Bush is no conservative

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Last edited by Griff on 11 Dec 2006, 6:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure how. What part of my views do you find to be unreasonable? If it's my views on Iran that throw you off, I have to apologize, but the widespread distrust of Iran has gotten out of hand. I am not foolish enough to label them a progressive country in any respect, but I doubt the American government would be stirring so much hysteria over them if the their government were not socialist. I am not impressed with the mullahs, but the human rights abuses are somewhat exaggerated by the Western media.

Jim, I just wanted to say good job so far. I used to get into these sorts of arguments back at Aspie Hangout and of course it would be me pretty much taking a lone stand against like 10 people, strangely I was the one who had to account for every fine detail of what I said and everyone else could kinda just take it easy and change the subject when I shot a hole in their arguments. Part of the reason I won't debate politics anymore in these forums or anywhere is just because - I can only repeat myself, answer the same questions, or pick over the obvious with a fine tooth comb so many times before I'm ready to throw up just thinking about the prospect. Its frustrating as hell. It would be nice if we conservatives just had our emotional catchphrases where we could just say what we wanted, be right - case closed, and have won the argument by dropping a blanket statement with no substantiation or a idealistic 'should' on things, life's so much easier that way...

Iran's human rights record is atrocious. This video montage details (not graphic, however caution is recommended) an execution of two teenage boys on charges of homosexuality are detailed here.

About 100,000 people have been executed by the Iranian government since the 1979 revolution. Admittedly, this is far less Saddam Hussein's Iraq but it is far more then many military dictatorships let alone a free nation. A partial list of those executed may be found here.

Those same guys had also been accused of raping a twelve year old boy. They're nasty, old puritans, but I don't think that they would issue the penalty of death lightly. Gay men usually get off with a flogging in the country. I find their behavior on this area of human rights upsetting, but it is nothing by comparison to serious human rights crises that our government has been ignoring. Also, we don't have positive ties with Iran: if the American government were to make an issue of it, the situation would merely worsen. If the American government were to make heroes of the country's conservative government, the liberal and secular movements in the country would lose what support they have. For that matter, you couldn't overthrow the theocratic part of the Iranian government without burning down every mosque and hunting down every cleric in the country while somehow managing to convince the Iranians to enjoy it.

Most of the executions have been of pimps, drug-runners, gang-bangers, and so on and so forth. It's the sort of crap you would expect of an essentially puritanical government. They'll mellow out over time if the situation is not agitated too much. Their influence over the secular government will eventually ebb. I don't approve of them, but there's a liberal movement in the country that needs to be given time to grow and organize.

I wish to be accurate. I checked in on Griff's allegations regarding the rape allegations and they are disputed. Honestly, they are accused. What that means in this case I do not know. Iran is a theocracy and does not have the checks and balances we have in the US. Rape is a very serious crime and it should go without saying deserves to be punished very heavily (although I don't support capital punishment in such cases, and certainly not for minors). What happened in this case, irregardless seems unjust. For more information from a couple of sources:
-http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Execution_of_two_gay_teens_in_Iran_spurs_controversy
-http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050815/kim

Last edited by jimservo on 12 Dec 2006, 12:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

OK, now that I have that out of the way. Let me give fair response to the some earlier comments

It is noteworthy as well that it the Democratic party rather then the Republican party that is more hostile to free trade policies. There are some curious quirks to this as well: southern Republicans, and some Midwestern Republicans are less likely to support free trade policy. It appears possible that these are likely the very Republicans that probably in the past would have been Democrats. Another more moderate example of this is (soon to be former) Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.



Fair enough. I can take things too literally sometimes.



Americans were much more supportive of the Iraq war at the beginning. I remember polls even saying that if no WMDs* were found them a majority of people would think the war would be justified. I believe Americans sense a lack of direction in from White House, and believe soldiers are dying for no reason. I myself can sympathize with this belief. Now for the record, I think your right about the American people becoming more isolationist. (Although the Democratic victory for congress wasn't a demand for a pull out from Iraq but more dissatisfaction with Congress and the White House; polls show a small majority of Americans want more troops sent to Iraq, however I think isolationist theory still holds) I think by their very nature that's what Americans what to be. Americans don't want to worry about adventures overseas, it just seems complicates matters. For most of our history we sat alone on our continent (excluding our Caribbean, or Mexican interventions and wars with the latter and Britain), and things were were nice and quiet then. Why can't it be that way now?



Oh, I agree. I would say that what is called neoconservatism is the dominant strain currently in conservative thought. Now, that doesn't mean it's right. Actually, this got me thinking. There are those who support neoconservative foreign policy but support small government federal policy (although not on a libertarian level, although what that would be is debated among libertarians). Realism was at the top (I guess) of it's game during the Nixon administration. Of course, with James Baker just releasing his Iraq Study Group report all the talk is about the return of "realism" but apparently Bush isn't too keen in the results. We'll see what happens though. Some GOP senators who are realists: Richard Lugar (IN), Chuck Hagel (NE), John Warner (VA). The new defense secretary might/might not be a realist. Isolationism is traditionally strongest in the Midwest.

The most famous conservative isolationist of all-time is Robert "Mr. Conservative" Taft (son of President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft) of Ohio. He opposed vigorously opposed US support of Britain during WWII (it would be a naive mistake to use that to charge that as sympathy to Fascism), and he later opposed the formation of the NATO alliance. He also objected to the Nuremberg tribunal as a form of extra-judicial "victor's justice" (he was right, although in the end I think that was the best compromise available). He was named by John Kennedy as one of his "Profiles in Courage."

This doesn't explain isolationism in the GOP (or the conservative movement, which is different) but it has been talked about a bit already. I think isolationism is stronger in the membership of the party (although not necessarily the base) then among the elected officials. This is not to say there is a conspiracy or anything to keep isolationists out of office, but just that the numbers of isolationists are not strong enough to get numbers large enough proportional to there actual numbers. Pat Buchanan's poor performance in 2000 is explained that he honestly did not look like a "nice guy" is his run for President, and third party candidates have to establish themselves from the outset and Buchanan didn't.

*That's a whole separate discussion.



There seems to have been some splintering of the libertarian movement. Those who identify the policies of incredible weak Libertarian party (but mostly still don't vote for them apparently) are isolationist (in fact they may oppose a standing army). However there seems to be a different type of libertarian, who doesn't care much at all for the (majority of) Republicans social beliefs, believes that the Bush administration has made the government too big, but supports the War on Terror, war in Iraq, and votes for GOP for pragmatic reasons. These libertarians also seem to dislike like the um..."regular" libertarians and vise-versa (of course, that doesn't prevent them, or conservatives, or liberals to link to each others articles when they agree).

I tend to associate realism with the state department which wants to negotiate with every nasty regime on the Earth, but at the same time be mean to Israel, however you are correct to at least an extent. I 1991 in was very much within the realm of realpolitik to prevent to annexation of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. One note on neoconservatism: This has been noted as hypocritical but I believe (I am certain hope US and other political leaders believe) that it is entirely unrealistic to just change multiple potential threatening governments overnight. Obvious as horrible (and they are horrible) as Saudi Arabia, or Libya are we don't have the ability to simply snap are fingers are make them parliamentary democracies. I tend to be pragmatic and pessimistic on such matters myself.



No, no, no. Fascism was a particular set of beliefs based upon a dead political party in which the state represented power, however interpreted more broadly the opposite of fascism is a free-market open democracy with checks and balances and in which freedom of speech, religion, ect. are protected. I don't think you can say any particular political persuasion by itself represents to opposite of fascism. This discussion, with each of us with our own opinions free of state coercion, that is the opposite of fascism.

nazis-sozis are capitolists if you look at the whole rotting mess. fascists are super capitolists aka corperatism.

Nazis are not capitalist. Capitalists tend to reject nazi policy as being too statist and some capitalistic groups actually associate fascism with communism seeing both as requiring massive state interventionism. Intervention in the economy is something that most ideological proponents of capitalism strongly oppose, so therefore to have a system that openly intervenes in the economy, which fascists do, then it is not a super capitalist system through its violation of capitalistic ideals. Remember, the New Deal's ideas came from the Fascist system in Italy to a good extent "Mussolini keeps the trains going on time" and all that and the New Deal is attacked for being anti-capitalist by its opponents, therefore, the ideas of the fascists aren't capitalistic meaning that the fascists do not support capitalism.

i highly dissagree, fascist and national socialists are capitolists. america is a fascist country. look up corperatatism.. i am sorry but many modern writers divorce the capitolism of them and i feel sorry for people that are not well read enouhg about them to understant this. i am not going to back down about it. the old writtings about fascist and nazis are very different then modern ones and the modern ones are wrong. your knowlage is wrong and from bad sources not your fault it is the propaghanda mechs fault... so i am not arguing with you i am saying your have bad infomation is all.

I disagree with you and I have looked up corporatism, it is not the same as capitalism. I also never said that America didn't have a fascist streak either, although I doubt that it is outright fascist in the sense that we understand fascism. The only problem is that corporatism stresses the existence and often state support of corporations, and capitalism stresses free trade and property rights with the only connection between market and state to be enforcement of law, and not even necessarily that given the existence of anarcho-capitalists. Really, the fascist state is nothing like the capitalist's paradise, and although some people argue that capitalism leads to corporatism (an idea doubted by believers in the capitalist system), this does not mean that they are the same. I don't just refer to modern capitalists, but even capitalists before the modern era, Frederic Bastiat, a capitalist before the first socialist or outright fascist nation wrote essays extolling the virtues of capitalism while attacking income redistribution and other measures of the state and in effect argued for minarchism, he is considered one of the major writers of the capitalist belief set and it is obvious that he would never accept anything similar to fascism considering his arguments against war and other powers of the state and his beliefs are similar to that of the capitalistic adherents after him so I don't think that there has been an ideological change that makes modern writers wrong. I also don't think that this is because I am not well-read sir, I rather think that an interventionist state goes against capitalist ideas all the way back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations where free trade and laissez-faire are mentioned. Fascist Italy obviously isn't even an adherent of even the moderately capitalist Adam Smith given its focus on autarky as opposed to international trade. Really, I'd prefer it if you proved your point rather than attack my supposed lack of knowledge on this matter. I am not backing down on my point without you giving some proof, evidence, logic or something of import to this discussion.

YEAH!! !! Set 'em straight AG!! !

What? Are you my official cheerleader? I have always wanted an official cheerleader.

I am untill I get bored of it.

You have well thought out opinions and I usually agree with you so why the hell not..........

Great post.
Aside from his bad policies abroad.
He has also filled his families pockets up to a point where they own bilions.
Anyone know about Bush's relationship with the Binladen's familie ?
There is also news going around of French soldiers having Osama Binladen in theyr sights of fire.
But they weren't allowed to pull the trigger.
After all with Osama Binladen dead, what reason wil there be left for America's wars ?

But i don't really see anything changing in America anytime soon.
There is a 2 party system so there is not much choice at all.
Everyone is just trying to pick the lesser of two evils.
In the meanwhile the bush family have become billionaires of the backs of the American taxpayers.
Wich isn't directly given to them.
But theyr cronies own big multinationals that get to supply the American army with food and weapons, and they get filthy rich doing so.

i still feel sorry for people not well read on the subject i was talking about "old american writings of fascism". your points well made, mate! as i stated i think the god old us of a is becoming a fascist police state. i still think that nazis ultamately become capitolist. i just wanted you to make a point thanks.