quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
By population, there are more liberals in the country than conservatives. So, face it, they're not going away.

Liberals? Or leftists? I would agree if you mean the former. The latter are simply a vocal minority. They're a larger, move vocal minority than they used to be, but, I'd argue, that's partly because "we" keep giving them ground.

It's time to stop giving them ground and start taking ground back. And one way we can do that is take away their cover. That is my argument.

This opinion piece by Dennis Prager lays out most of the differences between liberals and leftists pretty well: Leftism Is Not Liberalism

Conservative, and Not Conservative, using a strict Constitutional division. There is no middle ground. The dichotomy becomes clearer as the days advance and the lines solidify. If you believe that the ideals of the nation's founders were righteous and just, you are in one camp - their intent is clear in the documents they crafted and left for subsequent generations, and they spent dangerous hours in wooden courthouses on hard benches risking life and property, so there would be no ambiguity, then or ever. If you believe the country should somehow be changed, modified, morphed into a different intent, more aligned with a Group A, or Group B, or Group C vision, or a little bit of all, a more modern morality, a more up to date version of honor, you are in another camp. The siren song is there, to tweak just this one little thing - I'll agree to yours if you agree to mine - and cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. De Tocqueville was correct.

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
Conservative, and Not Conservative, using a strict Constitutional division. There is no middle ground. The dichotomy becomes clearer as the days advance and the lines solidify. If you believe that the ideals of the nation's founders were righteous and just, you are in one camp - their intent is clear in the documents they crafted and left for subsequent generations, and they spent dangerous hours in wooden courthouses on hard benches risking life and property, so there would be no ambiguity, then or ever. If you believe the country should somehow be changed, modified, morphed into a different intent, more aligned with a Group A, or Group B, or Group C vision, or a little bit of all, a more modern morality, a more up to date version of honor, you are in another camp. The siren song is there, to tweak just this one little thing - I'll agree to yours if you agree to mine - and cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. De Tocqueville was correct.

Well said Doc!

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
Conservative, and Not Conservative, using a strict Constitutional division. There is no middle ground.

Disagree.

The Founding Fathers certainly were anything but "conservatives." The conservatives were the King's men. The Founding Fathers were as liberal as liberal could be, for their time. Who else but liberals would put such emphasis on individual liberties?

Extreme right-wing conservatives are, IMO, the flip side of the left/right coin, the only difference between the two are which freedoms each side of the coin would suppress:

Right-wing conservative: Homosexuality is an abomination and government must enforce its prohibition.

Leftist: Government must force people to accept homosexuality.

Liberal: People should be free to make their own choices. Government should stay out of it.

The cake-baking brouhaha is a perfect example. Right-wing conservatives would prohibit gay marriage. (E.g.: "DOMA." Seriously?) Leftists would force a baker to bake a gay cake. Liberals and libertarians would say "Let 'em get married if that's what they want. Let the baker make 'em a cake if they want, or not if they don't."

Which of the above positions do you believe more accurately reflects the principles professed by the Founding Fathers and our Nation's Founding Documents?

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Liberals, Leftist, Communist all one and the same .....

How many on this forum benefit from clearly "Leftist" ideas? Social Security? Medicare or Medicaid? Better pensions from unions? Look back to when TR was president and what the unions were considered.

Or how about those clearly "leftist" rulings from the US Supreme Court, Brown v Board of Education, Gideon v. Wainwright, or even Terry. All derailed as "leftist" agenda.

So, next time, don't allow medicare to pay the doctor bill, don't cash that SS check, or that Union pension, STAND UP to the leftist agenda!

As that great liberal President, Harry Truman said, “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know”

quote:

Right-wing conservative: Homosexuality is an abomination and government must enforce its prohibition.

I think you mis-characterize conservatives. I'm a conservative, I know many conservatives, and I know NONE who want government to enforce the prohibition of homosexuality.

quote:

Liberal: People should be free to make their own choices. Government should stay out of it.

Staying out doesn't mean defining or redefining.
Staying out would mean not taking a position, not treating married different than not married, not issuing marriage licenses.

For me, personally, marriage is a sacrament, and as such can only be defined by the Church. Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman. The State has nothing to do with it and I don't care if the State recognizes my marriage. That doesn't mean prejudice against gays, or that gay relationships cannot have equal civil rights. It just means that I do not recognize the relationship between gays as what I know as marriage.

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
Conservative, and Not Conservative, using a strict Constitutional division. There is no middle ground. The dichotomy becomes clearer as the days advance and the lines solidify. If you believe that the ideals of the nation's founders were righteous and just, you are in one camp - their intent is clear in the documents they crafted and left for subsequent generations, and they spent dangerous hours in wooden courthouses on hard benches risking life and property, so there would be no ambiguity, then or ever. If you believe the country should somehow be changed, modified, morphed into a different intent, more aligned with a Group A, or Group B, or Group C vision, or a little bit of all, a more modern morality, a more up to date version of honor, you are in another camp. The siren song is there, to tweak just this one little thing - I'll agree to yours if you agree to mine - and cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. De Tocqueville was correct.

You would be discouraged to read ~240 years of Constitutional interpretation at the Supreme Court, in a morass of ambiguity and middle ground, argued between men mostly trained and experienced in these matters, risen to the top of their profession, mostly, to find penumbras, enumerations and emanations amongst the ambiguities, in the middle ground you deny.

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:....There is no middle ground. ....their intent is clear in the documents they crafted.....

Really? Please refer to the "clarity" of the 8th Amendment:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

You would be discouraged to read ~240 years of Constitutional interpretation at the Supreme Court, in a morass of ambiguity and middle ground, argued between men mostly trained and experienced in these matters, risen to the top of their profession, mostly, to find penumbras, enumerations and emanations amongst the ambiguities, in the middle ground you deny.

Damn, I wish I was still doing trial law, I would steal that for a closing.....

semantics

we all KNOW who the enemy is

call it what you want, doesn't alter the situation

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Right-wing conservative: Homosexuality is an abomination and government must enforce its prohibition.

I think you mis-characterize conservatives. I'm a conservative, I know many conservatives, and I know NONE who want government to enforce the prohibition of homosexuality.

I wonder how old you are, because it was just a couple short decades or so ago that conservatives were the primary opposition to homosexual relationships--going so far as to justify arrests and imprisonment for what consenting adults did in the privacy of their own homes.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Liberal: People should be free to make their own choices. Government should stay out of it.

Staying out doesn't mean defining or redefining.
Staying out would mean not taking a position, not treating married different than not married, not issuing marriage licenses.

I'm fine with that.

You might be surprised to learn liberals would sooner marriage not be blessed by the state, either. Particularly since...

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
For me, personally, marriage is a sacrament, and as such can only be defined by the Church.

That ^^^^^

Government has no business promoting religious doctrine. Any religious doctrine.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
semantics

we all KNOW who the enemy is

I'd argue "we" do not. Some of us, anyway. That is the point I've been trying to make.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
call it what you want, doesn't alter the situation

Words have meaning. In this case: Pretty important meaning. Because the people that are trying to destroy what we all know and love as America are wolves some of their opponents are helping to hide in sheep's clothing.

quote:

it was just a couple short decades or so ago that conservatives were the primary opposition to homosexual relationships--going so far as to justify arrests and imprisonment for what consenting adults did in the privacy of their own homes.

Maybe on the rare occasion but although sodomy laws were on the books, they haven't been widely enforced that I can recall. I'm 53.

quote:

Right-wing conservative: Homosexuality is an abomination and government must enforce its prohibition.

I may personally believe that homosexuality is an abomination and should not be practiced, but there again, I wouldn't impose any religion on any one else. My religion is my religion. I don't say, "Submit or die!"

Remember, there is no "separation of church and state" clause in the Constitution. What there is, is the first amendment, which I support:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
But... we have gone so far in the other direction, against religion, that we are "prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

quote:

You might be surprised to learn liberals would sooner marriage not be blessed by the state, either.

No, I'm not surprised.
My point is that conservatives and classical liberals can be and should be allies. I, for one, consider myself BOTH a conservative and a classical liberal.

They are the enemies who are trying to destroy this country as well as the world, by trying to completely control it. How do you get along with someone who has that goal and works at it daily?

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
Conservative, and Not Conservative, using a strict Constitutional division. There is no middle ground.

Disagree.

The Founding Fathers certainly were anything but "conservatives." The conservatives were the King's men. The Founding Fathers were as liberal as liberal could be, for their time. Who else but liberals would put such emphasis on individual liberties?

Extreme right-wing conservatives are, IMO, the flip side of the left/right coin, the only difference between the two are which freedoms each side of the coin would suppress:

Right-wing conservative: Homosexuality is an abomination and government must enforce its prohibition.

Leftist: Government must force people to accept homosexuality.

Liberal: People should be free to make their own choices. Government should stay out of it.

The cake-baking brouhaha is a perfect example. Right-wing conservatives would prohibit gay marriage. (E.g.: "DOMA." Seriously?) Leftists would force a baker to bake a gay cake. Liberals and libertarians would say "Let 'em get married if that's what they want. Let the baker make 'em a cake if they want, or not if they don't."

Which of the above positions do you believe more accurately reflects the principles professed by the Founding Fathers and our Nation's Founding Documents?

Reference the clarification "Constitutional division." The founding documents don't speak to homosexuality one way or the other, although based on those documents the "Constitutional" conservative would certainly take the last position, that you define as "Liberal." The lack of reference does not mean the lack of clarity. The majority of religions of the period would condemn it, but the Founding Fathers were actively trying to stay out of the religion business, for good reason. Benjamin Franklin in fact assisted a friend condemned by the French government because of his homosexuality, which like most governments of the age WAS in the religion business. And I reemphasize the last sentence, that De Tocqueville was correct. This country will fail and depart it's founders' vision not because of weakness in war or economics, but because it lost its way from what its founders (the 18th century ones) intended it to be, and it now stands at that crossroad. Time will tell, but there is a whole spectrum even in this forum representing the galaxy of differences as to what "good" governance looks like.

"Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!"

We've had a good run, this Noble Experiment. Not as long as the Great States, by thousands of years, but enough to prove that good men of good intent can govern themselves, more or less wisely. Maybe, in the end, that's enough.

quote:

Originally posted by Aquabird:
They are the enemies who are trying to destroy this country as well as the world, by trying to completely control it. How do you get along with someone who has that goal and works at it daily?

Exactly, similar to this cartoon which illustrates somethings should not be negotiated.

I think you guys are splitting hairs. I agree the rank and file liberals are, for the most, well-meaning dolts who really think a totalitarian government will be a wonderful, benevolent daddy for all. At the leadership level, they have no such illusions, they just want power. The problem is that they all vote the same way- Democrat.



.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:

quote:

Originally posted by Aquabird:
They are the enemies who are trying to destroy this country as well as the world, by trying to completely control it. How do you get along with someone who has that goal and works at it daily?

Exactly, similar to this cartoon which illustrates somethings should not be negotiated.

Dead on accurate. There is no negotiating with totalitarians.



.

quote:

Originally posted by TigerDore:
I think you guys are splitting hairs. I agree the rank and file liberals are, for the most, well-meaning dolts who really think a totalitarian government will be a wonderful, benevolent daddy for all. At the leadership level, they have no such illusions, they just want power. The problem is that they all vote the same way- Democrat.

You're being kind when you use the word "dolt".

What word would one person use to describe another person who is so wholly and deliberately ignorant of the murderous history of communism that they vote for the destruction of their own natural rights, never-mind everyone else' natural rights, under the guise of "security" and "benevolence".

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Prepare accordingly.