Posted on 08/11/2008 9:11:39 PM PDT by goldstategop
The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s. Not one of them is now.
Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.
I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by.
I believe that the bigger government gets and the more powerful the state becomes, the greater the threat to individual liberty and the greater the likelihood that evil will ensue. In the 20th century, the powerful state, not religion, was the greatest purveyor of evil in the world.
I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. "Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested" is legalized thievery.
I believe that government funding of those who can help themselves (e.g., the able-bodied who collect welfare) or who can be helped by non-governmental institutions (such as private charities, family, and friends) hurts them and hurts society.
I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.
I believe that some murderers should be put death; that allowing all murderers to live does not elevate the value of human life, but mocks it, and that keeping all murderers alive trivializes the evil of murder.
I believe that the American military has done more to preserve and foster goodness and liberty on Earth than all the artists and professors in America put together.
I believe that lowering standards to admit minorities mocks the real achievements of members of those minorities.
I believe that when schools give teenagers condoms, it is understood by most teenagers as tacit approval of their engaging in sexual intercourse.
I believe that the assertions that manmade carbon emissions will lead to a global warming that will in turn bring on worldwide disaster are a function of hysteria, just as was the widespread liberal belief that heterosexual AIDS will ravage America.
I believe that marriage must remain what has been in every recorded civilization -- between the two sexes.
I believe that, whatever the reasons for entering Iraq, the American-led removal of Saddam Hussein from power will decrease the sum total of cruelty on Earth.
I believe that the trial lawyers associations and teachers unions, the greatest donors to the Democratic Party, have done great harm to American life -- far more than, let us say, oil companies and pharmaceutical companies, the targets of liberal opprobrium.
I believe that nuclear power, clean coal, and drilling in a tiny and remote frozen part of Alaska and offshore -- along with exploration of other energy alternatives such as wind and solar power -- are immediately necessary.
I believe that school vouchers are more effective than increased spending on public schools in enabling many poorer Americans to give their children better educations.
I believe that while there are racists in America, America is no longer a racist society, and that blaming disproportionate rates of black violence and out-of-wedlock births on white racism is a lie and the greatest single impediment to African-American progress.
I believe that America, which accepts and assimilates foreigners better than any other country in the world, is the least racist, least xenophobic country in the world.
I believe the leftist takeover of the liberal arts departments in nearly every American university has been an intellectual and moral calamity.
I believe that a good man and a good marriage are more important to most women's happiness and personal fulfillment than a good career.
I believe that males and females are inherently different. For example, girls naturally prefer dolls and tea sets to trucks and toy guns -- if you give a girl trucks, she is likely to give them names and take care of them, and if you give a boy trucks, he is likely to crash them into one another.
I believe that when it comes to combating the greatest evils on Earth, such as the genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations has either been useless or an obstacle.
I believe that, generally speaking, Western Europe provides social and moral models to be avoided, not emulated.
I believe that America's children were positively affected by hearing a non-denominational prayer each morning in school, and adversely affected by the removal of all prayer from school.
I believe that liberal educators' removal of school uniforms and/or dress codes has had a terrible impact on students and their education.
I believe that bilingual education does not work, that for the sake of immigrant children and for the sake of the larger society, immersion in the language of the country, meaning English in America, is mandatory.
I believe that English should be declared the national language, and that ballots should not be printed in any language other than English. If one cannot understand English, one is probably not sufficiently knowledgeable to vote intelligently in an English-speaking country.
Finally, I believe that there are millions of Americans who share most of these beliefs who still call themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and who therefore vote Democrat. They do so because they still identify liberalism with pre-1970 liberalism or because they are emotionally attached to the word "liberal."
I share that emotion. But one should vote based on values, not emotions.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Great post, goldstategop. Thanks.
Wow ! Ever since I could walk, I have held each one of those beliefs !
Dennis Prager nails it, in my opinion.
yep.. Dennis Prager brought me to conservatism. Thank you Dennis for all you have done for me.
Good post..
btt
btt
Great post!! btt
Dennis was one of my de-programmers during my political re-orientation. Along with Rush and Larry Elder, he demolished my lifelong liberal indoctrination, and helped me to escape the plantation.
I've stopped trying to convert my liberal family, but this article is so good, that I sent it to them anyway. I hope they read it and understand me better.
Thank you, Dennis.
Bump for later Tuesday reading.
An exceptional column - thank you for posting it.
I,too, would add the firearms statement.
Somehow we need to reeducate the masses as to what America was intended to be, and indeed became, and how it came to be that. Public education has spent nearly 50 years turning out students who have little or no understanding of America and why it's so very special in the history of the world.
BUMP
" I am a minister of the Gospel and therefore, feel that abortion has a religious and moral dimension that I must consider. . . .
"From my perspective, human life is the highest good, the summum bonum . Human life itself is the highest human good and God is the supreme good because He is the giver of life. That is my philosophy. Everything I do proceeds from that religious and philosophical premise.
"Life is the highest good and therefore you fight for life, using means consistent with that end. Life is the highest human good not on its own naturalistic merits, but because life is supernatural, a gift from God. Therefore, life is the highest human good because life is sacred. . . . It takes three to make a baby: a man, a woman and the Holy Spirit. . . .
"Human beings cannot give or create life by themselves, it is really a gift from God. Therefore, one does not have the right to take away (through abortion) that which he does not have the ability to give. . . .
"In conclusion, even if one does take life by aborting the baby, as a minister of Jesus Christ I must also inform and-or remind you that there is a doctrine of forgiveness. The God I serve is a forgiving God. The men who killed President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. can be forgiven. Everyone can come to the mercy seat and find forgiveness and acceptance. But, and this may be the essence of my argument, suppose one is so hard-hearted and so in-different to life until he assumes that there is nothing for which to be forgiven. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?
"It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth."
Then Jesse Jackson decided to run as a Democrat candidate for president, which transaction requires the sale of a soul.
There was a culture war launched in the 20th century that only now is coming to fruition.
Certainly the youth movement didn’t hold to these “liberal” principles in the 1960s. They wanted Communism. Marx, Che. These were their heroes. As were the Yippies, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, Abbie Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Jerry Rubin, etc. etc.
Sex, drugs, rock and roll (which until the commies took it over was derided as kids’ junk by the folkie pinkos). But Jann Wener copped Crawdaddy’s approach and made a mint off of Rolling Stoned tabloid/magazine. Today it is as political as any other publication of the Left.
Condoms in schools wasn’t about preventing disease or pregnancy, it was about forever shifting the argument from IF kids have sex to WHEN. That is a principle of the Sex Positive agenda, get everyone sexually active at every age and end the moral judgements over any sexual pairings. Kinsey, Reich, and feminists pushed for the Sex Positive agenda and wanted to usher in a new age.
Has abortion become a cruch? Has it cheapened life? Are there still botched abortions even in clinics that butcher young girls in absence of parental consent only to go home and die?
Prolife Jesse Jackson PING!
“Life is the highest good and therefore you fight for life, using means consistent with that end. Life is the highest human good not on its own naturalistic merits, but because life is supernatural, a gift from God. Therefore, life is the highest human good because life is sacred. . . . It takes three to make a baby: a man, a woman and the Holy Spirit. . . .
“Human beings cannot give or create life by themselves, it is really a gift from God. Therefore, one does not have the right to take away (through abortion) that which he does not have the ability to give. .” - Jesse Jackson
Algore could also speak authoritatively about a Faustian bargain:
“It is my deep personal conviction that abortion is wrong,” Gore wrote to a constituent in 1984 when he was representing Tennessee in the House. “Let me assure you that I share your belief that innocent human life must be protected, and I have an open mind about how to further this goal.”
When asked whether he still believed what he wrote in a separate 1987 letter to a constituent, that abortion is “the taking of a human life,” Gore responded, “I didn’t write that. I used the word ‘arguably’” before the words “the taking of a human life,” he said. “ I would not use that phrasing today,” he added.
Gore is half right. In another letter from 1984, Gore indeed said abortion was “arguably the taking of a human life.” But Gore continued, “It is my deep personal belief that abortion is wrong. I hope some day we will see the. outrageously large number of abortions drop sharply.”
Source: Boston Globe, p. A30 Jan 30, 2000
PING
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