What is your metaphor for the failed conservative values? 

For example, if conservative values were a type of machine, or land, or animal,  etc., what would they be like?  

by Edwin Rutsch (64 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments) on Friday, Jun 20, 2008 at 1:44:57 AM

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There is not as far as we have lived through a good definition of what makes a good conservative. On the political scene he and she seems genuinely in favor of devouring all, controlling all, keeping all. My father and his father, both good Jews, were proud members of the Republican Party because they said it made a good business of theirs even more profitable. It gave them the clients and the clients liked them because of their political views. I thought these two were damn foolish. If the parts they sold had failed and not worked properly, their customers would have looked elsewhere, damn the political affiliation.

All of this to say, I think no one really wants to be a conservative and admit honestly that their reasons are they are greedy and want to own the world and have it all to themselves.  That would not be a conservative's way to present his or her beliefs.

by Deborah Emin (26 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 95 comments) on Friday, Jun 20, 2008 at 10:17:00 AM

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thanks for the vulture metaphor..     I  thought of sharks as a metaphor of failed conservative values.

The conservative  idea is that if everyone is a shark and looking out for themselves that the world will be a better place.. Everyone will be looking out for themselves, driven by self interest, selfishness, sharkmatism (ie dogmatism) and greed.

However, they don't realize  that the ocean is an interrelated ecological system and environment and if every fish was a shark, after they ate all their young, they would all die of starvation. 

by Edwin Rutsch (64 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments) on Friday, Jun 20, 2008 at 10:30:36 AM

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The mantra of conservatives of small government and small taxes has failed. Grover Norquest's goal of "shrinking government so small that he could drown it in a bathtub" is absurd.  What we believe as progressives is smart and effective government.  Government that works will be funded and supported by taxpayers if everyone pays there fair share and it works.  Government and taxes are not the problem.  Corporate control of government and tax breaks for the rich are the problem.

by Trainer12 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 73 comments [9 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 20, 2008 at 10:47:58 AM

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taxes is not a value, it's an issue and high or low taxes are the policies.
what is the underlying values behind this?

by Edwin Rutsch (64 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments) on Friday, Jun 20, 2008 at 8:14:45 PM

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The straightforward, yet wholly emblematic and exemplary truth about conservatives – how they view government and how they govern – can be discerned from the utter underpinnings of what conservative values (sic) denote. In essence, one cannot stand in opposition to a government of the people and then set about being good stewards of the government when placed in positions within the very government they oppose. If one possesses a grand antipathy for government then it is antithetical to believe that the same people who are hostile to its (government) very existence could – or will – be competent at governing in any way conceivable.

Put another way, a person or group of people who deem government as the problem therefore becomes (or creates) the problem and not the solution. When conservatives adjoin with the exact entity (government) that powers the will of the people – with which they have such anathema for and have pronounced it as the ills of what ails us – we as a citizenry and a nation are irreparably harmed.

To be curt or pithy, Republicans are the “party of me” and Democrats are the “party of we.” Henceforth, We the People, hereby demand our government be returned to its rightful owners, “the People of these United States”, and not a group of despotic plutocrats who are fueled by hatred and run on narcissistic greed.

by Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 383 comments) on Friday, Jun 20, 2008 at 5:22:38 PM

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Thanks for that one and I am going to borrow it whenever it comes up in conversation and give you due credit too.

by Deborah Emin (26 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 95 comments) on Friday, Jun 20, 2008 at 5:49:51 PM

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Fear means that people will give up their freedom to think by relying on an authority father figure to make their decisions for them.  This has been the modus operandi for the Republican Party for decades.  My metaphor is the tyrant stepping on the minds of the public.  The tyrant can be a president or a god or a guru. 

by Frank Hamilton (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Saturday, Jun 21, 2008 at 11:42:28 AM

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