You always say some nonsensical BS like this whenever you know you're beat. Somehow I manage to have rational, constructive discussion with people from all over the political spectrum - but you are the outlier. Whenever it becomes clear your BS claims cannot be subatantiated you erroneously cry "DEFLECTION!" in an attempt to save face. It really is quite pathetic. Please do better in future.
This thread topic is about finding someone with LEADERSHIP qualities for 2020. Your puerile whining attempts to DEFLECT because you EXPOSED the FACT that you intend to vote for the fascist One Nation party in Australia in a DIFFERENT THREAD is now a PF Rule VIOLATION of attempted thread derailment and trolling.
Ahh, now you're threatening me with the rules when it is plain to all that A) I have done nothing wrong B) I was calm and rational up until the point you were not, at which point I simply matched your level of vitriol. Report it to the mods if you have an issue. Here's a tissue.
If you continue to attempt to troll and derail this thread you will have to deal with the consequences of your own actions.
Of course he did not have ground. It is criminal action to interfere with an investigation that may involve you.
Especially when you know you are innocent. Mueller had all sorts of conflicts of interest jobless than if I was told I am the subject of an investigation and the lead prosecutor is someone who applied for a great job I was hiring for and turned him down. Would I object and try to get him replaced? You betcha!
:: I never get anything "duly noted for the record" anymore. No matter how relevant and rational my flamebait (facts) are.
I agree that Dems have gradually undermined its moderate way too much,But what you refer to as the 'disowned' conservative Dems were by and large the boll weevils from deep south, and the Democratic party could not 'own' them without continuing to 'own' segregationism and racism. We simply could not hold the party of Hubert Humphrey and party of Strom Thurmond together. The 1948 convention began a process of deciding that keeping Dixiecrats electable demanded too high a price. it was definitely worth whatever price in numbers to rid our party of the deplorables and dinosaurs. Again I agree completely with you that we have made our big tent two sizes too small when we decided only one foreign policy was tolerable, only one view on Roe, only one view on affirmative action, second amendment rights, and tax and spend policies. But the real conservatives in our party were southern and they were too attached to a segregation past. We had to choose and we made the right decision.
Oh no, I assure you, online dictionaries do exist. So you didn't use a dictionary to define "tribalism"? That explains a lot.
Segregationist are dead and gone. George Wallace probably was the last one of any prominence. He might have won the democratic nomination in 1972 if he wasn't shot. The Segregationists were replaced by southern democratic conservatives, non-segregationist such as in Georgia, Zell Miller, Joe Frank Harris, Sam Nunn, Max Cleland who were basically driven into retirement or lost to out to Republicans. Bill Clinton was probably the last what I would classify as southern conservative to win in the Democratic Party. Then there was Jimmy Carter also. Bill and Jimmy certainly weren't liberals in the progressive sense one looks at Democrats today. Yes, one does have the feeling nowadays that one has to pass a series of litmus tests to become a Democrat.
I think your definition of a conservative and mine don't quite gel. Of the names you mentioned in this post, I see Zell Miller as becoming a real conservative . He just kept moving further and further right as time went on until there was nothing 'democratic' he supported anymore. The rest I see as moderates who swing a little left of center sometimes, and a little right of center other times.. There is no way I would consider Bill Clinton as a conservative. I am perfectly fine with centrists and moderates in my party.
I don't believe one has to be a segregationist or a racist to be a conservative. At least not in the traditional sense of conservatism. A true conservative believes in small government - keeping government out of a citizens private business and lives. In this sense, what is known as religious or social conservatives are far away from traditional conservatives values and thinking. They want to use government to force their views on the rest of us. Also a traditional conservatives believes in fiscal responsibility. That basically equates to a balance budget with hopes of a surplus to pay down the national debt. To get there, if it means cutting spending, do it. If it means raising taxes, do it. Usually it means both in today's world. Again different from today's so called fiscal conservatives who only believe in low taxes. Bill was more of a traditional conservative than you think. After all he reduced the deficit to a mere 19 billion in his final year in office. He raised taxes and cut some spending. Sure the liberals hated his welfare reform and the like. His don't ask, don't tell allowed gays in the military. A first step for sure, but he kept it moving forward. Even if you don't like Zell, he was far from a segregationist.
You misunderstand me. I want to be abundantly clear here. I do not believe that conservatives are by nature racists at all. I believe it so happened that most of the real conservative Dems came from the rural south and that was segregation country as well. There was no republican party to speak of in the South since the civil war and reconstruction. In effect there just wasn't two parties to differentiate ideologically. The republican party and the libertarian party as well as some Dems have provided ample evidence that racism and conservative politics do not go hand in hand. In the south for well over 75 years, if you were not for segregation, you weren't electable. If you were a republican you weren't electable That takes some major time to undo. I am not taking any position on Zell Millers views on race. I am saying that he became so consistently conservative, he could no longer find any Dems to endorse by the time he was done evolving and I can't think of any issues on which he was liberal to balance out all the conservative stances he had adopted. He moved to the right at the same time the Democratic party was moving left. I do not see economic conservatives as the 'party of fiscal responsibility' despite how they like to sell themselves.. I see them as the party of low taxes, minimal business regulation, increased spending on defense and reduced spending on social welfare, education and other government programs. Some are deficit hawks/ balance budget types. Some supply siders could barely care less about those deficits ballooning as long as they can parrot some optimistic Pablum about rate of growth and increased revenues soaring etc. , They all care that taxes drop, tax rates drop and national defense gets its needs met. Social/ religious and cultural conservatives are REAL conservatives and the days are long past, that you can claim that they are still 'untraditional' cnservatives. After two or three generations go by, with them all holding hands and voting in the same coalition, its time to stop calling economic conservatives 'traditional' ones and accept that the marriage has taken.
Your Social/ religious and cultural conservatives didn't come into being until or in the 1980's. They were driven by abortion. One issue voters. Pat Robinson, Jerry Falwell etc types. I've always classified myself as a Goldwater conservative with some of Ross Perot thrown in. That shows my age. Goldwater told Reagan to get those religious nuts out of the Republican Party or they apt to take it over. He believed in the right to choose for a woman, keeping government out of it. He also said, referring to gays, "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight." I don't consider religious conservatives as they call themselves real conservatives. But I'm probably old hat, old fashioned in that regard. You can't be an honest conservative if you want government to tell a woman what to do with her body. Whether or not she can or can't have an abortion. I feel the same way about gay marriage, I've always said let love decide, not government. Keep government out of it. Actually, in today's world both liberals and the so called conservatives of today are for big government. Only each wants to use government for different means and for different agendas. This goes totally unnoticed. Economics, Eisenhower was the last president to preside over a budget that reduced the national debt. The national debt went down in two of his eight years. That is how I measure the deficit or if there was a surplus. No president since IKE has had a surplus. To have a surplus the national debt must decrease or there was no surplus. You still spent more than you took in. Using some old phrases, you have the tax and spend Democrats, the borrow and spend Republicans. As for the south, yes. I remember when the winner of an election was decided in the Democratic Primary. The general election meant nothing. Wife is telling me bed time. So until later. Take care.
I would label you you are an economic conservative with a streak of libertarianism. I am an old fashioned liberal. I don't think you can be an honest liberal and advocate for efforts to silence or boycott the public speech of conservatives. I don't think you can be an honest liberal and be anti -theism and belittle or demean those who attend a house of worship, pray and study their faith. I do think that the biggest error Dems have made, was in making too many excuses, too often on fiscal discipline. I definitely do believe in investing public resources to solve public problems but that does not mean I don't think we should not find the tax revenues to spend. While I can understand that there may be limited and urgent times when deficit spending is needed, its not supposed to be our way of life or the way our party affords every whim and desire. Both sides have made paying the bills, the last priority fiscal year after fiscal year for decades.
