Posted on 09/09/2004 6:52:45 AM PDT by Pokey78
bump
For the author to describe Kerry as "Conservative Lite" is like saying that Stalin was a major advocate for Democracy.
Could the author be more out of touch??
Apparently the author thinks that 12 straight months of job growth and continued increases in GDP and productivity constitutes a "weak economy".
"The Republicans have long since taken over from the British Conservatives as the most successful right-wing party in the West. The Republicans have held the presidency for all but 12 of the past 36 years. They now control both Houses of Congress as well as a majority of the state legislatures and most of the governorships."Yes, and it's no coincidence that the United States is the only nation in the West that is still ascendant--or that the United States is the last bastion of Western Civilization still in existance.
Europe is decadent. If it were not for the U.S., Europe would have fallen long ago. It is only the healthy American Heartland--Bush Country, Republican America--that keeps decadent Europe and Democrat America from descending into the Third World.
If you want to be a conservative in America, read Alvin Toffler. We're futurists now. And the fact John F*ckin' is running rightwards at times is an indication of where the center of political gravity in this country lies. People will prefer the real article to the pretend one. For what its worth, I have yet to meet a liberal who believes America's best days are still to come.
The second much more controversial force is religion. America is a far more religious country than any of its European counterparts. More than 60 per cent of Americans say that religion plays an important role in their lives.
Britain and much of Europe are floundering without a moral compass (even if Americans don't live up to ours half the time) and they're unable to face the Muslim challenge. There's a vacuum there, and it will be filled by something.
The authors are writing for an "England-based" readership; not specifically towards the American readership. The dance England is currently doing could classically be referred to as a "hip-hop" amid the "minefields" of the EU. Quite precarious position, IMHO, England is in, currently.
Used to be my home church. Unfortunately they backed away significantly from passing out voter guides and other legal stuff.
In Britain the Left long ago won the cultural wars.
And therein lies the problem. The Conservative Party cannot be truly conservative and still win, because secular humanism triumphed long ago in Great Britain. In America the victor in the culture war is still in doubt.
That's a good point, xJones. Secularism is really just humanism with a pretend face of neutrality. If people insist on living without God (witness Old Testament Israel), sometimes God will delive them into the hands of their mortal enemies (radical Islam???) Just a theory.
Bump!
These guys don't know the difference between a conservative and a RINO. But they are right that Americans are optimistic, religious, and forward looking. The Democrats have, paradoxically, become the angry, nostalgic party of the past, and it has badly damaged them.
I saw these guys, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, on a C-SPAN event, and they got many things wrong. During the chat, they mostly glossed over the massive and unending pro-Democratic wave of immigration from the 3rd World. When asked about it by an audience member they spoke of how Hispanics will become more Republican or conservative, which hasn't really happened.
But the most absurd thing they said was that the 'socially and culturally conservative Catholic Hispanics' would inject some social conservatism into the Democratic party, thus making the country more conservative by making the liberal party less liberal.
Well my question is simply; when is this supposed to actually start happening? Hispanics may vote for the ban on gay marriage in California, but it doesn't stop them from voting for ultra-liberal Senators like Barbara Boxer and Feinstein. It doesn't stop them from voting for very liberal Congressmen who do in fact support things like gay marriage.
And there is the fact that most Hispanic members of Congress are on the far left, and give virtually no political expression to the alleged cultural conservatism of their people/constituents. It is the same thing for black members of Congress.
So I fail to see any significant injection of social conservatism into the Democratic party from immigrants.
I found the author to be remarkably insightful considering the typical European predisposition toward all things American.
I wouldn't get to caught up in semantics. Those moderate Republicans who chafe under the term "right-wing" probably don't feel the label burn nearly as badly as moderate Democrats do when called "liberal" or "leftist."
It's evident to me that our real war isn't just with radical Islam...It's increasingly growing to include the rest of the world which will not be happy until we are a socialist nanny state at the disposal of the U.N.
Whether we deserve it or not, America is the eminent economic, military, moral, and political force in the world. This is no accident--it's directly attributable to the unflagging hard work and optimism of the average American citizen, and to a foundation of solid, conservative values.
The American Heartland and its representative, President Bush, have much to offer the world and especially the Western nations--including a pathway out of the quagmire of delusion, decadence, and doom. However, they stubbornly refuse to accept the very leadership that can save them--and, in fact, like delusional individuals, they attack with fury the very truths that offer them clarity, hope, and salvation--not to mention the very people who offer them these truths!
This makes sense. If the delusional, decadent, and doomed were capable of understanding the ascendant and of accepting their leadership, they wouldn't be delusional, decadent, and doomed in the first place. They wouldn't need leadership; they would be providing it!
Actually, I think he's on the money. He isn't saying Kerry IS conservative, but simply trying to tell the American people that he is. Big difference. He called him "John ‘Dukakis’ Kerry" for cryin out loud!
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