How Bill Kristol ditched conservatism. Great Escape

The New Republic ^ | 5/28/2001 | Franklin Foer

[m1911]

Nations have their own rules for policing.

And nations have interests other than ours in formulating those rules, and enforcing them. The Taleban certainly had rules for their own police and I got no indication that deterence had pushed them toward cracking down on anti-US terrorist groups. I suspect that they are not the only regime with policing rules that put my safety fairly low on their priority list. Your suggestion seems to be that for those states, and those that may even support anti-US terrorism, threat of destruction is the answer. I think on the other thread you referred to that as "bullying".

[NYTexan]

"He is a mole."

Exactly, all he ever does is whine about the republicans.
If he were any kind of patriot he would attack the true scum that abounds in this gov't (Congress Critters and dem holdovers) that continue to fester the wounds of division!

[wardaddy]

Don't feel bad...Currybot doesn't care much for me either. I find him/her rather incomprehensible plus he/she has a tendency to frequently pursue scorched earth tactics and evade substance and declare victory and leave.

Currybot and I may vote alike but we have distinctly different attitudes.

[weikel]

Probably correct.

[Mr. Mojo]

He [Kristol] and his fringe are really just media marketable conservatives...great for TV filler

Agreed. He's a decent talking head (even though I disagree with a lot of his positions). Problem is his whining, nervous, cracking voice and his stupid and constant smile makes for difficult TV viewing.

[m1911]

I'm off to bed, I'll check in tomorrow.

[Mr. Mojo]

I share every one of the politcal positions you posted (and probably a few more you didn't). 5 different people would give us 5 different labels, no doubt.

[WRhine]

The article itself is somewhat incoherent but the final message appears to be that the neo-cons have lost influence within the "movement" rather that steering its course.

Let's hope so. The neo-cons have always been a mile wide, inch deep phenomenon in the Republican Party and for good reason. Their polices of unlimited immigration, de-industrializing "not-so-free trade" deals, and ambivalence on social issues like abortion do not resonate well in the TRUE conservative majority. If their numbers weren't so large in the media, you'd never hear of them.

[WRhine]

How do your repeal social security?

That will happen when it goes bankrupt. 25 years from now or less SS will not exist...at least not in its present form. Whatever replaces it will be a self-sustaining, investment based, actuarially sound system because, in the end, the truth does dictate what has to done.

[x]

Great questions. I think the Reagan Democrats started to desert in the short recession of 1991-2 and as the culture war died away more of them left. Pretty remarkable that with someone so symbolically on the wrong side of the culture wars as Bill Clinton running, conservatives couldn't make more of moral and social issues, so there's some factor I don't see. Maybe the country was tired of eternal conflict, or maybe economic opportunities interested Americans more. Maybe we recognized that we have more in common with each other, or maybe we recognized that the big social changes had already happened and got used to some of them.

The other thing is that a lot of Reagan Democrats probably did go over to the GOP permanently. Today's Democratic base is very different in terms of sex, generation, race, region and profession from what it was in 1940, 1960 or 1980. They've made up for the loss of older, middle class white men with minorities, a younger generation, the more affluent, and, especially women.

I suspect most conservatives are pretty clear on what they want from politics. But many Americans today aren't very much like those voters of past years who only thought about politics once every four years. We are more like New Yorkers with a dozen parties on the ballot than old time Middle American straight ticket voters. We have all manner of media to agitate us and get us to think about the big picture. It's a characteristic of a rich country with affluence and many media outlets. So we're not just looking at the picture of what a President or Congress can realistically do in 2 or 4 years. We're looking at the big picture of what we'd ideally want the country and its governing philosophy to be, rather than about the questions that any President or Congress is likely to resolve.

[Texasforever]

That will happen when it goes bankrupt. 25 years from now or less SS will not exist...

That is the only way it will happen.

[Texasforever]

That will happen when it goes bankrupt. 25 years from now or less SS will not exist...

That is the only way it will happen.

[streetpreacher]

Step 5: We can have world peace and end all disease, starvation, etc.

Step 6: Al Gore can develop a personality.

Hey... you were on a roll...

[WRhine]

That is the only way it will happen.

Sad but True. I keep hoping that somehow, someway, someday soon this 3rd rail of politics will stop delivering lethal current to those who try to touch on the reality of SS. Regrettably, for the foreseeable future, the punting game continues as the debt ratchets up ever more.

[streetpreacher]

I think we are a great nation and a good people, but I am in total opposition to U.S. hegemony. I support the ideals embodied in George Washington's Farewell Address.

We should be an example for the world, not a policeman.

Deterence worked.

Deterence worked? You mean "working"? Deterence perfectly describes the Bush doctrine of preeminence.

As for Wahington... discover time travel, go back 200+ years and then show the President a video clip of Hiroshima and 9/11... then see how he changes his farewell address.

I'm sure you're not claiming to Mr. Washington divine omniscience, are you? And, after all, it was just a farwell address, not an ammendment to the Constitution? Unless Mr. Washington also layed claim to sinless perfection (did he really tell the truth about chopping down the cherry tree?), we would do well to understand his words in the context of their time.

[jammer]

The Reagan Democrats DID start to desert in the short recession, but I think it's much more complicated than the culture war dying away. Ten years of unremitting propaganda against the Reagan Revolution, combined with the fall of the Soviet Union had a tremendous effect. Combined with Bush's tax increase (and signing of such monstrosities as the ADA), the effect was to demoralize Reagan conservatives. The RD's no longer had an anti-communist issue and, frankly, Bush had killed the conservative movement, so they left. Had it not been for Clinton, it would still be in extremis. Perversely, Clinton was responsible for the reinvigoration of the Republican party (and, at least temporarily, for the ascendancy of conservatism).

[wardaddy]

Other conservatives would label us variably. Liberals would not....all my liberal "friends" view me as basically just plain evil...lol

[Mr. Mojo]

My liberal friends usually agree with my anti-WOD position, and the wealthy ones among them agree with my advocacy of abolishing the estate and capital gains taxes. But for the most part, I'm considered pure evil as well.

I always found it interesting that although the majority of liberals are anti-WOD, the vast majority of liberal politicians are pro-WOD. It seems whenever I hear about a politician having the guts to come out of the closet as anti-WOD, he's a Republican.

[Between the Lines]

Last night, a thread was started (which I can no longer locate) on the topic of, generally, how did we get to the current state of affairs where America has become the least respected, most feared nation in the world.

What has happened to U.S.? Posted by UnBlinkingEye

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/761886/posts?page=1,50

While UnBlinkingEye was the biggest whiner about peace at any cost a couple of others joined in. The worst of them was a Ruskie called Stavka2.

[Between the Lines]

I have a vague memory of that thread too.

You need to get your vague a$$ back over there and answer some of the people you ticked off. Or are you just gonna start something and then run and hide? The thread is still going.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/761886/posts?page=396,48