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For how long do you think they've been a bad mood"

By the way, having differences of oppinions is one thing. Being small minded and nasty is quite another.

Bleh?

Don't worry Jeffylube. When a liberal is faced with facts and doesn't know how to respond to them, he will always resort to the "small minded and mean" argument. You will also notice they always mention the "shades of gray/black and white" thing as well, the point being made that they think deeply and completely and are "intellectual", whereas a Conservative only thinks two dimensionally, on the surface, and shoots from the hip. I intend to address this point soon, because both arguments stem from the same fundamental flaw.

For a long time. Too many poor folk are getting free handouts! :rolleyes:

(By the way, I like them all, and have learned from them all, and at least one is Presidential material. And they're all invited to Olympia, Washington, provided they bring their pianos. We can set them up to block the Fourth Avenue Bridge. )

They are all invited to Kansas City as well (of course all our guests will want to mow in the months of May and April and June)

Tony,
How long have you been a doofus?

'Cause they're stupid?

Tony, have you quit beating your "significant other", yet?

Ah, the wondermousness of the pre-determined question! :rolleyes:

And that flaw is?

I'll spare you the speech about the "myth" of facts. I'll spare you the speech about how our reliance on facts is residue from The Age of Reason, that period when people actually believed that if one looks objectively enough at the world, "truth" will appear. The sciences are rooted in this myth. So too are mathematics. And both liberals and conservatives like to whip out the ol' "facts" claim to make their arguments seem stronger. Want to rip a liberal's argumnet? Simply accuse her of not knowing her "facts." Want to attack the conservative position? Again, wield that silencing word "facts."

We're a bright enough group here (I think) to realize that human beings make truth. "Truth" or "facts" don't simply exist in the world as givens.

Yes, I'm back.

What an interesting way of absolving oneself of having to prove anything.

Yes they do.

Apparently back Through The Looking Glass:
"When I use a word...."

"I feel, therefore it is!" :p :p

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
And that flaw is?

Ok... I think I've got time to take a stab at this now...

I said that when liberals run out of facts they resort to calling conservatives mean spirited. I said liberals like to think of themselves as intellectually superior to conservatives and argue that they look at the shades of gray while conservatives only see things in black and white. Then I said both of these things stem from the same basic flaw.

This post is not meant as an attack on liberals, though I'm sure many of you will not believe that. It is meant to try and educate some of you, and get you to see a few things. So read it with an open mind, with the understanding that no harm is meant.

The flaw is this: most liberals do not think nearly as deeply as they like to tell themselves. They base their beliefs on *feelings*, then fit the facts to those feelings. We have seen this right here on this board, over and over. The belief that they are examining gray areas is often nothing more than the confusion that results from going with feelings rather than concrete fact. As long as they stay within a group of likeminded people, these "feelings" are stroked and they are happy. They believe the whole world should "feel" the same way about an issue that they do. Anyone - *anyone* who dares challenge these "feelings" will get labeled an extremist conservative, called mean spirited, and accused of only thinking in black and white. The thought never occurs to them that maybe this "extremist conservative" may have looked at the gray areas also, and then done something with the information gleaned from it.

The conservative is like water. Water has a goal. Water is on its way to somewhere. If water runs into an obstacle that stops it from getting there, it will pool up until it can find another way to get where it's going. The instant it finds it, it will go. Water can do something a liberal cannot do.

Water can make a decision.

Conservatives can make a decision too. That's why liberals see us as thinking in only black and white - they are still going with their "feelings" - still searching around in those gray areas, telling themselves that this makes them an "intellectual" - and conservatives, being more grounded in reality, have finished examining the gray areas and made a decision. To liberals, moving out of the gray area is bad. You must continue to examine every angle. All possibilities must stay on equal footing with all other possibilities - to do anything else would not be the "intellectual" thing to do.

This also causes liberals to redefine where the center is. To most liberals, the center is located between left and extreme left. Anyone to the right of left is a fanatic not worth paying attention to. Anyone who actually stops examining the gray areas and makes a decision that doesn't agree with the group "feelings" is mean spirited, extremist, a fanatic, and most likely stupid. Don't believe me? Just read back through the responses I get from liberals.

Liberals stereotype anyone they view as a conservative - and especially so if the person actually embraces the term conservative. Since they have redefined the center and all conservatives are now fanatics, you get all kinds of things attached to you. You, the conservative, now fit a picture. You drive a truck, you live in the South, you don't have an education, you're a "fundamentalist Christian" Bible thumping snake handling speaking in tongues religious fanatic who has a rifle in the back window of your truck, you don't take baths, your favorite pastime is hunting 'possums and going to chicken fights, etc.

There's only one problem with this..... everyone I've ever met who fit that description was a Democrat.

Most of you who call yourself a liberal don't even know what the term "liberal" means. As I explain to you why I am not a liberal, it is my hope that some of you see what being a liberal really means, and you choose to find a new label for your position. At the very least, I hope some of you finally figure out the difference in a new liberal and a Classic liberal.

Here is why I am labeled a Conservative, even though (and I've mentioned this before) I am a Classic Liberal:

1. I believe the strength of our nation lies within the individual. Therefore, I believe each person's dignity, freedom, ability, and responsibility must be honored.
2. I believe in equal rights, equal justice, and equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, creed, age, or disability.
3. I believe in free enterprise. I believe that encouraging individual initiative has brought this nation opportunity, economic growth, and prosperity.
4. I believe the proper role of government is to perform for the people only those critical functions that cannot be performed by individuals of private organizations. Thus I believe that the best government is the one that governs least.
5. I believe the most effective, responsible, and responsive government is government closet to the people.
6. I believe Americans must retain the principles that have made us strong, while developing new and innovative ideas to meet the challenges of changing times.
7. I believe Americans value and should preserve our national strength and pride while working to extend peace, freedom, and human rights throughout the world.

Because liberals have redefined the center, I am a now labeled a Conservative - with all the stereotypical stuff attached to me when they think of me that I've already mentioned. A check of past threads will show that I have even had this said to me. Even though I do believe that people who need help should get it, even though I do value life, even though I do want peace in the world, and even though I do look at all the gray areas..... I am dismissed by the New Left (not real liberals) as a gun toting, possum hunting redneck fanatic who can't think.

The New Left has been assigned the term Liberal by default also. You on the Left use the term, but you don't deserve it. True liberalism does not contain the Marxist and Socialist ideology that has crept into your ranks. This is where I hope some of you who call yourselves liberals will decide to reevaluate the label you are embracing. A true liberal is to the right of the New Left.

Since I now fit into the description of a Conservative, let's look at what being a Conservative means.

Conservatism as a philosophy does not produce a laundry list of policy recommendations, nor does it represent the interests of this or that class or special interest. Nor is conservatism grounded in a reflective reaction to change, nor in a nostalgic attachment to the past. Rather, it begins by rejecting what C. S. Lewis called "chronological bigotry": the foolish notion that contemporary thinkers have a monopoly on the truth, simply because they are alive today and not in an earlier, "less enlightened" era.

However, Conservatives do draw on the accumulated wisdom of the past to form a comprehensive and coherent view of the world, from which we derive certain principles essential to the promotion of the common good. As every philosophy has certain basic propositions upon which everything else is based.

Conservatism envisions a society in which each human being, no matter how humble in origin or apparently ordinary in talents, is treated with sacred respect. We see the drama of each unfolding human life as rich in meaning and significance. Consequently, we treat each person's life as inviolable and are unwilling to sacrifice the few for the good of the many.

Conservatives affirm the existence of natural law, defining and protecting the natural rights of each person. These rights are inalienable and endowed to us by our Creator. They are, therefore, not subject to revision or repeal by any political coalition, no matter how powerful.

True Conservatives are not swayed by transitory intellectual fashions of the "enlightened elite". Confidence in the power and reliability of common sense translates into stable, consistent and effective social policy.

Conservatives look for opportunities to strengthen the good that remains in existing institutions. Like Hippocrates, conservatives remember the wisdom of the principle: first, does no harm. We must always resist the temptation to launch large-scale untested schemes for reform.

The Natural Law (as stated by our Fore Fathers) provides each of us with Archimedes' fixed point, to which we can appeal against the injustice of the powerful. As Conservatives, we therefore, are not easily cowed into submission to any tyranny. Instead, our conservative thoughts and practices provide us a principled limitation of the power and the scope of human government, as embodied in the Bill of Rights.

As a Conservative, I reject the following Leftists philosophies, each of which is part of the intellectual foundations of the Liberal consensus of today's academic, media and political elite:

Atheism and materialism -- the notion that human life is the accidental and meaningless result of mindless material processes.
Racism and chauvinism -- that certain races or classes of people are inherently superior in ultimate value.
Collectivism -- the thesis that individuals are important only as parts of society, that their lives have no significance or meaning beyond that assumed to them by their society.
Secular humanism -- that we human beings must define the meaning and purpose of our own existence.
Deep ecology -- the belief that the labor and technical achievements of mankind are inherently evil, and that only the undisturbed wilderness is good.
Animal rights anti-humanism -- that non-human animals, despite their lack of will or conscience, are on equal moral standing with human beings by virtue of their capacity for pain and pleasure.
Relativism -- that what is good or right varies fundamentally from time to time or place to place, that there are no universal truths of morality and politics.
Constructivism -- that what is right and just is nothing more than the product of social forces and historical accidents.
Subjectivism -- that what is good or right for an individual is determined simply by that individual's feelings or inclinations.
Cultural determinism -- that human nature is infinitely malleable by culture.
Nominalism -- that nothing has any definite nature, other than that which we ascribe to it through our invention of words or concepts.
Post-modernism -- that science is merely the expression of political ideology, and that the difference between good and bad science, or between science and pseudo-science, has no objective validity.
Scientism -- that there is no knowledge outside science, and that nothing is real that is not scientifically verifiable.
Empiricism -- that nothing exists beyond what can be verified by our five senses.
Skepticism -- that we know nothing with certainty.
Utopianism -- belief in the infinite perfectibility of man.
Positivism -- the denial of the fundamental reality of evil, attributing all human evil to superficial causes, such as poverty, maladjustment, lack of education, or distorted socioeconomic conditions.
Pessimism or cynicism -- the view that mankind is so corrupted that there is no hope for relative progress or improvement.
Ethical dualism -- attributing evil exclusively to some particular group or class (i.e. the Descendents of White Europeans, the Fundamentalist Christians, the bourgeoisie, Jews, the corporate elite, etc. etc.).

Liberalism, on the other hand, leans in the direction of a morally relativistic secular humanism and atheism. Many Liberals today have also embraced the occult, neo paganism, earth worship, and other so called "New Age" beliefs, which, according to my research, constituted the religion of the Nazis.

A fundamental tenet of the New Left Liberal is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. This unproven theory, wrapped in the sophistries of scientific certainty, claims that man somehow miraculously evolved from primordial ooze and is nothing more than an advanced animal. Liberalism seeks to replace God's immutable law with moral relativism, which is to say that individuals, acting in the place of God, decide what constitutes good and evil. They seek to supplant God's law and its absolute truths, with the politically correct fashions and whims of an allegedly enlightened elite who claim a scientific, superior wisdom. They view the State as an instrument to enforce their self-serving experiments. This is the essence of the sin of the Garden of Eden. The conservative, on the other hand, is more inclined to recognize the sovereignty of God, not some earthly experts. To understand this is to understand why conservatives are not as easily controlled by the machinations of government.

Conservatism supports that most conservative of all documents, the Constitution of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence states that "We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The Constitution stands as a beacon of human progress, by the true meaning of the term, as it honors the ability of a moral people to exercise self-rule. Great progressive movements such as the labor, civil rights, and women's movements, sprang from the desire to obtain the individual and property rights guaranteed by the Constitution but not fully realized. The authoritarian minded left perverted these conservative movements, to a certain degree, with their cult of victimization and their dialectic of class and race hatred. They turned genuine conservative movements into cannon fodder in their war against American notions of limited government and freedom. Liberalism contends that rights emanate from the State. The benevolent liberal expert, acting they tell us, for the common good, covets the right to decide which rights are granted to his neighbor and to what degree. They hold as a gauzy ultimate goal a centralized New World Order. They believe that this is inevitable, and they speak of a time when there will be world peace, an end of poverty and hunger, de facto equality etc. In their public utterances, the Nazi's also employed this same type of rhetoric. Just turn over your rights and property to us, the Nazi's promised, before they suspended the Constitution and confiscated firearms, and we will usher in a utopian paradise. This was the big lie then, and it remains the big lie today.

Here is what is *wrong* with the New Left (what is called Liberalism):

1. Believes in a government with a large role. This typically includes, but is not bound to, support of: income redistribution, social legislation, and a "big government" role in the economy and fiscal matters.
2. Liberalism takes a very passive side to most moral issues. Certain criminal law, for example anti drug laws, are often questioned and disapproved of by the left. The far left often adheres to what can be termed an "if it feels good, do it" policy.
3. Role of society is thought of as a basis. The "it takes a village" proverb and a society as a whole often take precedent to individual rights.
4. Results should be equal for all. Those who put in more effort should be no more successful than those who don't.

I’ve heard a story repeated by many people who use it to illustrate futility: a man on the shore of a river jumps in and rescues a drowning man, then another, and then another; he is so busy rescuing people that he never goes upstream to see who is throwing them into the river.

Since liberal ideology has taken over America, it’s caused what I call the “capitulation of the poor” – and this capitulation seems to have happened in my lifetime. Not from any one factor, but the issues pile up on top of each other. The welfare state has rigged life so that it pays more to stay poor than to try to succeed in many cases, and the subsequent welfare reform has set it up to where people going along with the system are then reduced to absolute despair as their support is cut off. The gulf is no longer between the rich and poor as much as it is between those who have a chance and those who have no chance. An impossible, almost unapproachable government bureaucracy stacks everything against them in every area of their lives. The decline in education has assured that these poor people don’t understand the true odds against them. This capitulation is not from any one factor, but the crushing weight of them all. Liberal ideology tries to pull people out of the river, but does not stop people from being thrown into the river, as our historical experiment of remaking America into a strongly liberal nation has shown.

I am not mean spirited. I do think. I do look at the gray areas. You liberals do not have a corner on this, even though it is a requirement that you think so. I am an educated man, the same as you. I have feelings, just like you. I care for the poor, and want to help them, just like you. But you cannot stay in the gray areas forever. Instead of hitting me with the "extremist" label, or painting me into a pickup truck with a shotgun in the window, why not open your mind and examine my post. You may find that many of the things the New Left (currently labeled "Liberal") stands for really don't fit with your views. If you do, it is OK to come out of the cult. It is OK to think for yourself.

Great thoughtful post, Larry.

Just be glad you are not in San Francisco (as I am). Such thoughts are not labelled "conservative," but pathological.

I guess I'm a "liberalphobe."

What he said.

Talk about setting up straw men so they can be easily torn apart!

Sheesh!

Larry: I don't know about American terminology, but it looks to me that you're describing a common deep-red socialist rather than a liberal. But then again, we probably use different terminology.