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Noun vs. Adjective

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  December 11th, 2009 at 10:04 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

First a disclaimer: I have tried to write this post all week and think it needs to be said, but am not sure I have made my best go of it. Nonetheless, and for what it is worth, I hope I make some sense in this matter.

Now . . .

Let’s review our grammar for one moment. A noun is a word that defines what an object is, i.e. a dog. An adjective is a word that describes one attribute of the noun, i.e. the dog is brown. The noun is the dog because that defines the object in question and the adjective is the color of the dog, describing one attribute of the dog.

Christians, for example, typically say “I am a Christian” as opposed to saying “I am Christian.” The former sets the Christian into a defined group that believes in Jesus Christ. The latter describes one attribute of the person. Because Christianity typically defines who the person is, it is typically used as a noun, not an adjective.

I, for example, am a Christian before I am anything else. If you want an adjective describing me the Christian, I’d say I am Presbyterian.

I hope you are following me, because there are rough waters ahead.

Lately, we have collectively been saying a lot of people are conservatives, the noun, when we should be saying they are conservative, the adjective. Here is a good example:

George W. Bush is not a conservative. He is conservative, but not a conservative. While Christianity has certainly always defined who George Bush is, conservatism has not. Put another way in which I think we can all agree, George W. Bush’s gut instinct is a conservative one, but the fiber of his being is not that of a conservative.

I don’t mean to pick on a President I like, but it was Rush Limbaugh in 2005, who was the first real conservative (noun) to say George W. Bush was not a conservative, but had conservative instincts.

Here is where the trouble comes in — there is no rule to separate between the two. Congressman Kevin Brady sent out a press notice yesterday that said “House conservatives,” not “House Republicans”, would hold a press conference on the debt ceiling. The congressmen involved were Steve Scalise (R-LA), Eric Cantor (R-VA), Kevin Brady (R-TX), Jim Jordan (R-OH), John Shimkus (R-IL), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Jack Kingston (R-GA), Mike Conaway (R-TX), John Fleming (R-LA), Eric Paulsen (R-MN), Chris Lee (R-NY), and “other House Conservatives.”

I am sure that each of these men is in some way conservative, some absolutely are conservatives, see e.g. Jeb Hensarling, but they are not all one of us. Several on the list are not by definition conservatives, but are by definition Republicans — it is the party that defines them and conservatism only describes one aspect of their being, some more than others.

Why am I even going here? It’s pretty simple really — we have a lot of people out there who call themselves conservatives who are not defined by their conservatism. Many Republicans who have conservative instincts, still put their party first. And that is where the relevance is — those more defined by their party put their party first and those more defined by their principles put their principles first. Compare and contrast say Jeb Hensarling with John Boehner or Jim DeMint with Mitch McConnell. Hensarling and DeMint are conservatives first and Republicans second. Boehner and McConnell are Republicans first and conservatives second. Hensarling and DeMint are more likely to fight for the principle and Boehner and McConnell are more likely to fight for an improved position for the party. That’s not to disparage Boehner and McConnell. Conservatism describes one aspect of them and if they can reconcile a conservative principle with improving their party’s position, they will not hesitate to do so.

I think we conservatives need to do a better job of finding people to run for office who are defined as conservatives, not as party men. It is no secret in Washington and something I myself have experienced that the people who show the most contempt for pro-life activists are not leftists, but Republican establishment leaders who think that, like children, pro-lifers need to be seen and not heard. The establishment thinks life issues do not help advance the GOP. Conservative leaders, however, embrace pro-lifers.

Sure, sure, for those of you who only pay attention to the theater, you see many a Republican politician pound the pulpit on abortion, but behind the scenes, when the curtain is down, they do everything they can to block the abortion vote from making it to the floor and into the public theater.

I want to beat the Republican Establishment. Charlie Crist is the perfect embodiment of the Establishment. One year he is anti-life. The next year he is pro-life. One day he is pro-stimulus. The next day he is anti-stimulus. But it is not just Crist. Across the nation, the Republican Establishment is support people who are not conservatives, but just have a conservative instinct (at least some of them do). Those instincts can change. It is much more difficult to change a total person than to change one attribute of that person. I want to beat these establishment guys with real conservatives.

You cannot tell me that freedom does not sell in New England. Conservatives fight for freedom. Republicans fight for Republicanism, but I have no freaking clue what that actually means any more.

Again, though, there is no hard and fast rule. I may view someone as a conservative noun and you may view same person as the adjective. It is difficult. But that does not make it impossible. I think we need to all pay attention to this. The easiest way I can think of is that a man defined by his conservatism, like a man defined by his faith, will fight for it. A man who has his faith as just an attribute or his conservatism as just an attribute, has many other attributes he can rely on and therefore will sometimes not fight when he needs to.

I’ve done my best to make some sense of this. I hope you have been able to follow along. It is important we start paying attention to the difference between the noun and the adjective.

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  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I think a lot of the adjective people you list may be better called fellow travellers. They don’t hold all our views, and aren’t in real danger of becoming one of us, but they’re sympathetic to us, and hold *some* of our views.

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    n.t

  • Tbone

    a party, Republicans do.

  • Achance

    the meaning of it any time soon. Perhaps “allies?”

  • ceili_dancer

    I also think this goes to the heated debate in yesterdays civil war post. We conservatives (n) need to fight harder for the soul of the body, and the leadership positions.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    And it IS the Republican Party.

    The problem is that not enough conservatives are willing, apparently, to actually join the Party at the grass roots level as precinct committeemen.

    Again, the numbers in Maricopa County, AZ are instructive.

    On Election Day, 2008, 694,000 people in Maricopa County were registered as Republicans.

    About 6,320 precinct committeemen slots existed for representing those registered voters WITHIN the Party.

    But, fewer than 1,900 of those slots were filled.

    So, either, among the approximately 692,000 registered Republicans who were not precinct committeemen:

    (a) there are not about 4,400 conservatives or

    (b) there are 4,400 conservatives, but they are too busy blogging, complaining, or otherwise engaged in very important activities that really make a difference politically to bother becoming precinct committeemen.

    I surmise there are far more than 4,400 conservatives among those registered Republicans. Because I have met many, many, many at Tea Parties and protests against socialized medicine outside my Debtocrat congresscritter’s office.

    I try to recruit them to become precinct committeemen. Many had never even heard the words “precinct” and “committeemen” used together in a sentence.

    Now, they are one.

    Now, they DO have a Party. And they’re in it. And they have a chance to really make a difference in the leadership of the Party and as to which candidates succeed in all-important primary elections.

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

  • Jack_Savage

    “Friend of the Movement”?

  • pilgrim

    People reading the title to this post may be saying HUH? but I think it is a fair question when you look at how one votes instead of only looking at how one speaks.
    After the bailout vote in the fall of 2008 I wrote this diary…
    http://www.redstate.com/pilgrim/2008/10/05/lucy-you-got-some-splainin-to-do-ricky-ri/

    The diary lists the Reps (both Ds and Rs) who voted nay the first time the bailout bill was introduced, and voted aye after the Senate sweetened the pot with pork. John Shadegg is on the list. My Congressman, Mike Conaway is also on the list.

  • medamorphus

    I believe that one way to advance your thought is to have a core set of principals that define “convervative” and have them sign on to all of those principles so that they have committed in writing. Another idea that may have merit is to have a centralized databank of their voting records to rank them on key defining issues, which would expose their true values for all to see.

  • jimmuy8

    “outside conservatives” or Exo-Cons.

    They kinda fit the phrase: amicus usque ad aras — A friend to the altars (i.e., a friend until death or until religious convictions prevent action). Though, I’m not going to put political beliefs in the same level as religious–except with the way some of these guys behave maybe political power is their religion.

  • Richard Mullins

    It’s seems that most time the pork he puts is for the Eastern part of the district(I consider it bribes). Conaway has lot of splaining to do, in the form a primary. It’s going to get interesting.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    by highlighting the difference between conservative the noun and conservative the adjective. There is no 100% conservative, the noun, because we all have very human failings. Not me, not you, or anyone else including DeMint and Hensarling.

    However, there’s a huge difference between being mostly conservative with a few faults and being mostly “moderate” (to be kind) with a few conservative instincts.

    Like has been said, somebody will find fault with every conservative and if we keep looking for the perfect conservative, we’ll continue to give way to the establishment that really isn’t much better than having the liberals in charge, except by virtue of a slower death of freedom.

  • jackbenimble

    Isn’t that what the American Conservative Union is supposed to do?

    I’ve never liked the ACU scoring much though. First, it does not seem to address the illegal immigration issue at all. And second, it seems that even the likes of John McCain who is emphatically not conservative can get a good score. Also, it leaves a lot of room for mischief. For example in the Senate, where we all know that the 60 vote bar for cloture is often much more critical then the final 50 vote passage of the bill, a RINO can vote for cloture on a liberal bill thus ensuring passage and then against the final bill and still get a decent ACU score. Finally, there is a lot of sausage making in the legislative process that disgusts mosts conservatives that does not get scored by ACU at all.

    We already have a database. It just does not seem to work very well.

  • http://www.everythinginitsowntime.com/ Elizabeth Ross-Harrison

    who is regularly accused of being either a RINO or someone with conservative “instincts”, I think you did muddy the water more than a little with this one. While touting Christianity and social conservative values is all well and good, that does not define a conservative – at least not the way I was raised to see it.

    Unless I missed a memo somewhere along the way, being a conservative above anything else means that one is opposed to big government, for personal freedoms, and generally against governmental interference in trade and commerce. Social conservative values were generally a late-comer to this particular game, dating back to somewhere around the Reagan era (the whole “lets leave AIDS out of the discussion since it’s only affecting gays and drug users” situation, for example.)

    I’m regularly accused of being a RINO or not quite a conservative because my attitude about morality based legislation and governmental interference doesn’t match with the Religious Right. Silly woman that I am, I believe that passing laws against abortion, to protect marriage from gays, and any other such nonsense encourages bureaucracy – encouraging bureaucracy is encouraging big government, and I’m opposed to that above any of the social issues. And if your faith is so fragile that you need to protect it by getting the government to pass laws in agreement with it, I think you’re the one who really needs to do some soul-searching about faith. Leave evangelism out of the government, please! And please stop saying that it’s what our founders intended. As children of the Enlightenment, it is far more likely that they had ambivalent feelings about religion (possibly leaning toward agnosticism), than fervent beliefs in a Christian church.

    I’m also accused of not being a good conservative when I say silly things like we need to re-visit our tax structure and encourage charitable giving much more than we already do. Charities are meant to provide services to the public, donations are written off because the charities are supposedly taking some of the burden off the government in the realm of social services, and getting more charities to do more of the work currently handled by the social programs in government is supposed to be a good thing, right?

    And for all the talk, I still haven’t seen a single conservative (noun, not adjective) stand up and say that health care reform needs to be about sensibly fixing the problems in both the private sector and the current governmental programs – not whether or not we need to have a public option (or co-op, or medicare buy-in, etc.) or ban abortions. Not holding my breath on that one either.

    Another thing that galls me is that there aren’t any conservatives out there pointing out that both Iraq and Afghanistan are unfinished business for us. We made the messes, and we need to clean them up, period. True, it would mean admitting that George H.W. Bush didn’t finish the job the first time around, and that Ronald Reagan didn’t step up and insist that we rebuild Afghanistan after we helped get rid of the Soviets, but hey, wouldn’t it be refreshing if we were honest about shortcomings of the past?

    Above anything else, think before you get yourselves all mired in the social conservative game. Keep your eyes on the prize, and don’t make it a general practice to alienate those of us who consider themselves Goldwater Conservatives. Don’t immediately pass judgment and assume that we aren’t for your socially conservative agenda because we’re “sinners.” What you’re reading as “against” morality might actually be “for” personal freedoms and responsibilities. Or it might simply be a matter of not wanting to see the government involved in yet another part of our everyday lives. Either way, tread lightly when it comes to passing around definitions and titles. I doubt I’m the only “true conservative” out there who’s been disgusted with the neo-conservative movement toward religiosity. There are those of us who see more of what we consider being a conservative is all about in the Libertarian Party these days.

    But hey, if you want to start a witch hunt to find the true conservatives in the GOP, and alienate those with conservative instincts, by all means have at it. Just remember that it will have consequences…

  • shadowtax

    The point was that candidates should be made to explain WHY they hold their positions. It is insufficient to check the box on a survey to appease conservatives to get their votes.

    Here are two answers to the question “Why do you support gun rights?”

    1) “This is gun country. It is our way of life. Lots of people hunt in our forests. It is important to our economy. The government should leave us alone. We’re good, normal people.”

    2) “The Second Amendment is clear. Gun control violates the natural right of an individual to self-defense. Government cannot be anywhere and everywhere to defend us. And as conservatives we do not seek an omnipotent government disarming the citizenry in the name of law and order. Government should focus on prosecuting and incarcerating criminals. Law-abiding citizens must remain free to defend their lives and families.”

    Both answers can produce a conservative vote, but answer 2 demonstrates a clear understand of the conservative principle. Candidate 2 is more likely to stick with conservative principle under pressure. For example, if there is a school shooting at a local college campus, he would be less likely to buckle to gun control pressure by drawing on the underlying principle:

    “We must work to better secure our schools to prevent another tragedy like this from happening, but we cannot infringe on the rights of the students and faculty to defend themselves.”

    It is unclear whether Candidate 1 has anything to draw on other than his emotional response to a horrible situation. He is more likely to be tempted into a “reasonable” compromise which clearly violates conservative principle.

  • Aaron Gardner
  • Richard Mullins

    All of this is reasons why we happen to be in the mess. Social conservatives that don’t have fiscal conservatism playing in the leftist hand. Fools like you do as well. We can only move out of the mess with complete conservatives. I think you need a lesson.

    http://www.redstate.com/rmullins/2009/12/08/i-can-almost-guarantee

    or in its original form

    http://rpmullins.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/i-can-almost-guarantee

    Please start reading that you might learn something.

  • qurys

    I would like to get this administration to understand the difference between an active voice and a passive voice verb.
    One is taking responsibility and denotes leadership.
    The other is either pointing the finger or acting as if situations arise out of thin air.
    Please note how many times the President speaks using passive voice verbs.
    Things “happen”. Situations “arose”. Mistakes “happen”.
    Unless he wants to take credit for something.

  • JamesLBurns

    Interesting concept, but I’m not sure you can really treat “I am a Christian” and “I am a Conservative” the same way.

    I’ll readily concede that I’m ill-equiped to discuss religion, but I think the test for “I am a Christian” would be pretty clear. And as you point out, there is an adjective below that noun. You can be a Christian who is Catholic or Lutheran or any number of denominations.

    I’m not sure you can do the same with “I am a Conservative”. ERH above makes this point quite well. Not to speak for her, but she appears to considers herself “a Conservative”. At the same time she outlines many views that would cause others to say she is not. But who gets to decide.

    In the end, politics covers so many issues that it is impossible to try to set out set of beliefs that must be followed and build a group sufficiently large to get anywhere.

  • Aaron Gardner
  • shadowtax

    The reason that social conservatism did not arrive as a major force in politics until the 1980′s was because there was a national bipartisan consensus on most social issues. The rise of social conservatism was a reaction against liberal politicians and unelected liberal judges. Of course there was no National Right to Life Conference before Roe v. Wade. There was no need.

    Similarly, there was no need for social conservatives to take positions on marriage until liberals in the government sought to redefine it.

    Liberalism finds opposition in traditional institutions and seeks to use government power to alter private social arrangements and inconvenient moral norms. Unfortunately, the libertarian will side with the liberal in these fights because it is more important to weaken the moral norm, religious or otherwise, than to keep government authority out of social evolution.

  • martellus

    First of all there are two and only two political parties. If conservatives abandon the Republican party then they have no place to go. There is no such thing as a “moderate” dimocrat. That is a fiction. What you have are liberal dimocrats representing conservative districts and States.

    When we start doing litmus tests, purity tests, and torturing logic to define conservatism, conservatives and beliefs then all we will be able to do is show that we can defeat many people and elect no one.

    No one will ever fear you or respect you until you prove you can elect people. Defeating candidates is the easy part. We proved that in New York 23. All it got us was a very liberal dimocrat in a district that we will never take back.

    Start trying to find ways to elect people. Remember the two great victories in Virginia and New Jersy neither candidate said they were conservative. They danced and parried away from that label.

    Find some universal conservative beliefs, fiscal, national defense, foreign policy and hit the liberals hard. When you take back the house and the Senate then move to straighten out the Republican party but to do it this way is a sure fire way to be in the minority party for the next century.

  • jimnden

    illuminated the practical point best. Asked if he really believed all of the crap Bill Clinton was slinging, he first identified Clinton as a “very talented politician” and then said “If he’s fer it, I’m fer it. If he’s agin it, I’m agin it.” At some point the nuances don’t mean anything if someone else is in power. And the professional politician who runs as a (fill in the blank) because it will get them elected – and get them the perks and benefits of power, whatever they are – smiles knowingly. For all of our discussions about principle, it is the unprincipled who benefit from our inability to define ourselves broadly enough to stick together when it really counts. Pick people to run who believe what they say, not those who believe they’d like to be rich and powerful and will say whatever they need to say to get elected. We did that as Republicans to improve our numbers in Congress and look where it got us. We need to be the party of “We mean what we say” even if we can’t all agree on whether we “are” or “am.”

  • AceInTX

    Conservatives fight for freedom. Republicans fight for Republicanism

    Some of you know I’m a convert…which shouldn’t surprise anyone since “there is no greater Zealot than a convert”, (I don’t know who to attribute that statement to but I heard it several years ago and I think it fits me to a tee).

    Reagan’s statement that he left the Democrats because the Democrats left him…no truer statement was ever made in my case…One day the light bulb came on and I realized the Democrats and their entire philosophy was directly opposed to everything I believed in. So…what to do?

    Thank GOD there was an alternative back then. It was the party of Reagan…it was a clear and distinct contrast to the Democrats…I became a Republican because the Republican Party stood for clear and concise principles and I became a Republican because it was a distinct and separate force with a clear and distinct message from the Democrats…

    But the years have passed…I am still a Republican…but now it’s just because Republicans are the anti Democrat….they just aren’t the Democrat…I don’t know what the message is anymore…Somewhere along the lines we stopped being a contrast to the Democrats and became, “at least we’re better than the Democrats.

    I know what Conservatism is…and it’s clear and distinctly separate from what the Democrats are and every single thing they stand for…but when you say “Republicans fight for Republicanism” I defy anyone here to define just what the hell it is to be Republican any more…

    There should be a party wide challenge for people to stand up and tell us with conviction and without just making the motions just what it means to be a Republican and how the Republican PArty of 2006, 2008 and today is different than the Democrats…not justy in theory…but in fact!

    what am I getting at?

    Can we honestly say we’re the party of fiscal responsibility and smaller government with a straight face the way Republicans are joining the party and porking up the Omnibus bill they way they are doing now? and how exactly does the Republicanism as it is currently being practiced distinguish us from the Democrats…

    I know what I think…let’s see what everyone else here thinks?

  • Scope

    I understand what you are saying Erick, and agree. conservatives the noun, will vote and speak fron an inner principle system that will always come down on the side of all 3 legs of the proverbial stool. It is an instinct and intuitative reflex/response, and lives deep within the conservatives being. They are conservatives first which happen to congregate in the old Republican party, which was more closely aligned with what conservatives hold sacred, rather than what the new Republican party seems to have become. On the other hand, we have seen Senators, Representatives, and commenters here claiming to be conservatives, however, they will break with some or even all conservative principles, in order to save the party, or for the sake of the party. For some, the bar is never in the same place, it moves up or down, depending what one’s personal conscience or moral compass drives them.

    Some are firmly attached to fiscal conservatism, and, national defence, while they start shying away from the Social conservative positions. You can take any three legs, and, see great value in one or two, and still consider yourself a conservative. That is the rub, and, why the argument of what a conservative is has caused the internecine wars for more than 40 years.

    Some believe that war is wrong every time because people are killed fighting wars. It is never excusable to kill another human being, not even if millions of other lives may be saved when they eliminate those that have no respect for human life. Some believe that abortion, in it’s early stages is OK because the fetus cannot survive outside of the mother, even though every life begins at conception. Some believe that it is right and just to use federal monies to feed the poor, the homeless, the illegals because it is the charitable thing to do, even though it is economically infeasible for the US to feed everyone in the country, and, even everyone in the world. It is moral equivelance. These people don’t only reside in the Liberal party, they also are what has divided the Republican party for years and years.

  • penguin2

    showing up and start speaking negatively about Conservatives. It has been discussed ad nauseum about NY-23 and it is just a talking point for the Left, you are trying to put out there. Doug Hoffman almost pulled that race off, and Owens the Dem, was actually to the right of Dede. You know that and we know that.

    My second point, I live in Virginia and know Bob McDonnell personally and worked on his campaign. It was very clear to us in this state, that he was and is a conservative as well as the other top tier offices of Lt. Gov. and Attorney General, were conservatives and we voted them all in. Independents went our way.

    I still think you are here as a drive-by. IMO, you do not like the success we are having and keep trying to pretend the trend is not going the Conservatives way.

  • AceInTX

    A man who has his faith as just an attribute or his conservatism as just an attribute, has many other attributes he can rely on and therefore will sometimes not fight when he needs to.

    Someone who is a conservative as the very essence of who they are is willing to fight to the death to defend his very being…while someone who generally agrees with conservatism isn’t invested in that belief to the core of his soul loses nothing by compromising on what is his core in theory but which is not in fact.

    For instance…I can see agree as Jesus said that “no greater love hath any man but that he lay down his life for his friends”. I can see the sense of that…and I can believe it…but it’s another thing entirely for me to demonstrate that principle in fact!

  • redneck_hippie

    as conservatives. Why would they do it? Easy.

    They would get in hot water if they abused us as Christians, so they code word us as conservatives, and the misuse of the name sticks.

    The noun Christian has a definition. The noun conservative has a definition. They are not the same things.

  • Hermes

    Ms. Ross-Harrison, I believe that you have missed rather a large chunk of the history of the Founders if you honestly think that they “children of the Enlightenment.” While certainly they were not oblivious to the so-called Enlightenment ideals, such things do not a revolution make.

    I would refer you to the massive, but quite inexpensive 2-volume set “Political Sermons of the American Founding Era” published by Liberty Fund. Alternately the full text is availble via the Online Library of Liberty if you can tolerate PDF files. Each of the dozens of sermons reprinted within contain references to constitutionalism, natural rights, natural law, natural order, republicanism, liberty, limited government, etc., but all are couched quite firmly in religious language and in the Christian moral framework. These are the words that actually inspired men and women to sacrfice their lives for the American dream, not vague notions of rationality and modernity drawn from Montesquieu, Locke, Hobbes, Hume, or others. Put another way, a man does not have himself killed for “reason,” but he might well do so for family and faith.

    I do not disparage the so-called Goldwater Conservative; indeed, I find much to like in Goldwater’s platform. Having said that, though, I find the intolerance of those conservatives who base their conservatism on a framework that includes, however minimally, faith to be not only irresponsible, but also ahistorical. The party, Ms. Ross-Harrison, has not left you. The question is, have you left the party?

  • AceInTX

    at least that’s the way it’s been practiced!

  • nolan

    has, I believe, a negative connotation at this point in our history.My OX AM Dictionary has it as clearly stating “One who sympathizes w/ the aims of the Communist PArty, but is not a member” Although I think I understand the intention of your statement, the first two defs of “Fellow” are what you may mean. And yes, we are all of the same class or kind, but the distinction with a difference, as Eric wrote, is an important one. Republicans are “going along to get along”, and are thusly complicit, in varying dgrees,in the destruction of our Republic. Conservatives, OTH, are much more likely, to stand on the principles of the ideology, indeed, it is what the distinct difference is, as Eric is saying.
    We need to clean house.
    Thanks, Eric. well said.
    out

  • Aaron Gardner
  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    and in terms of identifying loyalty and allegiance.

    But in practice, when you try to impose that distinction upon others, you are setting the ship up for hitting denominational fragmentation, just as you see in Protestantism, since there is no Magesterium to define the doctrines of conservatism and determine membership requirements.

    Which means there’s going to be an ongoing tension between
    1) the “purists” who very clearly define their core tenets of conservatism – and who end up spending an awful lot of time arguing over their differences and attacking other as not being “true” enough, while the enemy captures more territory, etc. and
    2) the “squishies” who basically have given up on defining conservatism in a tangible, measurable content and end up essentially let anyone who call themselves “conservative” inside the family, giving everyone a nice feeling but totally muzzling any kind of transforming message that could change people’s hearts or the world and hopelessly obfuscating any meaning definition of “conservative”.

    Which means that the best we can hope for is to find enough reasonable people to come up with a working consensus as to definition and practice and prevent a hijacking of the noun conservatism.

    Which is pretty much the situation that evangelicals find themselves in today.

  • martellus

    I live in Virginia also. I wrote Op-eds in support of McDonnell. Tell me the first commercial, ad, flyer or anything else from his campaign that had the word conservative in it. He stayed away from it so as to win.

    Now also show me the first ad, flyer, or anything that had the word conservative in it for New Jersey they are not out there.

    Tell me the name of the other political party that people can run to if not the Republican party.

    Do not confuse the victories in Virginia and New Jersey as if they were a test for conservatives. They were a test for liberals. The liberals failed.

    Tell me anything in my post that is anti conservative. I was with the conservatives when you couldn’t spell PC if you were spotted the P.

    I was with the conservative movement when the word conservative had a 72% unfavorable rating. I was with Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushs. You work in one governor’s race and now you are the oracle of American politics.

    I was directly involved in winning Republican races since 1972 to now. The Cook County Sheriff’s race in 1986. The Republicans took down a sitting dimocrat, and I handled the media.

    Spare me. You know Bob McDonnell. The next time I sit down to have dinner with him I will pass along your regards.

  • AceInTX

    you should have heard em squealing like stuck pigs when district 20 caucused on that plank…and I don’t think it was all that big a deal;…it certainly didn’t go as far as I would have…

    All the motion would have done would be to have our candidates sign a statement that they had read the platform and agreed with it in principle…there was nothing in there that would have stopped anyone from breaking with any plank in the platform…or would require any negative consequence if they broke with any plank…there was nothing that would require any office holder to go against his district on any issue…it was intended to make all the work we go through to shape and form the platform to be shown a little deference and respect from the people we elect to represent us

    You should have heard the uproar…They raced the roof off the convention center here in San Antonio It is probably the most frustrating thing I’ve been involved in with the party!

  • Hermes

    Shadowtax, thank you very much for pointing out the very important idea that far too many conservatives in America are “emotional” or “instinctual” conservatives rather than thoughtful conservatives.

    While I don’t mandate (or even recommend) that every aspiring conservative candidate have a degree in political theory, I at least want them to be able to give a solid account of why, from a philosophical viewpoint, they believe what they believe. Too many have fallen into the trap of answer number 1 as you have pointed out. This makes them perfect targets in debates or on the usual political talk-shows for the well-read leftist.

    To put this another, and perhaps more offensive way, which of the Republican presidential candidates from 2008 (and, if we want, let’s include Mrs. Palin since it seems like she was the one running against Obama, not McCain) have the intellectual horsepower to go one-on-one with Rachel Maddow -who was a Rhodes scholar and has a Ph.D. in political science? Or Glenn Greenwald – an NYU/ACLU-trained attorney? Or any number of sharp, well-educated leftists who are going to press any Republican candidate with questions that cannot just be answered with “emotional conservative answers” without massive ridicule. I’d say maybe Rudy Giuliani because of his legal background, maybe Fred Thompson because he’s teflon-coated, and Ron Paul because he’s actually gone head-to-head with Maddow before and clearly held his own. Romney, McCain, Huckabee, and Palin would get demolished, plain and simple.

  • zroxx

    Some people are only libertarian until someone else starts exercising their rights. I would say that a principled libertarian would oppose any use of government power to contravene the will of individuals where their decisions do not infringe on the security or justice of others.

    In your marriage example then, you will find self-identified libertarians advocating for the extension of marriage licenses to homosexual couples, which actually works to increase the scope of government rather than decrease it – and they may end up on the same side with liberals, although not necessarily out of a desire to weaken “the moral norm”. But you’re also likely to find self-identified libertarians pointing out that the government should never have been in the business of licensing interpersonal relationships in the first place.

    And that actually makes sense from the conservative standpoint that respects tradition, too – government licensed marriage is after all a relatively new invention in human society, and people thrived quite well without it for centuries/millennia.

  • pilgrim
  • AceInTX
  • Aaron Gardner
  • zroxx

    This is good stuff, thanks.

    I wonder why so many politicians are so afraid to make their appeal to the electorate based on a clear explanation of simple principles like justice, liberty, and security and why consistent application of same lead to happiness and prosperity? Instead of trying to tug at emotions and claiming that they’re “just like one of you”.

  • Richard Mullins

    Idiots like the one that started this thread are more of a worry for all of us. Rational arguments that have social conservatism in the them get ignored by those that are only fiscally conservative. One more reason to worry that things are going to be the same.

    Ace, I hope you’ve read my diary that I’ve posted here. All can be gleamed from it.

  • AceInTX

    It was in the 60s and 70s when the rulings came down on school prayer, reading the Bible in School, Abortion on demand, and so on…it started there and it’s grown since…now not only can you not have school sponsored prayer, or a Bible on display in the library, or representations of the ten commandments on prominent display in Schools…now even the mention of Jesus Christ will send School administrators into fits of apoplexy. Not only can the school not sponsor prayer or have a Bachaloriat service for it’s students Children are being suspended for bringing their Bibles to school and reading them in study hall. Christians are being forced to fight for the same right to rent school space as any other organization in their community…Crosses are being removed from Semetaries and I wonder how long it will be before all religious symbols will be required to be take from the tombstones of those who have given their lives for this country…

    of course SoCons should be required to just take all this sitting down and how dare they expect to be represented by their government? What are we thinking?

  • Dave_in_Fla

    I think there is a good bit of philosophy that could be discussed about this topic and I’m not convinced that it is all as black and white as Erick makes it sound. The electoral success of the Republican party is based on an accomodation between those we call “libertarians” and “conservatives”. Rush Limbaugh self identifies as conservative. Glenn Beck self identifies as libertarian. Just as an aside to Aaron, the libertarian party is an anacronysm, many many more libertarians are in the GOP than the Libertarian party.

    When these two philosophies are able to agree on a candidate or a legislative agenda, then the GOP gets to that 50%+ state that wins elections. When they don’t, we (both libertarians and conservatives) lose.

    In 2008, a lot of self described conservatives voted for Huckabee. The result of all the splintering resulted in McCain, a candidate that neither the libertarians nor conservatives liked. Most of us tolerated him because we saw what a disaster Obama was going to be. But quite a few others just didn’t care, didn’t vote, and gave us the down ballot blowout.

    I think it is interesting to compare this discussion to one Ace posted yesterday. He has a considerably different view than Erick (at least on the surface). Ace takes a more pragmatic view that elections matter more than philosophy, and if you don’t win, then you end up with horrible legislation like what we are seeing with healthcare. Yet, if you stack Erick’s and Ace’s views on the issues, you will find 95% agreement.

    Personally, this post makes me wonder about myself. Am I a conservative? I despise government overreach, I’m strongly pro life, I am a strong believer in capitalism, I strongly oppose illegal immigration, etc. However, I’m not particularly religious. I oppose gay marriage, but mostly out of respect for the institution of marriage, tradition, and respect fortve beliefs of my religious friends, but not due to a deeply held conviction. Does this make my a “fellow traveller”? I don’t know. Is Dick Cheney a conservative? He has a gay daughter, like I do, and favors civil unions (or did he come out for gay marriage?)

    What I do know is that once we start defining conservatism, then some people decide that if you don’t agree with “their” issue then you aren’t a true conservative. I think that can lead to disaster. As was pointed out above, Rebublicans have a party, conservatives do not.

    I personally believe that the reason self identified conservatism is up to 40% now, is that people self identify, and there isn’t a definition that you “must believe these things”. When conservatism becomes an AND function rather than an OR function, then we lose. Put another way, if I can be conservitive by having my own strongly held beliefs while respecting yours, then we can succeed. If, however, I must have the same passion and commitment to a predefined core set of beliefs, then we are likely to fail.

    Hmmm, I’m finding discussing this to be somewhat depressing. Can we go back to making fun of Harry Reid?

  • penguin2

    I live in the southeast part of the state, and it was well known what we were electing. The Wash Po tried to smear McDonnell, and did not succeed. You seem to think people did not know Ken Cuccinelli was a conservative. You did not respond about NY-23. We believe that conservative candidates can win and we are here because we want conservative candidates to win. If I did not want that, then I could just give my money to the GOP, blindly, as I have in the past; now I don’t have to and don’t want to.

    The comments I have seen you make here, constantly are the drumbeat for doing something different than we are doing. This site is not here for that, and neither am I. I don’t think I said anything to you that warranted your words. And if I knew you sat down to dinner with him, well I would say you had a nice dinner, I certainly would not belittle you for knowing him.

    Martellus, you are welcome to say whatever, but as I am interested in promoting conservatives and not the same old Dem lite, I am allowed to do so.

  • toughintn

    You’re looking for new readers of your blog, and hoping for someone to make the trek over there and respond to your posts. I fell prey to your scheme — at least to read some entries.

    If you call yourself conservative in comparison with the far left, perhaps you are, to a minimal degree, because of your libertarian fiscal views. But when you use this kind of language in a blog post, you are being disingenuous about the label you gave yourself:

    “While generally a proponent of legalization of both drugs and prostitution, I am not foolish enough to think that we have reached a point in this country where we can debate it without getting mired in a war with the radical right.”

    (Obama on the spot with drugs and prostitution or what happens when no one screens questions — Elizabeth Ross-Harrison 11:37 am on December 4, 2009)

    In the most general sense, a conservative is one who wishes to preserve the laws and traditions that have historically made a civilization stable and productive — and strangely enough, those line up quite nicely with the absolutes of Judeo-Christian ethics.

    You’re welcome to express your anger toward the “radical right,” as you put it. We believe in free speech. But to avoid “getting mired in a war,” don’t call yourself “conservative” on RedState and be surprised when you’re called on it.

    But then again, that was the whole point, wasn’t it?
    Attention for you, and potential readers for your blog.

  • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

    So if you are looking for a reason for it to become a cause, you just have to look at the IRS with its favorable or unfavorable taxation rules affecting married families. Once the Democrats let the Bush tax cuts expire we will go back to a marriage penalty and then no gay couples will want to be married anymore.

  • Aaron Gardner

    I am not the one who said.. “There are those of us who see more of what we consider being a conservative is all about in the Libertarian Party these days.” I was simply responding with the fact that the Libertarian Party is irrelevant and will continue to be so.

  • AceInTX

    probably the best analysis I’ve seen

  • letswinsomeelections

    Actually there seems to be a lot of tought that goes into the American Conservative Union’s scoring. It truly holds the feet to the fire. You should look at the years of scoring at www.conservative.org and go to the ratings page.

  • blooch

    ? ‘During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family,’ Gardner wrote. The Washington Post endorses State Senator Deeds…”

    http://www.rso.cornell.edu/progressive/articles.php?id=104

    And Christie doesn’t have to sat it either, although someone says it for him:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU-TxG1Yaps

  • AceInTX

    because by defining it…they tax it more since a married couple can claim the same deductions on their taxes as the two individuals could if they weren’t married’

  • Hermes

    The answer to this question is going to determine whether you are a conservative and what kind of conservative you are (paleo, neo, etc.). The views that you stated certainly place you well within the realm of conservatism, politically, but from where do you derive these views? You say that you aren’t particularly religious, but that you hold a great deal of respect for the institution of marriage and the idea of tradition.

    Possibly you might well be more of a natural-rights conservative which would put you in good company – Jefferson, Locke, and Hume (to a certain extent), among others. Jefferson was arguably a deist, as was Locke, and Hume was an agnostic, arguably an atheist. None of these men based their political philosophies on faith, but rather on their commitment to the idea of natural law.

    Maybe you are more of a constitutionalist, small-r republican. This also puts you in good company – Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, and Immanuel Kant, among others.

    With some more thought as to what really makes you believe what you believe, you’ll be able to answer whether or not you are a conservative in a much more convincing fashion than just a political litmus test dreamed up by Washington-types or political junkies.

  • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

    Fellow Traveller is a much better term to use for Democrats.

  • AceInTX

    Go to Wall Builders and look at who the founders were and what their educational background was and the lies told about out founding by the libertines, libertarian…and the far left will be exposed in all their naked glory!

    and I’m saying that as someone who has strong libertarian leanings…I’ve laid out in many posts why I believe true libertarian societies can not exist outside a strong moral society underpinning it because as the morality of our society slips government will grow to dictate social norms because the individual will not!

  • Scope

    Do not speak to penguin the way you have. She is a very very well respected member of Redstate, because she is always and I repeat “ALWAYS” thoughtful, kind and respectful in what she posts. You on the other hand are at best a once in a while commenter.

    You speak as though you are Bob McDonnell’s inner brain. At a rally here in the Charlottesville area, the day before the election, Bob McDonnell referred to himself as a conservative more than once. I heard him speaking on local radio calling himself a conservative more than once. If you did in fact have anything to do with the McDonnell campaign, then I have my first dissapointment in him choosing someone who is rude and condescending to others.

    With your posts and views, you are a part of the problem, rather than a part of the solution.

  • Third Street

    Just an oversight, I’m sure. ;-)

  • janis

    on someone’s little sister just to be mean. She didn’t attack you, she explained herself well in response to your statements. Your ad hominems are not called for here. As to your bragging about how much you’ve done for the party over the years, is that why we’re in such trouble these days? Seems that your hard work and “winning Republican races since 1972″ has not been of much benefit as we are now out of power on the federal level.

    From reading other comments of yours in past diaries or FP articles, you may have conservative beliefs, but you are not a conservative. As to your bragging, those who can, do, those who can’t, brag about it. You’re a blowhard.

  • blooch

    His treatment of penguin2 was bad, and this part rankled, too:

    “They danced and parried away from that label…”

    At least one link to some of that fancy footwork would have been nice, eh?

  • Scope

    So you are such a big deal because you wrote op-eds for Republicans, big whoop. We have op-eds here on Redstate everyday, and, many are carried over to other websites, and, have been read on air. You remind of the thousands of Democrat Strategists, every day there is yet another one on TV, you rearely see very many of them more than once, and, no one ever remembers their names.

  • janis

    recommended list over on the top right of the page. penguin2 wrote that one and it’s been in that spot for the past three days.

    Where’s your well-written diary about conservatism, hmmm?

  • AceInTX

    What I do know is that once we start defining conservatism, then some people decide that if you don?t agree with ?their? issue then you aren?t a true conservative. I think that can lead to disaster. As was pointed out above, Rebublicans have a party, conservatives do not.

    But I’m increasingly losing patience with this meme…it is too simplistic. those of us that complain about RINOS or who dare to question politicians who “Call” conservative do not do so on a few narrow issues…when we say RINO we are describing specific individuals who are not only socially liberal…but who are equally as duplicitous in expanding government and feeding at the public trough with earmarks and pork. As far as I’m conserned…the idea that there is such a thing as a fiscal conservative and a sopcial liberal is pure fantasy because it’s been proven time and time again that the people most socially liberal in politics today are the quickest to come trotting home with other people’s money to purchase votes!

  • bs
  • penguin2

    As we are both in the GOP, you can work for the liberals to fail, and I can work for conservatives to succeed. It seems like we can have common ground in that respect.

  • Third Street

    I think he understates the conservatism of the McDonnell campaign and is far too pessimistic about our chances of taking back NY-23.

    But his basic point is true: it’s the Republican Party, or nothing. I’m having a hard time seeing what’s so “rude” about that, other than that it’s not what a lot of disaffected conservatives want to hear.

  • AceInTX
  • Jack_Savage

    When you speak of Cook County, do you speak of Virginia? Because unless I have missed a big part of my geography, there is no Cook County in Virginia.

    And the next time you sit down to dinner with Bob McDonnell, do him a favor and advise him to leave the table.

  • Jack_Savage

    Read the post. Or maybe you could give us your special definition of “rude”.

  • Third Street
  • aesthete

    The trick is, government can’t make moral people, and doesn’t really have a good track record when it comes to “nudging” people in the right direction from a moral standpoint. Most of the concerns that SoCons have are, at best, very local issues, and shouldn’t involve the federal government at all (school prayer being a good example). I don’t see a good reason for why there should be a litmus test or strong dispreference among conservatives for otherwise acceptable candidates at the federal level who don’t tow the line on abortion and gay marriage.

  • janis

    problems then. Given that your comments tend to be as squishy as
    martellus’s, it’s no wonder that you can’t see how over the line he was in his treatment of penguin.

    We are not “disaffected conservatives.” We are conservatives who intend to take over the Republican Party and put this country back on the road to freedom, prosperity, and principled governance.

  • Jack_Savage

    I’ll define by example:

    “I was with the conservatives when you couldn?t spell PC if you were spotted the P.”

    “You work in one governor?s race and now you are the oracle of American politics.”

    “Spare me. You know Bob McDonnell. The next time I sit down to have dinner with him I will pass along your regards.”

    Plus he also seems to be a drive-by jackass who doesn’t have the guts to respond to anyone.

    Your turn.

  • Third Street

    You’re disaffected from the Republican Party, and you say as much in this post. Not without reason, obviously.

    By the way, now YOU’RE being rude.

  • newsentinel

    Seeing Locke among the names you listed jarred me. John Locke was a Christian of strong faith who did not indulge in “vague notions of rationality and modernity.” Far from it.

    Aside from that little quibble, I agree with the points you made. Well said.

  • Jack_Savage

    And you have offered absolutely nothing worthwhile in your short time here outside of stalking other posters and generally taking every opportunity to threadjack or defend social liberals.

    Maybe it’s time you share with us all exactly what you are doing here, and how your presence benefits our little community.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    He has a “script” and is hellbent on sticking to it. When he lumped Nixon, Reagan, and Bush all together as a conservative movement, I figured he hadn’t even read Erick’s post let alone have anything worth noting in what he wrote.

  • Third Street

    Yeah, that’s real classy.

    I’m looking through the comments and the responses I’m seeing to martellus are ruder than anything he said.

    Perhaps certain people should go back and read this diary they so self-righteously recommended.

  • JadedByPolitics

    before you would even get into his sphere. You don’t know ANYBODY on here but your NASTY little tweak there in the end says your an IDIOT.

    Conservatism sells just ask Cuccinelli, the man is an unabashed hardcore to the RIGHT Conservative and he WON BIG and while McDonnell did not bite on the social issue’s that lefties like yourself want to put into every election he is and EVERYONE in VA knows a Conservative. That SWEEP in VA was We The People saying NO MORE on the leftists and NO MORE on the moderates WE can WIN with Conservatives politicians front and center.

    Moderation wins NOTHING but you little lefties keep telling yourself that! If you worked for Republicans recently NO ONE is winning actually ALL OF THEM LOST because they were D’lite ie: Moderates!

    Get with the program you little lefty!

  • blooch

    “sit down and shut up, kid” in his post, but one could charitably interpret that as “crotchety”, I suppose.

  • Vegas_Rick
  • AceInTX

    if the Republican Party abandons conservatives they have no place to go!

    And I think you’re way off on NY 23…The Republican nominee endorsed the Dimocrat as you call it…I’m sure NY 23 will be a Republican pickup next year and it won’t be because the establishment did anything right is it ends up being a moderate Republican that picks it up….and I definitely disagree that we will never get it back

  • JadedByPolitics

    because it is usually those who have been here the shortest times that make those of us who have been here longer lose ALL civility. I think like most liberalistic themes civility is nice in concept not so much in practice and then of course you have people throw it back in your face!

  • Jack_Savage

    I gave you specific examples of how MARTELLUS was rude to PENGUIN. You need to respond to that, or STFU.

    I know I was being rude, and that was exactly my intention. I am going to have an Old Testament weekend – you know, eye for and eye and all that.

  • Aaron Gardner

    Someone who is supportive of abortion is less likely to want it to return to the States purview. And if they are willing to bend on what is literally a life and death issue, how easily will they bend with something as trivial in their minds as interstate commerce?

  • Third Street

    And now I’m done with you, hypocrite.

  • janis

    that’s worth the time it took you to type it. What I’m “disaffected” from is the party that puts its faith and money behind people who think and behave as you do.

    Which is to say that I’m fed up with squishes and unprincipled politicians who claim the conservative mantle when it suits them to do so, but who behave in whatever way they consider most advantageous to their personal goals when elected. If that’s the Republican Party you champion, then we have nothing more to say to one another. As others here have told you, you’re a waste of time.

  • Third Street
  • Aaron Gardner

    http://www.everythinginitsowntime.com/?p=217

  • janis

    Because you add nothing to the discussion or stated goals in this diary. You are just another symptom of the disease we seek to cure.

  • janis
  • penguin2

    telling me I wouldn’t know a P, if it was spotted me, and his remark about knowing Bob McDonnell. It is in his response to me.
    And the diary Janis is referencing, is actually mine, in the Reco list. “A Woman’s Life, A Year’s Journey, A Birthday Today.”

    Third, my point is strictly that this site is to promote conservatives, and we work within the Republican party. When people make comments that indicate they think we are doing it wrong, or not doing it the way they want us to, well there is going to be a response. Maybe you meant to describe us as disaffected Republicans, but we are not disaffected conservatives here. At least I am not.

  • janis

    for the rest of us! Thanks, toughintn.

  • zuiko

    Which is one of the reasons they are so eager for Federal recognition of same sex marriage. They want us to subsidize their relationship the same way single people subsidize married couples now. The whole system is built around vote buying.

  • Jack_Savage

    Maybe you could address the original point – or is hiding behind Mommy’s skirt more comfortable when you get called out?

  • Aaron Gardner

    You challenged him and he showed you examples. You ask for civility when that line was crossed early on in this thread when the original poster lied, outright, about McDonnell’s record.

    You can’t have a civil conversation with someone who is being disingenuous about the facts, that’s not how civility works.

    And you certainly can’t, in god faith challenge a poster and then when they respond refuse to address the substance of their post and then call them a hypocrite. That wouldn’t be very civil either.

  • Jack_Savage

    I’ve always wondered how you could type with just one on the keyboard.

  • zuiko

    That Nancy Pelosi does. Who knew Pelosi was a conservative?

  • Third Street

    Martellus tried to “add to the discussion” with entirely reasonable, non-offensive points and look what you’re doing to him.

    It would really be a shame if RedState were transformed from an intelligent forum into a clone of, say, Free Republic; a place in which a small group of people circle the wagons around their favored posters, attack random disagreements, and want to purge the Republican Party of everyone who isn’t Sarah Palin. That’s definitely not Erick or Neil or most of the people here, but there are certain people who display these tendencies. Conservatives can disagree with certain “stated goals” from time to time, and still want to win the war against the Left. If others can’t accept that then they speed our path toward certain marginalization.

  • Aaron Gardner
  • Third Street
  • penguin2

    on Martellus? Respectfully, of course. IMO. Have thought so for some time. Drops in now and then, does not stay and support what he as to say or back it up.

  • Vegas_Rick

    You said someone was rude.
    Someone said give an example.
    You refuse.

    Expect vitriol.

  • Jack_Savage
  • Third Street

    I’m getting tired of people who are trying to make the GOP a permanent minority party. And yet I try, God knows I try, to be civil to people like you. Who knows why.

  • Scope

    Every time there are any heated discussions, you are right there always with your 2 cents worth of flame. Every time. I’m sure you can find your thrills in some other way.

  • Third Street
  • Jack_Savage

    You don’t add to the discussion. And we have heard that little line before, mostly from liberals. It goes something like this:

    Troll: “Bush authorized torture.”
    RS: “You are a troll”
    Troll: “I can’t believe this – I am trying to add to the discussion. This place is just echo chamber. You all will be marginalized if you don’t abandon conservatism.”
    Third Street: “I didn’t see anything wrong with what he said.”
    JS: “WTF?”
    Third Street: “My, how rude.”

    Been there, done that, tired of it.

  • AceInTX

    until federal judges came in a said local schools couldn’t pray, can’t teach the bible, can’t uphold the standards of the local community…we didn’t choose this fight and truth be know…most of us would rather go to church…attend local meetings at our chambers of commerce or hang out at the locale moose club and let Washington go to the devil…but Washington didn’t stay in Washington…they’re in our faces…and they’ve become hostile to morality, to moral society and to the rights of local communities to set there own moral standards…THAT is why there is a Christian right today…and why there wasn’t one before the 1970s

  • janis

    You were defending the indefensible. As to your worries about RedState, it was doing just fine before you showed up and it will be just as fine when you are long gone.

    And don’t use Sarah Palin’s name as a litmus test for “oh, those crazy conservatives!” And who exactly do you mean by “our”? Becaause you are definitely not one of us.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    He gave you a choice. Instead of making a choice, you opted to redirect by accusation.

  • Vegas_Rick
  • Third Street

    I know you have a problem with facts, Jack, but this is just SAD.

  • Jack_Savage

    I will now invoke the Hinz Rule when it comes to Mr. Street. When he finally trips over his tongue one too many times, the mods will handle him. I will leave it up to them.

  • AceInTX

    because the more hostile they become…and the more they chase moral standards out of our local communities…the bigger the vacuum that is formed needing government to come in and fill it…

    That’s the trick libertarians miss and the reason for the fundamental misunderstanding that occurs between pure libertarians and their ideological brethren in the SoCon movement

  • Dave_in_Fla

    I misunderstood your point

  • Third Street

    …then we really are finished.

  • janis

    No one’s asking you to comment here and I haven’t seen anyone who seems to appreciate your presence. As for being tired of people who are trying to make the GOP a permanent minority party, go talk to your buddy martellus, who, according to him, has been working tirelessly in the trenches for such noted conservatives as Richard M. Nixon.

    Wow.

  • Dave_in_Fla

    I need to get out of airports and in front of a computer. I think exploring your questions is worth a diary.

  • JadedByPolitics

    …..

  • Scope

    “Some people are Libertarians only until someone else starts exercising their rights.”

  • Dave_in_Fla

    Being fiscally conservative means opposing all government expansions, even ones “for the social good”. I’ve probably said that poorly, I’ll try again when I have a real computer, instead of a phone.

  • penguin2

    who responded to Martellus. It was in his response to me that a number of sarcastic and rude remarks were made, count at least 3. And since it was his response to me that is being called into question, he is being called on the carpet for it, because it was rude. So no one is “ripping him apart’ for the sheer heck of it, nor joy. He did not add to the discussion. And now you won’t acknowledge what people have pointed out, and now you are mad. This is a great forum, and yes, we an agenda, and no, we will not set idly by and let others tell us to go in a different direction. Erick’s entire diary is all about conservatism and it is our choice to work toward that. Of course, you are entitled to your opinion, but not to to come in and defend the indefensible. Respectfully and IMHO.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C
  • janis

    And on to more worthwhile discussions.

  • Third Street

    …then I presume he was fighting to defend an embattled Republican administration as it was being attacked from all sides by the same leftist apparatchiks who consumed the Bush administration and is now propping up Barack Obama.

    Which means I have far more respect for him than I do for somebody like you, who probably sat on your hands and cheered the Democrats on in their successful effort to destroy Nixon.

    But that’s right, Nixon wasn’t “conservative enough”. That made it okay to let the Democrats ruin him and ride public anger over Watergate right into the White House with Jimmy Carter.

    People like you will be the death of this country.

  • Scope

    n/t

  • vassar

    Good post. Words do mean things.

    We have been pushing for a conservative convention for a long time…I know there are plenty groups already out there…but one that includes the views and input of grass roots Tea Partiers and other “mobsters”.

    One of the purposes would be to craft a multi-point list of just what “conservatism” is so that people out in the hustings can then hold candidates’ feet to fire with a sign-it-and-abide-by-it-or else contract. With such a work list in tow we then favor a conservative caucus be formed in both federal houses as well as the states.

    Then, when that word “conservative” is tossed around, or David Duke steps forward to say he is one, too, some keeper of the flame can step forward and say “Nope, he ain’t. It’s writ right here.”

    Also, being old, I’ve had a lot of problem with the term “liberal” as it meant something altogether different in 1960, and I annually ask Mr Limbaugh to use a more apt term, perhaps “modern liberal” or ModLib. Or even Leftie, marxist, or today, as is being revealed more each day, fascist.

    The same for “capitalism”, since Democrat Party politics is European in tilt and the European vision of “capitalism” (per Marx) is different than the American experience. America, and the small business class, single-handedly invalidated Marx, only he either never knew it, or was too invested in his own sainthood to assess it. I doubt he read deTouqueville and was dead before Dvorak wrote his New World Symphony.

    Personally, I like “free markets”, but I’m sure there are others.

    Even being “right wing” is a moniker hung on us by Marxists. They, not us, need that fixed point on the political horizon. (I’ve always found it stunning that simple-minded linear thinkers could so easily have taken over the internet as a venue of action, while too many conservatives use it as a personal chat room. We like action-based policy sites, which is one reason we read RedState.)

    The problem, as you aptly allude, is no conversation, no debate, is very effective when every term requires us to stop and define at every turn. Maybe that’s why people with guns always do better in the short term…and why more people liked to watch John Wayne than Adlai Stevenson.
    VB

  • penguin2

    Hinz Rule it is. Thank you.

  • Aaron Gardner

    No political philosophy can save a country if that country has abandoned it’s own culture and ethical principles. One of which is life.

  • Third Street

    I’m going to start applying Hinz to you and to a few more posters here who aren’t worth my time.

    Somehow I have the feeling you’re not going to be able to hold to it, much as I wish you would.

  • zroxx

    Federal judges couldn’t do that until we had a federally mandated and taxpayer funded “public” school system.

    Like layers of an onion.

    Meanwhile recent legislators seem far too interested in adding more layers rather than removing some of the ones that should never have been added.

  • Aaron Gardner
  • shadowtax

    To my knowlege most Christians agree that the Bible is an authoritative and inerrant text which explains the main points of Christianity. Yet people of good faith will have different interpretations. Unfortunately, it does get to the point where denominations will deny the Christianity of one another. Dialogue and ecumenism are helpful but do not resolve the deep disagreements.

    It seems to me that the role the Republican Party should be ecumenical for conservatives. It should welcome all the different flavors of conservative, social, economic, national greatness, traditionalist, etc., They can scrimage at more-conservative-than-thou all day long against one another. We’ll never be able to stop that. Ever. But come election time they should put on the R jerseys and take on the D team.

    One would think that the bare minimum statement of principle for membership would be contained in the platform.

  • hickorystick

    Combining Presbyterian and Republican in the same posting is honest, courageous and likely to result in banging your head on the table in frustration. I was raised in a Presbyterian Church as well. I respect the church tremendously, but know that from day one of it’s existence it was subject to schism. (most events resulted in re-unification). The first building we worshiped in was forfeited to the national organization.
    Republicans (small r) in the early stages of America were mostly Scots and Scots-Irish. The small r during these times often was turned into a big R; as in Redneck and Radical (Redneck originally referring to the red collar of the Presbyterian Minister).
    Scots-Irish Presbyterians were deeply involved in the politics and war of this country from the beginning, but were not in leadership of it till 1828, with the election of Andrew Jackson. Jackson offered specific solutions to the major problems of the day. I believe the People felt trapped by limited parcels of land, an out of control bank system., and a stifling political system. I’m guessing, but it probably felt like the English system all over again. By kicking open the Southwest and crushing the national bank People felt they were made free again.
    The next 80 years were dominated by Scots-Irish Presidents. The first 40 as Democrats, the next 40 as Republicans. From 1928 till 1968 looked to be all New Deal style politics, but was interrupted by the Kennedy assasination in 1963. Johnson, another Scots-Irishman took over and inaugerated this poverty-compassion labrynthe were stuck in.
    We had a nice break under Reagan (S-I and Presbyterian), but the Dynamic remains the same. Presidents of both Parties (every one S-I) feed this monster. Anytime a political figure suggests reducing Government “charity’ they are shot down as mean-spirited, not compassionate, and racist. As anyone who is awake knows, financial slavery is being offered to all on an equal-oppurtunity basis.
    I believe the answer to the Republican dilemna is packaged in a solution-oriented format. The successful package will have Family, Liberty and self-responsibility tied together, commercial freedom,, and community involvement at the base. If someone cares to scratch deep they will find a conservative heart at it’s core.
    But to activate our ideas we need to gather political majorities. This neccesitates bringing in voters who may not accept our ideology but are attracted to the freedom space within the party. The Tea-Party and Townhall movement have done a great job opening the voters mind to reason, accountabilty, and protest of the existing order. If the Republicans can incorporate these into a platform with practical commen-sense solutions they will do very well. Focussing voters on their Interest, not their Ideology is the way to win. George Washington knew this as well as Ronald Reagan. And though George Washington originally wrote of the Scots-Irish as “Uncouth” he later came to appreciate their point of view., and they accepted him into the “Sons of St. Patrick Club” as the only non-Irish member.
    OK now i’m to click post comment and bang my head a couple more times

  • jimnden

    about conserative principles is excellent. Rather than the “so’s your mother” exchange up the page, why not get us started with a few core principles. Principles are what bind us together and keep us focused – positions are how we apply them to real world problems.

  • jimnden

    is that we spend a lot of time as conservatives arguing values or policies without coming to grips with the principles underlying them. You and I may agree that a guiding conservative principle is the rule of law – they apply to all of us, no matter who we are. Where we may disagree is the extent to which we will expend limited government resources to compel compliance, and which laws will get the short end of the stick. We may chase a murderer to the end of the Earth, but some 20 year old Army Ranger drinking beer with his buddies at home isn’t gonna get much attention. This, in opposition to the situational ethics group that says it’s OK for the NY Times to print an expose of our anti-terror activities but not the Global Warming e-mails because – in the end – politics and power are the end, not the means to an end.
    Maybe the conversation we need to have is – what principles define conservatism?

  • clowngirl

    I find this a little bit hard to relate to. I imagine that Erick (and others who overwhelmingly agree with him) is coming from a place of wanting his party to stand for something and – when they regain power- making sure they put the country on the right track. But I don’t really know.

    I am a little confused and slightly disturbed to see leaders like John Boehner seemingly lumped in with total opportunists like Charlie Crist. Maybe it is because I haven’t followed his career as long as others here – maybe it’s an extension of my natural enthusiasm for my new party, but I’m inclined to like John Boehner and think he’s doing a good job. I was thrilled to see the House Republicans hold the line on the Porkulus vote – which I can’t help thinking reflects House leadership – and I’ve felt like he’s spoken out clearly and consistently and effectively against Obama’s agenda.

    I’ve been proud to see how elected Republicans have hung together and how skillfully they’ve managed to balance civility with appropriate critique. Perhaps it’s natural that I being a relative newbie would be less critical but…

    With regard to the Christian analogy which Erick is using:

    1. There are times when people fall into a less than devoted relationship with Christ and the Church not paying the attention deserved until some disaster comes and brings them back – and on a deeper level. I think this may have happened with a lot of elected Republicans.

    2. In a church, there are people who are going to be more devoted than others – those who are only “Christian-ish” or still young in faith should not be excluded – but should be welcomed so as to encourage a deeper walk with Jesus.

    3.In the Church, as in politics. There are different dogmas and varying interpretations of scripture. Paul tells us not to get hung up on such things and not to let it divide us. I think there is a danger in being to rigid about the definition of “conservative” Didn’t Reagan say something like if somebody is with you 80% of the time, they’re with you?

  • redneck_hippie

    This we know for sure. The patriots are being separated from the sellouts during this critical year of legislation. One thing about an aroused and angry electorate is, they can tell the difference. A massive re-evalution by the electorate needs to happen, where they recognize where their long-term interests lie. People can be motivated by fear and they can also be motivated by anger. Where we do not want to fall short is in declaring our underlying principles in a way that they can be understood and adhered to.

  • nessa

    General Patton was always a Leader, even when the administration wished he wasn’t, like his statement about the English and American peoples birthright to rule the world. He was still a Leader but the administration sure wished they could shut him up. Boehner steps up to the plate occasionally, but he disappears in between times. True Leaders LEAD, ALWAYS. They don’t disappear between times, they continue to lead. I have thought from time to time that Boehner was leading but he always gives up, he always covers his a$$ by slipping into the shadows. He’s a squish, step up or face the music.

  • aesthete

    Kill public education, abortion, and the secularism that permeates the public square; pluralism is much more appealling. OTOH, the drug war, gambling limitations, large amounts of “indecency” regulation, “faith-based initiatives” and blue laws weren’t pushed on social conservatives; rather, these are areas where presumed “conservatives” have inserted themselves in an unconstitutional and an anti-freedom manner. Add to that the fact that social conservatism and religious progressivism are difficult to distinguish in the wake of Bush’s decidedly non-conservative tenure as president, and there you have a 101 on why I’m not a social conservative (though I’m sympathetic to their concerns).

    I won’t get into gay marriage and the surrounding issues (gay adoption and the like), because those are complex and problematic issues that would warrant a new post. Hope that explains where I stand.

  • aesthete

    I’m not exactly having a lovefest with social liberals; rather, I’m saying that I’m not very fond of having unneccessary government intervention from either side of the aisle, regardless of whether it is justified or not (and some of the things done in the name of social conservatism cannot be said to be merely defensive in nature).

  • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

    Yes we can have a big tent, we can have paleoconservatives, neoconservatives religious conservatives, libertarians, and yes, even moderates. But what we cannot have is either out right liberals, or mere opportunists who cannot ever be counted on for any vote.

    Unfortunately those are the types we have had too often, Arlen Specter was simply a liberal and we let him have a position of power and supported him over a real conservative candidate. McCain and Graham are mere opportunists. They might be conservative to some degree but their conservatism is a distant second to their desire to get something “bipartisan” done and appear on the talking head shows.

    I don’t mind someone who agrees with me 80% of the time, I got big problems with those who only agree like 60% of the time.

  • Hermes

    I look forward to reading your diary on the source of your conservative beliefs. Hopefully, it will strike a chord with some of our independent-minded guests and encourage them to embrace the conservatism that they might feel, but not really know how to articulate.

    Airports, yechh. Hope you get home quickly and safely!

  • Hermes

    I appreciate your compiment. I admit that Locke is an iffy case. I lump him in with Hume because of the whole train of empiricist thought that they represent. Granted, Hume went much much further with this and actually embraced agnosticism or atheism, whereas Locke is sort of on the border.

    I’d be interested in a reference to something more definite on Locke’s Christianity as I have always been intrigued by Locke’s work and consider it some of the best philosophy of his era if not of all time.

  • Scope

    If you file as a married couple, you claim your children as deductions. If you file seperately, only one can claim the deductions. There is a question on the tax form- “Can anyone else claim this deduction.”

  • AceInTX
  • AceInTX
  • AceInTX

    the I don’t care if Las Vegas or Atlantic city have gambling…but as I’ve said before…the laws on internet gambling are a special case in that…if the state of Texas doesn’t want to allow it’s citizens to suffer the privations brought about by gambling they can’t very well do anything about it if you can gamble online on a site from Nevada…there is some need for federal intervention and this is a case where there is a proper application of the Interstate Commerce Clause…

    Needless to say…if we could get all this crap off the table these are subtleties we could deal with later but for now…we’ve got to fight for what we agree on in principle.

  • AceInTX

    but I’m as I’ve said…Social Liberals who are fiscally conservatives are mythical beings that don’t exist by and large

  • Leopard1996

    Look at the constitution and the amendments, If any position you hold is aganst what that document says, you and adjective conservative, if you hold the constitution to be sacrosanct and oppose any position that is against that, then you are the noun conservative.

    Case in point, right to bear arms, doesn’t mean that people are allowed to wear shortsleeve shirts, it means that every citizen has the right to have weapons for self defense, and this was a necssity for the ability to form militas in times of need. If you beleive that, your are a conservative.

    If your position is that of the Sotomayor’s, Obama’s, and the like that believe that localites can make anti-gun laws, based on some vaporware arguement that it’s a states rights issue, but abortion is not a state’s rights issue, you are probably not even close to being a conservative. So my basis of conservatism comes from aherence to the constitution first and foremost, and those things that are not defined in the constituion or the amendments is a states issue.

  • zroxx

    To me it’s pretty simple at the outset – you validate those issues important to social conservatives that are relevant to justice, security, and/or liberty and then involve the government only insofar as to ensure those three are upheld and balanced. The details of each issue can be argued but that’s a good way to segment what is in the purview of a limited government, IMO.

    For all other issues, in a country that provides a great deal of freedom concerned citizens will always have the ability to associate, take their message to their fellow citizens (e.g. “stop gambling!”) and then try to persuade them to agree without bringing the force of government authority down on their heads.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • JadedByPolitics

    and just today I got an email from a guy I consider to be a DIED IN THE WOOL Conservatives telling me that his PAC supports someone else I see as the same. The bottom line is Michael Williams will be a CONSERVATIVE Senator from the great state of TX and WE are NOT going to sit around and play footsie with KBH because the lady cannot TELL THE TRUTH about leaving the Senate to go for another job which makes her the WRONG candidate for both Governor and Senator.

    Thank you Senator DeMint for showing the noun vs adjective in visual terms

  • aesthete

    I guess you can’t really argue against any law that Democrats propose wrt the internet, since that argument could apply to any part of the internet. Again, that’s where you run up against the infuriating tendency of social conservatives of saying the following: “Freedom is great, so long as people do what I want them to do with their freedom!” I’m not saying that that’s your position, but it has to be acknowledged that a whole lot of stuff that goes on in the name of social conservatism essentially follows that view. I see the value of having social conservatives on my side, and they are a welcome and integral part of our coalition, but that doesn’t mean that I have to defend and agree with everything that they do anymore than you have to defend everything that libertines say.

  • aesthete
  • clowngirl

    I don’t know what you’re referring to with Boehner slipping into the shadows etc.

    I don’t have a firm opinion on Boehner but my impression of him has been good. He was appropriatedly appalled by the Porkulus and treated the bill with the disrespect it deserved by throwing it on the floor. He rightfully expressed outrage that the monstronsity was being voting into law – wasting a trillion dollars of taxpayer money- without ever being read. Every time I’ve seen or read about him in the news he’s making good points and challenging Obama effectively.

    With people who have acheived recognition I usually adopt an opinion of competent until proven otherwise. For example, when I first saw PIcass I diidn’t really understand why he was supposed to be such a big deal – so I looked at more of his work, read about him, etc. and came to first appreciate and then really love his work and to recognize that he was easily the most influential artist of the 20th Century. ( though I still don’t particularly “like” the Demoiselles) Just this last month – I went to go see “The Milkmaid” just because it’s one of the most famous paintings in the world. At first glance I wasn’t impressed but – seeing the orginal and giving it a longer look – I came to understand some of what makes it a really quite astonishing work.

    Likewise with Boehner – my instinct is to credit him with at least competent leadership ability on the logic that he’s probably minority leader for a reason and what I have read/seen in the press has reinforced this assumption. That said – I have never heard anyone of prominence describe Boehner as a really great leader – though many seem to feel that way about Eric Cantor- but the absence of sterling leadership isn’t the same as selling out or not being conservative. So I simply don’t know what Erick is talking about – probably something prior to 2009.

    And – along with being favorably impressed by what I have seen of Boehner – the House Republicans have had a rather good year in terms of pretty much staying together and gaining significantly on the generic ballot – granted, that’s largely because of Democrats self-destructing – but there is wisdom in staying out of the way and not providing a target as well.

  • JadedByPolitics

    CRYING and saying he had a chat with God and NEEDED to pass the 700B dollar bank bailout?

    It is all well and good to be holding the line when you are in the minority however to have so when you were the MAJORITY would have kept you in the MAJORITY. Boehner was front and center on EVERYONE of those Republican skyhigh spending bills prior to become the Leader of teh minority party. He has been there for 10 years and as WE all know those were some the HIGHEST spending years WE had when had he and his fellow travelers been Conservative those bills would NOT have been laden to hilt with all that porkulus.

    WE are elephants and WE have LONNNNNG memories :)

  • nessa

    But then he disappears and we don’t hear another word out of him for weeks on end. Why disappear? Why not hold the spotlight, remain the center of attention, a focus, A Leader.

    He makes a tolerable grunt, with the proper leadership he can be nudged back into line when he strays, but he’s not Conservative Leadership material.

  • clowngirl

    …who are so beautifully self destructing. ;)

    Playing Devil’s Advpcate: there is something to be said for not being overexposed. If Boehner is forcing himself constantly down everyone’s throat (a la Obama) people would pay less attention to what he had to say. If he draws attention to himself only when he wants to say something important – it will be treated as important and he will be less likely to be seen as opposing Obama for the sake of opposing Obama.

  • clowngirl

    He doesn’t see him as a blatant opportunist.

    And looking at some of McCain’s reasons for breaking with his party: wasn’t it sometimes for conservative reasons like opposing pork barrel spending, other wasteful spending, ethanol subsidies, etc.?

    And looking at his criticism of Bush on the Iraq War – haven’t events proven that to be justified.

    I submit that some of McCain’s independence from his party was a virtue in that he recognized his party being off track, This year he has voted with the Republican consensus 95% of the time and Politico actually has an article today “John McCain: Critic in Chief” about how McCain has been one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration.

    Over the course of his career, the ACU has ranked McCain over 80% conservative – which would fit Reagan’s standard.

    On issues where he broke with his party to the left – such as stem cell research the reasons IMO have been sincere. (with regard to stem cell research his close friend and mentor Moe Udall died of Parkinson disease and it was his family members who convinced McCain to change his views on that. )

    Even if some of it was bitterness over the 2000 election, well – the tactics used in South Carolina ( saying he had an illegiimate black baby, calling his wife a drug addict) were disgraceful.

    I’ll agree with you with regard to Specter, Snowe and Collins and I don’t have an opinion on Lindsay Graham but I strongly disagree with regard to McCain.

  • clowngirl

    from the position of being a private citizen and not under the same kind of pressure. The TARP bailout was a very unusual situation. there was a huge amount of pressure to get something done very quickly and not enough time for anyone to understand what was really going on.

    I’m not going to condemn Boehner based on that, There were at least mitigating circumstances. ;)

  • clowngirl

    You bring up the high spending – I wasn’t paying close enough attention a myt that time to speak intelligently about what role Boehner played in that and why but I’ll concede it shouldn’t have happened,

    But as I said before – maybe he’s had a second conversion and found his principles again. ;) In the present tense he seems pretty conservative. Am I wrong?

  • Richard Mullins

    That’s been most of the time for the electorate. We’re going to have to be introspective when it comes to things. If your not looking at yourselves, the problem is going to change.

  • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

    But he really fell for a time into the trap of stabbing the party in the back any and every time he could get some face time on the talking head shows. He also called people concerned with immigration nativists and dangerous, and has given short shrift to religious conservatives.

    I really do believe that he was an over ambitious opportunist. But it may be that will change since I don’t think that he ever has plans for running for president again. So he might tune it down. Still, it would be great if he could be put out to pasture by a real conservative in the primaries.

  • gekster
  • Richard Mullins

    You have to be an opportunist to stay there that long. Really, there are enough people that want someone to take their bayonet in the back of their party. If it wasn’t so, then he wouldn’t do it. As to the point of being conservative, he’ll be one when it suits him(it really is the same with the electorate even they say differently). If you don’t McCain’s or Graham’s, start you that brain in you head and work getting others to do so as well. Remember, idiocy is always their best friend.

  • mbecker908

    I don’t know what Rush said, but I know McCain.

    1. McCain is never anything but a blatant opportunist. In every thing he’s done since he left the Navy and hung his honor in the closet with his uniforms.

    2. McCain never opposed “pork barrel spending”. He was opposed to earmarks and the elimination of earmarks would not reduce federal spending by a nickel. They just let Critters spend money for specific projects in their districts. Like the SDO Justice Building in Phoenix.

    3. His criticism of Bush on Iraq had NOTHING to do with the surge. He favored a massive boots strategy precisely like Colin Powell advocated. They were wrong. Absolutely 100% wrong and the strategy could not have been implemented. McCain got on board with the surge after it was put together and made public.

    4. G14 basically stopped Bush from being able to get conservative judges on lower courts. And nothing could have prevented the approval of Roberts and Alito. It was a 100% sell out to Democrats.

    5. Then there’s his Torture Amendment.

    6. The fact that he may have voted with Republicans 95% of the time this year is a meaningless exercise. What’s he done to STOP any of Obama’s legislative efforts? Ahhhh, nothing.

    7. ACU ratings are mental masturbation. He votes with the ACU on everything that isn’t a big deal and opposes – or PROposes the stuff that is a big deal and should be defeated.

    8. He uses his muscle to get bad stuff passed and does nothing to stop bad stuff Dems propose.

    I would rather be represented by Snowe or Collins that either Graham or McCain. The Me Girls don’t hurt us overall while Graham and McCain do real damage to both the party and the country.

  • mbecker908

    :-)

  • Richard Mullins

    So I’m going invoke the Hinz rule on clowngirl. I’ve had not such in convincing her that things really don’t change because the electorate doesn’t work on changing things. I said that the electorate is for the most part stupid but she didn’t believe it. Her statements mirror the vast amount of voters(sure, things might change). We are doomed for the fact that most are just like her.

  • mbecker908

    And I generally ignore her.

    Sometimes on a slow weekend she does manage to get my goat with an expression of unbridled stupidity though.

  • Richard Mullins

    It either that or it’s a really slow night. I’m going to let her brand of stupidity fall away even on a slow night. I’ll save my baseball bat for trolls and other more deserving idiots. If could clone you or I, think that we as a nation would be better off. Heck, the vast majority here should be cloned(or course not idiots like clowngirl). BTW, does your goat produce Mo-hair?

  • mbecker908

    One of me is more than enough. Cloning either Franz or Mrs908 would be a good thing, I’m pretty sure that cloning me would meet with intense opposition, most likely led by me.

  • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

    Or it did until Bush got the marriage penalty removed. The marriage penalty will go back in place when the Dems finally get rid of Bush’s tax cuts like they’ve been threatening ever since the 2006 elections. Then the tax laws will encourage married couples to get divorced so they don’t get taxed at the higher rate.

    Lovely.

  • Richard Mullins

    I wouldn’t mind it at all of course I’d say the same about myself.

    Oh well, naivety is of the young and senility is of the old but are neight naive or senile. That’s something to be proud of.

  • clowngirl

    It’s not that he genuinely differs with them on foreign policy, it’s that he figured out that if he were a Democrat/Independent who supported the war he’d get a lot of attention.

    I don’t believe it about him, and I don’t believe it about McCain. I admire McCain and am actually reasonably happy with most elected Republicans right now. The Democrats under Obama have been so appalling that I don’t really have energy to find fault with Republicans.

    Except maybe mBecker. ;)

  • clowngirl

    there’s really no point in discussing anything and I can’t share the loathing and resentment it took you years to develop, anyway.

  • gekster

    seems I did a nt already

  • JadedByPolitics

    REALLY to be called stupid by either mbecker or Achance, it means they no longer have the tools in the toolbox to grab to fix the problem. They would rather call you stupid and get a little giggle within themselves and yes that would be how liberals and little girls fight. You won the argument the moment they slid into irrelevancy and said “stupid”.

    So be happy that you made them devolve into stamping their feet sticking out their tongue and saying “your stupid”…heh!

  • AceInTX

    the way they do…You have a point…VSV the internet…they force us to make these Hobsian choices and we lose no matter what we do

  • clowngirl

    …on a day when I was annoyed with McCain, refrained from defending him and was even mildly bashing him. mBecker was suddenly civil, informative, persuasive. Perhaps he perceived me as coming to my senses? But it didn’t last. It was only a few posts before I said something else he thought was hopeless.

  • mbecker908

    In point of fact, I do find it tiring that you continue to write posts when you admit up front that you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about and then over the course of a thread you proceed to contradict yourself multiple times.

    It’s darn near impossible to enter into a “discussion” with you when you start out by dropping a premise that is absolutely wrong on a factual basis and then you use circular reasoning to support your point.

    You’ve been pulling this crap since the day you got here. At first I thought you were a troll, but you’ve proven me wrong. You’re just stupid.

  • mbecker908

    a fight on issues and facts. In point of fact, clowngirl is both ignorant (by her own admission, repeatedly) and is utterly stupid based on her attempts at “argument”.

    I’ve refuted her on a factual basis every time I’ve taken the little twit on and she’s never even bothered to refute an argument, she simply (and I do mean “simply”) repeats the same crap over again.

  • mbecker908
  • SteveLA

    mbecker

    Sense you’ve now turned over to being kinder and gentler along with no longer “loathe” anyone, we’d like to get some info from you.

    John McCain is having a fund raiser you know….

    Sorry had to do it….10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1 We have lift off….LOL. I kid I kid.

  • mbecker908

    I feel sort of sorry for him. He’s a pathetic man who managed only to become a legend in his own mind. In a society where the press were truly inquiring he would have been chased away from Washington in disgrace long ago. (Along with most of the Senate)

  • SteveLA

    It’s a dud….was hunting some goat….LOL

  • clowngirl

    I’ve never said I was ignorant mBecker. I said – respectfully – that I hadn’t followed Republican politics in recent years as closely as Erick . That’s not really the same thing. Seeing Erick – with the resounding agreement of many – declaring war on the GOP establishment is a little like walking in on a family squabble – I don’t really know the history behind it. I’m new and so am inclined to like most everyone and don’t see the need for hostilities. That doesn’t make me stupid mBecker.

    You aren’t backing down, you’re just behaving like a jerk. I dont’ enjoy being insulted and so did not bother to deal with anything you had to say regarding McCain. I didn’t mind your comments the other day regarding Huckabee – you brought up pertinent facts and were at least marginally civiland I realized I had been wrong to credit the Governor with honesty and straightforwardness and to accept his claims at face value.

    But when you start off by calling me stupid, I don’t care to even hear whatever you had to say. It doesn’t deserve to be considered if you can’t be even minimally respectful.

  • clowngirl

    mBecker,
    You say I “admit up front” that I “don’t have a clue” what I’m talking about. I started this thread with one comment – quite easy for you to ignore- expressing my view as a relative newcomer. I am new to the GOP and inclined to feel positively about the party and so I dont’ really understand (what I perceive as) an excessively negative reaction to the party’s “establishment”
    Is there some unwritten rule that people are supposed to observe at RedState for 5-10 years before ever commenting?
    I thought it might be useful to bring in a different perspective and, also, if it could be easily explained, I wanted to understand better where Erick and others were coming from. I didn’t think I was particularly argumentative and actually tried to go out of my way to show deference to those whose view I was (basically) disagreeing with. Some RSers took the trouble to write thoughtful comments and, not surprisingly someone bashed McCain and I naturally felt inclined to defend him.
    If you find it all so tiresome, you’re free to ignore it. There are thousands of other posts for you to concern yourself with. If my “stupidity” is so self evident – it will speak for itself. You needn’t even lift a finger. There’s really no need to be nasty.

  • mbecker908

    I?ve never said I was ignorant mBecker. I said – respectfully – that I hadn?t followed Republican politics in recent years … In other words, pinhead, you don’t know what’s been going on – historically -. That makes you ignorant. By definition, “ignorant” is a lack of knowledge about a subject. It can be overcome.

    Stupidity on the other hand can’t be. You want to make authoritative statements on subjects you know nothing about and then whine when you’re called out, have at it.

    As far as whether or not you care what I have to say, that’s really not the issue because frankly you’ve been doing this precise thing for so long that you obviously aren’t capable of understanding a logical argument based on facts and defined assumptions anyway.

    With respect to your whine about about “respect”, cut the crap. Respect is earned. You haven’t. And frankly if you want to talk about open disrespect, I would note your coming here and trolling about subjects you know nothing about and are too lazy to do even minimal research on. You are pathetic.

  • clowngirl

    I didn’t say I hadn’t followed Republican politics at all. I said not to the extent of Erick – not the same thing.

    A certain minimal level of respectfulness (or lack of disrespectfulness) should be expected regardless of what you think about a person. I’m not being disruptive or insulting or anything like that – your meaness is uncalled for.

    I’m done with this exchange. Have a good night.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Martellus just trolled all of you.

    Start declaring the Hinz rule on him.

  • Flagstaff

    I think you made a good, understandable delineation between people who are committed Conservatives and those who have conservative tendencies.

    Both can be good people, but their priorities can be different. True among Conservatives as well, but as a general rule what you wrote made excellent sense.

    I find myself thinking that Newt Gingrich is conservative but not a Conservative, however.

  • Flagstaff

    (Redneck originally referring to the red collar of the Presbyterian Minister).

  • audax

    ….became your GOP precinct captain yet? Got your conservative friends involved as precinct captains? Attended your County, Congressional, State or National GOP Conventions? Presented or voted on conservative planks? Ran for or supported like thinkers to GOP leadership positions? This is one way for CONSERVATIVES the “noun” to have a party…The REPUBLICAN Party!

    Gregory Wilson
    Delegate, ’72 GOP MI State Convention
    Delegate, ’76 GOP National Convention Kansas City and first MI vote for Ronald Reagan
    Delegate TX State Convention ’78
    Delegate CO State Convention ’96 and ’98
    In the intervening years was living overseas as am at present so not involved as a precinct delegate.

  • audax

    I ran for precinct delegate at 18 and went to the MI State Convention. Lost race as youngest delegate to Maimi National Convention to an affirmative action candidate. Four years later I ran against the (RINO) Republican National Committeeman from MI, Peter Fletcher, as precinct delegate and lost by 6 votes but was appointed by then Gov. Ronald Reagan as one of 10 Reagan At large Delegates to GOP National Convention at Kansas City. Tried to stay involved in GOP politics whenever living in the States as the military and then my business ventures have kept me overseas. While attending University in Ann Arbor an old Conservative couple took an interest in me and sent me to seminars at the Hudson Institute were I learned the difference between Statism and Liberty..in other words, WHY I am a Republican. In a nutshell… the Dems are the party that thinks government can make better decisions regarding how you live your life than you can…and oh…lets raise your taxes so you can pay for it too…The Republicans (generally) thought we could make our own decisions on how we lived our lives and could keep the fruits of our labors to pay for it..viola I became a Republican!

  • audax

    ..that the Founding Fathers would have made it very explicit and used the word “bare”arms…..LOL

  • mlowry

    Is the objective to win a debate or to elect a government that will operate on principles we agree with? By creating a brand that the left can use to lump everyone into an “enemy” category that is easy for the press to demonize, we set ourselves up to lose elections.

    I would much prefer to state a collection of core principles and find people who will endorse (and vote consistently with) them, and downplay the branding language as much as possible.

    The difference between being a majority and being a minority is found in the middle. People who are not fans of Rush can be convinced to vote for principles when they won’t vote for a brand.

    This, of course, suggests that we can agree on a clear statement of principles. I haven’t seen that yet, so I will offer a starting slate:

    1. Term limits – 12 years lifetime service in Congress.
    2. Balanced budget – exception only in case of a formal declaration of national emergency.
    3. Tax reform – repeal the 16th Amendment and institute principles of consumption tax.
    4. Congressional integrity –
    – no exepmtion from any laws
    – no special retirement or other programs for members
    – no votes on final passage until a bill is public for 7 days
    – every member must sign an affidavit that he/she has read and understands the bill he/she is voting on
    – every bill must have a statement of Constitutional authority

    There are lots of other “conservative” issues, but these should be common to all, and should become inviolate. If these were adhered to, most of the nonsense we are seeing with health care, earmarks, global warming, etc., would disappear.

  • throwback59

    William F. Buckley who said during the 2000 election that Bush was Conservative but not a Conservative? I seem to recall that fairly well ’cause I have often repeated it, but I stand to be corrected.

  • http://stores.lulu.com/iconicfreedom iconicfreedom

    KYLE8 makes the best statements regarding Erick’s post.

    Erick’s post does little to narrow the confusion of what a conservative actually is. I attend meetings where many in the room are convinced they are the true conservatives and others are not. If you have an opinion that differs, you are out. How will conservatives ever exercise enough legislative strength to accomplish anything if they remain so exclusionary?

    In reading Erick’s blog, the only requirement to be a conservative that is spelled out is to be pro-life and a Christian. Good luck with that.

    Where do I find a party or group that is dedicated to the US Constitution, conservative fiscal policy, minimal taxation, small government, a strong military, strong foreign policy, individual accountability, and freedom? At this point, I do not see a group that focuses on these positions alone.

    I could really care less that you have an opinion regarding social issues. Isn’t it about time our government gets out of the business of social issues?

  • Leopard1996

    Of what some libs must feel is what the 2nd amendment embodies, since they are so hellbent on passing and supporting anti-gun laws.

  • http://stores.lulu.com/iconicfreedom iconicfreedom

    Recent polls suggest that a great many Americans are self-identifying as conservative and what does that actually mean?

    If 40% are self-identifying as conservative, in order to win elections, Republicans are going to need to convince another 11% of the electorate that their platform is one that is worth pursuing.

    The problem is that some Republicans have hijacked the term ?conservative? and created its meaning to be one of religion instead of what the word really means: limited.

    We speak of conserving, we speak of limiting ? government, abuse of resources, money, time, energy. Conservative has nothing to do with religion. Disenfranchising the other 60% of the population because they don?t hold a religious view is rather absurd, especially if you want to win elections and make change toward individual freedom.

    Good people with solid values about limited government, safety of our nation and personal responsibility do not have to endorse a religious viewpoint. Hard to believe as it might be, there are some stand up citizens who have never believed in a god or a religion. Astounding as it might be there are some who never speak of their religious views and are upstanding politicians. The law of averages tells you that out of 535 members, it?s not possible that all believe in a deity or religion.

    Isn?t it infringing on the individual freedom of another human being?s conscious mind to, not only assume for them that the god you believe in certainly exists for them, but that they would have to endorse your specific acceptance of such deity and/or religion? Isn?t that viewpoint antithetical to freedom itself? Isn?t freedom of religion one of our establishment clauses?

    No freedom loving American wants any other American to not have his faith or to be silenced because of his faith. The question to ask yourself is this: if I want to have the freedom of my beliefs, why is it that I am insisting that others share that belief?

    Isn?t freedom, individual freedom, personal responsibility, safety of our nation and limited government what truly unites ANY human being?

    ?Conservatives? don?t own right, goodness, charity, benevolence ? so why do they keep acting like they do?

    Great Americans who contribute and will continue to contribute to America?s freedoms don?t need to be religious to do so. And if you think they do, then what does it say about where you are in terms of extending freedom of the individual?s conscious mind to decide for self how his life should be lived?

    What does it say about your position that mirrors the liberal democrats who want to control our lives with their version of religion?

    Conservative isn?t about religion but about limiting government?s reach into our lives. If beyond limited government, personal responsibility and safety of the nation are your agenda, then you?re behaving as liberals behave: thinking you own righteousness, seeking to control others & their choices and doing so through force.

    And why should any of the other 60% of our population vote for another candidate who just wants to behave like liberals do, doing the same thing liberals do, forcing their values & morality on the rest of us.

    The fact is: we don?t. Judging from emails I receive, a lot of us don?t.

    We need not care if you?re black, white, Jewish, Hindu, gay, straight, man, woman ? any differentiation is merely used to seek favor and entitlement.

    Our personal choices in life of religion, food, car, family, etc. are irrelevant. If you believe these are relevant to politics, then there?s something else at work other than upholding and advancing personal freedom.

    We?re all Americans seeking individual freedom so we can create the life we want to live. When we make choices only with the consent of others, we uphold the Constitutional foundation of contract, agreed upon by any two people. What is more representative of freedom than that?

    We live in a Republic; we are chartered by a Constitution. I am a Republican and I uphold the Constitution. I defend individual freedom and individual choice irrespective of whether or not I agree with the choice. If your choice does not inhibit my freedom of choice, what care do I have that you make it?

    What care do you have that others make choice that you don?t agree with? What is your agenda?

    Republicans can take back the terminology of conservative to its meaning of limited government.

  • Leopard1996

    A majority of the social issues should have been dealt with at the state level instead of the federal level. You wanna be CA and allow abortion, marijuana use, etc, fine, and if I feel that those freedoms are more important, than say paying 80% of my paycheck to cover their piss poor finances fine. If you wanna be a Alabama, that bans abortion except in the life of the mother, or rape, or however the folks in Alabama want to legislate it fine.

    What you stated in your post was one reason Huckabee was a non-starter for me.