What discussion boards have taught me about "conservati

[SDSteve]

I used to be a conservative. Then I started reading discussion boards. I found out that I don't want to ever be called a "conservative" again. All the cyber "conservatives" seem to be is for tax cuts and "pro-life". I remember back in the early nineties when Rush Limbaugh started wearing a deficit spending awareness ribbon. I wonder why no "conservatives" wear these today.

I have also learned that if a person dares say anything bad about President Bush he is automatically labeled a "liberal". Kind of like back in the fifties when people would call you communist.

Today a politicain can spend money like water grow government faster then weeds and still be a "conservative" if he sticks to only the two main phrases "tax cuts" and "pro-life". Kind of like all the "conservative" farmer that gets $200,000 a year from the government and says anyone that gets welfare has to be a liberal. Double standard anyone??
Then you people get oh so nasty to anyone who is a "liberal" . Because after all they aren't really human anyway. I could name names but that will just tick you guys off. If I don't name names you all are so dense you will never figure out who I am talking about. What a dilemma indeed. If ignorance is bliss some of you must be very happy indeed.
If I had never gone on a discussion board maybe I would still be a die-hard Republican as it is now I may never vote Republican again.
Now go on start your attacks and name calling. I wouldn't expect anything more from you all.

 

[Twotimer]

Thank you SteveSD. It is eye-opening how huge the culture gap is. I had not really encountered it before in such an obvious form. The funniest (black humor) thing about New Orleans is the cartoon showing Bush and the Congress rushing back from vacation overnight to save Terry Schiavos life (sorry Firefox Beta is eating my apostrophes and slashes) but waiting until New Orleans disintegrated into Calcutta or Phuket before saving many lives. Nothing more sacred that a month old fetus or a woman brain dead for 15 years. I would certainly put them above liberals and any Gulf Coast residents. :roll: :roll: :roll: The hypocrisy of this administration with its holier than thou behavior is what gets me. Cheney put enormous pressure to get the electricity restored to the oil refineries I heard last night, days before it was restored to the hospitals. Yeah, family values, sanctity of life, and sanctity of marriage. Yall are being fed a crock of you know what to get you to vote Republican. Pure manipulation. Even the mainstream Republicans are sick to their stomaches over what Bush and cronies has done economically to this great nation. And our world image is in the toilet. China is going to eat our lunch if we do not stop spending on Iraq. I am not saying the Dems have any answers, just that this administration is even more hypocritical than the Reagans were.

 

[kolanuraven]

THANK YOU GUYS!!!!!!

Soooooo glad to see some people not wearing blinders do exist!!

 

[Twotimer]

I would call myself a liberal moderate and getting more moderate all the time, but Bush et al have really riled me with Schiavo, stemcell, and huge deficits. They appear to have only one motive -- keep the Republicans in power by appealing to the far right and keep the money rolling in from big business. It's gotten blatant now with Bush a lame duck. At least the Iraq war was an ideology, versus pureandsimple vote grubbing which seems all they do now. My bet is Bush is so anxious to be outta there, he does whatever they tell him, hence going from ignoring the Gulf Coast to kicking butt and spending like heck on it in a matter of days. The polls see how many vote were being lost to the Democrats over Katrina. I am heartened by the likes of Senator Warner of VA and his Democrat counterparts who behave like leaders but I'm chagrined by Frist and Cheney and Rove and the like who appear to have either no foundation and moral compass and depth or to be monomaniacs, intent upon enriching someone's coffers in Cheney's case. If he lives long enough, he'll have a sweet cushion after elected office.

 

[Mike]

TT wrote:

Cheney put enormous pressure to get the electricity restored to the oil refineries I heard last night, days before it was restored to the hospitals.

This is a most ridiculous analogy. The hospitals are basically empty, they cannot bring people back in these hospitals until they are repaired and made livable.

People don't live at refineries and their output is needed for cleanup at the flooded sites, INCUDING the hospitals. Not to mention the many truckloads of supplies that I see going by everyday on their way to N.O. I guess you haven't read that the pipelines to southeast were down due to power outages?

I will say that I am disappointed in the amount of "Entitlement" spending at present in the U.S. Bush is the largest spender of these dollars in history. He has turned the tables on the Dems in this category. Why have they suddenly become fiscally responsible after throwing the trillions towards welfare in the past? The "Great Society" and the "War on Poverty", that was a vote buying scheme to start with, hasn't worked in the past (except for the votes), why should it suddenly start?

I personally don't feel that Iraq spending is hurting us all that bad. Except for food and some other minor spendings, most of the money going to Iraq is coming back home via paychecks for contractors, military, etc.
Not to mention the suppliers here that are sending goods to Iraq.

Their money never leaves here.

It's NOT the military spending billions with China. It's us ignorant ones HERE that go to Wal-Mart and spend our paychecks that is causing the deficit with China.

 

[Anonymous]

Since the Republican Party has changed so radically to being the big spend party and has sold out US citizens control and sovereignty to Big Business and foreign trade agreements, to be labeled a Conservative has become as dirty and offensive as being labeled a Liberal- since that pictures the Micheal Moore, Hanoi Jane type actions-- the new look of moderate Republicans and Democrats, and many Independents is becoming Traditionalist......

 

[Mike]

Since the Republican Party has changed so radically to being the big spend party and has sold out US citizens control and sovereignty to Big Business and foreign trade agreements, to be labeled a Conservative has become as dirty and offensive as being labeled a Liberal- since that pictures the Micheal Moore, Hanoi Jane type actions-- the new look of moderate Republicans and Democrats, and many Independents is becoming Traditionalist......

Big Business's Funding Shift Boosts GOP
by Thomas B. Edsall


Major industries such as accounting, aerospace, commercial banking, defense, HMOs and pharmaceuticals have abandoned their tradition of bipartisan campaign contributions in favor of a commitment to the GOP, a trend that could deepen the problems of a Democratic Party rocked by this month's elections.

An analysis of political donations by industry groups shows that over the past decade, 19 major sectors have shifted from a roughly 50-50 split between the two main parties -- or in some cases, a slightly pro-Democratic tilt -- to a solid alignment with the Republican Party, which now enjoys advantages exceeding 5 to 1 in some of these sectors. The shift has produced at least $78 million in additional GOP support from these groups over 10 years, while donations to Democrats have declined slightly.

I don't know about that OT. I say they are just beating the Dems at their own game.

 

[Twotimer]

TT wrote:

Cheney put enormous pressure to get the electricity restored to the oil refineries I heard last night, days before it was restored to the hospitals.

This is a most ridiculous analogy. The hospitals are basically empty, they cannot bring people back in these hospitals until they are repaired and made livable.

People don't live at refineries and their output is needed for cleanup at the flooded sites, INCUDING the hospitals. Not to mention the many truckloads of supplies that I see going by everyday on their way to N.O. I guess you haven't read that the pipelines to southeast were down due to power outages?

I will say that I am disappointed in the amount of "Entitlement" spending at present in the U.S. Bush is the largest spender of these dollars in history. He has turned the tables on the Dems in this category. Why have they suddenly become fiscally responsible after throwing the trillions towards welfare in the past? The "Great Society" and the "War on Poverty", that was a vote buying scheme to start with, hasn't worked in the past (except for the votes), why should it suddenly start?

I personally don't feel that Iraq spending is hurting us all that bad. Except for food and some other minor spendings, most of the money going to Iraq is coming back home via paychecks for contractors, military, etc.
Not to mention the suppliers here that are sending goods to Iraq.

Their money never leaves here.

It's NOT the military spending billions with China. It's us ignorant ones HERE that go to Wal-Mart and spend our paychecks that is causing the deficit with China.

This is the first time Political Bull has had a decent discussion versus mud slinging. Thank God. Congratulations to all of you.

I find Cheney odious but I admit I just took what the media said about him without questioning it. I would like to know what good he is however from your standpoint. I admit he's smart and focused but I think his focus is bad for the U.S.

As far as Walmart goes, you cannot avoid sending your money to China. It seems like every bit of clothing I buy from whomever is labeled "Made in China". It's creepy. All our major department stores and clothing manufacturers are just as culpable as Walmart.

I notice no one said boo about the pandering to the Christian Right as per Terry Schiavo case versus response to Hurricane katrina. This stuff is outrageous and the American public recognizes the hypocrisy. I am not knocking sanctity of life for those of you who hold this view, I'm saying the administration pays lip service to it for votes but in fact doesn't grasp what sanctity of life means. I have never seen our country have such tunnel vision as over abortion and end-of-life. It's ridiculous. On the one hand, birth control and good public health can avoid the majority of abortions and other the other, who's business is it but the individual if they want to refuse ventilators and feeding tubes, especially should they be left brain-dead or terminally ill and suffering. Honest to God why people waste so much time on this, I don't understand with all the other real needs.

 

[Twotimer]

Mr. Big Government

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, September 16, 2005; 12:24 PM

Will the real George W. Bush please stand up?

Several of the key points in President Bush's nationally televised speech last night are being widely welcomed this morning: His vow to rebuild the Gulf Coast, his increasingly direct acknowledgment that there were serious government lapses after Hurricane Katrina, his admission that Americans can and should expect a more effective response to catastrophes in the post 9/11 era.


But the guts of the speech -- in which Bush unfurled his administration's grand plans for the biggest government-funded reconstruction effort in history -- has led to considerable skepticism, if not outright puzzlement, on both sides of the political divide.

Consider two of the more extreme possibilities:

* Either Bush is being entirely forthright, in which case he's talking about something reminiscent of the biggest liberal government programs of the 20th century. That scares some conservatives, certainly fiscal conservatives, to death.

* Or maybe it's just a plan to transform the Gulf Coast into a big test bed for conservative social policy, where tax breaks flow to big business and tax money flows to Halliburton, churches and private schools. That utterly terrifies liberals.

The argument that the administration will consider conservative ideological gains as a paramount consideration certainly gains credence when you consider, as I wrote in yesterday's column , that the White House's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, has apparently been put in charge of reconstruction plans.

But there is nothing remotely reminiscent of Bush's traditional small-government rhetoric about a plan estimated to cost taxpayers at least $200 billion.

 

[Twotimer]

washingtonpost.com
Who's in Charge? Karl Rove!

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, September 15, 2005; 12:00 PM

All you really need to know about the White House's post-Katrina strategy -- and Bush's carefully choreographed address on national television tonight -- is this little tidbit from the ninth paragraph of Elisabeth Bumiller and Richard W. Stevenson's story in the New York Times this morning:

"Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort."

Rove's leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush's image.

That is Rove's hallmark.

Rove, Bush's long-time political adviser and the "architect" of Bush's ascendancy, was rewarded after the 2004 election with a position at the White House with overt policy responsibilities. But whereas in some previous White Houses, governance took precedence over campaigning once the election was safely over, Rove has shown no sign of ever putting policy goals above political ones. (See my Rove profile.)

Tonight's speech promises two classic features of the Rove approach.

Bush will take advantage of powerful imagery -- the Associated Press reports the speech will be held in historic Jackson Square, with the famous St. Louis Cathedral as a backdrop -- and he won't risk having anyone around who might disagree with him or ask an impertinent question. In fact, the AP says, there won't be a live audience at all. (And even the journalists covering the event are being told they won't be allowed to stray from their press vans.)

As for the speech itself, it will inevitably seek to answer any naysaying about Bush by recasting him in the heroic, leadership role he played after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- while advocating a range of measures that are dear to the conservative political agenda.

It will, on the other hand, feature one very unRovian tactic. Typically, it is the Democrats who are blamed for wanting to solve problems by throwing money at them. But tonight, Bush will be the one throwing the money around.

Will it work? Rove has an astonishing track record of success. But at the same time, Bush finds himself today a deeply unpopular president according to the opinion polls, particularly damaged by his lackluster response to the protracted, televised suffering in New Orleans.

And Rove himself has not been at his best of late. Unlike many of Bush's advisers, who have plausible deniability for his initial under-reaction because they weren't with him on vacation, Rove was tagging along with the president, blithely touring the West Coast even as the Gulf Coast drowned. Rove is haunted by the possibility of indictment by a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent. And according to Time magazine, he was briefly hospitalized last week with painful kidney stones.

Even many of the president's traditional allies say Bush -- and by extension, Rove -- have been off their political game. We'll know better by tomorrow morning whether that continues to be the case.

 

[nenmrancher]

I think the differences have always been there, just in the past more people where willing to comprise and meet each other half way. To me and I see it more and more in places that surprise me is the unflexible attitudes that people have adopted. This attitude that my way is the only way that is right, is a lot of the problem. I saw alot of it at our county fair. We have a long history with the steers, hogs and lambs, and starting last year we had a lot of interest in goats. At our fair we have usally sold 20pigs, 20 sheep, and 20 steers, plus rabbits, chickens and goats when there have been any shown. Last year the goats went from one or two to seven or eight and they sold three of them, this year we had almost twenty market goats, would have more put several either died or where too old. Point is that the parents wanted 20 goats to sell this year. The fair board said no that they could not just jump straight to 20, and set things on a sliding scale that will increase as the project grows as a comprimise for the next couple of years so that they could see what is going to happen. Most thought this was a good idea but the extreme people on each side hated the idea of comprimise. We now have a parent that flat out tells you he does not care about anyone else that he just wants what he thinks is best. He also is threating the fair board with a lawsuit claiming unfairness, discrimination, and anything else that comes to mind. He is also unwilling to help find buyers and do anything to help with the fair. I could go on and on about others on both sides of the issue and get no where. My point is that neither side is willing to work with the other and that is what I think is part of the problem with everything today.

 

[passin thru]

Don't blame the politicians for spending..................................
who elected them.........................
they learned if they opened our pockets for them to dish back to us .....
It is just a bidding war with our money.........................
THEY ARE GIVING US WHAT WE WANT........................


Politicians

 

[SDSteve]

I think the differences have always been there, just in the past more people where willing to comprise and meet each other half way. To me and I see it more and more in places that surprise me is the unflexible attitudes that people have adopted. This attitude that my way is the only way that is right, is a lot of the problem. I saw alot of it at our county fair. We have a long history with the steers, hogs and lambs, and starting last year we had a lot of interest in goats. At our fair we have usally sold 20pigs, 20 sheep, and 20 steers, plus rabbits, chickens and goats when there have been any shown. Last year the goats went from one or two to seven or eight and they sold three of them, this year we had almost twenty market goats, would have more put several either died or where too old. Point is that the parents wanted 20 goats to sell this year. The fair board said no that they could not just jump straight to 20, and set things on a sliding scale that will increase as the project grows as a comprimise for the next couple of years so that they could see what is going to happen. Most thought this was a good idea but the extreme people on each side hated the idea of comprimise. We now have a parent that flat out tells you he does not care about anyone else that he just wants what he thinks is best. He also is threating the fair board with a lawsuit claiming unfairness, discrimination, and anything else that comes to mind. He is also unwilling to help find buyers and do anything to help with the fair. I could go on and on about others on both sides of the issue and get no where. My point is that neither side is willing to work with the other and that is what I think is part of the problem with everything today.

I think that you are on to something. Compromise is almost unheard of anymore. Everyone seems to want to dig their feet in and fight. Also so many times a lawsuit has to get in the way.

 

[SDSteve]

Don't blame the politicians for spending..................................
who elected them.........................
they learned if they opened our pockets for them to dish back to us .....
It is just a bidding war with our money.........................
THEY ARE GIVING US WHAT WE WANT........................


Politicians

I don't blame the politicians for spending. I blame the politicians for running as conservatives and then getting elected and spending money like water.

 

[passin thru]

I blame the pols for there spending, and people for voting for that behavior.

You seem to forget the people are always asking for another PROGRAM.

I know you are implying Bushes spending which I don't like, but I firmly believe with what Kerry proposed and his record he would have been worse, seeing he has no inkling what a dollar is. If he needs another dollar all he has todo isgo and ask Teresa and we shouldn't be his Teresa also.

So the people need to rise up and say CUT even if it is their PET PROGRAM.

We all know if a pol said he was going to cut and cut he wouldn't even get out of the primaries.

 

[Disagreeable]

Good post, SDSteve. You're not alone in your frustration. For what it's worth, real Conservatives are deserting Bush right and left.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Discussion boards have taught me a thing or two also. A very interesting thing I learned was how to use google.com. This is the discussion board I found when I googled SD Steve:

http://forums.backpage.com/showthread.php?t=255&page=2

But here is all I got when I googled disagreeable: Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to
others.

Comments, anyone?

 

[Twotimer]

That's San Diego Steve, not South Dakota Steve. Notice the locations.

 

[Disagreeable]

Discussion boards have taught me a thing or two also. A very interesting thing I learned was how to use google.com. This is the discussion board I found when I googled SD Steve:

http://forums.backpage.com/showthread.php?t=255&page=2

But here is all I got when I googled disagreeable: Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to
others.

Comments, anyone?

Sigh. You really do need help. It's Disagreeable with a capital D. You'll get a lot of hits if you spell it correctly. :roll:

I'm quite comfortable with my stand on the Iraqi war and polls show that more and more Americans are beginning to see the light. George W. Bush lied about his reasons for invading a soverign country. The Bush Bunch went in without enough troops, in spite of advice from professional military leaders, not enough armor. They stumbled around, refused help from the UN and other countries, didn't get the water running or more electricity generated, while an insurgency was taking root. All one has to do is look at the hurrican on the Gulf Coast and Iraq and see how totally incompetent this Administration is.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Link: http://forums.backpage.com/showthread.php?t=255&page=2

Twotimer: That's San Diego Steve, not South Dakota Steve. Notice the locations.

Really? How do we know that? SD Steve listed South Dakota as his location on this board, but is there any way we can know for sure? They definitely seem like the same type and I'd sure want to hide my identity, if I posted something like that.

Liberty Belle: But here is all I got when I googled disagreeable: Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.

Very apt, don't you think?