http://fredthompsonnews.com/

"One of the topics of discussion that keeps popping up here is how conservatism is defined. Steele had an amusing illustration of how he defines conservatism. He told the joke about a conservative and a liberal walking down the street and coming upon a homeless man. The conservative hands him his business card invites him to come into his office to talk about a job, then he hands him twenty dollars. The liberal, not wanting to be outdone, points the man to the nearest welfare office and then hands him fifty dollars from the conservative's pocket."

It would appear from your definition, Lorie, that there is no definition of conservatism except as it relates to others. In your example a conservative is defined by the way they differ from a liberal. I think that's fitting. One of the definitions of conservatism that fits my view is that a conservative isn't really "for" anthing, so much as they are "against" certain things. Your post illustrates this -- that "there is no there, there" when it comes to conservatism.

The average conservative (using your example above) would be more prone to completely ignore the homeless man than the average liberal, don't you agree? In fact, the conservative would be much more likely to call the cops to have the homeless man removed from the sidewalk, don't you agree? The whole idea of a "compassionate conservative" has pretty much been debunked as nothing more than just another campaign lie.

I think I can guess what was on the business card:

"Pimp"

Lee,
The reason that a conservative might be more tempted to help the homeless man than to give him things like failed government programs is because conservatives believe in a person doing things for themselves. Liberals are collectivists that believe that things should be taken from the "well-off" members of a group and handed to the "less-fortunate" in said group. This is inherently unfair to the "well-off" individuals. a conservative would believe that the "well-off" individual has worked for what he has obtained while the straggler typically delved into drugs or alcohol. They may need help, but ultimately the freedom this country gives is the freedom to make good or bad decisions. A conservative believes in consequences for one's decisions. A liberal thinks there should be a social safety net so that any straggler or even to go as far as certain degenerates are given more help than the average person in order to make that person "equal" to everyone else.

The fact that conservatives don't try to help anyone is just, as Lee stated, "another campaign lie" perpetrated BY Liberals and people like Lee

"tempted to help an homeless man" Is it a sin to help those less fortunate?

oh, and i meant to mention the class envy aspect of all this. Liberals want to punish big business and the "Evil Rich" for having things that not everyone has. They want to punish anyone who is successful and elevate anyone who is unsuccessful.

Look at how liberals try to limit speech and how liberals are trying to get rid of the 2nd amendment. Also look how liberals have a fevered support of the sick act of partial birth abortion.

If liberals really cared about people they would support ADULT stem cell research, since it is the only successful stem cell treatment at this point. Embryonic stem cells have actually shown to be worse for people in many studies. Liberals don't fight to help anyone. They fight political battles with the purpose of helping people as the underlying lie.
Look at the war in Iraq. They want to "Support the troops by bringing them home". In the ignorance of that statement they fail to realize that by bringing the troops home, they also will bring radical islamists home following our exit. In doing that, the democrats will have ensured the death of countless innocent civilians. Which is worse? fighting a battle over seas with troops in which the casualites by any measurable standard are miniscule? or would thousands more innocent civilians have to die so that the liberals can "Support the troops by bringing them home".

At best this is a pie in the sky statement that is so ignorant of the real world that anyone who utters shouldn't be in a position to make a decision more important than what shoes to wear for the day.

Lee , you belong in a ward. Isn't it getting old yet? Whiny snot nosed liars calling everybody else a liar? Democrats are the party of fraud and lies , they own it free and clear. The Democrat Party owes its existense to their parroting Media and Immoral Hollywood. They survive only by lying through their teeth , corruption, false claims and accusations.

Oh almost forgot , they "BUY VOTES" too. Voter fraud , election fraud ......Is there anything that democrats actually do? work for ? earn by merit?

There all talk (LIES).

Democrats/Liberals want you to go to them everyday to beg for a fish. Americans/Conservatives/Republicans want to see to it that you have the means to go out and fish for as many fish as you want.

And that fish the Dims give you , it's not free. You owe them your vote or else.

Conservatism is threefold: Federal conservatives generally want a smaller federal government. Fiscal conservatives want either less money to be spent or for it to be better-spent (ie, it's OK to spend money so long as the returns are greater). Social conservatives prefer traditional social morales.

They may overlap but not necessarily always work together.

The whole idea of a "compassionate conservative" has pretty much been debunked

Because if we use charitable giving as a measure, conservatives outshineliberals leftists everytime.

Leftists never want to put their own money where their mouth is.

Also look how liberals have a fevered support of the sick act of partial birth abortion.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also opposes the ban. Who is more qualified to comment on a medical procedure: Congress or doctors?

If liberals really cared about people they would support ADULT stem cell research, since it is the only successful stem cell treatment at this point.

Name a liberal who opposes adult stem cell research. Nice try. Liberals support ALL stem cell research because you can't know in advance which types are going to yield results. If adult stem cells prove useful and all others prove worthless, the research "market" will focus all future research on adult cells, and all other research will cease. Don't conservatives oppose artificial constraints on a free market?

Look at the war in Iraq. They want to "Support the troops by bringing them home".

It's not supporting the troops to want them alive and with their families rather than dying in an Iraqi civil war in which the likely winner is an ally with Iran? Your definition of supporting the troops is keeping them in a war zone in which their tours of duty are repeatedly extended in direct contradiction to what they and the American people were told. And then putting them in Walter Reed when they do come home. Nice "support".

In the ignorance of that statement they fail to realize that by bringing the troops home, they also will bring radical islamists home following our exit.

Irrational scare tactic. No reasoned person could ever defend that position.

At best this is a pie in the sky statement that is so ignorant of the real world that anyone who utters shouldn't be in a position to make a decision more important than what shoes to wear for the day.

Hmm, you must be referring to statements like "weeks, not months", "greeted as liberators", "last throes", etc. Those are the people who should no longer be in a position to make decisions. Talk about "people so ignorant of th real world"!

"Debunked" by who, Lee? And when? And by what criteria?

Start here.

In the modern context, the term also suggests acceptance of government responsibility--since private charity has never been sufficient to relieve social distress.

No no... private charity, volunteerism, neighbors helping neighbors doesn't count. Only how much the GOVERNMENT gives counts.

Thanks for proving my point, Brian.

Leftists are all about giving, with someone else's money.

For some, its just moral confusion..they see "need" trumping "rights".

But for others, it is just a means to an end... to make a much more compliant populace to Left cultism by making them dependant on the government instead of themselves.

No wonder the apologia from the Left about fundie Islamists... the Left has a certain amount of authoritarianism-envy when viewing those hostile to Western values.

Irrational scare tactic

The US should expect less?

Lee,
No I don't agree with anything you said. Not even a little bit. Actually I wanted to say it was the stupidest thing I have ever read, but didn't want to be impolite. Re-read it. Several times if you have to. How you could get that the conservative is less likely to help the homeless man from my post is beyond comprehension. In a very widely read un-PC book that you have surely heard of there is a story about giving a man a fish and teaching a man to fish. Surely you have heard that one.

The man in Steele's story gave the homeless man some money, to help him in the short term, but more importantly invited him to interview for a job to help him stand on his own. You could not have been talking about the example Steele cited, but were rather perpetuating a stereotype, which, if you look at the amount of money conservatives vs. liberals give to charity, will find to be an incorrect stereotype. Conservatives believe that individuals, the private market and private charities (some of them even, gasp, faith-based) are better at helping the disadvantaged than government programs. It is actually a pretty simple concept to grasp. At least I thought it was before I read your comment.

As for conservatism being against everything and no "there there" etc., puhleeze. You know what conservatives are for -- lower taxes, greater personal responsibility, etc. I was referring more to the social conservative/fiscal/defense conservative dynamic. Some social conservatives say if you are not conservative on social issues then you can't be called a conservative. That is what I was referring to.

Why is Lee posting here? He now has WizbangBlue to spread his collectivist ideas.

Conservative today means do as I say not as I do.

Have "family values" but get "massages" from escort services or seek out Congressional pages for flesh time.

Give welfare to the rich and call it tax cuts.

Support the troops by giving them inadequate protective armor and moldy rat infested medical facilities.

Strip those who come from families whose mothers or fathers are either too young or too uneducated to understand the responsibility of procreating and blame them for their irresponsibility compunded by society's shunning from any mental health assistance. Also make sure all women are made to feel inadequate if they don't breed thus encouraging the continuance of dependent dsyfunctional children and adults.

Kick the person who is down so they might disappear from the radar of the more fortunate. Medical bills, job loss, war trauma, death or depression, are not considered viable reasons for not pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps. One can be medicated legally with prescription drugs particulalrly since the poor can afford doctors and drugs to pull oneself up or according to Mother Bush they probably are happier where they are.

So hey. let's all get behind this form of new conservatism. Let's make sure the 10% win the class struggle and those conservatives in the other 90% who agree with them continue to lick their boots.

Really? So what about Spain, who fled Iraq after the terrorist bombing in Madrid in order to appease al Queda who demanded Spanish surrender. That's worked out well, eh?

You've just proven my point, thoroughly and clearly. Spain was attacked even though they had troops in Iraq. So as for the "fight them there so we don't fight them here" argument... that's worked out well, eh?

And I know that you are not really going to claim with a straight face that if Spain had actually kept their 1300 troops in Iraq that would somehow have resulted in AQ fleeing Spain.

No no... private charity, volunteerism, neighbors helping neighbors doesn't count. Only how much the GOVERNMENT gives counts.

The "leftist definition" you purport to cite examines government assistance, and claims (and you even quoted), "private charity has never been sufficient to relieve social distress". Your accusation of of "only how much government gives counts" comes from nowhere but your mind.

Name a western country that relies solely on private charity without government assistance to relieve social distress. If you can't, then the "leftist definition" is accurate, and your hand-waving dismissal is baseless.

Lorie,

What needs to be hashed out is why Conservatism let itself be suckered into believing a New (Neo) Conservatism was needed to supplant it. And are these Neoconservatives "conservative" at all? (Ask somebody there and watch their eyes scan for QUICK exit from that one!)

Ask: are Trotskyites cum Neo-liberals "conservative" just by changing their name to suit the post-Reagan political landscape?

Their perpetual war program (sketched out well BEFORE 9/11 in PNAC, etc) has seemed to have as its real purpose, the erosion of the Peoples' constitutional rights at home, while leaving the Ends of the PATRIOT Act vacant, and using its Means as an excuse for more abridgements in the future. (ex: Where's bin-Ladin? ROE in Iraq? National ID papers, SPP, etc.Very un-conservative.)

Case in point: The neoconservative love affair of submerging the people and 1st world economy of the USA with that of Mexico on every level that harms our nation but helps the other, ie. Open Borders. property ownership for mex nationals allowed here, closed to Americans there. (There used to be a term called The Commonweal. Open borders junks it in the name of Mammon.)

[APB: Mexican truckers coming to a neighborhood near you on April 1. Full access. Blog them on that Lorie!]

Anyway, don't let them schmooze the commonsense out of you. And if you see the neocon Frank Gaffney, please tell him to quit spreading the lie about Lincoln wishing to hang dissenters. typical neocon talking point, attemping to re-inforce their un-American positions, taking us for fools, yet in their arrogance, betraying their communistic Big Lie methods for all to see.

Of course, being arrogant poindexters, the neocons will never quite succeed in their plans. But there will be collateral damage and good people will be sacrificed (Iraq, drunk-driving wetbacks, etc.)

The man in Steele's story gave the homeless man some money, to help him in the short term, but more importantly invited him to interview for a job to help him stand on his own.

But that's where it ended. What about the rest of the story? Like when the conservative determines that the man is unqualified and undereducated for the job he envisioned for him, and tosses him back onto the street with a lecture about cleaning himself up, going back to school, and then coming back see him when he takes responsibility for himself?

It's absurd to base your argument on this fictitious scenario, but if you insist on it then you should follow it through.

Civil behavior wrote:

"Conservative today means do as I say not as I do.

Have "family values" but get "massages" from escort services or seek out Congressional pages for flesh time.

Give welfare to the rich and call it tax cuts."...

You really don't want to go down that road, do you? Since you went there... let's look at liberal do as I say, not as I do:

Say you are consumed with compassion for the poor, but don't give beans to charity compared to conservatives.

Say you are running your campaign on the issue of poverty while you build a 25,000 square foot house and get 400 dollar haircuts.

Say you care about the environment and that the little man should give up his SUV, but fly private jets.

Say you are for women's rights and abhor sexual harassment, then defend a man accused of multiple instances of sexual harassment and even rape, and that does not even include the intern stuff.

Say you are outraged by a congressman's dirty IM messages to a page and that his entire party should be blamed for it, but support a Dem congressman having sex with a 17 year old page.

Say you support the troops, then say they have lost the war while they are still fighting it.

Say Republicans are the party of corruption, and should not be elected, but support the re-election of a man with $100,000 in frozen cash.

This is getting boring.

Oh, as for the comment about tax cuts being welfare for the rich, that just shows the difference in a nutshell. Conservatives believe money belongs to the individual. Liberals believe the government is entitled to our money and that any they let a "rich person" keep is welfare. Absolutely brilliant. You described liberalism better than I ever could have.

defend a man accused of...

Well, there's one tenet of conservativism that snuck in there. That you mock the act of defending the accused (and uncharged).

It is worth noting that so many of what people label as "conservative" politicians are, traditionally, fully embracing socialism-lite. The choices offered in many elections today is between socialism-lite, and socialism-the-original-flavor, with perhaps socialism-new-and-improved a third option.

The reason for this, I propose, is that forced redistribution of wealth, when done on a small enough scale, does indeed lead to an ok-society. Perhaps not optimal, but sufferable at least.

No Republican candidate will campaign against Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, food stamps, etc. And why should they? By far the majority of Americans accept the idea that the government has a responsibility to provide a security net.

I myself have benefitted in the past from government assistance... how can I now demean it?

All I hope for is that there remains enough of an entrepreneurial spirit in the US to keep new job and business creation alive. As long as we continue to allow risk takers to have their rewards I think we will be ok.

"Conservatives believe money belongs to the individual.-Lori"

Yeah, in 1928 they still did, a bit.

Ask about the speakers' and attendees' view on the FAIR Tax.

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_main

It means no more IRS. I'd say that's a political winner.

And I know that you are not really going to claim with a straight face that if Spain had actually kept their 1300 troops in Iraq that would somehow have resulted in AQ fleeing Spain.

Guess what, each and every day criminals commit crime. Armed robbery, burglary, rape, murder, mayhem. And the police and courts do what they can to take the crimnal off the street and prevent more crime.

Just because a city fields a police force and crime still happens doesn't mean the police force has "failed" and its time to just "give up" and not do the hard things anymore.

Certainly Spain would still be as much in AQ's sights if they kept their troops in Iraq as if they withdrew. AQ and Islamism is an evil ideology that is not going to change. So the only way of dealing with them is to contain 'em and blunt their efforts as much as possible.

You honestly believe that the US would be off AQ's or Islamic Jihad or Hamas or Hizbolleh or any of the myriad of anti-human Islamist death cults out there if we just surrended like Harry Reid wants? Come on now...it's like withdrawing the police from a gangbanger infested part of a city.

Soso

No Republican candidate will campaign against Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, food stamps, etc.

Those were NOT to be "redistribution" schemes, but to allow people who (at the time) had no access to union pensions/health plans to have some sort of guaranteed retirement benefits.

Again...what we have is leftists who believe people are untrustworthy of providing for themselves and MUST have every need provided by the government and conservatives (classical liberals) who believe that leaving as much decision in how to provide for one's life should be left to the individual.

A leftist is not interested in how a person became a "victim", they are only interested in how many "victims" they can identify, how many "victimizers" they can blame and how to propose newer and more intrusive government agencies to help the "victims" and punish the "victimizers".

That's why leftists so vehemently hate people like Dr. Rice ... people who refuse to wallow in their designated station as eternal victim.er

Doesn't fit the Left cult narrative.

"defend a man accused of...

Well, there's one tenet of conservativism that snuck in there. That you mock the act of defending the accused (and uncharged)." -- brian

I was not "mocking" the act of defending "the accused", I should have more specifically stated that the accused I referred to was Bill Clinton, but figured it was pretty obvious. I said accused because he was not convicted. Neither was OJ, by the way. Unfortunately there was no DNA collected from any of his bimbo eruptions except Monica's.

Dems are all about defending the accused, aren't they Brian? I think about the frog marching the Dems have been dreaming of for Karl Rove. Has he been charged with anything? Or do you just defend the accused when they are Dems with their pants around their ankles or $100,000 in their freezers?

Speaking of defending the accused, what about all the liberals that visit this site and others declaring Bush a war criminal, a liar about WMD (when they know he didn't), and worse? Sorry, but he hasn't been convicted of anything either. I guess you need to start defending him if you want to be true to your ideals.

Oh, and it was liberals that rushed out and declared "the accused" Duke lacrosse players guilty without a trial. Y

Bryan:
The man in Steele's story gave the homeless man some money, to help him in the short term, but more importantly invited him to interview for a job to help him stand on his own.

But that's where it ended. What about the rest of the story? Like when the conservative determines that the man is unqualified and undereducated for the job he envisioned for him, and tosses him back onto the street with a lecture about cleaning himself up, going back to school, and then coming back see him when he takes responsibility for himself?

It's absurd to base your argument on this fictitious scenario, but if you insist on it then you should follow it through.

Ok bryan, why not follow through on the lib aspect of the story? By the example, the best this guy will ever get is $50 out of the conservatives pocket via the liberal money snatcher and a permanent spot in a welfare line. At least the conservative is willing to give the man a shot at something bigger than a welfare line and a life of government dependence.

Oh, and i second the notion that Lee should go back to wizbang blue. If we wanna see what he has to say we'll go over there and attempt to suffer through the irrationality and hate speech.

"What is Conservatism?"

The answer is obvious, "GOOD".

That's is why it is always under attack by evil(liberals).

Dave, I think you mean "Brian", not "bryan". Brian's cool but bryan doesn't do philosophical exercises. Not since this Romanian girl I knew. Sex and Socrates. In that order! Ugh! Everything's a Question!

"Americans/Conservatives/Republicans want to see to it that you have the means to go out and fish for as many fish as you want. "

No, not quite, Rob. The Conservative would import cheaper mercury polluted fish from Sri Lanka or the Peoples' Republic to force you to sell your surplus fish at a loss. Then you'd be bought out for pennies on the dollar by a corporate conglomerate that would, in turn, jack the price of the imported fish.

RE Wieder:

Sometimes people come up with such idiotic things that they truly leave me speechless.

Welcome to the new America.