Letters to the Editor
MacK..
Published Letters: 477 Editor's Choice: 49
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Bush and his backers are not conservatives, or liberals, they are radicals and we should call them that
[Read the article: The great right-wing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A huge number of Americans self-identify as conservatives, more than self-identify as liberals. Allowing Bush an his ilk to call themselves “Conservative” or to argue over whether they are conservatives is a political mistake --- because they are not…
There is a “dirtier” word than liberal to conservatives and that is “radical.” The truth is that Bush represents the radical-right wing and not conservatives or conservatism at all. However, he is not the only radical – rather equally radical are Krauthammer, Cheney, Perle, Norquist and many others. Many people have heard the joke that “a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged” – sometimes rephrased (“a neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.”)
What is a Radical – Webster defines it as: marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional … tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions c : of, relating to, or constituting a political group associated with views, practices, and policies of extreme change d : advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs.
Compare this with the definition of liberal and conservative:
Liberal: of, favoring, or based upon the principles of liberalism b capitalized : of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism; especially : of or constituting a political party in the United Kingdom associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives
Conservative: of or relating to a philosophy of conservatism b capitalized : of or constituting a political party professing the principles of conservatism … advocating support of established institutions … tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions … marked by moderation or caution … marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners
Well the truth is that US Conservatives, in their hostility to liberals and fear mongering of what those nasty liberals were up to allowed a gang of Radical muggers to creep up from the right and mug them of the Republican party. Now that same group of muggers is trying to argue, hell no, we are not muggers, we are just conservatives. Bullshit! Bush and Co., are radicals that are part of a movement that wants to restructure the United States, tossing out everything from stare decisis to the idea of separation of powers. Aided and abetted by a selection of idiots and clowns like Novak they have seized control of the US. They have argued that they are conservatives only to lul people into a false sense of security, while pushing for radical change.
The funny thing is that for the last 6 years it is the left that has been the voice of conservatism (with a small c) in the United States, not the right.
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adnoto -- what?
[Read the article: The great right-wing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's put it this way, the London Times (or perhaps the Guardian) on Saturday said of the French Left's reaction to Sarkozy "even his worst opponent would not suggest Bush was preferable."
Eisenhower was a conservative, so was Rockefeller, so was Ford, so was Reagan in ways, so was Bush 41 -- can you remotely suggest that they were as bad as Dubya, or even that they shared his politics?
I define myself as being on the liberal left, but I cannot agree that Bush and Co. are conservatives, they are Radicals who call themselves Conservatives, because so many Americans self-identify (and then vote) as conservatives. They secured the vote of conservatives by screaming I AM THE CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE AND THE OTHER GUY IS THE LIBERAL/ANTI-CONSERVATIVE. But the truth is that Bush and Co. were using the loyalty of movement conservatives to the Republican party and conservativism to "con" people into voting for a radical agenda -- they never were conservatives, in fact Gore, Kerry and the Democrats are and were more conservative in reality than Bushies, the neocons and the hijacked Republican party.
We should not call these guys Conservatives -- we should call them Radicals and Neocons and relabel the Republican Party the Radical Party.
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These Guys Are BETTER Than The Old Conservatives? Oh, REALLY???
[Read the article: The great right-wing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mr. Rosenberg:
That awful harridan Ann Coulter loves the tactic you just deployed -- list a bunch of appalling individuals and announce that they are broadly representative of liberals:
So Sharpton speaks for us . . . or Kevorkian, or Jane Fonda, or the Weathermen, or Castro, or Chomsky, or . . .
Not all of the people you listed are conservatives - only some. But then do I want to be lumped with every person on the left -- do I have to agree with Sharpton because I am a liberal?
More to the point the US is for now a democracy, or at least it was. If you want to win it back from the lunacy of the Bushies we need to remind people who honestly self-identify as conservative of what being a conservative really means, and of how far from the term the Bushies and the Radicals (aka Republican party) has travelled.
After all, when Greenwald rails against the gutting of accepted constitutional principles, ideas defined in the hoary old Latin term of habeas corpus, the idea of separation of powers as opposed to the new theory of the unitary executive, that quaint thing called the Geneva Convention and the rights it establishes, the importance of the 4th Amendment against those that argue that new technology and new threats render long established rights against search and seizure outdated, isn't he taking a conservative (as the word is properly understood) position.
Hell I am willing to say I am conservative when it comes to upholding the rule of law, the good old Geneva Convention, the 4th Amendment, the perogatives of Congress to investigate the Executive, Separation of Powers, Roe v. Wade, Paper Ballots (as opposed to Diebold), etc., habeas corpus, etc.