Nosmo's dialogue

[Nosmo King]

I've been wondering why I should listen to and accept the views of Conservatives.

It's disconcerting because I believe in open debate. I believe that the constitution was wrought by compromise. I believe that this nation is served best when there is loyal opposition from which ever party/ideology is in the minority.

But those virtues are seen as vices by contemporary American Conservatives. So I ask again, why I should listen to and accept the views of Conservatives?

Conservatism is constantly on the wrong side of history. Every effort to bring about real genuine freedoms have been resisted by Conservatives. From Slavery through women's suffrage to Jim Crow and women's rights right down to today and LGBT equality, the Conservatives have made what should be a slam dunk in the name of Liberty into a struggle.

Conservatives claim to uphold Christian virtues while calling fro the rejection of children seeking asylum here in the Land of the Free. Christian virtues while demeaning, degrading and discriminating against the LGBT community (a community that seeks only tolerance and equality while committing no infractions against the law)

Conservatives see profit as the one noble aspect of corporate activities. Wage stagnation, pollution, shoddy and dangerous products are issues ignored by the Right.

Conservatives will fight tooth and nail to keep the deadliest weapons on our streets claiming it's their right to own weapons designed for warfare while they resist every effort to grant equal rights to their fellow citizens.

It leaves me incredulous.

Conservatives seem to admire the 'style' of Vladimir Putin while they over look the substance of this villain. They further accuse the President of the United States of appearing foolish, feminine or aloof in comparison to the authoritarian Putin. All while the Conservatives want smaller government, as if Putin shares their dreams.

I know that this thread will be called 'trolling' by some Conservatives. Some will show the depths of their intellect and call me and my fellow Liberals all manner of names, thinking that they are winning a debate. But I had these thoughts on my mind for some time now and I think it would be healthy for our nation if we cleared the air and determined what the virtues of Conservatism are so at least I could take them seriously again.

 

[The Rabbi]

It is trolling. You should accept the views of conservatives because you get your ass kicked in every debate with them, where you are reduced to name calling and saying "nuh-uh" when you dont abandon it altogether. You are unable to formulate a reasonable thesis and then defend it with facts and evidence. For someoone like that there is no persuasion.

 

[Nosmo King]

It is trolling. You should accept the views of conservatives because you get your ass kicked in every debate with them, where you are reduced to name calling and saying "nuh-uh" when you dont abandon it altogether. You are unable to formulate a reasonable thesis and then defend it with facts and evidence. For someoone like that there is no persuasion.

That's your opinion, but it does nothing to advance your cause.

 

[Katzndogz]

Obviously a liberal should not even discuss anything with a conservative. I know that I don't pay the slightest bit of attention to liberals. They still think the illegals flooding into the country are children, when those children are mostly full grown men who have already started killing Americans. Don't accept the views or values of conservatives. Just recognize that the nation has divided and getting further and further apart. Eventually the fracture lines will be so large there will be no point to even calling it one country.

 

[Nosmo King]

Obviously a liberal should not even discuss anything with a conservative. I know that I don't pay the slightest bit of attention to liberals. They still think the illegals flooding into the country are children, when those children are mostly full grown men who have already started killing Americans. Don't accept the views or values of conservatives. Just recognize that the nation has divided and getting further and further apart. Eventually the fracture lines will be so large there will be no point to even calling it one country.

Not a very optimistic outlook, which is a real shame. I still think there is much more that unites this nation than divides it. And simply walling off the political opposition is not a remedy for anything but further paralyzing partisanship.

 

[Peach]

Obviously a liberal should not even discuss anything with a conservative. I know that I don't pay the slightest bit of attention to liberals. They still think the illegals flooding into the country are children, when those children are mostly full grown men who have already started killing Americans. Don't accept the views or values of conservatives. Just recognize that the nation has divided and getting further and further apart. Eventually the fracture lines will be so large there will be no point to even calling it one country.

Not a very optimistic outlook, which is a real shame. I still think there is much more that unites this nation than divides it. And simply walling off the political opposition is not a remedy for anything but further paralyzing partisanship.

I agree, the few extremists have no voice in the Republican party...........except for VP selection.

 

[bendog]

Imo, on all the various political and econ issues you mention there is an argument to be made for 'on the other hand."

However, your point on the "no compromise" is, imo, unassailable. It's akin to the secessionist movement of 1861. Nothing Lincoln could have done in terms of guaranteeing slave owners property rights, or even guaranteeing the South a 50-50 power split with the North on issues like tariffs, would have been good enough. The moment Lincoln was elected there was no option. Arguably Buchanan failed to offer such compromises when there was still a possibility, but that doesn't change the reality that under the American system, once there is no compromise govt cannot function. I'm not putting all the blame on the gop, but it's inescapable that the 40 or so House TMP folks, and Cruz and Lee, refuse any compromise.

In that respect, Obama is a bit like Lincoln, and yeah I think there's a race component. Though being in Miss and with the senate race, the racist element of the gop isn't really hidden. So, maybe someone else would dispute that.

At any rate, I notice that the gop contenders from Paul to Christie to Ryan have rejected the no compromise position. So, I'm hopeful it'll get better.

 

[norwegen]

The Whig science of politics, even when not called conservatism, has been on the right side of the American Revolution, of abolition, of equality. It has been on the winning side of history, its first real blow being dealt it during the Progressive Era.

Now it is losing, and the kind of tripe exhibited in the OP just keeps kicking and kicking and kicking until America has been transformed.

 

[The Rabbi]

It is trolling. You should accept the views of conservatives because you get your ass kicked in every debate with them, where you are reduced to name calling and saying "nuh-uh" when you dont abandon it altogether. You are unable to formulate a reasonable thesis and then defend it with facts and evidence. For someoone like that there is no persuasion.

That's your opinion, but it does nothing to advance your cause.

Of course its my opinion. But based on fact and past experience. You cannot get over the idea that corporations are mean nasty beings intent on screwing people while the government is a nice benevolent institution with the purest motives. And it doesnt matter how many times both the theory and history contradict your view,you persist in it.

 

[R.D.]

“It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so." Ronald Reagan

No point in saying anymore because RR said it best.

 

[Kosh]

Obviously a liberal should not even discuss anything with a conservative. I know that I don't pay the slightest bit of attention to liberals. They still think the illegals flooding into the country are children, when those children are mostly full grown men who have already started killing Americans. Don't accept the views or values of conservatives. Just recognize that the nation has divided and getting further and further apart. Eventually the fracture lines will be so large there will be no point to even calling it one country.

Not a very optimistic outlook, which is a real shame. I still think there is much more that unites this nation than divides it. And simply walling off the political opposition is not a remedy for anything but further paralyzing partisanship.

I agree, the few extremists have no voice in the Republican party...........except for VP selection.

And yet the far left continues to show they know nothing beyond their programmed talking points and propaganda.

 

[Nosmo King]

Not a very optimistic outlook, which is a real shame. I still think there is much more that unites this nation than divides it. And simply walling off the political opposition is not a remedy for anything but further paralyzing partisanship.

I agree, the few extremists have no voice in the Republican party...........except for VP selection.

And yet the far left continues to show they know nothing beyond their programmed talking points and propaganda.

That's odd. It seems that is precisely what we on the Left think of bumper sticker Conservative thinking.

There isn't much consistency in the Conservative argument when children are rejected and the position is bolstered by Christian zeal.

 

[The Rabbi]

Not a very optimistic outlook, which is a real shame. I still think there is much more that unites this nation than divides it. And simply walling off the political opposition is not a remedy for anything but further paralyzing partisanship.

I agree, the few extremists have no voice in the Republican party...........except for VP selection.

And yet the far left continues to show they know nothing beyond their programmed talking points and propaganda.

You could take any issue. Like the Hobby Lobby decision. I'd like to see how many libs opposing it think HL does not cover contraceptives for their employees. Or how many understand that Pres. Obama could solve the issue through EO, as the Court suggested. I'd bet not many.
It isnt that they dont know anything, it's that whatever they know is wrong.

 

[Nosmo King]

It is trolling. You should accept the views of conservatives because you get your ass kicked in every debate with them, where you are reduced to name calling and saying "nuh-uh" when you dont abandon it altogether. You are unable to formulate a reasonable thesis and then defend it with facts and evidence. For someoone like that there is no persuasion.

That's your opinion, but it does nothing to advance your cause.

Of course its my opinion. But based on fact and past experience. You cannot get over the idea that corporations are mean nasty beings intent on screwing people while the government is a nice benevolent institution with the purest motives. And it doesnt matter how many times both the theory and history contradict your view,you persist in it.

If you had my experiences here in Pittsburgh since the mid 1970s, you might have a different outlook. The steel mills polluted the sky, earth and water, then packed up and took the middle class jobs to Asia for greater profit.

Tell me how noble that was.

 

[Katzndogz]

There is no walling off to do. It's been done. What distinguishes America today and pre Civil War America is that the north wanted the Union to stay together. They wanted the south. Liberals today don't want conservatives at all. Another thing is that in pre civil war America there were differences but many similarities and neither side looked to foreign interests for support. Liberals see the future in the gangs and thugs of central and south America. Conservatives are increasingly looking for kindred out of the hemisphere.

 

[The Rabbi]

That's your opinion, but it does nothing to advance your cause.

Of course its my opinion. But based on fact and past experience. You cannot get over the idea that corporations are mean nasty beings intent on screwing people while the government is a nice benevolent institution with the purest motives. And it doesnt matter how many times both the theory and history contradict your view,you persist in it.

If you had my experiences here in Pittsburgh since the mid 1970s, you might have a different outlook. The steel mills polluted the sky, earth and water, then packed up and took the middle class jobs to Asia for greater profit.

Tell me how noble that was.

Sorry but what does that have to do with anything?

The steel mills also provided factory jobs with outsized wages, so big that companies couldn't continue offering them and still compete in the market.
But that's irrelevant. Your personal experience is fairly irrelevant here. And since then Pittsburg has recovered its economic base through, yeah, corporations.

 

[Nosmo King]

Of course its my opinion. But based on fact and past experience. You cannot get over the idea that corporations are mean nasty beings intent on screwing people while the government is a nice benevolent institution with the purest motives. And it doesnt matter how many times both the theory and history contradict your view,you persist in it.

If you had my experiences here in Pittsburgh since the mid 1970s, you might have a different outlook. The steel mills polluted the sky, earth and water, then packed up and took the middle class jobs to Asia for greater profit.

Tell me how noble that was.

Sorry but what does that have to do with anything?

The steel mills also provided factory jobs with outsized wages, so big that companies couldn't continue offering them and still compete in the market.
But that's irrelevant. Your personal experience is fairly irrelevant here. And since then Pittsburg has recovered its economic base through, yeah, corporations.

If the wages were so cripplingly high, one might assume that there are mansions scattered all through our valley. That yacht clubs and stables are as common as food pantries and homeless shelters. The wages were never that high and they were negotiated in good faith by both labor and management.

And Pittsburgh's recovery had more to do with higher education than further corporate involvement.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

The desperate propensity of many conservatives to lie is both telling and troubling; to lie, to distort, to spin, to contrive, and then seek to propagate those lies in the hope they're perceived to be true.

Take, for example, the economic sanctions against Russia as a consequence of Ukraine.

The rightist internet was ablaze with the lie that the president had 'banned' AK 47s via an EO.

Did the conservatives who contrived and propagated this lie know the truth? Did they care? Did they seek to remain willfully ignorant? And why were there no conservatives of good faith and good conscience who knew the truth, that the president did not in fact 'ban' AK 47s, speak out to denounce the lie?

Sadly, conservative dogma is evolving from being simply wrong to being both wrong and nothing more than a pack of lies.

 

[bendog]

The Whig science of politics, even when not called conservatism, has been on the right side of the American Revolution, of abolition, of equality. It has been on the winning side of history, its first real blow being dealt it during the Progressive Era.

Now it is losing, and the kind of tripe exhibited in the OP just keeps kicking and kicking and kicking until America has been transformed.

Your choice of the term whig party is interesting. The Whig's were certainly conservative of their era, but I think today's gop, or the TPM, is really more similar to the Know Nothings. It's a derisive term today, but in it's ear, Know Nothing referred to the party's refusal to give concrete answers to questions of what it's policies were. Ask a TMP "what does 'strict adherence to the constitution' actually mean," and you get nothing.

While the Know Nothings are commonly pilloried for their anti-immigrant (and catholic) beliefs, the Party actually arose from the Whigs imploding over the Kansas-Nebraska compromise on Slavery. The two party system collapsed, because the Whigs (conservatives) were split on the issue. The Know Nothings were no more successful in reaching a compromise.

Presidential Elections - U.S. Presidents - HISTORY.com

Election of 1856

James Buchanan vs. Millard Fillmore vs. John C. Freemont
The 1856 election was waged by new political coalitions and was the first to confront directly the issue of slavery. The violence that followed the Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the old political system and past formulas of compromises. The Whig party was dead. Know-Nothings nominated Millard Fillmore to head their nativist American party and chose Andrew J. Donelson for vice president. The Democratic party, portraying itself as the national party, nominated James Buchanan for president and John C. Breckinridge for vice president. Its platform supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act and noninterference with slavery. This election saw the emergence of a new, sectional party composed of ex-Whigs, Free-Soil Democrats, and antislavery groups. The Republican party opposed the extension of slavery and promised a free-labor society with expanded opportunities for white workers. It nominated military hero, John C. Frémont of California for president and William L. Dayton for vice president.

The campaign centered around “Bleeding Kansas.” The battle over the concept of popular sovereignty sharpened northern fears about the spread of slavery and southern worries about northern interference. The physical assault by Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina on Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate heightened northern resentment of southern aggressiveness.

Although the Democratic candidate, Buchanan, won with 174 electoral votes and 1,838,169 votes, the divided opposition gained more popular votes. The Republican party captured 1,335,264 votes and 114 in the electoral college, and the American party received 874,534 popular and 8 electoral votes. The Republicans’ impressive showing–carrying eleven of sixteen free states and 45 percent of northern ballots–left the South feeling vulnerable to attacks on slavery and fearful the Republicans would soon capture the government.

 

[The Rabbi]

If you had my experiences here in Pittsburgh since the mid 1970s, you might have a different outlook. The steel mills polluted the sky, earth and water, then packed up and took the middle class jobs to Asia for greater profit.

Tell me how noble that was.

Sorry but what does that have to do with anything?

The steel mills also provided factory jobs with outsized wages, so big that companies couldn't continue offering them and still compete in the market.
But that's irrelevant. Your personal experience is fairly irrelevant here. And since then Pittsburg has recovered its economic base through, yeah, corporations.

If the wages were so cripplingly high, one might assume that there are mansions scattered all through our valley. That yacht clubs and stables are as common as food pantries and homeless shelters. The wages were never that high and they were negotiated in good faith by both labor and management.

And Pittsburgh's recovery had more to do with higher education than further corporate involvement.

Why woud someone assume factory workers making top wages would still be able to buy mansions?

See, this is the problem. You throw out irrelevant crap with every post and take that as some kind of proof of something.
Steel workers earned outsized wages. T hat they were negotiated doesnt change that fact, nor the fact that it make Pittsburg's steel products uncompetitive in the world market.