If you seriously believe that you're offering objective comment by stating that, then you have little understanding of what I'm all about, Kathianne.Originally Posted by Kathianne
I do not have a 'gang', nor do I seek to !! I fail to see why you think I'd see things in any such terms. If people agree with me, fine. And if I agree with them, also fine. And, I support friends.
Is this your idea of forming and sustaining a 'gang' ?
My position has long been this: if others have alternative viewpoints, and want to express them, then that's something to be welcomed .. and such views can be tested on their merits, through debate. But I have a qualifier to add ... this should preferably be HONEST debate. No trickery, no psychological games-playing to substitute, dishonestly, for that debate.
We have one contributor on this forum who insists on offering bona fides for himself that I do not accept as genuine, and there have been various indications that I'm right. That very individual, now, has never been closer in revealing that the truth is as I've always said it was. Which is a good thing ... may that honesty be built upon, the final truth revealed for what it IS.
That's fair comment, I think.Perhaps because when she spoke, she addressed many of the assumed 'truths' of socialism, breaking many of the confines of what had been assumed 'facts' of the European movement towards socialism since Bismarck? Many of her speeches sounded much more 'American' in their thinking than European. As you've repeated emphasized though, she was confined to dealing with the system that laid before, she still had to address the problem through the BIG government solution, at that point in time, she couldn't do what Reagan did with PATCO. She was as 'Conservative' as the system would allow in her actions.
Even so, it seems implicit in your summary that you think she acted as she did reluctantly. That she was hesitant in using the methodology that she did. Can you offer any evidence for any such reluctance ?
I think that you cannot. But more, you've skipped over a part of what I've already explained. As I previously said, Ted Heath reduced Government v Unions to a democratic vote, letting the voters decide its outcome. It was HEATH who was by far the more reluctant leader to see Government as solving things by wielding a big Governmental stick.
Mrs Thatcher considered Heath to be WEAK in acting in that way. Her approach was always going to be diametrically opposed to his. It was the most defining difference between them, that she would use Big Governmental authority over her insurrectionist opposition, RATHER than seek any alternatives.
She chose her approach. She considered it correct. And she was definably CONSERVATIVE, to the whole world, throughout !
Can I suggest this interpretation of current trends ?I've spent more time on this than I really meant to for two reasons:
1. I think that the US central government has become too big, too involved in our everyday lives, too expensive and inefficient. With the 'right leader' this country could fall into dictatorship. In many ways it has. If the executive powers in DC keep expanding, Congress will continue to diminish which was intended to be the voice of the People.
Your country has an instinctive distrust of Big Government, going way back into its past. Trouble is, though, that the Left love power, and they know that to wield it, power has to be built up, concentrated, be seen to be inviolable.
In the likes of Obama, you have a power-loving Leftie who'll act even in Constitutionally questionable ways in order to get his way.
How has this come about ? How did he get the latitude to build any extent of inviolability in acting from such a standpoint ?
I suggest this - it's the American failure to see that an insistence on 'small' Government allows a vacuum, whereby people like Obama CAN exploit it.
The more power you have available to you to effect change, the more likely it is that you can bring about that change. Socialists understand that, and they understand the power of collective effort. So, their thoughts are 'collective', their biases towards a Bigger Government machinery. Why ? BECAUSE WIELDING OF POWER OVER PEOPLE IS CENTRAL TO WHAT THEY'RE ABOUT.
Libertarians don't want sovereignty over their affairs, they want SELF sovereignty. BUT, to achieve that, they need the power to manage it. The best way to do it is through the collective power that numbers gives them. This is why they form Unions.
Libertarians and the Left therefore have something basic in common .. to assure themselves of power, through strength in numbers.
Obama loves his power. He has his power base, from his position in Government. And he builds on it through legislative stricture. But ... he loves HIS PARTICULAR power. Hasn't it been a hallmark of his psychology that he defies those checks and balances which exist, when he can ?
DOESN'T THAT CONFORM TO THE LIBERTARIAN 'SELF-SOVEREIGNTY' POSITION ?
My point is this: Libertarian thought and intention IS Left-wing in nature. You fight it only through having, and wielding, the POWER necessary to do it.
MRS THATCHER DID EXACTLY THAT, USING AVAILABLE POWER FOR A CONSERVATIVE, REMEDIAL CAUSE, AS ANY GOOD CONSERVATIVE SHOULD !
All very laudible.While the GOP tends more towards my priorities of the federal government, those in the positions of power are still much like the European right's version of socialism. I'm more in favor of our founders' vision for our country. I don't want 'a better' national health care or national education system. I want the individuals, the small shop owners, the corporations, the city halls, the state governments, the federal government all doing what they are supposed to do. For those individuals, the most vulnerable that are unable to care for themselves, whose families cannot or will not care for them, society must care for. The question remaining is from which level is the best care to be found? I don't think DC is the answer.
But please explain how you can ensure that such a status quo will of itself remain inviolable. And not successfully challenged by Left wing power bases.
On the bolded part ... I definitely agree. And I've been pitting myself against just that. Unfortunately, the party responsible for it has had no basis for regretting such behaviour, so, it's continued unchecked.2. Speaking as a member, not staff, I've found the level of discussion on most issues over the past months or even years to have deteriorated to the point that there is really little to see here. It seems to me that most interactions between those that have ideas actually worth addressing have fallen to the level of name calling and other forms of derision. There's little or no depth to those that start off alright, someone will derail by jumping in to bring the tone back to divisiveness rather than discussion. Is there some hidden forum where tallies are being kept for derailed threads?
My own position is clear, and I've already repeatedly stated it. Honest, objective discussions are welcome. It does no ultimate good for any individual to fight a position advanced bogusly, pretending in something not personally believed in. The adversary who GENUINELY and HONESTLY presents a diametrically opposed argument to my own will receive all due respect. The adversary who chooses an adversarial position for the sake of it, or, to position in a way as to dishonestly identify that position as coming from something other than its true roots ... WHY should I EVER respect THAT ?
Naturally, you don't have to agree with me, or believe what I say, what I know to be true. That's your right and privilege.I tried to keep my interactions in this thread respectful, wasn't hard for me to do, I like Drummond. I don't have to agree with all of his premises however. I don't have to agree or accept what I consider to be projections or 'all knowing statements,' indeed that is the point of discussions/debates, to defend one's own ideas. Sometimes both of us got snarky, but not to the point that the discussion was lost. As I think was demonstrated, he didn't agree with all of what I wrote either.
Nonetheless, I'm in no doubt at all that I'm expressing a true and accurate position. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be expressing it ! If you choose not to heed me, that's your choice to make.
You have more than one here ! But at least with Gabby, there's no, shall we say, 'lack of clarity' as to what she honestly represents about herself.To say the board leans 'conservative' is hyperbole with the word 'leans,' even Gabby has a gun! She's our token liberal.
Still ... at least when such things are said, the one saying them does so from a position of loyalty to country and fighting for what s/he thinks is right. One of the biggest things we've lost in the UK is that very strength of patriotism and personal conviction (courtesy of Left wing societal sabotage, over decades). Regardless of any justice in your comment, the spirit which prompts such outbursts is so often a noble and laudible one.It's become a sad state when someone is called a 'liberal' or 'traitor' for questioning due process or any of a number of constitutional rights. I think what was once 'knee jerk' responses to the likes of a Maineman have become part of what is expected responses. I do wish/hope that some reasonable discussions will follow.
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