“Once you put a Human Life Amendment into the Constitution…”

As you may recall, I’m not in favor of a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution defining “protected” life (with “unique individual rights”) kicking in at conception.

“The Constitution is no place to put “feel good” measures to appease the base…”

As I’ve noted before, for all your evident self-regard and self-identification as an open minded tolerant social moderate, you’re actually quite hostile to religious faith which differs from your own ethical/moral beliefs as is shown by your unwillingness to accept that to those who truly believe that “human life” begins at conception, defending this human life is as much an ethical duty as would be defending your life from those who might one day deem your dialysis treatments incompatible with “reasonable limits” on healthcare expenditures at some point.

Sinz. It’s quite clear you have a visceral dislike for the “Religious Right.”

Now I have problems with the “Religious Left” (i.e. Liberation Theology), but I still acknowledge that even if I disagree with “their” side on issues (take the immigration debate for example) I’ll take their position as sincere and heartfelt. In other words, I’m able to have empathy for those I disagree with. (*SHRUG*)

“Once it’s in the Constitution, a pregnant woman could be severely punished for anything that goes wrong with the fetus.”

*** FOLKS. See bottom 7 lines of my 3:53 pm post of yesterday.

*** Sinz. To reiterate… you’re going off the deep end. You’re argument is so silly, so off the wall… it’s like you took a break between paragraphs to smoke some crack and drop some acid. NO ONE is going to criminalize miscarriages – unless of course it’s pretty obvious the “miscarriage” was deliberately caused – i.e. it was an abortion.

“I disdain Ron Paul because his economic libertarianism has not worked.”

What are you TALKING about…??? (Someone remind me… exactly when was Paul President? When was he Chairman of the Fed, Secretary of the Treasury? When was he Speaker of the House or Majority Leader of the Senate? When was “Pauls economic libertarianism” tried…???)

“The U.S. implemented mixed-economy measures for good reasons, not because we all went temporarily insane back then.”

Back WHEN…?!?! (Are you referring to the ’30’s and ’40’s?)

Sinz… it’s been a long slippery slope. We’d have to discuss SPECIFICS. Feel free… (*SHRUG*)

“I also disdain [Paul] because of his foreign-policy isolationism and blame-America attitude…”

Nonsense on both counts. What you refer to as “isolationism” I call the classic American ideal and beyond that… self-interest. As to his “blame-America attitude”… he calls ‘em as he sees ‘em. What… averting our eyes from reality with make the reality different…?

Anyway… for what it’s worth I do appreciate your clarifying your views. Keep it up! Bottom line… while we often disagree… we often agree. (*SHRUG*) Let’s view the glass as half full, shall we?

(*GRIN*)

BILL

Let’s pat each other on the back for having the tenacity to keep returning to “page 2.)

(*WINK*)

“…9-11…”

We weren’t attacked by a nation state. Not directly. Oh, I applauded then and applaud now Bush’s swift retaliation against the Taliban and our invasion which drove them from power, but in most respects 9/11 has very little in common with Pearl Harbor.

“Rubble doesn’t cause trouble.”

Actually it does when we as a nation insist on “rebuilding” what we ourselves turned into rubble.

As much as I dislike Powell, his adage “you break it, you own it” was right on target.

“I am not squeamish about civilian casualties.”

I am. Not to say I won’t accept “collateral damage” in my name… just saying I take the responsibility for these decisions very seriously as should those who issue the orders.

“On economics, I am NOT a libertarian. I accept that the Federal Government has a legitimate role to play as the “shock absorber of last resort” to keep the U.S. economy from crashing or soaring into hyperinflation. Milton Friedman, who was no Keynesian, was nevertheless a fan of the FDIC for just this purpose.”

You seem to use the term “libertarian” in the extreme meaning of the word. There’s a reason I refer to myself as “libertarian leaning.”

Now what are you saying in connecting the FDIC to prevention of hyperinflation…??? (*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)

(*SIGH*) Any reason you refused to get specific, Sinz? Here… let me help you out:

Were you in favor of the Bush/RINO Congress stimulus checks of his first term? (I wasn’t.) (The Dems were.)

Were you in favor of the Bush/Pelosi/Reid stimulus package of Bush’s second term. (I wasn’t.) (RINOs were.)

Were you in favor of the Bush/Pelosi/Reid bailouts of 2008? (I wasn’t.) (The Dems were.) (Many RINOs were.)

Were you in favor of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid “stimulus” bill? (I wasn’t.) (GOP reps by and large weren’t.)

Were you in favor of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid “stimulus” checks to Social Security recipients this year? (I wasn’t.) (Not sure how most GOP reps voted.)

See the intellectual consistency here, Sinz? How’bout you? Where have you stood case by case?

* To be continued…

BILL

I do NOT believe in launching pre-emptive wars against foreign regimes, based just on suppositions about the regimes’ possible intentions. So much for the Iraq War. The only scenarios in which pre-emption might make sense are: a) The pre-emption is limited and short-duration with a clear exit strategy (e.g., Clinton’s “Operation Desert Fox” against Iraq); or b) we have clear intelligence that the enemy attack is imminent (say if our satellites pick up North Korean nuclear missiles ready to fire at our allies).

But once we are attacked (as we were at Pearl Harbor and on 9-11), I believe in fighting to win. I am not a fan of nation-building or “hearts and minds” type limited wars. Rubble doesn’t cause trouble.

I am not squeamish about civilian casualties. Freedom isn’t free. It costs blood. Let’s just make sure it’s the enemy’s blood and not ours.

On economics, I am NOT a libertarian. I accept that the Federal Government has a legitimate role to play as the “shock absorber of last resort” to keep the U.S. economy from crashing or soaring into hyperinflation. Milton Friedman, who was no Keynesian, was nevertheless a fan of the FDIC for just this purpose. What he said, and what I agree with, is that the side effects of bigger government (bureaucracy, stifling of initiative, tax burdens, staglfation, etc.) have to be balanced against the externalities of a free market (pollution, global warming, disruptions to society caused by economic upheavals, etc.). It’s not a simple problem, and it doesn’t yet have a simple solution. We just have to work it out as we go along.

Once you put a Human Life Amendment into the Constitution, it has equal force with any other Amendment. That means the potential implications are vast. The Constitution is no place to put “feel good” measures to appease the base but otherwise won’t ever be implemented. Once it’s in the Constitution, a pregnant woman could be severely punished for anything that goes wrong with the fetus. If the fetus is truly entitled to Fourteenth Amendment rights, and is born with a birth defect owing to smoking or substance abuse by the mother, she could be sentenced to Federal penitentiary for child abuse (which the Human Life Amendment would make a Federal crime).

I disdain Ron Paul because his economic libertarianism has not worked. (The U.S. implemented mixed-economy measures for good reasons, not because we all went temporarily insane back then.) I also disdain him because of his foreign-policy isolationism and blame-America attitude, which goes beyond anything Obama ever said. And I disdain him because of the crowd he ran with. He schmoozed the paranoid Truthers, for example.

Hope this helps.

From childhood to adulthood, I was a liberal. I believed in all of those classic clichs that liberals believe in. I had no other knowledge of America, and was not taught to believe otherwise. I never exhibited the hatred of America, nor was I near the level of insanity of todays liberals.

So, I took a tour in the U.S. Army, and when I got out, my perception of America had changed. I wasnt liberal, but I was certainly no conservative either. And then one day, I accidentally flipped the channel, turning on Rush Limbaugh The Television Show, and from there all remaining liberalism was excised slowly.

Rush Limbaugh had made me aware of an America I never knew existed. I didnt learn it at home or in school, but I did learn it from the radio every day. However, I was still not as knowledgeable on the U.S. Constitution. There were so many unanswered questions regarding the Founding Fathers and the originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Then, six years ago, I discovered Mark Levin. I had seen him on television periodically, but I hadnt tuned into his daily radio program.

I was able to stream him online from 77WABC out of New York. Now, hes nationally syndicated and millions of people can listen to him. There, I began to learn the finer points of Constitutional law that only Mark Levin can deliver. He was giving me an education of which I had never had.

I really began to understand the Founding Fathers interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. All thanks to Mark Levin. He has been a force for more than thirty years in conservatism, serving under the Reagan administration, now the President of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and offering advice to Rush Limbaugh on the finer points of the U.S. Constitution. He also battles liberalism through his articles, books and daily radio program.

He should clearly be named 2009 Man of the Year by Human Events, because he has become a champion for America, and he gives all that he has in defense of this great country. He has become the Constitutional engine of conservatism.

Thank you Mark R. Levin for all that youve done, all that you do, and all that you will do to advance the cause of conservatism in America. You are a true inspiration to many people, and Iamong thousands of Americanshave you to thank for keeping us sane during these insane times.

There’s Hope For Your Too, DAVID FRUM

From childhood to adulthood, I was a liberal. I believed in all of those classic clichs that liberals believe in. I had no other knowledge of America, and was not taught to believe otherwise. I never exhibited the hatred of America, nor was I near the level of insanity of todays liberals.

So, I took a tour in the U.S. Army, and when I got out, my perception of America had changed. I wasnt liberal, but I was certainly no conservative either. And then one day, I accidentally flipped the channel, turning on Rush Limbaugh The Television Show, and from there all remaining liberalism was excised slowly.

Rush Limbaugh had made me aware of an America I never knew existed. I didnt learn it at home or in school, but I did learn it from the radio every day. However, I was still not as knowledgeable on the U.S. Constitution. There were so many unanswered questions regarding the Founding Fathers and the originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Then, six years ago, I discovered Mark Levin. I had seen him on television periodically, but I hadnt tuned into his daily radio program.

I was able to stream him online from 77WABC out of New York. Now, hes nationally syndicated and millions of people can listen to him. There, I began to learn the finer points of Constitutional law that only Mark Levin can deliver. He was giving me an education of which I had never had.

I really began to understand the Founding Fathers interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. All thanks to Mark Levin. He has been a force for more than thirty years in conservatism, serving under the Reagan administration, now the President of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and offering advice to Rush Limbaugh on the finer points of the U.S. Constitution. He also battles liberalism through his articles, books and daily radio program.

He should clearly be named 2009 Man of the Year by Human Events, because he has become a champion for America, and he gives all that he has in defense of this great country. He has become the Constitutional engine of conservatism.

Thank you Mark R. Levin for all that youve done, all that you do, and all that you will do to advance the cause of conservatism in America. You are a true inspiration to many people, and Iamong thousands of Americanshave you to thank for keeping us sane during these insane times.

There’s Hope For Your Too, DAVID FRUM

“On foreign policy, I can be quite hawkish. On national security and national defense, ditto.”

See… I don’t know what that means.

(*SHRUG*)

“Hawkish” like Bush… or “Hawkish” like Buchanan?

“Hawkish” as in viewing the U.S. President as effectively war authorizer as and war maker in line with modern distortions of the Separation of Powers doctrine or “Hawkish” like I consider myself “Hawkish,” as a Constitutionalist.

“Hawkish” in terms of supporting an American Empire/Protectorate as in Bush, Biden, McCain, and Obama or “Hawkish” as in George Washington’s Fairwell Address? (*SMILE*)

Anyway… you don’t have to answer every question there; I’m simply putting ‘em down to make the point that even when we try to “funnel down” regarding the “meaning” of “conservatism,” it’s rarely cut and dry.

“On economics, I *lean* right, but not so far that I believe that laissez-faire economics could possibly work.”

Again… sounds reasonable as a sentence… as a policy such declarations require a bit more fleshing out.

Me? I was against “Bush socialism” and I’m against “Obama socialism.”

And yes… I’m putting “socialism” in quotes to indicate that the word itself is open to debate point by point, policy by policy, but that it’s shorthand for government bailouts, etc.

(Fair enough, Sinz…???)

“But on social policy, I have a live-and-let-live attitude.”

As do I myself. Note, I identify myself as a “Libertarian Leaning Conservative.”

But then again… don’t you basically disdain Ron Paul? Don’t you basically disdain Libertarians…? (This one may require a bit of clarification from you, Sinz.)

Me…??? I’m a big Ron Paul fan. (*SHRUG*) Does it mean I walk in ideological and policy lockstep with him… no. Does it mean I have no questions nor concerns regarding both him and especially “guilt by association” charges brought against him periodically? No. I do. It’s just that all in all Ron Paul has always come across to me as being more honorable and more “right” (as in both “correct” and “Conservative”) than most in the political arena or even the arena of ideas.

“I’m not going to insist to tens of millions of American women that the fetus they’re carrying deserves Fourteenth Amendment rights…”

Nor am I; not at conception; not through the first trimester; perhaps not as a set in stone rule of thumb through the second trimester. The third trimester… it’s a baby. It’s a life. The only real “balance” question I see coming into play is if it’s a direct medical case of the life of the mother vs. the life of the baby.

“…hence if they have a miscarriage they’re going to prison for involuntary manslaughter.”

Where the HECK did that come from…?!?!

Seriously… Sinz… it’s like someone just threw a switch which cut off all reasonable, rational thought.

I mean… jeez… at least if you had used the old “arrested for having an abortion” I’d consider you on the sane side of the border, but to throw in miscarriages…?!?!

(*SIGH*)

Anyway… gotta run! We’ll pick this up later!

BILL

“While, unlike DrTesla, I met Mark Levin, Dr Tesla is no Mark Levin “

Yep. That was my point. (It seemed to go over his head.) (*SIGH*)

“Though, the similarities are astonishing, with the “get off the phone ya big dope!”"

YEAH…! That’s what I was picking up on! (*GRIN*)

“Actually, I find the Doctor more Savage-esque.”

Hmm… can’t really agree nor disagree since I so rarely listen to Savage.

All this said, as with Levin, Tes just goes overboard with the schtick… at least as far as my tastes are concerned.

While I do indeed disagree with Tes on “policy” matters and even questions of fact (I don’t believe Brunn is a Leftist any more than I believe he’s a Right winger; he’s just a nut) from time to time, overall he’s on the “right” side of most debates broadly speaking. It’s just his style and tactics that turn me off. (And to be fair, other’s have made the same complaint concerning my style and tone.)

Re: Sinz54; wrote 54 minutes ago –

“Maybe you didn’t read my post in the Von Brunn discussion…”

You could be right. I may not have been up to date on all your posts, or, perhaps I simply misinterpreted something you wrote or in skimming it misread what you actually wrote. If so… beg pardon. (*SMILE*)

“Leftists like our own ‘ottovbvs’ here are trying to paint all conservatives as somehow responsible for having ‘created a climate’ that encouraged this Von Brunn character.”

Agreed. (And as you’ve no doubt gathered, I don’t have much time for Otto; he’s comic relief, rarely anything more.) (*SHRUG*)

“But the ultra-right-wing extremists tend to live in a cocoon of their own. I’ve read their claptrap. They think virtually all mass media (yes, even Fox News) is Jew controlled.”

On this one we may be talking past each other.

My “problem” with your statement (if it truly can be called a “problem”) has to do with this new construction of “ultra Right wing” that you’ve come up with.

To me once we get to “extremists,” we’re no longer talking “Left” nor “Right” in terms of viable and legitimate ideological definitions of players.

To me these “ultra Right wing extremists” you identify are no more a branch of “conservatism” than are suicide/homcide bombers of school buses representing a branch of “Islam.”

Am I making myself clear?

“The notion that Von Brunn somehow got “inspiration” from Bill O’Reilly or Mark Levin is absurd.”

Agreed. Just as the notion that say… Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad murdered Private William Long because of some message Cindy Sheehan or whoever supposedly threw out into the media… would be, could be, and should be looked upon as absurd.

Sinz. We seem to be fairly simpatico here. (*WINK*)

“The reason why you’re having such trouble with my views, is that I am *NOT* a doctrinaire right-winger all the way across the board.”

(*SNORT*) Sinz. Take a breath. Sit down. Consider…

NEITHER AM I BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION A DOCTRINAIRE RIGHT WINGER…!

(*GRIN*) (*SHAKING MY HEAD IN AMUSEMENT*)

Nope… (*GUFFAW*)… that’s not it, Sinz.

“I do *NOT* endorse every ounce of the 2008 GOP Platform.”

Well (with a nod towards Republican Progessivism) bully for you, Sinz!

(*CRACKING UP*) (I amuse myself so!)

Neither did I, Sinz… so what’s your point…???

* To be continued…

BILL

GALLUP: ‘Conservatives’ Are Single-Largest Ideological Group…

Reagan was unapologetically against abortion.

I’m a Reagan conservative. You keep going back to Nixon, who was very liberal on domestic issues, to include supporting price caps, which is just a gross ignorance of basic economics.