BS: Bush: Conservative?

Subject: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 11:59 PM

Bush: Conservative?

Bush alleges to be a conservative. But is he?

Conservatives believe in balancing the budget. Bush's tax-cut and needless war combination has created huge deficits for the foreseeable future.

Conservatives believe in individual rights. Now we are told not to criticize the (alleged) Commander in Chief (Bush) in a time of war (the war on terror, which will never end.) So free speech is gone. This is a conservative position?

Conservatives believe in prudent planning and not engaging in war unnecessarily.
Ike--"no land war in Asia"
Conservatives were so overly concerned about avoiding war that they tried to stop FDR from helping the beleagured British before Pearl Harbor.
Bush rushed into war in Iraq with the sketchiest of alliances, against the explicit wishes of most of the world, as expressed in the UN, and disregarding his own conservative military advisors who warned of complications (e.g. General Shineski)

Conservatives believe in conservation of resources----does Bush?
Advocating pillaging the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil, opposing the conservation of wetlands (by changing the definition)----these are just a few of Bush's anti-conservation stances.

Conservatives believe in accountability.
Accountability?
Bush?
The ultimate oxymoron.

This man has never made a mistake in 4 years of office---just ask him---- (except picking a few appointees who later, realizing what a disaster he was, spoke up.)

He is the quintessential "The buck stops...................anywhere else."

Conservative?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Peace
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 12:18 AM

Some dolt is going to post saying you have misunderstood Conservatives. Or Bush. Or both. G'luck.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Stu
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 11:10 AM

Er, I don't know if this qualifies me as a dolt, but Bush is a neoconservative.

I posted a potted history of neoconservatism in this thread the other day, so won't waffle on here.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 11:51 AM

Well, he doesn't rave out loud or in public. So if he's a raving loony as some suspect, he is certainly a conservative one. He raves quietly, internally.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 11:57 AM

He's not a Conservative. He's a Radical. He's the perfect antithisis of Conservative.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 12:09 PM

stigweard is right, Bush is not a conservative, he is a neoconservative, which is different. They talk about conservative values but actually do the opposite (which is not to say they act like liberals).

I'm currently reading a pretty interesting book:   Take Back the Right: How the Neocons and the Religious Right Have Hijacked the Conservative Movement by Philip Gold. Click here and scroll down for reviews.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 02:54 PM

Bush is a radical reactionary. He reacts to fear and gets others to follow. When the red, orange and yellow alerts go up, he gains support.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 10:08 PM

That's my point--he's turned his back on old conservatism (which had some merit) in favor of a noxious hybrid.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 11:13 PM

Depends on one's working definition of conservatism and exactly what set of values one wishes to conserve...

Some parts of the neo-con doctrine are quite conservative but you'd probably have to go back quite a ways in American history to find the kind of society that these folks envision. But one thing is fir sure, it would be pre-New Deal and possibly pre-Emancipation Proclamation...

Folks point out the radicalness of Bush's spending but it makes sense. Spend the government into near bankruptcy and then say "Sorry, we've spent a lot of monwy protecting you and now there isn't enough money left for those silly New Deal programs."

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 11:49 PM

The conservatism I described above has much to recommend it--obviously there are flaws.

But my point is that Bush, who claims to be a conservative, is a travesty of it instead--I think Frank hit it dead on----Bush is a radical reactionary.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 05:47 AM

I didn't quite know where to stick this letter, but since it's written by a proclaimed conservative, it's as good a place as any..xx..e

The Last Straw

by Carl F. Worden


That's it, I've had it.


I've been a registered Republican since I pulled my first lever in a
voting booth, and I've voted as a loyal Republican for Republican
candidates consistently every year. I am 55 years of age. I am
considered a right-wing Christian conservative and strict
constitutionist who knows the Framers of the Constitution expected
strict adherence to that original document unless and until it is
amended.


You don't get much more conservative and constitutionally-minded than
I am, and that is why I just cast my Oregon vote-by-mail ballot for
Democrat John Kerry as the next president of the United States. So
did my wife -- and she's a very independent thinker. I know there are
thousands of lifelong Republican/Independent conservatives who are
going to do the same thing on November 2nd, because they've written
and told me so.


The absolute last straw for me took place at the Bush rally, held in
Central Point, Oregon on October 14th. President Bush stayed in
Jacksonville, Oregon overnight after the rally, and protesters and
police clashed on the streets. I sent out a photo of a Jackson County Sheriff's Deputy, all Nazi'd up in black leather riot control gear
and grinning evilly as he shoved a woman holding her 5 year-old daughter.

http://www.sierratimes.com/images/bushvisit.jpg


It wasn't the finest hour for local law enforcement, but even that
wasn't the last straw for me. No, the last straw for me happened just before the Bush rally itself.


Three local teachers got tickets to the Bush rally, passed all the
security checkpoints and scrutiny and got in. They never created or
caused a disturbance, and they were perfectly peaceful members of the audience waiting to hear Bush speak. But before they got to hear Bush, they were expelled from the rally by Bush rally staff who
objected to the words printed on the T-shirts they were wearing.


No, the words on the T-shirts the ladies were wearing did not
disparage Bush, nor did they suggest support for Kerry or any other
candidate. The words did not condemn or support the war in Iraq, nor
did they slam any Administration policy. No, the T-shirts the three
women wore showed an American flag, and under it the words, "Protect
Our Civil Liberties". That was all -- I kid you not.


That was it. That was the last straw for me. That was the defining
moment I'll never forget. That was my epiphany.


Bryan Platt, Chairman of the Jackson County Republican Central
Committee, said he stood 100 percent behind the person who made the
decision to exclude the women, removing any doubt that one or two
individuals exceeded their authority and blew it. No, it was solid,
Republican neo-conservative fascist policy on open display, and the
Brown Shirts weren't about to apologize for it. No way.


I am now a man without a political party. I will never again register as a Republican unless the party returns to what it was before the
fascists took it over. I'm certainly not a Democrat or a liberal,but
I might just register as a Democrat to help them avoid mistakes in
the next primary, like running another John Kerry for president. Any
moderate, pro-gun southern Democrat would have easily swept Bush aside this election. As it is, the race is so close it could go
either way at this point.



My decision to vote for Kerry was a vote to get Bush and his
administration out. I could have voted for a third party candidate
who couldn't possibly win, but that would have translated into a vote for Bush, and I just couldn't do that. Too many kids in uniform have
already been killed and maimed for nothing, and I see it as my
primary duty to save as many of them as I can. If my vote for a third party candidate means Bush wins and more kids come home dead and
mutilated, then I have abrogated my duty as an American, as a
Christian and as a decent human being. I didn't know better during
the Vietnam War, when I voted for Nixon twice, but I would be without excuse if I did it again now.


This election is different: In this election, we all have to answer
the call to vote wisely. Lives depend on it, and God is watching how
we vote as well. When an individual sins, God deals with him
individually. When a whole nation sins, God deals with the nation
nationally. It's right there in the Bible.


The way I see it, the threat Bush presents is just too great. I know
what Bush did with his first four years on good behavior, and so do
you. What scares the bejeebers out of me is what Bush would do with
four more years with nothing to lose -- and an assumed mandate from
the people for what he did the first four. At least a Kerry
Administration would be strapped down by a Republican Congress, so
I'm not too worried about major gun control bills being passed, and
as far as abortion is concerned, it really doesn't matter what a
president believes, because that issue is decided only by the Judiciary Branch now.


Regardless of the proclaimed Bush position on abortion, he never
issued an executive order banning any form of abortion because he
knew such an order would be overturned by the courts. Oh, and that
phony Late-Term Abortion Ban Bush signed? It's as good as dead
-- and I have a niggling feeling it was intended to be killed even as they wrote it. The lower Federal Courts are already finding it
unconstitutional, and why?, because the people who authored it left
no possibility for a woman to use late term abortion to save her
life, let alone to preserve her health. In lieu of that provision,
any first year law student knew the federal courts would overturn it,
so why did seasoned lawyers/legislators write it that way? Don't even try to convince me they overlooked something as obvious as that.


I still believe this election is going to Kerry, no matter what the
polls predict. Last time, it was so close the Supreme Court had to
decide the outcome. This time, a huge number of former Bush
Republicans like me have bolted to Kerry. Unless a large number of
former Gore supporters are going to vote for Bush this time, I don't
see how Bush can get re-elected. Add to that the massive numbers of
young voters who are registered to vote for the first time under threat of a draft,
and I see Bush being shown the door by more than a close vote. But we'll see...


What I do know is that any party that would find the words, "Protect
Our Civil Liberties" offensive or even threatening, is a party I
won't belong to anymore.


That was the last straw.


Carl F. Worden


"Better to be a principled athiest than a Christian for show. A man
who employs the Lord as a special effect and makes a public
performance of piety deadens his spiritual life and puts his own soul in danger." Garrison Keillor

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: GUEST,Bunky
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 07:11 AM

ATT: Ron

"Manufacturing Votes
How the Gore campaign tried to steal Missouri.

Tuesday, May 8, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

Everyone knows by now that the U.S. voting system isn't perfect, and last week Senator Joe Lieberman arranged a hearing into some of those imperfections. What he got along the way was testimony about how in Missouri the recent Presidential election featured the registration of dead people and most probably a coordinated effort by the Gore-Lieberman campaign to improperly keep polling places open in the swing state of Missouri.

The confusion in Florida will be the subject of tomorrow's hearing before Mr. Lieberman and GOP committee chairman Fred Thompson, but here's hoping that old tale doesn't eclipse the much fresher story of how Democratic lawyers tried to hijack an election in Missouri.

At a rally with Al Gore the night before the election, Democratic Rep. Lacy Clay told a crowd in St. Louis that he would "get a court order" the next day to keep the polls open. Then the next afternoon, lawsuits were filed in Kansas City and St. Louis claiming the polls should stay open because minorities were having trouble voting that day. The Gore-Lieberman campaign was the only plaintiff to appear in both suits. Within minutes of the filing for a problem presumably just discovered that day, pre-recorded phone calls from Jesse Jackson poured into St. Louis telling people they could vote late.

The Kansas City lawsuit was turned down, but in St. Louis a sympathetic local judge ignored state law and extended the 7 p.m. poll closing by three hours. At 7:45 p.m. a state appeals court overruled the order. Only a few hundred votes were cast after the legal deadline, but the intent was clearly for many more to be cast--and counted.

Like many cities, St. Louis is a potential bonanza for voter fraud. A federal grand jury there is now hearing evidence that 3,000 suspect voter registration cards included the names of dead people and even a pet. In fact, St. Louis has more voters on its rolls than it has voting-age adults.

Missouri Senator Kit Bond says the Gore campaign coordinated the lawsuits in both cities. The language in the two suits was similar or identical in several places. Both suits clearly were shopping for plaintiffs. In Kansas City, the local plaintiff was Allison Bergman, but Democratic lawyers forgot to correct the "he/she" language throughout her affidavit. In St. Louis, lead plaintiff Robert D. Odom claimed he had been denied the right to vote. But in court it was revealed that Mr. Odom had died in 1999, so a Robert M. Odom, an aide to Rep. Clay, was substituted. But the Clay aide had voted early that day. The court wasn't informed of that fact.

Upon hearing all this, Senator Lieberman was largely silent. "I don't know enough about the situation . . . to get into the details," he explained. Certainly other states have similar deadwood that represents an invitation to fraud, but the federal Motor Voter law makes purges difficult.

Senator Bond wants those who register by mail to show up in person for their first election rather than sending in an absentee ballot. He also wants to have voters show the same kind of photo ID they use to rent a video or board a plane. Rep. Clay counters that many poor people neither have nor want photo IDs and such a requirement would burden them. But all states issue photo IDs for nondrivers.

Better elections require reforms like Florida's decision last week to upgrade its voting machines. But comprehensive reform has to include efforts to weed out fraud and get to the bottom of efforts to manipulate the system such as the Gore-Lieberman lawsuits. Otherwise, valid voters will continue to be at risk of having their ballots canceled out by error or skullduggery. Every vote should count, but only if it's real."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95000439

Subject: RE: BS: Bush: Conservative?
From: grumpy al
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 03:56 PM

is neoconservative a polite way of saying neonazi? they seem to have the same basis for their beliefs.