Is The Conservative Movement DEAD?

3/2102 | AntiDemoCommie

[#3Fan]

Conservatism had the biggest nail driven in its coffin with the passage of the personal income tax. An additional nail was hammered home with the election of FDR. From there on it was a greased downhill slide!!! It is now a certainty that the USA will become a socialist republic. It is only a question of when.

So Reagan wasn't a good president?

[#3Fan]

And so why would they call you names?

[Dave S]

This social spending is all a result of dishonest perversion of the Constitution, and the Federal Government should not be redistributing the wealth of its citizens under the guise of "compassion" or "social responsibility". Instead, we should eliminate Welfare, Medicare, Social Security and every single other Federal entitlement and return the money to the people.

You undermine your own credibility here. You dont turn a ship around instanteously. Similarly you cant just eliminate all these programs that you dont want.

First of all you are never going to eliminate programs into which people have been forced to pay into their entire lives and are now totally dependent on to live. You are "pissing in the wind" if you think Social Security or Medicare are going to disapear. The best we can hope for are reforms like Bush is calling for that give more control over their SS retirement funds in the future. This requires more spending now during the transition.

Bringing about major change is not done by electing a one or two member majorities. It is much easier to prevent change than it is to cause it. At least sixty votes are needed to accomplish the least controversial of measures. To make massive chnages like Baldwin seems to expect would require overwhelming majorities (say 80%) for the conservative party. To get all over Bush for not being able to bring this all about in one year when we dont control the Senate and barely control the house is just plain stupid. I hope some year you and those like you grow up and live in the real world, not some think tank ivory tower.

[Vineyard]

You had a statement that would make an EXCELLENT POINT about the root problem ... then you moved on and didn't make the point.

[snip] Very true. At one time conservatism stood for limited government and personal freedom. No more. Today, conservatism stands for an ever increasing, ever encroaching federal monstrosity, promoted in the name of bipartisanship and compassion. Nothing illustrates this reality more than President Bush's proposed budget.

Absolutely true. I personally trace this sad state of affairs back to the Gingrich lead Congress wherein he and the Republicans argued "Oh look its not that bad we grow the government at 7percent instead of 11percent." What a joke.

[End Snip] Read what was written. In order to govern, the Republicans must get elected. Since the Courts routinely ignore the Constitution, minorities ARE NOT protected ... minorities like upper middle class and upper class tax payers who are gouged to subsidize income transfers to the friends of the Democrat (who are buying the votes.) In order to get back to a more limited government ... law suits are totally useless. One must get elected.

But to get elected, the conservatives can't just show up saying we will shutdown Medicare and Social Security and return to the very limited Constitutional government of yesteryear. The conservatives would be defeated big time, and the Democrats would reign supreme for the next 200 years.

No ... Gingrich tried to show that he wasn't a meanie who would abandon the senior citizens. He wasn't planning on cutting Medicare, he wasn't going to take Social Security away from them. Gingrich was a smart conservative who was going to try to incrementally "wean" people off government, with the idea that people could learn that paying the government to do what they could do themselves was far too costly ... in taxes, in loss of growth opportunities, and in loss of personal freedoms.

But Newt got cut off at the knees, by lying Democrats and the willing accomplices in the Media, who claimed his plan would do all the horrible things that it wouldn't.

So ... if Newt lost big time because of PERCEPTIONS ... HOW THE HELL can any conservative win if they act more conservative than Gingrich did???

Unless you can come up with a plan that would garner 51% of the votes ... and true conservatives are only 30% - 40% of the electorate, while there are 30% - 40% of the electorate who would actually like to vote for disciples of Karl Marx ... then that squishy middle 20% - 35% are won over by convincing them you aren't heartless and cruel .. you will be compassionate.

Unless you are willing to go wage a revolution - bombs and bullets, try to kill off the socialists, try to make the nation ungovernable - you had better learn to try to persuade people - on their terms. And starting a battle is dangerous ... more of the squishy middle voted Democrat when they thought Timothy Veigh was the end result of typical conservative planning. (Hell - he set back the conservative movement, and helped Clinton get back on the road to electability. His actions helped Clinton paint Newt and talk show people like Limbaugh, G Gordon Liddy and others as radical people who were inspiring terrorist actions like what McVeigh did. So don't start a war unless you are prepared to kill off 30% of the nation! ...because once started, the left winger would prefer to have martial law and a Stalinist state over a limited government state, and there are too many people who would be willing to deliver!!

Mike

[rdb3]

Republicans Should Say: No, we don't. This social spending is all a result of dishonest perversion of the Constitution, and the Federal Government should not be redistributing the wealth of its citizens under the guise of "compassion" or "social responsibility". Instead, we should eliminate Welfare, Medicare, Social Security and every single other Federal entitlement and return the money to the people.

You take that message to the voters and you guarantee yourself a landslide DEFEAT. Now, think about it for a minute and tell me why that's a losing message. And I'll give you a hint: It has nothing to do with the Constitution itself.

[Texasforever]

It is now a certainty that the USA will become a socialist republic. It is only a question of when.

You are aware that short a dictatorship, any society with the power to vote itself the proceeds of others will eventually become socialistic. It is part of the human condition. The only thing that stops the cycle is the point at which the takers so outnumber the givers that the system collapses on itself.

[RLK]

Ohhh, but now you're not a "team member", or you're not being politically correct!

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I've had people steal, or try to steal, from me much of My life while accusing me of not being a team member or not working well with other people when I objected. Shove the team concept where the sun doesn't shine. It's a vehicle for evasion and parasitism.

[meanspirit77]

Are you willing to say Conservatism died in 1980?

No, I'm willing to say it died in the 1930's.

FDR came aboard carrying large buckets of Communist crap and cowardly slugs slurped it up as fast as he could slop it out.Today the puss-gut teat suckers outnumber conservatives about ten to one.If Conservatism is to be revived I don't think it's going to happen in the voting booth.

[Commander8]

The Conservative Movement isn't dead, but it may as well just be. To revive the movement the best thing to do is to stop listening to the Phony Neocon Pundits, turn off the Rush Limbaugh, put down the National Review, stop voting for Moderate "winners" and start voting for principled Conservatives.

[rdb3]

You just hit a grand slam, Mike. Outstanding.

[rdb3]

You are aware that short a dictatorship, any society with the power to vote itself the proceeds of others will eventually become socialistic. It is part of the human condition.

Been reading Bastiat, eh? ;-)

[rdb3]

That's a losing proposition.

Sorry.

[Kevin Curry]

Conservatism, but it is dying, and slowly being replaced by libertarianism. It is dying because too many citizens--including a great many Republicans--are rejecting the traditional moral virtues and self-discipline that make freedom and limited government possible. They don't want to be good. They just want to do whatever they want, to or with whomever they want, whenever they want, as much as they want. Big government is a symptom of this moral aimlessness and self-obsession, not its cause.

Modern libertarianism is conservatism stripped of its moral soul.

[NMC EXP]

That's what I wanted to know. Those that think they are perfect are the enemy of the good

Lets see if I understand you: You believe that I think I am perfect, therefore I am the enemy of the good, and you are good.

Here's a reality check: I am not perfect. I am the enemy of those in power who violate the Constitution. As to your goodness, that is not for me to judge. Class is over for you.

Regards

J.R.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Freedom is like gun powder, leave it exposed and it will fizzle. But if you try to put pressure on it and contain it, it will EXPLODE!!

[dheretic]

Ok lets cut the 100 extra billion for defense, sounds reasonable to me. The military doesn't need weapons or paychecks do they ?

A republican military doesn't need $300Billion USD to operate given current technology. An imperial military does. End the empire, restore the republic and we can cut the spending by half without any threat to our defense.

[Texasforever]

Been reading Bastiat, eh? ;-)

That plus watching events as they unfold. LOL

[M. Thatcher]

we can cut the spending by half without any threat to our defense.

I have an idea. Get elected to something first, then try implementing that brilliant plan.

Otherwise, it's a gaseous emission by a do-nothing, know-nothing.

[rdb3]

End the empire. . .

Oh, puh-leeeze! WHAT "empire?"

The United States of America is not an empire, therefore, there isn't one to end.

Sheesh!

[max61]

Why is it that every time we get a real conservative here, who is criticizing the party for true problems, there are so many people who refer to them in such terms as "suspicious" etc?

This is a result of the paranoia factor that so many on FR display. They would prefer not to have their perceptions of right and wrong, left and right challenged. Instead they want to think that they are critical when in fact, they are nothing more than intellectual fat asses who wouldn't know a conservative if they were slapped in the face by one.

---max