/Palestine issue than is warranted. As I said above, we should give no foreign aid to any country, and we should not be attempting to "broker" peace deals or use our influence to change the outcome. That can not help but make us enemies whichever side we take. Hence we should take neither.

But I don't have any tolerance for PC thought police running around screaming anti-Semite at the first mention of the word neo-con as a means of cutting off instead of engaging in thoughtful debate.

My question remains unanswered. Are SS and Medicare unconstitutional? If not, what section authorizes them? Are the options I mentioned the only truly conservative options? If not, why not?

The US Constitution is the foundation, defining the shape of the building, its boundaries and support, not the edifice itself in toto. The Europeans are now discovering for themselves the problems inherent to legislating by means of a Constitution, which is a top-down approach alien to the notion of participatory government. So are Social Security and Medicare, for example, constitutional? In our system, we are allowed the means by which we can elect representatives, who will in turn appoint jurists amenable to one interpretation of the Constitution or another. If you recall, big heaping chunks of FDR's New Deal were thrown out as unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court during the Depression in what began as a seemingly innocuous interstate commerce squabble involving a truckload of chickens. No legal or constitutional expert, I can't say whether or not SS and Medicare violate either or both the spirit or letter of the Constitution. I'm personally leery of federal programs for anything other than national defense, the space program, infrastructure projects like interstate highways, dams, and the like--those things that truly entail effort and organization on a national scale. I would prefer that individual states determine the kind and scale of government services furnished to the elderly and poor. The distinctions between what are commonly referred to as Blue and Red states would take on an even deeper significance, of course, and would be, I think, all to the good. Don't like it in Blue state socialist heaven? Move.

That said, your opposition to SS and Medicaid would be more effectively expressed working within a party that actually stands a chance of winning a national election. You would also be better served in a party that doesn't 'focus more on the Israel/Palestine issue than is warranted', which seems a rather roundabout way of saying that you're at least mildly uncomfortable with the contents of the article posted above--to your credit.

At this point we are only talking to each other. No problem if we just let this die after this reply. I just want to clarify my position, because I think it is likely that Pastor Dankoff might be following this thread, and I do not want to leave the impression that I am talking behind a fellow party member's back. You said I was being "roundabout." Being roundabout is not my MO. In fact, I'm often told I should be more roundabout. I would say nothing here that I would not say politely to Pastor Dankoff if our paths happen to cross in the future or in the e-mail group we have in common.

I believe antisemitism has become a word like racism that is almost totally meaningless. It is a boogey word thrown around to cut off debate. Unfortunately it is often used by the right, who should know better, and not just by the left. If it had any real meaning left it would apply only too hate. Therefore it would be antisemitic to say, "I hate Jews." It is not necessarily antisemitic to say that Jews and Israel have an influence on American foreign policy disproportionate to their numbers. I believe that is demonstrably true.

Where Pastor Dankoff and I would part ways is on theology. I am a dispensational premillennialist. (I am not 100% convinced and am open to dialog, but I strongly lean that way at present.) He is not. I believe there is still a future role for Israel in God's prophecy. Therefore I do not reject Zionism as such. I do not know Pastor Dankoff's exact eschatological position, but I am almost certain that he subscribes to Replacement Theology. The theology that says that the Church has replaced Israel in God's plan. And that the future promises that applied to Israel now apply to the Church and/or have been invalidated by their rejection of Jesus Christ. My theological system is the primary one of most modern Evangelicals. Replacement Theology is the official position of the Catholic Church among others (it originate with Augustine) and is really the historically older position. Someone who holds that position is obviously going to be skeptical of Zionism because they believe nation Israel, as in God's Chosen People, is no longer extant. In my perspective, however, Israel must be reconstituted in the Holy Lands before the Millennium. Hence less skepticism of Zionism.

That said, I view Zionism as an entirely religious issue. I have no problem with religiously observant, orthodox Jews wanting to return to the Holy Lands. I am less sympathetic of secular, nonpracticing Jews who don't even believe the Old Testament gravy training off a religious idea as simply an excuse to dispossess Palestinians of their land. Even though I see a future role for Israel, nothing relieves modern Jews from the responsibility to accept Christ as their means of salvation in the present Church age. Their is no current separate system of salvation for Jews. John Hagee, who Pastor Dankoff mentioned, believes that, and I believe that to be heresy, or at the very least borderline heresy. Some say that suggesting Jews need to accept Christ is in and of itself antisemitic. Well if so, then so be it. If being true to my faith gets me called names then I will chose my faith over popularity.

My criticism of Pastor Dankoff's piece is that I think it is unwise to publish in Al-Jazeerah. I also think it is unhelpful to say that fellow Christians (he mentioned Hagee, Reed, Robertson, and Falwell) are handled by Tel-Aviv. (I do think they are without a doubt in the hip pocket of the GOP. And I take a back seat to no one in my criticism of the leadership of the religious right for not defecting to the Constitution Party which is clearly more serious about the reforms they care about.) And I don't think terms like Zionist Occupied Territory help advance the debate. They just get people in a big ol' name calling match as the first of this thread demonstrated.

On the whole, I believe there is a whole segment of the right that spends an inordinate amount of time trying to sniff out antisemitism. As if knuckleheads like the SPLC on the left were not enough. I also believe there is a group of people who place more emphasis on the Israel/Palestine issue than it deserves because of what seems to me like a reaction to the disproportionate influence of the Israeli lobby. The consistent conservative position is nonintervention and non-entanglement. As I said above, we should give neither side one dime of foreign aid. We should not be "brokering" peace deals or trying to use our influence to bring one or the other side "to the table." We should mind our own business and let them fight it out as we sell both sides Big Macs.

One last thing. Some non-dispensational Christians spend as much time attacking dispensationalist as they do the left. (I'm not saying Pastor Dankoff does. I've never seen him comment on it as far as I can remember. But on other forums.) Because they believe that that theological belief inevitably skews our foreign policy towards Israel. I am living proof that that does not have to be true. I am one, and I counsel nonintervention every chance I get. All of us on the far right would be better off if we trained our sights on attacking the left and trying to "convert" the squishy GOP right.

Hope that is sufficiently not "roundabout."

You have an interesting point of view. Do I agree? No.

I will say that the entire Bible from Genesis to Revealations is an intense Zionist doctrine and I don't have a problem with it. Both Yahweh and Yeshua are Zionists without exception or compromise, it says so in the Bible. Yeshua promised to return and destroy the enemies of Israel, literally.

Israel is God's kingdom on the Earth, and the nations around it are kingdoms of the Enemy. (Jesus does drive a hummer with a Star of David on its doors.)

So, from your party's perspective, non-Christians are persona non grata, seeing as how, like modern Jews, they are somehow obligated to accept Christ in order to have a place at the political table domestically, or--as foreign allies--merit consideration in terms of foreign aid monies or treaty inclusion? One's belief or nonbelief in Christ is the measure? The Jews 'dispossessed' Palestinians of their land? Members of your party sit around and debate interpretations of Scripture, and the outcome determines platform?

Your party fully deserves the obscurity it enjoys. So enjoy.