🚀 go-pugleaf

Ed Rhodes <edward.j.rhodes@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:eeX6a.8190$8f7.1488@nwrdny02.gnilink.net...
>
> "istartedi" <comments@vrml3d.com> wrote in message
> news:b3elv5$m7e$1@bob.news.rcn.net...
> > > Who were the Loyalists to the totalitarian monarchy of King George?
> > >
> > > Who started our Civil War to defend slavery?
> > >
> > > Who fought to keep women as property, and now fights their sovereignty
> > over
> > > their own bodies in the freedom to choose abortion?
> > >
> > > Who fought against child labor statutes?
> >
> > These are all 18th and 19th century issues, except abortion.  Abortion
of
> > course, is the Liberal sacrement so I won't argue about it here.
>
> The time frame is unimportant... it was the conservative viewpoint of the
> day that these things were all evil and had to be supressed at any cost!

The timeframe is quite important, seeing as how we live *now* and not
*then*.

> > >
> > > Who fought against the concept of free public education?
> >
> > Who fights against vouchers, which would put the poor on an equal
footing
> > when it comes to education?
>
> The only reason "private education" gets such good press is that they get
to
> pick and choose whoever they want in their schools. What happens to those
> people with vouchers in their hands who can't find a school to take their
> children? And if you think "public education" is going to still be there
> while its funding gets cut even further to reflect all those missing
> dollars, you're fooling yourself!

No I'm not.  Nobody is suggesting that compulsory education be taken off the
books, or the public schools be abolished.  In rural areas where private
schools may not go, the status quo would continue--long bus rides to secular
schools.  In cities, the market will take care of it.  In fact, the market
already takes care of it in cities even when clients are paying for
education twice--once in taxes and again for tuition.

> >
> > > Who fought against the right of women to vote?
> >
> > Men.
>
> 100% of all men were against women voting? Or just men in the conservative
> faction?

If you choose to define all pro suffragist men as "liberals" then your
argument is circular.  I'm sure there were plenty of constitutionalist men
who were pro, as well as some "religious" women who were anti.  The PP's
attempt to paint everything in black-n-white liberal-vs-conservative glosses
over a lot of complexity.

>
> > > Who fought against anti-trust and anti-monopoly legislation?
> >
> > Theodore Roosevelt was arguably neither Liberal nor Conservative--one of
> the
> > most independant thinking presidents we've ever had, really a unique and
> > admirable individual who's philosophy could be summed up as "fixing what
> he
> > saw as wrong" as opposed to any one-dimensional ideology like "liberal"
or
> > "conservative".
>
> This doesn't answer the question. At least not clearly enough for me.

tough noogies.

>
> > > Who fought against government controls on manufacturers of cars
"unsafe
> at
> > > any speed?"
> >
> > Who made them put airbags in, even though they said it was a dubious
> device,
> > then when airbags started killing children, who had to make sure you
could
> > disable airbags?  For that matter, who insists on CAFE standards which
> > create tin-can killboxes?  Who created the rollover-prone SUV?  Well
> > intentioned Liberals who put CAFE on cars, but of course you can't CAFE
a
> > truck so voila!  The SUV was born.
>
> Don't know what CAFE stands for, so I can't say. I don't think liberals
> "created" the SUV... auto-manufacturers created the SUV in an attempt to
> end-run around emissions standards (which may be what the acronym CAFE
> stands for, but I hadn't heard it before.) What a horrible thing it is to
> try and keep the air breatheable... or are you too young to remember when
> they actually had days where they told people not to go outside if they
> could help it because the air quality was "unacceptable."

CAFE == Corporate Average Fuel Economy.

The "fleet" of vehicles produced by the car companies had to have an average
mileage fixed at a certain standard.  Trucks were exempt because ordinary
joes who use trucks to haul stuff wouldn't have been able to get a truck
under CAFE.  A "truck" is defined according to certain characteristics of
the vehicle body which tend to create vehicles that have a high center of
gravity, etc.  IIRC, the Dodge minivans were the first vehicle to exploit
this loophole and produce a non-truck that met the definition of truck.
SUVs did the same thing.  Thus, Liberals invented the SUV.

The next part of your rebuttal addresses an entirely different issue--that
of air quality.  The EPA was actually started under... wait for it...
Richard M. Nixon!  An interesting character he was--a Quaker and a
Republican.  Conservative?  Many would have said so at the time.  At any
rate, I do believe air quality controls are a good thing.  I'm not blinded
by any idealogy, be it Liberal or Conservative.  AQ controls have nothing to
do with the SUV issue or mileage, they involve devices like the catalytic
converter, air injection system, exhaust gas recirculation, and that device
that draws air over your manifold to heat the engine up quicker (can't
remember what they call it), and later computer systems that control engine
timing and other parameters to improve mileage and reduce emissions.  It's
possible to build vehicles that meet AQ standards, but still burn too much
gas and have inappropriate handling characteristics--that's what an SUV is.

> > >
> > > Who killed several thousand innocent civilians in the 9/11 terrorist
> > > attacks?
> >
> > Who killed several million innocent civilians in Soviet Russia because
> they
> > might not have been true Liberals?
>
> Communism is as much our warped, twisted child as facisism is yours.

True.

>
> > > Who defended Jim Crow for a hundred years?
> >
> > Who defends racial preferences (in the form of so-called "affirmative
> > action") now?
>
> I don't like "affirmative action," but unless we find some way to create
> "blind bidding" applications, you can't convince me that a person's color
> isn't going to affect his ability to be accepted! Affirmative action is an
> attempt to tip that situation back to normal. Tell me how else it could be
> done! (And see my first line before you tell me that "everybody should be
> taken on their merits and nothing else." yes, that would be perfect! Now
> tell me how that can be done!

It's done.  You will always have some nut-cases who are racist, but they are
few and far between.  Racism is thouroughly discredited among the majority.
Affirmative action now does more to stir the pot and push people *back*
towards racism.  End it now.

> > >
> > > Who fought against voting rights, civil rights,
> >
> > bigots.
>
> ...who were on [what] side of the equation?

Both sides.  From the "Dixiecrats" who also voted for Roosevelts, to the
Republicans of the "Southern Strategy".  Both sides are guilty.

[snip]
>
> eco-terrorists are nutballs. Every group has nutballs. They don't stand
for
> the main thrust of the group as a whole.

I think we're agreed on this issue.

> >
> > >
> > > Who opposes equal rights for gays and other free-lifestyle minorities?
> >
> > Who judges people on the content of their character?
>
> Not conservatives, I can tell you that.

I respectfully disagree.

>
> enough! this is getting tiring!

Amen.

--$teve