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An isolationist and idealist like yourself could not be elected, and could never govern if they lied their way into office. RR's way is the only possibility to reverse the damage that the socialists and isolationists did to the US during the 30s-60s. Unlike you, and the other idealists I know who could never gain power and therefore will be perpetual gnats instead of persons who will have any effect on policy, Reagan and other conservatives like me have managed to have an effect. Your way failed miserably before RR, and will continue to fail now. I DO remember the ineffectiveness of "conservatives" like yourself, and do not absolve them of their responsibility for getting us the great deal of the Thirties socialist programs by joining forces with the leftists.

Like it or not, the socialists imposed the great "deal" on this country and the associated welfare programs. I would LOVE to get rid of federal government meddling in much of what it has taken upon itself, and so did Reagan, but only so much was able to be done at a time. Weaning American of those "great deals" will take at least the same amount of time, and will take even longer if the gnats like yourself continue to join forces with the socialists in opposition to honest conservatives' efforts to continue to reverse it while maintaining the voting power to make a difference, and educating people as to why it is a better way. You see, I believe in PROMOTING the general welfare, not providing it, in agreement with you - but in a representative government such as ours, it is not possible to force American to do that "cold turkey".

Likewise, I believe the founders were right about PROVIDING for the common defense of this nation, and whether you like it or not, the alternative in the world of TODAY means that such provision must recognize that if we simply ignore what is going on outside our borders, this country will cease to exist. You, like the Peace Nazis, have a fantasy of a world filled with perfect people leading perfect nations, but that is simply foolish, yet at least you concede that a few nasties will try to get past our borders or corrupt trading practices so we need an isolationist wall. A walled "Castle America" is not viable and such a state that you have projected to us in this thread would be destroyed by a terrorist-led dictatorial state within three decades.

It is nice you finally recognize such views as yours make you a member of "libertarians and some of the more hard right conservative groups" instead of being a mainline conservative, such as myself. If those groups had gotten their wish and stayed out of, for example, WWII, Hitler or the Soviet Commies would have become the undisputed atomic powers and within a dozen years after that would have imposed themselves upon the rest of the world, including a USA defenseless against such weaponry. Your vaunted isolationist tendencies would have resulted in failure to PROVIDE FOR THE NATIONAL DEFENSE. Fine - be there with the rest of them - but you end up being extremely counterproductive in advancing to your own views when it comes to legislative effect.

Your joining forces with the Peace Nazis in this case, as well as socialists in the other case, make you no different from the left as far as being an asset to Conservative government, no matter your "good intentions".

"Citizen of the world" - rubbish. "End evil in the world" - balderdash. You claim know the NSS and the Liberty Doctrine, but you utterly fail to comprehend the reasoning behind it, and if you did you would realize that the NSS is based on no such preconceptions, nor is my argument. Just like a Utopian socialist, you can't seem to think past an immediate result. You can't seem to come to grips with the recognition that the promotion of Liberty for others will result in increased security and prosperity for ourselves, and, indeed, increased Liberty for Americans here at home and abroad. You apparently believe that the NSS states that the US will run the world, dictate to it, determine their governments or in some other way create an empire USA. If you were to actually THINK about the NSS and the present world situation rather than some socialist, idealist fantasy of the way the world "should" be, you would realize that it is the only hope of AVOIDING perpetual war, not be a cause of it. Perhaps you ought to review it again, assuming you have actually looked at it, against all discernible evidence.

Patrick Henry would most certainly approve such a strategy in today's world.

You are definitely right about one thing, since my conversion to real conservatism during my College Republican days, I have never, ever claimed to be a "mainline" or "main-steam" conservative. Main-steam conservatives are just as much of the problem as liberals of which they are a subspecies. In fact, they are probably more of a problem because they convince the masses that they really are conservative and they ostracize the real conservatives. Your anger is misdirected. You should not be angry at me for staying true to principle. You should be angry at those who sell out principle and call it conservatism.

I have said before that honest conservatives can disagree about the rate of change, but they can not disagree about the direction. Example: Medicare is clearly unconstitutional, an immoral wealth transfer scheme, and should be abolished. Conservatives could support abolishing it today, fazing it out at a fixed 10% over the next 10 years until it is down to zero, or by a fixed 5% over the next 20 for you moderates. But they CAN NOT support slowing its rate of growth because that is still in the wrong direction. At that point you are just arguing with the Social Democrats about degrees of Social Democracy. Social Democracy is NEVER conservatism.

I'm sorry if my injection of a little ideological reality messes up the nice little schema you have been brainwashed by the Republicans and the "conservative establishment" into accepting. Republicans good. Democrats bad. Republicans conservative. Democrats liberal. Well wake up buddy. The reality is this. Democrats = Social Democrats. Republicans = slightly less Social Democrat. And Rush and the rest of them can blather all they want, that is the Gospel Truth.

Don't be mad at me. Be mad at those who have lied to you. And come on over from the dark side and join us in actually trying to make some conservative change.

I'm the one joining forces with the leftist. Yeah right! What you are espousing is leftism.

On foreign policy, I am the realist and you are the Utopian idealist. Things are the way they are because of innumerable factors. Religion, culture, race, language, history, ancient jealousies, tribal conflicts, etc. etc. etc. To believe you can just uproot American style democracy and transplant it anywhere in the world, and they are all just going to welcome us with open arms and say, "Gee, thanks for liberating us" is Utopian in the extreme. It is much more likely to make the world angry at us and instead of decreasing the threat, it increases it.

P.S. Calling me a gnat was not very nice.