Posted on 09/12/2008 11:38:39 AM PDT by goldstategop
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I have not read this yet, but look forward to. Thanks for the post!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ... stop it, you're killin' me.
Lose their souls .... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
"I had escaped from my prior partisan mindset (reject first, ask rhetorical questions later), and began to think..."
And began to understand.
I think this twit has never known love.
Yes, conservatism and the difference between evil and good are simple, straight forward concepts. Liberals are always looking to find the elusive golden thread that links the universe together. Conservatives do what is right for America; Liberals do what they perceive to be right for the world. Too bad it's programmed in their genes.
bump
Great! Now I need a new keyboard!
Memo to self - don't drink coffeee while reading liberal analysis of conservatism.
Here's something that jumped out at me:
Whenever Democrats support policies that weaken the integrity and identity of the collective (such as multiculturalism, bilingualism, and immigration), they show that they care more about pluribus than unum
It is not a conincidence that Al Gore once mistakenly referred to the Latin phrase as meaning "Out of one, we are many."
"America lacks the long history, small size, ethnic homogeneity, and soccer mania that holds many other nations together, so our flag, our founding fathers, our military, and our common language take on a moral importance that many liberals find hard to fathom."
No wonder liberal policies are destructive of the national spirit that holds America together. He does get it but most liberals don't. That's why America identifies with the Republican Party.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I call BS. Too many false basic assumptions.
Well, the answer is right in the first paragraph in the premise that people are better off economically with Democrat policies.
Obviously, most people’s experience tells them that COMPANIES are better providers of INCOME than government.
Wrong right out of the gate.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Interesting article, but I didn’t think liberals would all into Mills. My favorite quote of his is-
“War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
That seems to reflect our philosophy.
Only a liberal needs 30 paragraphs to come to the understanding that intelligence trumps emotionalism.
My economic interests are not better served by the Democrats. You cannot tax your way to prosperity. You cannot make this a better country by taking from those who are productive and redistributing it to those who aren't. But more than that, the Democrats are against everything I stand for. I believe in the Second Amendment, they want to disarm me. I believe in letting babies live, but I also believe in capital punishment while the Democrats get it wrong on both counts. I believe in a strong military, the Democrats would gut it. I believe in private medicine, the Democrats would nationalize it. I believe in minimal government, the Democrats want to control everything. There is very little the Democrats and I agree on, especially when they're actually being honest about what they want for America.
This takes some wading through, but it's worth it. And some of the observations are quite profound in their articulation.
A point worth musing on:
Democrats generally use a much smaller part of the spectrum than do Republicans. The resulting music may sound beautiful to other Democrats, but it sounds thin and incomplete to many of the swing voters that left the party in the 1980s, and whom the Democrats must recapture if they want to produce a lasting political realignment.
In The Political Brain, Drew Westen points out that the Republicans have become the party of the sacred, appropriating not just the issues of God, faith, and religion, but also the sacred symbols of the nation such as the Flag and the military. The Democrats, in the process, have become the party of the profane—of secular life and material interests. Democrats often seem to think of voters as consumers; they rely on polls to choose a set of policy positions that will convince 51% of the electorate to buy. Most Democrats don't understand that politics is more like religion than it is like shopping.
[snip]
The Democrats must find a way to close the sacredness gap that goes beyond occasional and strategic uses of the words "God" and "faith." But if Durkheim is right, then sacredness is really about society and its collective concerns. God is useful but not necessary. The Democrats could close much of the gap if they simply learned to see society not just as a collection of individuals—each with a panoply of rights--but as an entity in itself, an entity that needs some tending and caring. Our national motto is e pluribus unum ("from many, one"). Whenever Democrats support policies that weaken the integrity and identity of the collective (such as multiculturalism, bilingualism, and immigration), they show that they care more about pluribus than unum. They widen the sacredness gap.
*** end excerpt ***
The thing is, Democrats CANNOT close the sacredness gap. Their world view, which essentially boils down to moral nihlism, will never be consistent with an appropriate reverence for our society and nation as an entity that is larger than self and which should be served as such.
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