leftysergeant, gdnp, quixotecoyote, Puppycow, feel free to contribute something of substance here. I can get this quality of posting from any 3rd rate forum made up of high school dropouts who somehow think they have a clue. Which is why I came to JREF. I'm hoping for a more intellectual conversation filled with nuggets of methodical rational thought that skeptics claim to possess.
I could care less about who Gingrich is screwing, just as I could care less about Clinton and Monica. It means nothing to how the country is being run.
Anyway...
There are a few things that ring hollow to me in Gingrich's comments:
- I don't buy that he wants to reduce the scope of government (beyond lip service)
I think this would apply to Bush. But do you think to Gingrich as well? The Contract with America that he was involved in promoted a smaller government, lower taxes, etc. Are you saying that when he and the other republicans took control of both houses in '95 they actively grew the size of government?
Which is why the two party system is a giant clusterfrak. If we could just get one of the parties to adopt both intrusive morality and intrusive business regulation, there'd be a lot less to debate in forums like these.
Yes! Well, I think having two parties
could be ok, if they were logically self consistent.
i.e., big government (BG) vs small government (SG).
The BG party believes government is the solution. They've got their fingers into everything. They want higher taxes and redistribution of wealth. They dictate social standards and religious doctrine. Globally, BG seeks cooperation with other governments and wants to be a global policeman.
The SG party believes government is the problem. They want lower taxes and stay out of people's financial, social and religious lives. They are there only to protect the individual liberties of the citizens and provide for the safety and defense of the country. Globally, SG allows for trade between countries, but stays out of other countries' affairs.
I could go on, but wouldn't this be more logically consistent?
Never mind that most in the GOP actually want that same big, bad government - they just want it to be a religiously narrow, Christian-led (as they define it) government.
Well the republicans are having an identity crisis lately, and conservatives are talking about distinguishing between conservatism and the republican party. Although when the republicans err on the side of increasing the size of government, it's a mole hill compared to how much the current administration and congress has increased it. In the first month, the democrats have created a deficit 2.5 times larger than during all 8 years of Bush's term, and that's including the wars and Bush's wall street bailout.
All other things being equal, give me the secular government any day - big or small.
I would love a secular government, but the above mentioned huge deficits that the democrats are creating are a much larger problem to me. They are threatening the stability of the dollar and becoming a threat to national security. China and other governments are beginning to realize American IOUs will never be paid back and their growing collection of IOUs is becoming more and more worthless. I can curse and grumble at all the bible thumping going on if it means I don't have to worry about hyper-inflation, double digit unemployment and double digit interest rates.
A lot of conservatives seem to be preaching old school conservative principles just as a means to their desired "moral" result.
True. There are actually good reasons behind many (certainly not all) conservative principles, but today's conservatives ignore those reasons and replace them with god's will and morality arguments.
This at the same time Joel Osteen was praising Obama.
Yeesh.
Ok now puppycow, this is when we break out the hammer...
Hey Joel Osteen
. But then the article goes on to say:
