Posted on 02/01/2004 10:11:32 AM PST by Willie Green
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:03:20 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
What is a "conservative"? What is "conservatism"?
I ask the questions not because I don't know but because supposedly "good conservatives" who have a long history of promoting "sound conservatism" have begun to dangerously rationalize what both are.
Let's take, for instance, GOPUSA, a Web-based group whose motto is "Bringing the conservative message to America." Now three years old, it offers a marvelous Web site (www.gopusa.com) filled with useful links and insightful commentary that rightly and regularly locks and loads on the moronism that is liberalism.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
There. I have now excerpted the only intelligent comment to be found anywhere within the article in question.
Time save for my average fellow FReeper: three to five minutes.
You're welcome.
"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it. "Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything. "I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.' "If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.'
~~ Ronald Reagan, in his autobiography, An American Life
Today, I surely would be pleased with achieving 75-80 percent of a true conservative agenda.
You brought it on yourself.
And so your car is just perfect, you didn't make a choice of the lesser of two evils in that decision, correct. Same with your house, TV, computer, etc.etc.
You live in a perfect world don't ya, Jim.
Inanimate objects (cars, houses, computers) may be less than perfect, but its hard to personify them as being evil.
Well, computers may be evil :-)
And, the press personifies SUVs - a SUV ran off a bridge, plowed through a house, killed it's driver, etc., etc.
"The Eleventh Commandment: 'Speak No Ill of Any Fellow Republican'." -- Ronald Wilson Reagan
I oppose PresBush on several key issues related to his governing policies. However, no one should be totally shocked by some of the decisions and actions the President has taken in the last three years. After all, to one degree or another, Bush`s current governing agenda was part of his 2000 campaign effort. Bush ran on increasing the Education budget; developing a prescription drug plan; increasing defense spending; and giving American's tax relief. He has accomplished those goals.
On the way to fullfilling his campaign promises, PresBush was faced with an economic recession, a national emergency related to the 9-11 attacks and a subsequent military response to international terrorism, called the War on Terrorism.
PresBush hasn't been, as conservative as I would have liked him to be in office, but if anyone thinks John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards or Wesley Clark would do a better job then GWBush, I have to wholeheartedly disagree. If anyone thinks the answer is to vote for a third party candidate, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with that too.
The President has shown great character, integrity and courage in the aftermath of 9-11 and in his prosecution in the WoT. The President has given American's three different tax cuts that have helped to stimulated the economy out of recession. For all that, PresBush deserves reelection.
Russell Kirk was a conservative thinker. If there was someone around today who could do a better job then PresBush is doing, have success advancing a strict conservative agenda and get elected in the current political environment, I would vote for him or her. Right now, that candidate doesn't exist.
There is no such thing as the perfect conservative and to believe there is, is a fallacy. Ronald Reagan was a great conservative thinker, candidate and President, but even Reagan wasn't perfect. My objective is to make sure the Demlibrat's aren't successful in the upcoming elections and that PresBush is reelected, and the GOP holds onto Congress.
But Reagan didn't have the majority of the Congress, either.
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