cooker

You've put those viewpoints in a very black and white all or nothing way, but as FXJohn showed in his thread on ironic bumper stickers, it's pretty clear there are some "liberals" who actually drive SUVs, so the real world is not as simple as you portray it. Nevertheless, to make a counterargument to yours: if SUVs (or any motor vehicle or any product for that matter) only affected the people that owned them, your hardcore conservative viewpoint would make perfect sense; but, since there are spillover effects that impact on all citizens, it's perfectly legitimate for the public at large, including liberals, to debate their role in society.

There are hypocrites all across the political spectrum. Lots of business people advocate low taxes or less regulation, but if they can get a government handout they're first in line, not to mention lobbying for it even before it's available.

Certainly the same can be said about rabid Rush fans who take his dubious word as fact on everything.

So you're advocating the gov't provide you with free services? Note to CommuterRun: we all pay taxes, not just you. JK Rowling accepted social assistance while she was a single mother and wrote the first Harry Potter book and now she's the richest woman in England. I'd bet her taxes and the other revenues she's generated for the crown are enough to pay the bills for every welfare family in England. Perhaps that "burden" actually pays off. In fact, most people on welfare use it temporarily and then return to the workforce...where they pay taxes.

I take it you're male.

kevink159

How can you claim liberals are reducing you freedom when a conservative congress with a conservative president has taken away more civil liberties in 6 years the liberals have in a couple generations? I personally have VERY rarely heard people wanting to ban SUV's, but I hate them with a passion. I want to raise the gas tax another dollar or 2 to pay for the damage they do. If you still want you monstosity, feel free. And your last line about empowering people is absurd. You are simply washing your hands of the responsibility being in society and helping everyone be able to succeed. And I'm sure everyone understands Bill Clinton's largest budget was smaller than W's smallest budget, after adjusting for inflation.

Roody

margoC hates liberals because they drive SUVs. CommuterRun hates liberals because they want to ban SUVs. This is hilarious!

margoC

Actually most people on welfare stay on welfare and it becomes a cycle. The local paper was doing a series of articles on various individuals attempting to get off the public dole and they pretty much came out and admitted that. It was like they were the first ones in their families that attempted this feat and they were still stuggling with the concept, it was like it was an epiphany.

cooker

I could have phrased mine slightly better. Most people who use welfare, use it temporarily.
If you cross sectionally sample the welfare population at a single point, you catch a disproportionate number of long-term users, because you miss most of the people who've cycled through and got back into the workforce.

It's like Cheers...in any given year thousands of different customers are served and most of them stay and hour or two and then go home; but if you walk in on any random day, 50% of the clientele is Norm and Cliff.

deputyjones

I am a registered Republican, but really most of my views would fall in line better with the Democratic party: pro-environment, pro-choice, no capital punishment, pro-union, feeling the rich of the nation should bear a greater financial responsibility than the poor, etc. However, being a cop I do have a strong belief in the "Justice" model of the Criminal Justice system (i.e. you can't and never will "rehabilitate" anyone so lock up the ones who have proven themselves to be criminals to protect good people from being hurt by them).

I am REALLY looking forward to the upcoming Presidential election. It will be the first time in a long time that we will really have some GREAT candidates. Between McCain, Guiliani and Obama I would have a hard time deciding, but fortunately I think our country will be very well served by any of them. Unfortunately, I dread the inevitable election time mud-slinging that will run good men (or woman if Hillary gets the nod) through the sewer.

CommuterRun

No, I don't want hand-outs, but do I think that if a program to cover something is already in place, it's pretty dumb to not take advantage of it. After all, as you pointed out, we all pay taxes, people should use these programs to get back whatever they can. My rant is specifically against the cyclical welfare folks who grow up seeing mommy or daddy getting paid by the government to have kids, so they believe they are owed something simply for being. The fact is nobody owes them a damn thing.

Yes, I stated that in the beginning of the above post. I threw out what I did about abortion because while I realize it takes two to cause a pregnancy, men don't get pregnant. Women don't get prostate cancer. Inadvertent pregnancy is easily avoidable.

The Patriot Act was a bad joke on all Americans.

I don't like the current administration either, but in the last two presidential races, the Democrats haven't been able to come up with anybody that can do better. The American public saw this, too. However, the current crop of conservatives in power have seemingly done everything they can to ensure Democratic victories, as demonstrated by the most recent election, in upcoming elections. It won't be long before the Democrats control the House, Senate and sit in the Oval Office. Nobody to give credit to for this but the bungling current administration.

What really stinks is only having two viable parties when they're both two sides to the same coin. After this last presidential race, I have decided that in future presidential races, I'm either not going to vote, or I'm voting third party. This will not be done out of voter apathy, but rather voter protest. However there are certain Democrats that I will always vote against.

As for Rowling; she used the system and got ahead. More power to her. Why was she not working and on welfare in the first place and how long was she on welfare? Writting a first book is not a job. No author knows if a first book is going to sell. She got lucky.

Stephen King was working, at a very low end job, while he wrote his first book, "Christine".

On fuel prices; the best thing the federal government could do is remove all subsidies for private use motor vehicle fuel, in incremental steps, businesses could still be subsidized. This would raise the price at the pump, for private use, to around $10+/- a gallon causing people to rethink their mode of transportation.

PSYCLONE

Unfortunately, the current administration is far from conservative. True conservatism died when Reagan left office.

pedex

hah, thats a joke, Reagan had such broad policies and literally avoided making most of the decisions, and he had quite the neocon group already present all around him, fortunately he also had enough moderates around him as well to keep things under control more or less, however the neocon "defense" spending and buildup sure as heck didnt stop or slow down one damn bit, neither did the intelligence lies. At that point Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran were already well into the planning stages, look up the life and times of Rumsfeld, Perle, Feith, Ledeen etc etc etc plus all the Iran contra figures, which are back again doing their usual BS these days under Bush

I dont think true conservative policies have ever been practiced during my lifetime, not with any real substance or actions. Thats kind of why this whole thread is one big gigantic joke, its major premise is meaningless from the get go. Republicans may be somewhat conservative, but those that actually are in office flying under that flag most certainly do not practice it at all.

oilfreeandhappy

I personally don't think anybody could have done worse. Our budget and trade deficit are horrible. Our debt is astronomical. The budget deficit was positive in 2000. Every quarter since, it has broken records on the negative side.

International relations are at a low as far as I can tell. Worldwide violence and terrorism has not been abated, it's actually increased.

cooker

Perhaps he wasn't a single mother, caring for an infant at the same time.

DogBoy

This made me laugh. Thanks.

CommuterRun

The exact same case can be made for many things people do. What's next, control what people are allowed to eat? After all, fat people contribute greatly to inflated medical care costs. Oh wait, that's already being done here in the U.S.
How 'bout kids? The number of people does have a direct and significant impact on all other citizens. Are we ready to control how many children couples are allowed to have? I understand Communist China does this. Welfare does it too, in the other direction. More kids = more money.

Daycare. While I don't agree with it for two parent households. Lots of single, working mothers use it.

cooker

So women should only stay home and look after their kid if they have a man to support them?

CommuterRun

Not at all. Where did you pull that out of? Nevermind, I don't think I want to know.

The man could stay home while the woman works. Nothing wrong with that, or one could work at home, or they could both work at home.

edit-Oh, I see the point you may have intended to make.
A work at home job, then. They do exist.

Why are we discussing someone who is blatantly, by luck, skill and talent, a manifest exception?
Comparing Rowling to the vast majority of people is like comparing me to Lance Armstrong because we both ride bicycles. It's laughable.

ryanparrish

Thanks for writing this thread. It has made me even more turned off to politics and all I want to do is ride my bike and get away from it all

PSYCLONE

My original interest was whether any of the car free people voted Republican. I guess it could have been worded differently. I never expected 92 responses....

richardmasoner

Ummm, so you want the hell holes running to your home? And you claim to lean libertarian, but get a little bent out of shape because the state won't build your road?

Me: religiously conservative, and with social values that derive from that world view. These values include concern for people and for the environment. I've voted Republican in the past; the current adminstration's activities in a number of arenas disappoints me greatly. But then, I disappoint myself a lot also.

Republicans and Environmentalism: My father is a died-in-the-wool registered Republican and also a hard-core environmentalist. When I was a kid he would rail against earth-rapers and commie liberals in the same breath. Below is a picture of his house -- those are PV panels and solar water heaters you see, along with a wind turbine. He was using a bike for transportation in the 70s, and his job required a suit and tie. Remember, it was Nixon who established the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (hated by developers to this day), the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other legislation. There are still GOP legislators today who support this kind of legislation, though they are very few and far between.


RFM

oilfreeandhappy

Richard, good info. I wasn't aware of some of this. And kudos to your dad!

cooker

I got on this tangent after what I thought was a rather impolitic comment of yours about "Desmona". I guess my point was that welfare recipients tend to get stereotyped based on the chronic, long-term users of the system. There are many more who use it briefly and get on with their productive, contributing lives. And a few go on to be very successful.

A certain level of unemployment (maybe 4%) is actually "normal" in a healthy economy, so there are always going to be some potential welfare recipients out there. The chronic users need to be dealt with of course, but that won't ameliorate the need.

CommuterRun

Actually, I think we are much closer to agreement on this than disagreement.

Desmona is just a fictional character I made up to illustrate the stereotypical system abuser. I don't even know if it's a real name. Sometimes stereotypes are accurate, so I use them to illustrate a point and don't really care if that's PC or not.

Where was that picture taken, Richard? It appears to be Japan. Maybe Hakkaido.

margoC

Great minds think alike!

margoC

This is true, Reagan brought us amnesty for illegal aliens.

I'm not really a Republican, I'm just conservative in many ways and believe people should take personal responsibilty for themselves. I'm liberal in a few ways too, I just don't fit in anywhere.

I'm a gay moody loner with a gun and a bicycle. It makes for a very small dating pool.

DogBoy

Interesting that you point this out. I have 2 kids and my wife works part-time. This means daycare for the kids 3 days a week. What you fail to understand here is the need for adult interaction and stimulus. Our kids are great, but they don't make us work through problem solving skills to nearly the same degree as working does. Also, its nice to just be able to talk about adult topics, and avoid referring to ourselves in the 3rd person. We also see some benefits of daycare. Our children learn to socialize with other children their own age, and begin to understand things like sharing/etc even if they don't have other children at home or in the neighborhood. So we came to a balance...work part-time. She is home with the kids 4 days a week, plus evenings and works 3 days a week.

I guess the reason I give this description of my family is that it isn't up to you to decide how we care for our kids. You can decide for you and your family, but if your spouse worked through 4 years of college and 7 years of professional exams to get where she is in the career world I bet she will question the idea of giving it all up to stay at home with the kids. After all...in 18 years or so the kids will not need 24/7 parenting and it might be nice to get back into the work world in a capacity other than Wallmart Associate.

kevink159

If one really looks at the entire body of both presidencies, Nixon is far more liberal than Clinton. To me it shows how conservative the entire country has shifted, but that is completly expected after such a severe cultural change of the 60's.

The other phenomina is right now Bush is the anti-Woodstock. It seems like sveryone claims to have been at Woodstock, and now no-one claims to support Bush. I agree 100% that he is not conservative in any way in the traditional sense, but conservatives put him in power and he redifined the term. He does have a penchant for taking certain liberties with the english language, you know.