Posted on 11/24/2012 4:19:03 AM PST by Kaslin
bump
Conservatism is much less a political position then the leftist persuasion. Instead it is a moral, cultural, value, and theological rudder that partially expresses itself in political tendencies.
It is not an ideology but a collection of principles and values. As such it does not have options on the order form that can be left unselected.
good post
Yes,,”disposition” is a good choice.
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I don’t actually think that distinguishing between elections as a tool and underlying philosophy - the first mutable and adaptive, the second granite-like and unchanging - creates cognitive dissonance.
I’m not sure that “democracy”, which is a fair approximation of what we have now, can possibly deliver a government of virtue based upon truth. If so, it may be foolish to be discussing electoral tactics.
But since I’m too old to go bushwhacking, I still think it’s worth trying to get virtuous leaders chosen through the process that we have. To my mind, this entails choosing candidates who can not “scare the horses” with opinions that large majorities abhor.
One of the reasons that the Left has become so powerful is that their candidates are experts at deception.
I now believe that this is a necessary part of the devil’s bargain of choosing leaders by election, and I wish our guys were better at it.
So, your objection to my thoughts - that they are internally contradictory - doesn’t hold up.
Thanks, however, for the food for thought. I will certainly think about it further.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree about that. The avalanche of Leftists who are killing our country are in office because they DO care about electability, and they are darned good at it.”
You contradict yourself, from things you have written elsewhere on the forum (I checked).
I refuse to agree to disagree on matters of principle. IF you will sell out principle to win an election, then you are no better than those “leftists.”
A mistake I made on election day, that I am ashamed of, was that I caved and voted for Romney in an act of desparation because I dreaded Obama so. I caved on “principle” and am now guilty of hypocrisy...I am ashamed.
In regards to “throwing away a Senate seat.” Well, the plurality of Missouri voters picked Akin in the primary. I am a Missouri resident. The voters had their say, and Akin won. He should have been supported by the RNC. Save some of your vitriol for the other two primary candidates. One could equally agrue that IF either of them had of dropped out of the primary, then there wouldn’t have been a three way vote with Akin receiving the most votes. However, each of them had “too much pride” to drop out. So, Akin received the most votes....yell at them for a change.
I actually didn’t take that much interest in the primary and voted for one of the three other than Akin (all three looked OK) because Palin had endorsed the candidate. However, once he won, and especially after I saw the hatchet job done on him by both the MSM and then the GOPe....it infuriated me and I vigourously and financially supported him from then on.
It makes me VERY angry when persons not living here, presume to tell us whom we should vote for or support. OR for a party to dump on our pick. I am VERY angry with Palin that she did not come back and support Akin the way Newt did...she has lost my future support because of her actions in regards to Akin. Her return to Missouri and helping Akin could have made a big difference. She was AWOL on that and has lost credibility.
If you think electoral politics is degrading and tends to contaminate all involved, I agree.
What I do not agree with is that there was NO DIFFERENCE between replacing Akin and sending Claire McCaskill back for six more years.
You believe that, with the right kind of support, Akin could have been elected (after August). I don't.
That belief of mine isn't selling out anything. I said he could not be elected, and he wasn't.
Perhaps you are mistaken on this point.
Hang on. I don't dispute that we need to persuade Catholics to vote more conserative. But here is the difference: if a voter self-identifies as Evangelical, that probably means he is in some way actually an observant Christian. People don't call themselves that unless there is some real contact with or belief in the premises of evangelical Christianity in their lives.
Catholics are a different kettle of fish, however. There are millions of Catholics-Lite people who were born or baptized as Catholic but don't practice their faith at all, haven't seen the inside of a Catholic church in years, and are just referring to some long-ago cultural heritage that they have discarded along with other inconveniences. These people still say they are Catholic when asked, and for the purposes of demographics and voter polls are termed Catholics, but they aren't really, and they tend to vote liberal. The serious committed Catholics who show up in the pews every week are far, far more conservative. They voted for Romney. The priests in many Catholic parishes across the US read statements from their bishops about the issues in this election and took a very firm anti-Obama, anti-abortion, anti-Obamacare stance.
The only problem with this line of reasoning is what do you offer these evangelicals, Christians and socons that would make them do what you espouse? Not since Ronald Reagan have I seen any Republican candidate for President that was worthy of my socon vote and I rather suspect that I'm no where near alone in that sentiment. Actually I sense that sentiment to be growing in size and numbers every year since the Reagan Presidency.
Moving to the left of center hasn't worked so why not try moving back to the center of right and see what happens?! If not then the Republican Party should just go ahead and make it official that they have lock, stock and barrel become the party of the liberal RINO. Be done with it once and for all. End the charade of pretending to be the party of conservatism.
۞ "Since the bygone days of Ronald Reagan the present day Republican Party has taken on the appearance and all the demeanor of the corrupted liberal Democrat Party and has now become the party of appeasers, apologists, liberalism and an ever bigger government with all of the welfare largesse that emanates from it."
where I disagree with some on here is along the following: the primary purpose (primary, not sole) of campaigns is to elect somebody who is capable of serving in the office.
Therefore, backing candidates on principal who have zero chance of getting elected reeks of folly. Elections are a civic matter, not a religious one.
Prudence is a virtue and its benefits include circumspection and sound judgment. Those who use the Christian faith to argue for actions which lead to us “going down to glorious defeat” ... I argue they are attempting to make a virtue of folly. You now have an explanation of why many of us do not follow you. The goal of virtuous men should be to elect the BEST PEOPLE POSSIBLE, not to lose based on principal.
Of course, we knew all of this 40 years ago. But the past 2 election cycles demonstrate some want to continue to experiment with another way. The examples abound.
It is amazing that you want outreach to fix the most conservative voting block in America, the Evangelicals, yet you fight against mention of the loyally democrat voting, Catholic voting block, it is Catholics that we desperately need outreach with.
Calling oneself Catholics is the same as calling oneself an Evangelical.
Catholics who are no longer Christians or Catholics do not claim to be Catholics.
Only the Catholic denomination itself calls every person ever baptized a Catholic, Catholic, whether they are or not.
See post 75, we already win the Evangelical vote with almost 80%, in fact our second largest denomination, the Southern Baptists voted 80% for McCain in 2008, when our largest denomination, Catholic, was voting 54% for Obama.
It is the Catholic vote that conservatives need to figure out how to win.
i was thinking more of the Cristine O’Donnell model of candidates. Planned failure.
We should have 99.9% of the evangelicals, not 80%. And more of them ought to be registered voters, because they can’t vote for a Republican candidate if they can’t vote at all.
Some “Catholyks” are just a group designated by polling companies and aren’t really observant Catholic—kind of like secular Jews, who also don’t vote on religious or ethical considerations. You are never going to win them.
Other Catholics are observant, but they’re super-libs from the ‘70s. They’re not available to us either.
Of the real, active, observant Catholics, the ones who are actually in the church, over 50% did go to Romney. But I agree that there, too, the number ought to be approaching 100%, and that outreach is necessary.
At our Catholic parish, the priests came down very hard on the congregation about this election. They are not extremely conservative in this area—hey, I’m in Communist-held Maryland!—but they were tough and outspoken about this. They read statements from the archbishop, they explained that abortion is a non-negotiable point, that there are no gray areas about this, and that it’s not ethical to vote for a great evil like abortion so that people can get a lesser good, like the idea free healthcare or whatever. It was possible to see how uncomfortable/irritated some members of the parish were when they heard this, and how pleased others were (like me).
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