Quote:
Originally posted by Gaelic:
The problem is that liberals believe the government exists to proactively go out and do a bunch of things because people are not able to take care of themselves while conservatives believe that people have the right to do for themselves and have the government available to solve problems that arise and maintain the conditions of an orderly society. The democrats essentially want to socialize everything and make the people dependant upon the government while conservatives want people to have the opportunity to succeed and be more than "average." I cannot sit quietly by and let horrible people like Hillary, Bill, Al, and their cronies in the Senate ruin a fantastic nation by stealing from people who have worked hard and earned success and giving to those who have not just to ensure their own political futures and personal power. Those people represent the greatest threat to our country since the civil war.
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Oh please.
It seems one of the favorite strategies of vocal internet conservatives is to stack the argument by slanted definitions.
Notice how the above quoted portrayals take the worst aspects of some liberals and pretend such are the essence of "liberalism," while taking the opposite approach with conservatisim. What a joke.
Why don't we define conservatism by the same approach and see what happens? Here goes: Conservatives are intolerant religious/moralistic bigots, possibly racist, who worship money and large corporations, at the expense of everybody and everything else.
It is a FALSEHOOD that conservatives really stand for smaller government. What they say and what they do are two very different things. If you look at how so called conservative republican congressman actually vote on bills, you will find that they are just as spend-happy, pork barrel addicted as any of the liberals. If there are differences it is in how they choose to spend the money, not the fact that they spend it. Conservatives simply place a greater emphasis on things like military spending and corporate welfare, rather than welfare for poor people. That is the difference.
Now, you might claim that "conservatives" as I have stereotypically described them above are not "true conservatives." Well, the same reasoning applies regarding the use of the word "liberal" doesn't it?
"Liberal" used to mean something very different than it does today. I would describe myself as a "classical liberal" in the old Jeffersonian sense. In the same way it would be unreasonable of me to insist on that old definition in taking about "liberals" today, it is equally unreasonable to insist on older definitions of "conservatism" when talking about "conservatives" today.
The truth is that neither modern liberals nor conservatives, as reflected in the makeup of our current republican and democratic parties, pay anything more than lip service to the idea of changing the current governmental establishment.
Sometimes I find it difficult to tell them apart at all. Rather than presenting the public with a significantly meaningful choice, increasingly they seem the parties of Tweetledee and Tweetledum.
I agree with those who said above that the choice between Gore and Bush was a sad choice indeed. Nader would have been better than either one.
In our two party system, we frequently hear the term "the lesser of two evils" as a method of choosing between them. A more accurate perspective would be "the evil of two lessers."
[This message has been edited by Diogenes Of Pumpkintown (edited 08-11-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Diogenes Of Pumpkintown (edited 08-11-2001).]