In perusing moonbat blogs recently, I have discovered some of them are a little frightened. While most are busy recovering from their hangovers and thus the frightened moonbats are a minority, it is a minority that can only grow as realization dawns upon them all. These moonbats are frightened that Conservatives will act toward The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayres like the moonbats have been acting toward Bush!
Indeed, Coulter’s latest column has provided them with some justification for their current fear, for she states explicitly: “In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.” This has caused fear.
(Translation for moonbats: ph34r!!!!11!1!)
But I say unto you, fear not, ye moonbats. For while I, as a Conservative, understand logic and therefore find it deeply ironic that you unwittingly have acknowledged your treatment of Bush for the last eight years has been immoral, I bear glad news for you.
Conservatives are not Liberals.
Yes, there is a difference between Conservatives and Liberals. In the zoo of politics, Conservatives are tigers, standing with stoic pride on our principals and character (we only occasionally gnaw on dope-smoking San Franciscoites). Liberals are monkeys, content merely with flinging their own excrement at (and fornicating in full view of) innocent school children. But tigers do not become monkeys simply because monkeys deserve it; and Conservatives will not behave like Liberals even though Liberals deserve it.
So fear not the response of the Conservatives.
Now God’s response, on the other hand…
I consider myself a Libertarian, I suppose (fiscally conservative, socially moderate). I guess the problem is that I have no idea what it means to be a "conservative" anymore. I read Vox Day's blog a bit. As a contributor to World Net Daily (hardly sympathetic to liberals), he strongly opposed the Iraq invasion (which he believed to be unconstitutional). So is it conservative to support the Iraq war or oppose it? Can it allow for either?
ReplyDeleteDoes it mean more government intrusion or less? Many "conservatives" have backed the Patriot Act with its ever-growing government reach and authority while others like Chuck Baldwin opposed it. Liberals who opposed were called "unpatriotic" of course, but Chuck Baldwin doesn't consider himself a liberal. So what is he?
Does it mean greater government spending or less? Sarah Palin (the darling of the Right in the last election) levied huge tax increases on oil industry profits in the last couple of years which were "redistributed" to Alaskan residents as assistance for energy prices.
Sorry, but I'm just not sure that the "conservative movement" has any coherence or unity at this point to be able to consider it a viable alternative at this point.
There are numerous other examples but you get the point.
I think what Palin did in Alaska was brilliant.
ReplyDeleteReally, what she did was renegotiate the terms and conditions of the leases that allow the oil companies to extract and sell (and make a profit on) the oil that belongs to the people of the State of Alaska.
James said:
ReplyDelete---
Sorry, but I'm just not sure that the "conservative movement" has any coherence or unity at this point to be able to consider it a viable alternative at this point.
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The "decoherence" of the movement is largely because every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to be known as a Conservative since that's a winning "label."
However, there is a Conservative platform. I fully intend to write more on it in the near future. Just remember that not everyone who says they're Conservative actually is. After all, the NYT recently claimed that Obama was Conservative in wanting to raise your taxes.
BTW, one last thing. You said: "Liberals who opposed were called 'unpatriotic' of course..." If only that were true. Very few people ever accused Liberals of being unpatriotic. Liberals simply asserted that Conservatives were claiming that of them while most who claimed to be Conservative spent hours saying, "We're not saying you're not patriotic." It was frankly sickening.
Of course, Greg Bahnsen wanted none of the First Gulf Conflict; I doubt he'd've been all that jazzed about the current one either.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested to see what Peter has to say, especially given that he lives in a now-blue state.
Tell you what, what Coulter said IS tempting, the whole "we'll treat The 0 with the same respect as you gave W"...
James said:
ReplyDelete“I consider myself a Libertarian, I suppose (fiscally conservative, socially moderate). I guess the problem is that I have no idea what it means to be a ‘conservative’ anymore. I read Vox Day's blog a bit. As a contributor to World Net Daily (hardly sympathetic to liberals), he strongly opposed the Iraq invasion (which he believed to be unconstitutional). So is it conservative to support the Iraq war or oppose it?”
And self-identified Libertarians, with or without a capital “L”, disagree with each other on some issues, such as abortion.
Jason, no doubt that there is disagreement within all parties. It does seem, however, that it's not just the application of conservative principles that have been disagreed upon but rather what those principles are to begin with.
ReplyDeleteBigger government? Smaller government? Protectionism or free trade? The extension of civil liberties or their denial when it's deemed necessary for the "good of the country"?
By the way, Peter, if you do this analysis, it would be nice to move past quick sound bites and come up with practical applications. For instance, if you wish to insist that government spending needs to be cut, that's fine (I don't disagree that there's waste). But where and how much? If you're going to suggest that Medicare or Medicaid are socialist enterprises and should be abolished entirely, you need to come up with either an alternate solution OR be forthright about the implications of your changes, even if they are less than pleasant (these aging baby boomers are going to want their pills one way or another).
Speaking of which, do you honestly think that even a Republican running for office as a "fiscal conservative" is going to suggest a cutting of these benefits to all these folks? Maybe privatizing it, but that's not necessarily a "conservative" action in principle (although many on the Left have opposed it for a variety of reasons).
James wrote:
ReplyDelete“Jason, no doubt that there is disagreement within all parties. It does seem, however, that it's not just the application of conservative principles that have been disagreed upon but rather what those principles are to begin with. Bigger government? Smaller government? Protectionism or free trade? The extension of civil liberties or their denial when it's deemed necessary for the ‘good of the country’?”
Terms such as “bigger” and “smaller” are relative. Just as conservatives disagree among themselves about the specifics of such terms, so do libertarians. You can cite some agreements among libertarians, despite their disagreements, but the same is true of conservatives.
In a Wall Street Journal piece last year, libertarian Randy Barnett wrote:
“Does being a libertarian commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq war? The simple answer is ‘no.’”
The Iraq war was the first issue you mentioned in this thread. And libertarians have disagreed over it. He goes on to note that some libertarians even opposed the invasion of Afghanistan after September 11, whereas others didn’t.
There are anarchists who are classified as libertarians, whereas other libertarians aren’t anarchists. Would you say that such a disagreement isn’t as significant as the disagreements you’ve criticized conservatives about?