If conservatives want to become relevant to the present

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Kraichgauer
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17 Jul 2014, 11:29 am

sonofghandi wrote:
Jacoby wrote:
sonofghandi wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
I have to wonder why always so much focus on 'the middle class' as if all that exists is the very wealthy and the middle class and everything else is irrelevent. I guess my more progressive mindset tells me getting rid of economic classes altogether would be a better thing to strive for.


It used to be that the Republicans would primarily champion the middle class and the Democrats would primarily champion the poor. It had its flaws, but that system seemed to work a lot better than the way the Republicans now call anything that could harm the wealthiest in this country "class warfare."


I think that is a pretty simplified way of looking at politics in America, I think it has always been playing the competing interests of one particular group against the others be it the poor versus the middle class, minorities versus whites, Catholics versus Protestants, social conservatives versus social liberals, north versus south, etc., etc. All it is just trying to get 50% +1 of the people engaged enough to vote to be on your side. It's hard not to be totally cynical about the whole process at this point, it's all done thru fear or promising things they cannot deliver. The American people don't actually control their government, there is a ruling class that just herds them into one camp to another to maintain their power.


It is an oversimplification. But it used to be that more often than not, the secondary beneficiaries (the wealthy being #1 for both parties) of their policies were in those two categories. The Republican party no longer endorses the middle class, and instead only focuses on class warfare and how taxing the wealthiest any more would destroy the country. And guns and God.


The Republicans use the the three G's - guns, God, and gays - as a bogeyman to get poor and middle class people to vote against their own economic and social interests.


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17 Jul 2014, 12:18 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
The Republicans use the the three G's - guns, God, and gays

No, I believe it's God, Guns, & Guts. Conservatism is generally not very supportive of gays.

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as a bogeyman to get poor and middle class people to vote against their own economic and social interests.

As in to be on the dole even though there are fewer people employed to pay for it.


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Kraichgauer
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17 Jul 2014, 12:46 pm

Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
The Republicans use the the three G's - guns, God, and gays

No, I believe it's God, Guns, & Guts. Conservatism is generally not very supportive of gays.

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as a bogeyman to get poor and middle class people to vote against their own economic and social interests.

As in to be on the dole even though there are fewer people employed to pay for it.


No, I didn't say Republicans support gays, but rather they use the specter of gay rights and marriage to scare people into voting Republican. In the same way that they play up on fears of gun control in face of paranoid fears of government take over once guns are gone, or how the government is allegedly persecuting Christians.
As for your second point - what does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China? :?


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17 Jul 2014, 1:11 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
No, I didn't say Republicans support gays, but rather they use the specter of gay rights and marriage to scare people into voting Republican.

Maybe not what you meant but thats' what you wrote. And the gay rights thing is becoming less and less of an issue for mainstream conservatives. I've addressed that here before.

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In the same way that they play up on fears of gun control in face of paranoid fears of government take over once guns are gone, or how the government is allegedly persecuting Christians.
Again, losing ground with mainstream conservatives. The core of what has driven gun sales through the roof the past 4 years has been people's mistrust of goveremnt and the possilibly of unavaibility. Only an idiot thinks all the guns can be taken away.

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As for your second point - what does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China? :?
People vote their wallets. The more of them on the dole the more of them vote for the party that loves keeping things that way. The problem is fewer people are working and paying taxes to finance all that.


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17 Jul 2014, 1:16 pm

re: Republican bogeymen
In the past few years there was a scientific study comparing the brain structures of people who label themselves conservative to those who label themselves liberal. Apparently the "fear center" is larger in the brains of conservatives. That makes a lot of sense to me, because Republicans use FEAR more than liberals do in trying to manipulate people.

Diversity in a gene pool is a strength, not a weakness. There may be situations where the conservative mindset is more advantageous to survival than a liberal mindset. In general though it does seem very much to me that liberals are motivated more by compassion and education while conservatives are motivated more by greed and fear.

As others have pointed out, the situation is a lot more complicated than the way some present it. I agree with some of the principles of conservatism: holding fast to the Constitution, limiting the size and power of government, and protecting the rights of the individual. However, many of them mix financial conservatism with social conservatism. I would have more sympathy for conservatives if so many of them were not trying so much to legislate reality to fit their interpretation of a Bronze age mythology, and if they were not trying so much to legislate what people can or cannot do in their private lives.

oh yeah, and giving grossly unfair advantages to the richest people and the biggest corporations so they can exploit the poor and rape and poison the planet to make a quick buck regardless of the costs to present and future generations. The gap between the richest 1% and the rest of humanity is several orders of magnitude bigger than ever before in human history, and getting wider. Such a situation is of course UNSTABLE and not at all healthy for any society.


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17 Jul 2014, 1:51 pm

Raptor wrote:
The core of what has driven gun sales through the roof the past 4 years has been people's mistrust of goveremnt and the possilibly of unavaibility. Only an idiot thinks all the guns can be taken away.


I will agree with this. The massive gun and ammunition sales spike was driven almost entirely by unfounded paranoid fear. The actual number of gun owners has gone down, but the number of guns owned has sky-rocketed. I think that trend is winding down, though, as most companies have been revising their forecasts downwards. Smith & Wesson is the latest (and one of the more severe):

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/24/is-smith-wesson-firing-blanks.aspx


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17 Jul 2014, 1:54 pm

Not one of the G's, but Republican fear of undocumented immigrants can be added to that list - and the younger they are, the scarier they are to Republicans these days.


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17 Jul 2014, 1:58 pm

sonofghandi wrote:
Raptor wrote:
The core of what has driven gun sales through the roof the past 4 years has been people's mistrust of goveremnt and the possilibly of unavaibility. Only an idiot thinks all the guns can be taken away.


I will agree with this. The massive gun and ammunition sales spike was driven almost entirely by unfounded paranoid fear. The actual number of gun owners has gone down, but the number of guns owned has sky-rocketed. I think that trend is winding down, though, as most companies have been revising their forecasts downwards. Smith & Wesson is the latest (and one of the more severe):

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/24/is-smith-wesson-firing-blanks.aspx


Yeah sure, whatever..... :roll:


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17 Jul 2014, 2:02 pm

Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
No, I didn't say Republicans support gays, but rather they use the specter of gay rights and marriage to scare people into voting Republican.

Maybe not what you meant but thats' what you wrote. And the gay rights thing is becoming less and less of an issue for mainstream conservatives. I've addressed that here before.

Quote:
In the same way that they play up on fears of gun control in face of paranoid fears of government take over once guns are gone, or how the government is allegedly persecuting Christians.
Again, losing ground with mainstream conservatives. The core of what has driven gun sales through the roof the past 4 years has been people's mistrust of goveremnt and the possilibly of unavaibility. Only an idiot thinks all the guns can be taken away.

Quote:
As for your second point - what does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China? :?
People vote their wallets. The more of them on the dole the more of them vote for the party that loves keeping things that way. The problem is fewer people are working and paying taxes to finance all that.


But how long has it been since mainstream conservatives have had any influence in the Republican party? The people who the RNC lives in fear and does the bidding of the homophobic pray-the-gay-away types, and paranoid gun nuts who have highjacked the NRA. Just because the tea baggers aren't holding their own in local elections hardly means they still don't have the ear of the conservative leadership.
And yes, people vote for the candidates who aren't going to let them starve. I seriously can't see how that could be counted against them.


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17 Jul 2014, 2:12 pm

Raptor wrote:
sonofghandi wrote:
Raptor wrote:
The core of what has driven gun sales through the roof the past 4 years has been people's mistrust of goveremnt and the possilibly of unavaibility. Only an idiot thinks all the guns can be taken away.


I will agree with this. The massive gun and ammunition sales spike was driven almost entirely by unfounded paranoid fear. The actual number of gun owners has gone down, but the number of guns owned has sky-rocketed. I think that trend is winding down, though, as most companies have been revising their forecasts downwards. Smith & Wesson is the latest (and one of the more severe):

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/24/is-smith-wesson-firing-blanks.aspx


Yeah sure, whatever..... :roll:


How about a consevrative source then?

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/06/20/smith-wesson-ignites-selloff-with-tepid-outlook/

Quote:
The company sees 2015 earnings from continuing operations of $1.30 to $1.40 a share, below Wall Street?s estimate of $1.45. Sales are expected to check in between $585 million and $600 million. Analysts were projecting $621.8 million


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17 Jul 2014, 2:31 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
But how long has it been since mainstream conservatives have had any influence in the Republican party?
Are you saying the democratic party is in lockstep with mainstream liberals? There's really not much to be done in the foreseeable future to narrow the rift between the GOP and and mainstream conservatives. The choices at the polls are between bad and worse.

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The people who the RNC lives in fear and does the bidding of the homophobic pray-the-gay-away types, and paranoid gun nuts who have highjacked the NRA.
Parroting the party line again, eh? So boringly predictable. :roll:

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Just because the tea baggers aren't holding their own in local elections hardly means they still don't have the ear of the conservative leadership.

The tea party isn't what it started out to be. Of course, you'd be against anything that's against big government.

Quote:
And yes, people vote for the candidates who aren't going to let them starve. I seriously can't see how that could be counted against them.
And there lies one of the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives see the government as a necessary evil to manage nation's interests at home and abroad and liberals see it as a source of love, happiness, and un-earned income.


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17 Jul 2014, 2:43 pm

Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
But how long has it been since mainstream conservatives have had any influence in the Republican party?
Are you saying the democratic party is in lockstep with mainstream liberals? There's really not much to be done in the foreseeable future to narrow the rift between the GOP and and mainstream conservatives. The choices at the polls are between bad and worse.

Quote:
The people who the RNC lives in fear and does the bidding of the homophobic pray-the-gay-away types, and paranoid gun nuts who have highjacked the NRA.
Parroting the party line again, eh? So boringly predictable. :roll:

Quote:
Just because the tea baggers aren't holding their own in local elections hardly means they still don't have the ear of the conservative leadership.

The tea party isn't what it started out to be. Of course, you'd be against anything that's against big government.

Quote:
And yes, people vote for the candidates who aren't going to let them starve. I seriously can't see how that could be counted against them.
And there lies one of the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives see the government as a necessary evil to manage nation's interests at home and abroad and liberals see it as a source of love, happiness, and un-earned income.


What does the Democratic party have that's remotely similar to the tea baggers? The DNC is more likely enthralled by big money that has unfortunately compromised their values, rather than ideological lunatics.
And party line or not, the fact remains the lunatic fringe who believe that gun rights are absolute, and that mass shootings have been staged by the government complete with actors, are the activists who control the gun movement these days.
As for role of government according to liberals and conservatives - you seem to have forgotten that Republicans figure the state has no business keeping us safe from a hostile majority if part of a minority, or keeping us safe from shoddy products and pollution by industry, but has every right to stick it's nose in our bedrooms.


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17 Jul 2014, 2:54 pm

Raptor wrote:
Quote:
The people who the RNC lives in fear and does the bidding of the homophobic pray-the-gay-away types, and paranoid gun nuts who have highjacked the NRA.
Parroting the party line again, eh? So boringly predictable. :roll:


Quote:
The NRA wants desperately to welcome more hunters into its ranks, but fewer than one in five hunters are members, and most who haven't joined by now probably won't. Like me, many hunters consider the NRA a bunch of paranoid loonies, with an increasing volume of innocent blood on their hands.
When I say "F*ck the NRA," as I do quite often lately, it's for a host of reasons both personal and political, but has nothing to do with my feelings for guns or the 2nd amendment.


http://alibi.com/food/43794/Pro-Gun-Anti-NRA.html

Quote:
Here's what the NRA does fight for: The freedom to buy assault weapons?which the group instead refers to as "modern sporting rifles," and are sometimes referred to as "black guns"?and high-capacity magazines, neither of which are commonly used in hunting, but which comprise the lion's share of revenue for gun manufacturers. It even opposes universal background checks, which a large majority of Americans support (and the NRA itself did in 1999).

Some hunters fear the NRA?s hard-line stance is starting to give their sport a bad name.
"We have to deal with this black cloud, because people who don't like these black rifles are starting to equate, 'those are all hunters, people who are banging around with 30-round magazines,'" says John Cooper, a former secretary of the South Dakota Department of Fish, Game, and Parks. "And that couldn't be further from the truth."


http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112326/nra-and-hunters-interests-are-not-always-aligned

Quote:
As a hunter ? as someone whose entire family has been long-time NRA supporters, I hope that the NRA comes to its senses and no longer defends the right to own weapons of war.
There are plenty of organizations that advocate for and support outdoor sportsmanship. If the NRA doesn?t take a sensible stand on Friday, I ask that you reconsider your support of the NRA.


http://muscatinejournal.com/news/opinion/editorial/columns/jameson/hoping-for-a-change-of-heart-in-the-nra/article_1ed74f08-4a11-11e2-b473-001a4bcf887a.html

Quote:
In commenting for this story, several hunters asked to remain anonymous. Others decided at the last minute not to participate. The NRA, they argue, can be vindictive. They point to the example of Jim Zumbo.

In 2007, Zumbo, a respected hunting journalist, suggested in a column that semiautomatic weapons were not appropriate for hunting and that game departments should ban them. "Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity," he wrote in his column for Outdoor Life magazine. "I'll go so far as to call them 'terrorist' rifles ... We don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them."

The response was swift.

He left the magazine, which apologized for his comments and took the post down. The NRA ?pointed to the collapse of Zumbo?s career as an example of what can happen to anyone, including a ?fellow gun owner,? who challenges the right of Americans to own or hunt with assault-style firearms.?


http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/6/18/hunters-gun-rightshavenothingtodowithhunting.html

Quote:
With salt-and-pepper hair under a Yankees cap and the odor of cigarettes on his breath, Dorr is a local celebrity at this
conference, which skews heavily toward the hook-and-bullet crowd. The 79-year-old Korean war vet and lifelong Republican still drives his pickup to New Hampshire every year on the first day of deer-hunting season. "Nobody will ever take my gun," he says. "If they do, I'll be stretched out, and they can grab it." Despite the tough talk, however, Dorr is no friend to the National Rifle Association (NRA), which has asked him to join many times. Get him going, and he'll tell you that the gun-lobbying group has lost its way with too extreme a focus on protecting the Second Amendment. "It's not concentrating enough on things that matter to me," he says, "like conservation."

In fact, Dorr is here at the conference as chair of a new organization called the American Hunters and Shooters Association (ahsa), which bills itself as a more "moderate alternative to the NRA." The group has tapped into a small but growing minority of hunters and sportsmen who feel disgruntled with the NRA's support of conservative lawmakers who, they say, vote against their best interests. Judging from the reception at the conference, there are more Dorrs out there than one might expect.


http://www.newrepublic.com/article/the-revolt-against-the-nra

Quote:
Its supporters moved on to a similar new measure, the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act, which was introduced in 2011 and again in the current Congress by Rep. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.). In its analysis of the bill, the National Wildlife Federation called it ?nothing more than the sportsmen community being used as a cover to hide an attack on Wilderness, National Monuments, and National Wildlife Refuges.? Susan Recce, director of conservation, wildlife, and natural resources at the NRA, testified before the House in favor of the bill, calling her opponents? arguments ?specious.? The bill passed the House in February after being tacked on to H.R. 3590, the Sportsmen?s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act (SHARE Act).

The NRA?s lobbying on these bills appears to contradict the express commitment of its lobbying arm to ?be involved in any issue that directly or indirectly affects firearms ownership and use. These involve such topics as hunting and access to hunting lands [and] wilderness and wildlife conservation.? CAP?s report also cites several polls showing that preservation of wildlife is important to most sportsmen: A 2012 poll found that two-thirds of sportsmen want to maintain current conservation levels and oppose ?allowing private companies to develop public lands when it would limit the public?s enjoyment of?or access to?these lands.? In a 2013 survey of hunters and anglers, nearly 75 percent of respondents opposed selling public lands to help reduce the deficit.


http://grist.org/climate-energy/is-oil-money-turning-the-nra-against-hunters/

Quote:
Ricker also noted that America has 80 million gun owners, but the NRA only has 4 million members. He interprets this as a failure by NRA to represent gun owners and hunters because the vast majority has not joined.


http://newwest.net/main/article/saving_hunters_from_the_nra/

Quote:
The National Rifle Association claims on its website to be the largest pro-hunting organization in the world. As a hunter, not to mention as a human being, the NRA couldn?t represent me less.

The NRA isn?t for hunters any more than AAA is for bicyclists. Sure, some hunters are NRA members, but first and foremost the NRA serves gun fetishists and the firearms industry. (fetish: 1. An inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit. 2. A course of action to which one has an excessive and irrational commitment.)

In 2011, nearly 14 million Americans hunted, while NRA members number about four million?fewer than half of whom actually hunt.


http://www.flashinthepan.net/?p=961


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17 Jul 2014, 2:56 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
What does the Democratic party have that's remotely similar to the tea baggers? The DNC is more likely enthralled by big money that has unfortunately compromised their values, rather than ideological lunatics.
I thought we were talking about the GOP, not the tea baggers. Moving the goalposts around?

Quote:
And party line or not, the fact remains the lunatic fringe who believe that gun rights are absolute, and that mass shootings have been staged by the government complete with actors, are the activists who control the gun movement these days.
You don't know anything about the NRA. You've demonstrated this previously.

Quote:
As for role of government according to liberals and conservatives - you seem to have forgotten that Republicans figure the state has no business keeping us safe from a hostile majority if part of a minority,
hostile majority of part of a wh...what? :?

Quote:
or keeping us safe from shoddy products and pollution by industry
Keeping you safe? :lmao: Maybe until someone with more influence and/or money convinces them to look the other way. You have no understanding of corruption, do you?

Quote:
but has every right to stick it's nose in our bedrooms.
Aint no gubmint webcam in my bedroom.....

Next....


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17 Jul 2014, 3:34 pm

sonofghandi you're right; the NRA is a terrorist organisation! They not only give weekly hands-on classes at their Fairfax HQ but also sponsored them them at local shooting ranges across the USA. Also web based learning and lectures via webinar almost daily.
Topics include but are not limited to:
- Improvised explosives and IED's. What you need to know
- Tips on going postal while ensuring maximum body count
- So you want to be a unabomber? Lessons learned from Ted Kaczynski
- How ZOG is a threat to the American way of life and what YOU can do
- Attacks against soft targets and how to identify them
- Black helicopters; a prelude to The New Order
- How to mock and and belittle anti-gun gun owners
And may many more. :D

Yes, the NRA will end civilisation as we know it. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! 8O
Of course, nothing can be done about it because of all the money donated by huge, exploitive, and greedy corporations in addition the protection of corrupt republican politicians.


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17 Jul 2014, 4:41 pm

What's with the hunting? There are plenty of people who don't hunt but just like to shoot firearms at the shooting range, or who want a gun for protection. I'm not completely opposed to hunting, but I think hunting is much less morally neutral than shooting up pieces of paper or tin cans with assault rifles.
And I don't think whether something is an assault rifle or not is very relevant in how dangerous the weapon is. Even the military people ususally shoot their rifles semi-auto instead of full auto.