Posted on 07/17/2004 7:40:06 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Good grief. Is this what has happened to the conservative movement? Whining about condoms for Pakistan and Zimbabwe? No wonder Kerry-Edwards has an edge on Bush-Cheney in some polls. What a waste of time. What ever happened to cutting taxes and reforming education? What on earth are these kids studying these days?
Btw, how did National Review degenerate to becoming a playground for a bunch of dorks?
Well, government and its role in the economy aren't going to go away anytime soon. It's foolish to think that they will or could disappear, but the socialist idea or ideal certainly doesn't have the appeal that it did 20 or 40 or 60 years ago. That can be regarded as a major success, rather than a failure.
Once the "movement" succeeds -- once you defeat major left-wing ideas and aspirations not finally and utterly, but substantially and in an impressive way -- what's next? To try to impose a right-wing vision on society or to celebrate the victory, strike the tents, and move on to a less ideologized, less polarized politics.
The united sense of a "movement," the idea of being "for us or against us," is easy to maintain when one is opposing or resisting something, but after a victory, when one can really change things, can the "movement" keep to a single set of objectives? Don't various factions start to pursue their own favorite objectives without a strong opponent? Without such a threatening enemy isn't it time to take the volume and the pitch of political discussion down a notch and recognize what we have in common, as well as what divides us?
Josh Chafetz at oxblog.com (mentioned in the article) takes issue with "movement" thinking. He's involved in academia and takes issue with liberal or leftist professors but doesn't like the wholesale disdain that many organized movement conservatives have for academia as a whole.
I don't take my bearings from oxblog and disagree with it about a lot of things. There's a lot more to be said for a more populist, less elitist approach than the oxbloggers take, but Chafetz does have a point.
When people begin to think that one is either in the movement or out of it, either for us or against us, real thinking stops and knee-jerk reactions take over. When one can just dismiss opposing ideas because of their political incorrectness or lack of doctrinal purity one has ceased to think and simply reacts.
People naturally form movements to pursue common goals, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's a lot to be said for staying outside organized movements and relying more on one's own judgment.
The "libertarian" designation on social issues is utterly meaningless. No one is legally prevented from engaging in the private sexual recreation of their choice in modern America. There were plenty of condoms on display at the 7-11 last time I was there. I have no idea what these punks are thinking or talking about.
That you can't kill a baby remains a part of normal conservative values. Any would-be "conservative" who has a problem with that needs moral therapy. As a general principle, it might be a good idea for zine editors to limit awarding writing jobs to conservatives who have already matured beyond puberty.
Just as a footnote, there is NOTHING "libertarian" about forcing everyone in the country to accept the pro-sodomy ruling of a small clique of acitivst lesbian judges in Massachusetts. If they want "privacy" and freedom in the bedroom, the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on sodomy is the better alternative to state-licensed perversion. No homosexual or lesbian is currently prevented from copulating by any "conservative" policy.
I am personally abstinent, and I plan to stay that way, but I have no problem with international aid programs that use or distribute condoms. -David Weigel, a contributor to the libertarian magazine Reason
So the latest thing in conservatives is the "personally opposed but" crowd? Maybe today's young people are so indoctrinated in individualism and relativism that they no longer even think about the quality of the larger society in which they will have to raise their children. -madprof98
I hear Limbaugh and Boortz tell us it's the liberals' HATRED of individualism, that's part of the problem, and if Ted Kennedy says individualism is evil, then it must be the opposite. -The Libertarian Dude
IMO both liberals and conservatives venerate their own versions of both individualism and the common good. Regardless, I think there is a problem we could call radical individualism in which we no longer have a handle on certain limits. Nothing must get in the way of a woman's (for example) potential for individual fulfillment. There are serious threats to Western civilization, such as low birth rate, low marriage rate. But we've lost the ability to reason about these issues.
Interesting perception in light of the world his generation will have to deal with.
But several conservatives, young and old, said the greatest division in the movement pitted young traditionalists against their more libertarian peers.
David Weigel, 22, the former editor of a conservative magazine at Northwestern University, a contributor to the libertarian magazine Reason and an intern at the editorial page of USA Today, --- contended that even young conservatives who maintained a strict moral code for themselves were increasingly reluctant to regulate the behavior of others.
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HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity wrote:
Good grief. Is this what has happened to the conservative movement? What a waste of time. What ever happened to cutting taxes and reforming education?
What on earth are these kids studying these days?
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Perhaps they are studying the principles of our Republic, -- wherein the Founders contended that while eveyone should maintain a strict moral code for themselves, --- 'We the People' should be very reluctant to allow any level of government to regulate the behavior of others.
What current "conservative" policies "regulate the behavior of others"?
Seems to me it is primarily wild-eyed liberal zanies who want to restrict tobacco use and curb Non-PC speech. They would probably ban heterosexual marriages with more than 2 children if they could. And prohibit any public discussion of religious moral values. I understand there are some who want to ban religious private schools.
No idea what on earth you could be thinking of.
What current "conservative" political personality in mainstream American public life has proposed banning condoms or criminalizing fornication? Duh....
As soon as something becomes fairly well accepted as a commonsensical virtue, some people in robes are going to turn around and coerce it. Example:
The virtue: it is a virtue to live and let live.
The coercion: we had SCOTUS torture the Constitution to ban any state, village, or town from having an anti-sodomy law.
The virtue: one should treat a gay couple with dignity - they have the same feelings of love and loss that hets do.
The coercion: Massachusetts SJC tortures its Constitution to ban any distinction between heterosexual and homosexual marriage.
The actual text of the quote. There was no reason to edit out the essential points of irony in your reposting of it.
Perhaps you can explain how the U.S. Constitution mandates U.S. taxpayers must fund U.N. global depopulation schemes. Or how NOT doing that "regulates" the behavior of others.
You can walk on to the campus of almost any college or university and get FREE condoms. Condoms for people in Pakistan or Tasmania have NOTHING to do with the U.S. Constitution or the "sexual freedom" of Americans. It's an absurd issue and the "libertarian" social policy spin is ridiculous. There is NOTHING "libertarian" about putting the government in the business of fomenting, directing, and controlling experiment social engineering on sexuality. The idea of giving U.S. tax dollars to the UN to do this is just OFF THE RADAR. Nothing "libertarian" about the UN or its genocidal depopulation schemes.
I heard they tried to give Funny Cide a blanket made of that plaid blazer's material. "Too tacky," he neighed.
But several conservatives, young and old, said the greatest division in the movement pitted young traditionalists against their more libertarian peers.
David Weigel, 22, the former editor of a conservative magazine at Northwestern University, a contributor to the libertarian magazine Reason and an intern at the editorial page of USA Today, ---
contended that even young conservatives who maintained a strict moral code for themselves were increasingly reluctant to regulate the behavior of others.
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HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity wrote:
Good grief. Is this what has happened to the conservative movement? What a waste of time. What ever happened to cutting taxes and reforming education?
What on earth are these kids studying these days?
_______________________________________
Perhaps they are studying the principles of our Republic, -- wherein the Founders contended that while eveyone should maintain a strict moral code for themselves, --- 'We the People' should be very reluctant to allow any level of government to regulate the behavior of others.
26 tpaine
(No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another. - T. Jefferson)
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What current "conservative" policies "regulate the behavior of others"?
27 HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
Um..read #27 and get back to me.
No idea what on earth you could be
thinking of.
28 HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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Absurd claim you make. You have "no idea" that ALL levels of our governments, -- fed/state/local, -- are making ever increasing numbers of 'laws' to regulate the behavior of others?
Virtually every other post on FR is made about some new outrageous 'law' imposed upon us by the RinoCratic regime that infests DC, and every Statehouse in the USA.
Pretending that the GOP is blameless in our slide into socialism is ludicrous.
David Weigel, a so-called libertarian, should be ashamed of himself. Of course libertarians don't have a problem with condoms. But we do have a problem with goverment programs that steal from some people to pay for other peoples condoms.
Yep -- Tucker Carlson's bow tie and girlie hair really annoys me, too. And it looks like this guy needs a manly haircut as well. Sheesh!
I happened to catch Terry Gross' (Fresh Air) excruciating NPR interview of Stephen Moore, president of Club For Growth. When she questioned his libertarianism, she succeeding in labelling anyone pro-life or anti-gay marriage as people who wanted to invade the privacy of the bedroom. It was painful. But she really showed her complete lack of understanding when she obviously didn't understand his reference to a liberal elite.
Tom Paine was an extremist wacko, by the way. Totalitarian secular humanism is not part of the conservative tradition. Nor is it mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Paine's Jacobinism died a deserving death in the gallows of 18th-century France. No serious man romanticizes that or venerates its memory.
Why do so many liberals and pseudo-libertarians ( on social issues) get so fixated on adolescent genital issues? I think there must be something wrong with them. HOW precisely and exactly do they claim conservatives are interfering with what they do with their multiple boyfriends and girlfriends? This is utterly ridiculous.
Fashion plate or archvillain from the "Batman" TV show?
You decide!
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