The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York

[WillowTree]

I always find it entertaining when the OP of a thread is a straight copy and paste job with no comment from the poster. Makes me wonder whether the poster actually has any original thought or whether they are actually capable of debate. If you cannot start a debate with your own thought, perhaps 'debate' is not in your skill set.

It's not about debate. You haven't been here long enough to know that the lunatic lefts agenda is to demean the Republican party. We are irrelevant, white, old, extremist,un American, gun loving, bible toting teabaggers. Debate is not an option. Just take yer medicine, smile and nod. oh! and btw. original thoughts are not an option either, you must have a link.

I value that helpful advice. Because the OP whines when I say I can't debate 'fluff' and another poster accuses me of trolling when I say this is not a debate forum. Lefties don't understand debate - go figure! Color me Shocked Pink!

their bible is Alinsky's rules for radicals. I'm sure the first thing they told you was that you are a "liar."

 

[California Girl]

It's not about debate. You haven't been here long enough to know that the lunatic lefts agenda is to demean the Republican party. We are irrelevant, white, old, extremist,un American, gun loving, bible toting teabaggers. Debate is not an option. Just take yer medicine, smile and nod. oh! and btw. original thoughts are not an option either, you must have a link.

I value that helpful advice. Because the OP whines when I say I can't debate 'fluff' and another poster accuses me of trolling when I say this is not a debate forum. Lefties don't understand debate - go figure! Color me Shocked Pink!

their bible is Alinsky's rules for radicals. I'm sure the first thing they told you was that you are a "liar."

Indeed, I have been called a 'liar'. Hence I actually posted a list of the 'rules for radicals' on this very forum - just so we're all clear about who does what.

 

[Bfgrn]

That's our Jethro!...He has a sixth grade edumacation!

WOW, such intellectual prowess...

Hey Libertarian Party DUD...e, as I stated; I am a staunch JFK liberal and a Goldwater libertarian...I strongly endorse JFK's form of liberalism and I also endorse Goldwater's libertarian beliefs that government needs to stay out of our bedroom, allow each of us to choose who we love and marry and that the separation of church & state must be absolute.

I am for free markets, as soon as we end corporate welfare and subsidized markets that are rigged by corporate pay-offs. I'm sure you're aware that in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community. IF you are what you say you are, I suggest you read up on Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad and contemplate the very profound threat to our freedom and liberty that Supreme Court ruling imposes on the vision of our founding fathers...ALL TRUE libertarians do...

It is interesting that Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater were very good friends. They even discussed breaking the cycle of toxic politics in America by campaigning together in the 1964 Presidential election. They never got that chance...the toxic political sickness in America murdered our great President before that election...

AND, it's interesting and ironic that you say you're a member of the libertarian party and that I NEED to read up on F. A. Hayek...a liberal who had disdain for the libertarian label...

AND, I find it truly interesting and ironic that Hayek's excellent essay could have easily been co-authored by those same two friends...a merger of JFK liberalism and Goldwater libertarianism...
-----------------------------------------------------

Why I Am Not a Conservative
F. A. Hayek

This brings me to the first point on which the conservative and the liberal dispositions differ radically. As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers, one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such,[5] while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead. There would not be much to object to if the conservatives merely disliked too rapid change in institutions and public policy; here the case for caution and slow process is indeed strong. But the conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate to whatever appeals to the more timid mind. In looking forward, they lack the faith in the spontaneous forces of adjustment which makes the liberal accept changes without apprehension, even though he does not know how the necessary adaptations will be brought about. It is, indeed, part of the liberal attitude to assume that, especially in the economic field, the self-regulating forces of the market will somehow bring about the required adjustments to new conditions, although no one can foretell how they will do this in a particular instance. There is perhaps no single factor contributing so much to people's frequent reluctance to let the market work as their inability to conceive how some necessary balance, between demand and supply, between exports and imports, or the like, will be brought about without deliberate control. The conservative feels safe and content only if he is assured that some higher wisdom watches and supervises change, only if he knows that some authority is charged with keeping the change "orderly."

This fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces is closely related to two other characteristics of conservatism: its fondness for authority and its lack of understanding of economic forces. Since it distrusts both abstract theories and general principles,[6] it neither understands those spontaneous forces on which a policy of freedom relies nor possesses a basis for formulating principles of policy. Order appears to the conservative as the result of the continuous attention of authority, which, for this purpose, must be allowed to do what is required by the particular circumstances and not be tied to rigid rule. A commitment to principles presupposes an understanding of the general forces by which the efforts of society are co-ordinated, but it is such a theory of society and especially of the economic mechanism that conservatism conspicuously lacks. So unproductive has conservatism been in producing a general conception of how a social order is maintained that its modern votaries, in trying to construct a theoretical foundation, invariably find themselves appealing almost exclusively to authors who regarded themselves as liberal. Macaulay, Tocqueville, Lord Acton, and Lecky certainly considered themselves liberals, and with justice; and even Edmund Burke remained an Old Whig to the end and would have shuddered at the thought of being regarded as a Tory.

Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule - not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them.[7] Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people.

When I say that the conservative lacks principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions. It is the recognition of such principles that permits the coexistence of different sets of values that makes it possible to build a peaceful society with a minimum of force. The acceptance of such principles means that we agree to tolerate much that we dislike. There are many values of the conservative which appeal to me more than those of the socialists; yet for a liberal the importance he personally attaches to specific goals is no sufficient justification for forcing others to serve them. I have little doubt that some of my conservative friends will be shocked by what they will regard as "concessions" to modern views that I have made in Part III of this book. But, though I may dislike some of the measures concerned as much as they do and might vote against them, I know of no general principles to which I could appeal to persuade those of a different view that those measures are not permissible in the general kind of society which we both desire. To live and work successfully with others requires more than faithfulness to one's concrete aims. It requires an intellectual commitment to a type of order in which, even on issues which to one are fundamental, others are allowed to pursue different ends.

It is for this reason that to the liberal neither moral nor religious ideals are proper objects of coercion, while both conservatives and socialists recognize no such limits. I sometimes feel that the most conspicuous attribute of liberalism that distinguishes it as much from conservatism as from socialism is the view that moral beliefs concerning matters of conduct which do not directly interfere with the protected sphere of other persons do not justify coercion. This may also explain why it seems to be so much easier for the repentant socialist to find a new spiritual home in the conservative fold than in the liberal.

4. I have already referred to the differences between conservatism and liberalism in the purely intellectual field, but I must return to them because the characteristic conservative attitude here not only is a serious weakness of conservatism but tends to harm any cause which allies itself with it. Conservatives feel instinctively that it is new ideas more than anything else that cause change. But, from its point of view rightly, conservatism fears new ideas because it has no distinctive principles of its own to oppose them; and, by its distrust of theory and its lack of imagination concerning anything except that which experience has already proved, it deprives itself of the weapons needed in the struggle of ideas. Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality.

The difference shows itself most clearly in the different attitudes of the two traditions to the advance of knowledge. Though the liberal certainly does not regard all change as progress, he does regard the advance of knowledge as one of the chief aims of human effort and expects from it the gradual solution of such problems and difficulties as we can hope to solve. Without preferring the new merely because it is new, the liberal is aware that it is of the essence of human achievement that it produces something new; and he is prepared to come to terms with new knowledge, whether he likes its immediate effects or not.

Personally, I find that the most objectionable feature of the conservative attitude is its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it - or, to put it bluntly, its obscurantism. I will not deny that scientists as much as others are given to fads and fashions and that we have much reason to be cautious in accepting the conclusions that they draw from their latest theories. But the reasons for our reluctance must themselves be rational and must be kept separate from our regret that the new theories upset our cherished beliefs. I can have little patience with those who oppose, for instance, the theory of evolution or what are called "mechanistic" explanations of the phenomena of life because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irrelevant or impious to ask certain questions at all. By refusing to face the facts, the conservative only weakens his own position. Frequently the conclusions which rationalist presumption draws from new scientific insights do not at all follow from them. But only by actively taking part in the elaboration of the consequences of new discoveries do we learn whether or not they fit into our world picture and, if so, how. Should our moral beliefs really prove to be dependent on factual assumptions shown to be incorrect, it would hardly be moral to defend them by refusing to acknowledge facts.

Connected with the conservative distrust if the new and the strange is its hostility to internationalism and its proneness to a strident nationalism. Here is another source of its weakness in the struggle of ideas. It cannot alter the fact that the ideas which are changing our civilization respect no boundaries. But refusal to acquaint one's self with new ideas merely deprives one of the power of effectively countering them when necessary. The growth of ideas is an international process, and only those who fully take part in the discussion will be able to exercise a significant influence. It is no real argument to say that an idea is un-American, or un-German, nor is a mistaken or vicious ideal better for having been conceived by one of our compatriots.

MUCH more...

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
John F. Kennedy - September 14, 1960

"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the Republican party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Barry Goldwater
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I'll be waiting for your "highly intellectual" one line slander...DUD...e

 

[Bfgrn]

I always find it entertaining when the OP of a thread is a straight copy and paste job with no comment from the poster. Makes me wonder whether the poster actually has any original thought or whether they are actually capable of debate. If you cannot start a debate with your own thought, perhaps 'debate' is not in your skill set.

It's not about debate. You haven't been here long enough to know that the lunatic lefts agenda is to demean the Republican party. We are irrelevant, white, old, extremist,un American, gun loving, bible toting teabaggers. Debate is not an option. Just take yer medicine, smile and nod. oh! and btw. original thoughts are not an option either, you must have a link.

I value that helpful advice. Because the OP whines when I say I can't debate 'fluff' and another poster accuses me of trolling when I say this is not a debate forum. Lefties don't understand debate - go figure! Color me Shocked Pink!

It's clear to all but the obtuse that the whining is coming only from you...

OMG...I can't debate because this one or that one... (plug in one of the multitude of excuse)...

Cali gal...Victimhood personified...

 

[Oddball]

I've read quite a bit of Hayek, Jethro.

Quoting him and other libertarians ad nauseum doesn't make you one of them.

 

[amrchaos]

After reading the author's post, I have come to the conclusion

HOFFMAN IS NOT THE ONE YOU WANT.​

Too many politicians are slobbing over the guy--Thus the guy is slimey!!

 

[amrchaos]

It's not about debate. You haven't been here long enough to know that the lunatic lefts agenda is to demean the Republican party. We are irrelevant, white, old, extremist,un American, gun loving, bible toting teabaggers. Debate is not an option. Just take yer medicine, smile and nod. oh! and btw. original thoughts are not an option either, you must have a link.

I value that helpful advice. Because the OP whines when I say I can't debate 'fluff' and another poster accuses me of trolling when I say this is not a debate forum. Lefties don't understand debate - go figure! Color me Shocked Pink!

their bible is Alinsky's rules for radicals. I'm sure the first thing they told you was that you are a "liar."

Have you ever read "Rules for Radicals"? It is not some leftist instruction manual on how to disrupt society. But a process on how to organize groups of people to plan and achieve objectives.

You can even use it to judge the effectiveness of an organization or demonhstration. For instance, the tea parties were not well organize, considering that their message is "cut taxes, no socialism, Not my country, Mexican" Which was the Republican talking points for the past decade and sounded badly rehersed.

Guess what--nothing new came out it, nor was their a full declaration on how to resolve any problems---oh yeah, besides a bigger tax cut and more government funds for a Border gate(see the contradiction here?)

They needed Rules for Radicals to see how to really push in a single and cohesive direction--like lower taxes and a "no border" solution to the immigration problem such as instituting Assylia(A Pseudo form of Equal Citizenship--no they will not have the right to vote!) and tax laws that cover non-processed immigrants hired by American employers(why should not the government make money off of the problem?)

 

[JakeStarkey]

So the Hopey Changey Democrat Stalinists hate the Republican "Stalinists?" Oh man,i confused.

CalypsoLouie, that has been clear from the first time you posted.

 

[Fatality]

this is the defeated gearing up for a new wave of hate, hoffman is becoming the new target of liberal rage.

 

[California Girl]

It's not about debate. You haven't been here long enough to know that the lunatic lefts agenda is to demean the Republican party. We are irrelevant, white, old, extremist,un American, gun loving, bible toting teabaggers. Debate is not an option. Just take yer medicine, smile and nod. oh! and btw. original thoughts are not an option either, you must have a link.

I value that helpful advice. Because the OP whines when I say I can't debate 'fluff' and another poster accuses me of trolling when I say this is not a debate forum. Lefties don't understand debate - go figure! Color me Shocked Pink!

It's clear to all but the obtuse that the whining is coming only from you...

OMG...I can't debate because this one or that one... (plug in one of the multitude of excuse)...

Cali gal...Victimhood personified...

You clearly have no concept of 'debate', a forum with the rule base of this one makes actual 'debate' a non-starter. It is not my problem that you are not smart enough to understand 'debate'. Any intelligent person knows that 'debate' has rules - this forum does not. How the fuck do you actually debate anything? You're making as ass of yourself. One reason - not a multitude. No debate rules, no debate - I can't think of how to make it clearer for you. Idiot.

And..... I am not Cali girl. That is another poster. Idiot.

Stop whining. Try opening threads with your own comments among the stuff from others.

 

[garyd]

Silly leftists. The Reps of upstate New York decided they needed another me too Republican about like they needed sand burr lined dentures. And this leftist dipstick thinks their clear repudiation of me tooism is some how a sign of impending doom for the Republicans when in fact said Republicans are trying deperately to get back to what made them a majority in the nineties.

 

[mdn2000]

This threads premise is nothing more than a flame, I only post to point that out, conservatives should know better than to post in threads with a false premise.

go ahead and flame my post, no matter who you are, I said my piece and am finished with adding another post to a flame of a thread, you conservatives should let the garbage sink to the bottom.

 

[Bfgrn]

I've read quite a bit of Hayek, Jethro.

Quoting him and other libertarians ad nauseum doesn't make you one of them.

You've read quite a bit of Hayek...REALLY? Well, HOW would we know, from the cartoons you post or your ignorant one line insults?

I challenged you to discuss Barry Goldwater and his libertarianism = DUD...e silence

So, I'll wait for your cartoon...

-------------------------------------

This is a man who in his own business, before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan, before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement plan, and a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn't work. He provided nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods from the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.


An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona, and he said that there were a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. Then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, "Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such," and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in the weeks before Christmas, all day long, he would load up the plane, fly to Arizona, fly them to their homes, then fly back over to get another load.


During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, "There aren't many left who care what happens to her. I'd like her to know that I care." This is a man who said to his nineteen-year-old son, "There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life upon that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start!" This is not a man who could carelessly send other people's sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all of the other problems I have discussed academic, unless we realize that we are in a war that must be won.


Address on Behalf of Sen. Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, 1964
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, CA., p 22-36

 

[Oddball]

Are you this much of a bore in real life?

 

[Article 15]

This threads premise is nothing more than a flame, I only post to point that out, conservatives should know better than to post in threads with a false premise.

go ahead and flame my post, no matter who you are, I said my piece and am finished with adding another post to a flame of a thread, you conservatives should let the garbage sink to the bottom.

Quit yer whining, you prissy little fuck.

 

[Bfgrn]

Are you this much of a bore in real life?

Ah, poor baby...what's the matter DUD...e am I going too fast for you, or is it my sixth grade edumacation that your kindergarten mind can't overcome?


"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy

 

[Oddball]

I'll score that a big YES.

 

[Xenophon]

Wow.

Stalinists are calling other people Stalinists.

Can't anyone show Mao some love?

Oh, wait...

 

[Bfgrn]

Wow.

Stalinists are calling other people Stalinists.

Can't anyone show Mao some love?

Oh, wait...

SURE...

Sex and power inside "the C Street House"

Sanford, Ensign, and other regulars receive guidance from the invisible fundamentalist group known as the Family

By Jeff Sharlet
...Family...They're followers of a political religion that embraces elitism, disdains democracy, and pursues power for its members the better to "advance the Kingdom." They say they're working for Jesus, but their Christ is a power-hungry, inside-the-Beltway savior not many churchgoers would recognize. Sexual peccadilloes aside, the Family acts today like the most powerful lobby in America that isn't registered as a lobby -- and is thus immune from the scrutiny attending the other powerful organizations like Big Pharma and Big Insurance that exert pressure on public policy.

The Family likes to call itself a "Christian Mafia," but it began 74 years ago as an anti-New Deal coalition of businessmen convinced that organized labor was under the sway of Satan. The Great Depression, they believed, was a punishment from God for what they viewed as FDR's socialism. The Family's goal was the "consecration" of America to God, first through the repeal of New Deal reforms, then through the aggressive expansion of American power during the Cold War. They called this a "Worldwide Spiritual Offensive," but in Washington, it amounted to the nation's first fundamentalist lobby.

If the Family men who stood over John Ensign as he wrote a baldly insincere breakup letter to his mistress were naive about hearts that want what they want, they don't claim ignorance about the strongmen with whom they build bonds of prayer and foreign aid. They admire them. Counseling Rep. Tiahrt, Doug Coe offered Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden as men whose commitment to their causes is to be emulated. Preaching on the meaning of Christ's words, he says, "You know Jesus said 'You got to put Him before mother-father-brother sister? Hitler, Lenin, Mao, that's what they taught the kids. Mao even had the kids killing their own mother and father. But it wasn't murder. It was for building the new nation. The new kingdom."

 

[California Girl]

Wow.

Stalinists are calling other people Stalinists.

Can't anyone show Mao some love?

Oh, wait...

SURE...

Sex and power inside "the C Street House"

Sanford, Ensign, and other regulars receive guidance from the invisible fundamentalist group known as the Family

By Jeff Sharlet
...Family...They're followers of a political religion that embraces elitism, disdains democracy, and pursues power for its members the better to "advance the Kingdom." They say they're working for Jesus, but their Christ is a power-hungry, inside-the-Beltway savior not many churchgoers would recognize. Sexual peccadilloes aside, the Family acts today like the most powerful lobby in America that isn't registered as a lobby -- and is thus immune from the scrutiny attending the other powerful organizations like Big Pharma and Big Insurance that exert pressure on public policy.

The Family likes to call itself a "Christian Mafia," but it began 74 years ago as an anti-New Deal coalition of businessmen convinced that organized labor was under the sway of Satan. The Great Depression, they believed, was a punishment from God for what they viewed as FDR's socialism. The Family's goal was the "consecration" of America to God, first through the repeal of New Deal reforms, then through the aggressive expansion of American power during the Cold War. They called this a "Worldwide Spiritual Offensive," but in Washington, it amounted to the nation's first fundamentalist lobby.

If the Family men who stood over John Ensign as he wrote a baldly insincere breakup letter to his mistress were naive about hearts that want what they want, they don't claim ignorance about the strongmen with whom they build bonds of prayer and foreign aid. They admire them. Counseling Rep. Tiahrt, Doug Coe offered Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden as men whose commitment to their causes is to be emulated. Preaching on the meaning of Christ's words, he says, "You know Jesus said 'You got to put Him before mother-father-brother sister? Hitler, Lenin, Mao, that's what they taught the kids. Mao even had the kids killing their own mother and father. But it wasn't murder. It was for building the new nation. The new kingdom."

Serious question - can you actually forumuate your own thoughts and opinions or do you just regurgitate those of other people?