The right will argue themselves into the bronze age if they don’t soon snap awake.

Rick Santorum is liberal, Ron Paul is liberal, Newt Gingrich is liberal, Mitt Romney is liberal, George Bush is liberal.

Rand Paul is smaller than the old man?  He must be a midget. And not just a mental midget. 

Ron Paul is right. The attempt by the cable news outlets to belittle Ron Paul and praise Rick Santorum has been so transparent. It’s pathetic. Everyone thinks the cable news programs are a complete joke. Ron Paul gets more support from the troops than all the other Republicans combined. So, I guess you could say that the cable news programs hate the troops.

Obama 2012!

I am loving the new Ron Paul. He is starting to seem more aggressive. He is not taking any B.S. and calling these media thugs out for their distortions. Good for you Ron, NO more Mr. Nice Guy. It is do or die time.

NO ONE BUT RON PAUL 2012! End the Fed, End the Wars!!

Ron Paul 2012!

I actually think it will finish like this;

#1.  Paul.
#2.  Santorum.
#3.  Romney

At least in Iowa.

Why is liberal such a bad word

Here’s a secret. Everyone in this country knows Ron Paul is the best and brightest candidate America has ever known. No one thinks he simplifies history and economics to the point of caricature in a way that appeals to his mostly young supporters who have been fed on conspiracy theories that are, more often than not, completely unsupported by even a shred of fact. Everyone in the world wants to elect Paul, but the RINOs at Fox and the so-called historians in this country keep pointing out basic facts to smear him. Ron Paul actually won 2008 by a landslide thanks to write-in votes, but Fox and MSNBC covered it up to protect the Fed and the Jewish banking mafia. Anyone who thinks Ron Paul is a crackpot hates America and hates our troops because the Ron Paul office says so. Wake up, sheeple. Alex Jones has been telling you it how it is in his mind for years. Ron Paul is the second coming of the Reagan-Christ. 

Here is Santorum’s record in case anyone wanted to know 

http://www.issues2000.org/Rick_Santorum.htm 

Agreed.  (Although since some of them are stuck in the Stone Age, it might just be an improvement for the party.)

Sadly, you sound exactly like my own mother.  I keep trying to tell myself she’s just an Internet troll working her magic IRL, but I can’t make myself believe it.

If intelligent people don’t listen and think and respond to Ron Paul’s message, we will find that our rights will continue to erode and our economy will only get worse. The whole premise of waiting for the economy to recover because the middle class will buy enough on credit to bring back jobs is bogus now. The middle class has been decimated and credit isn’t available. Our jobs have gone overseas, and they sure won’t come back under Obama/Romney/Gingrich or Santorum.

Wow, you’re hilarious, how typical instead of citing any facts you resort to insults.

I sense a touch of sarcasm. Maybe you think the way things are going are fine. $15 trillion dollars in debt is no big deal. The fact that we lose more veterans to suicide than in combat is no biggie. The fact that our troops are stretched thin and are supporting his campaign more than all other GOP candidates combined is not a story. Just call Obama a socialist and the media will love you. The fact that the FED “loaned” trillions of dollars to banks at .001% is capitalism. If anyone criticizes the insane monetary policies just call them a nazi and they will go away. Good job.

Alex who? I support Ron and I am the furthest thing from a Cons Theorist. Maybe you shouldn’t generalize people?? You actaully have any valid reason to dislike Ron or just the usual baseless insults?

Because conservatives naturally tend to trust authority and fall in line with whatever the party line is, and Fox News and the Republican Party use the word like that.  They’ve been using the word “compromise” like that since Newt Gingrich was the Speaker of the House, and it’s gotten worse than ever with this bunch of House Republicans.

They’re even starting to use the word “moderate” like that too, which is almost as scary as hearing phrases like “ideological purity” so often from the right.  And they talk about the “liberal thought police”?  The hypocrisy is approaching the level of sheer delusion at this point!  If I’m stuck with a two-party system, I’d like both sides to be something approaching sane, not just the left…

Because it means raise my taxes and give it to people who sit around all day and do nothing. Conservative means raise my taxes to go bomb people who I’ve never met and I have no problem with.

Well David, although I have my own views on abortion and gay marriage, I certainly do not consider them make or break issues to our nation, Santorum needs to get a new gig, we have much bigger fish to fry.

http://tvmedia.ign.com/tv/image/article/975/975969/star-trek-20090423033219486-000.jpg

The photo looks like a clip from an episode of Star Trek.

End America! Yay Ron Paul 2012

If you’re going to vote for Ron Paul, you might as well vote for Barack Obama. Both stand for tyranny and oppression, but at least Obama has a chance of winning.

We are broke lady!! We can no longer be the world’s policeman.

Your taxes go to people who post at Mediaite?

Because liberals have always wanted a dictatorship; in their current messiah they might actually get what they’ve yearned for since 1933, and actively worked for since 1968. The liberal manifesto is explained in the book “Prairie Fire,” and embodied in the chanting mobs you see at every Democratic/liberal/progressive volks-movement. Liberals cluster about authority like herd animals, always seeking a lord-of-the-flies moment in a Kurtz-like leader. For a short lesson in liberalism, read “The Lottery.”

Everyone…No one…Anyone…sheeple…

Spoken like a true acolyte of tyranny, so I guess you are a good spokesman for Paul.

You’re probably right. Likely, Obama will get a second term, no matter how many votes he receives.

Compared to Paul’s only getting one bill ever signed into law despite all his years?

On Dear, another Obama Drone about to crash. Obama should try a new campaign slogan after signing the NDAA Bill.   “Assimilate or Die”.

Yeah, liberals like John Locke and Thomas Jefferson have always wanted a dictatorship.

Ron’s point about Santorum is that he is a big government guy. He admitted exactly that in his book “It Takes a Family.”

There is very little difference between the D’s and R’s when it comes to foreign policy, monetary policy, federalism versus nationalism. They only play around the edges of the same New Deal/Progressive era structure. They debate vigorously along a very narrow band of establishment orthodoxy. All other ideas aren’t even considered.

You get the same thing with Romney, Santorum, Ginrich as you get with establishment Democratic party drones like Obama. The system doesn’t change.

Speaking of cavemen, does that last post pass for wit in troglodyte circles? Perhaps you belong in the Stoned Age.

I think you have Stockholm Syndrome. You have fallen in love with your establishment captors.

Obama, Santorum, Romney, et al. are all offering the same things. The size and scope  of government does not change. Only Paul is addressing changing monetary policy, foreign policy, and the federal government’s ever-increasing police state. Please wake up out of your D/R false paradigm.

Yeah, because he’s so much different than the other establishment drones. (end sarcasm)

With the exception of the second guy on the list you are correct. All of those establishment R’s increased government greatly. Pay no mind to the rhetoric. The parties do the same things. Obama has increased the military budget and accelerated the police state, especially the War on Drugs.

I see Nut Rockhead always finds the time to troll on Paul articles. How do you find so much time to stalk?

I thought you were FoxNews at first. Your article is a reverse of exactly what FoxNews does to Paul everyday. Thank you for unwittingly proving our point.

Your ideas are doing a bang-up job of ending America all by their lonesome. All we have to do is stay on course. I suspect that Romney, Santorum, and Obama can capable fill that role. I think you have found your candidates.

Any of the Above 2012!

It’s not–at least in the classical sense of the word. Paul is actually a classical liberal. This should not be confused with modern liberalism.

Modern liberalism came out of the progressive era. The early progressives so turned off the American people that they stopped using the term. The hi-jacked the term liberal, which had a very different meaning before that era.

Classical liberalism is limited government, laws based on the concept of the individual, natural law, and free markets. Classical liberals don’t think that the government should initiate force.

Modern liberalism is nothing more than democratic socialism. The individual becomes a slave to special interests. He is made responsible for others by threat of force (taxation and govt. programs). Individual rights are replaced with non-existent collective rights (which are nothing more than demands.) It is a philosophy of central planning.

Ron Paul rejects modern liberalism. When it is understood that central planning is base of the system, one can understand why Paul thinks men like Romney and Santorum are liberals. They like big government for conservative ends. It’s a contradiction in terms.

We operate under a document approved in 1787 because it is designed to move with slow and deliberate intent.  While temporal passions have dissolved the social compacts designed by other nations (and state governments) we move forward through the growth of often painful consensus.  Radical devolution, such as it is imagined by Paul, is deeply antithetical to our American ideals.  Paul would create something post-American… a fantasy embraced by those desperately uncomfortable with the present and terrified of the future.  

LOL! It’s you who loves an all-powerful central government. Modern liberalism is authoritarianism. They enslave the individual in the name of the collective. There is nothign more authoritarian than that.

And to accuse Paul supporters of being party hacks is laughable. We hate the establishment Republican party and its ugly sister the Democratic party. Perhaps you are the party drone. Perhaps you believe everything MSNBC tells you. Maybe you reflexively defend Obama and other D’s because you think there is some great chasm between the party establishments.

You are just the opposite side of the coin. You are too “ideologically pure” to see your own hypocrisy. Start with Glenn Greenwald’s article the other day about Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies. He exposes why so many on the left are shamed by Paul.

Yep, he was talking to you Nut Rockhead.

Those were classical liberals. Learn the difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism. They are nearly opposite. Do a Wiki search for a primer.

Rick Santorum named as one of the most corrupt politicians in 2006.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/index.php/press/entry/crew-releases-second-annual-most-corrupt-members-of-congress-report/

Because, in hiding out in greater numbers in the “liberal” wing of American politics, Euro-socialist progressives took once honored, quintessentially American concepts of limited, constitutional government, equality under the law and freedom of the individual and trashed them when they subsumed the left in their redistributive, pro-government mindset antithetical to that which this country was founded upon.

The left is not “liberal.”  Liberal has been turned into a code word for collectivist, statist policies, political abusive (not correct, but abusive) anti-intellectualism, divisive agenda and identity politics and use of centralized power to counter free-market forces for the promise of unattainable social justice.

Conservatives, those who are true to the name and not fallen under the sway of progressives on the right, “conserve” the original spirit of classical liberalism

Evidence that the only philosophical debate remaining in the country is on the right. I can see why the left is confused.

…move forward…
…growth…
…devolution…
…terrified of the future…

Hey, look, everyone.  It’s a socialist with his inevitability reasoning.

Untrue. The left is rife with debate. The right is on the verge of divorce. You, in fact, have confused the two.

Who knew that Spock is a  Ron-bot!

…He…
…’s…
…with…
…his…
…evita…

Hey, look, everyone.  It’s a Peronist with his band of descamisados.

Tu eres un tonto.
 

Ron Paul was called the most liberal candidate since the last 50 year by Dick Morris
Gingrich called Romney a European Socialist
Romney called Obama a European socialistGingrich called Romney a scary—”Massachusetts Moderate”
Bachmann called Gingrich a liberal

If there needs to be further proof that the GOP has gone off the cliff to the right they made the case for themselves.MODERATE is now a scary word for the GOP to use against each other.

A “true conservative” is a far right nut probably why Bachmann is at the bottom of the pack and moderates are Rommney and Gingrich,probably the reason they are at the top.The need to stop playing the Fox/Tea party game and starts running on their records and stop the flip flopping:we know their positions. 

My problem with your response is this: no one reasonable wants the debt to get bigger nor does anyone want war to escalate, yet you portray this as if it’s Paul’s position alone. I have problems with the way Obama has handled things but he has wound down Iraq and set a timetable for Afghanistan as well as agreed to pretty serious cuts to the military’s funding and the so-called entitlements. Where I disagree with Paul is how he says he would do things and the degree of change he wants. I support scaling back the Patriot Act (it’s much more complicated legislation than Paul’s supporters seem to think it is, and actually does some things everyone would agree are good, such as making banks accountable for taking dirty/terrorist money) and, in some cases, scaling back the federal government, but the government does things that are vitally necessary to protect the least powerful in our country, whereas the “Free Market” doesn’t. It’s way too long of a conversation to have on a website, but the basic gist of my argument is that Paul drastically simplifies things in a way that sounds appealing but is unworkable in real life. He’s an ideologue who believes that he has discovered some sort of secret law (less government = greater freedom) of how the world works when in fact society is much more complex than that. 

About the Fed’s loans (they were actually $13 billion, not “trillions”), they are regrettable but arose out of a situation in which banks were given too free of a hand because of deregulation. I wish the Justice Department convicted a large number of people for their role in the collapse, but we have to contend with the fact that (a) most of the shit that went on was legal, thanks to Congress and (b) powerful groups arise in any society (even a libertarian paradise) and use their power to protect themselves. Paul’s fake god–the “Free Market”–isn’t going to change that. I’m not a commie pinko, by the way. Paul makes it seem like the world is black and white and he’s the only guy who knows what’s right, which is b.s.

And finally… unarguably, if you actually read the stuff he’s said and actually wade through the newsletters that were published under his name, he’s clearly a tad racist and homophobic and he’s definitely, 100 percent a conspiracy theorist.

The “debate” on the left is to what degree they ought to fall in lockstep with their leadership.

Such can only explain how, in light of Obama’s disastrous presidency, the left failed to generate a credible protest candidate or organize a serious movement to get him to step aside.

The FED loaned $16 Trillion to banks around the world according to the audit. http://bit.ly/rVM0VY

Obama has completely failed to change Washington. He is a partner with big business and the status quo. And I don’t care about the Ron Paul newsletters. I believe in his message of personal responsibility and individual liberty. The FED is completely destroying our economy and it has to go.

http://ronpaulswanson.tumblr.com/

ROFLAL I don’t know enough about Santorum because he never seemed to be in the running so now I am investigating him. So when I saw your post I thought oh I have to check this out. Well when better than 90% of those that are named by the sight are republicans it tells you one thing. This is a biased partisan hack group. You will have to show me a site where it is closer to 60/40 either way that have any credibility because believe me there are plenty of currupt politicians from both sides and its pretty sure its pretty close to 50/50.

I see what you’re talking about, and you’re correct. I thought you were referring only to the $13 billion in “secret loans” that were originally disclosed by Bloomberg last month: 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/fed-s-once-secret-data-compiled-by-bloomberg-released-to-public.html 

Yes, in total, it was trillions. Again, that was a consequence of deregulation, not regulation. Paulites will say otherwise but their opinion is an unsubstantiated guess that ignores a lot of evidence to the contrary, at best. 

I disagree with you about the Fed (again too long of a conversation but while more transparency is needed, every major country in the world has a central bank that operates in a similar manner to help facilitate international trade and credit). In any case, just like we’ve seen with Obama, Paul would have very limited power as a president to change anything. 80 percent of what he wants to do (getting rid of agencies, repealing Civil Rights Act, etc) would be impossible because he wouldn’t have the power to do it as president. Regardless of what you think the problems are in this country, the real obstacle to political change is Congress. And I do have a problem with the newsletters. I’m not going to vote for a racist, conspiracy theorist when I think the office of president deserves someone better. 

You struggle to comprehend.  Debate is not divorce.

You struggle to push your meme onto those who don’t already agree with you politically.

As we see here, the confusion about the meaning of liberal comes from the decades-long propaganda war by conservatives.  It’s not much more than an epithet when used in this way.

This is why many on the left have abandoned the term and moved back to the term “progressive.”  The progressives passed constitutional amendments gaining the right to vote for women and the right of Americans to directly elect their senators.

When someone like Joe needs to spew hysterical lies about political opponents about “slaves to special interests” (while his own group is enslaved by corporate special interests) that’s how you know he is “conservative.” Throw in some red-baiting and racism we see what group is…the party of Joe McCarthy.

“Obama has increased the military budget and accelerated the police state, especially the War on Drugs.”

Both of which he has done in spite if his “liberal” base which opposes these things.

Obama’s presidency as disaster exemplifies an unpersuasive meme. Libertarians, moderates and evangelicals taking turns describing the other as leftist is an active and ongoing redefinition of each that pushes the aggregate, the Republican party, further to the regressive fringe is an observable phenomenon.

“Please wake up out of your D/R false paradigm.”

On the left we have been aware of this for quite some time.  I can agree with Ron Paul on many things, but when it comes to monetary policy (for example) his ideas are completely insane.  Returning to the gold standard would lead to massive deflation and economic calamity.

oh please i’ve heard this nonsense before, it’s because they consider the alternative to be far worse. you’re the ones’ with reagan’s eleventh commandment. We have no such restriction. 

I’m not a libertarian, so I’m not opposed to regulation. I just think big corporations and the government have a strangle hold on our economy and they won’t let go. Ron Paul would break that partnership up. I’m also a big Elizabeth Warren supporter, so I’m conflicted to say the least at what the best answer is. But I just want a politician to actually do what they say they will do. I want an honest politician and I don’t think Obama has been honest.

He wouldnt return to the gold standard. He would like to but it would lead to rapid deflation as you mentioned. He would legalize competing currencies that would slowly phase out the Federal reserve. i thinki in the end with the fading power of the Dollar, it would also be phased out and we would eventually return to a Gold Standard.  He does seem to be the only guy proposing any changes in a declining monetary system and would start with a FULL audit of the fed. I cant complain about that haha

It would be simpler and more effective to just nationalize the federal reserve.  Note that the partial audit of the fed was supported by Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

By all objective criteria Obama’s term has been disastrous – most specifically, that established by the man’s own administration when his policies resulted in unemployment figures (even discounting the otherworldly reporting in which those who can’t find work are after a time not accounted for in statistical data) which EXCEEDED that which was claimed would result should his policies NOT be adopted.  To affect such a poor performance, the nation’s debt has ballooned to levels undreamt of even in the final years under Bush and the Democratic legislative majority – as was predicted by those who understood the historical failings of central planning.

My truth, as opposed to your ‘meme,’ is reflected in every poll in which the American people’s negative perception is expressed of the course on which the country is headed under Obama’s stewardship.

It’s because the left has been captured, lock stock and barrel, by anti-capitalist, euro-socialist progressivism and is intellectual dead.  (And what criticism is leveled is invariably only against perceived deviation from the left wing of the left.)  Such is evidenced by the left’s unending character attacks on anyone who does not abide by their politics.

1: “By all objective criteria Obama’s term has been disastrous”
—- “most specifically”…”which EXCEEDED that which was claimed would result should his policies NOT be adopted.”
Obama inherited a jobs disaster that exploded in January of 08…
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/12/employment-summary-part-time-workers.html
The climb back to pre-crisis levels has happened while governments have shed workers.
2: “To affect such a poor performance, the nation’s debt has ballooned to levels undreamt of even in the final years under Bush and the Democratic legislative majority”
Not even close to true and almost childlike ignorance on your part.
“Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-26/republican-leaders-voted-for-drivers-of-u-s-debt-they-now-blame-on-obama.html
“The nation’s unnerving descent into debt began a decade ago with a choice, not a crisis.
In January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington would have enough money by the end of the decade to pay off everything it owed.
Voices of caution were swept aside in the rush to take advantage of the apparent bounty. Political leaders chose to cut taxes, jack up spending and, for the first time in U.S. history, wage two wars solely with borrowed funds. “In the end, the floodgates opened,” said former senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), who chaired the Senate Budget Committee when the first tax-cut bill hit Capitol Hill in early 2001.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/running-in-the-red-how-the-us-on-the-road-to-surplus-detoured-to-massive-debt/2011/04/28/AFFU7rNF_story.html
3: “failings of central planning.”
The stimulus was composed almost entirely of tax cuts and aid to states. Not central planning.
http://www.creditloan.com/infographics/obamas-economic-stimulus-plan-mapped-out/

The effects of tax cuts and moderate financial stimulus has been a return to pre-crisis GDP… a success compared to our financial doppleganger England. They responded with conservative austerity.
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/MSUN-8MXFSY?OpenDocument

Considering that Obama inherited a historic crisis while saddled with an abnormally poor Congress and he still managed to push us toward recovery… you should feel ashamed of your loud and public insistence to the contrary. My country deserves better citizens than you.

I don’t like Rick Santorum is “liberal”; most people who call themselves liberals aren’t even liberal. Santorum is however a Big Government Progressive.

It’s because the left has been captured, lock stock and barrel, “by anti-capitalist, euro-socialist progressivism and is intellectual dead.  (And what criticism is leveled is invariably only against perceived deviation from the left wing of the left.)  Such is evidenced by the left’s unending character attacks on anyone who does not abide by their politics.”
That’s such a weak argument, I could provide countless examples of liberals criticizing other liberals but I assume you already understand the fallacious nature of your statement. 

THEY”RE ALL RINOS!111!!!!!!

I disagree with paul on a number of issues as well but I think a lot of his crazier ideas would be blocked by congress. Especially since he plans on returning a number of powers of the executive branch to congress. 

Santorum might as well be a “liberal”. The word has no meaning anymore since the modern philosophy of thievery stole the name from the true liberals.(known today as libertarians) 
Modern “liberals’ are all about expanding the power and reach of powerful centralized, and inevitably oppressive,  government.
It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or Democrat, if you believe that the government MUST have a role in influencing social or economic policy or if it’s power isn’t strong enough, you are a “liberal”. 

1: “By all objective criteria Obama’s term has been disastrous”
—- “most specifically”…”which EXCEEDED that which was claimed would result should his policies NOT be adopted.”
Obama inherited a jobs disaster that exploded in January of 08…
http://www.calculatedriskblog….
The climb back to pre-crisis levels has happened while governments have shed workers.

2: “To affect such a poor performance, the nation’s debt has
ballooned to levels undreamt of even in the final years under Bush and
the Democratic legislative majority”
Not even close to true and almost childlike ignorance on your part.
“Yet
the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman
Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major
drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare
prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset
Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the
auto industry.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
“The nation’s unnerving descent into debt began a decade ago with a choice, not a crisis.
In
January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the
Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses
indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington
would have enough money by the end of the decade to pay off everything
it owed.
Voices of caution were swept aside in the rush to take
advantage of the apparent bounty. Political leaders chose to cut taxes,
jack up spending and, for the first time in U.S. history, wage two wars
solely with borrowed funds. “In the end, the floodgates opened,” said
former senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), who chaired the Senate Budget
Committee when the first tax-cut bill hit Capitol Hill in early 2001.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
3: “failings of central planning.”
The stimulus was composed almost entirely of tax cuts and aid to states. Not central planning.
http://www.creditloan.com/info...

The
effects of tax cuts and moderate financial stimulus has been a return
to pre-crisis GDP… a success compared to our financial doppleganger
England. They responded with conservative austerity.
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxb...

Considering that Obama inherited a historic crisis while saddled with an
abnormally poor Congress and he still managed to push us toward
recovery

you should feel ashamed of your loud and public insistence to the contrary. My country deserves better citizens than you.

copy pasted links + blame bush + ad hominem

My point is thus proved.

1: “copy pasted links”
— It’s called evidence from a source in academic circles. Refute it if you can.
2: “blame bush”
—Address the arguments from (conservative) Bloomberg and (liberal) W. Post. If you can… I get the sense you have neither the brain nor the heart for the effort.
3: “ad hominem”
—Sometimes an attack is honest. It came only after your ideas were dismantled. Excuse my honesty. It’s my vice.
4: “My point is thus proved.”
How sad. I will leave you alone from now on.

Quite the opposite, this site is replete with examples of moderate republicans speaking out against the tea party, the tea party speaking out against the cultural conservatives, the cultural conservatives speaking out against the libertarians and the libertarians speaking out against the moderate republicans (and any number of other possible combinations).  The left’s criticisms are reserved mainly for those seemingly standing in the way of the progressive agenda – as when they broke with Anthony Weiner in the midst of the debate regarding the debt ceiling, considering his struggles to retain his seat as a distraction (but only following herculean efforts to save him).

The rights’ criticisms against each other gets much play in places such as this one with a leftist bent (besides so that like minded people can get a chuckle out of it) to give off the impression of (and hopes of causing) irreconcilable differences within the party the right calls home.  In reality, the right is struggling to define how much rhetoric well accepted by many should be followed in actuality – what role government should play in the lives of its citizens – balanced against immediate and perceived political realities.

How sad. I will leave you alone from now on.

So you keep saying.

If you care to try I am happy to debate. Your current responses are a waste of my time. You simply don’t match up well. Read more often and a bit deeper. Maybe then you will offer either interest of challenge.

To be sure, I might not be well matched for one who supplies links to the words of others and thinks of them as indigenous arguments by which to judge the value of his own time.

Indigenous? Good God. I’ve been arguing with a child.

“The left’s criticisms are reserved mainly for those seemingly standing in the way of the progressive agenda – as when they broke with Anthony Weiner in the midst of the debate regarding the debt ceiling, considering his struggles to retain his seat as a distraction (but only following herculean efforts to save him).”I point you to dennis kucinich’s criticism of obama’s policies, the blue dog democratic coalition, the ows protesters protest against obama etc. 

“The left’s criticisms are reserved mainly for those seemingly standing in the way of the progressive agenda – as when they broke with Anthony Weiner in the midst of the debate regarding the debt ceiling, considering his struggles to retain his seat as a distraction (but only following herculean efforts to save him).”Black civil rights democrats who speak out against gay rights,   
 religious union workers who speak out on the same issue, Unions who  disagree with Environmentalists, atheists who disagree with social justice Christians, intellectuals who come into conflict with working class democrats. The fact is,  the entire party was built as an opposition party, a large tent if you will, as opposed to conservatives who more naturally represent the status quo or returning to days when the status quo was better. 

“Quite the opposite, this site is replete with examples of moderate republicans speaking out against the tea party, the tea party speaking out against the cultural conservatives, the cultural conservatives speaking out against the libertarians and the libertarians speaking out against the moderate republicans (and any number of other possible combinations).  ”And what’s the common response to either side criticizing the other? the response is to call the other side RINOs or to say they aren’t conservative. In fact, everyone in that party seems to at this time have no idea what the definition of conservative means. 

“In reality, the right is struggling to define how much rhetoric well accepted by many should be followed in actuality – what role government should play in the lives of its citizens – balanced against immediate and perceived political realities.”It’s only in the last 5 years that the right has had any expansion of intellectual thought beyond droning on about the Reagan years. There’s really only two ways to go on the spectrum of conservative domestic policy, more towards social conservative, anti gay, pro religion or focusing on fiscal policy. Compare that to the vast amount of Environmental groups, progressive economic views, civil rights advocates, pro-minority, and even blue dog groups that are within the democratic party and everything about your argument just plainly falls apart. 

Nah, thanks anyway. Us liberals sure don’t want him.

The Democratic party was hardly built as an opposition party; its modern character was already in place when it had controlled congress for decades and major urban centers for longer than that.

A fairer characterization of the Democratic party is one in which an assemblage of minor viewpoints representing different demographic groups are bought under one umbrella and made to compete for favor from a managerial elite – from which, these groups have been indoctrinated to accept, power naturally flows.

Rather, many people have different ideas of what it means to be conservative and are in he midst of a philosophical debate.

Such was the subject of my initial post.  There is a vibrancy on the right.  The refusal of those who put themselves outsides that process to acknowledge the fact is to their own disservice (especially if my views on the nature of the party of the left are at all accurate).

“A fairer characterization of the Democratic party is one in which an assemblage of minor viewpoints representing different demographic groups are bought under one umbrella and made to compete for favor from a managerial elite – from which, these groups have been indoctrinated to accept, power naturally flows.”No that’s an unfair characterization. You’re jumping to conclusions about the party instead of looking at the facts. it’s a party with more viewpoints and ideas than the current republican/conservative mainstream. It’s been that way for years. It’s only in the last couple of years that anyone besides an authoritative “reagan-esque” candidate has had any sort of a chance within the republican party. But you continue to cling to the fantasy that actual debate within the republican party hasn’t been stifled or practically silenced over the last 30 years thanks to the efforts of republican elites trying to keep the party “strong”. Debate is not something new to the democratic party, it’s why there are so many more ideas and systems of living within it.

“Rather, many people have different ideas of what it means to be conservative and are in he midst of a philosophical debate.”True, if we go back to your original point however it was about the diversity of the party. If everyone considers themselves a conservative that is apart of it, that’s hardly a good example of  diversity. 

“The Democratic party was hardly built as an opposition party; its modern character was already in place when it had controlled congress for decades and major urban centers for longer than that.”Since the late sixties it’s been the party of opposition. That’s what happened when the new left came along. 

“copy pasted links + blame bush + ad hominem”Copy and paste is what most people would call providing evidence. 

Don’t be obtuse.  Democrats were the party of power.  The “late sixties” is time period surrounded by other decades in which they maintained congressional control and dominated the governance of all major cities – for more than 40 years, in the case of the house – some states for near a century.  They only branded themselves as the party of the underdog.  Needfully, seeing as they were becoming to be seen as the war party and associated with opposition to the advancement of civil rights.  Such branding was – and remains – a lie.

I know you see me as fantasizing, but its you, I think, who are suffering under a number of illusions (it’s the word I want to use, Greg, in case you’re wondering).  As to Reagan, for instance, he remains a popular figure to whom respect is given and on whom candidates wish to model themselves for the reason that success, political and legislative, is valued.  But there only ever was one Reagan, as everyone associated with the right is well aware.  So for 30 years people have been fighting over the lessons to be drawn from his legacy; some battles have been more successful than others along with much misappropriation.  I know you mean to say Ron Paul is that only person to deviate from this, but in that you’re wrong as well.  Paul has often drawn allusions to himself and how he fits the Reagan model.

We could continue this conversation, but I have gone on about the value of time.  I’m not going to change your mind – I know you to be a stanch opponent of much of what I hold as having value – and no one else is likely paying attention any longer to the interaction..

BTW.  You should really look into markup language and blockquotes.  Such makes a post that much easier to structure – not to mention read.

“he’s clearly a tad racist and homophobic”

utter nonsense.

Put in context, it’s hard to pass a bill when the majority of congress is bought and paid for.

maybe these will interest you
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71129.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71131.html