[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

con·ser·va·tism (kən-sûr'və-tĪz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order.
2. A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism, and opposition to sudden change in the established order.

I hardly see how this makes him a saint. According the dictionary, this sort of outlook borders on fascism.

Jim, once again someone in here throws out the term of fascism. Once again I will throw out the definition of fascism, and ask you not to not to bandy about such insulting terms.

from dictionary.com "a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism."

a CONSERVATIVE, with a *distrust* of government is the *opposite* of a fascist who wishes complete government control of industry, commerce, etc.

Calling a conservative fascist because they dislike sudden change is like calling our founding father communists because they both had an abiding love of their country.

Why is it Jim that those on the opposite side feel free to bandy about such offenseive terms. How would you feel about it if I said we were closer to a fascist state now that Obama your saviour is in power, since we now have a monolithic congress and presidency- and since we will certainly have more government programs and controls.

As far as fiscal conservatism goes, I have a hard time fitting someone into that ideology, who had the voracious ability to spend, as he did. Let's make this very clear - Carter, whom you seem to want to demonize,

I have no need to demonize carter. He was such a miserable president that the republicans won the biggest landslide ever after him, scoring 525 electoral college votes in 1984.

overspent to a FAR lesser degree than Reagan. In fact, even though fiscal conservatism is all about "minimal government", in such a capacity as the intent is to make government smaller, to make the government financial drain smaller - Reagan seems to have failed utterly miserably. Fiscal conservative policies in America are as old as the nation itself. Originally the idea was to have a federal government that intruded as little as possible on the lives of Americans, that maintained a minimal military and as such, spent as little as possible at all times, thus keeping us free from the temptation to use a bloated military offensively, yet leave us able to rapidly expand the military, should the need arise. So in the terms of classical conservatism, Reagan falls flat. He may be a hero to the neo-cons, but judging by their political methods, they are a gross abomination of American ideals.

Jim, again I don't see why you can't disagree without being disagreeable. I don't call liberals abominations. Clinton used the IRS to investigate his political opponents - that doesn't make all democrats abominations.

We all hopefully share a love of country, and desire everyone in our nation to prosper. We all have different ideas on the best path to that. I would be *MORE* than happy to allow a lot of experimentation in government programs *if* they were allowed to fail if they achieved no results. Ie., you want a program to increase literacy? Fine. Lets pilot test it. And if it works, and is more cost effective than other programs -we'll expand the program. But if it doesn't work.. it *dies*. No further funding. Clearly defined goals. Clearly defined targets. Clearly defined success or failure.

I think liberals believe that the goernment is or should be the shining focus of what america is. America is great because we have laws against wiretaps, america is great because we spend 1 trillion dollars on welfare programs.

Whereas I believe that government is a necessary evil. The strength of america is in its people, is in its economy, is in its generosity. We have 300 million people living and working - and much that is good in this country has *nothing* to do with government.

The USSR was forced to collapse, through political intrigue most of all. Unfortunately, our method of causing this, was by convincing OPEC to increase oil production. The resulting increase in supply caused the price of oil to plummet dramatically, and due to the USSR sustaining its economy on oil exports, it ended the cold war, and caused all of the nifty things we associate with that. Unfortunately, it did also cause a lot of destabilization in the Middle East.

Uhuh.

Exactly when were you calling the middle east stable..
during the arab israeli war of the 60's? The oil embargo of the 70's? The Kuwait/Iraq/Iran wars of the 80s? The Israeli/palestinian intidefada?

See, if you read Kissinger's book diplomacy, it documents instability in the area dating back - oh well long before Reagan.

According to the the son of the last shah of Iran's book. It was Jimmy Carter's pressure on his father that caused him to abdicate. Leading to Khomeini, the capture of the american embassy, and the world facing the imminent possibility of Iran with nuclear weapons.

So indirectly, mister Reagan is partially responsible for the debacle we face now.

Absolutely and patently false. According, once again, the government report on the economy, Reagan almost broke the 10% unemployment mark, and had the highest unemployment rate recorded (probably only surpassed by the Great Depression).

Reagan did almost break the 10% unemployment , here is the link to the Bureau of labor statistics.

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/Surv...ds=Annual+Data

Jim you may be too young to remember it - but the term the misery index was coined during the carter years because of how crappy the economy was doing. Unemployment + inflaction of 20.7 percent.

Yes, regan inherited a crappy situation - but at the end of his first term, the misery index was 11.8 - and lower at the end of his second term. When he arrived in office unemployment was 7.2% - when he left it was 5.5%.

In fact, LBJ had about the lowest unemployment possible (~3%), which stabilized under Nixon and Carter to more moderate levels, and then skyrocketed under Reagan. Bush Sr managed to still give Clinton a 7.5% unemployment rate, which he pushed down to 4%, just in time for it to start growing again under Bush Jr (while we've started cutting off people's benefits, and thus not considering them unemployed once their benefits end - whether they are working or not).

I'm not going to respond to every fallacy, but .. where do you have the idea that people are not considered unemployed once their benefits end?

I mean factually, our benefits were always supposed to end. When they were originally passed collecting unemployment was called the 5240 club - you could collect 40dollars for 52 weeks.
Unemployment was supposed to help you get through a tough spot - not be a lifestyle choice.

And generally americans support the idea of helping people through tough spots - were just not keen on the idea of you subsiding on welfare indefinitely.

Lastly, there are thousands of articles written on people that are un or under employed but have given up looking. No one I know considers them employed. No one I know has accurate figures for the number of these people, including you.

Inflation is a more complicated issue, as while the average citizen has many reasons to hate inflation, our contrived method of finance requires a certain level of inflation in order to function smoothly. Therefore, unless you have studied this effect in full (for example, 2% inflation is called a "recession", even though the economy is technically still growing), then it is hard to argue which President actually has the healthiest levels of inflation while in office (though most would agree it seems Carter had too high inflation, and Bush Jr had too low, what falls between is not clear cut, plus Republicans seem to want to blame GW's woes on Clinton, why can't we blame Nixon for some of Carter's tribulations....?).

If you read my actual previous quotes I believe that trends certainly last beyond presidents. Its one of the many reasons I am opposed to the statistics you tried to use to establish that democrats were better than republicans.

I certainly do believe that carter inherited some of his problems - but I also think that carters poor handling of the economy, poor handling of the oil embargo, poor handling of the shah of iran - and hundreds of other problems qualify him as a poor president.

Public opinion does not alter the facts of the matter. Honestly, I care much less for what people think, than I do about what actually achieves desirable results. Unfortunately, we have been proving time and time again in this country that people will act from a basis of opinion, rather than fact, and that it often provides us with undesirable results.

Only because there are many ways to interpret fact.
Right now we have 4.7% unemployment, 3.1% inflation. Would you seriously try to argue that things are good? But thats what you tried to do with the statistics before. People may not be able to quote facts and statistics - but they know when a country is doing well.

but then again, it seems readily apparent that Clinton/Gore were even more loved and respected by the world community, but since you like to downplay that contribution, I don't think you value it highly as anything more than as a tool to try to prove your other points.

Being liked or respected is not the objective, nor the measure of our leaders, but it can be a side effect of being an effective politician.

I believe that clinton was an incredibly skillful politician. But I don't see what his lasting contribution will be. What accomplishment will he be remembered for? I think he will be generally remembered for a good economy, refurbishing the democratic image, monica lewinsky and being impeached.