Okay, so being 38 is not old?
Great!
Posted on 02/23/2010 8:57:15 AM PST by publius321
When I attend many conservative functions in my early 20's, I was usually the young "whipper snapper" in the room. Now that I am 39 years of age, one troubling thing that I have noticed is that I am -STILL- the young Whipper Snapper in the room.
Morality is dying off with the “greatest generation”. As I look into this CPAC audience I noticed something a little different than the conservative functions to which I am accustomed. I see allot of...
(Excerpt) Read more at ThurstonHowell.NET ...
“Would that be the generation the voted for massive Social Security and Medicare entitlements, COLAs and most recently, prescription drug benefits? Theft was immoral last time I checked.”
I totally agree with you. I am talking about “traditional” values. They don’t see the aforementioned litany of benefits as theft. Even though some have received more than they paid into SS, they see it as an entitlement.
It’s like saying that the people who got out of the Madoff Ponzi before anyone knew it was a Ponzi are thiefs.
CPAc apparently is not about conservatism. The hell with them.
“Well I wasn’t there and from what I saw in this video, “conservatives” who -were- there seemed shamefully silent.”
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Being called a “hateful homophobe” is second only to “racist” in the pantheon of leftist intimidation. This tactic works especially well agaainst young conservatives, who are not yet sure of their ideology.
You can even see traces of it in some of the propaganda posted on this thread.
Reagan did not pursue a "social conservative" agenda, with the exception of abortion. He didn't even mention the "cultural" issues during his pre-campaign addresses or during his campaign, with the exception of references to marijuana. Even those were ambiguous.
What did he do during his Presidency?
-Filled his FCC with libertarians who believed that broadcasting should be regulated through the use of the onn-off switch.
-"The Meese Commission"? A distraction at best with as much impact on the American culture as French rock and roll.
-"Just Say No"? Based on encouraging individuals to make smart decisions much more than on the rule of law.
It’s also a Libertarian approach.
The questions seems to be whether they ought to be affirming homosexual conduct in a conservative forum.
Missing the mark in the sexual conduct department is a very common thing. Most of our conservative leaders and divorced and remarried, some multiple times. Many have been involved in episodes of fornication or adultery. Some have begotten or conceived children out of wedlock. Some have a proclivity for pornography or prostitution.
And rare is the conservative who would like the less edifying moments in their "Sins of Youth Period" to be more widely known and remarked upon.
Call it the sad truth if you want to, but call it the truth.
However, as a conservative I wouldn't want people to be soliciting positive affirmation or organizing the advancement of such things. Whatever (say) Newt Gingrich's marital history, I wouldn't want to register an organization called "Conservatives for Multiple Marriage Pride." Like I said.
What a crock. Government spending for : Faith Base Initiatives, expansion of Ed. Dept. (No child left behind), prescription drugs, massive increases in spending vs. GDP, bailouts galore. All under Bush. Fiscal conservatives? Spare me.
The problem, however, is that groups like GOProud are violating the "compact."
Let's face it - the "Religious Right" is not "forcing its values" on anyone. That is simply bumper sticker fodder for social libertarians. Quite frankly, I know of very few social conservatives who actually want to "force their values onto others." They are most concerned with it being done to them - and let's face it, if there's values-forcing going on, it's being done FAR MORE by the social radicals than it is by the social conservatives.
The main issues that motivate the "religious right" - abortion and gay marriage - are both PUBLIC issues that belong in the PUBLIC domain. Neither have anything to do with "what you do in your own bedroom."
If you want to fornicate, that's your business. If you want to kill the child who resulted from your lack of self-control, that is OUR business. Murder is not "private" merely because it takes place behind closed doors. I can't blow somebody away in cold blood in my own home, and not be prosecuted just because the act was done privately. Likewise, murdering unborn children becomes the business of society - ALL of us - it's not an act that exists merely between a woman and her doctor.
Likewise, gay marriage involves the demand on the part of gay activists that the rest of society sanction their particular lifestyle to the point of redefining one of themost fundamental bedrocks of our social system. It is not a private issue. If gays want to do their thing behind closed doors, that's their business. It's when they start demanding that the rest of us grant the legitimacy of marriage to it that it becomes our business.
And as far as equal rights are concerned - it's NOT an equal rights issue. Any gay man has the exact same marriage rights as any straight man. Any gay man can marry any unmarried woman he chooses. No straight man can marry another man, even if were to want to. So, you might say, that doesn't take into account their preferences. So what? Nobody guarantees you that you're always going to get everything you prefer in life. Nobody has the civil right to have every last thing they could ever want.
What we see with both the abortion and the gay marriage issue is that social radicals (a minority, btw, if polls and elections mean anything) are forcing THEIR beliefs onto the rest of us. Sounds like it THEY who are violating the compact.
Further, let's not exaggerate the "libertarianism" of the Reagan administration. Reagan was against abortion, and surrounded himself with people who were. The policy of dishonourably discharging discovered homosexuals from the military still existed all throughout his administration. Reagan was no libertarian hero when it comes to taking action against public issues that libertarians disagree with conservatives about.
Your error is conflating Bush with social conservatives. Bush was not a conservative, he was a populist.
I'm a social conservative, and I didn't support a single one of the things you listed. Most of the rest of the social conservatives I know, both on FR and off, didn't either. Clearly, you're blowing smoke out of your orifices.
Excellent post.
I would add that at the heart of it, most Americans are “social conservatives”.
Good post there TQC !! We’ve already seen how public the issue of Homosexual Marriage has become when homosexual couples have already adopted healthy White infants when there are true married couples waiting in line for such children. The real tragedy is that what is best for the children is not being done.
We’ve also seen Catholic charities forced out of the adoption biz by being mandated by law to view homosexual couples as equally deserving as man-woman couples.
It's hard to be the "backbone" of the party that controlled Congress and the Executive for so long and yet not have your fingerprints on any of the reckless behavior that happened.
You can call me names, say I'm blowing smoke, tell me you had nothing to do with the Bush years. Whatever. But I would think now that the budgetary house is burning down (in part because of the spending that occurred in the eight years prior to Obama) and that the obvious problem is continuous massive government spending, that you would have more important things to worry about than gays in the party.
Morality is dying off.No dummimg is working along with being just to lazy to care it’s the 60’s anew.
You can’t blame boomers, the countries leaders have been moving right since boomers started gaining some leadership in the late 1980s on.
When you look at the fatal destruction of America look at the period of 1935 to 1980.
If you want to see social conservatism look at the first 150 years of America, your anti social conservative side made it’s big gains in the 1960s on unless you want to include FDR’s war against social conservatives with his social services which undermined families and churches and started replacing Christianity with the more (socially) libertarian state.
So you support homosexual marriage, polygamy and removing the age restricitions for marriage? All of these are desired by some churches, but the voters have a state set standard for legal marriage.
Are you even listening to the nonsense you're spouting?
The backbone of the GOP is made up of material not unlike that which makes up the majority of Free Republic's membership.
The majority of Free Republic's membership, if you asked them, would most likely tell you that the GOP listens to its base about as much as Archie Bunker listens to Ethel.
There's a reason why the GOP lost in 2006 and 2008 - and that reason is that it ticked its base off royally. When that happens, all sorts of bad things happen to a Party, like fewer votes, less funds raised, fewer people being willing to volunteer. These all happened, as we have empirically ascertained.
In short, the GOP lost so badly because its out of touch insiders and big name politicians, for the most part, told the base to take a flying leap. And it paid for it in lost elections.
And here's something else to consider - most of these insiders and politicos are people who ideologically are very similar to folks like David Frum or John McCain - "pragmatic" folks who may be somewhat conservative unless they can be talked out of it. And they are also, generally, open to social liberalism. THAT is reality. The GOP's problems are largely the result of listening more to (perhaps incidentally, but perhaps not) social libertarians instead of listening to its own all-around (including social) conservative base and staying on the True Path.
Who are the usual culprits in Congress when it comes to going along with spending when you don't "have to"? The "moderate, pragmatic" wing of the GOP which just so happens to be...drum roll please...socially libertarian.
There's a reason for this. It's that when you stand for nothing morally, you're not going to stand for anything else either. Everything becomes optional, for the right price or the right persuasion.
Face it - social libertarians are simply untrustworthy when it comes to truly standing for conservativism. Sorry, but we don't see social conservatives like Jim DeMint or Rick Enzi going along with the Dems and voting to end the filibuster on the "jobs" bill. Instead, it took social liberals like Collins, Snowe, and (yes) Scott Brown to do so. In fact, it is almost ALWAYS the case that when some Republican or group of Republicans vote to backstab conservatives and conservative principles, the culprits come from the wing of the Party that just so happens to be socially liberal. There's always a "pragmatic" reason why they "have" to take a non-conservative route with those folks.
No thanks. Not interested.
Okay, so being 38 is not old?
Great!
Do you have a source for those biographies?
Bull, Reagan was the darling of social conservatives, the libertarians had their greatest year in American politics in 1980 trying to defeat Ronald Reagan. They have never reached those levels again as when they were united against him.
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