(02-26-2018 09:12 AM)stinkfist Wrote: I actually think he's one of the highest IQ liberals yet to post......
he sometimes asks decent questions while also trolling within the context.....
the boy's got chops with some fair questions littered within.....
While I appreciate the IQ comment, you couldn't be more incorrect in attempting to categorize me as a liberal. Like Thomas Sowell, I believe that liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face. I am a conservative in the truest sense.
This "boy" is over 60 years old and for all of my adult life have been a conservative Republican. Having lived all over the country in 11 states, I settled in Mississippi. At that time, the only Republicans I knew of here was a car dealer in Meridian, who kept running for governor every year and losing badly, and a local attorney, who would later be appointed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals by George W. Bush, but withdrew his name after a slanderous filibuster by the Democrats. I have been elected to office myself, as a Republican.
While I have questioned the direction of the party over the years, I have never been more concerned than in the current political climate. Conservatism as I have believed it all of my life hardly resembles the thinking of today's group who claim to be conservative.
So while you might think of me as a liberal, I have to laugh and wonder if many who call themselves conservatives actually understand the underlying concepts of conservatism. It is not holding certain positions on an issue of the day or an allegiance to a particular person who is temporarily in charge. It is, however, an attitude about valuing the relationship between property and freedom, as well as moral order (a strong sense of right and wrong, justice and honor). It is a set of principles that recognizes that change is inevitable, but recommends that change be approached with measured caution. Conservatism is not militaristic or isolationist, but values restraint, prudence and diplomacy in foreign affairs. As a conservative, I don't hate the liberal or the progressive or the libertarian; I simply believe that his ideas are normally contrary to the good of our nation. Treating him as an enemy is likely to guarantee one and does nothing for his education.
I prefer to participate in discussions where there are exchanges of ideas, rather than what I see dominating this board. When I test my own beliefs while I engage others about theirs, I can still learn something.