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"The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s. Not one of them is now.
Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.
I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by.
I believe that the bigger government gets and the more powerful the state becomes, the greater the threat to individual liberty and the greater the likelihood that evil will ensue. In the 20th century, the powerful state, not religion, was the greatest purveyor of evil in the world.
I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. "Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested" is legalized thievery.
I believe that government funding of those who can help themselves (e.g., the able-bodied who collect welfare) or who can be helped by non-governmental institutions (such as private charities, family, and friends) hurts them and hurts society.
I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.
I believe that some murderers should be put death; that allowing all murderers to live does not elevate the value of human life, but mocks it, and that ............."
1300kol.townhall.com/columni..._liberal
Not me but close.
Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.
I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by.
I believe that the bigger government gets and the more powerful the state becomes, the greater the threat to individual liberty and the greater the likelihood that evil will ensue. In the 20th century, the powerful state, not religion, was the greatest purveyor of evil in the world.
I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. "Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested" is legalized thievery.
I believe that government funding of those who can help themselves (e.g., the able-bodied who collect welfare) or who can be helped by non-governmental institutions (such as private charities, family, and friends) hurts them and hurts society.
I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.
I believe that some murderers should be put death; that allowing all murderers to live does not elevate the value of human life, but mocks it, and that ............."
1300kol.townhall.com/columni..._liberal
Not me but close.
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Re: Why I Am Not a Liberal
Wed, August 20, 2008 - 11:35 AMI am against the death penalty. -
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Re: Why I Am Not a Liberal
Sat, August 23, 2008 - 9:41 AMMe too, I don't think we have the right to take life -
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Re: Why I Am Not a Liberal
Sat, August 23, 2008 - 11:38 AMI find that I society in general can support abortion in exceptional cases, then there is little logic opposing execution under exceptional cases like terrorism or serial murder...
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Re: Why I Am Not a Liberal
Sun, August 24, 2008 - 9:37 PM
like war, sometimes things are unavoidable. and if someone demonstrates that they are an unacceptable threat to the public they need to go.
as you can tell, I support the death penalty.
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Re: Why I Am Not a Liberal
Sun, October 5, 2008 - 6:11 PM1.
The "judaeo-christian" values, caricatured today in Islamic extremists, are NOT the source of all you hold dear . . . these values we hold dear are pagan in origin. Get your intellectual history correct: philosophy, science, democracy, and tolerance came from the pagan world and is not found in any of the abrahamic religions, except to the extent the *pagans* influenced early christianity.
2.
The "enlightenment" was a pagan intellectual reaction to christendom's ascendancy in europe . . . by "christians" who read the classics from greco-roman times, transmitted largely by arabs.
3.
"American exceptionalism" is nothing more than the same self-justificatory chauvanism that justified european colonialsim . . .
4.
Ignorance more than government produces evil: we get the government we deserve from want of collective knowledge . . . especially and decidedly in America . . .
5.
But 49.99% of your income is your patriotic duty? Who wrote this crap? Our modern, interdependent social contract *requires* some level of mutual support through taxation, what in the abrahamic religions is called a "tithe" or "zakat" . . . you drive on our tax dollars at work every day . . .
6.
When you realize how stoopid the legal system can actually be, and it's innocent YOU in the dock, maybe then you can see why some of us who work in the legal system despise the death penalty, not because we don't despise the crimes of some of us, but because we know the limits of our legal procedures . . .
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Re: Why I Am Not a Liberal
Sun, October 5, 2008 - 6:11 PMI guess I'm a liberal . . .
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