Rough Libertarian Critique of Conservatives

Damn Yankee said:
Yes it is. It is a straw man argument; a lie. If he wanted to critique conservatives, then he should point out examples of conservatives.
Click to expand...

it's not a lie, it's not a strawman, it's only your obstinance in refusing to see that his statement is an indictment of republicans, not conservatives.
 
Damn Yankee said:
Yes it is. It is a straw man argument; a lie. If he wanted to critique conservatives, then he should point out examples of conservatives.
Click to expand...

Let me see if I can clarify it for you.

"Reason.com Editor Nick Gillespie writes: "...it's fascinating to me that the conservative movement can't recognize some elemental facts. First and foremost that the world they're trying to create, especially when it comes to intolerance of alternative lifestyles, is never going to happen. And that by insisting, as Sen. James DeMint and Rep. Jim Jordan have, that you can't be a fiscal conservative without being a social conservative, you're alienating all those independents who just might give the GOP a second chance at running the federal budget This was explaining the point of his article.

...the fiscal con wing was exposed as just that, a total con job. Under Bush and a supposedly conservative Congress, federal outlays jacked up about 60 percent in real terms. This is giving an example of the lie told by the republicans that they were conservatives. It is an example of the lack of fiscal conservatism.

Second, defense cons blew it. They had two wars to show themselves as effective, and they screwed the pooch, wagged the dog...whatever. After a good, long ride at the top, they did nothing well. They didn't create a coherent foreign policy that suggests when the U.S. might intervene and when it shouldn't (the Global War on Terrorism is not simply vague, it provides no stopping point for Wilsonian interventionism, which is decidedly not conservative). This is another example of the lack of fiscal conservatism

And third, social cons have lost, period. Gays are not going back in the closet and demands for equal standing under the law are logically coherent from a conservative POV. Gays didn't destroy marriage or the family (neither of which is in ruins, by the way, but that's another issue)." And this shows the folly of the social conservatives.





The reason the social conservatives insist that in order to be a conservative you must be both fiscally and socially conservative is that they know social conservatism on its own will fail. If they allow fiscal conservatives to distance themselves then the fiscal conservatives will be the only conservatives with a chance at being elected.
 
Damn Yankee said:
If he wanted to indict Republicans, then why did he use the term "conservative" to describe them?
Click to expand...

because gillespie is smart enough to know that most people reading his article would not be able to understand the very subtle difference between the two. it makes better sense to less educated people to use 'supposedly conservative' instead of 'supposedly republican'. I would think you'd been able to make that distinction.
 
WinterBorn said:
Ignore the fringe element that the media seems to find so entertaining, what are the basic principles that the Tea Party embraces?
Click to expand...

Economic ignorance akin to Medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and making them even sicker, know-nothingism, xenophobia and SOCIAL conservatism.
 
Bfgrn said:
Economic ignorance akin to Medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and making them even sicker, know-nothingism, xenophobia and SOCIAL conservatism.
Click to expand...

Do you have an example of Tea Party social conservatism? (again, based on the core Tea Party platform, not the fringe)
 
Bfgrn said:
Economic ignorance akin to Medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and making them even sicker, know-nothingism, xenophobia and SOCIAL conservatism.
Click to expand...

thusly, you show your own ignorance. it's the establishment GOP, lamestream media, liberal editorials, and TEA jacktivists leading you to believe that the TEA party is socially conservative. We're not.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
if you want to label me a terrorist because I support fiscal responsibility, so be it. that plan was the ONLY plan that would have saved our economy long term. all you appeasers did was extend an already troubled recovery and ensured a double dip recession.

don't let your obtuseness hide the fact that you know shit about fiscal responsibility.
Click to expand...

I prefer a label that is more appropriate. You are an ignorant person who worships at the alter of know-nothingism.

Austerity NEVER, EVER pulls an economy our of recession, it PLUNGES it into depression. It is akin to Medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, making them even sicker.

We have our own history as a clear example, going back to the 1920's and the Hoover/Mellon austerity that turned a recession into a depression. Or a more recent example in Ireland.

But, the te(a)rrorists have their own rewritten version of history, so in their ignorant minds, FDR caused the depression, even though he was NOT president at the time, and he made it last longer, another ignorant belief.

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
Edmund Burke
 
SmarterThanYou said:
because gillespie is smart enough to know that most people reading his article would not be able to understand the very subtle difference between the two. it makes better sense to less educated people to use 'supposedly conservative' instead of 'supposedly republican'. I would think you'd been able to make that distinction.
Click to expand...

I think it is much more basic than that. The Republican party is a group that you can join and register as, for voting purposes. If Poet and Watermark were to register and vote as republicans, they would be, by definition, republicans. They are both liberals, but would be republicans.

By targeting conservatives, Gillespie includes independents, libertarians and other conservatives. Which is the point of his article, that these social conservatives are alienating a major part of their base.
 
Bfgrn said:
I prefer a label that is more appropriate. You are an ignorant person who worships at the alter of know-nothingism.
Click to expand...
and yet again you show your ignorant hypocritical stances going from calling me well informed TEA member in one thread to calling me an ignorant know nothing worshiper. quite sad on your part that you can't stay focused.

Bfgrn said:
Austerity NEVER, EVER pulls an economy our of recession, it PLUNGES it into depression. It is akin to Medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, making them even sicker.
Click to expand...
more display of your economic stupidity. you can't see that we're headed for depression already UNLESS we reduce the debt we currently own. all congress managed to do is prolong the agony.

Bfgrn said:
We have our own history as a clear example, going back to the 1920's and the Hoover/Mellon austerity that turned a recession into a depression. Or a more recent example in Ireland.

But, the te(a)rrorists have their own rewritten version of history, so in their ignorant minds, FDR caused the depression, even though he was NOT president at the time, and he made it last longer, another ignorant belief.
Click to expand...
following more lamestream media/liberal talking points i see.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
and yet again you show your ignorant hypocritical stances going from calling me well informed TEA member in one thread to calling me an ignorant know nothing worshiper. quite sad on your part that you can't stay focused.

more display of your economic stupidity. you can't see that we're headed for depression already UNLESS we reduce the debt we currently own. all congress managed to do is prolong the agony.

following more lamestream media/liberal talking points i see.
Click to expand...

SO, what you're saying is: blood letting saved people's lives. George Washington would disagree...

Why don't you try REAL history and forward thinking? Whether one chooses to look at debt held by the public or gross debt, they are BOTH measured in relation to GDP. You right wing know-nothings ONLY see debt and ignore what it is measured against, or how a strong GDP is all that matters.

Lets SEE how the tearrorist's Hoover/Mellon's austerity worked...

real_gdp_growth.80133152_std.JPG
 
you've been burned by multiple people on this debt difference vs GDP shit how many times now? and still want to stick by it? no hope for you, but by all means when the double dip is announced, i'll be sure to throw this in your face. No doubt you'll be ready to point fingers at anything else to throw the blame off of your stance, i'm sure.
 
Bfgrn said:
Would you classify xenophobia social conservatism?
Click to expand...

I asked for an example and you ask me a question about xenophobia.

You are the one who made the claim about the Tea Party. Do you have an example or not?
 
SmarterThanYou said:
you've been burned by multiple people on this debt difference vs GDP shit how many times now? and still want to stick by it? no hope for you, but by all means when the double dip is announced, i'll be sure to throw this in your face. No doubt you'll be ready to point fingers at anything else to throw the blame off of your stance, i'm sure.
Click to expand...

Let's recap and decide who has been burned. A jury of pea brains spewing bluster is no match for one intelligent liberal. So, lets see who uses public held debt as the correct construct...OK?

Most economists agree that the debt held by the public is what really affects the economy. As the Congressional Budget Office stated in its June 2009 report on the long-term budget outlook, “Long-term projections of federal debt held by the public, measured relative to the size of the economy, provide useful yardsticks for assessing the sustainability of fiscal policies.” In contrast, “gross debt . . . is not useful for assessing how the Treasury’s operations affect the economy.”

A number of organizations and individuals concerned about the effect of rising deficits and debt on the budget and the economy — the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office, the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Public Administration, the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform, fiscal experts Alan Auerbach and William Gale, as well as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — have produced detailed assessments of the long-term fiscal problem facing the United States. Every one of those studies focuses on debt held by the public.

Even a libertarian economist form the Cato Institute supports publis debt as the correct construct. Dan Mitchell of the libertarian Cato Institute. "Public debt", Mitchell said, "is the key variable since it measures the amount of money the government is draining from private capital markets, or adding, in the case of surpluses."
 
SmarterThanYou said:
thusly, you show your own ignorance. it's the establishment GOP, lamestream media, liberal editorials, and TEA jacktivists leading you to believe that the TEA party is socially conservative. We're not.
Click to expand...

Still don't get it? You and others may have fine principles, the Tea Party does not. It is what it is not what you say it is or want it to be.

Your grand revolution has been stolen from you.

No matter how often you try to say what it should be, what it really means, what you want it to be, it does not change the fact that the movement has been co-opted by fascists and idiots.

It is over for the tea party. Start over, and with a clear message this time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top