Just what IS conservativism?

[DamnYankee]

So you are indignant that 'you or Galbraith got to choose the definition of conservatism, but that's not how it works.' Then YOU choose to define liberals.

Do you deny that Liberals claim the Constitution is a "living, breathing document"? Do you deny that Liberals claim a "general welfare clause" in the Constitution? Do you deny that ObamaCare affects every person residing in the US in the most personal and unlimited way possible?

 

[Bfgrn]

Do you deny that Liberals claim the Constitution is a "living, breathing document"? Do you deny that Liberals claim a "general welfare clause" in the Constitution? Do you deny that ObamaCare affects every person residing in the US in the most personal and unlimited way possible?

These are not new arguments DY. They have been going on for hundreds of years, and there is still no definitive answer. So you can offer your opinion, but you can not offer proof that the other side of the argument is invalid.

I stand with Thomas Jefferson, That the earth belongs to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.

Yes, H.R. 4872 - Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 affects every person residing in the US. in a POSITIVE way.

"What does health insurance reform actually mean for me?" To help, we've put together a list of some key benefits every American should know.

Let's start with how health insurance reform will expand and strengthen coverage:

* This year, children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied health insurance coverage. Once the new health insurance exchanges begin in the coming years, pre-existing condition discrimination will become a thing of the past for everyone.

* This year, health care plans will allow young people to remain on their parents' insurance policy up until their 26th birthday.

* This year, insurance companies will be banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage. This year, restrictive annual limits on coverage will be banned for certain plans. Under health insurance reform, Americans will be ensured access to the care they need.

* This year, adults who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable insurance through a temporary subsidized high-risk pool.

* In the next fiscal year, the bill increases funding for community health centers, so they can treat nearly double the number of patients over the next five years.

* This year, we'll also establish an independent commission to advise on how best to build the health care workforce and increase the number of nurses, doctors and other professionals to meet our country's needs. Going forward, we will provide $1.5 billion in funding to support the next generation of doctors, nurses and other primary care practitioners -- on top of a $500 million investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Health insurance reform will also curb some of the worst insurance industry practices and strengthen consumer protections:

* This year, this bill creates a new, independent appeals process that ensures consumers in new private plans have access to an effective process to appeal decisions made by their insurer.

* This year, discrimination based on salary will be outlawed. New group health plans will be prohibited from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that discriminate in favor of higher-wage employees.

* Beginning this fiscal year, this bill provides funding to states to help establish offices of health insurance consumer assistance in order to help individuals in the process of filing complaints or appeals against insurance companies.

* Starting January 1, 2011, insurers in the individual and small group market will be required to spend 80 percent of their premium dollars on medical services. Insurers in the large group market will be required to spend 85 percent of their premium dollars on medical services. Any insurers who don't meet those thresholds will be required to provide rebates to their policyholders.

* Starting in 2011, this bill helps states require insurance companies to submit justification for requested premium increases. Any company with excessive or unjustified premium increases may not be able to participate in the new health insurance exchanges.

Reform immediately begins to lower health care costs for American families and small businesses:

* This year, small businesses that choose to offer coverage will begin to receive tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help make employee coverage more affordable.

* This year, new private plans will be required to provide free preventive care: no co-payments and no deductibles for preventive services. And beginning January 1, 2011, Medicare will do the same.

* This year, this bill will provide help for early retirees by creating a temporary re-insurance program to help offset the costs of expensive premiums for employers and retirees age 55-64.

* This year, this bill starts to close the Medicare Part D 'donut hole' by providing a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the gap in prescription drug coverage. And beginning in 2011, the bill institutes a 50% discount on prescription drugs in the 'donut hole.'

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/23/whats-health-care-bill

 

[Kamala Trump]

Do you deny that Liberals claim the Constitution is a "living, breathing document"? Do you deny that Liberals claim a "general welfare clause" in the Constitution? Do you deny that ObamaCare affects every person residing in the US in the most personal and unlimited way possible?

People are claiming all sort of weird things these days. Liberty the fascist claims he has a constitutional right to overseas slave laborers. Go figure.

 

[DamnYankee]

These are not new arguments DY. They have been going on for hundreds of years, and there is still no definitive answer. So you can offer your opinion, but you can not offer proof that the other side of the argument is invalid.

I stand with Thomas Jefferson, That the earth belongs to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it....

I agree with Jefferson's view. If the current generation wants to change the Constitution, then they may do so via the Amendment process. Do you think that he meant 'ignore the Constitution'?

And you failed to answer my questions:

Do you deny that Liberals claim the Constitution is a "living, breathing document"? Do you deny that Liberals claim a "general welfare clause" in the Constitution? Do you deny that ObamaCare affects every person residing in the US in the most personal and unlimited way possible?

 

[Bfgrn]

I agree with Jefferson's view. If the current generation wants to change the Constitution, then they may do so via the Amendment process. Do you think that he meant 'ignore the Constitution'?

And you failed to answer my questions:

Do you deny that Liberals claim the Constitution is a "living, breathing document"? Do you deny that Liberals claim a "general welfare clause" in the Constitution? Do you deny that ObamaCare affects every person residing in the US in the most personal and unlimited way possible?

I answered your question on health care. The Constitution is a framework for governing. There is a 'general welfare clause'; the interpretation of that clause is part of the never ending debate going on for over 100 years. Men that are much smarter than you and I have not been able to settle it. My view starts with We, the People. We ARE the government. So in line with Thomas Jefferson, what the Constitution must never be used for is a hammer that causes or justifies harming citizens and human beings.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
"I willingly acquiesce in the institutions of my country, perfect or imperfect, and think it a duty to leave their modifications to those who are to live under them and are to participate of the good or evil they may produce. The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:29

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

I answered your question on health care. The Constitution is a framework for governing. There is a 'general welfare clause'; the interpretation of that clause is part of the never ending debate going on for over 100 years. Men that are much smarter than you and I have not been able to settle it. My view starts with We, the People. We ARE the government. So in line with Thomas Jefferson, what the Constitution must never be used for is a hammer that causes or justifies harming citizens and human beings.....

Unless they are WEALTHY human beings, they you can hammer all you like, right? Or unless you want to force them to buy health insurance... and really, what harm is there in destroying the health care system for millions of Americans, making the cost of health care more, and decreasing availability and quality?

WE THE PEOPLE resoundingly expressed to our elected representatives, that WE THE PEOPLE did not want a nationalized health care monstrosity, and Nancy Pelosi rammed it down our throats anyway! Now you're going to find out what else our Constitution allows for!

 

[Bfgrn]

Unless they are WEALTHY human beings, they you can hammer all you like, right? Or unless you want to force them to buy health insurance... and really, what harm is there in destroying the health care system for millions of Americans, making the cost of health care more, and decreasing availability and quality?

WE THE PEOPLE resoundingly expressed to our elected representatives, that WE THE PEOPLE did not want a nationalized health care monstrosity, and Nancy Pelosi rammed it down our throats anyway! Now you're going to find out what else our Constitution allows for!

If I want to hear all the false right wing propaganda about the heath care bill, I'll turn on Faux News, the right wing Pravda.

Tell it to the 45,000 Americans that die each year due to lack of health insurance...oh you CAN"T because they are fucking DEAD. Do you need a dictionary Dixie to understand that word DEAD?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal
of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an
estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage


It always boils down to the SAME thing with you Dixie...ZERO human capital in any of your beliefs or solution. It is never about America or the American people, it always your 3 priorities...

ME
MYSELF
I

It IS what conservatism has devolved to...a sickness...

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

And now, there will be even MORE who die, because health care insurance premiums INCREASED and became less affordable for everyone! The availability of health care becomes LESS for everyone, and the quality suffers as well. I hope you are happy about killing even MORE Americans with you stupidity... do you need a dictionary to look up the word STUPID?

 

[DamnYankee]

I answered your question on health care. The Constitution is a framework for governing. There is a 'general welfare clause'; the interpretation of that clause is part of the never ending debate going on for over 100 years. Men that are much smarter than you and I have not been able to settle it. My view starts with We, the People. We ARE the government. So in line with Thomas Jefferson, what the Constitution must never be used for is a hammer that causes or justifies harming citizens and human beings.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
"I willingly acquiesce in the institutions of my country, perfect or imperfect, and think it a duty to leave their modifications to those who are to live under them and are to participate of the good or evil they may produce. The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:29

Jefferson's quote doesn't authorize you liberals to usurp the Constitution. Madison knew you'd try to gin-up a non-existent "general welfare" clause, and wrote about it in no uncertain terms in Federalist 41:

It has been urged and echoed, that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are ``their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms of article eighth are still more identical: ``All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,'' etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!

 

[Bfgrn]

Jefferson's quote doesn't authorize you liberals to usurp the Constitution. Madison knew you'd try to gin-up a non-existent "general welfare" clause, and wrote about it in no uncertain terms in Federalist 41:

'Madison knew (you liberals) you'd try to gin-up a non-existent "general welfare" clause.'

Madison WAS a liberal as was Jefferson.

So what do you want to do Damn Yankee, deem all social programs unconstitutional?

You never answered my question going back a few pages because I hurt your feelings calling corporations 'cartels'. So I will rephrase it: do you think there is anything insurance corporations shove up America's ass?

 

[Kamala Trump]

If I want to hear all the false right wing propaganda about the heath care bill, I'll turn on Faux News, the right wing Pravda.

Tell it to the 45,000 Americans that die each year due to lack of health insurance...oh you CAN"T because they are fucking DEAD. Do you need a dictionary Dixie to understand that word DEAD?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal
of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an
estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage


It always boils down to the SAME thing with you Dixie...ZERO human capital in any of your beliefs or solution. It is never about America or the American people, it always your 3 priorities...

ME
MYSELF
I

It IS what conservatism has devolved to...a sickness...

But why do you still believe in the american poverty creating machine of globalization?

 

[DamnYankee]

'Madison knew (you liberals) you'd try to gin-up a non-existent "general welfare" clause.'

Madison WAS a liberal as was Jefferson.

So what do you want to do Damn Yankee, deem all social programs unconstitutional?

You never answered my question going back a few pages because I hurt your feelings calling corporations 'cartels'. So I will rephrase it: do you think there is anything insurance corporations shove up America's ass?

They were liberals according to the definition at that time in history. The modern definition of liberal is 180 degrees from that.

Yes, all social programs should be ruled unconstitutional. If Americans think that they are such a great idea, then they should amend the Constitution. A 50% plus 1 majority passing far-reaching legislation creates the instability that we have seen in the last 90 or so years. The alternative is to have these social services legislated by the States in accordance with their own State Constitutions. That allows citizens, as consumers, to shop around. You can move to a liberal state and be happy while I move to a conservative state and be happy.

Insurance companies should be deregulated and all cartels should be illegal. Only the the government as a sole source provider, using the threat of law, can shove anything up America's ass.

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

They were liberals according to the definition at that time in history. The modern definition of liberal is 180 degrees from that.

Yes, all social programs should be ruled unconstitutional. If Americans think that they are such a great idea, then they should amend the Constitution. A 50% plus 1 majority passing far-reaching legislation creates the instability that we have seen in the last 90 or so years. The alternative is to have these social services legislated by the States in accordance with their own State Constitutions. That allows citizens, as consumers, to shop around. You can move to a liberal state and be happy while I move to a conservative state and be happy.

Insurance companies should be deregulated and all cartels should be illegal. Only the the government as a sole source provider, using the threat of law, can shove anything up America's ass.

A Liberal back then, was a Classical Liberal. Classical liberalism is a political ideology that was committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets. This is much more inline with modern Conservatism and Libertarianism, than modern Social Liberalism. The modern Social Liberal, is essentially a Marxist.

 

[Bfgrn]

They were liberals according to the definition at that time in history. The modern definition of liberal is 180 degrees from that.

Yes, all social programs should be ruled unconstitutional. If Americans think that they are such a great idea, then they should amend the Constitution. A 50% plus 1 majority passing far-reaching legislation creates the instability that we have seen in the last 90 or so years. The alternative is to have these social services legislated by the States in accordance with their own State Constitutions. That allows citizens, as consumers, to shop around. You can move to a liberal state and be happy while I move to a conservative state and be happy.

Insurance companies should be deregulated and all cartels should be illegal. Only the the government as a sole source provider, using the threat of law, can shove anything up America's ass.

I can only envision your America as a nation living the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."

I have a hard time talking to people (I use that term generically) that have nothing inside of them that can be called human or socially redeeming. The 'conservative' today is the modern day Pharisee.

If you are so enamored with our founding fathers, before you use their words to kill human beings, why don't you consider how they actually GOVERNED and how they viewed corporations and how they viewed deregulation? Do you even know?

 

[Bfgrn]

A Liberal back then, was a Classical Liberal. Classical liberalism is a political ideology that was committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets. This is much more inline with modern Conservatism and Libertarianism, than modern Social Liberalism. The modern Social Liberal, is essentially a Marxist.

Dixie, I know you right wingers are working real hard to hijack liberalism, but you and people that call themselves 'conservative' are missing the core of liberalism. It is humanity, empathy and concern for others. It is having your blood boil when you witness injustice and harm perpetrated on other human beings or any of God's beautiful creatures and creations. There is NOTHING you have in common with liberalism.

Have you ever heard of a bleeding heart Republican?
Paul Craig Roberts - the father of Reaganomics

 

[DamnYankee]

I can only envision your America as a nation living the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."

I have a hard time talking to people (I use that term generically) that have nothing inside of them that can be called human or socially redeeming. The 'conservative' today is the modern day Pharisee.

If you are so enamored with our founding fathers, before you use their words to kill human beings, why don't you consider how they actually GOVERNED and how they viewed corporations and how they viewed deregulation? Do you even know?

Oh look, the predictable baseless allegations of a defeated liberal when he learns that The Founders weren't liberal by his definition and that there is no general welfare clause.

So will you go forward now realizing these truths, or will you forget about your defeat today and repeat your lies tomorrow?

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

Dixie, I know you right wingers are working real hard to hijack liberalism, but you and people that call themselves 'conservative' are missing the core of liberalism. It is humanity, empathy and concern for others. It is having your blood boil when you witness injustice and harm perpetrated on other human beings or any of God's beautiful creatures and creations. There is NOTHING you have in common with liberalism.

Have you ever heard of a bleeding heart Republican?
Paul Craig Roberts - the father of Reaganomics

Here's the thing, Bfoon, you don't understand this because you are rather simple-minded. You think in relatively shallow terms, with naive simplicity, regarding the issues and problems people face on a daily basis. In your elementary thinking, there are these people who are needy, and the best way to help them, is to take wealth from those people over there and give it to them. It's really no more complicated than this inside your head. The problem is, we've been doing what you thought was the best thing to do, for more than 70 years, and the problem persists, perhaps to a greater degree now, than ever before. You've not fixed anything, you've not helped anyone, and you are still mired in this simplistic notion that you can redistribute the wealth to accomplish your objectives. It simply doesn't work, never has, never will.

To further complicate your problem, you view those who oppose your simplistic notion, as mean-spirited people who just don't care about the needy. You've constructed a thought process, by which, you are the hero in a white hat, and those conservatives are the villains in the black hats. You just want to help those in distress, and we are greedy selfish ogres who want to prevent you from doing that. I assure you, I care just as much about helping those in need as you do...probably more. I just have a different approach, a different idea of how to help them. Because it is a little more complicated than your idea, and involves personal responsibility and motivation, you simply reject it and revert back to your simple-minded solutions that have proven not to work. Now, whether you ever live to realize this or not, is something that remains to be seen.

People are not lifted out of dismal poverty by a government welfare check, it just doesn't happen. You can't give me one example, out of the millions and millions of Americans who have been on welfare, of a person who became successful and prosperous because of that monthly check. NOT ONE! It doesn't happen, because the monthly check only enables dependence on the next monthly check. You can give away housing, education, food, health care, and all it does is foster more dependence for more entitlement. People are not lifted up through this process, it is only through individual spirit and determination, the desire to make something better of their life, the motivation to succeed and prosper, that those people are lifted out of their condition. What you advocate, is actually an excuse for them to never realize this potential, and simply accept what crumbs are being tossed to them, for the rest of their lives. Now I ask you, who has more compassion for those people? Someone who wants to continue enabling their dependence and thus, keep them impoverished forever, or someone who seeks to motivate them and encourage their individual spirit to succeed?

 

[DamnYankee]

More on social services from our Founders:

I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

Ben Franklin

 

[Kamala Trump]

Here's the thing, Bfoon, you don't understand this because you are rather simple-minded. You think in relatively shallow terms, with naive simplicity, regarding the issues and problems people face on a daily basis. In your elementary thinking, there are these people who are needy, and the best way to help them, is to take wealth from those people over there and give it to them. It's really no more complicated than this inside your head. The problem is, we've been doing what you thought was the best thing to do, for more than 70 years, and the problem persists, perhaps to a greater degree now, than ever before. You've not fixed anything, you've not helped anyone, and you are still mired in this simplistic notion that you can redistribute the wealth to accomplish your objectives. It simply doesn't work, never has, never will.

To further complicate your problem, you view those who oppose your simplistic notion, as mean-spirited people who just don't care about the needy. You've constructed a thought process, by which, you are the hero in a white hat, and those conservatives are the villains in the black hats. You just want to help those in distress, and we are greedy selfish ogres who want to prevent you from doing that. I assure you, I care just as much about helping those in need as you do...probably more. I just have a different approach, a different idea of how to help them. Because it is a little more complicated than your idea, and involves personal responsibility and motivation, you simply reject it and revert back to your simple-minded solutions that have proven not to work. Now, whether you ever live to realize this or not, is something that remains to be seen.

People are not lifted out of dismal poverty by a government welfare check, it just doesn't happen. You can't give me one example, out of the millions and millions of Americans who have been on welfare, of a person who became successful and prosperous because of that monthly check. NOT ONE! It doesn't happen, because the monthly check only enables dependence on the next monthly check. You can give away housing, education, food, health care, and all it does is foster more dependence for more entitlement. People are not lifted up through this process, it is only through individual spirit and determination, the desire to make something better of their life, the motivation to succeed and prosper, that those people are lifted out of their condition. What you advocate, is actually an excuse for them to never realize this potential, and simply accept what crumbs are being tossed to them, for the rest of their lives. Now I ask you, who has more compassion for those people? Someone who wants to continue enabling their dependence and thus, keep them impoverished forever, or someone who seeks to motivate them and encourage their individual spirit to succeed?

What? And you're noble for preferring wage slavery?

 

[DamnYankee]

What? And you're noble for preferring wage slavery?

Dood, time to get off that shit.