Once more unto the breach...
SirNitram wrote:General Havoc wrote:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have here yet again the usual routine of ignoring everything that was said in favor of making shit up about it. Notice how he claims I do not know what I'm talking about, but does not provide any example about what I said...
You define the present movement as Neocons? Or how about where you say deregulation wasn't a cause? Or even the tautology I later cite? In short, I did. You just don't like that I did.
Nononono, you do not get away with that bullshit this time. You still haven't provided any evidence for any of your claims, nor even explained what your claims are. The focus of our conversation was how they are not conservatives. All of a sudden now they're not Neocons? I am not taking your fucking word for this one Nitram, if they're not Neocons, then let's hear about why. You do not get to define yourself as right and then accuse everyone who disagrees with you of ignorance without explaining word one of your claims. They're not neocons? Fine. Explain what they are. Until you do, you are merely pretending that you know better.
They are a mere subsect of National Security hawks, more accurately described as Imperialists than Conservatives or Democrats. It's why they got thrown out of the democratic party.
Okay... now we're getting somewhere.
They certainly are Imperialists, I'll agree with you there. I will also agree with you that they are moreso Imperialists than they are Conservatives or Democrats (or Liberals). I further agree that this is one of the major reasons they got thrown out of the Democratic party. In fact, I agree with the whole thing above, especially as it supports the point I've been making all along.
So far so good...
The bubble was caused by removing all oversight, regulations, as well as the silly cry of 'Ownership gives you more of a stake' by the government. You are free to start showing why it's something else.
Firstly Nitram, as someone who works in the financial services sector, specifically with mortgages, whoever told you that the Conservatives or anyone removed all oversight and regulations from the mortgage industry was telling you
filthy, filthy lies. The regulation on mortgages and their lenders is broad, and remains so, and remained so during both the bubble and the crash that followed it.
What caused the bubble was a combination of a number of factors:
1: The regulations
were reduced, as was the oversight, but not entirely, and not as comprehensively as you seem to think. Nevertheless they were reduced, and the result was that more abuses got through the system. That was a factor, but only one.
2: Greed. As someone pointed out earlier, the banks went hog-wild with securitizing these mortgages because they thought the prosperity would last forever. They offered teaser rates to homeowners who had no idea (or so they claim) of what their final rate was going to be. They accepted mortgages without any proof of income or credit. They constructed liability arrangements so complicated that they themselves were unable to untangle who exactly was liable for what whenever a mortgage went belly-up. And major financial institutions bought into it, and down they went when the bubble burst.
Some of the things they did were made easier by the lightening of the regulatory load, I will certainly grant. But deregulation did not
cause the bubble or the burst.
And as to the cry of "ownership gives you more of a stake", it has been the federal government's policy since the 30s to encourage home ownership, primarily with tax policies. It's one of the primary agenda items of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and as far as I know, has been from the begining. I do not know if you can call that a Conservative policy, but it's a very old one, that has survived dozens of administrations. It's the foundation of much of the domestic policy in this country and has been for a very long time.
Hold on... so now you're claiming that Neoncons DID originate in Liberalism and mutated before latching onto the National Security segment of the Conservative platform? That's... Nitram you just proved my point! Surely that's not what you meant to say...
Only if your point is farcical. Neocons are only the Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran/Etc warmongers of the party. The ones shrieking about the Red Menace. They are not domestic policy. In short, for you to have your point proven by me, your point must be something other than what was written.
Nitram, I'm sorry, I just don't buy your definition of "Neocons". Neoconservatives are strictly-speaking, democrats who have moved away from the Liberalism of LBJ's time towards a more conservative view. There's a great deal of uniformity in their foreign policy, yes, and their foreign policy/warmongering view is very important, but they are influential in domestic matters as well.
Nevertheless, your point is essentially correct. I should not just use "Neocon" as a substitute for "Bush administration" when I speak of these things, as that is inaccurate, and I apologize for that inaccuracy. I do tend to conflate the two terms incorrectly. The point was whether the Bush Administration are following Conservative values or not, and I believe they are not, and that they are not Conservatives, though I should not simply call them Neocons either. That is inaccurate.
No, I never claimed neocons were conservative. They defy liberal/conservative lines because you can walk from Mussolini Corporatism to The Culture without hitting them. They exist as a pure national security/foreign policy entity, one labeled Empire.
I still don't agree with you completely. Neocons are not simply without a basis in domestic policies (and not necessarily a conservative one). I will grant however that they do not display the same uniformity of cause in the presence of domestic politics. As I said, it was my mistake in using the term as synonymous with Bush's administration in the first place. I shall refrain from doing so in the future.
Here we go again! You claim neocons are something they've never been. This is why I mocked you as having no idea what you're on about.
Point conceded. I did made this mistake. I still don't agree that Neocons have no bearing on domestic politics, but that's an argument for another day.
Fiscal Conservatism is a phrase thrown around by conservatives. Fiscal responsibility.. Well, Tax And Spend. Make sure you have the income to pay for your outlay. Very simple principle. But conservatism made Tax and Spend an attack, so we get Spend and Spend.
I agree with your definition, but not with your conclusion. Conservativism did not make Tax and Spend an attack, as your own data from a few posts back indicates. Fiscal responsibility or whatever you want to call it has been a hallmark of many presidents, conservative and liberal both. It remains a hallmark of many politicians today, conservative and liberal both. I consider it fundamentally a conservative policy, but that's open to debate.
What Conservatives
did demonize, was the lack of control over spending, and the consequent spiraling taxation that it entails. They did this both to Republicans and Democrats. A local example: California Proposition 13, generated and passed by a conservative grassroots organization (headed by Paul Gann and Howard Jarvis) over the multifold objections of both republican and democratic lawmakers (not all, but a lot). For those who don't know, Prop 13 drastically limited property taxes within the state of California, and continues to do so up to this day.
I don't see any way to categorize Prop 13 as anything but a conservative proposition. Certainly the people who proposed it described it that way. Fiscal responsibility or whathaveyou is one of the hallmarks of Conservative politics, not that you could tell that from the current crop of idiots in charge.
Of course they're not neocons. They're not Imperialists. You farcical insistence that neocons comprimise the majority isn't changing into fact anytime soon
I was not claiming that Neocons constitute the majority of anything! I was claiming that they wield great influence in the present administration, which I believe extends WELL beyond the realms of foreign policy and into domestic policy. They're certainly not the only factor there, but they're one of the driving forces behind the Bush presidency, and one of the reasons I would not characterize Bush or his team as Conservative.
Yes, please visit. You will notice the debt climbs under Ford and tilts lower for Carter.
It climbs under Ford by a
minute amount, and tilts lower for Carter by the same minute amount. That's an inflation-adjusted statistical rounding error compared to the massive falls it takes under both the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations (and let's be fair, the LBJ and Clinton ones too). And by the way, Eisenhower took over in 1952, seven years after WWII. It was Truman who got us out of that war. It fell under Ike's watch because Eisenhower was a strict fiscal conservative, not because we had just finished the second world war (though it
might be due to the end of the Marshall Plan. I'm not sure about that one).
Nitram, you have a seriously unhealthy fixation with ramming things up my ass.
And you have an unhealthy one with declaring you'll quit then rushing back in to shriek the same misconceptions.
I don't recall declaring anything of the sort. In fact, let me check...
... yep, I didn't declare anything of the sort. I didn't even say anything that could remotely be construed as anything of the sort. This question could be asked at a lot of points, Nitram, but I'll ask it now:
What the
fuck are you talking about?
This only works if you define neoconservatives as more than what they are. Or do you not like that words have meanings that you don't get to reassign? Neoconservatism is a foreign policy attitude, nothing else. You just try and claim it's the whole spiel today.
All right, I will!
Neoconservatism is not, was not yesterday, and will not be tomorrow purely a foreign policy attitude. It was not that when it was invented. It was not that as of the convention this evening. It has at
no point been restricted solely to matters of foreign policy. Not all hawks are Neocons.
Much of the Neocon platform, their primary unifying thrust, has been aimed at foreign policy, certainly, but that is not the extent of their philosophy. I cite Leo Strauss, one of the godfathers of Neoconservativism, and his philosophy of the "Noble Lie". I cite the support of Intelligent Design by prominent neocons as part of this same effort. I cite the fact that Michael Harrington, the man who invented the modern use of the term "Neo-conservative" defined these people as 'supporters of a welfare state of sorts, but not in its contemporary form'. I cite [url=
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... 89596/pg_5]Irving Crystal, a neocon himself, who wrote:
"It follows that our natural impulse was melioristic. Even while being critical of the Great Society [...] the Public Interest was always interested in proposing alternate reforms, alternate legislation, that would achieve the desired aims more securely, and without the downside effects. This was something that did not much interest traditional conservatism, with its emphatic "anti-statist" focus. The difference also had something to do with the fact that traditional conservatives had many distinguished economists in their ranks, and economics is above all the science of limits, a great nay-saying enterprise."
Not one bit of the above addresses foreign policy matters.
Even to this very day (that article was written about a decade ago), the distinctions between Neocons and traditional conservatives are many and varied. On subjects such as globalization, immigration policy, and, yes, fiscal conservativism, neocons are at complete odds with traditional conservatives.
So in short, no, Nitram, Neocons are NOT purely a foreign policy group who have no influence, distinct policies, or interest in the domestic sphere. They're derived from Great Society Liberals originally, and even if the modern neocons have never been Democrats, they are informed by the policies and positions that the movement has undertaken. Obviously they're imperialistic, and very focused in terms of their foreign policy goals, but that's not all there is to them.
Of course there was a strawman, though you snipped it for your own face-saving. You claimed conservatism was being painted as the origin of all evils, but that's bullshit. It's responsible, in extreme forms, for many varieties of suffering.. As is Imperialism, Autocracy, Libertarianism, and most other philosophies if you take them to the extremes.
I snipped nothing whatsoever, Nitram, and I'll thank you not to make things up when you are referring to what I have and have not said.
I claimed, as I am claiming now, as I will continue to claim, that the administration of George W. Bush is not a conservative administration, a claim you ridiculed as fallacious, and that I am defending. I assumed that you were ridiculing it because you wished to cast Conservativism itself as consistent with Bush's flawed and failed policies, which is inaccurate. I should not have done that, because I don't know why you chose to ridicule it, nor why you thought it should be ridiculed, as you declined to tell me and I had to drag the explanation out of you. Nevertheless, my point remains as it was at the beginning:
This is not Conservativism.
That is what I am claiming.
Wah wah wah. You shriek stupidity like you do, showing you've no idea what you're talking about, and you expect me to take anything you say seriously? Please. Why should I read through a post declaring it's all the neocons when they're sole accomplishment was Iraq and warmongering, the abandonment of Soft Power?
...
...
Are you fucking kidding me?
Are you FUCKING kidding me?
Are you
seriously sitting there and telling me that you did not read my post, and then walked into this thread and told me I was a liar? Are you
actually fucking telling me that, Nitram? Are you telling me that I spent all day writing complex defenses of my positions, responding point by point to your assertions, and that the entire time we've been talking here, you have been
arguing in bad faith?! That I'm being a crybaby for expecting you to
read my posts?!
...
...
No.
No, I do not believe it. I do not physically believe that even you would do such a thing. I believe that I am mis-understanding you, somehow. Nobody, not even online, is that big of an ass. Nobody. I
have to be making a mistake. I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
I know that I've accused you of not reading what I've written before, but this is slightly different. I am not responding to the rest of your post until you answer me this one question: Did you, or did you not, fully read my posts from before? Answer me that, and that alone. I do not want to hear about how I am a liar. I do not want to hear about how I am a crybaby. I do not want to hear any more of your sanctimonious crap that you flail about widely in place of evidence or substance. I want to know the answer.
Did you read what I wrote before?
Because I cannot believe, even with what you just said, that you would actually enter a thread, not read what someone said, and then accuse them of being a liar. I cannot believe you would string me out for an entire day by arguing in bad faith.
Because God Help Me, Nitram, if you didn't read it, as you appear to just have claimed... then I do not fucking know what to say to you.
But I assure you that I will think of many things.
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
