Here's to perspective...

Stan Shannon

Except that it begs the question "rebuild what?" It assumes that there is some agreement upon what we are supposed to be rebuilding. The sad fact is that there is nothing to rebuild. Any material we could rebuild with is itself corrupt and unusable. What we should be looking at this as is an opportunity for starting over, not rebuilding. A new beginning.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Rob Graham

That's precisely why the conservatives deserve nothing but condemnation for this. The chose social conservative bigotry over everything else, sacrificing even their core principles of small government and fiscal conservatism for what are essentially religiously motivated beliefs. You are no different that the Taliban.

Rob Graham

Damn straight it's your fault.

Stan Shannon

Rob Graham wrote:

That's precisely why the conservatives deserve nothing but condemnation for this. The chose social conservative bigotry over everything else, sacrificing even their core principles of small government and fiscal conservatism for what are essentially religiously motivated beliefs. You are no different that the Taliban.

So, you are saying that traditional American society was always the equivalent of the taliban? When precisely did we change to something different, something you seem to approve of?

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Stan Shannon

Rob Graham wrote:

Damn straight it's your fault.

How? Who the hell exactly were we supposed to vote for who would have done anything differently?

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Rob Graham

No, just your imagined version.

Rob Graham

The failure precedes this election by at least two, if not more. The Republican Party has not selected a small government fiscal conservative candidate since Reagan. And the answer to your question is likely the candidate I chose: Bob Barr.

Stan Shannon

Come on, Rob, be honest. Was there not prayer in public schools? Was there not religious inspired 'blue laws' in every corner of this country? Did not religion play an enormous role in the politics or our society through out most of its history? Now, godammit, did that make our society like the taliban or not? You made the alligation, now answer the fucking question. When did we change?

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Rob Graham

I agree. However, since it is the Republicans who claim the mantle of conservatism (but mean ONLY social conservatism), it is they who will inherit the blame. And Bush/Paulson/Cox are not alone in this. The bailout could not have passed without the support of many Republican congressmen and senators. Now, of course, it's too late for anything other than a squeaky "we didn't mean that" whine from them.

Stan Shannon

Rob Graham wrote:

The failure precedes this election by at least two, if not more. The Republican Party has not selected a small government fiscal conservative candidate since Reagan.

I agree completely. I didn't vote for Bush with any sort of grand expectation that he was going to be a movement conservative. There are no movement conservatives to vote for. But I did believe that he would have to throw we conservatives a bone or two in the form of supreme court justices so I voted for him. I had no expectation of getting anything else conservative out of the man. He is obviously a guy who thinks that we need bipartisanship and compromise in government. I knew that going in.

Rob Graham wrote:

And the answer to your question is likely the candidate I chose: Bob Barr.

Was he on the balot in 2000? In any case, I don't vote libertarian. Libertarians are not conservatives. They are as anti-Jeffersonian as the liberals are.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Oakman

Rob Graham wrote:

The Republican Party has not selected a small government fiscal conservative candidate since Reagan.

Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by fiscally conservative. To my way of thinking, Reagan ran as one, but in office he chalked up what was at the time - though small potatoes by today's standards - a gigantic deficit, while raising taxes (under the guise of tax reform) quite a bit. Eisenhower actually balanced the budget 3 years out of eight - something no other post-war president has done.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

soap brain

Stan Shannon wrote:

You made the alligation alligator

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Oakman

Rob Graham wrote:

Now, of course, it's too late for anything other than a squeaky "we didn't mean that" whine from them.

Of course. Pointing the finger at the other guy seems to be one of the few things that all politicians do well. Picking the pockets of the tax-payers, likewise appears to be something conservatives do equally as well as liberals.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Rob Graham

Roe V Wade. That was when one single religious principle became so overwhelmingly important to conservatives that they became willing to sacrifice all else to find a way to overturn that decision, and to insure that the high court would never again venture that way. When republicans took religion from the local to the national, they became theocrats and ceased to wear the mantle of Reagan and Lincoln. And as this election demonstrated, not all of American society changed with you. It is not America in general I am comparing to the Taliban (as you would assert), just the Christian religious right that owns the Republican party, and has determined the nomination of every national Republican candidate for the past two decades.

Stan Shannon

Rob Graham wrote:

That was when one single religious principle became so overwhelmingly important to conservatives that they became willing to sacrifice all else to find a way to overturn that decision, and to insure that the high court would never again venture that way. When republicans took religion from the local to the national, they became theocrats and ceased to wear the mantle of Reagan and Lincoln.

Thank you. I actually agree with that. Now, in response, like me ask you another simple question. When the courts decide an issue as fundamentally important to a large segment of the electorate such as the very definition of human life based on very strained legal reasoning, is that electorate simply suppose to lie down and accept it? If the issue of abortion was so important why could it not have been addressed directly by the elected representatives of the people rather than being 'discovered' in a constitution which states explicitely that all powers not given explicitely by the constitution to the federal government belong to the states and to the people? I would observe that to a true conservative the Roe v Wade issue has nothing to do with religion at all. It has to do with who you trust most to hold the power to decide social issues ,the courts or the people. And for you, a guy who just last night was agreeing with Heinlein's trust for his neighbors, I would submit that is an extremly contradictory position for you to assume. My opposition to Roe v Wade has nothing to do with religion, but the fact that there is religious opposition to it is entirely appropriate. There should be. The court needs its arrogant assed kicked over that decision. And the fact that religious people are made the bad guys in that is simply staggering.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Stan Shannon

Hey, thanks for my daily spelling lesson.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Rob Graham

Oakman wrote:

Picking the pockets of the tax-payers, likewise appears to be something conservatives Republicans do equally as well as liberals.

FTFY - There are no conservatives in government today, just kleptocrats and theocrats masquerading as conservatives.

soap brain

Spelling is very important. Nobody ever won an argument by saying: "lol d00d ur so rong teh sky iz blue cos of raili scatering lulz n00b!!!!1111"

Stan Shannon

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

Spelling is very important

Not so much. An occasional mispelled word is no big deal. ;P I rarely even proof read my comments. In the age of spell checkers, I actually think my spelling and grammer are pretty damn good.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Rob Graham

That differs in what way from the Taliban's insistence on Sharia Law? Many of us do not buy into the assertion that legal availability of abortion is about

Stan Shannon wrote:

an issue... such as the very definition of human life

. No fetus is viable in the first trimester, and it is a strictly Religious definition that says otherwise.

Stan Shannon wrote:

If the issue of abortion was so important why could it not have been addressed directly by the elected representatives of the people

Yes, why not. Why must republicans sacrifice everything to pack a court, rather than seek the simple remedy of a constitutional amendment? Perhaps because they know an amendment would not pass muster?

Stan Shannon wrote:

Roe v Wade issue has nothing to do with religion at all.

Bullshit. It has to do with little else.