to be a Conservative:

1. Conservatives believe that while many matters are open to debate, there are also some eternal truths. We do not believe right and wrong are flexible concepts, wholly dependent on one's frame of reference.

Like Liberals, Conservatives are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate. Moreover, we understand that in a society where people use threats or intimidation to force their views on others, enforcing the rules is needed or our rights become meaningless.

2. Conservatives believe we have an obligation to live together peaceably and tolerate each other's differences, but we have no duty to subsidize, support, or lend our approval to choices we find wrong or destructive. Responsible adults understand we must all make our own way in life. While we have no right to interfere with the lives of our neighbors, they have no right to reach into our pockets and ask us to pay for the consequences of lifestyle choices we find difficult to understand or approve of.

We do not ask them to change what they are doing. We only ask that they not expect us to fund lifestyles we don't agree with. Live and let live. This, to us, is the true meaning of tolerance.

3. Like Liberals, Conservatives believe individuals ought to participate in public debate. However we are not inclined to force them, or round them up like cattle come Election Day. We believe voting is an individual responsibility, and we have seen what happens when first-time voters who don't understand how to fill out a ballot, or know the names of the candidates or what they stand for, onto buses on election day to swell the ranks of voters.

These people are not stupid, but they are not prepared to vote and the nation is not well served by sending an uninformed electorate to the polls. The nation is also not well served when the parties exacerbate racial tensions at election time.

4. Conservatives see government as a social contract in which individuals freely and intelligently barter some small part of their freedoms for mutual protection from the more rapacious elements of human society. This is a factor which Liberals often forget, preferring to take the benefits of government protection while giving up none of their freedom. This is an unworkable proposition. With their inherent suspicion of all authority liberals cede too much power to the press, setting up a completely unelected and unaccountable fourth branch of government which openly defies the law with complete impunity, releasing classified information at will, blowing federal terrorism investigations, interfering with law enforcement, and defying grand juries.

5. Conservatives believe that justice ought to be blind. There should not be different laws for whites, blacks, Latinos, females, gays, or other demographics. We are not blind to the fact that humans can and do discriminate, but we do not believe the law should, in addition to the thousand injustices and inequalities which exist in nature, impose additional unfairness via our justice system.

6. Conservatives believe people have a fundamental duty to help themselves and they will be stronger and better if they develop the habit of self-reliance rather than dependence on government. We don't believe people are helped by programs that sap personal industry and initiative and undermine family bonds, as Daniel Moynihan warned in the 1960s. Rather, we prefer to see the private sector handle charitable giving, perhaps with tax incentives to encourage donation. This is a more ethical alternative to forcibly appropriating the paychecks of the more productive members of society to support less productive members, regardless of the wishes of the former.

7. Most conservatives don't wish to see entanglement of church and state either. The difference between liberals and conservatives here is that conservatives understand the purpose of Establishment Clause was to protect the free exercise of religion, not to drive all mention of God from public life. Even non-churchgoing conservatives like me are offended by the ACLU's open persecution of Christians and Christian symbology. Not every historic cross on a county or city seal amounts to state sponsorhip of religion.

8. Conservatives understand that our individual liberties are bound up in many of those larger societal rights liberals love to decry. Try exercising your so-called "individual" rights (your sexual freedom, perhaps?) once the city you live in has eminent domained your home right out from under your feet, a lovely court decision for which you may thank the liberal half of SCOTUS and its stunning disregard for the original, and quite plain, meaning of the Public Use clause. There is such a thing as competing interests, like the tension between freedom and security. Liberals like to argue, because we already have security, that personal freedom should somehow be unlimited. But without the former we will not long possess the latter. They are inextricably intertwined.

Feel free to let me have it in the comments section :)

might show RESOLVE or something.

Obama Declines To Defend U.S. Bombing Of Hiroshima, Nagasaki 

JAPANESE REPORTER: What is your understanding of the historical meaning of the A-bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  Do you think it was the right decision?

Obama took a deep breath, paused . . . and punted.

PBO gave a halting response that utterly failed to answer the question.  The closest he came was to observe that Japan "has a unique perspective on the issue of nuclear weapons as a consequence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I'm sure it helps to motivate the Prime Minister's deep interest in this issue."

The reporter tried again: "do you believe the US dropping of nuclear weapons on --"

Obama cut him off, choosing to answer an unrelated question on the situation in North Korea.

More here.

Hat Tip: Meredith Bragg.

Ron Bailey on peak oil BS.

Just wow.  Read this.  Then read the comments. 

Wow.

instead of a DEDICATED post ranting about the Ft. Hood debacle, ignorance re: the Berlin Wall, etc....thought I'd just do a little roundup ...

Hilary's speech was going pretty well until it VEERED OFF THE TRACKS! 

President Obama, whose absence from the celebration is (in my biased opinion) a national embarrassment, then delivered a video message, in which he included among a string of who'da-thoughts the fact that a U.S. president was of African descent.

Funny; when the Iranian people were peacefully challenging their violent overlords, the president said, "This is not about the United States...this is about the people of Iran." Yet when we talk about the overthrow of communism it's time to talk about America's historic 2008 election? WTF?

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Obama’s Rush to Judgment

Barack Hussein Obama has advised us not to rush to judgment about the massacre at Fort Hood. “We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” said the President in a statement he delivered from the Rose Garden (while George W. Bush was in Fort Hood). The President was not so circumspect when he spoke out about Professor Henry Louis Gates’ arrest by Cambridge, Massachusetts police Sgt. James Crowley. Obama incited hatred on national television, rushing to judgment against a white cop who was just doing his job. Obama tried to incite racial division and wrongly criticized the police during a news conference: “But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 … that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.” The incident, Obama said, showed “how race remains a factor in this society.”

 and we don't wanna neglect the ongoing Obamacare debacle:

MICKEY KAUS: “The problem facing health care reform, as Dick Morris and others have been arguing for months, isn’t these tediously subtle legislative complications. They’re what we see on the surface. The problem is the crude, primal politics underneath them–the legislature’s’ ‘id.’ It’s the fear, among power-lusting Democratic Congresspersons, that if they vote for health care they won’t be Congresspersons much past November, 2010 (or that even if they win, they will no longer be in the majority party). They’re not worried about Cadillac plans. They’re worried about castration.”

Plus this: “‘[Y]ou should get behind his plan and benefit from the from the political cover he’ll work to give those who support him,’ Dickerson has Obama saying. You mean like the cover he gave Jon Corzine in New Jersey? …”

with WJHS's exit from the playoffs last week we'll discontinue or HS predictions unless someone wants to sugges a matchup worthy of analysis.

OSU takes on a beaten up Iowa squad.  An OSU win gives them at least a share of the Big T(elev)en  title.  Buckeye's win this one by double digits but not the 2 TD plus margins Vegas is providing.  Take Iowa plus the points if you must.

Don't really see any other good college games at this point.

to the NFL: 

Saints stay undefeated, going to STL.  Twenty points?  Twenty five?

The BIG game of course is Patriots at Indy.  Pats take this one by 2, proving that Brady is back!

 On a seperate note I was reading a FFL article this week that suggested picking up Chris J. from TEN "because the Titans will have such an easy schedule next season."  DUDE!  Your finish in the standings impacts exactly TWO games.  Is facing the currently 3-4 Dolphins THAT much tougher than facing the currently 3-5 Bills?  Are the 2-win Chiefs really THAT much tougher than the 1-win Raiders?  

WJ lost to WLS 3-0 .... inside the red zone 4 times and inside the 5 yard line thrice.  WR's couldn't hold on to the ball, and a few coaching errors (play selection the final 2 minutes and "why did the LB's keep dropping too deep in coverage?)

OSU was a big (pleasant) surprise.  And the SEC officials came through again, pulling out a win for the Crimson Tide.

I'm still taking Alabam over Florida but won't be surprised if it swings the other way.  Winner to the title game to face  Texas.

the best of the rest?  Florida, TCU, Ohio State (Homer!) Boise State.

How do the Bowls shape up?  Alabama vs Texas in the title game.  Horns take the tainted title.

Rose:  Oregon vs Ohio State.  Ducks get the win.

if we assume Alabama is the top seed, Sugar Bowl gets the next pick.  Florida vs USC for another Gator cakewalk.

 Fiesta picks next.  Cincinatti vs TCU!

that leaves the Orange with Georgia Tech and the final selection, Boise State.