Bullypulpit
Senior Member
<center><h2><a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/politics/campaign/04conserve.html?pagewanted=print&position=>Some Bush Supporters Say They Anticipate a 'Revolution'</a></h2></center>
<blockquote>By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 3 - Exulting in their electoral victories, President Bush's conservative supporters immediately turned to staking out mandates for an ambitious agenda of long-cherished goals, including privatizing Social Security, banning same-sex marriage, remaking the Supreme Court and overturning the court's decisions in support of abortion rights.
"Now comes the revolution," Richard Viguerie, the dean of conservative direct mail, told about a dozen fellow movement stalwarts gathered around a television here, tallying up their Senate seats in the earliest hours of the morning. "If you don't implement a conservative agenda now, when do you?"
By midday, however, fights over the spoils had already begun, as conservatives debated the electorate's verdict on the war in Iraq, the Bush administration's spending and the administration's hearty embrace of traditionalist social causes.
Conservative Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, were first in line to stake their claims, citing polls showing that a plurality of Bush supporters named "moral values" as the most important issue and arguing that a drive to ban same-sex marriage boosted turnout in Ohio.
"Make no mistake - conservative Christians and 'values voters' won this election for George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress," Mr. Viguerie wrote in a memorandum sent to other prominent conservatives. "It's crucial that the Republican leadership not forget this - as much as some will try," he said, underlining the final clause.
"Liberals, many in the media and inside the Republican Party are urging the president to 'unite' the country by discarding the allies that earned him another four years," Mr. Viguerie continued. "They're urging him to discard us conservative Catholics and Protestants, people for whom moral values are the most important issue.''</blockquote>
Why is it assumed that a Judeo-Christian/deontological ethical system, rooted in a false celestial/terrestrial distinction, is superior to one rooted in the objective consequences to this life, in this world? There is no basis for such a view...Other than the absolutist chauvinism of those who adhere to such world views.
With values rooted in the very real consequences of our actions upon ourselves and others, the relativism fostered by widely disparate interpretations of "divine will" are discarded for the useless dross that they are. But this presupposes a rational society, a society which Tuesday's election shows us to be light years away from.
<blockquote>By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 3 - Exulting in their electoral victories, President Bush's conservative supporters immediately turned to staking out mandates for an ambitious agenda of long-cherished goals, including privatizing Social Security, banning same-sex marriage, remaking the Supreme Court and overturning the court's decisions in support of abortion rights.
"Now comes the revolution," Richard Viguerie, the dean of conservative direct mail, told about a dozen fellow movement stalwarts gathered around a television here, tallying up their Senate seats in the earliest hours of the morning. "If you don't implement a conservative agenda now, when do you?"
By midday, however, fights over the spoils had already begun, as conservatives debated the electorate's verdict on the war in Iraq, the Bush administration's spending and the administration's hearty embrace of traditionalist social causes.
Conservative Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, were first in line to stake their claims, citing polls showing that a plurality of Bush supporters named "moral values" as the most important issue and arguing that a drive to ban same-sex marriage boosted turnout in Ohio.
"Make no mistake - conservative Christians and 'values voters' won this election for George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress," Mr. Viguerie wrote in a memorandum sent to other prominent conservatives. "It's crucial that the Republican leadership not forget this - as much as some will try," he said, underlining the final clause.
"Liberals, many in the media and inside the Republican Party are urging the president to 'unite' the country by discarding the allies that earned him another four years," Mr. Viguerie continued. "They're urging him to discard us conservative Catholics and Protestants, people for whom moral values are the most important issue.''</blockquote>
Why is it assumed that a Judeo-Christian/deontological ethical system, rooted in a false celestial/terrestrial distinction, is superior to one rooted in the objective consequences to this life, in this world? There is no basis for such a view...Other than the absolutist chauvinism of those who adhere to such world views.
With values rooted in the very real consequences of our actions upon ourselves and others, the relativism fostered by widely disparate interpretations of "divine will" are discarded for the useless dross that they are. But this presupposes a rational society, a society which Tuesday's election shows us to be light years away from.
