Thom - complete agreement; the labels and attitudes change to fit the times, which is one of the things I was trying to convey.

Joel - I think it was the Daily Show where, in sophomorically mocking a W policy, they showed a photo from the 60's in which black protesters in the South were being attacked with a blast from a firehose. Funny thing is that the guys wielding the firehose were, in all likelihood, Democrats.

JP

Exactly! . . .and THAT is the "baby" which the Lib's are all to quick to throw-out with thw bath-water.

Anything "anti-moralility" seems to be a quick sell with the simple-minded lib's.

Now were is that thread on the legal-prostitutes in Germany? There is a fine example; 'you want to keep your benifits? . ..spread your legs and open . ..'

Nope. Liberals - irrespective of political party (and that's an important point) pushed for change. Conservatives wanted things to stay the way they were.

As bitter a pill as it is for you to swallow, Lincoln was a liberal. He was a Republican, but he was a liberal.

Uh-oh, liberal and republican in the same sentence! Quick, get the NeoCon defillibrator kit... CLEAR... (*zap*) Damn, nothing...

Puh'lease

Lincoln wanted to keep the union together! . . .as it had been. . . . "wanted things to stay the way they were."

A liberal would say 'yeah, lets do something different . .. let's make our own rules . .. split-off from the free north. . . we're soo smart . . this slavery thing may be new to us, but is kinda cool . .. lets keep it.

Huh? I thought the whole deal was about "love & marriage".

I had no idea this whole thing is about health benefits!!! Now I'm really against gay marriage!

- Skip

Aren't you confusing 'Republican' with 'conservative'?

Ending slavery was a Free Soil Party, then Republican party movement, but not a 'conservative' one. Likewise for the early suffrage movement.

Interestingly the term 'conservative' was first used in a political sense by the French
:eek:

Well, the idea of marriage as only a Sacred Sacrament from the Church has indeed been lost, and has been lost for decades. Civil marriages are not part of the Sacraments. Why does one need a marriage license from a civil authority to perform a Sacrament? I think it is you who can't understand the situation.
And if you think that most people take marriage as a Sacrament, you are really out to lunch. If they did, we would not have so many divorces. And if we try to return to the idea of marriage as a Sacrament, is that something only Christians can do, as the word Sacrament is commonly defined as purely a Christian rite?

I do think that if death benefits, hospital visitation rights, medical benefits were not tied to the term "marriage", we would be better off. As it is, two Catholic Sisters, nuns, living together for years could not legally visit each other in hospital as they are not "immediate family".


Sent from a remote site sitting next to Island911 with JP's scepter in hand.

No, you didn't mention the religious right, but I did, because that's what's most closely identified with neocon these days.

And anyway, what brings all this "history," JP? Do you have a guilt problem about how you guys are truly look more fascist each day, but hope to mitigate it by leading us along some pathetic decades' old trip down memory lane about what once made up a neocon. Who the hell cares? What counts is what makes up a neocon NOW.

BTW, friend: I ain't liberal. How's that rock your economically-founded conservative party nostalgia?

Oh, and "scared." Interesting word. How do I sound scared? Scared of whom? If I were you, I'd be scared my party's falling apart after the latest Schiavo/DeLay fiasco. How many neocons want DeLay's head for that first, and his ethics afterward? Reverse psychology tells me you're scared.

You know what, if your party was worth a damn these days, it'd stick to whatever you're peddling about conservatism being founded on economic principles. That way we'd move our "fear" of you people being in our bedrooms, textbooks and overall private lives, to the hope you can enlighten us to a stronger dollar.

Anyway, go ahead and spread the word of what
used to be known as a neocon. Live the fantasy that it makes you people look less invasive and revolting than you already are.

dd- What are you doing in your bedroom that you're afraid "I" want to control? Or, what is it exactly that "we" want to control there? I must have missed that memo...

The text books have been under assault by the left for a long time now. If anything, "we" are trying to keep "you" from revising them or change the revision that's recently taken place. If anything, the Left is feared for being in "our" text books.

How else are "we" trying to control your private life? I simply don't buy what your telling me about "our" motives.

- Skip

Oh, and anyone want to defend partial birth abortion? The lefties love that little barbaric procedure, right???:confused:

Or, is it just another way the conservatives are trying to "control" your body?

- Skip

Skip - thank you for your typical right of nowhere addage. Oh, anyone here want to defend "contrived and cliched" responses?
Or is it just another way to say, "I've got nothing to say."

Here's an idea. I'll give you the right to take away partial birth abortions. In return, let's tax your house of worship.

Huh? That's a funny response. Considering, I was responding to your "contrived and clichéd" statements about the rights objectives! And, no need to get personal.

Besides, wouldn't be more appropriate to give me partial birth and then I give you something like "morning after", for cases of rape in incest?

- Skip

No deal, Skip. Partial birth for tax dollars. If you want to mix church and state, you have to pay the state just like anyone else. No free rides.

heck, they will let strangers visit you in the hospital....of course they let sisters.

HOOT!!

Bingo. And THAT is the "typical right of nowhere addage":confused: point I was hoping to make.

PLEASE, PLEASE tell me exactly what being against pulling a baby by the feet from the mothers womb and then stabbing the baby in the back of the neck to kill it has to do with the church, religion or tax $????

- Skip
edit: If someone stabbed their dog in the neck to kill it they would go to prison.

Planned parenthood...they get the tax $$$. I was adopted, back in '43. If the mood was as it is today, I wouldn't be here. Now the guilt trip...me thinking perhaps It would have been the better move overall. After, all, the human race is hardly an endangered species. We're not spotted owls, right?

fint
A person in critical care near death does not get anyone but immediate family. I know, I have been asked. Maybe it's different where you are.


Nice play on words, sisters or Sisters. Yes, they do let sisters in.

dd the fact that you've let our media spin the Schiavo resolutions into a Republican-only effort alone disqualifies you on the issue of who is doing what, and more importantly, why.

Ditto DeLay. The MSM is just seething for a head on a stake, and this follows the time-honored pattern of him first having "ethical issues" to face, followed by increasing howling from the usual suspects. Ignore, if you must, the fact that these events have been matters of public record for months. But the Republicans have the "attack machine". Right.

Please start another thread about the Schiavo and DeLay "fiascos" setting forth in detail the events you believe are damning to conservatives. I'll address them there. But please be very specific about your allegations.

I don't care whether you're conservative, liberal or whatever label you need or avoid. You're mistaken and/or misinformed on a number of fronts, which you only further display by saying that neocons are "most closely identified" with the RR. Really? By whom? The same parties telling you that the Schiavo issue was Republican? The same parties telling you that Republicans distributed a "talking points" memo to Republican Senators? The same parties that lead you to believe that I have or should have "guilt". You're not good at psychology, so leave the reverse psychology alone, friend.

The title of this thread is about what a neocon is, and Joel initiated it by referencing its origins. Discussion of that information is a red herring? If you think learning the history of where it began to inform what it's become is some sort of distraction, you just keep living in the absolute present, and believe what they tell you tomorrow. B/c neocons will be more evil tomorrow, even more insiduous and you can be even more righteous. And a neocon will continue to mean whatever it needs to mean in order to demonize whoever needs to be non-specifically smeared while preventing factual disputation. Your choice of language bespeaks fear, yes.

steve - can you not keep two ideas in parallel in your head simultaneously? That marriage, for example, can be a Sacrament and a civil function, and the fact that you need a license from a civil authority does nothing to dilute the Sacrament itself? It is creeping secularism writ large to conclude that b/c governmental authority requires a license, the Sacrament is somehow demeaned or less sacred.

The fact that there is a lot of divorce doesn't demean the Sacrament, it demeans those who cannot keep it. Again, the times change and many people "modernize" their views in light of the contemporary ethical laxity, but the Sacrament does not change.

This is at the crux of the issue -- mores change (generally for the looser) but the Sacraments are immutable. If you aspire to traditional religious ideas, why must you change to accommodate the fads?

I am using the term Sacrosanct in the sense of the sacred Sacraments of the Church, but I think it can be carefully expanded to analogous rites in other religions.

JP

Yeah, I should have really left the tax $ bit out of my last post.

Now that I re-read, I may not have been clear... My point was, how is PBAbortion strictly a "religious" or separation of church & state issue. Do non-religious people find this practice acceptable?

- Skip

I'm non religious...and I feel that partial birth abortion...is MURDER! Period! Any difference between killing a viable fetus, one that could live outside the womb, and sticking a knife in the back of a 4 week old baby's skull? Not in my book...IMHO, a partial birth abortion is simply killing a kid because his mother would prefer a lifestyle other than mother. Just maybe she should have taken the pill...or at least slipped a rubber on her horney boyfriend?

JP - the fact you can't look at what your party has become in its current state, and choose to pass it off as something maybe, at best, an old man remembers as its founding roots (economy), makes almost any diatribe you post on the subject remarkably inadequate, and really not worth reading. Sorry to tell you that despite your research.

Skip - answer my question. Tax dollars, Skip. Tax dollars. It's only fair, isn't it? You want to dictate, pay up.

Again, the collective narrow-mindedness and self-denial of this group does not fail to astound me. More of the same crap, I'm afraid.

keep telling me what my ideology is about, and who runs it, dd. As long as you and you alone, as a non neocon, get to define what that term means, you can console yourself with being right.

I can take a stab at what "narrow-minded" means...

JP

EDIT: When did "neoconservatism" become a "party"? I'm not surprised about the convenient mis-use and re-definition of terms.

Been thinking about it a while and read the wikipedia thing a coupla times.

Neocon seems to me to mean those who see maintaining America's dominant place in the world as the most important factor, and more or less to hell with the cost or consequences. Further, it seems that this is seen as best accomplished through maintaining and projecting strength. Its foundation appears to be moral certainty in what is being done (and inflexibility on this moral certainty).

To give my own thoughts, it is an arrogant viewpoint which assumes that the American way is the best way, and doesn't hesitate to trample roughshod over the feelings or bodies of those which get in the way. I agree with steve that "the end justifies the means" can also be applied.

To be fair, "the end justifies the means" can also be attached to the behaviour of many liberals and Democrats, and there is probably more NIMBY (not in my back yard) in this group.

neocons = jingoistic idiots

Neocon is just a boogey man term used by the left to demonize anyone with the nerve to publicly disagree with them.

Please, JP, don't run away mad. I read what you posted, yet received no enlightenment toward what it was trying to prove. That's being "open minded." Your argument was ill-formed from the outset. It happens... SmileWavy

What question??? I've re-read your post but still don't see a question.:confused: Throw me a hint, and I will answer.

I do see several questions from me that you seem to have ignored.

What point you're trying to make:"Tax dollars, Skip. Tax dollars. It's only fair, isn't it? You want to dictate, pay up." Are you saying that if Christians want their principles legislated, then Church's should be taxed? How do you distinguish Christian principles from everyone else (ref: pwd72s post)?

Are you also in favor of taxing the NAACP? ACLU? Etc? Or, is this special treatment you'd like just for all those evil Christians?

- Skip

And if you disagree with the neocons, you're somehow labeled "unpatriotic" - or is that also a boogey man term?

Only when it is a patriotic issue and you take the side that aids or benefits the enemy.

You're sounding defensive, Skip. Or evasive. It's not becoming one way or the other. And why bring in the NAACP, ACLU, Etc? Do you think mention of those liberal groups raises my liberal ire when I have none to begin with? If you haven't heard, individuals who pay personal income taxes, for the most part, make up the bulk of the NAACP and ACLU. Preachers? Now, I wonder...

Anyway, yes, when your right-wing politicos become a tool of your right-angled churches, both of whom work in consort to push an agenda, absolutely - it's time to pay up. If there is no separation of church and state in telling people they cannot control their own bodies, read literature of their choosing, or marry whom they want, it actively violates the constitutional rule of a separation of church and state, and becomes more an agency of its own agenda than a house of worship. And as far as I know, agencies pay taxes...

See what I'm saying?

On another thread yesterday, that you contributed to more than once, I wrote the following:

To then insist that I believe that neoconservatism is still only an economic viewpoint is plainly contrary to what I've said I believe. To so deliberately mischaracterize what I've written about what I believe in order to ascribe nefarious motive is juvenile and cowardly. Evidently in the absence of any argument (other than the "neocons are evil" gem) you continue to insist that I believe that neoconservatism remains solely an economic discipline, when in fact I've stated flatly that it has grown beyond that area.

So I can see how you, being impervious to fact, as set forth in black and white above, could read what I write and not be enlightened.

I await your detailed thread on how the Schiavo matter was solely a Republican matter (or "neocon" since that's a "party" in your world) and a detailed exegesis as to the facts of the DeLay matter.

JP

Dude, nice try...

Initially, You asked me to "answer [your] question.", like you were calling me out... I responded that I couldn't see where you had asked a question. This is NOT defensive, it IS confused. And, I still am, as you still haven't clarified what question you want(ed) me to answer.

I will answer any question that I can, you just have to ask, as my mind reading is a little rusty. Not being evasive at all.

Bro, when you look as good as me, EVERYTHING is "becoming".;)
No dd, I don't know your love level for either org. I wanted to know if your belief was such that all groups that take part in politics should be taxed, or just churches. I wanted representative examples - NAACP & ACLU were the first liberal tax-exempt ones that come to mind.
Why would you make a comment like this if you have no idea what the truth was? THIS is not becoming of YOU!

[SCHOOL] Preachers pay personal income tax! [/SCHOOL]

I suggest that (like your knowledge of tax law & ministry) you are in need of remedial review on the rule of "separation".

No special punishments for my churches just b/c you don't like them or the views of some of their members.

Try putting your biases aside for a bit. You might be surprised what you find...

AND, I've never heard any political agenda being pushed in my church or any church I've visited.

The evil Christians are coming!! The evil Christians are coming!! The evil Christians are coming!! :rolleyes:

- Skip

Although today's Republican/conservatives would like to claim Lincoln, you really can't. He was a liberal. The Confederacy was the conservatives who wanted to preserve their status quo.

Although today’s conservative would like to claim the founding fathers as their forebears, you can’t, they were revolutionaries, liberals. The conservative were the Tories.

The ideas of not changing the status quo and preserving
“two millenia of culture and ethos -- which were a pillar of this country's founding -” really indicates you are the idealogical descendants of the Tories.

So once you want to maintain ...say Roe vs Wade, does that make you a conservative? I mean it is the status quo. Like I said your trying to use dictionary definitions on labels that won't have it.

Skip
You may not have heard political agendas being preached, but I certainly have. We have groups in the Church soley organized to make political change. Just last week we had a speaker asking for people to join him to go to coffee houses and ask for Fair Trade coffee versus Free Trade coffee.

You seem to be arguing that 'conservative' refers to anyone in agreement with Republican policy, and 'liberal' refers to anyone against it?

In other words 'conservative' = Republican?

You could have saved a lot of electrons by saying "American Taliban" instead.

A right or liberty gained by liberal action may be discrete, such as sufferage, but the underlying right of equality for all, continues. The elimination of poll taxes was a continuation of this. Non-discrimination laws continue this effort. It may take years for full acceptance of such changes. Until full acceptance, I see conservatives trying to reign in the expansion of a particluar liberty and liberals trying to push the envelope.

If we can't use dictionary terms, then we just have words without meanings. My use of the term status quo is inappropriate to describe the situation as clearly evident in Roe vs Wade being status quo, but not having full acceptance and may not be status quo in the near future.

Oh my gosh!!! Now "they" want to control the coffee I drink too! :D

- Skip