The End of Liberalism....

[thereisnospoon]

*rolls eyes* Whatever, neocon. If this is true, you might as well just declare this a corporate oligarchy and pave the entire country over to be a Wal-Mart parking lot. What righty blog did you get this off of, anyway? Ann Coulter. Pfft.

PS. LOVE how you continue to bandy around the whole Marxist/Communist crap. Sheesh. Get some new talky points, why don't you?

You probably are shocked to read polls in which only about 25% of respondents identtify themselves as "liberal". That is most likely because you think "really? most people I know are liberals"....Well if you'd get outside your cushy neighborhood of monolithic liberal thinkers, you'd realize that not only are the various polls correct but the voters sent that message as well.
BTW, even Gallup know for it's liberal leanings could not explain why in it's poll taken after the 2010 mid-terms why it's respondents did not kowtow to the liberal line and ID themselves as Libs.
Like it or not this is a fiscally conservative and social right leaning center country. Always has. Always will be.
Liberalism is steeped in collectivism, the dream of a utopian society, political correctness, thought and speech dictatorial dogma and other hyper-restrictive agendas aimed at controlling people and limiting freedom. What you people refuse to believe in your "equality of outcome" fervor is that with lib/socialism there must be the establishment of an elite ruling class that places itself in charge of the duty to control.
Nothing good ever comes form liberalism. It is destructive by design and incompatible with freedom, creativity, merit and achievement.
While you will blithely dismiss these words as "talking points" you cannot forward a logical and factual counterpoint to them. All you have at the end of the day is rhetoric as a response.
Do not consider this post as an invitation to debate. I am pointing out the facts which are not in dispute. That means, my discussion with you is over.

 

[Bfgrn]

Robert Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (born December 14, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American Neo-conservative.

Tyrrell must either have a bad memory or he is just a lying sack of shit. The neocons who were originally followers of Henry 'Scoop' Jackson didn't win in 1972, George McGovern was as far from a neocon war hawk as you can get.

Actually, the neocons joined the Republican party. Irving Kristol was dubbed the "godfather of neoconservatism" Kristol was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of non-observant Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He received his B.A. from the City College of New York in 1940, where he majored in history and was part of a small but vocal Trotskyist group.

The rest is history. We all know about the PNAC neocons, the fiasco called Iraq and their failed policies.

Hey PC, why would Trotskyists and Marxists join the GOP? There's an old axiom: Robins and Blue Jays don't nest together. Translation: birds of a feather flock together.

Invasion of the Party Snatchers

By Victor Gold

After four decades as a Republican insider, Victor Gold reveals how the holy-rollers and the Neo-Cons have destroyed the GOP. Now he's fighting to get his party back.

As a man who served as press aide to Barry Goldwater and speechwriter and senior advisor to George H. W. Bush (in addition to co-authoring his autobiography), Victor Gold is absolutely furious that the Neo-Cons and their strange bedfellows, the Evangelical Right, have stolen his party from him. Now he is bringing the fight to them.

Invasion of the Party Snatchers is a blistering critique not only of the Bush-Cheney administration but also of the Republican Congress. Gold is ready to tell all about the war being waged for the soul of the GOP, including the elder Bush's opinion of his sons work domestically and abroad, the significance of the newly elected Congress, and how Goldwater would have reacted to it all. Gold reveals, among other explosive disclosures, how George W. has been manipulated by his vice president and secretary of defense to become, in Lenin's famous phrase, a "useful idiot" for Neo-Conservative warmongers and Theo-Conservative religious fanatics.

Although there have been other books by dissident Republicans attacking the Bush-Cheney administrations betrayal of conservative principles, none have been by an insider whose political credentials include inner-circle status with Barry Goldwater and George H. W. Bush.

Review:
"Make no mistake: author Gold, a former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush and aide to Barry Goldwater, is one disgusted Republican. The GOP of the 2006 midterm election, he writes, is 'a party of pork-barrel ear-markers like Dennis Hastert, of political hatchet men like Karl Rove, and of Bible-thumping hypocrites like Tom Delay.' Gold looks to Goldwater, 'a straight-talking, freethinking maverick,' as the yardstick by which to measure just how far the party of Lincoln has fallen.

He traces the beginning of the end to the 1980 Republican National Convention and the presence of 'a militant new element...personified by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.' The other half of the equation, the neoconservatives, are embodied by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, 'two cuts from the same Machiavellian cloth.' In efficient prose, Gold scrutinizes a significant swath of recent GOP history, in particular Newt Gingrich's 104th Congress and the Bush II White House, without losing momentum.

He also has choice words for 'the Coulterization of Republican rhetoric,' the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street, and 'sideshow' legislation like the Flag Protection Amendment. Gold sees a promising future for the Republican Party, but not until they lose some major elections and are able to keep down a slice of humble pie; for those disillusioned with the state of the GOP, this quick, uncompromising polemic provides substantial support, along with a large dose of cold comfort." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:
The last real Goldwater conservative in America attacks the current state of his movement and his party.
Powell's Books - Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP by Victor Gold

Victor Gold grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he attended the public schools, and Tulane University. After working as a reporter-correspondent for the BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) NEWS, he earned his law degree (J.D.) from the University of Alabama. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, 1950-52.


In 1958 he moved to Washington, D.C., and joined the public relations firm of Selvage & Lee. Six years later he became Deputy Press Secretary to Senator Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign.


In 1965 Gold opened his own political public relations firm in Washington, listing among his clients then-Republican House leader Gerald Ford and Senator Bob Dole. At the Republican conventions of 1968 and 1976 he worked with press secretary Lyn Nofziger on behalf of the presidential candidacy of then-California Governor Ronald Reagan. During the Nixon administration he served as press secretary to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew until January, 1973.


In 1980 Gold joined the staff of Republican presidential candidate George H. W. Bush as a speechwriter and senior advisor, a position he held during the Reagan-Bush campaigns of '80 and '84. He served on the Bush vice-presidential staff in 1981, and as a Bush advisor in the campaigns of 1988 and 1992. In 1992 he received the Distinguished Achievement Award for Political Communication from his alma mater, the University of Alabama.


In 1989 Gold served as a member of President Bush's election-oversight delegation to the first free Romanian elections.


A frequent speaker on the national political and campus circuits, Gold has also appeared on numerous network television shows. His articles, covering politics and sports, have appeared in NEWSWEEK, HARPER'S, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, PLAYBOY, CONNOISSEUR, READERS' DIGEST, NATIONAL REVIEW, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, and THE WASHINGTON POST.

 

[JakeStarkey]

*rolls eyes* Whatever, neocon. If this is true, you might as well just declare this a corporate oligarchy and pave the entire country over to be a Wal-Mart parking lot. What righty blog did you get this off of, anyway? Ann Coulter. Pfft.

PS. LOVE how you continue to bandy around the whole Marxist/Communist crap. Sheesh. Get some new talky points, why don't you?

You probably are shocked to read polls in which only about 25% of respondents identtify themselves as "liberal". That is most likely because you think "really? most people I know are liberals"....Well if you'd get outside your cushy neighborhood of monolithic liberal thinkers, you'd realize that not only are the various polls correct but the voters sent that message as well.
BTW, even Gallup know for it's liberal leanings could not explain why in it's poll taken after the 2010 mid-terms why it's respondents did not kowtow to the liberal line and ID themselves as Libs.
Like it or not this is a fiscally conservative and social right leaning center country. Always has. Always will be.
Liberalism is steeped in collectivism, the dream of a utopian society, political correctness, thought and speech dictatorial dogma and other hyper-restrictive agendas aimed at controlling people and limiting freedom. What you people refuse to believe in your "equality of outcome" fervor is that with lib/socialism there must be the establishment of an elite ruling class that places itself in charge of the duty to control.
Nothing good ever comes form liberalism. It is destructive by design and incompatible with freedom, creativity, merit and achievement.
While you will blithely dismiss these words as "talking points" you cannot forward a logical and factual counterpoint to them. All you have at the end of the day is rhetoric as a response.
Do not consider this post as an invitation to debate. I am pointing out the facts which are not in dispute. That means, my discussion with you is over.

Ah, grasshoppah, you don't give all the facts, do you? Liberals by identification make up more than those who identify as GOP, even with the last election.

As always, the middle decides elections, not the far lefties or the far righties.

 

[thereisnospoon]

If you actually bothered to read the SS Annual Report, you'd see (well, maybe not you, but an intelligent person would) that SS is expected to decline into insolvency in 2014.

Paying benefits will require redeeming funds from the Fake Trust Fund, which is stuffed with IOUs that current and future taxpayers will have to pay off with higher taxes.

The Ponzi Scheme is tumbing down.


Social Security expenditures are expected to exceed tax receipts this year
for the first time since 1983. The projected deficit of $41 billion this year
(excluding interest income) is attributable to the recession and to an
expected $25 billion downward adjustment to 2010 income that corrects
for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years.
This deficit is expected to shrink substantially for 2011 and to return to
small surpluses for years 2012-2014 due to the improving economy. After
2014 deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation’s
retirement causes the number of beneficiaries to grow substantially more
rapidly than the number of covered workers. The annual deficits will be
made up by redeeming trust fund assets in amounts less than interest
earnings through 2024, and then by redeeming trust fund assets until
reserves are exhausted in 2037, at which point tax income would be sufficient
to pay about 75 percent of scheduled benefits through 2084.

Actuarial Publications

You're blaming Social Security for investing its money in US bonds? You're implying that U.S. treasuries aren't a safe investment, and yet, I suspect,

you would rather see S. S. invest in the U.S. stock market.

That's mildly insane.

The federal government has done an absolutely wonderful job in stewardship over our money.
Look, the SS System has been ROBBED by greedy politicians.
The system is broken be3ecause it has been raided and the money transferred out into the general fund.
What should have happened was SS money should have been ruled NO TOUCH. In other words that money should have been placed into individual accounts for every contributor. Upon retirement or permanent disability, the contributor begins drawing funds from THEIR OWN account.
This is roughly how the Canadian pension fund works.
Throughout a Canadian's working days, his employers are required to take 4% of their weekly pay and it is deposited into the Pension fund. That money stays in place . The Canadian federal government does not spend it.
Once a person retires or becomes disabled prior to retirement age, they begin receiving pension checks for life. If the beneficiary dies before the account is exhausted ,net of kin receive the benfits.
The US system is flawed beyond belief.
No, I do not think SS money should be invested in the Stock market.

 

[thereisnospoon]

If Liberalism were dead why do republicans spend so much time talking about it and writing about it. It would seem to any sensible person a movement that has passed would cease to be the only thing on the minds of conservatives. When people are certain of something there is no need to repeat it. Uncertainty is the reason conservatives argue against something they cannot understand nor stop. Yes, the Sun will rise tomorrow, no need to debate, and yes. Liberalism is still the core political philosophy of America. We are still free people last I checked.

There was a time I thought a good well reasoned argument could convince people of something I thought important. But as you get older you realize that thought is not rational. Reality is a mental construct and as such you may be incapable of the level of thought, tolerance, flexibility to be a liberal. It is like being religious or being close minded or being what we used to call sick in the head. Not everyone can face life as change, as growth, as movement from here to there, not everyone can deal with something different than what they are used to.

But consider no nation was ever founded on conservative principles as they have none except to blame others as PC so often does. Conservatism has no accomplishments as I have asked for them too many times to mention.

This is by far the best book on conservatism for anyone in the audience interested in a bit of reality. Amazon.com: The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy (9780674768680): Albert O. Hirschman: Books


=========================================================

'What it means to be a liberal' By Geoffrey R. Stone

"For most of the past four decades, liberals have been in retreat. Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, Republicans have controlled the White House 70 percent of the time and Republican presidents have made 86 percent of the U.S. Supreme Court appointments. In many quarters, the word "liberal" has become a pejorative. Part of the problem is that liberals have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe. As a liberal, I find that appalling.

In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them.

Moreover, because 10 is a small number, the list is not exhaustive. And because these propositions will in some instances conflict, the "liberal" position on a specific issue may not always be predictable. My goal, however, is not to end discussion, but to invite debate.

1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that "time has upset many fighting faiths." Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.

2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)" What it means to be a liberal - Chicago Tribune



"I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all for fear of being carried off their feet. The prospect really does frighten me that they may finally become so engrossed in a cowardly love of immediate pleasures that their interest in their own future and in that of their descendants may vanish, and that they will prefer tamely to follow the course of their destiny rather than make a sudden energetic effort necessary to set things right." Alexis De Tocqueville

Because you people never give up on your quest to have equality of outcome and the desire fora utopian society.
You must be beaten senseless.
We know you people are like the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
No matter how badly you are beaten, you always come back for more.
We seek to blow a hole the size of the Lincoln Tunnel through the heart of liberalism.

 

[JakeStarkey]

If we don't correct our conservatism and eliminate the neo-cons and the social conservatives, the GOP will never serve the American people, only torture them.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The entire economy is a ponzi scheme, Boe, specifically the goldsmith method.

Social Security, on the other hand, has a tremendous surplus. And yes, when you have a huge surplus, you don't stick it under the mattress. You invest it in interest-bearing accounts with minimal risk, in this case, government bonds and the general government fund. The country has a huge deficit, but Social Security is not responsible for it.

"You invest it in interest-bearing accounts with minimal risk, in this case, government bonds..."

I.O.U.'s

The 1983 Greenspan Commission initiated changes in Social Security that generated large surpluses. “As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs.” How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People | Dissident Voice

Uhh yes, like I said, the funds were spent on other government programs. Social Security in and of itself has a surplus.

If you have a business that makes lots of money, and you invest it all in another company that loses the money, the first business still made money.

Misleading for two reasons.

1) the surplus is not designed to prop up failing 'companies,' but rather to be secure and available for retirees. Treasury bonds is one thing, spending in the manner our pols spend is another.

2) In terms of your analogy, you would not throw the money into a company that has an entire record of loss. Sell it, close it down, put up the 'sale' signs. In terms of govenment, stop the spending, cut the size of government.

 

[Agit8r]

"war should not only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits: but that each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expence of other generations. And to give the fullest energy to his plan, he might have added, that each generation should not only bear its own burdens" -- James Madison from Universal Peace (1792)

 

[JakeStarkey]

"You invest it in interest-bearing accounts with minimal risk, in this case, government bonds..."

I.O.U.'s

The 1983 Greenspan Commission initiated changes in Social Security that generated large surpluses. “As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs.” How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People | Dissident Voice

Uhh yes, like I said, the funds were spent on other government programs. Social Security in and of itself has a surplus.

If you have a business that makes lots of money, and you invest it all in another company that loses the money, the first business still made money.

Misleading for two reasons.

1) the surplus is not designed to prop up failing 'companies,' but rather to be secure and available for retirees. Treasury bonds is one thing, spending in the manner our pols spend is another.

2) In terms of your analogy, you would not throw the money into a company that has an entire record of loss. Sell it, close it down, put up the 'sale' signs. In terms of govenment, stop the spending, cut the size of government.

You must do this on purpose: to look like a fool, PC. Of all the chowderhead responses, your response outshines the rest of your glittering nonsense statements. You clearly do not know that government is about service, business is about profit; you simply cannot tell the difference.

Poor pathetic dunderhead that you are, you make bigrebnc look like a genius. Your rambling is unimportant and wastes time. You are on ignore.

 

[Cuyo]

"You invest it in interest-bearing accounts with minimal risk, in this case, government bonds..."

I.O.U.'s

The 1983 Greenspan Commission initiated changes in Social Security that generated large surpluses. “As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs.” How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People | Dissident Voice

Uhh yes, like I said, the funds were spent on other government programs. Social Security in and of itself has a surplus.

If you have a business that makes lots of money, and you invest it all in another company that loses the money, the first business still made money.

Misleading for two reasons.

1) the surplus is not designed to prop up failing 'companies,' but rather to be secure and available for retirees. Treasury bonds is one thing, spending in the manner our pols spend is another.

2) In terms of your analogy, you would not throw the money into a company that has an entire record of loss. Sell it, close it down, put up the 'sale' signs. In terms of govenment, stop the spending, cut the size of government.

You're way too simplistic. So far on this planet, investing in the US Federal Government is still the safest gig in town. The fed has direct control over the money supply, and never defaults, although if the likes of Rand Paul had their way that would soon change... It's a safer investment than any other alternative, period.

The issue of deficits and aggregate debt are another issue altogether - Completely unrelated. The point is, the deficits and debt would be higher if not for the Social Security program - Fact.

I happen to agree that it's a shitty way to finance a government, and we need to re-institute responsible fiscal policy again ASAP - EVEN IF it means higher taxes (I guarantee you'll never ever see a balanced budget without them). But any argument that "Cutting Social Security" would somehow help the deficit... Yeah, only if you cut the benefit but not the tax. Fact.

So simply put, the two have nothing to do with each other, unless you want to wander into the realm of government extravagance in the presence of the trust fund - And that's a long shot. There's not nearly as much un-necessary spending as you think there is. IMO whatever wasteful spending takes place, well more than half rests upon the Pentagon.

 

[shintao]

If we don't correct our conservatism and eliminate the neo-cons and the social conservatives, the GOP will never serve the American people, only torture them.

LOL! There is a word the cons understand. They love to torture and torment Americans. Interesting I am not the only one who thinks that way. Kinda symbolism.

 

[shintao]

Uhh yes, like I said, the funds were spent on other government programs. Social Security in and of itself has a surplus.

If you have a business that makes lots of money, and you invest it all in another company that loses the money, the first business still made money.

Misleading for two reasons.

1) the surplus is not designed to prop up failing 'companies,' but rather to be secure and available for retirees. Treasury bonds is one thing, spending in the manner our pols spend is another.

2) In terms of your analogy, you would not throw the money into a company that has an entire record of loss. Sell it, close it down, put up the 'sale' signs. In terms of govenment, stop the spending, cut the size of government.

You must do this on purpose: to look like a fool, PC. Of all the chowderhead responses, your response outshines the rest of your glittering nonsense statements. You clearly do not know that government is about service, business is about profit; you simply cannot tell the difference.

Poor pathetic dunderhead that you are, you make bigrebnc look like a genius. Your rambling is unimportant and wastes time. You are on ignore.

She thinks government is her Mega-Corporation, the pathetic puss.

 

[Liberty]

If modern liberals turned into classical liberals, I would join them. But alas, they choose to be in the despised minority of crack pot fools.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Don't we have a Liberal President? Of the United States? Of America? aka Leader of the Free World?

Isn't that guy a Liberal?

 

[Liberty]

Unfortunately.

 

[hipeter924]

Don't we have a Liberal President? Of the United States? Of America? aka Leader of the Free World?

Isn't that guy a Liberal?

 

[Mobius]

The Democrats have to the most pro-capitalist socialist party I've ever seen.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

I think someone settled things earlier in this thread when they said..."Modern Liberalism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory." That really does say it all about today's Liberals/Democrats. They have become so authoritarian. I can't support that.

 

[Mobius]

I think someone settled things earlier in this thread when they said..."Modern Liberalism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory." That really does say it all about today's Liberals/Democrats. They have become so authoritarian. I can't support that.

Isn't making a good idea mandatory the basis for any system of law?

Hell, isn't that the definition of a law?

 

[Synthaholic]

Why isn't this thread in the Humor forum?