ok dood, lets step by step analyze and refute your arguments.
Conservatism as you define it was probably an accurate definition in like the time of George Washington and the Federalists.
The definitions of conservatism is from a modern politics text book. You simply fail to draw the line between what "conservative" means and what it means to be a modern, mainstream republican.
Bush has put us in the largest debt in the history of the country. There goes fiscal conservatism.
Where do you get your numbers? Yeah the cummulative national debt now is 9.1 trillion dollars but you realize that has been accured over the past 317 years... Also if you really knew how to analyze the Fiscal Year of a country, you'd know you would analyze the debt in relation to the GDP of the respective country. Conventional economic theory states that a State should maintain equal ot or less than an annual national debt public and private of 3.5% of their GDP. Our current annual national debt is about 2.6%. We only borrowed 50.7 billion years this year. Yea i agree there needs to be way less spending and taxation but if you analyze based upon GDP, at our current rate, by 2012, our debt will be -.7% of our GDP. That's right, we'll have an annual surplus. I mean, debt statistics are rather misleading based upon absolute numbers alone. Our GDP increases every year porportionally equal to or greater than our debt. But yeah, i agree there needs to be social security reform as that is our biggest money drainer every year. Old people are living substantially longer than they did like 60 years ago so that system is going to bust soon.
He also signed the Patriot Act and numerous other bills that have snatched personal rights away from our citizens, there goes legislative conservatism.
True the Patriot Act is a very gray area but after all it was passed by congress. The problem is most normal people (like you, no offense) don't really understand the patriot act. Have you read the bill? Have you read any court cases ruling on patriot act indictments? Thats what i thought. Moreover, historically, conservative legislation in the courts have yeilded the most civil-oriented precedence. (Gideon v wainwright, brown vs board of education). Conversely liberal precedence has set less than stellar results (on the superior level, Mirand v Arizona, Giveon v Wainright, on the supreme level, Plessy vs Ferguson, Dredscott vs whoever youre not even reading this)
And once again since separation of church and state is written in our constitution i don't see how you can support many aspects of traditional conservatism and believe that religion doesn't have an affect on how people govern.
Actually you realize the sentiment of separation of church and state was only ever expressed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson? No where in the constitution does it state explicitly: there must be a separation of church and state. The important thing to realize here is that this country was founded upon the idea that there should be no single State established church. That is, there must be freedom of religion (1st amendment) and the State may not impose upon its citizens an established church. This is not the same thing as saying religious secular values cannot be represented in the white house by the president. Keep in mind this is a democracy and since for the majority of people in this country, religion dictates (or at least in a large part influences) values, and they must see a president who shares the same values.
Also the democratic party was born out of the split between the Democratic-Republican party, started by Thomas Jefferson, not Andrew Jackson.
“[Andrew Jackson’s] political ambition combined with the masses of people shaped the modern
Democratic Party.”
[1]
Moreover, the democratic-republican party really gave birth to only the republican party, not the democratic party.
In addition how can you say republicans are less likely to sign binding treaties and overstep diplomatic boundaries when we have: trillions of dollars tied up in China, invaded Iraq based on false claims of WMD, threatened war against Iran and North Korea.
Name one military-binding treaty we signed in the past 8 years. Now lets look at bill Clinton:
-Operation Allied Force (NATO)
-UN Security Council Resolution 1244
- NATO Yugoslavia peace accord
-Arab-Israeli conflict resolution held in Camp David and later in Egypt
Bush also isn’t the only person that has been accused of exaggerating war terms. Clinton went under the same scrutiny by the UN for exaggerating the condition of Yugoslavia. The UN ruled that there was no genocide as Clinton had stated. You’re lucky only two US soldiers lost their lives.
Trillions of dollars tied up in China are a private and/or economical matter and really has nothing to do with foreign policy.
I will guarentee you the majority of the South will be the color red. Ever heard of the Bible Belt, that unionized liberal crap is bullshit, the majority of southern whites are republican, the polls dont lie, look at the governors, senators in those states.
This is only the case because the ones who vote are those who vote republican. But most of the DNC’s decision for the nomination hails from results of southern primaries. When I meant southern, I really meant rednecks/ blue collar workers. Much of the destitute African American population etc are part of the self proclaimed “lunch box crew.” Just because the delegates in those states are republican, doesn’t mean there isn’t unfair misrepresentation. And for the record, I retract my usage of the term “southern.” I would rather use a non-geographically binding demographic. I would like to replace “southern” from hereon with “redneck.”
If Republicans wanted to improve the overall condition of life for all Americans, why dont they support nationwide healthcare or other government funded services?
If you knew how to read, youdve read that Conservatives believe there should be minimal spending by the American government. Do you honestly have any idea how much it would cost for there to be a nationwide healthcare?! Let me tell you this, a universal healthcare program would be far more expensive than any two wars in the history of the united states put together over the course of the same time period.
Healthcare can easily be handled by the private sector like it is now. Medicaid and Medicare themselves are doing a great job implementing aid to those who are impoverished.
Private health care also yields much, much better doctors. With higher incentives and lower bureaucratic bullshit, doctors flock to private hospitals. Canada has some of the worst dental care in the industrialized world, where has 3/5 best cancer hospitals are in the United States including number 1 with Johns Hopkins. Also arguably 84/100 best hospitals in general are in America.
More government funded programs doesn’t mean free programs. You still pay for those programs with taxes. And while you’re paying with taxes, you have less choice as a consumer and government funded firms have less of an incentive to produce better product or work at a more efficient rate. If the government is already paying them with forced tax dollars, what incentive does a government firm have to run its firm efficiently? Why would a government firm put money into R&D and produce better products quarterly? Also, if you don’t want a certain product, you still have to pay for it in taxes. Social Security is great for those who aren’t smart enough to save for themselves. Im not an idiot and I plan on saving for retirement and really don’t need Social Security. Yet I have to pay for it even if I file exempt on my W-4.
Theres a reason free trade and the private sector has been shown over and over again to be better than government instituted programs.
Can you make some sense out of that?