The crumbling of the Goldwater movement?

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Article

Please, I hope someone calls The Economist a crazy left wing publication with a liberal agenda and an axe to grind. I really could use the laugh.

For the record growing up I was very much into the Goldwater philosophy (and also had a great deal of esteem towards Eisenhower). But now you have a guy like John Dean whos a "crazy liberal" because he wrote a couple of books about how crazy the right has gotten even though he still prays at the church of Goldwater conservatism (to use a bad euphemism). And since they're crazy, naturally they call him crazy. Im a bit disappointed they didnt go into the "purity of ideaology" aspect of the American conservative movement that has driven away alot of people I know who were otherwise good conservatives/Republicans, but otherwise I thought they did a good job for a rather generalizing article (again some details missed really bugged me...like Blackwell got creamed in his election due in large to rampant corruption in the Ohio GOP party which he was a big part of).

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Did republicans say things that were even remotely conservative during the elections last year? Now part of it was of course having to defend the war but if someone were to look at it very closely they did not even really do that, the use of the word macaca, Jack Abramoff, increasing the minimum wage which I was watching the other day on television effects about one and half million Americans which of course is a very large segment of the population and I am sure there were some local issues as well. Raising the minimum wage was in part was used to get younger voters to come out and vote for democrats and they also promised to reduce student loan payments as well another appeal to younger voters.

The senate race here in Missouri the democrat never once said that she would end the war in Iraq. She did not have to because the republican said almost nothing at all about any topic pick one. I am sure this happened in many other races for congress as well.

I sure do hope the democrats can find some more things like targeted tax cuts for the middle class that don't come close to affecting even close to a majority of the people. They will also needs some more republican scandals as well because when a person comes right down to it that is how the democrats won last year. Did you notice I did not come out and say the war in Iraq well I guess that could be a colossal scandal that started with the reasons we went to Iraq in the first place right?

I wonder how the D.C. Madam case is coming along when ABC got the numbers months ago and were trying to track down who the numbers belong to. I guess out of those around 10,000 numbers they all belong to that official at the state department[?] and Senator Vitter from Louisiana. I doubt out of all of those numbers not one of them can even be remotely connected to a democrat.

So what are the democrats going to be doing after they end the war in Iraq? Addressing the Schips program and many other programs that need attention. I would hope securing the border with Mexico. A bunch of other warm and fuzzy stuff that sounds really good. Boy that sort of reminds me of the president though at least the stuff that sounds really good. Didn't the president make it sound like it was really important that we go to war with Iraq?

Now with my what I said in my last paragraph is there anything else that might need to be addressed as well? And are the democrats going to be addressing these issues any better than the republicans have in the last few years? That is a very good question that people should be asking themselves. And how exactly are the democrats going to make any situation better for that matter than republicans.

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Speaking of a conservative being a conservative. We are going to be having a showdown next month about various appropriations bills. It will be interesting to see if the president vetoes any of them for having to much pork. The defense bill has plenty of pork in it I dare say. But don't worry though the war in Iraq has nothing to do with the defense department and the funding for the war will be in a separate appropriations bill. Part of the reason is to show that the President stills supports the war in Iraq and people might get confused by the 1,776 items the house version wants to spend money on in the defense appropriations bill. The house must have wanted to have revolutionary spending when it comes to the defense department.

My favorite part of the defense bill was for the purpose of atmospheric water harvesting. I can't really figure out though why the defense department needs to collect rain water in order to use it for energy purposes though? Maybe the defense department is starting a recycling program? And this is just one example.

Now please do not go and try to find what the money is being spent on that would take forever to try to find it in the bill. And many of the things in the bill or not even spelled out we are going to spend x amount of dollars on this that and the other thing. But that is another issue entirely.

The atmospheric water harvesting is towards the bottom and is 15th from the bottom. And yes I had to go look up what the heck it was in the first place.

And please if you know what the heck many of those other things are please try to explain them here.

Look here for what the house wants to spend your money on.

There is one other aspect about this. I seem to remember the house under the control of republicans had run away spending and I thought the democrats were the ones that wanted to change how Washington does its business? Well maybe spending the people's money is exempt from trying to change Washington? Isn't part of the reason there is so much need for change in Washington in the first place because of all of the money Washington has to spend on various purposes?

Gotta run though I need to get my ideas from conservative talk radio in a mere few hours and I have a lot of things to get done before then.

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Originally Posted by coolpeter72

Did republicans say things that were even remotely conservative during the elections last year? Now part of it was of course having to defend the war but if someone were to look at it very closely they did not even really do that, the use of the word macaca, Jack Abramoff, increasing the minimum wage which I was watching the other day on television effects about one and half million Americans which of course is a very large segment of the population and I am sure there were some local issues as well. Raising the minimum wage was in part was used to get younger voters to come out and vote for democrats and they also promised to reduce student loan payments as well another appeal to younger voters.

Well as long as you dont consider abortion, stem cells, and the gay marriage debate "conservative issues" (and Im more than willing to buy that argument compared to the traditional conservative mantra of smaller government and more individual/state rights).

I think that article underscored what ineptness and corruption did. That kind of stuff has pretty much made the GOP nearly non-existant in New England, exemplified by traditionally conservative New Hampshire making a wholesale change in their state legislature to all the blue side and its either veto-proof or near veto-proof for the Dem side (though not really necessarily with a Dem gov). In NH, the Republican party got into all kinds of legal problems after the 04 election which ended up turning large chunks of people in that state against it (theres also a part of many people moving from Boston to there, but one wouldnt think 2 years would be enough to change it that drastically).

My state senate race was similar to yours cp. The GOP nominee fumbled all over himself trying to get the electorally correct position on Iraq while the female Dem nominee just kind of went out and shook hands and basically said nothing (MO did also have the whole stem cell thing on the ballot too which invigorated both bases). Id much rather have McCaskill than the completely inept Klobuchar though.

As for the earmarks and such. One school of thought that was present when the Republicans were in charge was "to the victors go the spoils" kind of approach. Its very disappointing a changing of the guard didnt necessarily change that, but not unsurprising. I do find it funny that Bush has finally found his veto pen, and all reports say it'll come out in full force when a bunch of those bills come to his desk.

And for the DC Madame case, I wouldnt be surprised if Vitter was the tip of the iceberg. There are a number of names rumored to be on that list, some of them are names that those who follow politics casually would know. Vitter is hilarious though. He said Clinton should resign for not having the moral values in having an extra marital affair, and that was going on the whole time. Hes got chutzpah, thats for sure. A shame the "liberal media" didnt make those connections. No wonder so many younger people rely on the Daily Show (who did make that connection) for their political info.

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Originally Posted by -mmm-

Vitter is hilarious though. He said Clinton should resign for not having the moral values in having an extra marital affair, and that was going on the whole time. Hes got chutzpah, thats for sure. A shame the "liberal media" didnt make those connections. No wonder so many younger people rely on the Daily Show (who did make that connection) for their political info.

Are you freakin' kidding me??? You don't think the media, especially the liberal media, made that connection? A five minute search found this link:

and this one:http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3365332
and this:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/...f=rss_politics

I guess no one made the connection though. Maybe you should stop getting your news from the Daily Show.

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Originally Posted by spoc22

I guess no one made the connection though. Maybe you should stop getting your news from the Daily Show.

I should find the link, but they did a study on that awhile back. People who watched the Daily Show were as smart or attuned (however you want to look at it) to current events info as people who listen to NPR. Guess which fair and balance network finished at the bottom of that list, and by a wide margin? To tie it in with this thread, FNC was long been a bastion for the furthering to make the right more extremist. Thats what Roger Ailes does. And like any good propagandist, they have a slick packaging deal while playing on peoples fears. I could tie it back around to the original article in this thread, but I think we've had that discussion many times before and would just be

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Was part of the Goldwater movement abortion? I was not even born so I can't really say. When does the abortion movement even start?

The stem cell bill here in Missouri did just a couple of things. It said that embryonic stem cell research could be done in Missouri. I may have mentioned at the time this is a no brainer and even I voted for it. Washington University here in eastern Missouri is one of the best medical research universities in the country. Only a few other universities including Harvard get more federal funding than Washington University for medical research purposes. I must admit that I had to think long and hard about it before I made a decision. I asked myself this question though. What if Washington University is the one that comes up with the cures for so many things? I could have very easily been selfish and say no under any circumstances. I just could not do that though.

Another part of the bill was could people get treatments that used embryonic stem cells here in Missouri. This is the part that I had the most difficulty with but what if a member of my family or someone I know needed these treatments to stay alive? So sorry we have to go somewhere else to get these in some cases live saving treatments. Then I thought there has to be at least some people already here in Missouri that are already getting procedures that involve stem cells.

Another part of this bill said directly that the research here in Missouri could not go beyond what federal law said. As some may remember people were complaining about how many "lines" could be used that involved federal dollars. It was a very restrictive number that could be used. I think part of the reason for this part of the bill was Missouri did not want to lose federal dollars when it comes to medical research. The president is very adamant about his feelings about this. So I don't see the federal laws regarding this changing until he is out of office. There well could be a very substantial increase in medical research in this area in the future. Part of the reason it is so expensive to do any medical research for that matter is the unknown parts of it.

The last part of the bill was making sure that this research was done in the safest way possible by the researchers and to side on the error of caution if something were to come up that was not known a lot about. In this type of situation this is very important. There are a lot of unknowns in many types of medical research or we would have the answers already and there was a quite a long list of many precautions that the researchers had to follow.

As a person call well imagine both sides did not focus on what I just tried to explain. When I turned off the "noise" though I voted in a different way than the way I would have originally voted. This is a good lesson for others though. I know in the current climate it is very difficult to just turn off the "noise" and try to look at things in an another way besides just relying on what the politicians were saying. But in this particular situation I would have regretted the way I would have voted the way I originally intended to if I just listened to what the politicians were saying.

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On abortion it is very personal for many people so I just let other people decide for themselves.

I know that Rudy has been asked about abortion in one of the first republican debates. What was his answer? My brain almost shuts down when ever an abortion question comes up not because it does not concern me but the rhetoric on this particular issue is almost the exact same answer no matter how many different ways a question is asked. Something just tells me that something with regards to abortion has happened to Rudy in the past and he is very adamant about his pro choice position. He is eventually going to have to explain this to some degree if he wants to be the nominee of the party.

I asked just the other day why in the youtube democrat debate a question about abortion did not come up but it has come up more than once during the republican debates. I have no idea why but we may eventually find out.

With regards to gay marriage I have stated my position about this in the past. I was reminded just the other day that it was none other than William that signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act which explicitly states that a marriage should be between a man and a women. A democrat pundit said the other day the president had no other choice but to sign it into law. Now why is that did the evil republican congress slip it into an appropriations bill that the president dares not veto? I seem to remember the National Parks being closed for a brief period of time because there was no money to run them and even Social Security checks were not being sent out for a month or two. Just another dirty republican trick I am sure just like making the president sign into law that only people of the opposite sex should be married.

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Mrs. McCaskill [sp?] did say one thing in passing when it comes to ending the war in Iraq. She basically said and I am paraphrasing that she was very concerned about the troops safety. And I don't seem to remember her going into much more detail than that.

Actually I thought this was quite insulting to me but I think for the sake of civility I will not answer the question why I think this way.

Something tells me in the coming months it is going to get harder and harder to be civil when we talk about any number of issues we are so passionate about.

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Originally Posted by coolpeter72

Was part of the Goldwater movement abortion? I was not even born so I can't really say. When does the abortion movement even start?

Im in the same boat as you for not knowing.

And in fact now that I look around a bit, in his wiki it shows that he believed it a personal choice that the government should not interfer with. Thats in line with a more libertarian view of things.

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Originally Posted by -mmm-

Im in the same boat as you for not knowing.

And in fact now that I look around a bit, in his wiki it shows that he believed it a personal choice that the government should not interfer with. Thats in line with a more libertarian view of things.

So I guess in my first statement in my second to last post I at least partly agree with former Senator Goldwater. I said something along the lines that abortion is one issue that people have to make up their own minds. I try to persuade people on many different topics but I very rarely engage myself in a debate about abortion.

The one time I do remember discussing abortion was when the governor of South Dakota signed that very restrictive abortion bill.