What do you think of this statement?

[Spexxvet]

I read this recently

Conservatives do not endorse any government action to defend morality and the traditional family structure simply because we believe it isn't governments place to decide morality for us.

Does this reflect the reality of what's happening in the U.S.? Isn't it really the conservatives who are initiating actions that would cause their morals to become law? I'm thinking of the many constitutional ammendments that ban same-gender marriage, and anti-choice activists who want to make abortion illegal. Aren't those initiatives instigated by conservatives? And therefore, don't conservatives think it is government's place to decide morality issues?

[Clodfobble]

Hence the creation of a new term for these folks awhile back, neocons.

[Happy Monkey]

No, neocons are people who think the US should proactively attack countries that may threaten our political position as superpower at some point in the future. They've in recent decades made a political alliance with the morality police, or Christian Right, Moral Majority, theocons, what have you, but they are a distinct group. And that alliance has started to falter recently when the neocons showed that they couldn't give two figs for the theocons' pet issues.

As for:

Conservatives do not endorse any government action to defend morality and the traditional family structure simply because we believe it isn't governments place to decide morality for us.

That's probably akin to distancing oneself from the nuttier members of your faction. A theocon isn't a "real" conservative; Fallwell isn't a "real" Christian; PETA aren't "real" environmentalists, etc.

At the moment, the conservative branch of the morality police is primary, just because the conservatives have been in power. Liberal morality police - censors, PC, etc - will be regaining traction soon. I'm just happy that the theocon and PC factions fight each other, and wish that conservative and liberal censors would too.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Right, a post election we're not sucking for your vote right now, so don't call us, we'll call you.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I agree with some of HM's points here, and would add that both ends of the spectrum naturally enough promote making laws that would push their agendas. It seems to me the left of center, the so-called progressives, have had more success at this than the right-of-center.

The neoconservative movement (if such it truly be) is older than many of the posters writing here, as it got going in the late 1960s, building quietly until it started getting widespread attention in the nineties.

I think that is about as valid today as the statement "conservatives want smaller, less intrusive, government".

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

.... It seems to me the left of center, the so-called progressives, have had more success at this than the right-of-center.
....

Like............?

Remember, allowing someone to choose is not imposing your morals on someone, it's allowing each individual to make their own moral choice.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Like trying to turn federal Social Security into everybody's pension plan rather than the more limited original idea of an emergency net. Private retirement plans do keep you a lot richer, do they not?

The Left's fundamental move is to turn the central government into the provider of services, and the services into "rights," but "rights" granted by government fiat. Thus the leftist/progressive vision of the government as the Great Provider is realized. And the economic inefficiency of tax levying to finance all this is, well, not realized by most of the perpetrators. This is the process of government "entitlements" programs, and they are the one thing that unbalances the federal budget.

This is socialism in all its, uh, drab glory, and now the world is coming to an understanding that it doesn't work so well. A society that tries to subsume the private sector in the public sector ends up less efficient at creating wealth, and only succeeding in the one alternative: organizing (a) scarcity (pick your scarcity if you like).

You have this pretty much shot through all of American history since the Depression, and particularly prevalent since the Great Society programs -- LBJ had his pluses but I'm not sure this extension of socialistic policies was one of them. That you were moved to ask suggests you've not read modern American history with this in mind. Try it and see if a new light dawns.

The simple explanation for currency inflation -- its debasement, gradually and over time -- is that it is caused by lengthy government deficit spending. Entitlement programs are just another way to indulge in the likeliest way for democracies to risk collapse: the electorate voting itself the treasury, in whole or in part. Add deficits, and watch the mischief be compounded.

Had the Right been uniformly successful at "imposing their morals, [not] allowing each individual..." would American law look as it does today -- or would it look like something very different from now?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The simple explanation for currency inflation -- its debasement, gradually and over time -- is that it is caused by lengthy government deficit spending. Entitlement programs are just another way to indulge in the likeliest way for democracies to risk collapse: the electorate voting itself the treasury, in whole or in part. Add deficits, and watch the mischief be compounded.

Obviously, there is much in your writing to agree with. Please square this paragraph with our present military comittment to fight without end against an undefined enemy.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Like trying to turn federal Social Security into everybody's pension plan rather than the more limited original idea of an emergency net. Private retirement plans do keep you a lot richer, do they not?...

Is this legislating morals? I know with conservatives, it always comes back to the almighty buck, but calling Social Security moral legislation is a bit of a stretch.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The simple explanation for currency inflation -- its debasement, gradually and over time -- is that it is caused by lengthy government deficit spending. Entitlement programs are just another way to indulge in the likeliest way for democracies to risk collapse: the electorate voting itself the treasury, in whole or in part. Add deficits, and watch the mischief be compounded...

And in recent memory, Reagan and W, conservative repubicans, have run up the big deficits. IMHO, there is no return on investment on the tax dollars that go to paying the interest on the deficit. It is wasted money.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

And that is why I do two things, one positive, one negative. The positive thing is to be a Libertarian rather than either one of the Big Two.

The negative thing is never to expect complete adherence to principles, alleged or exhibited, in any Chief Executive actually tasked with Doing Something.

Griff, I don't believe it is without end. I do think the end will be ambiguous, and that we aren't going to be certain we've won until some time after the fact. Nor am I sure our enemy is so undefined -- he rather obligingly declares himself, by his actions and his statements. Remember too that it still takes national sponsorship to make an international terrorist: our strategy is clear enough -- we turn the nation-states of the world against the terrorist groups they currently find attractive enough to make war by proxy with. They'd as readily lop off your head as mine, Griff; that seems enemy enough.