The Corruption of Conservatism (July 10, 2003)

Colorado Freedom Report ^ | July 10, 2003 | Ron Paul

[arthurus]

...but the inexorable growth in the size and scope of government has continued unabated accelerated explosively...

[Biblebelter]

We have two political parties which are mirroring each other. They do not want to take office and lead, they simply want to take office and hold it. The Democrats were kicked out of the White House not because he was a criminal and made the Democratic party into a criminal enterprise. They were kicked out because of the basically nameless faceless lemmings below him in the party who were only focused on holding what they had. I wonder what would have happened had someone in the Democratic Party who held a significant office had put his office at risk by standing up and asking Clinton to resign for the good of his country and his party.

Of course with the Clinton crowd he could have been a victim of Arkancide or the politics of personal destruction. But I do not see politicians of either party willing to put their own office at risk in order to clean up their own party.

Whether the Republican Party exists in Illinois is debatable. But it is not debatable that former Republican Governor George Ryan was one of the biggest crooks to ever hold the governorship. This is in a state which has a tradition of indicting governors of both parties. It was distressing to see the Republican bozoes sit back and never criticize or hold Ryan accountable. Not one major officeholder of either party asked this racketeer to step down. Why should the Democrats ask him to resign when they played him like a cheap fiddle? The silence of the Republicans was rewarded they like the national Democrats hold neither House or the Executive.

I take no pleasure in bashing Bush, because I look at the Republican officeholders under him. This party much like the Democrats have built organizations in which taking office only with the purpose of holding it is each party's focus.

I applaud the House Managers for taking a stand and putting their offices at risk. But where are those who would stir up the elites within the party in order to move their party forward and serve the greater good of the nation?

[glock rocks]

ping

[BraveMan]

No one quite seems to be able to explain what a Neoconservative is, further resolving my belief that they don't exist.

The author of this article proffered a fairly specific definition; one that I am willing to accept for the sake of expediency. Finding neoconservatives willing to admit their adherence to this definition is another matter.

FBD, thanks for the ping. Bookmarked and bumped . . .

[MissAmericanPie]

Your statement is true to a point, but beyond that it is the same double speak betrayal with which Bush laid out his agenda of destruction via left out details and deception.

Bush has said he would like to see a "Free Trade Zone from the north of Canada to the tip of Cape Horn". So one, like you, can claim that he never hid his agenda, however, left out of this broad statement, are the details, and the devil is always in the details, isn't it.

The details, entail, the destruction of US sovereignty, borders, Constitution, and an ever increasing placement of the US citizen under international rather than constitutional law.

I guess you are just going to have to forgive the majority of voters, who did not understand the details of this treason, for telling you to stuff it.

[Terpfen]

"The author of this article proffered a fairly specific definition; one that I am willing to accept for the sake of expediency. Finding neoconservatives willing to admit their adherence to this definition is another matter.

Hard to find people that don't exist.

[Columbine]

The author of this article proffered a fairly specific definition; one that I am willing to accept for the sake of expediency. Finding neoconservatives willing to admit their adherence to this definition is another matter.

That's because they don't exist. I've seen lots of paleo/libertarian descriptions of conservatives who don't toe their line.

There are things there that I can agree with but there are many that don't describe me at all.

Ron Paul's assessment of conservatives who don't agree with him is simply inaccurate in many ways.

[B4Ranch]

If those words don't awaken you, nothing will.

"All truth goes through three stages.
First it is ridiculed.
Then it is violently opposed.
Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."
(Schopenhauer)

[hosepipe]

I have been worried both partys were co-opted since before 1994... but Newt Gingrich gave some hope.. his words were always Ann Coulter-lite..(I liked that) but he went and got himself "Bork'ed".. It looks like he was doing damage control for the shadow government.. Hes been so quiet since, or supportive of republican politics..

It would hard for somebody now to convince me we have a two party government now.. with Clinton veering right for a second term and Bush veering left for the same reason.. Tricking the voters must work but belies serious honesty issues,,, The march toward abject socialism seems inexorable.. So what do I do .?..

Vote for Bush.. eventhough current wisdom asks for a 60+ majority in the Senate and THEN the size of government can be addressed.. and hope if that happens a Coup D'etat won't happen installing an obvious Oligarchy <<- BUSH?.. NAH!.. probably the Clintons after all if you want socialism lets the DEMOCRATS DO IT CORRECTLY... anyone that still thinks we have a republic is in clinical denial(republicans) cause if america is NOT a democracy we're doing a damned good imitation..
i.e. america is a republic <<-myth. America WAS a republic.

[B4Ranch]

"IMO, you were probably to busy with your drama class to read it."

What is it with you assholes who feel that making personal attacks is debating? Sorry but you didn't tick me off, you disgust me!

Be proud, you are very likey the recipient of the very first personal attack I've ever made on a public forum.

[mrsmith]

"are neo-conservatives and invention of the media or an invention of Libertarians? "
The present use of the term was invented by all of the above (and by "media" I assume you include Marxists, liberals and Democrats of any stripe).
It's a way of attacking conservatism by smear, like smearing anything libertarian as pro drug-abuse (irony anyone?).

The way everybody who can't make an argument loves them I think strawmen should be called "strawberry-sundaemen"!

[KDD]

I wish I has an answer.

We are becoming a country with an institutionalized mentality. For a vast majority, security and a reliable cable hookup is fair trade for their individual freedoms.

The unquestioning, determined, even truculent maintenance of the attitude which Professor Ortega y Gasset so admirably describes, is obviously the life and strength of the State; and obviously too, it is now so inveterate and so widespread - one may freely call it universal - that no direct effort could overcome its inveteracy or modify it, and least of all hope to enlighten it. This attitude can only be sapped and mined by uncountable generations of experience, in a course marked by recurrent calamity of a most appalling character. When once the predominance of this attitude in any given civilization has become inveterate, as so plainly it has become in the civilization of America, all that can be done is to leave it to work its own way out to its appointed end. The philosophic historian may content himself with pointing out and clearly elucidating its consequences, as Professor Ortega y Gasset has done, aware that after this there is no more that one can do.

"The result of this tendency," he says, "will be fatal. Spontaneous social action will be broken up over and over again by State intervention; no new seed will be able to fructify. Society will have to live for the State, man for the governmental machine. And as after all it is only a machine, whose existence and maintenance depend on the vital supports around it, the State, after sucking out the very marrow of society, will be left bloodless, a skeleton, dead with that rusty death of machinery, more gruesome than the death of a living organism. Such was the lamentable fate of ancient civilization."
Albert J. Nock

[B4Ranch]

"Thus, 'compassionate conservative' is all 'compassion, no conservatism, in the form of funding every interest group to insure having four more years of implementing the new Moral Order."

I see our 'compassionate conservative' goverment as social engineering in high gear, population balancing, right to food, right to education and medical care all as instructed from the UN's Agenda 21 programs. President Bush is just trying to accomplish the NWO that his Dad wasn't able to.

[gcruse]

We are setting up deficits unending. It was so hard to get govt spending into line and so easy to throw away years of hard work. It's sickening.

[B4Ranch]

"Conservatism may be dead"

I think it is in the Republican Party. Time to make a BIG change!

[B4Ranch]

I really wonder.

Not with the Patriot Act or the Matrix program. http://www.iir.com/matrix/states.htm

[Missouri]

Bump.

who feel that making personal attacks is debating?

I don't know about you B4Ranch, I've got used to the personal attacks after hanging around the immigration threads. Its sooo easy for someone sitting half-way around the country to throw insults around. You couldn't get away with that with someone face to face.

[strongbow]

"All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident." (Schopenhauer)

B4Ranch, Thanks for bringing that quote into the fray. Though I have heard it before it is prophetic beyond question in the current discussion. I would say the deluded among the republican party are somewhere between the first two stages, some however have moved straight into the second.

[B4Ranch]

Terrorism is unconventional warfare.

Possibly a very serious sit down with the Arabs could have told us where to attack bomb and what to eradicate. We flew the Prince somebody out of America that morning. Should have kept him.