Hurricanes are usually occasions for the public to complain about a lack of preparation by their leaders. That would explain some of the dismay over the primary-season comments by Mitt Romney about disbanding federal disaster relief. But the bigger surprise this week has been the willingness of elected leaders to push back against citizens who didn’t — or wouldn’t — do enough to protect themselves. These targets included not only those YouTube daredevils who gloried in the risks, but ordinary people who insisted on going to work even as the winds picked up, or who failed to secure their homes and boats and cars.
For all the talk about what government owes its citizens, an equally compelling discourse focuses on an individual’s responsibilities to society. The notion of a social contract between leaders and their followers, explored by philosophers like John Locke who helped to inspire America’s revolution, concentrated as much on the duty of citizens as it did on their governments.
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Today's new version of conservative doesn't believe in conserving, doesn't believe in the fundamental values that the nation shares in terms of common good and common action. Today's new conservative is a selfish mean little man or woman who tends to think god provides or god destroys. Today's conservative believes he or she owes his nation and his fellow citizens nothing in terms of his life, his liberty and his pursuit of happiness. He fails to recognize that it is government of the people and by the people that has made everything he has possible. For the President was right when he said> you didn't build it" for you didn't. For if not for the solider, if not for the govt. worker, if not for the raod builder, for my taxes, you would be living in some hovel scratching out a living, praying the barbarians weren't at your gate.
Today's conservative is an embarrassment to all of us who hold certain true conservative values. Today's version of conservatism has taken a proud philosophy and turned it into a philosophy of withdrawal and pettiness and religious fervor.
Rubbish. I am a conservative who can prove you so wrong on so many levels. I feel this post is an embarassment and I'm embarrassed for you.
I'm a conservative. So now you prove it.
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How about a story on the media and press corps responsibility and journalistic integrity to voters?
NOW THERE'S A STORY THAT WE WILL NEVER SEE IN THE GLOBE!
"willow2" Tell me how you agree with the positions taken by Barry Goldwater if you agree with the first leader of the movement then you cannot agree with those who call themselves conservatives today. It's easy to say "attaturk you're wrong". Now is the hard part, prove it.
."willow2" Let me make it easy for you by quoting Goldwater.
Barry Goldwater a true conservative said:
"I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process." (in a 1994 Washington Post essay)
"The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others,"
"I don't have any respect for the Religious Right."
"Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."
"A woman has a right to an abortion."
If you cannot agree with these basic premises then you're not a conservative. You are simply a radical right winger.
The isolation of the individual in America has led to the breakdown of "citizenship", in my view. The extraordinary rise of "social networking" has shown how hungry Americans are for connection, but the irony is that "social networking" is no substitute for face-to-face interaction on a regular basis. The more individuals sit alone in rooms "communicating" over the internet or related means, the more they walk down sidewalks with their eyes glued to their smartphones, the more the trend of social dislocation will continue. And "citizenship" will suffer, as people feel disconnected from society. And greater numbers of citizens will resist their obligations to their fellow citizens, in good times or bad. And societal breakdown will slowly, slowly continue . . . . . . .
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