Live Thread: Bush Speech About New Orleans (9 pm EDT)

www.freerepublic.com | September 15 , 2005

[freema]

Oh, Flux, don't mind me ;) If you leave now, perhaps right when some folks have begun a great awakening... are, perhaps, at the cusp- and may not only need what you've been doing, but want you to help lead change? What if, you've gotten to the door, but turn around and walk away? What if?

If I may, there have been many, many times
I have worked to the point
where I considered all my time and efforts fruitless,
but I pushed on,
just one more time,
one more day,
one more moment,
and every piece fell into place.

I don't say this to 'push' you, yet I do.
I also say them to encourage you.
Change requires taking your tenacity and perseverance through the door, not to the door.
And you've got the cavalry at your doorstep.

I don't know how deep your ties to LA run-I left my 'home' years ago for economic reasons, and while I have never quite acclimated to each region I've lived in : ) I have been happy. If you leave, Good Luck, and Godspeed.

I'll sure be keeping you in my thoughts. Please keep me posted!

[DoughtyOne]

Hi, we're the members of the MSM, and we're getting tired of being told we're all from the same mold.

Sure some of us are cracked.  Some of us are even rotten.  But when all is said an done, our shells are no thinner than anyone elses.

We do yolk around a lot, and I'll even admit that sometimes part of our product is yellow.

It does take at least a dozen of us to equal one good conservative, but we're a shameless lot.

We just don't give a damn about the U.S.  It sucks and we'll take it down any way we can.

If you're a southpaw, throw us at a conservative today.  It's what we live for.

[BigSkyFreeper]

That's the crux of the biscuit. Whether or not a person will bootstrap themselves, or if people are justified sitting on their thumbs until some government/social construct gives them a reason and/or a "hands-up" means to work.

It certainly won't be someone like Jesse Jackson that will give them a heads up, he's looking for hands outstretched. If he doesn't get that, he better find a new line of work.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I am wrapping up an $103,000 repair/remodel job on my home from the Florida hurricanes of lat year. We Floridians did not get free $2000 debit cards or $60 BILLION of taxpayer money to grease the wheeels. My insurance paid just a fraction of my $103,000, and FEMA ZERO (maybe because I did not apply).

Would you have been happier with $2000 instead and a government trailer?

[BigSkyFreeper]

BSF, I am currently watching early 80s era public housing "projects" that replaced the original Great Society ones being torn down to be replaced once again with newer brighter shining city on the hill models that in another 20 years will be totaled.

This rebuilding project isn't going to take 20 years.

[BigSkyFreeper]

"Building more minority owned business" is REVERSE DISCRIMINATION, since President Bush is implying here that some of the $60 billion (and more) will be spent to pump money to minorities who want to start a business.

It's not REVERSE DISCRIMINATION anymore than it is PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT when white small business owners get the same loan when they apply for the same small business loans these black folks will be applying for.

[eddiemunster]

You miss the point. Responsible people are sick of carrying the load for those who aren't.

[BigSkyFreeper]

You miss the point. Responsible people are sick of carrying the load for those who aren't.

You sir, need to get your priorities in order.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Once you accomplish the task of getting your priorities in order, come back to me with the exact quote in the speech where President Bush said he would raise everyone's taxes.

[KDD]

Thus it is that what we are attempting to do in this rapid survey of the historical progress of certain ideas, is to trace the genesis of an attitude of mind, a set of terms in which now practically everyone thinks of the State; and then to consider the conclusions towards which this psychical phenomenon unmistakably points. Instead of recognizing the State as "the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men," the run of mankind, with rare exceptions, regards it not only as a final and indispensable entity, but also as, in the main, beneficent. The mass-man, ignorant of its history, regards its character and intentions as social rather than anti-social; and in that faith he is willing to put at its disposal an indefinite credit of knavery, mendacity and chicane, upon which its administrators may draw at will. Instead of looking upon the State's progressive absorption of social power with the repugnance and resentment that he would naturally feel towards the activities of a professional-criminal organization, he tends rather to encourage and glorify it, in the belief that he is somehow identified with the State, and that therefore, in consenting to its indefinite aggrandizement, he consents to something in which he has a share - he is, pro tanto, aggrandizing himself. Professor Ortega y Gasset analyzes this state of mind extremely well. The mass-man, he says, confronting the phenomenon of the State,


"sees it, admires it, knows that there it is. . . . Furthermore, the mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem, presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. . . . When the mass suffers any ill-fortune, or simply feels some strong appetite, its great temptation is that permanent sure possibility of obtaining everything, without effort, struggle, doubt, or risk, merely by touching a button and setting the mighty machine in motion."


It is the genesis of this attitude, this state of mind, and the conclusions which inexorably follow from its predominance, that we are attempting to get at through our present survey. These conclusions may perhaps be briefly forecast here, in order that the reader who is for any reason indisposed to entertain them may take warning of them at this point, and close the book.

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.[2] 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,[3] 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."

Our Enemy, The State
by Albert J. Nock - 1935

http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets0.html

[eddiemunster]

What are you talking about? Did I mention taxes? We were discussing people who pay their insurance faithfully and take responsibility for their life and future. While others neglect that duty and let the appropriate gov't agency pay the bill.

[eddiemunster]

I do appreciate, however, your attempt at liberal guilt.

[TAdams8591]

"How can you be 'offended' by a term? Isn't that a bit hypersensitive?"

Our discussion concerns far more than just a "term." It is the consideration of an idea which in part means the concept of conservatism, when not preceded by "compassionate" isn't.

Thus, inferentially, those of us who deeply believed in conservatism long, long, before President Bush appeared on the national stage, steadfastly and seemingly supported an ideology lacking in caring humanity. By more than mere implication, with those words (BTW, words mean something), the introduction by candidate George W. Bush of this concept to the national debate during his first presidential bid, suggested he was supplying the missing and vital ingredient which finally made conservatism a politically viable philosophy after several decades, achieving something all the great conservative thinkers who preceded him including Ronald Reagan, hadn't.

The term as well as the practical application of the concept, does and did NOT dispel a notion falsely perpetuated by the media but rather instead, enhances the myth that conservatism previously DID lack compassion thus continuing not only to perpetuate the lies told by the leftist media since the inception of conservatism into the national consciousness, but also simultaneously perpetuating like government spending and destructive dependency programs promulgated by the Liberals and railed against by conservatives over the same period of time.

Furthermore, "compassionate conservatism" as defined by President Bush, is therefore contrary to President Reagan's belief that government isn't the solution to the problem, it IS the problem. Most unfortunately, "W" views it, at least in part, as a SOLUTION. Thus, during his tenure, we have witnessed the continuing growth of government and government spending and in short liberalism with a small "l."

The differences in the philosophy of the two presidents is quite striking in this regard. To someone who so firmly believed in conservatism as expounded by Ronald Reagan, the introduction of "W's" "compassionate conservatism" into the Republican mainstream and practice of governance, is no trite matter. In a variety of ways it is furtherance of the same old FDR liberalism, and is most offensive indeed.

You do quite well arguing point by point. I suggest you stick with that strategy and lose the personal barbs.

Just a gentle reminder, it's Miss Adams.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I do appreciate, however, your attempt at liberal guilt.

Yeah, thats the same reaction I got during the SS reform debates.

[BigSkyFreeper]

What are you talking about? Did I mention taxes? We were discussing people who pay their insurance faithfully and take responsibility for their life and future. While others neglect that duty and let the appropriate gov't agency pay the bill.

Right, and I mentioned where in the speech did he say he was going to raise taxes.

[Keisha]

yes, I saw the interviews and clapped with joy , that some black americans were having these opinions, democrats can parade their visceral tune to the viscerals only to find out they are more civilized than assumed,,,,,,,,,,,,civilized and aware!

[Keisha]

yes, I saw the interviews and clapped with joy , that some black americans were having these opinions, democrats can parade their visceral tune to the viscerals only to find out they are more civilized than assumed,,,,,,,,,,,,civilized and aware!

[Keisha]

yes, I saw the interviews and clapped with joy , that some black americans were having these opinions, democrats can parade their visceral tune to the viscerals only to find out they are more civilized than assumed,,,,,,,,,,,,civilized and aware!

[BigSkyFreeper]

Churches are getting involved in their lives and lives can and will be changed.

That's a positive sign! Being involved in a local Church with like-minded Christians is the bedrock to optimism and opportunity. My life was in the proverbial muck and mirea few years ago, and at that point I was at a low point. I convinced myself to get back into the local church, commited myself to Him, and from that point on things quickly snowballed and quickly turned around.

[BigSkyFreeper]

My lord, we have been throwing trillions of dollars at people for decades now and you think this time it's gonna really work--

After 60 years of failed Liberal policies, it's time to turn things around and start doing it our way.