Here's mine. Call me a "Ron Paul Republican."
Posted on 12/10/2004 9:37:54 AM PST by rogerv
Hi, gang,
I was a regular contributor to the Kerry Online Forum and am now a regular contributor to the Common Ground Common Sense forum. I am a liberal, but I'll be the first to admit, I don't have all the answers. In fact, many of hte questions that matter to me probably matter to you too. I'm concerned with questions about how to tame power, whether governmental or corporate. I'm concern with the rule of law and how we can get the powerful to take it seriously. I'm concerned with the erosion of civil liberties. And yes, I am concerned about some things you may associate with liberalism--social safety nets and taking care of those who fall through the institutional cracks.
I'm here because I think agreement is overrated and that critics can be your best friends: they keep you from getting sloppy or careless. At any rate, I think there are things I can learn from you. I don't expect you are all agreed on anything--I expect there is a lot of diversity of opinion here. If you are interested in what I have said over at Common Ground Common Sense, I'm using the same handle both places, and you should feel free to come over and look around.
Anyway, I'm new here. Anybody care to give me a tour?
DUely noted. I'm glad to see he/she is responding.
sorry i was being caustic : (
You are here to our brains, to take back with you to DUmmy land. Don't pull that crap on me. I know how the dims work, from years of experience.
But hey. I'll play with you.
Actually I could teach you some backup vocal tricks.
Check the link I added to reply #209. CBS want to censor the Internet, and our free speech. That isn't only and Internet site, but the media wants their garbage and opinions forced on everyone. In other words, free speech is ONLY for the MSM.
excellent - that was a test.
To get an extra point - spell it correctly.
Here's mine. Call me a "Ron Paul Republican."
Deplorable logic. It has not yet been demonstrated to my own satisfaction -- or to the satisfaction of most posters here -- that conservative government (in general) or this administration (in particular) has any problem re: "power and its abuses." Unlike, say, the Clinton White House.
I'd be very interested to hear how you have found peace with all that.
The same way many of us "find peace" with the concepts of vampires, werewolves and mean, mean ogres: by adamantly refusing to lose sleep over that which has not yet been intelligently demonstrated.
Very good question, and like most of the good questions, I don't have a good answer to it. My concern is that any form of power can be abused. When corporations get too powerful, one gets anticompetitive behavior. I like what Elliot Spitzer is trying to do. His view is that some regulation keeps markets competitive. He is trying to change corporate culture so that honest businessman can be honest without penalty. I think we all suffer when corporations can get away with fraud.
I din't answer your question, because your question is actually much bigger than the part I've answered. But we have to start somewhere.
Accumen?
I was watching you eat through the monitor.
Great post, Jeff. Please educate me - who is Dean Russell? Google returned several hits, but nothing that bio's him with this quote. Thanks in advance!
Hi RogerV
Welcome to Freerepublic. If you want to engage in a serious discussion of issues, two places to start.
One, you can click on my screenname to read my profile. It's filled with quotes that you might find interesting, as they encapsulate a lot of my basic beliefs, which might be a good point to begin debates as I'm sure you'll disagree with most of them.
Two... I would urge you to contemplate this proposition: The key difference between liberals and conservatives (using both those words in the modern sense, as they have changed meaning over time), is that liberals believe (implicitly or explicitly) in the perfectibility of man, and therefore of society.
Conservatives, by contrast, for one reason or another believe that mankind is flawed, basically bad. Some are creationists who believe that mankind was once perfect but fell from grace and became sinner; others are evolutionists who believe that mankind has all sorts of naturally selected selfish instincts that aren't going away any time soon.
Either way, both groups believe that human nature is a potentially dangerous, corruptible thing if unleashed, and that religion and/or law and/or(ideally) self discipline are needed to control it. This applies not just to "bad guys"; even good hearted people can be tempted and are potentially corruptible. (One ring to rule them all...)
The first and most obvious political implication of the "flawed human" theory is our general resistance to big government. If even the best of us are corruptible, then it makes sense that no person or group of persons should have unaccountable power over others: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". Hence, government should be limited, divided, checked and balanced, publicly criticized, forced to face election, and perpetually kept in fear of armed citizen revolt -- in short, the Constitution as originally intended.
And government handouts or subsidies are, in our worldview, EXPECTED to CATEGORICALLY be abused, so we're mostly against them.
Yet, the government must be big and strong enough to stop oppressions committed by flawed mankind, ranging from street crime to slavery to corporate abuses to terrorism-- hence the "law and order" mentality of conservatives, myself included.
Contemplate these attitudes in contrast with their liberal opposites for a while, then get back to me and we'll talk.
Best wishes
At its best, what you will find here is some well prepared people who will dig out and lay on the table more facts and more details than even the MSM and the 24-hour news channels. I'll give you two examples:
You already know about the Pajamahadeen bringing down Dan Rather. You might want to take a gander at Buckhead's famous Post #47, which was the beginning of the end for Rather. One you might not know about is the explosion of the Challenger. A Freeper in California with a well-aimed telescope reported the explosion while the MSM was still reporting a standard glide to a landing.
I'm a bright guy who is inexcuably over-educated. Still, every week I learn things about the nation and the world, just by reading the best of what is here on FR. So, welcome, and enjoy. And in the process we will enjoy your contributions also.
Congressman Billybob
Click for latest, "Should the Iraqi Election be Delayed?"
P.S. Since you are/were interested in the candidacy of John Kerry, feel free to ping me. I went to college with Kerry. I can give you an earful about that gentleman.
acumen
There is no compromise on gay marriage. A marriage is between a man and a woman.
There is no middle ground on abortion. Over half the people who enter an abortion clinic are MURDERED.
There is no level of nationalize medicine that is constitutional.
There is no way to come together when the liberals continually seek to disarm Americans who would oppose them. I will not give up any of my guns and I will do my best to kill the people liberals send to get them. Then I will kill the people who sent them. Then I will kill the people who made the laws.
There is nothing about liberalism that is acceptable when liberals seek to completely eliminate Christianity from public life, to sign up illegal aliens to vote, to make sure that our nation is pulling in 100 different directions by promoting the lie of the "strength in diversity".
There can be no "open dialogue". Move your liberal ass to Cuba or Canada and leave us in peace.
DU piranhas? They're kind of the black sheep of the family. Shhhh.
I look at government as a collective effort to battle evil and advance good.
So, in my mind the government that is most effective in furthering that cause of good is the best government. That of course immediately leads one to ask what is the definition of good vrs evil?
Conservatives believe that man is mostly good, note all the references to creator endowing, etc, early in our history. This leads conservatives to believe that if men and women are left on their own, with little interference from government or criminals or whatever will mostly do good things and society will mostly progress in a good way. Liberals believe that man is mostly evil and that government must intervene to protect society and less fortunate from the evil that men would do given the chance.
So who is right? Let the debate begin!
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