Election 2004 Prediction Thread

[Vagegast]

Originally posted by Elder
He is responsible for the biggest swelling of the government in years... from things such as farm aid packages, more money for education, welfare in the form of prescription drugs, etc. etc... he hasn't been a conservative, so I think you are off base on this one. About the only conservative thing he did was lower taxes...

Just because he did those things doesn't mean he isn't a conservative. As I'm sure you would definitely not know in a million years, there are different kinds of conservatism.

Newt Gingrich conservatives --> believe in their raw anti-statist ideology; want to get rid of anything that relates to the New Deal
Ronald Reagan conservatives --> believe that government should that government should not interfere in people's lives; reduce government spending and the deficit
Isolationist conservatives --> believe America shouldn't interfere in the business of the rest of the world; see Pat Buchanan and The American Conservative
Neoconservatives --> former hardline anti-Communist Democrats; sometimes seen as the "Reagan Democrats; liberals who like to go to war a lot all the time
Free trade conservatives --> believe in unregulated trade, untouched by government interference
Social/Christian conservatives --> traditionalists who believe government should preserve morality; opposed to abortion, gay-marriage

And I'm sure there are more but I can't come up with them off the top of my head.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Originally posted by Avalanche1996
Ya forgot ShiftyPowers and Flyer, the other American conservatives here.

Hmmm..... How did you get this impression? I've recently defended Elder when unfair statements have been said, or untrue things in areas that I know a good deal about, namely Civil Liberties and Campaign Finance. I've stayed out of these arguments since about September because I don't have the energy to do all the factchecking and news reading that Brondby and Elder do, to be honest I just don't care.

To avoid confusion though:

I believe that the government has no business in people's personal lives. Personal lifestyle choices have nothing to do with the government; government is supposed to protect the rights of the fringe elements, not exclude them. If gay rights was an issue in 1789, it would be in the Constitution right along side religion, I have no doubt about that.

I believe that free trade is good, but I also recognize the need for Anti-Trust laws, governmental social welfare programs, and understand how devastating certain areas of the nation will be hit if we suddenly went from limited protectionism to full blown free trade. Any economist will tell you that free trade is a perfect system, it's an ideal, but when you deal with people in addition to the numbers, it's much tougher to sign off on the bill.

I also believe the government has a stake in every member of society; the poor deserve to have the same opportunity, and they deserve to have government help when they aren't able to make it themselves.

I'm libertarian on social issues, and moderate on economic issues, but I identify with the Democratic Party because I believe that they are doing the right thing for society instead of for general things like "the economy" and stuff like that. I think there is probably a lot of arrogance in the Democratic Party because they do kind of think they know what is best for people, but I'm also an arrogant person, and I think there are somethings (which the right disagrees with) that are clearly beneficial to society.

I also know (and the friendly neighborhood sociologist I'm sure knows this much more than I do) that blacks in this nation are at a disadvantage, and if you look at the data it is obvious. It pains me to see Right Wingers like Ben Stein (who is a celebrity and wears glasses, so americans think he's smart) say crap like "we've come so far from the Civil Rights movement, how can you say we're still divided?" Yes Ben, we've come a long way, but we're not done.