For starters, how exactly do you interpret Mark 10:25? Do you believe that Jesus literally meant that anyone who could be deemed wealthy is doomed to eternal hellfire? That anyone in today's America making more than, say, $50,000 a year (well above the individual median income) won't be saved?

Or maybe, just MAYBE, that verse has more to do with the attitude of some rich people being more interested in mammon than God? Just a thought.

It's obvious the person who made this took the most extreme-sounding thing Christ ever said and tried to paint it out of context. What a surprise you would use it, Twerk Release.

And to compare Ayn Rand, an author who conservatives happen to share some views with, and Jesus Christ, who many (but not all, such as dbl) believe to be their Lord and Savior, is ridiculous. You claim to be a Christian, right Twerk? Would you like me to find some quotes from some influential liberals over time that espouse anti-religious sentiment as well and post it here in a smug accusation of your "cognitive dissonance?"



So there are Republicans who believe in both the free market and a society that is built on the foundation of the nuclear family. Aside from crazy anarchists, everyone believes there should be some laws in place (every law restricts some sort of "freedom," technically) that keep society afloat. Conservatives and liberals just happen to disagree on what some of those are.

And I see you're still framing your arguments in the most devious, twisted way possible. For example, referring to the abortion issue as a "choice about what they (mothers) can do with their own bodies." It's not that at all. Conservatives don't give a flying squirrel's nut stash about what mothers do to their bodies; they're concerned about what these mothers are doing to the bodies of another human being growing inside of them. And when that belief is based not off wacky religious fervor but actual science that has shown abortion stops a beating heart, that an abortion performed past the first trimester is ending the life of a fetus that could live outside the mother's womb, it's nothing to be scoffed at. It's something worth taking into careful consideration as to whether it should be illegal or not.



Well pin a rose on your nose.

If you tried to turn in a paper accusing conservatives' beliefs in Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ to be stone cold evidence of cognitive dissonance to any professor not drinking the mindless progressive Kool-Aid, you'd get an F.



"Changed the subject" as in: pointed to a past instance in which the person accusing us all of cognitive dissonance displayed cognitive dissonance himself. The only thing I'm seeing is someone who can't take his own medicine.



If you're calling your Glenn Beck posts (vis-a-vis boggie's) as "irrefutable proof" of right-wing hate speech being more vile than left-wing, then you are completely and utterly clueless as to what the term "proof" means.

Outstanding work there MDanel! I couldn't have done it any better than that.

Oh, and thanks for saving me the torture of having to do that from my phone!

No, not literally, maybe God has some number that's too much, but I doubt it's under $100k, so don't be ridiculous. More interested in mammon? Definitely.

Probably more about, how did they obtain their wealth and what did they do with it? Did people get ripped off or taken advantage of or exploited? Were they charitable at all? Or did they just buy 30 huge houses, dozens of cars and whatever else, only donating to charity enough to cancel out what taxes they would have to pay in?



You really think that's the most extreme thing Jesus ever said?



LOL. I know just because you might like some of what a person says, doesn't mean you have to like all of what they say. I wanted to see if anyone had enough logic to point that out.



Fair and true enough. I guess many, including me, think as long as you're not hurting someone or creating a victim in some way, you're not really doing anything wrong. If you're high on drugs for example and create a victim (yourself doesn't count), you should get in trouble for whatever you did to someone, not preemptively jailing people. It's like putting people in prison for attempted murder because they were speeding. It's absurd. No victim, no crime.



You might have an argument for late-term abortions as being unethical, but not when the mother's life is in danger or something. I would say if it can't live outside the womb, it's not a "person" yet.

One reason I am pro-choice is the basic fact that the Earth is overpopulated.

Another reason, is that if you think about it, is it really a good idea for a kid to be born to a mother who doesn't want it? Most likely born to someone who can't financially or emotionally take care of them. Then what, another single-mother on welfare? But, I thought republicans hated welfare? There's adoption, but how many couples are there out there who can't have kids? Not sure, but I would guess not as many as unwanted kids there would be. Which is actually another reason to let gays get married and adopt kids.



Thanks.



LOL! It might be an example, but a comical, but also true, joke on the internet, really isn't paper writing material.



No, I didn't experience any cognitive dissonance, you just think I did.




This thread isn't about Glen Beck or hate speech.

I appreciate the thoughtful tone of your post lu61f3r, however you should have read a little deeper into that Wiki entry.

First of all, what we call a “conservative” in this country bears little (if any) resemblance to “conservative” as it was understood in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in America. Modern American conservatives are more akin to classical liberals. Now this certainly does not hold true for all conservatives, there are all kinds of conservatives, some of whom do lean a little closer to classical conservatism – but none in this country would support a hierarchical society, an aristocracy, or a monarchy. Nor would I characterize any political ideology that supported such as “right wing.” Classical liberalism resides on the right, and the concepts of hierarchy, aristocracy, and monarchy are inimical to liberal ideals of freedom, the rule of law and equality under the law.

Sure, the Wiki points out that the terms “right-wing” and “left-wing” actually originated in the French National Assembly in the late 18th century where the nobles sat to the president’s right and the commons to the left – the left representing the radical, reforming or socialist element of a political party and the right representing the conservative or reactionary element. But this is of absolutely no use to us today, particularly in America, if these terms were ever relevant or appropriate.

Truth be told, it is almost pointless to debate political ideologies today because we have so screwed up and confused what it means to be on the left, right or center – or to be liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican. To be honest, I know of no 2 people who think entirely alike when it comes to politics or political ideology. That’s not to say there are aren’t 2 people who do think entirely alike, I just have not met them in my 57 years of wanderings about the country or even during my work on the Hill.

Personally I happen to agree more with Hayek in that I don’t see the political spectrum as a simple straight line but as a triangle with socialism, conservatism and liberalism (as in classical liberalism) each pulling at one of the corners.

The Wiki entry you relied on above cites Hayek’s theory in which he posits that these three forces, socialism, conservatism and liberalism each pull at their corner of the triangle and that in the 20th century socialists pulled the hardest and shifted the entire political spectrum to the left or in the direction of socialism. I believe Hayek is right in that assessment. I have become even more convinced of this since reading his chef-d’oeuvre “The Road to Serfdom.” We can actually see this leftward shift in the politics of the right in the form of crony capitalism and this affinity for big government by establishment Republicans in the last 100 years (something one would never associate with the right prior to the 19th century).

Personally, I reject the traditional theories of what comprises those characteristics of the right which you cited above; especially those that associate any sort of central, authoritarian, hereditary or monarchical authority with the right.

If one must view political ideologies as a straight line, I would put any authoritarian ideology, no matter its form, on the left. This would mean communism, socialism, Marxism and even fascism – which has been mistakenly attributed as a far-right ideology. Any authoritarian/totalitarian ideology, and fascism is, by design, an authoritarian/totalitarian political system, is diametrically opposed to the ideals of classical liberalism, which I would place on the right of the political spectrum.

Beyond that declaration I dare not go as political ideologies are so numerous, diverse and ill-defined, that to attempt to lump one or another of them into this camp or that is merely an exercise in meaningless rhetoric.

I will, however, acknowledge that in this country the conservative movement, while it shares much with classical liberalism, does indeed contain elements of conservatism (as you point out above), though I would not characterize those elements as being on the right as you have, but more toward the center or center-left.

As for your contention that modern liberalism (the left) supports the “weak,” I would submit that this is only rhetoric and optics and not a real support for the weak.

For instance, when LBJ launched his “War on Poverty” with his “Great Society” programs, the black nuclear family in the inner cities was a strong institution and blacks had, since the conclusion of the Civil War, been climbing steadily out of the abyss and by the 50’s and 60’s had risen in income and accomplishment significantly (though still with a long way to go to be sure). After a couple of decades of LBJ’s “Great Society,” whose programs were supposed to help those “weak,” we saw the complete disintegration of the black nuclear family and the rise of a dependent and eventually an entitlement mentality amongst inner city poor and minorities! Many simply stopped even trying to make their lives better on their own and turned more and more toward government to lead a subsistence lifestyle as a slave to government handouts! This is what a leftist welfare state agenda always results in, even if the intentions are to genuinely help.

The left SAYS it wants to “help” the weak in society, but the price of that help is ALWAYS a surrender of personal sovereignty and liberty to the state. And the further left one goes the more liberty that is seized in the advancement of an equality of outcomes. That is what the left represents. The right seeks an equality of opportunity under the “Rule of Law” and the left represents an equality of outcomes under the “Rule of Man.”

Personally, I prefer the former to the latter. But that's just me.

See, now we're getting on track. What you say here is probably more what Christ had in mind. But whatever the verse ultimately means, the original flair (and damning possibilities toward the ideals of the Republican party) it had as a stand alone statement (basically, that it's next to impossible for a rich person to be saved) has been lost when we examine it further.



Probably not. But it is arguably the most "extreme-sounding" (to use my original words) thing he said.



I'll take that as a compliment.



Can't say I disagree, but sometimes the "victimless crime" category is a bit complicated to define. Can you think of a reason why a hard drug like meth might be illegal to possess, from a societal viewpoint? Even if possession in and of itself is a "victimless crime"?



But then you get into the sticky situation of determining an exact moment when a dozen-or-so-old week fetus suddenly becomes a person.

It reminds me of the paradox of the heap. We know one grain of sand doesn't make a heap. We would say, however, that a good sized pile of sand covering a porch would be a heap. If we were to remove one grain of sand at a time, asking each time if it were still a heap, which grain would ultimately be the one to force us to decide it wasn't a heap anymore?

In other words, if a 13-week old fetus is capable of surviving outside the mother's womb and therefore be deemed a "person" at 7 pm on December 26, then how do we know it wasn't at 6 pm? Or 5 pm? Or 4 pm? When does that magical time come at which the fetus attains personhood? That's why it makes more sense to me to conclude that any fetus is indeed human life.



Meh. Ever driven through Wyoming?



I know many couples go onto years-long waiting lists to adopt, so I think it's a good-enough option to scratch the financially/emotionally unable mothers argument off the Reasons Abortion is Good list.



Good to hear you say it.



Honestly, I really don't know what's going on in that brain of yours Twerker. So if you insist you weren't experiencing cognitive dissonance, I won't push it. But maybe you could back off the accusation in regards to conservatives a bit more from now on...

Now you are just playing semantic games.

If you actually READ my posts you would not find me saying you "experienced" cognitive dissonance; you WOULD find me saying your posts referenced by me DISPLAYED cognitive dissonance. There is a difference, as I'm sure you know.

So please, point out precisely where in my post I have erred in my assessment that your posts DISPLAYED cognitive dissonance.

You have denied this 3 times here now and have yet to point out where I was mistaken.

As I see it, if I were in a psych class and was asked to present a short paper on an example of cognitive dissonance, my post above would get me an A.

LOL! FALSE as usual.

Then if we're talking about "displaying" cognitive dissonance, then you "display" some in virtually every post you make.

Ever been to Tokyo?

And if anyone cares, the reason I'm pro-choice is because I believe in....choice. And freedom, and all that good stuff.

Really Terker? You just "wanted to see if anyone had enough logic" to point out the flaw in your argument - an argument so transparently ridiculous that a child could have pointed it out?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiigth...

I'm gonna have to call BS on that one Twerker.

Hollow as usual. You say "false" and then make no case to back up your claim.

I'll ask again, please point out specifically where in my post I am in error.

Also, point out exactly where I have displayed cognitive dissonance. You can claim a thing all you like, but if you offer zero proof for that claim, then it's all just so much verbal flatulence.

I made a solid case for your cognitive dissonance, a case you have yet to prove wrong.

How about you give it a go?