The Conservative Contradiction

[rightwinger]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

and yet liberals support abortion but oppose the death penalty

Same contradiction on the value of human life

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

and yet liberals support abortion but oppose the death penalty

Same contradiction on the value of human life

I oppose abortion (although I do not support the government outlawing it) and I support the death penalty and I don't believe there is a contradiction at all. Someone who takes another life in cold blood diminishes the value of their own, in my opinion.

 

[Yurt]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

and yet liberals support abortion but oppose the death penalty

Same contradiction on the value of human life

no

 

[Mr. Shaman]

So many people claim to be conservative out of one side of their mouth, but out the other they ***** and moan about the terrible state of the status quo and lobby for decidedly progressive change. The only theoretically conservative position they hold is abject opposition to all progressive iniatives for change championed by the left. But their opposition is clearly not borne of conservatism, but rather a conflicting progressive agenda.

True conservatives would oppose radical progressivism from both wings. Faux-conservatives seem to only oppose it when it's coming from left.

And that's a shame.

Wellllllllllllllllll.....they're both victims of Tradition; the complete-opposite of Progression....much like radicals/fundamentalists in the Middle East.

When you've got whack-jobs (like The DICK; Armey), tellin' you you've got a moral-obligation to do what he tells you, you've got yourself a jihad; no actual logic/reasoning required.​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

Then, there's some o' that "conservative"-compassion.....​

"He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed." Exodus 22:20​

​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

Hypocrisy is the name of their game.

Imagine that........... ​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Conservatism is in itself a contradiction, a paradox if you will, for it is not sustainable - we cannot live in the past.

It just seems, to them, like the Past. It's just a matter 'o desperately-clinging to those same ol' worn-out (yet, unproven) Absolutes. There's a certain-amount of comfort, for them, thru laziness. Original-thought is much too risky, for them.....especially when they're risking eternal-damnation, or....at the very-least....what the neighbors might say. ​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

I have always found it interesting that the Republicans who pride themselves on their patriotism harbor such deep seated hatred for their government.

Quite frankly, anyone that trusts the government has their head up their ass.

What you're describing, then, is self-loathing.​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Contradiction

Oppose government intervention in your economy but support government intervention in other nations economies (war).

What you're describing is that History that Texans prefer not being in their History text-books.​

"In 1944, the people of Guatemala overthrew the right-wing dictator then in power, Jorge Ubico. Guatemala held its first true elections in history. They elected Dr. Juan Jose Arevalo Bermej to the presidency. A new constitution was drawn up, based on the U.S. Constitution. Arevalo was a socialist and an educator who built over 6,000 schools in Guatemala and made great progress in education and health care.

At this time in Guatemala, just 2.2 percent of the population owned over 70 percent of the country's land. Only 10 percent of the land was available for 90 percent of the population, most of whom were Indians. Most of the land held by the large landowners was unused. Arevalo was succeeded in another free election by Jacobo Arbenz who continued the reform process begun under Arevalo. Arbenz proposed to redistribute some of the unused land and make it available for the 90 percent to farm. Here is where the problem arose: United Fruit was one of the big holders of unused land in Guatemala. The pressure mounted against UFCO and finally the company complained to the many friends it had within the U.S. government including President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, saying that Guatemala had turned communist.

The U.S. State Department and United Fruit embarked on a major public relations campaign to convince the American people and the rest of the U.S. government that Guatemala was a Soviet "satellite".

 

[code1211]

So many people claim to be conservative out of one side of their mouth, but out the other they ***** and moan about the terrible state of the status quo and lobby for decidedly progressive change. The only theoretically conservative position they hold is abject opposition to all progressive iniatives for change championed by the left. But their opposition is clearly not borne of conservatism, but rather a conflicting progressive agenda.

True conservatives would oppose radical progressivism from both wings. Faux-conservatives seem to only oppose it when it's coming from left.

And that's a shame.

You may be confusing Conservatism with Republicanism. While Republicanism may be a little less budget busting the Democratism, it's not by much. Obamaism, on the other hand, puts both Republican and Democrat to shame in running up the debt. There's never been anything like it in the history of the planet.

As I recall, the Republicans opposed strenuously the Clinton plan to save Social Security. The Dems avidly supported it. Bush proposed about the same thing and the Democrats strenuously opposed while the Reps supported it.

Sounds to me like a partisan hack is a partisan hack regardless of his party label.

That's the real shame.

In our current state of affairs, the only real progressive change that would make any difference is to stop the spending, defund everything passed during the last two years and balance the budget. If we run out of money, and we will soon, party labels will be worn on the sleeves of the uniforms in the rebellion.

 

[Charles_Main]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

That is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard. So you are saying it makes no sense to Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty? Um so I have to support innocent babies being killed if I support convicted Killers being executed?

Oh and I personally oppose Big government and support gay's right to marry or have civil unions or what the **** ever they want.

Seems to me the problem here is that your narrow minded simple view of people pigeon holes them into rigid groups where they have to all believe exactly the same thing at all times. That may be the world you think you live in, but it is not the world we all live in.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Contradiction and Hypocrisy of the obama administration
obama has a Double Standard on Earmarks
Does Obama Have a Double Standard on Earmarks? - TIME

Lobbyist
To Avoid Lobbying Rules, Obama Administration Meets With Lobbyists Off-Property|The American Pundit

Gitmo
YID With LID: Obama's Habeas Corpus Hypocrisy
Shall I continue?

Thats what I thought.

 

[Londoner]

Look at the thing that ended the prosperity of the 80s-90s: the Iraq War, the costs of which have been hidden. Without Iraq and Bush, you would never have had 2008 and the death of the American economy -- and therefore, you would never have had Obama, who clearly lacks the experience to lead.

But seriously. Look at the premise of the War on Terrorism, i.e., defeating evil. Erecting Universal Democracy.

This is more liberal than anything in FDR or LBJ, and it is more utopian than anything in Marx.

Conservatives tell people Washington isn't fit to run a laundromat, but, somehow, it is fit to rebuild entire Arab nations. This contradiction would NEVER have passed muster in a party with real Conservatives.

America counted on Conservatives to be cold-eyed realists. Conservatives are known for keeping political goals within reasonable limits -- they are moderate & cautious when it comes to BIG changes and BIG projects. In the 40s, it was the Conservatives who opposed Truman's Cold War machinations; indeed, the Conservatives were America's last best hope to avoid the bankruptcy involved with global expansion; they knew you couldn't take over and rebuild whole nations. They understood the paralyzing costs of empire, and the dangers of the liberal desire to create a perfect world. They also applied this logic domestically: they warned LBJ that attempts to end poverty, while noble, would lead to bankruptcy. You can't throw money at the impossible. Government can't change the temperature or create a utopia; it should stick to filling pot holes, and let people keep more of the money they slave for. Indeed, the Conservatives say you have to accept the world's imperfections. Poverty and evil will always exist. Washington cannot control these things from the top down with good intentions and Pentagon bureaucrats. Controlling the world for the better is a liberal delusion that always leads to unintended consequences.

But you ignored all of it. Why? Because Talk Radio and FOX news replaced real Conservatism with paranoid revanchism. It created a generation of illiterate Republicans whose knowledge of theoretical Conservatism was limited to incoherent blogosphere ranting.

When Bush marched you to war and started to spend the American Republic into its final demise, the isolationist, fiscally responsible wing of the Conservative party was MIA. [Buckley and Friedman were still alive when the war started, and they said it was stupid. But nobody listened because the Conservative wing of the party had been effectively replaced by Talk Radio lemmings, many of whom post here with a kind of sad bravado] Some of you self-professed conservatives made small complaints about Bush, but you basically rolled over for the neocons, who are a cancerous liberal wing of the New Right. [Chaney is the Left of Obama on gay marriage. Bush is the Left of Obama on illegal immigration. Karl Rove is more anti-religious than Richard Dawkins. You folks don't get it: your current party leaders care not for "Borders, Language, Culture". They took your party over, and they are still in control, and you continue to vote for them because you don't understand conservative principles]

Which is to say: there is no Conservative Party anymore.

You good folks have been punk'd, as they say.

[Please read Daniel Bell's "Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism". Bell is one of your last great Conservative thinkers. Once you understand the contradiction between globalization and cultural autonomy, you will understand what happened to your great movement starting in 1980. Conservatism in America has been dead a long, long, long time. So has Liberalism. You live in a one party oligarchy which serves the interests of the stateless transnationals who fund your elections and own your media]

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Look at the thing that ended the prosperity of the 80s-90s: the Iraq War, the costs of which have been hidden. Without Iraq and Bush, you would never have had 2008 and the death of the American economy -- and therefore, you would never have had Obama.

But seriously. Look at the premise of the War on Terrorism, i.e., defeating evil. Erecting Universal Democracy.

This is more liberal than anything in FDR or LBJ, and it is more utopian than anything in Marx.

Conservatives tell people Washington isn't fit to run a laundromat, but, somehow, it is fit to rebuild entire Arab nations. This contradiction would NEVER have passed muster in a party with real Conservatives.

America counted on Conservatives to be cold-eyed realists. Conservatives used to keep political goals within reasonable limits. They warned LBJ that attempts to end poverty, while noble, would lead to bankruptcy. You can't waste money on the impossible. Government can't create a utopia; it should stick to printing contracts and filling pot holes. Indeed, the Conservatives say, you have to accept the world's imperfections. Poverty and evil will always exist. Washington cannot control these things from the top down with money or guns. Controlling the world for the better is a liberal delusion that always leads to unintended consequences.

When Bush marched you to war and started to spend the American Republic into its final demise, the isolationist, fiscally responsible wing of the Conservative party was powerless. [Buckley and Friedman were still alive when the war started, and they said it was stupid. But nobody listened because the Conservative wing of the party had been effectively replaced by FOX & Talk Radio morons] Some of you self-professed conservatives made small complaints about Bush, in the right company, but you basically rolled over for the neocons, who are a cancerous liberal wing of the New Right. [Chaney is the Left of Obama on gay marriage. Bush is the Left of Obama on illegal immigration. Karl Rove is more anti-religious than Richard Dawkins. You folks don't get it: your leaders care not for Borders, Language, Culture. They took your party over, they are still in control, and you continue to vote for them because you don't understand conservative principles]

There is no Conservative Party anymore. They have been replaced by historically illiterate cheerleaders -- puppets of the neocon desire to erase all borders for a globalized order where capital has easy access to cheap resources and labor markets.

You folks have been punk'd, as they say.

[Please read Daniel Bell's "Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism". Bell is one of your last great Conservative thinkers. Once you understand the contradiction between globalization and cultural autonomy, you will understand what happened to your great movement starting in 1980. Conservatism in America has been dead a long, long, long time. So has Liberalism. You live in a one party state which serves the interests of the stateless transnationals who fund your elections and own your media]

Conservatism is dead? Not as long as I am a live . Why do I need to read an opinion from Daniel Bell?

 

[Avatar4321]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

1) As we've been over before, there is absolutely no contradiction between opposing the murder of innocent children and supporting the death penalty for convicted criminals.

The real contradiction is supportng abortion on demand and opposing the death penalty.

2) There is absolutely no contradiction between opposing big government and opposing gay marriage. You guys are lobbying for the government to regulate same sex relationships. That's not creating less government, that's creating MORE government.

Right now homosexuals can enter into whatever relationship they want without government interference. They aren't regulated.

Not only that is you forget that most of us oppose big federal government. One can support strong state governments and oppose big federal governments.

Have you thought through these as much as you think you have? or do you just have a knee jerk reaction to label people hypocrites when you think it benefits you politically?

 

[LuckyDan]

So many people claim to be conservative out of one side of their mouth, but out the other they ***** and moan about the terrible state of the status quo and lobby for decidedly progressive change. The only theoretically conservative position they hold is abject opposition to all progressive iniatives for change championed by the left. But their opposition is clearly not borne of conservatism, but rather a conflicting progressive agenda.

True conservatives would oppose radical progressivism from both wings. Faux-conservatives seem to only oppose it when it's coming from left.

And that's a shame.

I wonder if you're making the mistake of defining a conservative as one who wants to preserve the status quo. If so, I can see why you might see contradictions. I'm sure you're wrong when you say conservatives lobby for "progressive" change, unless by progressive you mean something other than a liberal advancement toward greater government control and involvement in daily life.

Russell Kirk is a good starting point for anyone interested in a working definition of conservative ideals and principles. He wrote:

Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.

He listed Ten Principles, which I've pasted below. If you're interested, click on the link at the bottom to read more of what he has to say about each.

First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.

Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions

Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time.

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity.

Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety.They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. [I love that part.]

Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created.

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth.

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. [My italics]

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic.

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world...The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression.

The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

http://www.kirkcenter.org/kirk/ten-principles.html

 

[Londoner]

Why do I need to read an opinion from Daniel Bell?

Because he points out the tension between the free market neoliberalism of the Chicago School and the cultural and ethical goals of traditional Conservatism. Your party has suppressed this conflict, and it has lead to incoherent messaging, which must increasingly be managed by Talk Radio distortions, and the lowering of the intellectual bar for inclusion in the party, e.g., intelligent people won't accept the contradiction, so you are left with a rabid base who blindly does the bidding of the non-conservatives in control.

A crude example of the contradiction Bell speaks of might go like this: capital wants cheap Mexican labor, but Conservatism wants closed borders in order to preserve the english language and their anglo heritage. Now you have a conflict between the needs of capital and the needs of traditional culture.

What do you do when the neoliberals inside your party win the conflict and promote policies which open borders? And what do you when your information sources obscure what has happened? - and what do you do if real Conservatism dies because people don't understand it well enough to protect it? - and, as a result, your entire party is left angry and confused, not knowing what happened to the country, or how to get it back?

[Glen Beck is paid not to talk about the contradiction inside your party. He blames everything on the Liberal Boogeyman. Unfortunately, his audience does not have the intellectual tools to question him and liberate itself]

The blueprints for NAFTA were hatched by Reagan, expanded under HWB, and finalized by Clinton, who completed the Reagan project of a global market with open borders. [Thatcher did the same thing here]

Daniel Bell helps you understand the conflict between neoliberalism, which craves open borders in order to ensure the unrestricted flow of capital and labor, and conservatism, which does not want its national identity watered down. The only way to sustain this contradiction (which lives at the center of the Republican Party) is to attract a base which is not analytical. Passionate but stupid. ("well meaning") People who will attack the Liberal Boogeyman mindlessly, but who are not smart enough to see what has happened to their own party. A.K.A "useful idiots"

In short, we are raising a generation of Conservatives who don't know the difference between neoliberalism and conservatism. This has effectively destroyed the Conservative movement.

Your borders are being pried open by capital (which cares about profit not tradition) . . . and you don't see it because your information sources are controlled by the same capital.

Daniel Bell helps people not become "useful idiots"

When your party regains the White House in 2012 it will rekindle the unaffordable War on Terrorism, which is not only a context for expanding control over vital energy markets in eurasia, but also for creating an umbrella of secrecy with which to hand the treasury to stateless transnationals who seek monopoly control over the dominant markets of American life. Your party is going to make Obama's stupid little stimulus seem like a drop in the bucket. You have no idea what is coming. If you thought Bush's 3 trillion dollar Iraq adventure was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. That was just a test balloon. Big Government Conservatism is just getting started. They have the Supreme Court and a Homeland Security bureaucracy which is larger and more unaccountable than anything LBJ ever dreamed of. Watch and learn. You are about to see a whole new America. The Conservatives are gone. The thing that controls your party means business -- and business doesn't care about borders or language or culture. Nope. It cares about one thing. Profit. If money can be made by selling your traditions down river, than not even God can help you. The game is over . . . and it has been over since 1980. The icon of Conservatism, Ronald Reagan, was a Trojan Horse of neoliberalism. By the time you guys figure it out, your money, culture, rights, and freedom will be gone.

 

[Greenbeard]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

My favorite contradiction is the ardent Tenth Amendment-ers who're all for across-state lines health insurance purchasing and national tort reform, both of which are assertions of federal dominance over state law.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Contradiction

Oppose Abortion but support the Death Penalty

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

My favorite contradiction is the ardent Tenth Amendment-ers who're all for across-state lines health insurance purchasing and national tort reform, both of which are assertions of federal dominance over state law.

Has the tenth amendmnt been amended?

 

[theHawk]

Oppose Big Government getting involved in your personal choices but oppose Gay Marriage

Opposing or being pro "gay marriage" is a personal choice. Forcing all of society to recognize and condone gay marriage is an example of big government getting involved in your personal choices.