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Conservatives are fond of preaching the importance ...
The Future of Freedom Foundation ^ | September 27, 2001 | Jacob G. Hornberger

Posted on 09/28/2001 7:45:14 AM PDT by sendtoscott

Conservatives are fond of preaching the importance of taking "individual responsibility" for one's actions and beliefs. But when you ask them whether they're willing to take responsibility for the robberies and muggings that their beloved decades-long war on drugs have produced, they always and inevitably respond with, "Oh, no. We don't intend our policies to result in those things and therefore we're not responsible for them. Only robbers and muggers, with their lack of respect for liberty and private property, are responsible for their actions and beliefs."

Today, when you ask conservatives whether they're willing to take responsibility for their beloved decades-long foreign-aid program and interventionist foreign policy that have produced so much enmity, hatred, and perverse consequences for our country, their response is, not surprisingly, the same: "Oh, no. We don't intend our policies to result in those things and therefore we're not responsible for them. Only terrorists, with their lack of respect for liberty and private property, are responsible for their actions."

Question for conservatives: With respect to welfare programs, do you still feel that good intentions don't matter and that advocates of the decades-long war on poverty should take responsibility for its destructive consequences, or do you now feel that only the food-stamp mother in the grocery-store line is responsible for her actions and beliefs?


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To: AppyPappy
"Conservatives believe that societal influences can corrupt people. We also believe that risk is a variable to crime. That is why we oppose porn, drugs and drunk driving."

Well said, worthy of repeating.

I would also add that conservatives have a much keener sense of the reality of the nature of humans, that we are bent on self-destruction. We also understand that the vast majority of laws address this fact, hence, laws such as murder, theft, speeding, drug control, etc. Clearly conservatives are far more wiser and mature than libertarians.

Libertarians, on the other hand, in pursuit of a their own selfish agendas, decry any restraint on their endeavors, failing or refusing to see the ultimate outcome: anarchy. Libertarians are only able to see up to their fingertips, whereas conservatives see the "big picture." Because of that, conservatives are and make better public servants than do libertarians.

21 posted on 09/28/2001 8:34:11 AM PDT by A2J
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To: sendtoscott
"Today, when you ask conservatives whether they're willing to take responsibility for their beloved decades-long foreign-aid program and interventionist foreign policy that have produced so much enmity, hatred, and perverse consequences for our country,"

Think Jacob Hornberger is mixing up his fruit bowl. . .

Would just want to back up and ask Jacob and every other Liberal who holds to this argument that 'America deserved this. . .or asked 'for it'; by 'virtue' of our foreign policies; just what do you mean?

If 'Western Civilization' walks in 'western shoes and dress' that may not be soooo bad, given the alternatives perhaps, of life in some parts of the world. . .and McDonald's does not create starving refugees.

Of course, Liberals do not say specifically what our sins are, or if they include as well, that of saving Muslims all over the planet and feeding those starving ones as well. . .and relocating many in our cities and towns across America. . .sending money to their families 'back home'. . .but maybe in time, the Liberals will address these sins of ours. . .allowing for the 'imperfect' of course.

In addition to their supposed justification of hate for America, what might the justification be for these people, hating their own countrymen. . .why are they practicing the worst atrocities of ethnic cleansing? Religious 'cleansing'?

Why are these 'spiritual' people, going around the world killing, maiming those who have had NOTHING to do with them? Why in the twenty-first century, are they insisting that EVERYone share their world of the first millenium? We HAVE BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. . .

Do think Liberals prefer to stay on this tack of our foreign policy being responsible. They surely do not want to look at the 'red flag's' that their own Liberalism has waved, which gave these zealots another manufactured 'justification' to hate and kill and destroy our country of 'infidels'.

But why nitpik over Welfare? Jacob is a little 'sensitive', over-reactive, perhaps; but a classic Liberal fellow who just does not 'get it'.

22 posted on 09/28/2001 8:35:48 AM PDT by cricket
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To: sendtoscott
"Pot is California's biggest cash crop. Are they poverty and disease-ridden?"

Please provide documentation of how much revenue California received through the production of pot.

Don't look now, but your extremism is showing again.

23 posted on 09/28/2001 8:36:12 AM PDT by A2J
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To: sendtoscott
"Today, when you ask conservatives whether they're willing to take responsibility for their beloved decades-long foreign-aid program and interventionist foreign policy that have produced so much enmity, hatred, and perverse consequences for our country,"

Think Jacob Hornberger is mixing up his fruit bowl. . .

Would just want to back up and ask Jacob and every other Liberal who holds to this argument that 'America deserved this. . .or asked 'for it'; by 'virtue' of our foreign policies; just what do you mean?

If 'Western Civilization' walks in 'western shoes and dress' that may not be soooo bad, given the alternatives perhaps, of life in some parts of the world. . .and McDonald's does not create starving refugees.

Of course, Liberals do not say specifically what our sins are, or if they include as well, that of saving Muslims all over the planet and feeding those starving ones as well. . .and relocating many in our cities and towns across America. . .sending money to their families 'back home'. . .but maybe in time, the Liberals will address these sins of ours. . .allowing for the 'imperfect' of course.

In addition to their supposed justification of hate for America, what might the justification be for these people, hating their own countrymen. . .why are they practicing the worst atrocities of ethnic cleansing? Religious 'cleansing'?

Why are these 'spiritual' people, going around the world killing, maiming those who have had NOTHING to do with them? Why in the twenty-first century, are they insisting that EVERYone share THEIR world of the first millenium? We HAVE BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. . .

Do think Liberals prefer to stay on this tack of our foreign policy being responsible. They surely do not want to look at the 'red flag's' that their own Liberalism has waved, which gave these zealots another manufactured 'justification' to hate and kill and destroy our country of 'infidels'.

. . .and why nitpik over Welfare? Jacob is a little 'sensitive', over-reactive, perhaps; but a classic 'Liberal' fellow .

24 posted on 09/28/2001 8:38:56 AM PDT by cricket
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To: A2J
in pursuit of a their own selfish agendas

I'm reporting you to Dick Gephardt and Tom Dashole so they can collect royalties for your use of their rhetoric.

25 posted on 09/28/2001 8:43:00 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: A2J
Please provide documentation of how much revenue California received through the production of pot.

If you mean tax revenue, that wasn't my claim, I just said they grew quite a bit and didn't wind up a 4th world country.

From: California Economic Case Studies to accompany Miller, Economics Today, 2001-2002 Edition, published by Addison Wesley Longman

Perhaps the largest cash crop in the state of California is Cannabis sativa, also known as hemp, also known as marijuana. At over $3 billion a year its sales exceed those of the largest legal cash crop--milk and cream.
26 posted on 09/28/2001 8:46:46 AM PDT by sendtoscott
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To: Cultural Jihad
How do you define "drugs"? Please be specific.
27 posted on 09/28/2001 8:48:12 AM PDT by sawsalimb
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Comment #28 Removed by Moderator

To: That Poppins Woman
"Our founding fathers grew acres of hemp."

Could it be that they grew hemp (if they actually did) in order to make baskets and other useful materials, instead of smoking it like you drugheads allege?

29 posted on 09/28/2001 8:49:48 AM PDT by A2J
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Comment #30 Removed by Moderator

To: sendtoscott
Wouldn't the robberies and muggings actually be the responsibility of those committing them?
31 posted on 09/28/2001 8:54:35 AM PDT by Junior
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To: Cultural Jihad
"The Declaration in no way describes inalienable rights as including 'the right to an early death, the slavery to vice, and the pursuit of unneeded suffering.'"

Well said!

32 posted on 09/28/2001 8:54:44 AM PDT by A2J
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To: A2J
According to the "Founding Fathers" documentary on A&E awhile back, Alexander Hamilton drank a gallon of rum punch every day. The modern historians were really surprised at the booze consumption recorded for the whole group.

Drugs are drugs.
33 posted on 09/28/2001 8:54:46 AM PDT by sendtoscott
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To: Hidy
"Only conservatives can end the War on Drugs. "

Oh, I don't know. If the drug users stopped using drugs, that would do it.

34 posted on 09/28/2001 8:56:43 AM PDT by Don Myers
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To: Junior
Wouldn't the robberies and muggings actually be the responsibility of those committing them?

"Government isn't the solution, government is the problem"
-- Ronald Reagan

Was Reagan wrong to blame government instead of individual citizens for the state of the country in 1980? Do lock-em-up conservatives not blame soft-on-crime liberals whenever crime goes up?
35 posted on 09/28/2001 8:56:55 AM PDT by sendtoscott
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To: sendtoscott
"Perhaps"

"Perhaps" is a hard word to nail down, don't you think?

36 posted on 09/28/2001 8:58:17 AM PDT by A2J
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To: A2J
Could it be that they grew hemp (if they actually did) in order to make baskets and other useful materials, instead of smoking it like you drugheads allege?

Your ignorance is beyond spectacular. What's worse is that you actually boast your ignorance.

37 posted on 09/28/2001 8:58:31 AM PDT by FreeTally
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To: sendtoscott
You guys are winning as many converts to your stupid legalize drugs mantra as Osama is winning to his kill all Americans vomit.
38 posted on 09/28/2001 9:00:09 AM PDT by Moby Grape
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To: sendtoscott, owk, mk, tpaine, libertarianliz, tkeman
Our actions have consequences. bump.
39 posted on 09/28/2001 9:01:08 AM PDT by NC_Libertarian
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To: A2J
Great. Make it illegal, so nobody will admit to growing it, then use the lack of good stats in an argument for making it illegal.
40 posted on 09/28/2001 9:01:59 AM PDT by sendtoscott
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