Posted on 08/14/2006 6:44:55 PM PDT by pissant
Excerpt from Pat Buchanan:
"As in New Deal days, our Cultural Revolution, and the high times of the Great Society, a conservative today must be a counterrevolutionary. While Bush’s judges and Supreme Court justices have been top of the line and his tax cuts conservative, his democracy crusade and his open-borders immigration policy, his Big Government conservatism and free-trade-über-alles globalism owe more to FDR and LBJ than Goldwater or Reagan.
But the returns are now coming in from the Bush experiment with a Rockefeller Republicanism that he calls “compassionate conservatism.”
The rising casualties and soaring costs of an unnecessary war in Iraq, an overstretched military, immense trade deficits that must bring down the dollar, the loss of sovereignty and economic independence, a bloated federal bureaucracy to which Bushites have added as much as LBJ, an unresisted invasion over our southern border, the selling of the party of Reagan to the money power—all are the marks of an empire at the end of its tether."
From Nick Gillespie:
"As a small-“l” libertarian—a believer in “free minds and free markets” (to quote my magazine’s tagline), open immigration, civil liberties, educational and reproductive choice, gun rights, pluralism, noninterventionist foreign policy, drug legalization, gay marriage, and perhaps most scandalously of all, a world of meaning far beyond politics in which people are generally free to pursue individual and communal happiness on something approaching their own terms—it’s hard to get too worked up over whether the terms “liberal” and “conservative” mean much anymore. This is sort of like trying to decide whether Razzles are really a candy or a gum: it’s drawing a distinction that doesn’t amount to much of a difference. From the first bite to the last, you still end up with a bad taste in your mouth."
From Rod Dreher:
"Nearly 20 years ago, the leftist critic Christopher Lasch said something that must have struck most people as odd: that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” have outlived their usefulness and serve more to obscure our understanding of the conditions under which Americans live than to illumine them. Given the partisan passions of the day—the Reagan era was coming to an end—and the vast stores of energy that both liberals and conservatives had remaining for the battles ahead, it’s easy to understand why it was hard to see Lasch’s point. From where we stand today, with liberalism intellectually exhausted (still!), and a once vigorous conservatism having no idea how to rescue itself from its own shipwreck of the last five years, Lasch—who died in 1994—looks prophetic. It’s time that the rest of us catch up with him."
I invite all freepers to give a couple of paragraphs or less in this endeavor
Link to the AC's website:
http://www.amconmag.com/
Sorry, Pat. I no longer ride to the sound of your gums.
As for as the left-right thing, he's right. The spectrum has to be between liberty and authoritarian government. Then we see that both parties are approaching statist rule, and we can begin to vote accordingly.
What is Left? What is Right? Does it Matter?
It matters.
Divide and conquer, and ancient concept has been used quite effectively aganist We the People for about 150 years................
He's too busy buying another highlight marker for his copy of Mein Kampf.
Pissant's definition of left and right as it stands today.
Left: Socialists at heart, except for themselves. Disdain for our founders and the notion of American exceptionalism. Peace through negotiations. Empahsis on equal validity amongst all cultures (except the white judeo christian culture of the US). Believers in equal outcome "justice". Religion to be used for advancing "tolerance" as opposed to advocating long accepted definitions of what is good and evil.
Right: Firm believers in the original intent of the US Constitution and in our nation's structure as a constitutional republic. Acknowledgement of American exceptionalism. Reverence for traditions in religion and social structures. Emphasis on individual freedom and opposition to collectivism and monetary redistribution. Acknowledgement of the evil that exists in the world, and willingness to confront it at.
You mean you did at one time? LOL
I don't believe the GOP is anything approaching an authoritarian gov't. And no, the Patriot Act ain't authoritarian, it's anti-suicidal.
It's a long read, but so well worth it.
The Reagan revolution will continue and the left is on the ropes.
Conservative
Leftist
I think Jefferson's initial support for the French Revolution and the Jacobins would put an asterisk by his name.
And what would that * denote?
That he supported a movement to overthrow the monarchy in France that was far different in its worldview as the American revolution of which he was a large part. Robespierre and his ilk were anarchists and humanists and socialists rolled into one gigantic unlovable fuzzball.
/*
Edmund Burke, a wll known english conservative, who supported the American revolution, predicted the mess the jacobins would make with their radicalism, and even predicted the rise of a military authoritarian. Jefferson did not. Be that as it may, Jefferson was a great thinker and worthy of the status he has today.
Pat, Pat, Pat.
We don't need your isolationism, protectionism or egotism to lead us around, nor your bunch of moralistic reformers to tell everyone how to live and what not to smoke.
America's salvation will not be found in either yours or GWB's form of big government socialism. Boortz has the right idea.
Get over yourself. Nixon is dead. Price controls don't work. Trade unions suck. Howard Dean needs a speech writer and you two would make a good pair.....of nuts.
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