You need to watch this

Lincoln's Republicans were just a bunch of religious fanatics who sought to preserve marriage and abolish slavery - something moderate minds didn't care about. Not a lot has changed there.
 
Phishbohn said:
Progressive: a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas. ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from French progressif, -ive or medieval Latin progressivus, from progress- ‘gone forward,’ from the verb progredi (see progress) .

Conservative: a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics. ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense ‘aiming to preserve’): from late Latin conservativus, from conservat- ‘conserved,’ from the verb conservare (see conserve). Current senses date from the mid 19th century onward.

I figured posting the definitions and when the words became part of our lexicon would help you glean a little more meaning from my argument.
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Again, those are dictionary terms, and we are having a political discussion. I suggest you look up how each describe themselves today and go from there. Until you do that your entire argument is meaningless.
 
DamnYankee said:
Again, those are dictionary terms, and we are having a political discussion. I suggest you look up how each describe themselves today and go from there. Until you do that your entire argument is meaningless.
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I think you have to settle for the fact that through ignorance and poor education Americans have misused and mangled many many words of English and, because there are so many Americans so afflicted, these faux meanings are becoming accepted.
It doesn't make them correct it simply describes the situation.
Whatever people say, the core meanings of the words conservative, progressive and liberal are still as they should be.
They are not 'dictionary terms' dictionaries are not prescriptive they are descriptive, The meaning of conserve and by extension conservative and the rest of the family is from the latin 'com servare': to keep watch, maintain. Related are 'observe' and 'preserve'. Progress, see digress et al, is to advance. It has been used politically since 1908, for jazz since 1947 and for taxation since 1865. Liberal originally 'generous', 'selfless', 'noble', from liber = free and -al the adjectival prefix. Used in politics only since 1920s and that in the UK.
Now, the most famous character to consciously redefine word meanings was, I believe, the great Humpty Dumpty, who famously said, 'when I use a word it means just what I wish it to mean, neither more, nor less.'
So for all you Humpties and all you Dumpties (you know who you are) you may carry on redefining meanings. The rest of the world is quite capable of existing without you.
 
DamnYankee said:
Again, those are dictionary terms, and we are having a political discussion. I suggest you look up how each describe themselves today and go from there. Until you do that your entire argument is meaningless.
Click to expand...


Dictionary terms are what we use to define words so that way we can make sense of what is being written or said in the course of normal communication. The two definitions I posted are abstracted from the terms in their political sense. These same terms have been in our lexicon for centuries. Of course if you have your own definitions and choose to render what I say as meaningless, then I may as well be talking to one of my schizo-affected patients.

Maybe you have a special dictionary that can be cross referenced so that I may be able to give what I said some meaning to you? Or maybe you'll just ignore the point because it reveals how your statement is a distortion.
 
Phishbohn said:
Dictionary terms are what we use to define words so that way we can make sense of what is being written or said in the course of normal communication. The two definitions I posted are abstracted from the terms in their political sense. These same terms have been in our lexicon for centuries. Of course if you have your own definitions and choose to render what I say as meaningless, then I may as well be talking to one of my schizo-affected patients.

Maybe you have a special dictionary that can be cross referenced so that I may be able to give what I said some meaning to you? Or maybe you'll just ignore the point because it reveals how your statement is a distortion.
Click to expand...

It's not my definitions, but the definitions of the political ideologies. :nono:
 
From LiberalParty.org principles (not very well organized, no longer on ballots in NYS where this is from):
1. Teach teachers.
2. Universal health care.
3. Abortion on demand.
4. Gay marriage.
5. Soft on murderers.
6. No fracking.
7. No mention of the Constitution at all.

From Conservative.org (a national organization).
1. The Constitution strictly limits government.
2. Rights are derived from God, protected by a limited government.
3. Capitalism.
4. Liberty cannot exist without economic freedom.
5. International communism is our enemy.
 
From a good friend's blog;

[h=2]The GOP (Republicans) are NOT the party of Abe Lincoln[/h]One of the biggest historical mistakes we can make today is to accept the often repeated talking point that the GOP is “the party of Lincoln”. As with most successful lies, this one appears to be true on the surface – that is Abe ran on the ticket called the Republican Party – which was quite new at the time – when he ran for President. However, a brief study of his politics as well as the reason for the formation of the Republican Party of the time will show any interested reader that Lincoln was very much a urban liberal – who would certainly be of the Democratic Party today!

When Lincoln entered politics, he declared his outlook to be that of the Whigs, a party which. among other things, declared their creed as:
“economic modernization in banking, railroads, the use of federal funding to build and maintain infrastructure, and urbanization as well as protective tariffs” – this gives just a hint of positions would be be the opposite of todays GOP. But that is only the start!
For most issues, it would suffice to simply reverse the positions of today – that is, the liberal and urban Northeast (New England) was strongly Republican at the time – and was anti-slavery, etc. while the South was Democratic and pro-slavery or at minimum (KY, lower midwest, etc.) wanted states to have the choice of whether to allow slaves or not.
The famous Lincoln – Douglas debates before the 1860 election of Lincoln could also be transposed to today. LIncoln was “accused” of wanting to get rid of slavery, while Douglas supported laws and rights which would allow it to continue.
Fast forward – Lincoln is elected and The South (who are the staunch Republicans today) leaves the Union-due to the fact they knew Lincoln was headed in the wrong direction for their slave holding wishes. The Civil War was fought over the disunion, and the South had their asses kicked.
But that was not enough. Even after they lost, the South (again, remember, Democrats at the time) wanted to retain massive power in Washington DC….including the power to make certain Black Folks were not free. As a result, Radical Republicans (again, todays equivalent would be the Kennedys, Cuomos, etc.) from the North worked extremely hard to have basic freedoms written into the US Constitution…..barely winning the day, with of course no help from the south.
It’s a long and sad tale from that point on, but a few basic points….
1. As soon as the Federal Government stopped occupying the south after the Civil War, the locals rolled back as many freedoms as possible and so started the Jim Crow laws, the KKK, etc.
2. The South stayed Democratic as long as they were able to trample on the Civil RIghts of others. However, the Democratic Party slowly started losing the South…..FDR took some steps to assure integration (Armed Forces, etc.), which started the South turning away from the party.
3. The Die was fully cast during the 1960′s when LBJ and other Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act. That was the end for the South and the Democratic Party. When he signed the Civil Rights Bill, LBJ made the famous remark ” We have lost the South for a generation” – the only place he made a mistake was that it turned out to be for MORE than a generation!
So, in short – for those of you who are trying to keep track of who was who…the simple story is, just reverse the two parties for the time of Lincoln. The “conservatives” who championed the white man as above all others, the rights of states to do as they like (including leave the union), etc…….were Democrats, while the New England liberals were Republicans.
New England (actual declared) Republicans are still around – and, in general, they are a far more liberal and open minded breed than their brethren in the south and west. Many are independents or lean toward libertarianism

http://www.craigsfire.com/?p=202&cpage=1#comment-2027
 
No I read it. Your friend is talking up the theory that the two parities, Democrat and Republican, "switched" and all that bullshit that is continuously raised and debunked. We are talking about what the two ideologies stand for, Conservatives v. Liberals.
 
Lowaicue said:
I think you have to settle for the fact that through ignorance and poor education Americans have misused and mangled many many words of English and, because there are so many Americans so afflicted, these faux meanings are becoming accepted.
It doesn't make them correct it simply describes the situation.
Whatever people say, the core meanings of the words conservative, progressive and liberal are still as they should be.
They are not 'dictionary terms' dictionaries are not prescriptive they are descriptive, The meaning of conserve and by extension conservative and the rest of the family is from the latin 'com servare': to keep watch, maintain. Related are 'observe' and 'preserve'. Progress, see digress et al, is to advance. It has been used politically since 1908, for jazz since 1947 and for taxation since 1865. Liberal originally 'generous', 'selfless', 'noble', from liber = free and -al the adjectival prefix. Used in politics only since 1920s and that in the UK.
Now, the most famous character to consciously redefine word meanings was, I believe, the great Humpty Dumpty, who famously said, 'when I use a word it means just what I wish it to mean, neither more, nor less.'
So for all you Humpties and all you Dumpties (you know who you are) you may carry on redefining meanings. The rest of the world is quite capable of existing without you.
Click to expand...

You just have your panties in knot; because the rest of the world discovered that it was more then capable of existing without the Once Great Great Britian. :D
 
Those aren't definitions. They don't even really describe ideologies. Those are merely contemporary political planks. If you seek the "why" in each of these tenants you'll come closer to defining ideology, which I believe we've covered already.

NOW... before I go on with this, you must tell me more about this debunking of the bs "party switching" thing. Who debunked it? and was it actually debunked or merely argued against?

I ask because the black voting bloc was once Republican but is now Democrat... we'll get to the why's later. AND the South was a Democratic voting bloc until round about Nixon's second term, I should disclaim that the Southern Democratic voting bloc was in decline from FDR until Nixon's second term. Now the South is a Republican voting bloc.

So to say party switching is debunk-able bs is suspect. The parties switched, the only thing that stayed the same was the ideologies.

Most people that i've talked to that change from Democrat to Republican quote what Reagan said when asked why. They all say "I didn't leave the party, the party left me".
 
The planks define the ideologies. It's really not that difficult a concept.

The party switching theory is taught by the teacher's union employees to both high school and college kids as part of liberal indoctrination. Nearly all the libs here drank that kool-aide and routinely regurgitate it back. You can use the search engine here and read old posts where I debunked it using historical facts. I gave enough summation here to enable you to do that.

No doubt you won't bother, so I'll just ax you this simple question: Does it make sense that folks who's parents, grandparents and great grand-parents had a political philosophy diametrically opposed to another group's, including that group's ancestors, and engaged in conflicts against each other involving war, deaths, mutilations, murders, criminal actions, long prison sentences, broken families, destroyed wealth, wasted lives and destroyed political careers, all of a sudden "switch" positions? And at the same time the opposition take their position?
 
Planks describe issues, not ideologies. The definitions of the two ideologies are as I mentioned from a book that defines words... it's called a dictionary. If you look at the definitions it doesn't mention any of the planks as essential to the understanding of the word.

If that's your argument I don't think you really debunked anything. Just argued for a point of view of sentiment in spite of facts. And from your summary I don't even believe you have a full grasp of the argument.

People switch parties when the parties fail to uphold their beliefs. When Democratic party moved left, the Conservative Democrats looked for alternatives. They gradually moved to the Republican Party when the Republicans moved right. The people didn't all of a sudden change their beliefs, just their party.

Political Parties are fluid, they shift to where the votes take them. They split and change and have been doing so from the beginning of our history.

If you can't grasp that simple concept then we are wasting time here.
 
Rune said:
From a good friend's blog;

The GOP (Republicans) are NOT the party of Abe Lincoln

One of the biggest historical mistakes we can make today is to accept the often repeated talking point that the GOP is “the party of Lincoln”. As with most successful lies, this one appears to be true on the surface – that is Abe ran on the ticket called the Republican Party – which was quite new at the time – when he ran for President. However, a brief study of his politics as well as the reason for the formation of the Republican Party of the time will show any interested reader that Lincoln was very much a urban liberal – who would certainly be of the Democratic Party today!

When Lincoln entered politics, he declared his outlook to be that of the Whigs, a party which. among other things, declared their creed as:
“economic modernization in banking, railroads, the use of federal funding to build and maintain infrastructure, and urbanization as well as protective tariffs” – this gives just a hint of positions would be be the opposite of todays GOP. But that is only the start!
For most issues, it would suffice to simply reverse the positions of today – that is, the liberal and urban Northeast (New England) was strongly Republican at the time – and was anti-slavery, etc. while the South was Democratic and pro-slavery or at minimum (KY, lower midwest, etc.) wanted states to have the choice of whether to allow slaves or not.
The famous Lincoln – Douglas debates before the 1860 election of Lincoln could also be transposed to today. LIncoln was “accused” of wanting to get rid of slavery, while Douglas supported laws and rights which would allow it to continue.
Fast forward – Lincoln is elected and The South (who are the staunch Republicans today) leaves the Union-due to the fact they knew Lincoln was headed in the wrong direction for their slave holding wishes. The Civil War was fought over the disunion, and the South had their asses kicked.
But that was not enough. Even after they lost, the South (again, remember, Democrats at the time) wanted to retain massive power in Washington DC….including the power to make certain Black Folks were not free. As a result, Radical Republicans (again, todays equivalent would be the Kennedys, Cuomos, etc.) from the North worked extremely hard to have basic freedoms written into the US Constitution…..barely winning the day, with of course no help from the south.
It’s a long and sad tale from that point on, but a few basic points….
1. As soon as the Federal Government stopped occupying the south after the Civil War, the locals rolled back as many freedoms as possible and so started the Jim Crow laws, the KKK, etc.
2. The South stayed Democratic as long as they were able to trample on the Civil RIghts of others. However, the Democratic Party slowly started losing the South…..FDR took some steps to assure integration (Armed Forces, etc.), which started the South turning away from the party.
3. The Die was fully cast during the 1960′s when LBJ and other Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act. That was the end for the South and the Democratic Party. When he signed the Civil Rights Bill, LBJ made the famous remark ” We have lost the South for a generation” – the only place he made a mistake was that it turned out to be for MORE than a generation!
So, in short – for those of you who are trying to keep track of who was who…the simple story is, just reverse the two parties for the time of Lincoln. The “conservatives” who championed the white man as above all others, the rights of states to do as they like (including leave the union), etc…….were Democrats, while the New England liberals were Republicans.
New England (actual declared) Republicans are still around – and, in general, they are a far more liberal and open minded breed than their brethren in the south and west. Many are independents or lean toward libertarianism

http://www.craigsfire.com/?p=202&cpage=1#comment-2027
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Those economic policies are the economic policies of the GOP today. Most support using a protective tariff to blunt the trade imbalance with China. We might typically support lower tariffs with the third world, because it benefits us economically, but one always establishes trade policy based upon the benefits therein.

Yes, on the issue of slavery, the Democratic Party was pro-choice, and the GOP took a hard religious line. The Dems even mocked them by using the Bible to justify slavery in response to devout abolitionists. The GOP is once again taking a moral position on abortion while the Dems take a personal choice approach. They basically use the same arguments, such as that the fetus is not human, that the Republicans are reglious lunatics, that the GOP position violates the Constitution, etc.

Also, the Republican Party platform of Lincoln's age called for total abolition of polygamy. Apparently, Lincoln was a defender of traditional marriage and family values. This GOP is starting to sound more and more alien to me.

lincolnquote.jpg


Nuff said.
 
Phishbohn said:
Planks describe issues, not ideologies. The definitions of the two ideologies are as I mentioned from a book that defines words... it's called a dictionary. If you look at the definitions it doesn't mention any of the planks as essential to the understanding of the word.

If that's your argument I don't think you really debunked anything. Just argued for a point of view of sentiment in spite of facts. And from your summary I don't even believe you have a full grasp of the argument.

People switch parties when the parties fail to uphold their beliefs. When Democratic party moved left, the Conservative Democrats looked for alternatives. They gradually moved to the Republican Party when the Republicans moved right. The people didn't all of a sudden change their beliefs, just their party.

Political Parties are fluid, they shift to where the votes take them. They split and change and have been doing so from the beginning of our history.

If you can't grasp that simple concept then we are wasting time here.
Click to expand...

The planks define the ideologies.

Until you understand the true history of the Civil War and the political divisions that existed in The South at that time and have essentially remain unchanged then you are wasting your time.
 
DamnYankee said:
The planks define the ideologies.

Until you understand the true history of the Civil War and the political divisions that existed in The South at that time and have essentially remain unchanged then you are wasting your time.
Click to expand...

So what does the dictionary do? Spew gibberish? The concerns about contemporary issues as it pertains to ideology, i.e. Conservative or Progressive are defined in broader terms than the issues themselves. As time changes the issues change but the ideology remain the same. If you can't get your head wrapped around that then we are done here.

I utilize history books for my history, I actually have done and still do research, read historical commentary and documents. I figure since you don't use dictionaries for definitions you must has some bizarre notion of "true" history too. It "might" be entertaining to read, so feel free to give me a run down of this "true" history which you speak.
 
Phishbohn said:
So what does the dictionary do? Spew gibberish? The concerns about contemporary issues as it pertains to ideology, i.e. Conservative or Progressive are defined in broader terms than the issues themselves. As time changes the issues change but the ideology remain the same. If you can't get your head wrapped around that then we are done here.

I utilize history books for my history, I actually have done and still do research, read historical commentary and documents. I figure since you don't use dictionaries for definitions you must has some bizarre notion of "true" history too. It "might" be entertaining to read, so feel free to give me a run down of this "true" history which you speak.
Click to expand...

Dictionaries define words, not political ideologies. An example is the "Democratic" Party. There party plank is drafted by a committee, then changed at will by the head of their party. That's not democracy.

Books you read about the Southern history that I am referencing undoubtedly were written by northerners. 'The victor writes the history books.'
 
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