[John Bob]

Hi folk,

if somebody claims to be Conservative but themselves confesses to be an Atheist I can only difficult to believe he / she is a genuine Conservative. IMO only a true Christian can be a true Con, otherwise he / she tends to be a fluffy-bunny politically correct funny fuzzy "Conservative", a friend of liberals, CNN and RINOs. Why the Tea Party has a such grandiose success? The answer is clear, because it is firstly a Christian, not a political movement. Therefore the Holy Bible should be the Guide N 1 for every true Conservative and we all should go back to our Christian roots.

[Potemkin]

[The Immortal Goon]

Exactly. If there's one thing Jesus would be for, it would be, "Render unto God that which is God's, and keep unto yourselves that which is Caesar's."

Jesus, like the Tea Party, hated tax collectors with a blind hatred nobody could ever tolerate. When Jesus ran across Zacchaeus, he kept yelling that Tiberius was Hitler and thus Zacchaeus was a socialist.

And like He always said, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of wealth distribution; a man's life totally consists in the abundance of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.]

and:

Truly, I say unto you, it will be easy for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]

and:

You cannot serve God without serving Money. [Matthew 6:24.]

He was known for telling people that they should just buck the fuck up and work harder.

[Cartertonian]

True.

And in Luke 10:27, I'm sure he meant to say, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart; and tell your poor neighbour to go fuck himself."

[dgun]

Hi folk,

if somebody claims to be Conservative but themselves confesses to be an Atheist I can only difficult to believe he / she is a genuine Conservative. IMO only a true Christian can be a true Con, otherwise he / she tends to be a fluffy-bunny politically correct funny fuzzy "Conservative", a friend of liberals, CNN and RINOs. Why the Tea Party has a such grandiose success? The answer is clear, because it is firstly a Christian, not a political movement. Therefore the Holy Bible should be the Guide N 1 for every true Conservative and we all should go back to our Christian roots.

So the term conservative only has meaning within American politics?

* sigh *

I think we actually have a few conservative American Jews on this forum. I suppose they're not conservative, either.

The true power behind the Republican party doesn't really give a shit about the social issues fundamentalists care about. They only pay it lip service and drag along the fundamentalists for the votes. I heard James Dobson come to this conclusion a couple of years ago, but of course there isn't anything he or the other big name fundamentalists can really do about it. Except maybe switch parties.

[Rei Murasame]

if somebody claims to be Conservative

I would immediately ask them what they are in favour of conserving.

Why the Tea Party has a such grandiose success? The answer is clear, because it is firstly a Christian, not a political movement.

It's 'successful' because it has the backing of outlandishly rich capitalist backers who want to maintain their dominance over society, twinned with Judeo-Christian ideology which acts as a social brake on the whole juggernaut so that it can be steered.

[Liberal capitalism] shattered a stultified communal life based on the submission of the individual to kin and village and it disrupted a family structure resting on the concepts, of “house,” “line,” and “blood.” [...]

Indeed, the breakthrough of the liberal-capitalist order represented a vast, creative, and beneficial revolution. Beside it, the reactionary communal-statisms which seized power in the first half of the twentieth century- communism, national socialism, and fascism - pale in significance. Inherent in this new order, however, was a great danger: the tendency of economic and social freedom to descend into anarchy. The values implicit in the liberal-capitalist ethos - acquisitiveness, egocentricity, intellectual autonomy, and private responsibility - demolished inherited kinship and community ties, thereby making a new world possible.

Yet this liberation and glorification of the individual threatened to shred social life altogether, leaving only egoistic nihilism in its wake. The natural, unplanned genius of the new order lay in the cultural forces which kept this destructive consequence of liberal-capitalism in check: The first of these was the [nuclear] family. [...]

In utilitarian terms the modern family, proved eminently adaptable to and supportive of the liberal-capitalist order. Its structure focused on immediate relations between husband, wife, and their children, leaving the conjugal family relatively unbound to the ties of kin and community. Proving highly mobile as a result, families were able to follow the market signals that would maximize both their incomes and general productive efficiency, while still performing the critical social functions of reproduction and the nurturing of children.

The modern family also generated a unique psychological drive of immense importance to the success of capitalism. As Adam Smith, David Hume, and other eighteenth century philosophers of freedom understood, man was by nature indolent, lazy, wasteful, and improvident.

Drawing close to the Christian understanding of the unregenerate nature of the human race, these theorists believed that it was only the force of circumstances that could make human beings behave economically.” To an important degree, it was the [nuclear] family which provided the needed positive incentives.

For as the new order cut persons off from the economic protections provided by kin and village, the modern family made each male vividly aware of his responsibilities to provide for and protect his mate as she performed her instinctive maternal tasks. This realization generated economically and socially constructive anxiety, ambition, and imagination, while keeping the baser human instincts and the individual ego under restraint. The new order built on the poorly understood psychological insight that there is no stronger nor more stable economic impulse than the drive to provide for one's family.[...]

Among the Western peoples experiencing the shock of the liberal-capitalist revolution, the moral code indispensable to the sustenance of a free society was naturally provided by the Judeo-Christian tradition. Biblical injunctions against illegitimacy, perversion, adultery, abortion, promiscuity, and divorce remained a vital part of Western law and custom throughout the nineteenth century; not as an expression of religious intolerance, but as a critical foundation of all freedom. Stiffened nineteenth century anti-abortion laws, for example, were not the result of an historically bizarre conspiracy between Jesuit priests and fundamentalist preachers. They can be seen, instead, as an expression of classic liberal sensibilities.[...]

After living for one-hundred-fifty years off “the accumulated moral capital” of traditional religion and moral philosophy, the defenders of capitalism found themselves increasingly unable to articulate a social vision that in some humanly satisfying way bonded order and morality to liberty. And lacking such a distinctive spiritual and emotional legitimacy, the liberal-capitalist order was left disarmed against the seductive lure of “renewed community” promised by the communal-statist ideologies of this century.[...]

In sum, I believe that the free enterprise system and the modern family are intimately linked in a complex web of cause and effect. The liberal-capitalist order - through its disruption of old communal and kinship ties, its devotion to human freedom, its creation of wealth, and its demand for personal responsibility - made the modern family possible.

And the modern family- by its channeling of the unleashed individual towards natural and necessary social tasks, by its mobility, by its unique motivational psychology, and by its linkage to an inherited moral code - made the free enterprise system possible.[...]

I believe it unlikely that either the modern family or the free enterprise system could long survive the demise of the other.

So, John Bob, all this is a frantic attempt by you guys to save the present order, and the conjuncturals where you mount your attempted defence of ridiculous things like "the modern nuclear family", "marriage between one man and one woman", "abstinence", "reading the Bible in school", "accepting Judeo-Christian morality", etc etc, are actually socio-economic battle-lines along which you are attempting to defend patriarchal heteronormative global capitalism from being imploded by its deepening contradictions (which people will be exacerbating out of necessity! People actually do not want to live in the way that you asking them to.).

Will you be able hold it together? We'll find out before the end of this decade! (Hint: You are probably not going to be able to hold it together.)

[Sceptic]

This, I think, is a prime instance of the no true scotsman fallacy.

Are you saying that an atheist or agnostic cannot support traditional family values, continuity, or authoritative political and socioeconomic institutions?

Hmm...

[The Clockwork Rat]

You might find Adam Curtis' analysis of the rise of Neo-Conservatism quite interesting.

[youtube]o0kNNqZk3mg[/youtube]

[John Bob]

So, John Bob, all this is a frantic attempt by you guys to save the present order, and the conjuncturals where you mount your attempted defence of ridiculous things like "the modern nuclear family", "marriage between one man and one woman", "abstinence", "reading the Bible in school", "accepting Judeo-Christian morality", etc etc, are actually socio-economic battle-lines along which you are attempting to defend patriarchal heteronormative global capitalism from being imploded by its deepening contradictions

I can see nothing wrong here.With "things" you called "ridiculous" the Western civilization has existed many thousands years, with liberal "progressive" "values" like homosexuality, adultery, drug consume, socialism, islam, multiculturalism, pornography, outsourcing, globalism, immorality, atheism, destroyed families etc. our Western civilization will cease out to exist not later as in thirty years. We need our traditional values back, stop of outsourcing and globalism, more private education and home schooling, prohibition for lefts to "educate" our children and to indoctrinate them marxism and liberalism.

Only The Holy Bible and True Christians can save our Western World,that's my point.

[The Immortal Goon]

With "things" you called "ridiculous" the Western civilization has existed many thousands years, with liberal "progressive" "values" like homosexuality, adultery, drug consume, socialism, islam, multiculturalism, pornography, outsourcing, globalism, immorality, atheism, destroyed families etc. our Western civilization will cease out to exist not later as in thirty years. We need our traditional values back

Western civilization celebrated homosexuality, adultery, drug consumption, pornography, outsourcing, and globalism since before the Roman Empire. Socialism (assuming you don't know what that means), multiculturalism, and oursourcing are all things that could be argued that the Greek Empire did - though really those things probably belong more properly with ancient Rome.

I agree though. We need these traditional values of homosexuality, adultery, drug consumption, pornography, outsourcing, and globalism back before it's too late.

[dgun]

True Christians can save our Western World,that's my point.

Christians have run the western world for a couple of thousand years, give or take a century or two, and it has led to:

homosexuality, adultery, drug consume, socialism, islam, multiculturalism, pornography, outsourcing, globalism, immorality, atheism, destroyed families etc.

And also genocide, war, crushing poverty, and misery of every possible sort.

Only The Holy Bible

No part of the Bible was ever intended for such a purpose as you propose, that is to fix the world or any particular nation (with the possible exception of the biblical nation of Israel).

As far as what you consider to be "true Christians", I'm sure it involves whatever subjective qualification that's particular to your beliefs. But I find it amusing that you apparently put your trust in men (and your personal judgement of their character) to "fix" the world rather than putting your trust in God.

[Drlee]

I will have to put violence on myself to keep from joining the sarcasm party the OP has invited.

I am a conservative Chrisian. I oppose the death penalty. I support raising taxes on the wealthy. I have no dog in the fight over same sex marriage so whatever they want is none of my business. I believe generally in small government but I know that we need the FDA and the EPA. There are many things the government does better than private industry.

Playing it straight I would say this. I have not seen any group so anti-Christian as the people who claim to be Chrisian and hide under the banner of conservatism these days. Jesus was a liberal. He made this unambiguous statement:

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45“Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Jesus was a liberal. He still is. I am sickened at the grasping mean-spirited ways of those who call them conservatives today. They would crush the poor. They are not Christians. So my answer is that the real Christians are almost all liberals. You will find them at soup kitchens, aids clinics, battered women's shelters and civil rights organizations. I work in public health. I see the draconian cuts that conservatives want and KNOW the misery they will cause for the poor and disadvantaged. No Christian would take health care and educational opportunities from Children but the asshole republicans did. What would Jesus say about someone who would put poor children on the street to fend for themselves like the republicans want to do? He said this:

"It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin".

I am a Conservative. We believe in the teachings of Jesus not those of George Bush, Ayn Rand and John Boehner.

[Cartertonian]

I am sickened at the grasping mean-spirited ways of those who call them conservatives today. They would crush the poor. They are not Christians. So my answer is that the real Christians are almost all liberals. You will find them at soup kitchens, aids clinics, battered women's shelters and civil rights organizations. I work in public health. I see the draconian cuts that conservatives want and KNOW the misery they will cause for the poor and disadvantaged. No Christian would take health care and educational opportunities from Children but the asshole republicans did.

QFT.

Now, keep it to yourselves...( ), but I was brought up in a strict Roman Catholic home (though I'm not actively practising any more) and I attribute many of my core beliefs about society and humanity to that indoctrination. The yardstick by which I measure the actions of other human beings - individually or collectively - is based on my recollections of the teachings of Christ, and I would entirely agree with your analysis, Drlee.

What I don't understand, though, is why you're still a conservative?

I am aware that 'conservative' may mean something subtly but significantly different in the US to how it is interpreted in the UK, but still, it seems that you stand starkly at odds with US conservatism.

I'm sure it would be enlightening for us all if you were able to set out what you believe the core values of US conservatism - to which you wish to adhere - should be, in contrast to how they appear to the rest of the World.

(No sarcasm, by the way - serious question)

[Drlee]

Fair question. Let me start by asking that you keep in mind that I am 60 years old. My conservative mentors were the likes of William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater and to some extent Richard Nixon. In my youth the republican party stood against racial discrimination. It was the democrats who were blocking the doors of the white colleges to black students.

Conservatism for me was about values but these were the kinds of Christian values that are lost to the fundimentalists who lay claim to conservatism today. As an example. Richard Nixon proposed national health care. He actually sent a bill to congress where the democrats defeated it. So.

My conservative ideals about my country come from "conserving" the notions the founders gave us. For example. There are bunches of folks who post here and claim the constitution as their Bible. They endlessly carp about original intent without understanding what the real original intent was. Can one read the constitution and understand it without reading the federalist papers? Can someone who has not devoted considerable time studying the life of Jefferson (one of the most complicated characters in history) really find meaning in a few of his more famous quotes?

Conservative Christian values call upon me to care for the sick, give comfort to the poor, etc. Taking the literal view of the admonitions of Christ is conservative, is it not? I am not talking about taking the Bible literally but rather putting flesh to the teachings of Christ. Is this liberal or conservative? I would say it is both. This may seem odd but if one honors the ideas of the past, the ideas of our founding fathers, then one is preserving liberal ideas.

Today we define the difference between liberals and conservatives around hot button issues. Like:

Gay marriage. Everyone knows that this is a liberal issue. Right? But what if you look at it from the viewpoint of the equal protection clause of the constitution? If homosexuality is a sin (congress shall make no law respecing an establishment of religion) then the conservative view is that we must not use government to enforce this religious belief. Therefor as a conservative I believe I should honor the constution which says, "...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.)

So. On this issue am I a conservative because I believe in what the constution says and in enforcing it or am I a liberal because I believe that same sex marriage is none of my business?

One more example. I favor national health care. Never mind the absolute elegance of the statement made by the head of the British NHS when he said, "We as a people decided to care for one another when we are ill." Why would a conservative support national health care? First I know (and so do you as a medical man) the misery that illness causes. I know that when people are ill nothing in the world matters more. So my Christian duty is to see that the sick are cared for. Private industry has failed dismally to care for the sick in America. It has excluded the chronically ill in the name of profit. I also see how effective the government health care programs are. We Americans pay more than double what the next largest spender pays and we get very poor results indeed. Unless one happens to have government health care like I do. Then not only are the outcomes much better but the cost is lower. So what if we paid per person what the UK pays? Not only would everyone be covered. Not only would we live longer and healthier lives. We would also inject a half a trillion dollars a year into the economy. Nice. So my question is...why is it considered "liberal" to support universal health care? Sure we may spend more government money but we will reduce overall health care spending by over 1/2. This is good for business who can get that rock out of their napsack.

The real deal is that most people who call themselves conservative today are really sold-out corporatists. Making stem cells a national issue is not about Christian values. It is a weapon of mass distraction used by neocons and corporatists to distract people from the real issues.

WFB said that the job of a conservative is to stand athwart history and shout stop. The problem is that we seem to think that history started with Rush Limbaugh. Back when he was still trying to be a local radio personality the conservatives like Richard Nixon, were opening up China, proposing national health care, working to end the death penalty and imposing wage and price controls to help the middle class through a recession. I reject the label liberal just because some pissant like Rush Limbaugh decides that he will label any behavior with which he disagrees "liberal". Is it "liberal" to favor stem cell research or just good science? If science is liberal then what is conservatism? Anti science? God I hope not. Cartertonian, you and I have both watched someone die of ALS. There is absolutely no worse way to die, is there? Stem cell research offers a glimmer of hope to these poor souls. It is my Chrisian duty to try to help them. If that means using parts of already dead fetuses to do this then I say go for it. No one is killing babies to do the research.

I favor balancing the federal budget. I am not a socialist because I think that we need to raise taxes to do it. I am not a socialist because I know that the wealthy are were the money is. I refuse to call the wealthy job creators becaue they are not doing it and haven't been for years. (Well they have been making plenty in China, but in the US, not so much.)

I do not self-identify as a liberal because morons like Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have perverted the term and in doing so equally perverted the term conservative. I am a conservative because I believe in real American values. I believe in American exceptionalism. I believe in investing in our future so our children can have what I have. I believe we need a US Marshall plan. Is that liberal or Conservative? Were five-star General's Marshall and Eiserhower liberal or conservative when they supported high taxes on the rich to build this exceptional America?

I am rambling. I am a conservative and it is not my fault that most Americans have forgotten what it means to be an American.

[The American Lion]

Bible in Conservatism is one reason why I fucking left conservatism.

[SpaciousBox]

Drlee, for a conservative your very un-conservative. I'm not really sure if you simply value certain things and call them conservative, or if simply the conservatives you know are not very generically conservative, but at the end of the day your beliefs really don't reflect the general ideals that are associated with that ideology.

[Drlee]

^^

Oh yes they do. Read my post again. Particularly the first line. I deny that conservatism is defined by the idiotic notions of Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck. Christian fundimentalism is anathema to the historical american conservative.

Goldwater: Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

and

On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."

I will tell you that what you believe to be conservatism is a creation by politicians designed to keep a ton of people in the shallow end of the pool.

In other words, the general ideas associated today with conservatism are little more than carefully crafted propaganda.

[dgun]

Although I "feel your pain" so to speak in regard to good old fashioned traditional conservatism, you guys really have to stop saying stuff like this:

It was the democrats who were blocking the doors of the white colleges to black students.

It is such an oversimplification as it ignores regional differences and the differences between the state parties and the national parties. For example, it's true that Wallace was standing in the door, but it is also true that he was doing so largely in defiance of JFK and RFK who were enforcing the ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education. And as I'm sure you well know, most of the Dixiecrats moved to the Republican party in the 60's specifically because of the civil rights movement.

I can attest for the fact that in Alabama (on the state level) we have always had one party. Until Guy Hunt was elected in the early 90's (maybe late 80's), the name of that party was 'Democrat'. Since that time, there has been a slow changing of the label, which was just recently completed, and the name of our one party on the state level is now 'Republican'. Nothing has actually changed in terms of public policy and politics and attitudes. All that remains exactly the same.

It's been actually comical to read in my local paper about so many local officials, like a county commissioner and the county license commissioner and a couple of family court judges, who have in the past year 'switched' parties to the GOP after being Democrats for years. As if the 'party' affiliation on such a local level actually changes anything about these people or what they believe or their politics.

[J Oswald]

I loathe the emphasis that modern American conservatism places on Biblical teachings. Although I didn't shift across the spectrum to the same extent that TAL did, the relationship between Biblical teachings and modern American conservativism has damaged the conservative brand in my eyes.

I'll also add that there is no such thing as "true" conservatism.

[John Bob]

The Immortal Groon wrote:

We need these traditional values of homosexuality, adultery, drug consumption, pornography, outsourcing, and globalism back before it's too late.

They are already here, "thanks" this "values" we will not exist in fifty years anymore.

Dgun wrote:

But I find it amusing that you apparently put your trust in men (and your personal judgement of their character) to "fix" the world rather than putting your trust in God.

Only idiots can believe that true Christians can stay away from Politic. No, we will not that the Holy Bible will be replaced by Quran and Marxism. All true Christians should go to elections and vote for Conservatives who will provide the Christian and Traditional values in our society.

Drlee:

I am a conservative Chrisian. I oppose the death penalty. I support raising taxes on the wealthy. I have no dog in the fight over same sex marriage so whatever they want is none of my business. I believe generally in small government but I know that we need the FDA and the EPA. There are many things the government does better than private industry.

Sorry, is is difficult to believe your post is written by a conservative.