***Because of that, we lack the demagogues to spread the propaganda that conservatives have. Less propaganda allows us to think more for ourselves. That's all it is. You conservatives look for demagogues to tell you what to think. We liberals don't. End of story...
>>>Total Bull shitte. As usual and all backwards. You Liberals are few massive lies by MSM, and blocking of news even by Social Media so you can't learn the truth. And you liberals are also fed crap by your elected leaders that defys reality and common sense. You are really pathetic. S

LR

Let us reaffirm our beliefs

We Conservatives must reaffirm our beliefs and our programs for the future. Realistic self-examination is never a pleasant act, but it is necessary to be able to proceed with the faith and confidence in our cause.

So what are our beliefs? Within Conservatism I see nine orders of business to explain: spiritual, social, economic, political, cultural, law and order, military, foreign affairs and pivotal Issues. Conservatives blend each of these orders into their belief system. I will give my short version of these beliefs here, which will need further clarification and amplification to bring out each of the orders more fully. Within each order we must apply the following conservative factors to the appropriate degree: faith, realism, skepticism, federalism, evolutionism, and capitalism. Here is my listing:

1. Spiritual: We believe in God and have faith in the essence of His Word in the Bible as interpreted by Biblical scholars and men of the cloth. We follow its logical and moral precepts as best we can, especially the Golden Rule. We know that man is capable of great good, but we also know that he is capable of great evil. This fact has not changed significantly in thousands of years.

We believe in the infinite value of life, its preservation and its protection. We also believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage. We further believe that the movement to greater secularism in the nation is wrong, and it must be defeated or at least minimized. We believe in the Protestant work ethic and in pride in our workmanship.

We also believe that men of good character and moral strength, although not believers in God, can be rightly in the fold of Conservatism if they strongly support the tenets below.

2. Social: We believe in self-reliance and individual responsibility and not government handouts at every hint of a “need” or entitlement. Government must not be the provider that everyone looks to in all cases. However, there must also be both government welfare and private charity to care for those who cannot care for themselves, together with disaster relief needs.

Our freedoms and liberties depend upon full protection by the government of our inalienable rights to private property-- land, material and intellectual. Government takings must be minimized.

We believe that our children must have a full and complete American education, devoid of negative bias and cant, and that well-formed curricula must be presented to them in the depth and breadth that they deserve. Further, this direction must be carried forward through higher education as well. We abhor the idea of our children being brainwashed by teachers and professors force-feeding a liberal ideology to our children and young adults. These educator types should be either fired or relegated to non-contact with students.

Our concept of a civil society demands that citizens respect and obey the law and avail themselves of standard procedures for redressing grievances. We believe that good citizenship also demands that we aid the poor and indigent, that we are a good neighbor, that we maintain a civil tongue, that we are persons of integrity and good will, and that we respect the religions of others. Moreover, we expect all citizens to be truly patriotic and to support our Constitution and the institutions that it prescribes.
 

3. Economic: We believe in tempering our mixed economy with greater freedoms as we go forward, since the operation of a free market is proven best for our economy. It is necessary, however, to have some minimal regulation to thwart the ever-present human vices of greed and avarice.

We believe in caring for our environment in a responsible and economic manner, but not in rushing to erect some fantastic approach to mitigate what has been termed Global Warming or Climate Change. We believe that proper scientific investigations must be completed in a timely manner by objective scientists, and properly peer reviewed, before spending billions of our taxpayer dollars for a chimera. That the current fantasy approach is not accepted science has been demonstrated by over 30,000 scientists, doctors and competent academics around the world signing up for dissent.

We believe in fair and moderate taxation that every citizen must participate in as a percentage of their purchases or consumption, not income. A Flat or Fair Tax is the right approach, replacing all other taxes. The idea of progressive taxation and releasing most citizens from their tax obligations, largely to redistribute wealth, is both undemocratic and toxic to our economy. We must squash the politics of envy.

We believe in fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, which is not easily done now, but we must begin to regain control of our financial house immediately. We must disabuse Congress and the President of the notion that money collected from the taxpayer is their money to spend as they see fit, such as in earmarks, pork, special entitlements or "stimulus" that are in reality disguised favorite democratic programs.


4. Political: We believe in the precepts of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and believe in an original and plain interpretation of the intent of their words.

We believe that whoever rules least, rules best. Small but effective governance over the essentials for our security is the right way. The 1,177 existing government boards, committees, agencies, foundations, and commissions must be significantly reduced, along with a simplification and synthesis of rules and regulations that have proliferated to a ridiculous extent. It is also apparent that federal government may be forced to grow to some extent in some areas because of the growth of our population, but it should be held to a workable percentage of the population.
This tenet extends to the resurgence of states’ rights as is called for in our Constitution as opposed to ever-increasing federal government dominance. We believe in subsidiarity: that is, placing decisions at the lowest level of governance possible.

We believe that experimentation with new government structures, institutions, and customs must be severely constrained, since such experimentation with what has been successful and traditional for over 230 years may ultimately redound to our detriment due to unforeseen negative consequences for our freedoms. There is a well-proven path for changes to our Constitution; any other path must be stopped---in particular, legislation from the bench.

This tenet applies also to the arena of international government, where we must not allow our sovereignty to be compromised by the UN or any other organization. Today, too many of the nations of the world are far too hostile and amoral or immoral to permit real democratic worldwide governance. However, it is apparent that we must assume a positive and proactive role in foreign relations in concert with other truly democratic nations.

We believe that any person or group, any religion, or even nation that vows to overthrow our government or to harm our people has cast themselves out from our civil society and the protection of its laws, as well as the protection of accepted international treaties. The nations of Islam are definite candidates for such action. We must therefore do what is necessary against these enemies of the state to ensure our nation from harm. America comes first. There can be peace through strength and resolve.

5. Cultural: We believe that government must be color, race, and origin blind, and must ensure equal opportunity for all, while definitively rejecting the concept of equal outcomes for all as being an anathema to democracy. This extends to equality of treatment of all citizens and not to special treatment of some minorities.

We believe in assimilation of immigrants, for example, and we believe that English must be the official language of the nation. We also believe that our multicultural society must be urged, even guided, in the direction of a composite, single American Culture over time, and that protected cultural diversity for its own sake is divisive and dangerous tribalism. However, private observance of a culture that breaks no laws is always acceptable.

6. Law and Order: We have a society that is governed by laws and not men. The basis for our laws is derived from the theory of natural law, including natural rights, and natural duties, and the main tenets of natural law have been embedded in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution by our founding fathers. (An outline of natural law, rights and duties is given in the Appendix. A summary of these derivative laws, rights, and duties is given in the book “The 5,000 Year Leap” by W. Cleon Skousen.)

7. Pivotal Issues: This order concerns many of the pivotal issues that have arisen in our society over the past several decades. We have seen the use of polarization in society to further the political objectives of a few, and the use of demonization along the lines of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals for political dominance. This sort of pestilence must be halted.

To make matters worse, we have witnessed the many lies and false statements of intent of some in politics that deliberately fools the public at large as to the real intent of their Administration. It is also apparent that despite the promises of Obama, which leads to hidden malpractices, stonewalling, and lack of the public’s ability to set things right by voting these people out of office and replacing them with honest and able people.

8. Military Readiness: We believe that the principal duty of government is to provide the security and defense of our nation against all forms of aggression coming from either within or without our sovereign borders. To preserve and protect is the motto. This includes the security of our borders from illegal entry, and the deportation of illegal entrants once found.

To this end, we must have a strong military and a strong internal police force that is given this mission covering land, sea, air and space. We must also recognize the threats we face from fanatics of many types, whether in or out of the country, and be prepared to deal with them effectively wherever necessary, even if it means preemptive action on our part. We believe in the concept of just war.

9. Foreign Affairs: The first consideration is our treaty membership in the United Nations. For all of the good the UN accomplishes, it has too many flaws to become the model, if not the actual organization, for a world centralized government with the powers of law-making, taxation and of wielding its own military force. There are far too many members, almost a majority, that are morally corrupt, intellectually inept or hostile to the US. Thus, we do not need to foster this organization and should not support morally corrupt and biased sects within the UN. We must retain our membership, especially because of the Security Council and other humanity supporting sub-organizations, but we must reject any attempts to promote the UN, or any other globalist idea, to true governing status. We must retain our sovereignty at all costs.

Well, whatever we have you have the same thing times ten. And it's as I explained earlier, affirmation over confirmation. You cons continually seek the affirmation of your peers just as Manning was doing with this thread. But affirmation isn't the same thing as confirmation and anything that can be confirmed you turn your nose up and call it fake news. That's what you do with MSM--you totally dismiss it without ever considering what it says. That both Barr and Krebs CONFIRMED that no cheating took place you won't even consider even though both are conservatives and both were appointed by Donald J Trump.

You people won't consider anything that will challenge your belief system...end of story!

Gosh, Pete, you took a couple courses in PolySci and you learned what?

That,
Conservatism is a failed "ideology"?
Conservatives "use" news sources to affirm their beliefs?
Conservatives dismiss the truth in favor of fallacies?
Conservatives are not capable of confirmation?
Conservatives accept that which affirms what they already believe?
Conservatives are "self-taught"?
Conservatives are incapable of self-examination? Except in rare instances, of course.

Enduring questions??? What a crock. When you give up everything you believe in for a fleeting chance at power there is nothing about you that is enduring. As I said before, you are incapable of self-examination because you always look to others to affirm what you believe.

This is what Manning wrote: I thank Blade, Seth, BigMike and LR in particular for their very positive comments on my post!

When I bare my political ideas in this forum, it is very gratifying to find substantial agreement with the positions I've taken.

This is what I wrote: The failure of your ideology is that it adheres to Affirmation vs Confirmation. You use your peer's and demagogues parading as News sources to affirm what you believe. Of course, the danger in this is that you may be dismissing the truth while accepting a fallacy in its place. I commend Manning because at least he is willing to do a little self-examination. That's something I don't think you have the ability to do because you will only accept that which affirms what you already believe and you will reject anything new.

Manning found what he was looking for, the affirmation of his beliefs by his peers. What he didn't find is whether his belief system was true or false because he wasn't looking for that...only that others agreed with how he thought.

That's confirmation bias and while we all use it to a degree you conservatives rely on it exclusively to determine how you believe...

Enduring questions??? What a crock. When you give up everything you believe in for a fleeting chance at power there is nothing about you that is enduring. As I said before, you are incapable of self-examination because you always look to others to affirm what you believe.

This is what Manning wrote: I thank Blade, Seth, BigMike and LR in particular for their very positive comments on my post!

When I bare my political ideas in this forum, it is very gratifying to find substantial agreement with the positions I've taken.

This is what I wrote: The failure of your ideology is that it adheres to Affirmation vs Confirmation. You use your peer's and demagogues parading as News sources to affirm what you believe. Of course, the danger in this is that you may be dismissing the truth while accepting a fallacy in its place. I commend Manning because at least he is willing to do a little self-examination. That's something I don't think you have the ability to do because you will only accept that which affirms what you already believe and you will reject anything new.

Manning found what he was looking for, the affirmation of his beliefs by his peers. What he didn't find is whether his belief system was true or false because he wasn't looking for that...only that others agreed with how he thought.

That's confirmation bias and while we all use it to a degree you conservatives rely on it exclusively to determine how you believe...

Enduring questions??? What a crock. When you give up everything you believe in for a fleeting chance at power there is nothing about you that is enduring. As I said before, you are incapable of self-examination because you always look to others to affirm what you believe.

This is what Manning wrote: I thank Blade, Seth, BigMike and LR in particular for their very positive comments on my post!

When I bare my political ideas in this forum, it is very gratifying to find substantial agreement with the positions I've taken.

This is what I wrote: The failure of your ideology is that it adheres to Affirmation vs Confirmation. You use your peer's and demagogues parading as News sources to affirm what you believe. Of course, the danger in this is that you may be dismissing the truth while accepting a fallacy in its place. I commend Manning because at least he is willing to do a little self-examination. That's something I don't think you have the ability to do because you will only accept that which affirms what you already believe and you will reject anything new.

Manning found what he was looking for, the affirmation of his beliefs by his peers. What he didn't find is whether his belief system was true or false because he wasn't looking for that...only that others agreed with how he thought.

That's confirmation bias and while we all use it to a degree you conservatives rely on it exclusively to determine how you believe...