Conservatives

[midcan5]

Wow, twenty eight pages of comment already. My goal for a long time was to bring conservatives down to earth, Bush and twenty some years of voodoo economics and voodoo free market greed, did that job for us. Liberal was a bad word for too long; I hear that is now changing. Good thing, but really in honesty there are personality differences between conservatives and liberals but like all things they run on a continuum. And I won't mention any of my conservative idiosyncrasies for fear the cons will use them against me.

midcan5's random classifications - goals? fantasies? ideological frame?

conservatives - tradition, hierarchy, nation, religion
liberals - individual, government/state, secular, justice, fairness

====

Conservatives yes = tradition, hierarchy, nation, religion, market
Conservatives no = government/state, social welfare, change, humanism, secularism, fairness, equality

liberals yes = change, community, government/state, humanism, justice, fairness, equality
liberals no = tradition, hierarchy, theism, corporatism

note the ambiguity of nation / state?

 

[Bfgrn]

Wow, twenty eight pages of comment already. My goal for a long time was to bring conservatives down to earth, Bush and twenty some years of voodoo economics and voodoo free market greed, did that job for us. Liberal was a bad word for too long; I hear that is now changing. Good thing, but really in honesty there are personality differences between conservatives and liberals but like all things they run on a continuum. And I won't mention any of my conservative idiosyncrasies for fear the cons will use them against me.

midcan5's random classifications - goals? fantasies? ideological frame?

conservatives - tradition, hierarchy, nation, religion
liberals - individual, government/state, secular, justice, fairness

====

Conservatives yes = tradition, hierarchy, nation, religion, market
Conservatives no = government/state, social welfare, change, humanism, secularism, fairness, equality

liberals yes = change, community, government/state, humanism, justice, fairness, equality
liberals no = tradition, hierarchy, theism, corporatism

note the ambiguity of nation / state?

Most sane people have a mixture of both. I have strong liberal beliefs when it come to human beings and many libertarian beliefs in regards to privacy and personal responsibility.

Once upon a time, so did the Republican Party, when it was run by sane people...

"In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people's money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

[Said1]

Let's not cherry pick my posts then!

I realize your position. I'm not in total agreement with it. I believe there are many variables that go beyond money and genetics. Perceived social mobility is probably a bigger factor, that and upbringing. Obviously intelligence is important, but you don't have to be highly intelligent to realize the value of education and instill that into your children so they can reach their potential. It's a higher advantage to be born into people who value education,stimulate intellectual growth and instill good values.Money never hurts, either.

I didn't intend to cherry-pick your posts. I was simply puzzled by what sounded to me like a dismissal of hereditary factors and how they influence one's potential.

I also wasn't trying to isolate intelligence as a sole factor in improving or hindering one's access to opportunity. There are, as you point out, a number of factors that can influence one's life.

My point, again, is that people don't choose their parents or their upbringing; i.e., the cirucumstances of their birth. Yet, the circumstances into which they are born do affect their access to opportunity.

Note: "access." And the only reason to note that is that too many people, as I said, just blithely dismiss the topic with, "Oh, everybody has the same opportunity. Some are just too lazy to do anything." There are, of course, lazy people. But there are also people who are born with limited intelligence, who are raised in compromising circumstances, who are the objects of those who discriminate, and these are people whose access to opportunity is simply not as great as others.

The reason for affirmative action programs, the ADA, the EEOC, etc., is to limit the negative effects of discrimination. Financial aid for students exists to counter the limits poverty places on access to higher education. Federal programs to aid minority-owned businesses are another example of how the government can help open doors.

And I refuse to accept that these interventions are not necessary. Networks of 'old boys,' people giving special treatment to others of 'their own kind,' connections made by living in the right neighborhoods, going to the right schools, cannot be countered without specific rules to give others the opportunities they might have had were the circumstances of their birth different.

I don't think anyone is arguing that people have different levels of intelligence affecting different aspects of their lives, including access to various opportunities. This thread could go on forever if you want to cover every grey area, but I'm not particularly interested.

I also don't think anyone is arguing the equality of ease with which people are able to access opportunities, either. But I could be wrong, this thread has become very convoluted. You posted some points about more opportunity being provided above, ergo, making things easier - I have no idea if someone argued that those initiatives weren't necessary, so consider it moot for me.

It also might interest you to know that I've made some pretty damn impressive connections by frequenting the 'right' tavern and through my previous job, where I was a lowly clerk. Trust me, my birth line is less than impressive.

 

[CueUp]

FEMA is characteristic of how the entire government operates. It's the norm, not the exception, hence why I brought it up.

Moreover, 2008 was absolutely not a repudiation of government. Instead it was the opposite. A total embrace of the power and size and scope of government-- the same government that brought on this crisis. Government can never work, no matter which political party is in power. By nature, it is incapable of solving crisis or making lives better.

Yep. This is the thing that liberals never seem to grasp. The FEMA clusterf*ck should have been all the convincing needed that government does NOTHING very well and, therefore, should be kept out of the business of everyday life (including most major disasters) as much as possible. A people who depend upon government to rescue them not just from life's major calamities, but from all of its smaller ones, as well, wind up being let down (as happened in New Orleans). Note however that in North Dakota, rrecently, the citizens took their fate into their own hands and fought the rising river without waiting for FEMA to step in. Is not the comparison/contrast rather striking?(cue)


come on Deb, FEMA wasnt the clusterfuck that the libs made it out to be
seems the only place that was was the state of LA
didnt have that mess in AL, MS, or FL, and all 3 were hit just as hard if not harder than LA

You're right, of course. Perhaps not as big a clusterfuck as they would have us believe, but a pretty big one, nonetheless.

That said, I find this tidbit to be interesting:

July 23, 2004 - 13 Months Before Katrina
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducts "Hurricane Pam" exercise to assess results of a theoretical Category 3 hurricane. It assumes that a storm with 120-mph winds would force Lake Pontchartrain's waters over the tops of the New Orleans' 17.5-foot levees and through a gap in the levee system would flood major portions of the city and would damage up to 87 percent of the city's homes. The Times-Picayune reports that officials expect up to half the city's residents won't evacuate and that many will be trapped in attics, on rooftops, and in makeshift shelters for days.

—"In Case of Emergency," New Orleans Times-Picayune, as posted on the Web site of the Louisiana Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness, 20 Jul 2004.

 

[CueUp]

I kinda thought it might come as a surprise to you. You can thank me in private for contributing thusly to your education.

Authoritarian Republicans: Understanding the Personality Type

While not all conservatives are authoritarians, all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070905.html

I guess this "concept" falls into the right wing dogma syndrome...

You're a "Tory", you just don't know it...LOL

Conservatism is based on latitude, longitude and date of birth.
Me

Conservatives born in Germany in the 1920's supported Hitler
Conservatives born in Russia in the 1930's supported Stalin
Conservatives born in America in the 1750's supported King George III

ROFLMNAO...

You sis are an imbecile of the first order.

"Conservative" is a relative term... The Context of those would-be 'conservatives' sets them 180 degrees to that of US Constitutional Conservatives...

US Conservatives ARE ADVOCATES OF LIBERTY... Meaning dumbass, that US Conservatives are LIBERALS...

Which of course is NOT to be confused with the ideological left which through one of the great misnomers of modern history, refer to themselves as liberals... There are no elements of left-think which can, even potentially promote liberty... and given that Left-think stands upon NOTHING IF NOT THE EXPANSION AND EMPOWERMENT OF CENTRALIZED ALL ENCOMPASSING GOVERMENT... it is the ideological left (thats you) who ARE THE ANOLOGICAL KING GEORGE...

LOL... Leftists...

I have a theory: the more LOL's, ROFLMNAO's and such-like that a post contains, the more likely the poster is to be a liberal. This also pertains to "smileys", and flowery embellishments in the way of icons and such-like. Always liberals. And, of course, a liberal post will, word-for-word contain more ad hominem attacks than anyone else's.

 

[Agnapostate]

This catfight should be interesting. Is anyone else reminded of the imbecilic rightists' failure to recognize ProtestWarriors attempting to satire leftist protesters?

 

[Agnapostate]

Hitler was a socialist. He said so.

So, in other words, your compliant acceptance of the "National Socialist" moniker would still exist in the case of the Soviet-controlled German "Democratic" Republic? Anything close to a legitimately "socialist" element in the Nazi Party was eliminated on the Night of the Long Knives.

the positional differences Between Mein Kampf and Das Capital are extremely limited.

This is one of the most atrocious mischaracterizations of political theory and economy that I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. Hitler's economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and Keynesianism, of course, is intended to stabilize capitalism. Describing Keynesianism as akin to Marxism is a reckless abuse of political economy.

The Only difference between Moussolini's fascism and Stalins socialism can be found in the simple statement that Moussolini thought it quite possible to simultaneously be a good italian and a good Socialist. Mousolini claimed to be a socialist til his dying day.

What I find sad is that your repeated misspelling of his name is probably the most accurate portion of your post.

You define conservatism as does every other illiterati on the left according to what your idiot leaders want not according to what is reality. anarchy is on the extreme right of the political line Totalitarianism on the extreme left. The theft of individual liberty always happens as we move more toward the collective and further away from the individual rights that those of us on the right cherish and those on the left see as hindrance to their utopian ideal.

This constitutes a similarly poor analysis of political economy and theory, and illustrates the failures of the "left-to-right" political line, as opposed to the additional libertarian/authoritarian dimension incorporated by the Political Compass, for example. For instance, let's consider your inaccurate depiction of "anarchy." You presumably meant anarchist political theory, which has always had relation to the "extreme left," for lack of a more accurate term. Anarchism would effectively be manifested in the extreme end of the libertarian social quadrant and "left" economic quadrant, since anarchism is the purest form of libertarian socialism in existence.

Your neglect of such a critical issue as the multi-dimensional political spectrum undermines your entire analysis.

Well said... But ideology is a line which returns to itself... where totalitarianism and anarchy begin and end and the same point. As they one leads directly to the other. US Conservatives recognize that an anarchists is pretty much the same thing as a Communist, where the communist and the anarchist both disregard the rights of others and limit their conern of them to the responsibilities of which others have to provide for their needs; believing that THEY possess all the rights and it is up to the others to provide for them. Of course BOTH the self declared anarchist AND the Communist will vehemently disagree... but neither possess the intellecual means to tell us WHY...

Would you care to elaborate on this latest incoherent treatise?

 

[KittenKoder]

Authoritarian Republicans: Understanding the Personality Type

While not all conservatives are authoritarians, all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070905.html

I guess this "concept" falls into the right wing dogma syndrome...

You're a "Tory", you just don't know it...LOL

Conservatism is based on latitude, longitude and date of birth.
Me

Conservatives born in Germany in the 1920's supported Hitler
Conservatives born in Russia in the 1930's supported Stalin
Conservatives born in America in the 1750's supported King George III

ROFLMNAO...

You sis are an imbecile of the first order.

"Conservative" is a relative term... The Context of those would-be 'conservatives' sets them 180 degrees to that of US Constitutional Conservatives...

US Conservatives ARE ADVOCATES OF LIBERTY... Meaning dumbass, that US Conservatives are LIBERALS...

Which of course is NOT to be confused with the ideological left which through one of the great misnomers of modern history, refer to themselves as liberals... There are no elements of left-think which can, even potentially promote liberty... and given that Left-think stands upon NOTHING IF NOT THE EXPANSION AND EMPOWERMENT OF CENTRALIZED ALL ENCOMPASSING GOVERMENT... it is the ideological left (thats you) who ARE THE ANOLOGICAL KING GEORGE...

LOL... Leftists...

I have a theory: the more LOL's, ROFLMNAO's and such-like that a post contains, the more likely the poster is to be a liberal. This also pertains to "smileys", and flowery embellishments in the way of icons and such-like. Always liberals. And, of course, a liberal post will, word-for-word contain more ad hominem attacks than anyone else's.

Seen it evenly on both sides ... equally to on both counts.

 

[DiveCon]

Wow, twenty eight pages of comment already. My goal for a long time was to bring conservatives down to earth, Bush and twenty some years of voodoo economics and voodoo free market greed, did that job for us. Liberal was a bad word for too long; I hear that is now changing. Good thing, but really in honesty there are personality differences between conservatives and liberals but like all things they run on a continuum. And I won't mention any of my conservative idiosyncrasies for fear the cons will use them against me.

midcan5's random classifications - goals? fantasies? ideological frame?

conservatives - tradition, hierarchy, nation, religion
liberals - individual, government/state, secular, justice, fairness

====

Conservatives yes = tradition, hierarchy, nation, religion, market
Conservatives no = government/state, social welfare, change, humanism, secularism, fairness, equality

liberals yes = change, community, government/state, humanism, justice, fairness, equality
liberals no = tradition, hierarchy, theism, corporatism

note the ambiguity of nation / state?

and you are fucking delusional too

 

[Bfgrn]

Authoritarian Republicans: Understanding the Personality Type

While not all conservatives are authoritarians, all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070905.html

I guess this "concept" falls into the right wing dogma syndrome...

You're a "Tory", you just don't know it...LOL

Conservatism is based on latitude, longitude and date of birth.
Me

Conservatives born in Germany in the 1920's supported Hitler
Conservatives born in Russia in the 1930's supported Stalin
Conservatives born in America in the 1750's supported King George III

ROFLMNAO...

You sis are an imbecile of the first order.

"Conservative" is a relative term... The Context of those would-be 'conservatives' sets them 180 degrees to that of US Constitutional Conservatives...

US Conservatives ARE ADVOCATES OF LIBERTY... Meaning dumbass, that US Conservatives are LIBERALS...

Which of course is NOT to be confused with the ideological left which through one of the great misnomers of modern history, refer to themselves as liberals... There are no elements of left-think which can, even potentially promote liberty... and given that Left-think stands upon NOTHING IF NOT THE EXPANSION AND EMPOWERMENT OF CENTRALIZED ALL ENCOMPASSING GOVERMENT... it is the ideological left (thats you) who ARE THE ANOLOGICAL KING GEORGE...

LOL... Leftists...

Conservatism is a political and social term from the Latin verb conservare meaning to save or preserve. As the name suggests it usually indicates support for tradition and traditional values though the meaning has changed in different countries and time periods. Cultural conservatism is a philosophy that supports preservation of the heritage of a nation or culture.

The modern political term conservative was used by French politician Chateaubriand in 1819. In Western politics, the term conservatism often refers to the school of thought started by Edmund Burke and similar thinkers. Scholar R.J. White wrote: "To put conservatism in a bottle with a label is like trying to liquify the atmosphere […] The difficulty arises from the nature of the thing. For conservatism is less a political doctrine than a habit of mind, a mode of feeling, a way of living."
Wiki

Conservativism is not towards ideologies per se, but rather towards status quo versus change.

Translation...
Conservatives born in Germany in the 1920's supported Hitler
Conservatives born in Russia in the 1930's supported Stalin
Conservatives born in America in the 1750's supported King George III

 

[Xenophon]

Translation...
Conservatives born in Germany in the 1920's supported Hitler
Conservatives born in Russia in the 1930's supported Stalin
Conservatives born in America in the 1750's supported King George III

It's astounding the number of things you get wrong.

German conservatives were monarchists, Hitler was a radical socialist, they jailed him in the 1920s not supported him. He didn't get support from German conservatives until he did away with the SA's challenge to the German army in 1934, and even then it was through Hitler supporting a restoration of German prestige not ideology.

Russia had no conservatives in the 1930s, if it had the last thing they would have supported was stalin.

American conservatives were the backbone of the American revolution not devoted to the King, the revolution was about business, the ideology came later.

Is there any topic you don't get wrong?

 

[Bfgrn]

Translation...
Conservatives born in Germany in the 1920's supported Hitler
Conservatives born in Russia in the 1930's supported Stalin
Conservatives born in America in the 1750's supported King George III

It's astounding the number of things you get wrong.

German conservatives were monarchists, Hitler was a radical socialist, they jailed him in the 1920s not supported him. He didn't get support from German conservatives until he did away with the SA's challenge to the German army in 1934, and even then it was through Hitler supporting a restoration of German prestige not ideology.

Russia had no conservatives in the 1930s, if it had the last thing they would have supported was stalin.

American conservatives were the backbone of the American revolution not devoted to the King, the revolution was about business, the ideology came later.

Is there any topic you don't get wrong?

First of all, you aren't paying attention...
Conservatives born in...do the math...

Second, you're confusing political parties with what I'm referring to: personality types

That said...IF you are going to use that line of thinking HOW could conservatives be the backbone of the American revolution if they've never had a party in America?

Conservatism in the United States is a major American political ideology. In contemporary American politics, it is often associated with the Republican Party.

Origins
Unlike England, Europe and even former European colonies, the United States does not have major ideological, class-based parties.Therefore, conservatism cannot be identified with a specific party, and there is vast disagreement over which politicians and writers from the past should be included as conservatives. Generally however the Federalist, Whig and Republican Parties are considered the "conservative" parties, while the Democratic Party is considered "liberal".

Prior to the American Revolution, colonial institutions were generally conservative, including established churches, entailed property ownership and bondage labor. Local land-owning and merchant elites became powerful through patronage from colonial governors and formed "court" factions in the colonial legislatures, opposed by "popular" factions representing less privileged voters. These conservative elites and their followers are often referred to by modern historians as "Tories", the term later used by leaders of the American Revolution to describe those loyal to the Crown. Some of the leading Tory writers included Joseph Galloway, Thomas Hutchinson, Peter Oliver and Samuel Seabury. Following the Revolution, approximately 100,000 loyalists fled the United States, although the great majority remained in America.
wiki

 

[AnnECUCherry]

FEMA is characteristic of how the entire government operates. It's the norm, not the exception, hence why I brought it up.

Moreover, 2008 was absolutely not a repudiation of government. Instead it was the opposite. A total embrace of the power and size and scope of government-- the same government that brought on this crisis. Government can never work, no matter which political party is in power. By nature, it is incapable of solving crisis or making lives better.

Yep. This is the thing that liberals never seem to grasp. The FEMA clusterf*ck should have been all the convincing needed that government does NOTHING very well and, therefore, should be kept out of the business of everyday life (including most major disasters) as much as possible. A people who depend upon government to rescue them not just from life's major calamities, but from all of its smaller ones, as well, wind up being let down (as happened in New Orleans). Note however that in North Dakota, rrecently, the citizens took their fate into their own hands and fought the rising river without waiting for FEMA to step in. Is not the comparison/contrast rather striking?(cue)


come on Deb, FEMA wasnt the clusterfuck that the libs made it out to be
seems the only place that was was the state of LA
didnt have that mess in AL, MS, or FL, and all 3 were hit just as hard if not harder than LA

You're right, of course. Perhaps not as big a clusterfuck as they would have us believe, but a pretty big one, nonetheless.

That said, I find this tidbit to be interesting:

July 23, 2004 - 13 Months Before Katrina
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducts "Hurricane Pam" exercise to assess results of a theoretical Category 3 hurricane. It assumes that a storm with 120-mph winds would force Lake Pontchartrain's waters over the tops of the New Orleans' 17.5-foot levees and through a gap in the levee system would flood major portions of the city and would damage up to 87 percent of the city's homes. The Times-Picayune reports that officials expect up to half the city's residents won't evacuate and that many will be trapped in attics, on rooftops, and in makeshift shelters for days.

—"In Case of Emergency," New Orleans Times-Picayune, as posted on the Web site of the Louisiana Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness, 20 Jul 2004.

However, as it turned out, about 80% of the population of New Orleans did evacuate.

...Roughly 80 percent of New Orleans' nearly 500,000 residents evacuated before Katrina's center came ashore Monday morning, passing just east of the city....

Worldandnation: Conditions prompt evacuation of Big Easy

And some people had no means to evacuate. They didn't own vehicles and couldn't afford other transportation out of the city.

 

[Yukon]

The 20% that didnt evacuate were Negro's who had no cars.

 

[DiveCon]

The 20% that didnt evacuate were Negro's who had no cars.

for not having cars, they sure hauled a shit load of flooded cars out of New Orleans

 

[Yurt]

The 20% that didnt evacuate were Negro's who had no cars.

thank you MAYOR NAGIN

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

FEMA is characteristic of how the entire government operates. It's the norm, not the exception, hence why I brought it up.

Moreover, 2008 was absolutely not a repudiation of government. Instead it was the opposite. A total embrace of the power and size and scope of government-- the same government that brought on this crisis. Government can never work, no matter which political party is in power. By nature, it is incapable of solving crisis or making lives better.

Yep. This is the thing that liberals never seem to grasp. The FEMA clusterf*ck should have been all the convincing needed that government does NOTHING very well and, therefore, should be kept out of the business of everyday life (including most major disasters) as much as possible. A people who depend upon government to rescue them not just from life's major calamities, but from all of its smaller ones, as well, wind up being let down (as happened in New Orleans). Note however that in North Dakota, rrecently, the citizens took their fate into their own hands and fought the rising river without waiting for FEMA to step in. Is not the comparison/contrast rather striking?(cue)


come on Deb, FEMA wasnt the clusterfuck that the libs made it out to be
seems the only place that was was the state of LA
didnt have that mess in AL, MS, or FL, and all 3 were hit just as hard if not harder than LA

You're right, of course. Perhaps not as big a clusterfuck as they would have us believe, but a pretty big one, nonetheless.

That said, I find this tidbit to be interesting:

July 23, 2004 - 13 Months Before Katrina
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducts "Hurricane Pam" exercise to assess results of a theoretical Category 3 hurricane. It assumes that a storm with 120-mph winds would force Lake Pontchartrain's waters over the tops of the New Orleans' 17.5-foot levees and through a gap in the levee system would flood major portions of the city and would damage up to 87 percent of the city's homes. The Times-Picayune reports that officials expect up to half the city's residents won't evacuate and that many will be trapped in attics, on rooftops, and in makeshift shelters for days.

—"In Case of Emergency," New Orleans Times-Picayune, as posted on the Web site of the Louisiana Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness, 20 Jul 2004.

However, as it turned out, about 80% of the population of New Orleans did evacuate.

...Roughly 80 percent of New Orleans' nearly 500,000 residents evacuated before Katrina's center came ashore Monday morning, passing just east of the city....

Worldandnation: Conditions prompt evacuation of Big Easy

And some people had no means to evacuate. They didn't own vehicles and couldn't afford other transportation out of the city.

Well for starters, when did it become the responsibility of the Federal government to evacuate people from N'orleans or anywhere else?

The responsiblity to evacuate is that of THOSE PEOPLE and to the extent of their means the LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNEMNT. To say that the local and state government failed is an understatement in the extreme... But they did as well as a leftist government can be expected to do...

 

[AnnECUCherry]

FEMA is characteristic of how the entire government operates. It's the norm, not the exception, hence why I brought it up.





You're right, of course. Perhaps not as big a clusterfuck as they would have us believe, but a pretty big one, nonetheless.

That said, I find this tidbit to be interesting:

However, as it turned out, about 80% of the population of New Orleans did evacuate.

...Roughly 80 percent of New Orleans' nearly 500,000 residents evacuated before Katrina's center came ashore Monday morning, passing just east of the city....

Worldandnation: Conditions prompt evacuation of Big Easy

And some people had no means to evacuate. They didn't own vehicles and couldn't afford other transportation out of the city.

Well for starters, when did it become the responsibility of the Federal government to evacuate people from N'orleans or anywhere else?

The responsiblity to evacuate is that of THOSE PEOPLE and to the extent of their means the LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNEMNT. To say that the local and state government failed is an understatement in the extreme... But they did as well as a leftist government can be expected to do...

If you don't approve of the federal government assuming any of the responsibility for protecting people during catastrophes, may I assume you would support the dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security, including its Federal Emergency Management Agency?

And how can you so cavalierly accuse people of not assuming responsibility for evacuating when they don't own their own vehicles and can't afford transportation out of the city?

Furthermore, the responsibility for the problems in New Orleans during and after Katrina can be laid squarely on the federal government's failure to respond appropriately. DHS's own national preparedness plan explicity stated that it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide necessary resources in case of catastrophes.

Those of you who like to pretend that everything that went wrong is all the fault of local and state government apparently are unaware that in 1999 Hurricane Floyd produced 500-year flooding in eastern North Carolina. Fortunately for us, if we had to have a disaster, it at least occurred during the administration of a president who had better sense than to appoint a horse show judge to the top position in FEMA. FEMA was in NC the day the storm passed through because the head of FEMA, James Lee Witt, had emergency management experience and actually knew what to do when a disaster jeopardized our lives.

 

[oreo]

"All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats," quipped Groucho Marx, and in fact it turns out that personality differences between liberals and conservatives are evident in early childhood. In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children's temperaments. They weren't even thinking about political orientation.

Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.

Psychology Today Magazine, Jan/Feb 2007

And I imagine it was a liberal that wrote this article:

I think it's a little backwards here. When I see or hear a liberal talk--the very first thing that comes to my mind--"is them screaming they're a victim of something"--usually capitalism--to I need a handout--to not being sexually responsible--"therefore all in favor of abortion-because that really wasn't their fault either"--Personal responsiblity does not exist in a liberals mind--it's always someone elses fault.

 

[Xenophon]

First of all, you aren't paying attention...

Wrong again, but at least you are consistant.

For someone who claims to be 'better informed' then others, you don't know basic concepts of history, yet try to use them to make your arguments.

It propels you from slightly amusing idiot savant to full fledged moron.

When you grow up a bit and start to learn a little history, get back to us, you will find that liberals are not 'superior' being to conservatives, nor are liberal concepts superior to conservative ones, they are simply different.

And in fact, the greatest excesses in Human history came at the hands of 'liberals' trying to social engineer the world, the 60 million odd dead of Asia in the last century can attest to the effects of leftest thought on their human condition, IE they ceased to be for the good of the state and society, liberal concepts, over the supremancy of the rights of man, a conservative concept.

I'll take the rights of man over the good of the 'state' anytime, as would anyone who values freedom.