"Compassionate Conservative"
I should start off by saying that although I am an angry liberal in Mass., I'm not actually that angry. At least, I'm not an angry person. I am very angry w/ the way things are going in this country, and I tend to get alittle fired up now and again. However, I'm not one of those people who gets their point across by using anger. I'd rather use words. I mentioned in my "coming soon" post that I am very annoyed w/ all the right-wingers who think that somehow they have a monopoly on being patriotic. I also constantly hear the pundits on TV using the word "liberal" as if it's a bad word. I have noticed that many on the left have internalized that, and therefore many hide from the word. Well, I'm hear to say that I am proud to be a liberal. I take it as a compliment to be considered a liberal. To me, liberal means open-minded, caring, unbiased, accepting of others, understanding and most of all, American. Why is it that we allow others to put us down for having those qualities? I don't know, can someone else tell me?
I have started this site to get some things off my chest, not to bash Republicans. Although, let's face it, I'll have to do some bashing if I'm talking about the "Republicans" of today. I put the word in quotes because today's Republicans couldn't be more different from the true Republicans of old. George Bush II uses the phrase "compassionate conservative" to describe himself, and many of his republican friends signed on to use this saying for themselves. Let's break that down. There's two parts, one compassionate, one conservative. Is George Bush and his cronies compassionate? I think we all know the answer to that question. They laugh at us when we talk about all the innocent Iraqis that are being killed each day of this God-awful war. They talk about the 2500+ American servicemen who have been killed in Iraq as if they were born to die for George Bush. He has yet to attend a funeral of any of those men. He blows off their family members that would like to actually speak to him(ex. Cindy Sheehan) and instead gives a select few of them a chance to meet w/ him for a nice juicy photo op to show how much he cares. He is in favor of the death penalty, and not just in favor of it. As Governor of Texas, he proudly put to death many men, while using his death count as something to brag about to his right wing friends. Now, I'm not saying that if someone is pro death penalty they're not compassionate. I know some very compassionate people that are in favor of the death penalty. All I'm saying is that if you take George Bush's core beliefs they are anything but compassionate.
Now, let's take the word "conservative". Many people don't realize that George Bush II is anything but conservative. He could be considered a social conservative, although I tend to believe those beliefs are the least important to him, if he believes in them at all. A TRUE conservative mainly believes in limited spending in government, limited power for the government over their people, and very much against America getting involved in foreign conflicts and pre-emptive wars. Obviously, there are many more aspects to their beliefs, but those are some of the very core of conservatism. Now, I'm not saying that all conservatives hold these beliefs, but for the most part they are widely agreed upon by true conservatives. Now, take George Bush- He has taken record surpluses handed to him by the Clinton administration, and flipped them into record deficits in less than six years. FLIP-FLOP!!!! Yes, we are at war, but in that case a conservative would not be cutting taxes for the top dogs in society. If anything, they would probably figure out a way to raise taxes for the top percentage so as not to go broke. Besides, a conservative wouldn't have spent 1/2 trillion dollars on an unnecessary war anyway. Then, look at George's record of claiming more and more power. Not only has he taken it upon himself to basically ignore the rule of law whenever he feels fit, but he has given sweeping powers to the rest of government. The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the so called "Homeland Security" Department are all gaining more and more power while the Republican majority closes their eyes to the true tenets of conservatism. Read an interview with William Buckley, a real conservative, about this topic at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/22/eveningnews/main1826838.shtml. We are at war, and I do wanna be protected, but not this way. We cannot allow terrorist thugs like Mohammed Atta or Osama Bin Laden to change our way of life. Of course we need to adjust some laws & procedures to deal with new and different threats, but they are going way too far. It scares the hell out of me that the Patriot Act and the Bush team special projects will most likely continue to grow in power and their reach. Think RICO act. The act was originally meant to go after the MAFIA, but it's since been used to go after gangs, drug dealers, pro- life extremist groups, animal rights groups, etc. etc. Much like the Patriot Act, the definitions were broadly defined, which meant they the law could be used on almost anyone. The vague definition of terrorism in these laws and statutes scare me. I don't think it's crazy to think that in 10,15 or even 50 years someone could claim that dealers and gangsters are "terrorizing" the neighborhood and are therefore "terrorists". How about a bank robber? Couldn't he be a terrorist too? I'm not saying these people shouldn't be prosecuted, but they should be allowed all the rights American citizens are used to.
Lastly, as previously stated, it is not conservative to start pre-emptive wars for bogus reasons. Some "conservatives" today are even advocating attacking Syria and Iran. They think the U.S. is unstoppable, and we can push our beliefs and way of life on everyone else. Have they learned nothing from places like Iraq or Gaza? Obviously, they are not truly paying attention. These people are not conservative, nor are they liberal or moderate. They are reckless, power hungry politicians. They have spent government money like it's burning a hole in their pocket while teaming up with Big Oil to make millions of dollars at the expense of the American people. Bush & co. ignore laws that he doesn't like by having some low level attorney on the WH staff write up some new interpretation of laws that have been accepted for years.
As you can probably tell, I get very annoyed with the term "compassionate conservative". It is obviously used to fool people, and it does. Who could be against a compassionate conservative? I hate to admit that my first ever presidential vote was for George Bush. At that point, I wasn't paying much attention to politics, but I still wanted to vote. I fell for the term compassionate conservative. Hell, it sounded good. Of course, now that i pay attention, i wouldn't vote for someone using that tag, whether it was a lie or legitimate, because i am not conservative. I should say, however, that I do respect true conservatives and their beliefs. It's the neo-conservatives of the new milennium that I have lost respect for, and it appears that the majority of American people are beginning to feel the same way.
posted by ROCK at
3:46 PM
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