Talk:Randomocracy

2007-04-01T22:10:42Z

BDobbs: New page: "Unpopular gender" = "Female". You need two specific body-parts to be taken seriously as a politician in this country, and one of them is a tongue. --~~~~

"Unpopular gender" = "Female". You need two specific body-parts to be taken seriously as a politician in this country, and one of them is a tongue. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 18:10, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Flat Earth

2007-04-01T22:01:54Z

BDobbs:

Wait.... now you're insisting that the Bible _isn't_ to be taken literally at all times?
Who are you, and what have you done with Rschlafly? And do you need any help disposing of the evidence? --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:41, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
:While the bible is literally true the passages which seem to refer to a "flat earth" have generally be the subject of "[[quote mining]]" and taken out of context.--[[User:Bill M|bill m]] 12:07, 29 March 2007 (EDT) 17:53, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
::Man, those evolutionists seriously shouldn't be trusted. *putting it on watch for potential article improvement drive later next week (if it stays this way for a few days)* --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 17:55, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::I dunno about that. Satan taking Jesus up where he can see ALL the countries of the world seems pretty straightforward to me. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:57, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
:::The article would certainly benefit from being structured in a more Christian format Sid. I trust that you will sincerely try to improve it in this manner. --[[User:Bill M|bill m]] 12:07, 29 March 2007 (EDT) 17:59, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::::Yeah, we need equal treatment for the [[Scientific Geo-terrapinism]] theory and the so-called "Round Earth Theory" that the Secular Humanists are trying to foist upon us and shout down any dissenters about. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 18:01, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Flat Earth

2007-04-01T21:57:18Z

BDobbs:

Talk:Operation Iraqi Freedom

2007-04-01T21:53:09Z

BDobbs: /* End of first phase */

== Removal ==

I have removed the line: "Under Muslim law, only Muslims may rule a Muslim state, and the Shia are considered heretics and thus not fit to lead the nation." because it is simply untrue. I mean, the foremost example that comes to mind is that Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim nation - elected a female Hindu at its prime minister not too long ago.
[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 03:23, 16 March 2007 (PST)
:This addresses specifically Arab Sunni in Iraq, as the source document states. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 16:13, 16 March 2007 (EDT)
::Well, firstly, I mean, it isn't cited; the sentence after it links to somebody's testimony before some kind of Senate or Congress panel, but it isn't actually cited. The second problem is that it's simply untrue; as I pointed out, Indonesia - the largest Muslim country in the world - elected a female Hindu as its prime minister not long ago. A lot of Iraqis - most, perhaps - also have secular inclinations from living under Baathist rule for so long, so I think this claim really needs to be questioned. I mean, is it akin to somebody saying that Christians believe in stoning people who cheat on their wives, even though - in spite of what the Bible may say - Christians obviously do not believe in that?[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 14:20, 16 March 2007 (PST)
:::The entire passage is cited to Testimony of Edward N. Luttwak, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate , Hearings on Securing America's Interest in Iraq, 23 January 2007.

:::(a) Nowher does the source document discuss Indonesia; (b) this article is entitled "Iraq War", not "Inodonesia". Context of the source document gives relevency. Obviously, the source document was not reviewed before removing the proper citation. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 17:27, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Full context:
:::''As all know by now, for even moderately fundamentalist Sunnis, the Shia are disqualified from political power because under Muslim law only Muslims may rule a Muslim state--while the Shia for them are heretics. '''The Salafist subset among the fundamentalists notoriously goes beyond that, defining Shias as apostates, a capital offense in all orthodox interpretations of Muslim law'''. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 17:31, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

::::Wow, you're not much of an expert on Islam are you? Salafists are a miniscule, radical minority with little to no support in Iraq, even among the Sunnis, who - being the progenitors of Iraqi Baathism - possess a historical tendency towards forms of secularism. The idea that one American's testimony to some other Americans that "under Muslim law only Muslims may rule a Muslim state" can be held as evidence in the face of mountains of evidence that this claim is totally untrue is utterly insane. I have to wonder: Are you trying to protray this honestly, or do you have a partisan agenda to push with this kind of disinformation?[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 14:56, 16 March 2007 (PST)
:::::Wow, (1) I never claimed to be an expert on Islam -- I cited a source. (2) What evidence do you have the source, Luttwak, born in Italy & a former Israeli tank commander, holds US citizenship; (3) Why should that matter? (4) Please address issues; assigning motives in does little to further our agenda of writing this encyclopedia. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:05, 16 March 2007 (EDT)
::::::Sorry, I will try to remain civil and stick to discussing my problems with this passage. The point is, it's a patently untrue statement. As for person making the claims, do you honestly believe that a member of the IDF is a reliable source of information on Islam? I mean, by the sounds of it, he isn't a Muslim, and lives in a society that's in a perpetual state of war with Islamic neighbours and which discriminates against its Islamic members systemically. Is this really who we should be asking? Why not ask Muslims what Islam is about, just as we would ask Christians what Christianity is about? As I said, Indonesia - the world's largest Muslim country - elected a female Hindu not too long ago. The claim that Islamic law stipulates that Muslim countries must be ruled by Muslims is either untrue or misleading. I mean, as I said, the Holy Bible may claim that people should be stoned for cheating on their wives, but we all know that Christians don't stone people to death, and we'd be liars if we claimed that they did. This situation seems similar to me.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 16:36, 16 March 2007 (PST)
:::::::Thank you. In edit conflict yesterday part of my response was ommitted. I intended to include that the statement, ''The Salafist subset among the fundamentalists notoriously goes beyond that, defining Shias as apostates, a capital offense in all orthodox interpretations of Muslim law'' specifically does what you refer to, the context of all Islam. Mr. Luttwak needs no qualification, and if your not familiar with the source you may wish to check it out. And I'd seriously encourage reading the Testimony which is among the first invited to appear before the newly Democratically controlled Senate Foreign Affairs Committee--for a reason. Mr. Luttwak's testimony gives in detail where US policy was coming from, where it is right now, and where it is going.

:::::::This is a foreign policy discussion, and this article is not a forum for propaganda. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 11:42, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

::::::::Right, it's not a forum for propaganda. So why are you pasting Zionist propaganda that's demonstrably untrue? The statement that "under Muslim law, only Muslims may rule a Muslim state" is a lie. That's what I'm saying. It needs to be removed because it simply is not true.[[User:Accidnets|Accidents]] 18:56, 17 March 2007 (PST)
:::::::::Ok, I clarified it a bit. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 15:25, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

== Citations Needed ==

The following statements are not documented, and so may not be reliable:

"2003 Iraq War (3/20/2003-) is presently the largest war operation in the world" - Is the Iraq War really the largest in the world? Where does this claim come from? There are conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa that probably dwarf it.

"The war is is crucial to the larger U.S. led War on Terrorism." - Is this a documented fact, or a partisan talking-point? The American government certainly casts the Iraq War as related to some kind of "war on terrorism," but seeing as how the war has actually escalated terrorism around the globe, is counter-terrorism really the Americans' objective in Iraq? Let's get critical here, people.

"Most Iraqis welcomed the American invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein" - This needs to be linked to a poll or newspaper report that confirms it.

"Among the Arab Shia majority, notably the Jaysh Al-Madhi, have began to attack American and other coalition troops even while the coalition has been protecting the Shia from Sunni attacks." Is this really true? It seems to imply that the United States is acting as a neutral force in trying to prevent an Iraqi Civil War, which is also the American government's claims on the matter. But if that were the case, why would - to quote the USA Today poll linked as number 6 and 7 on the article - "Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents." I mean, the U.S. invaded the country, and is engaged in combat against a popular rebellion; they're a belligerent, not peacekeepers. The wording here just seems off to me.

''"Some believe the physical WMDs that had been produced prior to the invasion were smuggled out of the country, possibly to Syria, before the onset of the war." - This needs to be linked to a page in which somebody accuses Syria of harboring Iraq's WMD.''
This has now been done, Mar 2007.

"Critics of the Administration insist Saddam Hussein had the country's stockpiles destroyed after the First Gulf War, and that Iraq was at least a decade away from producing more." - This needs to be linked to a page which confirms that Iraq was "at least a decade away from producing more".

[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 13:36, 15 March 2007 (PST)

== General Discussion ==

How about using a cite that doesn't require a $30.00 charge to view the article cited? [[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 17:08, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

: sure, what have you got? I'll take a look as well. --[[User:Cgday|Cgday]] 17:13, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

For starters, how is the war in Iraq "the largest war operation in the world"? That claim isn't even cited, it's just lazily thrown out there with no substantiated evidence. Can whoever wrote that provide some citations for that claim, or remove it if none can be provided?

Secondly, the Iraqi Body Count website is not "robust surveying techniques"; it's a collection of deaths reported by at least two Western news agencies, and the owners of that website acknowledge that their number is inevitably going to be far below what the actual death count is. Due to this, I've taken the liberty to introduce statistics from an actual academic study that was published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

I've also added an overview of the Iraqi Resistance, and its popularity in Iraq, with several citations to verify what I have written.

--[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 00:33, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Wow, there is some hard-core censorship occurring here. Everything I've added is true, and has been rightfully cited. Deleting the section on the Iraqi Resistance is straight censorship at its worst.

I can understand disputes about the second Lancet study, as the numbers may be slightly off (either lower or higher) due to the fact that two of the sample zones were merged into 1 in several occasions for the sake of researcher safety on the ground. I think that criticizing that is absolutely valid, but at least acknowledge that the merged sample zones were similar in economic, social and level-of-violence aspects as well. Beyond that please provide your arguments and discuss them in here before simply changing the page. Thank you.

--[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 01:06, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I think there's a little more going on here than just some questions about figures and resistance. I think you're trying to inject some liberal bias into this page on the struggle in Iraq. No matter what way you slice it, that's inappropriate. [[User:Affirmlife|Affirmlife]] 04:12, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:And if User:Accidents had tried to inject some conservative bias into the article on the "struggle" in Iraq (surely a term that indicates a bias), would that have been objectionable, or is that OK? Just trying to figure out the ground rules.[[User:McTavidge|McTavidge]] 06:46, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

How does providing -documented facts- about Iraqis' opposition to the occupation and support for the resistance/insurgency reflect "liberal bias", unless you're referring to reality itself as suffering from a "liberal bias" (which seems to be the case)? The figures I provided are factual, and cited; you can check the source documents themselves if you want. I stand by all of the information I provided, and I think it's reliable. I'm interested in the truth, not "liberal bias". If, in this case, truth doesn't conform to an "American conservative" viewpoint, it's probably your opinion that needs to shift, not mine.

And if you have any complaints about the Lancet study, I'll gladly discuss that with you. I studied statistics at the university level, and read the entire report - and the methodology behind it - last year. Apart from the doubling-up of certain similar clusters, the math checks out. Feel free to reply with any of your complaints. I am reverting the page to my last edit.

--[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 01:22, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:Here's the problem - we're here to state our bias, not to pretend that we're referring to ethereal, disconnected "facts" that are actually used only to bolster a particular argument. Your argument has been made and it is both the dominant and the incorrect argument. You're using the "reputable sources" and "methods" that have been so perverted over the course of the last fifty years. Shaking the voodoo stick of "truth" doesn't alter the fact that what people call "truth" changes based on the perspective of the person who presents statements about a certain subject. All voices are biased, and they need to state that bias. I am a conservative. This is an article for conservatives. I'm reverting the article. [[User:Affirmlife|Affirmlife]] 12:19, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
::[[User:Affirmlife|Affirmlife]], It's true that Iraqi opinion was optimistic in 2003/2004. I sure you can add a section on this, including your references, without obliterating the rest of the article. [[User:JamesK|JamesK]] 13:29, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

The degree of self-delusion and doublethink in Affirmlife's above paragraph is absolutely astounding. Facts are what is scientifically verifiable; for instance, the existence and subsequent extinction of the dodo bird is a documented fact, based on mountains of scientific evidence both that the species once existed and that it has since gone extinct. Just because some kook may argue that the dodo never existed does not mean that that person has a valid viewpoint, because there's no scientific evidence to support that view. Similarly, I have provided facts to this article, citing all of them. Two of the three polls that demonstrate the unpopularity of the occupation by Iraqis come from the occupying powers themselves - the British Ministry of Defence and the American State Department, neither of which is particularly renowned as being a source of "liberal bias," but quite the opposite. I mean, if you know something that I don't know about the polls I'm citing, and have reason to believe that the results have been skewed somehow, feel free to share that and we'll discuss it. But as far as I can see, the mathematics and methodology of the polls cited is pretty standard, so I really don't understand why people insist on hiding these facts. I mean, if we want to educate people on the Iraq War (I do), pointing out the fact that 80+% of Iraqis oppose it seems pretty important to me.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 10:31, 14 March 2007 (PST)

I added a reference to the bit about Iraqis fleeing the country, though a better one will certainly exist. Also, I can't find anything about a MoD Iraqi poll in the first link? [[User:JamesK|JamesK]] 05:24, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::Accidents, while I sympathize with you on Affirmlife's editing issues, you shouldn't have wiped HIS sourced comments about initial support for the invasion. Those should be added back. --[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 13:30, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Done, re-inserted the Zogby poll.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 10:41, 14 March 2007 (PST)

:Guys, all I'm trying to do here is remove the liberal bias. This article is meant to give a more nuanced understanding of the Iraq War than that presented in the conventional liberal media. I even responded in good faith to the proposition that instead of deleting liberally biased information outright, I replace it with sounder information that presents a more balanced perspective. So if the goal here is to present an alternative view of the Iraq War, concisely, I think that my direction with the edits is much more appropriate. And I think the goal here is to present that alternative view. That's my bias. Here's my question - what are yours? [[User:Affirmlife|Affirmlife]] 14:15, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::Affirm, you are not "adding" your pieces to the article - you are whole-sale deleting and replacing pieces you do not personally like. If you look at the last version Accidents did, he incorporated your poll numbers into the article. You, obviously, did not reciprocate.

::If you have a contrasting view, ADD it. Don't delete and replace sourced pieces simply b/c they conflict with your personal view of the war. --[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 14:19, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:::But you've just done the very thing you accuse me of doing! What's your bias? Why do these liberal edits get privileged simply because they were first out of the gate? [[User:Affirmlife|Affirmlife]] 14:24, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:::::Affirm, Accidents merged your poll data into the article. You simply removed his. Your edit has ad hominem attacks against people opposed to the war, you removed any opposing viewpoints, you removed any alternate casualty data. In other words, you delete what you don't like and replace it with your own stuff.

:::::ADD your data. Quit wiping out other people's work simply b/c you personally don't like it. When you do that, I'll stop reverting the article.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 14:31, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::::Affirmlife, how do my contributions reflect a "liberal bias"? You have yet to explain this. I'm providing DOCUMENTED FACTS, and CITING THEM; you're deleting them and replacing them with undocumented statements that appear to be nothing more than conjecture. I don't understand your position here. I even included your initial Zogby poll and wrote that many Iraqis supported the invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 11:27, 14 March 2007 (PST)

This whole article should be trashed. Huge pieces have been changed then changed back then changed again. I see very little in the way of reliable information coming out of this article if people feel they must delete sections over and over again.

== Bias ==

Folks, let's take this from a different perspective. How about using an alternative viewpoint as a baseline rather than using an article rife with liberal cant as a baseline? Let's take my version as representing a 'conservative' perspective on the Iraq War (which I believe it does). That's my purpose here, and I think that if you are all actually in good faith, you should be attempting to edit the article to hew more closely to a conservative perspective.

If you want conventional, tired liberal wisdom, go check out Wikipedia. We all need to get our thoughts together about this - what is the alternative, unexplored perspective? I don't think any of you would disagree that the framing language to the facts cited in either of the two article versions has a distinct perspective and view. We need to accept that fact, not reject it. The purpose of this article is to present a more nuanced, conservative perspective. If you find that unacceptable, perhaps you should present your perspective on Wikipedia. [[User:Affirmlife|Affirmlife]] 14:47, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

::I don't think your version reflects a "conservative perspective" so much as it reflects baseless conjecture, claims that aren't cited, and the blatant suppression of documented facts that contradict your preferred political party's talking points on the matter. I mean, you make a statement as absurd as "less than 65,000 Iraqi civilians have died" without citing it. If you're citing the Iraqi Death Count website, you should probably remind yourself that even the people who run and own that site acknowledge that it is far below the actual death count, as it only includes deaths reported in at least 2 mainstream western newspapers. The Lancet study - as the language I used clearly explains - includes all excess deaths, not just violence, but including the proliferation of disease, malnutrition, etc that has occurred since the 2003 invasion. Unlike the website you seem to be citing, further, the Lancet study actually involved teams on the ground in Iraq, and if I'm not mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong on this) they received death certificates for 90% of the deaths they wished to confirm. As for the support for the Iraqi resistance/insurgency, the fact that you're suppressing that is nothing short of partisan censorship.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 11:55, 14 March 2007 (PST)

:::Oh, I don't know. I think that there's more than enough reason to conclude that certain sources of information are selectively utilized or unutilized by people of different social and political perspectives. My unanswered question is - '''why''' would you present this information in this way? Is the purpose of the article to be a web-based sabotage of the war effort, presented as a conservative perspective on the war? I don't think it should be. [[User:Affirmlife|Affirmlife]] 15:00, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:I think the Bush administration is doing a FINE job of 'sabotaging the war' just by following their current [[stratergy]]. Even assuming that any criticism of governmental bungling IS, in some bizarre [[voodoo]] way, going to affect the outcome of the war for the worse, at this point, any nasty things said about their blunders on some webpage is the approximate equivalent of one extra drop of water in the middle of Noah's Flood. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 01:49, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

OK, I've done a bit of a re-write, trying to incorporate all the points that have been put in the previous versions. It's not perfect, but I hope it will help make some progress on this. [[User:JamesK|JamesK]] 15:17, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Thank you! Looks much better now.
-Gasmonkey

:JamesK and RobS, you did a fantastic job. This is exactly what I had in mind when I was suggesting it. Thank you very much. --[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 15:55, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

== WMD ==

''Only about one-third of 36 million pages have been examined by a linguist and a summary gist of the document prepared. [https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/scope.html]'''

That statement and reference is more than 2 years out of date now. Unless there's a more recent reference it will have to be changed. [[User:JamesK|JamesK]] 15:51, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

==Psychic predictions==
This statement,

''On-the-ground academic research in Iraq has determined that approximately 600,000 more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than would have otherwise died in that time frame if the war was not raging.[8]''

even being cited to the New York Times means nothing. Coulda Woulda Shoulda is not news, neither are psychic predictors of facts that never happened. I seriously think this kinda junk needs to be kept out. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:40, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
:LOL! Do you even understand how casualty studies are conducted, or how the math behind them functions? These aren't "psychic predictors of facts that never happened". There's massive amounts of mathematics and science behind these studies; you can't publish something like that in a peer-reviewed journal like the Lancet without meeting rigorous scientific requirements to ensure reliable results. The study itself is available in PDF format if you Google it, so yuou can read it and take a look at the math behind it for yourself. Perhaps that will help allay your confusion.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 19:14, 14 March 2007 (PST)
:Here is a link to the study on the Lancet's website: http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf If anybody has any questions about the methodology or mathematics involved, feel free to ask me and I will try to help you understand. I look forward to putting the Lancet study back into this article, because I see no serious reason to exclude it.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 19:18, 14 March 2007 (PST)
::(Edit conflict:I'll read the rest) Yes, I understand. For example, Saddam only killed 250,000 over thirty years; so using the mathematical model we would have to divide 250,000 human lives by 30 and then add back the average for three years (2003 - 2006). Makes perfect logical and scientific sense. It doesn't preclude the possibility that Saddam may have awoke one morning and decided to go on a pogrom and slaughter 650,000 people in the space of three years, thus upsetting the model. Nor does it consider that Saddam may have met an early demise and Uday or Qusay could have likewise gone on such a pogrom.

::Point here is, this is junk science, beginning with the conclusion that if not for the Bush- Cheney-Rusmfeld cabal, 650,000 Iraqi's would be alive, i.e. laying the responsibility for murderers and terrorists at the US Admins feet (and yes, all that garbage previously was in the intro to this article before it was fixed with facts).

::This is History 101, "If Rommel had 4 more divisions, we'd all be speaking German today". But Rommel didn't have 4 more divisions, and we're not speaking German today. It's the simple difference between historical facts, and speculation. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 22:23, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:::And the historical fact is that there are a LOT of dead Iraqis, and since the USA is currently occupying the country, _we're_ Responsible. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 01:52, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:::By the sounds of it, neither of you is acknowledging that you understand the difference between casualty studies - which are considered reliable because they're applied with sound mathematical techniques - and baseless speculation. I mean, you're taking a peer-reviewed study and trying to discredit it on the grounds that you don't think science itself is reliable. Or at least that's what it sounds like to me. I mean there are reasons to attack the Lancet's methodology in Iraq - merging certain sample zones, for example - but dismissing it as "junk science" is simply ignorant.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 11:39, 14 March 2007 (PST)

::Scrap: So the coalition is repsonsible for the death by "violence", as the study refers to it, and murderers and terrorist who commited those acts are not held responsible? And there are several other moral issues that can be discussed regarding this. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 14:12, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

::Accidents: While I have yet to get into the details of "method" comparing "casualty rates" prior to March of 2003, by what method were "casualty rates" by "violence", i.e. those murdered by the regime over previous years considered the "norm", or basis of this study? But this is definitely '''not the starting point''' for reviewing this Study, and I shall outline the proper method of review if editors wish to waste their time any further with this stuff. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 14:12, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:::RobS, I appreciate the fact that even though I provided a direct link to the .pdf of the study itself, you were too lazy to read it and answer your own questions. It explains that - and this is a direct quote - "pre-invasion mortality rates were 5.5 per 1000 people per year". There's also a graph, on the third page, exploring death rates under the pre-war sanctions are as well as under the post-war occupation era. Further, seeing as you obviously haven't read it, I can't help but wonder on what grounds you're even disagreeing with the study. Here's a guess: your partisan bias implores you to disagree with the study's results, because they don't make your current position on the issue look very good. If that's the case, I'd suggest you re-evaluate your own critical thinking abilities and challenge your own preconceptions for the sake of intellectual honesty.[[User:Accidents|Accidents]] 13:26, 15 March 2007 (PST)
::::Accidents, Thank you. Please, cease with the personal attacks. Indeed I have invested time in the Lancet study as you call it. It has several ''primea facia'' difficulties. I do not think we are ready to discuss methods or conclusions. Perhaps, since you may feel strongly about this, begin with properly qualifying the report as to why anyone should pay anymore attention to it than has already been given. Discussing method now is useless. Please qualify the source properly. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 20:57, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==Criticisms==

"The American left has been criticized for its objections to the execution of the war." What is the nature of the criticism? Was it criticized for criticizing the war tactics because criticizing the Administration is somehow unacceptable? [[User:McTavidge|McTavidge]] 22:28, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

:Of course it's unacceptable! Don't you know that [[Dissent]] is [[Treason]]? What did you think this was, some sort of "Democracy"? Bush said there would be War, and its our job as Good Citizens to pay for it and die for it, and most importantly, to SHUT UP ABOUT IT. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 01:54, 15 March 2007 (EDT) </sarcasm>

== Not-so-current affairs ==

The last good news you could find from Iraq was in 2004? It's like you volunteer Propagandists For Bush aren't even ''trying'' any more. I decided to update it a bit, but I bet it gers diverted or deleted ASAP. --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 02:50, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

== Should Civilian Opinion Surveys be included here? ==

Firstly they're going to be unreliable given the volitile circumstances over there, the language barrier, and the likelihood that they're going to be that truthful if they have a negative opinion of the US Occupation. Secondly, its pretty ridiculous to argue that one poll where Iraqi's say they support the insurgency is invalid because of methods that the another poll seems to adopt, which finds the opposite conclusion, but is submitted without quantification. Either way, they are opinions about opinions and hardly reflect the strict standards for fact that I'm sure the Conservapedia strives for.--[[User:RexMundane|RexMundane]] 17:51, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
:I would agree with this, and particularly if the so-called opinion survey's are non-indigenious, i.e.can be shown to have any relationship at all with the well known Western media opinion surveys's or other manufacturors of "public opinion." Western opinion surveyor's understand Western media and marketing, not Iraqi demographics. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:46, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

==Opinion polls==
I count 7 or 19 references in this article are about opinion polls; why so many? [[User:RobS|RobS]] 21:35, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

RobS - I noted that the topic contained a LOT of opinion polls with one viewpoint. Rather than removing those biased entries, I refuted them with countering opinions, polls and documentation (such as articles.)

:I'll state my concerns here. Opinion polls, while interesting, do not define the facts of a situation. Yes, they can be very influential in moving a situation, but they are not in and of themselves determinitive. For example, a user in Wikipedia who is somewhat of an enthusiast on JFK assassination stuff presented an argument that essentially cited opinion polls from 1963 onwards regarding the Warren Commission Report and other investigations that showed 50%+ did not believe those reports. This editors conclusion was the Warren Commission Report is untrue based upon the fact a majority of random samplings didn't beleive it. An ''opinion poll'' was used to determine the ''truth'' that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy.

:Another fear is this might make ABC News polls look good. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 21:19, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

RobS; Since the vast majority of the population just takes poll numbers as gospel truth, the refute of the current mindset with other conflicting poll numbers shows that there is room for dissent on these points - that it is not settled public opinion on the matter. Since we are not discussing old events but a current one - unlike the 1960s JFK assassination - what people think about the matter truly does affect Homeland security and an encyclopedia should not be biased to one view. To let the poll result remain there, unchanged, without attempting to bring balance to the presentation seemed an incorrect approach. I had considered deleting the opinion poll entries in question and all references to polls entirely, but if you look at the page before my edits, you will see it leaves very little page to read. Also, I felt that since I just joined, to join and then start deleting other people's work would not show right attitude or character. I was seeking to help with balance and information, not to censor what was already there.

== Cost of war = $9B? ==

"Since the war is not yet over, the total cost has yet to be tallied. However, the [[Congressional Budget Office]] estimates that the war has, as of 3/12/2007, cost less than $400 Billion.[http://www.newstatesman.com/200703120024 Iraq: the hidden cost of the war] The numbers are highly debated, however, and other sources put the cost around $9 Billion.[http://costofwar.com/numbers.html Iraq War Cost Calculator Notes]"

From the second referenced page, I cannot find anything that suggests that the cost is $9 billion. Instead, I find pages that point to the total war allocations being $510 billion through fiscal 07 [http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf], and $318 billion for Iraq through fiscal 06 [http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=3601&from_page=../index.cfm]. The first referenced page suggests that care of the wounded from Iraq over the next decade will be $2.5 ''trillion''. I would suggest that people double check their information for the facts here. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 15:38, 22 March 2007 (EDT)
:This is a good observation. There is a difference between "cost" and "allocations"; out of pocket "costs" now vs Iraq's ability to hold a large balance of payments surplus, provide needed oil reserves to world markets, and pay for its own security in the future without being a threat to it's neighbors or dependent on international humanitarian aid programs is not considered or calculated in any of these formulas. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 16:15, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

== Duelfer Report ==

Okay this is getting insulting now. The principal finding of the Duelfer report was that Saddam had no WMD or significant WMD production capabilities. Yes it also found that he was endeavoring to get the means to get that potentially running again if the sanctions were removed, but the important thing is that he had no WMD and no significant capacity to produce them. The fact that you're denying this isnt just biased, its insulting to anyone who's actually read the thing. We didnt go to war with Saddam because he was gaming the Oil-for-Food program, we went to war because he was supposed to have these WMDs. It turns out he didnt. Stop pretending otherwise.--[[User:RexMundane|RexMundane]] 18:00, 22 March 2007 (EDT)
:You mischaracterize what the Duelfer Report says; for one "report also found that Hussein's capacity to produce WMDs had deteriorated significantly since 1991", whereas the Report states it was started up again in 1997. Then, the repeated reference to "any remaining WMD-related programs were "not of a militarily significant capability." What? So the coalition was supposed to ''wait'' until Saddam had an operational capability?
:There was much similar discussion in the 9/11 Report; how having all this knowledge, why didn't they act beforehand to avert such a disaster, etc. etc. etc. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:10, 22 March 2007 (EDT)
::9/11 is inconsequential to the discussion and its pathetically disingenuous for you to bring it up, though I notice theres a new section about it that quotes Tenet without attmepting to substantiate his claims that even though Osama actively wanted Saddam dead, they were working in joyous collusion. Three cheers for dedication to objective unbiased facts, eh? Although considering I got banned for saying that George W Bush was born in Connecticut and Massachusetts has a relatively low tax rate, its hardly surprising here.
::As far as waiting until Saddam had an operational capacity, given that a necessary condition was removal of the sanctions it can easily be argued that maintaining them would be key to minimizing whatever threat he would ever pose. However, this too is inconsequential to the discussion.
::The existing entry on the Duelfer report contains information that exclusively backs up the patently false claim that Saddam posed an existing or even potential nuclear threat to the United States, which goes against the principal finding of the report itself. Objective, bipartisan analysts concluded that there were existing stockpiles or functional capacity to produce them, and that was the key finding of the report. That the entry on the report should quote it so selectively as to support the purely anecdotal argument that the opposite is true is Intellectual Dishonesty writ large.
::You want to quote a dozen people who said there were WMDs? Be my guest. You're certainly free to present that information in your vainglorious attempts to prove an untruth. Lord knows if you all post enough things with exclamation marks and boldface youre bound to convince the sort of people that impresses. However if youre going to use a report, any report, it is an insult to all intellectual endeavor to ignore the report's principal finding and quote selectively and suggestively to prove that same untruth.
::The report does have information that supports the WMD argument. However the report's principal finding contradicts the core of the argument. Stop pretending.--[[User:RexMundane|RexMundane]] 11:19, 23 March 2007 (EDT)
I think you should stop worshipping at the shrine of the Duelfer report, Rex. It isn't as though it is definitive for all time. It is one report. When it is raised to the status of the Holy Bible by you so that its findings are indisputable, it makes you sound like a religious "political" fanatic - set like stone in one very uninspired viewpoint. It is a REPORT.. done by fallible men who were trying to compromise so both parties could get along and make a statement which set aside their squabbling. It also could be characterized as a cop-out compromise for political expediency. You mention "The report does have information that supports the WMD argument," then discount the possibility in the very next breath. How objective is that viewpoint? You also dismiss all argument that there were any WMD. The sarin warheads discovered by the Polish troops and the Iraqi Survey group, those who were treated for injuries from the one which exploded in an IED (read the stories).. the finding of mustard gas bombs.. all don't matter? Look at the evidence. Don't just believe one report like it is your Bible. These are FACTS, not flights of fantasy. Set aside your political prejudice and try and look at the evidence. You might also note that the special investigator for the Pentagon stated of your vaunted Iraq Survey Group who made this report that he had heard of "facilities contained stocks of biological and chemical weapons, along with missiles whose range exceeded that mandated under U.N. sanctions" but the ISG had IGNORED that and not ever gone there, quote, "I have no doubts the sites were never exploited by ISG. We agents begged and begged for weeks and months to get ISG to respond.." How throrough does that make their report's findings then? How definitive?
:If youre trying to argue that the report is worthless then you're also arguing that it shouldnt be included here without that equivocation. The section currently brags about all the things that tangentially support the idea that Saddam could possibly have posed a nuclear threat, and that exclusively. You havent argued that this is representative of the report, so I assume you concede my point that it isnt. The article is claiming the report as a whole says something it clearly doesnt. If the report is relevant then the anti-WMD stuff needs to be mentioned. If, as you're arguing, its worthless, then it needs to be removed entirely. You cannot have it both ways.
:Also, keep up the belittling personal attacks, there Skies, really bolsters your argument. Good for you.

Personal attacks.. like saying my contributions are vainglorious attempts to prove an untruth?? I was just replying in kind. A wise man once said, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."

As for your saying that the report is worthless, it isn't. It just isn't definitive, as you were stating and trying to defend. The report is mentioned on the page, but I didn't post that section and so I cannot defend how it was stated. You say, "The article is claiming the report as a whole says something it clearly doesnt." So, rather than personally attacking those of us who are contributing, what suggestions do you have as to how to modify the entry so that it reflects a more even, balanced and unbiased opinion? The report isn't worthless, it does have some validity (though when it selectively ignores people who plead for them to come and inspect, I do wonder at its veracity, don't you?). I am not arguing for its exclusion, only for it not to be seen as definitive and inspired beyond the pale of "regular" men.. men such as those you deprecate when you say the other information which is posted is only put there and highlighted to "convince the sort of people that impresses." Like the information itself is untruthful and deceptive, perhaps? It is not, and your mockery was what caused the personal reply in kind you received. If you wish to remove it from being personal, why don't you try being civil and discussing methods of improving the information to make it unbiased in a way which refrains from deprecating my contributions.
:That anything here pretends at being "Unbiased" is hilarious. The point remains that the entry on the report itself contains no mention of its main conclusion. It is selectively quoted to prove a point that the report itself is at odds with. You dont want to present the fair view, the one where all the report's findings are discussed, only the ones that support a particular argument. The origional entry included information on all topics. It now included a set so small as to not be objective but argumentative. Anyone reading the article without already knowing what the report was would have no idea that it's principal finding is at odds with the WMD argument, and would instead think that it completely reaffirmed the WMD argument. Do you deny this?
Thank you for being rational and not personal in this post. I appreciate that. You say that conservapedia is "biased" toward conservative viewpoints.. well, it was called CONSERVApedia for a reason, wasn't it? I don't think people coming to this site expect to hear the Liberal viewpoint touted in every article as absolute truth. The site was created to bring out the conservative viewpoint which conservatives see as under-represented at other sites (and edited out at other sites, as well.)
Now, I could point out that the Liberapedia.. called Wikipedia is not without its flaws, either, quote: "The website Conservapedia.com has a long list of 41 allegations of bias and factual errors at Wikipedia. You can add to that the problem with the credentials of its staff. One of its editors, named only "Essjay" online and described on his user profile "as a tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in canon law," was recently exposed as a 24-year-old college kid in Kentucky. He resigned in disgrace – even though Wikipedia tried to retain him, claiming he’d edited thousands of articles with flair. The Florida-based Wikimedia Foundation is aware of its website’s reputation. Board member Erik Moller was very frank in a recent essay. One of their ten things they wanted you to know about Wikipedia is "We don't want you to trust us. It's in the nature of an ever-changing work like Wikipedia that, while some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship, others are admittedly complete rubbish. We are fully aware of this." <ref> http://newsbusters.org/node/11549 </ref>

I think the Conservapedia strives to be conservative in outlook but with a degree of trust concerning keeping the site as close as it can be to what is factual. Yes, there is a conservative viewpoint expressed in the articles, but that is expected. Do you expect to join the Republican party and then campaign for Democrat issues and viewpoints? You wouldn't get very far doing so, and you won't go far trying to bring non-conservative views out here. But just because a certain viewpoint is unapologetically set forth and adhered to, that does not mean that the articles are all trash or "hilarious" as you called it, and many of us appreciate the refreshing atmosphere where a conservative view is encouraged. You say, "The point remains that the entry on the report itself contains no mention of its main conclusion." I shall work on the entry and note that their conclusion was that there are no huge stockpile of WMD in Iraq.. but with caveats because I do not see the point of quoting the report as "gospel truth" when so much of the rest of this entry refutes its conclusion as flawed and leave its conclusions open to disputation.

As for presenting "all the report's findings", this is an entry on Iraq War.. not on the Duelfer Report. They are not synonymous. It is not unfair to discuss only parts of the report rather than the entire thing. For further study the links are given. When you say, "Anyone reading the article without already knowing what the report was would have no idea that it's principal finding is at odds with the WMD argument, and would instead think that it completely reaffirmed the WMD argument." I do doubt this conclusion. As stated now in the entry, the principle finding was not what the media spun it to be. QUOTE: " Yes, the report found no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. But were these the findings that the report highlighted in the first line of its Key Findings summary? No." I have noted how the debate has moved to another agenda and away from the central findings under the section "Misreporting the Duelfer Report."

As you know, almost everyone knows what the report was, and perhaps the original poster merely worked from the idea of already known facts and moved forward. It is easy not to state the obvious. As I said, this is not my contribution and I have not touched it, but I will now work to encorporate a mention that the WMD were seen by the report as not existing. I will, however, mention something to the effect that the servicemen who were treated for injuries from the exploding sarin IED bomb would think they did not have a hallucination, and that sarin is actually a WMD. Do you deny that point?
:Firstly, its generally incorrect to assume that anyone researching a subject already knows enough about it. Considering too that half the articles on this site are presented as "proof that everything you knew about Sally Fields' Hairstylist is a lie" its not difficult to see how someone thinking that the Duelfer report refuted major WMD claims that upon coming here they would reach the conclusion that it said nothing of the kind.
:Next, no I dont deny Sarin is a WMD as considered by the UN (and we know how much the UN is to be trusted) the same way I'm sure that you wont deny that, given that the shell predated the 1991 Gulf war that it doesnt prove Saddam had hidden stockpiles of chemical weapons.
:Also, I care what you're opinion on the Wikipedia is. I entirely do. No, seriously I actually do because the way youve described it is as something that presents facts at odds with conservative views, and that Conservapedia does not think it necessary to incorporate facts that challenge the opinions of Neo-cons. Instead of elaborating on subjects for the purpose of furthering discourse and strengthening everyone's ability to debate productively on such topics, lets just list all the things we like to think and ignore everything else. In the past six hours I've seen people misquoted, called on it, and ignored, Ive seen nonexistant chatroom transcripts mentioned to indict people, and Ive seen, and who is surprised, a desire to have a report correctly represented as blind devotion to the document as though it were a holy book to the pious. After all, why have intellectual discourse when we can pat ourselves on the back for agreeing with each other?--[[User:RexMundane|RexMundane]] 16:13, 23 March 2007 (EDT)
No, the wikipedia does not present facts at odds with conservative views. The edit all conservative views out, including the facts conservatives bring up. It is called Censorship. Ask any conservative news site or bloggers.. they try to post there and within minutes, all they post simply disappears. So when you accuse conservapedia of, "lets just list all the things we like to think and ignore everything else", I think that is the pot calling the kettle black. I agree it is incorrect to assume people know what the reports are so I gave a little more background and expanded the section. AND I did mention that both Kay and Duelfer said that no huge stockpiles of WMD were found. I hope you approve (but I somehow think you will find fault.. ??) Just remember, it is all due to you. :)
:I personally wouldn't have phrased the central thesis of the report so tersely and dismissively, but I do thank you for at the very least including some mention of the core thrust of the report in the section intent on discussing it.
:And yes I know all about the 3vil wikipedia's bias, how they use CE, which has no christian basis, instead of AD, which given that most estimates put christs birth at around 5BC, also has no christian basis. And how they insist on providing explanations of how theres no legitimate causal relationship between abortions and breast cancer and alternative explanations of that correlation, oh how dare they try to be objective. Also, did you know that their entry on Ronald Reagan contains no mention of him being the resurrection of Christ, nor how he won the cold war by punching Gorbechev into the sun. The audacity.--[[User:RexMundane|RexMundane]] 17:17, 23 March 2007 (EDT)
::''9/11 is inconsequential to the discussion ''
::No it's not. Not as it relates to process, or how these reports are covered in the press or perceived by the public. "Failure to contect the dots...", Remember that one? The Duelfer Report says things quite different than how it was being used here. The Duelfer Report clearly states Saddam was pursing WMD programs, and it extensively details complicity with non-Iraqi companies, governments, NGOs, & individuals. As the report said, Iraq is only half the story.

::WMD does not singularly refer to (a) stockpiles, and/or (b) production facilities. A simple illustration: when we says "United States Army", we are not talking about tanks, guns & hardware, we are talking about persons employed in the enterprise. Same is true about NASA; we are not talking about the end result of manufactured rockets and satellites, we are speaking about persons. The same is true about NSA. We are not talking about sophisticated communications technolgy, we are refering to the persons employed in the business. When WMD programs were discussed in 2003 as one reason, among several reasons, for pursuing the object of regime change, nobody ever said it was just stockpiles and production facilities.

::Later on, partisan critics and journalists, for whatever reason, tried to make light of the popular misconceptions regarding what WMD programs are--and used this misinformation to invent mindless partisan arguements that serve no discernable purpose other than some domestic political agenda totally unrelated to US securtity needs. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 17:45, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for the interesting thoughts and contributions, RobS, appreciate it. Rex, I see you bring to the discussion on Iraq War a bunch of baggage from the other site about dates and previous administrations (Reagan), etc. I don't feel they merit any response when the topic is Iraq and that appears to be truly covered now. Thank you both for the discussion, Skies.

== No Casus Belli? ==

Is there some REASON we're not supposed to talk about how President Bush led us into war in Iraq?
----

:We should talk about it. But edits like [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Iraq_War&curid=8014&diff=72839&oldid=72151&rcid=75431 this] belong on the talk page - not in the body of the article.

:When there are opposing views, shall we just enshrine one as The Truth? That will degrade trust, and that's the weakness of Wikipedia. It (1) says it won't take sides but (2) routinely takes sides.

:I suggest we here acknowledge the existence of opposing views. It's ridiculously easy to detect them, when they are dimetrically opposed. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 14:23, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

::You oppose me adding a few FACTS to the article? My [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Iraq_War&curid=8014&diff=72839&oldid=72151&rcid=75431 edit] was nothing but documented truth and when I have more time, I will add more. This may be a conservative site, but truth knows not philosophical bounds. If you cannot accept the WHOLE story, do not read ANY of it - history is not YOURS to decide. - [[User:PKBear|PKBear]] 16:57, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

:::"just enshrine one as The Truth" You realise that is horrendously hypocritical? By removing the edits which gave that point of view, you have merely left the original one by itself, enshrining '''it''' as truth. Don't accuse Wikipedia of taking sides when articles such as [[Theory of evolution|evolution]] exist. [[User:MatteeNeutra|MatteeNeutra]] 17:03, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Cut from intro:
:Oddly enough, though, the Bush administration has also acknowledged that no ties existed between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda - a claim which had been used for years to justify the war.

Got a source for this "acknowledgment"? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 23:14, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

:Yes, but it's all on sites CONTAMINATED WITH HIDEOUS LIBERAL COOTIES, so I'm sure it'll all be rejected out of hand.
:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
:http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold.php?articleid=1916
:http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/9/11_Commission_Report

:On the other hand, Bush Said So, so it must be True: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030917-7.html (Whatever happened to that mistrust for government that the Right nurtured when the Evil One was President? Did it all get shed like a burning coat on January 21th, 2001?) --[[User:Sandbagger|Sandbagger]] 23:36, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

::Of course it did. Intellectual honesty is for suckers...--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 16:08, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

==End of first phase==

Was did Bush's May 1, 2003 claim, of "Mission Accomplished," really mean?
#That the US won the war - and that it is supposedly over
#That [[major combat operations]] had ended - and the war was in a (milder) new phase

What do you think? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 23:45, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

A "milder" phase? How in the name of all that's holy does something in a "milder" phase have an higher average death rate than the actual war itself?

an accomplished mission is one that has gotten to a point that American men and women no longer come home in a box. Res Ipso Loquitor. [[User:Sevenstring|Sevenstring]] 23:52, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

:Why do you Hate America(tm)? Don't you understand that REAL Patriots '''don't ask questions'''. --[[User:Sandbagger|Sandbagger]] 23:55, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

: It wasn't Bush's claim, I don't think. It was a military sign. The obvious meaning was that the USA won the Battle of Baghdad. It did not mean "war over" or "all problems solved". The word "mission" doesn't mean the whole war, just an operation within the war. So I say that both of Ed's interpretations are wrong and contrary to plain english. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 23:59, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

:: I just reverts AmesG's change, because he overrode my edit and also inserted a silly and misleading comment about the "Mission Accomplished" sign. He is welcome to discuss it here. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 00:27, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Thanks for clarifying that, and knocking down those two straw men I had put up. As a former military man, I followed the progress of the war as closely as I could from unclassified sources. Bush was praising the troops for destroying Iraqi sovereignty (or "toppling the dictatorship"). When the Iraqi troops took off their uniforms and went home, that was a victory of sorts.

:::Nonetheless, one operation is not a war - and no victory has been achieved. The next phase is [[counter-insurgency]], which is not being done the way I would do it. But since I never even made Corporal (let alone an officer rank), it's probably not my place to criticize. Anyone can be an armchair quarterback.

:::The conduct of the [[Iraq War]] will undoubtedly be an issue in the [[2008 US presidential election]]. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 09:19, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

False premise. (a) Bush never said "mission accomplished"; (b) no evidence Bush implied "mission accomplished" as to objective of regime change; (c) Tommy Franks explained that incident. (d) This is just another gross lie Bush and Iraqi War critics complain about. Now, if critics could find some valid basis other than provable, manufactured lies of this nature that there is over reliance upon, they could develope credibilty. Til then, it's not worth the time responding to. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 16:08, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

: He may not have said it, but that was the message [http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/] --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 16:09, 30 March 2007 (EDT)
: What he ''did'' say can be read - the opening was "Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html] --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 16:12, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

::(a) That is the point. Bush did not say it. And rational, intelligent, logical analysis exposes the fraud of trying to make something out of it other than what the objective of the war is.

::(b) The War's objective, '''stated clearly''', is '''regime change'''. Removing the old regime is not regime change. Removing and replacing the old regime with a stable new regime, '''is regime change'''.

::(c) At the time that banner was hung, the old regime had been removed, but there wasn't even an interrim government established yet. Thus, it is pure [[unadulterated]] [[fraud]] to imply that that doing half the job, i.e. only removing the old regime, and not finishing the job, i.e. replacing the old regime with a stable new regime, is accomplishing the objective of regime change. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 16:20, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Whether Bush said it or not, he should NOT have stepped foot in front of that banner! What the incident amounts to is another moment of typical Bush machismo - "I'ma get everybody fired up about U.S. military might - nevermind that bin Laden is still alive and free, Hussein isn't in custody, American boys are still dyin', and I STILL haven't stood firm on a unified platform for war - WE WON!"

Face it, if Bill Clinton stood in front a banner saying "I hate Iowa", Fox Noise would crucify him. wouldn't matter WHO put the banner there or whether Clinton believed it - it'd be his fault for letting it stay up.

Now, in Bush's case he didn't only let the banner stay up, he went on to say '''"major combat operations...have ended"''' and '''"[we] have prevailed"''' - both blatant lies whose sole aim was to garner popular support for a very untimely war. - [[User:PKBear|PKBear]] 17:36, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

*'''''"major combat operations...have ended"''' and '''"[we] have prevailed"''' - both blatant lies ''
::Right. Like we're going to use airstrikes from aircraft carriers to defend the Bagdad museum from looters. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2942449.stm] [[User:RobS|RobS]] 17:50, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

::I would suppose your logic makes sense, in that it's really George Washington and the Founding Fathers fault for the Iraqi mess, in that they failed to foresee that someday the Constitution they had written would lead to the election of George W. Bush, hence the threat to civiliaztion as we know it. Yes indeed, you've convinced me. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:02, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

:::You are being argumentative and childish in your remarks. I suggest you ask Gen. Petraeus or any of the 150k-odd soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines engaging in daily combat operations over there if they are not ''major''. And, as a matter of fact, we ARE still using airstrikes. I guess those are just ''minor'' bombs being dropped, right?

:::Oh, and just where in the world did the Founding Fathers comment come from? Are you even replying to the right conversation? In the abstract, GWB wouldn't make a bad President. His problem is, and always has been, that he's out of touch with reality and trying ever-so-hard to excel beyond some imaginary boundary set by his father (just my opinion, of course). He does what he wants, when he wants, and to whom he wants - and you're a traitor if you ask "why". He does not appreciate that a successful society NEEDS people asking "why". Absence of challenge leads to atrophy.

:::Surely, 9/11 demanded action. The action required, though, was not against Iraq. Frankly, North Korea was far more deserving of action taken but Bush had his eye on Iraq even before the Towers came down. The focus of our energies should have stayed on al-Qaeda and bin Laden - yet he STILL RUNS FREE! '''And what does Bush say when confronted about bin Laden's location?'''

:::'''"I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."''' http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html - [[User:PKBear|PKBear]] 19:09, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

::::''as a matter of fact, we ARE still using airstrikes''
::::From day one the issue of "mission accomplished" implied that airstrikes off of aircarriers would have prevented looting and shoplifters. Many critics have not engaged honestly in this debate, with the resultant damage to their own their credibilty. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 20:21, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

:::::On the bright side, we've had repeated assurances from Dick Cheney that the insurgency is in its death throes, on its last legs, and generally coughing up blood. Too bad we've still got that one bombing a day that everyone focuses on.... --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:53, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

== Bob Parks ==

This entire article (copy-pasted in near entirety) is pure conjecture from a site that proclaims it's opinion-based nature directly. Commandment 5 rules out use of this. I know it's tough for some of you, but opinion does not belong in an encyclopedia - even a right-slanted internet-o-pedia. - [[User:PKBear|PKBear]] 17:15, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

It is an EXPERT opinion by Professor of History at the University of Dayton who is a military historian.. He was also consulted by the Whitehouse in the article.. it is not just anyone's opinion. AND I shortened it. It should be allowed in.

Talk:Bisexuality

2007-04-01T21:47:52Z

BDobbs: /* Skeptic's Annotated Bible */

== Origins? ==

Do we need an entry on the origins of this? If we do not need an entry on the "origins" of [[homosexuality]], then why bisexuality? [[user:airdish|airdish]] 20:20, 14 March 2007 (GMT)

:Important to consider the cultural etiolation of these behaviors in promoting sexual immorality and sexual license. [[User:DunsScotus|DunsScotus]] 14:28, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

::But that's not what "Origins" implies and that's not what the article is about. Origins implies that this is where bisexuality started. Bisexuality is not something that just starts, I mean, someone didn't invent bisexuality. I agree that a section on historical examples of bisexuality is appropriate, and maybe even there is justification for describing how this affected Greek culture, example. But "origins"?, no. [[User:Airdish|Airdish]] 14:41, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Where are the citations for the first section 'The Bible on Bisexuality'? How can this site claim to be an encyclopaedia of any worth if it does not cite it's sources?

*DunsScotus, would you please remove the section on sexual immorality in young women. It's in appropriate and little more than a rant. Whatever you think of "Joe Francis" and "Girls Gone Wild", it has no place being here. [[User:Airdish|Airdish]] 14:41, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

:Airdish, if you were aware of current events, you'd know that a number of recent books on sexual morality, the 'hookup' culture, and the harm that this license does to young women have been published recently. [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/10/national/main2555714.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2555714] I don't think it is inappropriate to consider the harm that negative aspects of secularist culture does to our young. [[User:DunsScotus|DunsScotus]] 14:43, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

== Skeptic's Annotated Bible ==
To (mis)quote Martin Luther, "Show me where the error is." If you're going to chuck them, it should be for a better reason than "I don't like them". --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:43, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

If that's the '''only''' thing somebody is citing, including at the expense of the Bible itself, eight times in their article and they're claiming it's for "biblical accuracy", something is up, obviously. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 17:44, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

You know, the Bible only forbids male homosexuality. Odd, that. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:47, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Bisexuality

2007-04-01T21:43:07Z

BDobbs:

Talk:Flat Earth

2007-04-01T21:41:29Z

BDobbs: New page: Wait.... now you're insisting that the Bible _isn't_ to be taken literally at all times? Who are you, and what have you done with Rschlafly? And do you need any help disposing of the ev...

Talk:ACLU

2007-04-01T21:38:08Z

BDobbs: /* In anticipation */

== "Rare example" and other problems ==

Is simply false. I can easily give you 20 examples the ACLU defending Christians. Furthermore, it is very difficult to claim that the ACLU was being anti-Christian or such in the Dover trial since part of the issue was the claim made by the defence that ID was not Christian in nature. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 00:01, 22 February 2007 (EST)

: Joshua, your 20 cases is out of how many? 20,000? That would be 0.1%. That is very rare indeed. Let's be factual about this. The ACLU brings at least 100 cases against prayer, the Ten Commandments, statutes, Boy Scouts, Intelligent Design, etc., for every case brought on the other side. Be honest about the ratios here.

: In the Dover case the ACLU attacked Christian comments made by school board members. Again, be honest about the facts. ID is backed by Christians and typically opposed by atheists. There are rare counterexamples of little significance.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:13, 22 February 2007 (EST)

:: Andrew, first of all note that I said I can '''easily''' give you 20. There are far more examples than that- 20 is the easy number to do. Second of all, I would tentatively suggest that even if your claim were accurate there is a simple explanation- the US is a country with a large Christian majority, it is therefore not at all surprising that the vast majority of violations of the first amendment and related issues occur where Christians are the one's whose views are being possibly establshed and thus invite the ACLU's ire. If the vast majority of the US were Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or Flying Spaghetti Monsterish or Invisible Pink Unicornish then the ACLU would have the vast majority of its cases dealing with Muslims or Jews or Hindus or Flying Spaghetti Monsterers or Invisible Pink Unicornists. As to Dover, the ACLU never "attacked Christian comments" (in fact, the ACLU wasn't even the biggest player on the plaintiff's side but that's a separate issue) but rather pointed out that comments made by members of the school board and school district administration demonstrated motivations that under current precidents constituted strong evidence of an unconstitutional attempt to establish religion. An argument I may add, that a Republican, self-identifying "church-goer" and major support of Rick Santorum agreed with. As to your final claim that "ID is backed by Christians and typically opposed by atheists" I presume that Ken Miller would disagree as would Judge Jones again and as would many major Christian denominations and as would over 10,000 Christian clergy(as already pointed out to you). So yes, by all means, let's be honest. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 00:55, 22 February 2007 (EST)
::(Incidentally, I find it amusing, I think that the ACLU does have serious biases and they can be not unreasonably be described as liberal and arguably anti-Judeo-Christian, but you are making such an incredibly weak argument for it that it isn't funny). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 00:55, 22 February 2007 (EST)

It's a known fact that the ACLU only takes "token" Christain cases to hide their true agenda. just because you can come up with 20 or 30 only proves my point when you look at the thousands and thousands of anti-Christian cases filed by them.

Also, do you deny that they regularly defend NAMBLA, and abortion factories?

: I don't think they defend "abortion factories" because there aren't any such thing- there are places which provide abortions and yes the ACLU does defend their right to do so. However, the ACLU has also defended the rights of anti-abortion protesters. And simply claiming that something is a "known fact" doesn't make it so. Furthermore, you clearly missed my point above about that given what the ACLU does the groups it defends will more often than not be the less popular ones. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 13:24, 22 February 2007 (EST)

== Obvious Parody? ==

OK, so "hundreds of thousands" was a bit of an exaggeration, but the rest was absolutely correct. It is not a "parody" to mention that the ACLU defends NAMBLA, abortionists, and athiests. Nor is it "parody" to discuss the simple, demonstrable fact of their anti-Christian agenda

Also, that 90% number is a fact - it was researched extensively by the Discovery Institute, which was properly cited in the article.

:Firstly, you didn't merely "mention that the ACLU defends NAMBLA, abortionists, and athiests." Your claims were far more specific. You claimed that the ACLU defends "the so-called "rights" of pedophiles to molest children." This is utterly false. The ACLU has never suggested or implied in any way that molesting children is a right, nor have they claimed that it is morally or legally acceptable. Their only defence of NAMBLA has been on free speech issues. You also claimed that the ACLU defend a 'right' "to remove and destroy all public references to the One True God, Jesus Christ." This is directly contrary to their stated position, which clearly identifies those public references which in their view are acceptable.

:Secondly, the DI does not make the claim you've made. Here's what they say:

::In fact, 90.9% (or 5,458 words) of Judge Jones’ 6,004- word section on intelligent design as science was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU’s proposed “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law”

:You've taken that figure and applied it to the whole ruling, not just that one section. Furthermore, the DI never laid out an objective measure of what exactly constitutes 'virtually verbatim' - indeed, their standard appears to be 'we know it when we see it,' which is hardly reliable. This is a huge non-issue in any case, as Jones was simply following standard judicial practice.

:Finally, the section about legal fees is also wrong. The ACLU did not expend millions of dollars. Most of the costs were carried by the independent legal firm, Pepper Hamilton. Judge Jones did not order all legal expenses reimbursed; the award he made was considerably less than the costs incurred. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:00, 23 February 2007 (EST)

OK, the new section on Dover is marginally better, but still mostly wrong:

* It was not a 'typical' trial
* The judge did not copy 90% of the ACLU's brief
* <s>The judge did not award over $2m in fees; the actual figure was $1m</s>
* It was the school board itself, not its members, who were liable to pay the <s>$1m</s> fees
* The judge did not prohibit mention of ID by teachers in the school
* The judge's order did not prevent appeal - how on earth ''could'' it?

[[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 20:55, 24 February 2007 (EST)

:Tsumetai, would you like me to post the order granting over $2m in legal fees? Would you believe it then? Would like to see how it was entered against the school board members personally in addition to the board? Would you like to see how the order prevented any appeal? I can obtain the order in pdf format and would be happy to post it if I can figure how ... and if you agree to reconsider your position.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 01:01, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::Actually, you're correct on the amount; I tracked down a copy of the order myself. The reduction to $1M was due to a later agreement between the plaintiffs and the new school board, it seems. The order names only the Dover School District and its board of directors, however. So, I gladly withdraw my complaint about the amount, but I'm still concerned about the other points I raised. For future reference, I'm happy to reconsider any and all positions I hold, given sufficient evidence to the contrary. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 08:27, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::: "It seems"??? The last order on the docket says over $2 million (Feb. 24, 2006). I'm open to any support you have for your claims, but so far you're not supporting them. Also, I'd be curious who think are the "board of directors" of the School District, if not the school board members.

::: In sum, all five of your factual statements above, alleging mistakes in the entry, are wrong.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:30, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::::The board of directors is an entity in itself, not a group of individuals. That is why when several board members were replaced in an election, it was the new board which had to approve the payment of fees, not the old one.

::::As to 'support,' only one of the claims I'm objecting to is actually cited, and the citation doesn't actually say what the article claims. You can baldly state I'm wrong all you want, but last I checked, the first commandment of this site mentioned verifiability. If you can't demonstrate that the claims the article makes are correct, they shouldn't be there. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 06:16, 27 February 2007 (EST)

== Plagiarism is unethical ==

The last two edits of this article were just copied straight out of wikipedia. In addition to the obvious issues of liberal bias in wikipedia (especially on a topic like the ACLU!!!!!!), there has to be some kind of copyright violation with that.

this is probably not going to help, but I do not believe wikipedia has a liberal bias. that said, at least they have more dependent editors. The sort of ridiculous phrases and number games played throughout this article should be disturbing to those for and against the aclu.

== Connection of ACLU michigan ==

ACLU michigan is listed as affiliated with the ACLU on the ACLU's webpage. This should be modified. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 19:05, 24 February 2007 (EST)

==notes==
Copying out of Wikipedia, as far as I know, is legal, as it's open source. Also, I'm not sure I saw the statement about communism in the cited article. This article definitely needs some revision. [[user:John]]

: No, copying Wikipedia can only be done pursuant to the GFDL liscence which says roughly that full credit needs to be given to all prior contributors and that the copied or derivative content must be under the GFDL liscence also. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFDL] for a summary and see the actual text [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License here]. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 00:08, 5 March 2007 (EST)

== The Baldwin statement is a mis-quote. ==

The following statrement needs to be re-worded. As it is written now, it's a misquote, and it's taken out of context:

''Baldwin's stated purpose in creating the ACLU was "We are for SOCIALISM, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself... We seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the SOLE CONTROL of those who produce wealth. COMMUNISM is the goal."''

(1) '''The statement is one of Baldwin's, but it is improperly edited'''. His original comment was "I am for Socialism, disarmament, and ultimately abolishing the state itself...I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."(Source: p. 13 of "The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values" by Alan Sears)

(2) '''The statement is taken totally out of context'''. He wrote it in his Harvard University Classbook. he was not referring to the stated goals of the ACLU at all.

For these two reasons, the sentence is just a smear. Though it should be noted that Baldwin was an outspoken socialist, the above sentence needs to be replaced with the following:

The ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union, which was founded by several notable Americans, including Roger Nash Baldwin, noted Socialist, civil libertarian and pacifist, and Hellen Keller, among others. Originally, it was two organizations, the National Civil Liberties Bureau, founded to defend people accused by the government of being communist spies, and the American Union Against Militarism, which opposed US Entry into the First World War. By 1920, the leaders of the two organizations merged into the American Civil Liberties Union, with Baldwin as it's president. The ACLU's stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States".[1]

:: I've unprotected the page, but the self-serving description above does not objectively describe what the ACLU does. Maybe through the Wiki process something objective will result.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 17:28, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Footnotes:
[1] [http://www.aclu.org/about/] (American Civil Liberties Union web site. ACLU. Retrieved on 3-6-2007)

Essentially, we need to keep opinions and slander out of the project. We just need to stick to facts, no matter how we feel about a subject or person. Injecting opinion and misleading, doctored quotes, cheapens the project.

:I have no knowledge of the Baldwin quote, whether it is true or not, but I followed the link that “supports” it, and noticed that the quote does not appear on the page the link takes me to. I’ve done a quick search for the quote and the only things I turn up are blogs that cite it as an example of “how funny” this site is, and posts that also cite the page linked from the article. That is, I can find no support for this quote at all. I would simply delete the quote as a fabrication, but, since the article is newly unlocked, I don’t want to be hasty in editing it. Can anyone find this quote in a reputable source? (I should note I don’t have access, at the moment, to the source supporting the alternative version of the quote, but I can’t find it attested to on any website.)--[[User:Reginod|Reginod]] 20:11, 7 March 2007 (EST)

: Not only is it a mis-quote, but it ignores the fact that Baldwin purged the ACLU of suspected Communists in the late 1940s. This quote is superfluous to the article as a whole.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 00:21, 9 March 2007 (EST)

: The quote supported by the citation. Many other citations on the internet confirm the quote. Are you saying a word should not be capitalized, or that some other trivial change should be made? I don't think Baldwin ever disclaimed the quote, and it was even printed in a Harvard reunion book. Nothing superfluous about it, either.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:24, 9 March 2007 (EST)

::The words in the quote do not appear on the page used to support the quote. That is my objection. If there is a direct quote and then a citation to support that direct quote the page should have the quote on it—it would be nice if the page gave the context of the quote and some reason to believe it is true, but at the bare minimum I think the quote should appear on the page. I have searched the page and the words “Communism”, “abolition”, “abolishing”, “disarmament”, “ownership”, and “propertied” appear nowhere on the page. The word “socialism” does once, but not in the context of a quote from Baldwin. In point of fact neither the word “Roger” nor the word “Baldwin” appears on the page.
::If the quote is true, there should be a link to a page with the quote—if no page with the quote can be found I think the quote should come down. But, at the very least, the citation should be changed.
::I have, as I noted before, looked for a better place to cite to support this quote, but have been unable to find one.--[[User:Reginod|Reginod]] 08:45, 9 March 2007 (EST)
:::This quote still does not appear on the page being used as a reference supporting it (and no one has provided a citation that actually supports the quote). Why is it still there?--[[User:Reginod|Reginod]] 12:17, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

: The quote appears nowhere in the citation used to support it. Baldwin said this before he ever started the ACLU. And as I pointed out, he purged the ACLU of Communists in the 1940s. How sympathetic could he still be towards that viewpoint if he kicked Communists out of the ACLU? The quote is not being used to butress a fact but is being misrepresented in order to portray the ACLU in a negative light. I would think there are plenty of legitimate ways to do that, rather than playing fast and loose with this quote.--[[User:Dave3172|Dave3172]] 00:32, 9 March 2007 (EST)

==Basic Writing Errors==
-"More typical of ACLU litigation was when attorneys on its side demanded over $2 million" There is a tense change here. Fix it.
-There's no need to mention that Roger Baldwin is non-Christian; it's 100% inconsequential.
--[[User:WOVcenter|WOVcenter]] 12:45, 8 March 2007 (EST)

== Basic legal errors ==

Your discussion of Selman v. Cobb County Sch. Dist., 449 F.3d 1320 is utterly flawed. I'll cite from the case: "In vacating the district court's [**49] judgment and remanding the case for additional proceedings, we want to make it clear that we do not intend to make any implicit rulings on any of the legal issues that arise from the facts once they are found on remand. We intend no holding on any of the legal premises that may have shaped the district court's conclusions on the three Lemon prongs. Mindful that in this area factual context is everything, we simply choose not to attempt to decide this case based on a less than a complete record on appeal or fewer than all the facts."

Selman v. Cobb County Sch. Dist., 449 F.3d 1320, 1338 (11th Cir. 2006)

In stating that the Selman case had been overturned, you make *GLARING* and rookie legal error. Vacating a case and remanding it is different from overturning it, a difference underscored by the fact that the opinion vacating the lower court's order explicitly stated that it passed no judgment on the legal theory of the case, only stating that the evidence for appellate review was too scanty!!

Further, you state that fees were awarded as if that were extraordinary. It is NOT. Fees are often awarded to the victorious party, and $2m is not an extraordinary sum, either, in a complex litigation matter. Finally, you cite again to the Discovery Institute in claiming that the Discovery Institute case opinion contained 90% of the ACLU's brief, which is (1) false - the only copies were in regard to the statement of facts, not the legal analysis, and (2) misleading, insofar as it suggests that that is not normal. District Judges often state their agreement with one party's idea of the facts. That's WHAT JUDGES DO in deciding a case!!

Insofar as these glaring errors existed, the text of the article has been modified.--[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 18:33, 8 March 2007 (EST)

: Folks, the edits to this content page removed much factual information and replaced it with 50-year-old, unsupported claims. This is Conservapedia, not Wikipedia. At this rate the page will need to be locked again. But I'll wait in case someone wants to correct this first.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:42, 8 March 2007 (EST)

::Asch, what was posted were not facts. They were misconstructions, exaggerations, and embellishments that fail to take account of the way the law actually works. You're an attorney, you should know that Costs are almost always awarded, and you should know the difference between vacating and reversing a case, too!!--[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 18:44, 8 March 2007 (EST)

:::When a case is vacated, it pretty much is a reversal. [[User:Geo.plrd|Geo.]] 00:19, 9 March 2007 (EST)

:::: That is FALSE. Sometimes you're right, it is a reversal. However the SPECIFIC HOLDING of the appellate division was that it did not reverse or pass judgment on the legal issue. It merely remanded to seek facts, thus VACATING AND REMANDING, not REVERSING.--[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 00:26, 9 March 2007 (EST)
== Kitzmiller Discussion wrong ==
The opinion did not prevent appeal. What probably prevents appeal is that it would be a losing case and there is a new board there. Furthermore, this was not a free excercise case, but an establishment clause case. You should also mention that the order for costs is according to federal law on constitutional rights. Further, you should link to the opinion so people can read it for themselves. It is hosted here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover_decision.html [[User:Lawrah|Lawrah]] 02:15, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

: Lawrah, I've tried to argue this unsuccessfully. Link to this admin to talk about it[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:Geo.plrd] You're right, though. There're some more legal errors, but they still won't correct them.--[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 02:21, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

: I've gone over the Kitzmiller opinion again. I suggest any admins take a read through as well, paying particular attention to 400 F. Supp.2d at 723-25, where the Court has some discussion of the ''Selman'' opinion. I bring these pages to your attention because they are characteristic of the opinion's use of the ''Selman'' decision - it does '''not''' "heavily rely" upon ''Selman'', but rather, when citing it at all, it uses it as one of a number of "string citations," not as sole authority. Further, when it cites it at all, it is in support of a minor proposition, not a major tenet of constitutional law. For its major propositions, it cites exclusively to the ''Lemon'' test and the endorsement test, both of which - no matter how much you may personally hate them - are established Constitutional law.

: I suggest that you edit the ACLU article to reflect the low importance that ''Selman'' plays in ''Kitzmiller'', rather than continue to mislead your viewing public about Judge Jones' supposed reliance on it.--[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 17:50, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

::In fact, the court couldn't "heavily rely" on Selman, because that was another district court decision with no precedential value. Even the vacating of Selman wouldn't have precedent for a PA district court, they're in different circuits. Do they teach about those in homeschool? [[User:Lawrah|Lawrah]] 23:58, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
:I added the link to the opinion [[User:Geo.plrd|Geo.]] 00:15, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

== In anticipation ==

RSchlafly, I look forward to another edit war with you. These always end with you getting confused, and then me getting banned for a day. Anywho, my version of this article is superior. Yours is full of bias words like "merely," et al, while mine gives the actual cited legal analysis and purpose of the stickers. Settle it here.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 17:34, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:Lessee... random poster vs relative of the guy who runs the site. In the words of Ho Chih Zen, "Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken." --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:38, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Randomocracy

2007-04-01T21:27:46Z

BDobbs: New page: '''Randomocracy''' is a theoretical form of government in which members of the government are chosen by random draft, instead of campaigning for office. It is based on [[Douglas Adams...

'''Randomocracy''' is a theoretical form of government in which members of the government are chosen by random [[draft]], instead of campaigning for office. It is based on [[Douglas Adams]]' famous comment that anyone who wants to wield power probably shouldn't be allowed to.

== Positive aspects of Randomocracy ==
* It will result in vastly greater representation among lower-class economic castes, as opposed to the current system, where everyone is represented by wealthy white male lawyers and bankers.
* Possibly, legislation that is readable by humans will be passed.
* Since nobody campaigns for office, the enormous expenditure of effort and money of [[political campaigns]] will be obsolete.

== Common Criticisms of Randomocracy ==
* With all legislaters only serving a single term, accountability for bribery and corruption will be drastically reduced.
* Members of unpopular beliefs and genders might be elected to office.

Talk:Ku Klux Klan

2007-04-01T21:19:09Z

BDobbs: /* More fantasy */

Talk:Conservative

2007-04-01T21:13:21Z

BDobbs: /* Why was my addition deleted? */

{{protected|Aschlafly}}

Really, why is George W. Bush listed as a conservative? He's gladly helped to spend far more than the government is bringing in in taxes, and ballooned the budget to ridiculous, formerly inconceivable heights, he's promoted programs like No Child Left Behind, which gives the federal government more money and control of education, rather than eliminating the Department of Education, as a true conservative would, and he's gone along with all this horrible prescription drug benefit garbage, all the while never making a serious effort to fix our broken tax system or taking steps to free us from the onus of a completely worthless and hopeless social security program with no future. Hardly conservative. [[User:Flinker du|Flinker du]] 04:30, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:While we're at it, how can George Washington be a conservative if conservativism did not arise until the 19th century as stated in the article. I am taking him off the list. --[[User:Wikidan81|Wikidan81]] 14:37, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:The article includes ''"Return of prayer in school,"'' I'm going to guess this would mean like '''''The Lord's Prayer''''' and not the '''''Salaah'''''.

::And return of prayer to school isn't really conservative either - heck, most of American "conservatism" falls under propaganda to in fact increase the power and the size of the government. And I'd like to see what religion does with those values listed for conservatism... doesn't it, in fact, promote the opposite? [[User:Ninj4|Ninj4]] 20:08, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

::Probably no invocations to [[Nylarthotep]], either. The usual explanation for that is that Christians are the majority, so other, lesser religions just have to suck it up and endure. I wonder how well that'd go over in, say, [[Clearwater]], Florida? (Scientology world headquarters.)
::The First Amendment: proving once again that the Founding Fathers make our current politicians look like the retarded chimps they are. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::George '''H'''. W. Bush isn't a conservative? Weird. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
==definition==
Could someone explain what is meant by "Economic allocative efficiency"? Sounds a bit like gobbledeygood to me. [[User:Boethius|Boethius]] 18:08, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==The List==
The list that is in the article refers to an article written by Jonah Goldberg, who was quoting John Derbyshire, who, in turn was quoting, ''John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, in The Right Nation , tick off the six fundamentals of classical, Burkean, Anglo-Saxon conservatism''. It was a fun romp tracking it down. --[[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 00:51, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

== Inaccurate information ==

"Some Conservatives hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth."

This statement could not be further from the truth. Conservatives are the exact opposite of libertarians. To say someone is conservative and libertarian would be contradictory in terms. This statement should be some REPUBLICANS hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth. This statement would be true because Republicans are LIBERALS economically and would in fact not want government interference with the economy. Therefore I am deleting this statement from the article due to the inaccuracy of the statement.
--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 00:40, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*Around here, LiberalMedia, we communicate. Try it the next time. I have removed all of your changes. And I will continue to do so until you lower yourself to using this discussion as it was intended to be. FYI, libertarians do not believe in the government using forced income redistribution! --[[User:TK|TK]] 02:32, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:*I never said that libertarians believe in using forced income redistribution by the government. Where did I say that in my paragraph above. If you could read, I was saying that conservatives do not hold the same view as libertarians on the redistribution of wealth. People that are economically conservative want forced income redistribution by increasing taxes, etc. People that are libertarians don't want the government to increase taxes and definitely do not want the government using forced income redistribution. How are users intended to use this discussion? Is it to give false information and make this site look like a joke? Or is it to give factual information. Hopefully, it is the latter. --[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 03:08, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

::*Hey, LiberalMedia, you are the one who wanted the text that made the blanket statement that Libertarians side with the Democrats on economic policy, it wasn't me. One of they keystones of Democratic Party policy has been income resdistribution, not the Republicans, lol. You vandalizing the page as you did, adding the "Some Conservatives hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth. '''(This statement makes no sense)"''' will earn you a time-out. Perhaps Wikipedia will better tolerate your point of view? --[[User:TK|TK]] 03:31, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:::* Where did I say that the Libertarians side with the Democrats? I never said that, in fact, I was stating the opposite. You probably just realized your error and are now trying to cover your behind. Did you even read my first paragraph? I never mention the word Democrat once in the paragraph. So where did you get this statement that "Libertarians side with the Democrats on economic policy." You must have made that up because I never said that. Libertarians side with Democrats on political issues and with Republicans on economic policy. Conservatives which this article is about side with Republicans on political issues and Democrats on economic policy.

*Your paragraph read: ''"In America, conservatives tend to align with the [[Republican Party]] on social issues and tend to align with the [[Democratic Party]] on economic issues."'' Since the major tenet of Democratic Party economic policy is economic redistribution, that would indeed imply Libertarians buy into that. Sorry if you cannot see my point. I have been involved with public policy, at the federal level for over twenty years, working with both parties. I think I can judge fairly well, the difference between what Republican and Democratic policies are. That doesn't excuse you being a vandal, which is by its very nature, intellectual dishonesty.--[[User:TK|TK]] 03:53, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* The error that you are making is thinking the Democratic Party is the same as the Libertarians. Why would it imply Libertarians to buy into economic redistribution if Democratic Party believes in it? The Democratic Party disagrees with the Libertarians on economic policy.

*Are you in Grade School? If you state, as your paragraph did, that Conservatives align, generally, with the Democratic Party on economic issues, that is saying they must buy into income redistribution. Conservatives do not buy into that. Surely you know that. Just as those Conservatives with a strong libertarian bent also do not. You are a vandal, I will not continue to reply.--[[User:TK|TK]] 04:04, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* No, I am in college. Conservatives do buy into income redistribution. That is exactly what I have been saying the entire time. Finally, you were able to figure it out. Conservatives can never have a "strong libertarian bent." They are complete opposite. Obviously realized that I am right and that is why you aren't going to reply anymore. How am I vandal? I am only a vandal if giving correct information on this site is considered vandalism.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 04:11, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*Goodness! You, or your 'rents should demand your tuition back. Your professors are doing a crappy job, teaching you Conservatives believe in income redistribution. ROFLMAO!! --[[User:TK|TK]] 11:01, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* TK, you are confusing conservatives with Republicans. Conservatives are not the same thing and have different views on economic policy. So if the statement "Conservatives believe in income redistribution" is not true then it means that Republicans believe in income redistribution. I am certain that you will agree that Republicans do not want income redistribution. Thus, conservatives want income redistribution.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 14:13, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*That statement of yours, above, LiberalMedia, is utter nonsense. Please provide a citation, other than some moronic revisionist college professor. If you keep changing things to suit your fancy, I will either restrict you, or lock the article. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:26, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:*This is the definition of conservatism given by [http://www.dictionary.com Dictionary.com]:
::''A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism, and opposition to sudden change in the established order.''

:Now look at the definition of liberalism:
::''A political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.''

:Which one does a free market fall under? Liberalism or Conservatism? The answer is liberalism. If you look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism Wikipedia] they agree saying that economic liberalism is a free market ideal.

:The point that I am trying to make is that this article is talking about conservatism and its ideals. Not the Republican party agenda or anything of that matter. So when writing an article on it, it should be about conservative beliefs on social issues and economic issues. It doesn't make sense to start talking about economic liberalism because it is not the same as conservatism. Conservatism is about "big government" or to put it in terms you can understand, it is about government controls through established institutions(ex. taxes). Liberalism is about minimal government and freedom to do whatever you want, hence free market. In a truly liberal society there would be no government and it would be complete anarchy because everybody would have the freedom to do what they want.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 20:00, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

*I'm sorry, Liberalmedia, but most of us live in the here and now, the real world, where dogmatic thoughts, such as yours, mean very little. What things should mean, and what they actually are, usually are very different. I note you have nothing to back your nonsense about Conservatives supporting income redistribution, as opposed to favoring a generally flat tax, equal for all. This entry has nothing to do with either the Republican or Democrat political parties. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 20:06, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:*I never put that conservatives want income redistribution in the article. Maybe on this discussion page, but never in the article. In the article I only said a fact that conservatives align with the Republicans on social issues and Democrats on economic issues. Shouldn't an encyclopedia talk about what things mean and not talk about how they are in the moment? Otherwise, you would have to change this article every time the majority changes its opinion. Actually, conservative and liberal still mean the same thing today in the real world. It is just the ignorant people that think conservative means Republican and liberal means Democrat. Also, if you are suggesting that conservative is a synonym for Republican (which is what your advocating) then wouldn't the people that are liberal Republicans be an oxymoron. Or how about conservative Democrats? Do you understand?--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 20:19, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

*What I understand is, you quite possibly might get an "A" in debate tactics, however as an intellectual, an "F". I never introduced any text here, or in the article, equating Conservative or Liberal with either American political party. That was you, and others. I am willing to concede, generally, that there are more "Conservatives" aligned with the Republican Party, than with the Democrat Party. Take a look at the article below.....provided for your edification. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 21:20, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

==Goldwater Conservatives==
<blockquote>"During the campaign of 1964, [he] was our incorruptible standard-bearer," recalled William F. Buckley, Jr., in his 1998 obituary of Barry Goldwater, the career senator from Arizona, 34 years after the watershed. Goldwater, of course, was defeated resoundingly on Election Day, winning only six states. "It was the judgment of the establishment that Goldwater's critique of American liberalism had been given its final exposure on the national political scene," Buckley continued. "But then of course 16 years later the world was made to stand on its head when Ronald Reagan was swept into office on a platform indistinguishable from what Barry had been preaching."

Strange, then, that these days many commentators believe that Goldwater's conservatism was a different species from Reagan's and, especially, from George W. Bush's. Though admittedly an economic conservative, Goldwater has become an icon of opposition to social conservatism. When the 2004 Republican national convention showcased social liberals like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani, George F. Will proclaimed, "[Goldwater's] kind of conservatism made a comeback." By "Goldwater conservatism" Will meant "muscular foreign policy backing unapologetic nationalism; economic policies of low taxation and light regulation; a libertarian inclination regarding cultural questions."

Will was merely restating the consensus view. Darcy Olsen, president of the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, argued on the fifth anniversary of Goldwater's death that "Goldwater conservative" had "a different meaning than just saying, 'I am a Republican,' because when you say 'I am a Republican,' people assume that you're involved in the Moral Majority. It's its own brand...very libertarian." Senator John McCain said that Goldwater "disliked the religious right, because he felt they were intolerant, because Barry was not only conservative, but he was also to a degree libertarian."

What does the notion that Goldwater was a libertarian mean? First, it suggests that the cultural Right has abandoned true conservatism. It implies that presidents like Reagan and Bush, who have relied heavily on socially conservative voters, deviate from Goldwater's rugged and pure frontier conservatism. And then there is the implication, appearing frequently in the mainstream media, that Republicans must move back in Goldwater's direction if they are to reclaim their intellectual credibility.

But this interpretation happens to be wrong: it overlooks the role of social issues in the origins of the conservative movement. William F. Buckley, Jr.'s, God and Man at Yale (1951) complained not only about economic collectivism but also about rampant agnosticism and atheism among Yale's faculty. Ever since, the conservative movement has been as concerned with religious and moral issues as with economic and libertarian ones. Goldwater's 1964 campaign actually shaped the social conservatism of the modern Republican Party in at least three crucial respects: his view of human nature and the American republic; his concern over the moral deterioration of American society; and his stand on several key policy questions.

Human Nature

Goldwater articulated a view of the American Founding and America's purpose, as well as the nature of man, that was fundamentally moral, even religious, in character. In the introduction to his bestselling The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), Goldwater argued, "The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline." Conservative principles "are derived from the truths that God has revealed about his creation." In the first chapter, he (and his ghostwriter, L. Brent Bozell) wrote:

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man's nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man's nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy.... Man's most sacred possession is his individual soul.

The 1964 Republican platform, the handiwork of committed Goldwaterites, declared:

Much of today's moral decline and drift—much of the prevailing preoccupation with physical and material comforts of life—much of today's crass political appeals to the appetites of the citizenry—can be traced to a leadership grown demagogic and materialistic through indifference to national ideals founded in devoutly held religious faith. The Republican Party seeks not to renounce this heritage of faith and high purpose; rather, we are determined to reaffirm and reapply it.

In his speech accepting the 1964 presidential nomination, Goldwater extolled "freedom under a government limited by the laws of nature and of nature's God." He warned that

those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for Divine Will, and this Nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.

Reagan and Bush later echoed this language.

Goldwater decried the general moral decline of the time. On the campaign trail, he asked, "What's happening to us? What's happening to our America?" His campaign ran several television spots on this theme, which he called simply the "moral issue." In one commercial an announcer shouts, "Graft! Swindle! Juvenile delinquency! Crime! Riots!" before Goldwater proclaims: "Let this generation of Americans set a standard of responsibility that will inspire the world."

Another spot linked the corruption of government officials to moral deterioration. Goldwater exclaims, "Americans everywhere are indignant about the moral decay in Washington," while the narrator calls on voters to "put conscience back in government." A third advertisement asked "What has happened to our America? We build libraries and galleries to hold the world's greatest treasury of art—and we permit the world's greatest collection of smut to be freely available anywhere." A fourth featured Goldwater speaking directly into the camera:

Is moral responsibility out of style? Our papers and our newsreels and yes, our own observations, tell us that immorality surrounds us as never before. We as a nation are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people.... [The] philosophy of something for nothing, [the] cult of individual and governmental irresponsibility, is an insidious cancer that will destroy us unless we recognize it and root it out now.

Goldwater made morality the centerpiece of a 30-minute televised address that aired on CBS on October 20, 1964. After citing George Washington's dictum, "'Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,'" Goldwater said, "The moral fiber of the American people is beset by rot and decay," and pledged "every effort to a reconstruction of reverence and moral strength."

The campaign also produced, but did not air, a television program called "Choice." It focused on the "moral issue," and featured disturbing footage of topless bars, wild beatnik parties, drunken college students, and riots by both whites and blacks. Goldwater declined to use the film in the end, but only, it seems, because he feared that scenes of blacks rioting would introduce unseemly racial overtones into the campaign. But he had no inherent objection to addressing the other issues raised in the show.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s History of American Presidential Elections included a scathing contemporaneous account from John Bartlow Martin: "Goldwater's moral strictures soon began to sound preachy; he almost castigated Americans for their wickedness.... Goldwater looked not only like the mad bomber, but the half-crazed moral zealot." Sympathetic observers would characterize his message differently, but what is clear is that Goldwater hardly eschewed moral, social, and cultural themes.

The Rise of the Moral Issue

Nor did he discuss these themes in outline only. He and his party took a socially conservative stand on a number of policy issues. The 1964 GOP platform endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's school-prayer decisions and to permit voluntary school prayer. In his CBS televised address, Goldwater asked, "Is this the time in our nation's history for our Federal Government to ban Almighty God from our classrooms?" He answered: "Ours is both a religious and a free people. Over years past we have encountered no difficulty in absorbing that religious character into our state institutions, while at the same time preserving religious liberty and separation of church and state." Goldwater pointed out that his Democratic opponents ignored far more than just school prayer: "you will search in vain for any reference to God or religion in the Democratic platform." The Republican platform called for enactment of legislation "to curb the flow through the mails of obscene materials"; it criticized the Democratic administration and Congress for resisting tuition tax credits; and, not least, it emphasized the rise in crime as a moral issue, not merely a sociological one.

The Conscience of a Conservative devoted an entire chapter to education, anticipating its importance in the eyes of social conservatives. Goldwater paraphrased Dorothy Sayers when he wrote that Americans must "recapture the lost art of learning." He argued that

in our attempt to make education 'fun,' we have neglected the academic disciplines that develop sound minds and are conducive to sound characters.... We have forgotten that the proper function of the school is to transmit the cultural heritage of one generation to the next generation.

As a solution, he advocated a renewed emphasis on basic subjects, within the context of local control of schools.
In The Making of the President 1964, political journalist and election chronicler Theodore White wrote:

Goldwater could offer—and this was his greatest contribution to American politics—only a contagious concern which made people realize that indeed they must begin to think about such things. And this will be his great credit in historical terms: that finally he introduced the condition and quality of American morality and life as a subject of political debateâ€¦. Yet he had no handle to the problem, no program, no solution—except backward to the Bible and the God of the desert.

It's worth reflecting on this paragraph. Writing in 1965, White of course could not have predicted Goldwater's contribution to the long-term rise of conservatism. Nonetheless, this respected center-left analyst held that the Republican nominee's "greatest contribution to American politics" and his "great credit in historical terms" lay not in any impact he might have had on foreign or economic policy, but in the way he forced the "moral issue" onto the national agenda. White also had no difficulty identifying Goldwater's prescription: "the Bible and the God of the desert."

It should come as no surprise, then, that a number of veterans of the Goldwater effort later made names for themselves as leaders of the burgeoning grassroots movement of social conservatives. As Goldwater biographer Lee Edwards has pointed out, "almost all the leaders of the New Right...were drawn into politics because of [Goldwater]," figures like Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, and Morton Blackwell. For them, the transition was seamless.

Goldwater's move away from social conservatism came only in the twilight of his Senate career—and more starkly after he had left the Senate in 1987. Throughout the 1970s, he opposed abortion on demand and taxpayer funding of abortions. (He wavered on a constitutional amendment restricting abortion.) In 1980, in the midst of his last and most difficult Senate race, he endorsed the Human Life Amendment. Only in his final term did he adopt a pro-choice position, voting in 1983 against a constitutional amendment that would have reversed Roe v. Wade and returned legislative authority over abortion to the states. In 1984, he reversed his 1964 position by voting against a constitutional amendment to restore voluntary prayer to public schools. As late as 1985 he opposed "gay rights" legislation. Only in 1993, six years after leaving the Senate, did he change his view.

Goldwater's shift was largely a reaction against the leaders of the New Right, for whom his dislike grew stronger as their influence increased. In 1981, Goldwater said of the leader of the Moral Majority, "Every good Christian should kick [Jerry] Falwell in the ass." He also had personal reasons: one daughter and three granddaughters of his had had abortions; and a grandson and a grandniece were homosexual. In 1937, his wife, Peggy, had become a founding member of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, and the couple remained active in the organization throughout Goldwater's Senate career. Though he initially rejected Planned Parenthood's position on abortion, his long association with the group would ultimately make a convert of him. For Goldwater, private considerations like these sometimes trumped abstract philosophy.

Liberty and Morality

So how has the myth developed of the great gulf between "Goldwater conservatism" and Reagan's and Bush's? To begin with, several of the hot-button issues that later mobilized social conservatives en masse were non-issues in 1964, or had barely begun to stir. The '60s counterculture was inchoate, as was radical feminism. The downward spiral of social trends had just begun, as had the Left's crusade to obliterate religion from public life. Key court decisions on abortion, criminal rights, and gay rights lay in the future. Consequently, a distinct mass movement of religious traditionalists—a "Religious Right" with tens of thousands of foot soldiers—did not exist for the Goldwater campaign to incorporate. (To be sure, an intellectual movement of social traditionalists, including Russell Kirk, existed already and backed Goldwater.)

When Goldwater underwent his transformation as the years wore on, liberals rushed to embrace him. This Goldwater became every liberal's favorite conservative—not the historic figure who had condemned moral decay, extolled the religious underpinnings of American society, championed school prayer, inveighed against big government, and helped launch the modern conservative movement. Yet it was the latter Goldwater who ran for president, who galvanized Reagan and pointed the way to a long-term Republican electoral realignment.

Conservatives today need to revive Goldwater's argument in the '60s, and Reagan's in the '80s, that liberty is not only compatible with morality, it depends on it. Limited government cannot long coexist with a collapse of moral order; and an unlimited government is usually the consequence of an amoral society. Sweden, for instance, has both one of the most hedonistic societies in Europe and one of its most smothering welfare states. When in 1964 Goldwater told the graduating class of the Pennsylvania Military College that "it is impossible to maintain freedom and order and justice without religious and moral sanctions," he at once echoed George Washington and Alexis de Tocqueville, presaged Reagan, and issued a clarion call for future generations. </blockquote>

[http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1237/article_detail.asp]

:*Are you going to make a point or just post an article you found on the internet? You might not have put in any text equating Conservative or Liberal with either American political party, but you did reverse my edits and by doing so it makes it seem like you are equating conservatives with the Republican party. --[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 21:30, 19 March 2007 (ED

'''[[BNP]]'''

The British National Party is not similar to the Republican Party.The BNP are in fact quite racist in their policies,something which the mainstream Republican party are not.--[[User:RCSENG|RCSENG]] 16:42, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Liberal List. ==

Shouldn't the list of things on this page be the reverse of the list on the liberal page? At least as far as US definitions are concerned.--[[User:British_cons|British_cons]] [[User_talk:British_cons|(talk)]] 06:03, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

I've always been partial to [[Steve Jackson]]'s definitions:
:Liberal: Politically 'Left', whatever that means.
:Conservative: Usually mad at the Liberals.
Concise AND accurate!
--[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:09, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

== Why was my addition deleted? ==

I'm just curious why my addition concerning the conservative's faith in God was deleted? Seems like that's the biggest defference between Librals and Conservatives, at least with respect to today's culture wars.

*I didn't do it, but I suspect it's because on the face of it, to suggest all Liberals don't believe in God and accept Jesus Christ, is not factual? This isn't a blog space for posting one's own beliefs, even if I personally might agree with your premise. ;-) --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 18:36, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

::There ARE [[Liberal Christians]]. They're the ones who take that communist propaganda in the Book of Matthew (Chapter 25:27-46) as something other than allegory. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:13, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

== Evolution ==

The article on evolution is locked. Please explain why this is as it violates the idea of a freely editable encyclopedia. The article is also extremely biased and contains very little information on evolution; is mainly the conservative Christan opinion on evolution and irrelevant information. --[[User:Tomt|TomT]] 15:10, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

*I don't know why you posted about Evolution here. However, you are trying to apply standards set by other Wiki's here, and as you can tell from the rules and commandments here, this is indeed the CONSERVApedia. --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 18:38, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
**I think he meant [[User:Conservative]] (Conservative's extremely creative nickname really makes things confusing sometimes). Well, actually, none of the rules says anything about the need to be Christian-conservative or YECist, unless I really missed a memo. That's what many people complain about: The obvious bias is not acknowledged in the rules. The only possible "reasoning" seems to be the "We do not attempt to be neutral to all points of view. We are neutral to the facts" from the Differences page, with "facts" having a VERY interesting definition ("A fact is what either disses Wikipedia or supports America, the Bible and the YEC position. Anything else is just atheist liberals trying to deny the truth"). --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 18:47, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
**And no, please don't move this to Conservative's Talk page. He locked it again. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 18:48, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

== Origins and conservative presidents ==

<s>If conservatism didn't arise until the 19th century, how was George Washington a conservative President? [[User:Myk|Myk]] 03:00, 28 March 2007 (EDT)</s> Sorry, someone already asked this. [[User:Myk|Myk]] 03:00, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Conservative

2007-04-01T21:09:28Z

BDobbs: /* Liberal List. */

{{protected|Aschlafly}}

Really, why is George W. Bush listed as a conservative? He's gladly helped to spend far more than the government is bringing in in taxes, and ballooned the budget to ridiculous, formerly inconceivable heights, he's promoted programs like No Child Left Behind, which gives the federal government more money and control of education, rather than eliminating the Department of Education, as a true conservative would, and he's gone along with all this horrible prescription drug benefit garbage, all the while never making a serious effort to fix our broken tax system or taking steps to free us from the onus of a completely worthless and hopeless social security program with no future. Hardly conservative. [[User:Flinker du|Flinker du]] 04:30, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:While we're at it, how can George Washington be a conservative if conservativism did not arise until the 19th century as stated in the article. I am taking him off the list. --[[User:Wikidan81|Wikidan81]] 14:37, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:The article includes ''"Return of prayer in school,"'' I'm going to guess this would mean like '''''The Lord's Prayer''''' and not the '''''Salaah'''''.

::And return of prayer to school isn't really conservative either - heck, most of American "conservatism" falls under propaganda to in fact increase the power and the size of the government. And I'd like to see what religion does with those values listed for conservatism... doesn't it, in fact, promote the opposite? [[User:Ninj4|Ninj4]] 20:08, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

::Probably no invocations to [[Nylarthotep]], either. The usual explanation for that is that Christians are the majority, so other, lesser religions just have to suck it up and endure. I wonder how well that'd go over in, say, [[Clearwater]], Florida? (Scientology world headquarters.)
::The First Amendment: proving once again that the Founding Fathers make our current politicians look like the retarded chimps they are. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::George '''H'''. W. Bush isn't a conservative? Weird. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
==definition==
Could someone explain what is meant by "Economic allocative efficiency"? Sounds a bit like gobbledeygood to me. [[User:Boethius|Boethius]] 18:08, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==The List==
The list that is in the article refers to an article written by Jonah Goldberg, who was quoting John Derbyshire, who, in turn was quoting, ''John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, in The Right Nation , tick off the six fundamentals of classical, Burkean, Anglo-Saxon conservatism''. It was a fun romp tracking it down. --[[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 00:51, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

== Inaccurate information ==

"Some Conservatives hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth."

This statement could not be further from the truth. Conservatives are the exact opposite of libertarians. To say someone is conservative and libertarian would be contradictory in terms. This statement should be some REPUBLICANS hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth. This statement would be true because Republicans are LIBERALS economically and would in fact not want government interference with the economy. Therefore I am deleting this statement from the article due to the inaccuracy of the statement.
--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 00:40, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*Around here, LiberalMedia, we communicate. Try it the next time. I have removed all of your changes. And I will continue to do so until you lower yourself to using this discussion as it was intended to be. FYI, libertarians do not believe in the government using forced income redistribution! --[[User:TK|TK]] 02:32, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:*I never said that libertarians believe in using forced income redistribution by the government. Where did I say that in my paragraph above. If you could read, I was saying that conservatives do not hold the same view as libertarians on the redistribution of wealth. People that are economically conservative want forced income redistribution by increasing taxes, etc. People that are libertarians don't want the government to increase taxes and definitely do not want the government using forced income redistribution. How are users intended to use this discussion? Is it to give false information and make this site look like a joke? Or is it to give factual information. Hopefully, it is the latter. --[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 03:08, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

::*Hey, LiberalMedia, you are the one who wanted the text that made the blanket statement that Libertarians side with the Democrats on economic policy, it wasn't me. One of they keystones of Democratic Party policy has been income resdistribution, not the Republicans, lol. You vandalizing the page as you did, adding the "Some Conservatives hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth. '''(This statement makes no sense)"''' will earn you a time-out. Perhaps Wikipedia will better tolerate your point of view? --[[User:TK|TK]] 03:31, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:::* Where did I say that the Libertarians side with the Democrats? I never said that, in fact, I was stating the opposite. You probably just realized your error and are now trying to cover your behind. Did you even read my first paragraph? I never mention the word Democrat once in the paragraph. So where did you get this statement that "Libertarians side with the Democrats on economic policy." You must have made that up because I never said that. Libertarians side with Democrats on political issues and with Republicans on economic policy. Conservatives which this article is about side with Republicans on political issues and Democrats on economic policy.

*Your paragraph read: ''"In America, conservatives tend to align with the [[Republican Party]] on social issues and tend to align with the [[Democratic Party]] on economic issues."'' Since the major tenet of Democratic Party economic policy is economic redistribution, that would indeed imply Libertarians buy into that. Sorry if you cannot see my point. I have been involved with public policy, at the federal level for over twenty years, working with both parties. I think I can judge fairly well, the difference between what Republican and Democratic policies are. That doesn't excuse you being a vandal, which is by its very nature, intellectual dishonesty.--[[User:TK|TK]] 03:53, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* The error that you are making is thinking the Democratic Party is the same as the Libertarians. Why would it imply Libertarians to buy into economic redistribution if Democratic Party believes in it? The Democratic Party disagrees with the Libertarians on economic policy.

*Are you in Grade School? If you state, as your paragraph did, that Conservatives align, generally, with the Democratic Party on economic issues, that is saying they must buy into income redistribution. Conservatives do not buy into that. Surely you know that. Just as those Conservatives with a strong libertarian bent also do not. You are a vandal, I will not continue to reply.--[[User:TK|TK]] 04:04, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* No, I am in college. Conservatives do buy into income redistribution. That is exactly what I have been saying the entire time. Finally, you were able to figure it out. Conservatives can never have a "strong libertarian bent." They are complete opposite. Obviously realized that I am right and that is why you aren't going to reply anymore. How am I vandal? I am only a vandal if giving correct information on this site is considered vandalism.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 04:11, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*Goodness! You, or your 'rents should demand your tuition back. Your professors are doing a crappy job, teaching you Conservatives believe in income redistribution. ROFLMAO!! --[[User:TK|TK]] 11:01, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* TK, you are confusing conservatives with Republicans. Conservatives are not the same thing and have different views on economic policy. So if the statement "Conservatives believe in income redistribution" is not true then it means that Republicans believe in income redistribution. I am certain that you will agree that Republicans do not want income redistribution. Thus, conservatives want income redistribution.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 14:13, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*That statement of yours, above, LiberalMedia, is utter nonsense. Please provide a citation, other than some moronic revisionist college professor. If you keep changing things to suit your fancy, I will either restrict you, or lock the article. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:26, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:*This is the definition of conservatism given by [http://www.dictionary.com Dictionary.com]:
::''A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism, and opposition to sudden change in the established order.''

:Now look at the definition of liberalism:
::''A political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.''

:Which one does a free market fall under? Liberalism or Conservatism? The answer is liberalism. If you look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism Wikipedia] they agree saying that economic liberalism is a free market ideal.

:The point that I am trying to make is that this article is talking about conservatism and its ideals. Not the Republican party agenda or anything of that matter. So when writing an article on it, it should be about conservative beliefs on social issues and economic issues. It doesn't make sense to start talking about economic liberalism because it is not the same as conservatism. Conservatism is about "big government" or to put it in terms you can understand, it is about government controls through established institutions(ex. taxes). Liberalism is about minimal government and freedom to do whatever you want, hence free market. In a truly liberal society there would be no government and it would be complete anarchy because everybody would have the freedom to do what they want.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 20:00, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

*I'm sorry, Liberalmedia, but most of us live in the here and now, the real world, where dogmatic thoughts, such as yours, mean very little. What things should mean, and what they actually are, usually are very different. I note you have nothing to back your nonsense about Conservatives supporting income redistribution, as opposed to favoring a generally flat tax, equal for all. This entry has nothing to do with either the Republican or Democrat political parties. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 20:06, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:*I never put that conservatives want income redistribution in the article. Maybe on this discussion page, but never in the article. In the article I only said a fact that conservatives align with the Republicans on social issues and Democrats on economic issues. Shouldn't an encyclopedia talk about what things mean and not talk about how they are in the moment? Otherwise, you would have to change this article every time the majority changes its opinion. Actually, conservative and liberal still mean the same thing today in the real world. It is just the ignorant people that think conservative means Republican and liberal means Democrat. Also, if you are suggesting that conservative is a synonym for Republican (which is what your advocating) then wouldn't the people that are liberal Republicans be an oxymoron. Or how about conservative Democrats? Do you understand?--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 20:19, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

*What I understand is, you quite possibly might get an "A" in debate tactics, however as an intellectual, an "F". I never introduced any text here, or in the article, equating Conservative or Liberal with either American political party. That was you, and others. I am willing to concede, generally, that there are more "Conservatives" aligned with the Republican Party, than with the Democrat Party. Take a look at the article below.....provided for your edification. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 21:20, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

==Goldwater Conservatives==
<blockquote>"During the campaign of 1964, [he] was our incorruptible standard-bearer," recalled William F. Buckley, Jr., in his 1998 obituary of Barry Goldwater, the career senator from Arizona, 34 years after the watershed. Goldwater, of course, was defeated resoundingly on Election Day, winning only six states. "It was the judgment of the establishment that Goldwater's critique of American liberalism had been given its final exposure on the national political scene," Buckley continued. "But then of course 16 years later the world was made to stand on its head when Ronald Reagan was swept into office on a platform indistinguishable from what Barry had been preaching."

Strange, then, that these days many commentators believe that Goldwater's conservatism was a different species from Reagan's and, especially, from George W. Bush's. Though admittedly an economic conservative, Goldwater has become an icon of opposition to social conservatism. When the 2004 Republican national convention showcased social liberals like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani, George F. Will proclaimed, "[Goldwater's] kind of conservatism made a comeback." By "Goldwater conservatism" Will meant "muscular foreign policy backing unapologetic nationalism; economic policies of low taxation and light regulation; a libertarian inclination regarding cultural questions."

Will was merely restating the consensus view. Darcy Olsen, president of the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, argued on the fifth anniversary of Goldwater's death that "Goldwater conservative" had "a different meaning than just saying, 'I am a Republican,' because when you say 'I am a Republican,' people assume that you're involved in the Moral Majority. It's its own brand...very libertarian." Senator John McCain said that Goldwater "disliked the religious right, because he felt they were intolerant, because Barry was not only conservative, but he was also to a degree libertarian."

What does the notion that Goldwater was a libertarian mean? First, it suggests that the cultural Right has abandoned true conservatism. It implies that presidents like Reagan and Bush, who have relied heavily on socially conservative voters, deviate from Goldwater's rugged and pure frontier conservatism. And then there is the implication, appearing frequently in the mainstream media, that Republicans must move back in Goldwater's direction if they are to reclaim their intellectual credibility.

But this interpretation happens to be wrong: it overlooks the role of social issues in the origins of the conservative movement. William F. Buckley, Jr.'s, God and Man at Yale (1951) complained not only about economic collectivism but also about rampant agnosticism and atheism among Yale's faculty. Ever since, the conservative movement has been as concerned with religious and moral issues as with economic and libertarian ones. Goldwater's 1964 campaign actually shaped the social conservatism of the modern Republican Party in at least three crucial respects: his view of human nature and the American republic; his concern over the moral deterioration of American society; and his stand on several key policy questions.

Human Nature

Goldwater articulated a view of the American Founding and America's purpose, as well as the nature of man, that was fundamentally moral, even religious, in character. In the introduction to his bestselling The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), Goldwater argued, "The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline." Conservative principles "are derived from the truths that God has revealed about his creation." In the first chapter, he (and his ghostwriter, L. Brent Bozell) wrote:

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man's nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man's nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy.... Man's most sacred possession is his individual soul.

The 1964 Republican platform, the handiwork of committed Goldwaterites, declared:

Much of today's moral decline and drift—much of the prevailing preoccupation with physical and material comforts of life—much of today's crass political appeals to the appetites of the citizenry—can be traced to a leadership grown demagogic and materialistic through indifference to national ideals founded in devoutly held religious faith. The Republican Party seeks not to renounce this heritage of faith and high purpose; rather, we are determined to reaffirm and reapply it.

In his speech accepting the 1964 presidential nomination, Goldwater extolled "freedom under a government limited by the laws of nature and of nature's God." He warned that

those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for Divine Will, and this Nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.

Reagan and Bush later echoed this language.

Goldwater decried the general moral decline of the time. On the campaign trail, he asked, "What's happening to us? What's happening to our America?" His campaign ran several television spots on this theme, which he called simply the "moral issue." In one commercial an announcer shouts, "Graft! Swindle! Juvenile delinquency! Crime! Riots!" before Goldwater proclaims: "Let this generation of Americans set a standard of responsibility that will inspire the world."

Another spot linked the corruption of government officials to moral deterioration. Goldwater exclaims, "Americans everywhere are indignant about the moral decay in Washington," while the narrator calls on voters to "put conscience back in government." A third advertisement asked "What has happened to our America? We build libraries and galleries to hold the world's greatest treasury of art—and we permit the world's greatest collection of smut to be freely available anywhere." A fourth featured Goldwater speaking directly into the camera:

Is moral responsibility out of style? Our papers and our newsreels and yes, our own observations, tell us that immorality surrounds us as never before. We as a nation are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people.... [The] philosophy of something for nothing, [the] cult of individual and governmental irresponsibility, is an insidious cancer that will destroy us unless we recognize it and root it out now.

Goldwater made morality the centerpiece of a 30-minute televised address that aired on CBS on October 20, 1964. After citing George Washington's dictum, "'Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,'" Goldwater said, "The moral fiber of the American people is beset by rot and decay," and pledged "every effort to a reconstruction of reverence and moral strength."

The campaign also produced, but did not air, a television program called "Choice." It focused on the "moral issue," and featured disturbing footage of topless bars, wild beatnik parties, drunken college students, and riots by both whites and blacks. Goldwater declined to use the film in the end, but only, it seems, because he feared that scenes of blacks rioting would introduce unseemly racial overtones into the campaign. But he had no inherent objection to addressing the other issues raised in the show.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s History of American Presidential Elections included a scathing contemporaneous account from John Bartlow Martin: "Goldwater's moral strictures soon began to sound preachy; he almost castigated Americans for their wickedness.... Goldwater looked not only like the mad bomber, but the half-crazed moral zealot." Sympathetic observers would characterize his message differently, but what is clear is that Goldwater hardly eschewed moral, social, and cultural themes.

The Rise of the Moral Issue

Nor did he discuss these themes in outline only. He and his party took a socially conservative stand on a number of policy issues. The 1964 GOP platform endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's school-prayer decisions and to permit voluntary school prayer. In his CBS televised address, Goldwater asked, "Is this the time in our nation's history for our Federal Government to ban Almighty God from our classrooms?" He answered: "Ours is both a religious and a free people. Over years past we have encountered no difficulty in absorbing that religious character into our state institutions, while at the same time preserving religious liberty and separation of church and state." Goldwater pointed out that his Democratic opponents ignored far more than just school prayer: "you will search in vain for any reference to God or religion in the Democratic platform." The Republican platform called for enactment of legislation "to curb the flow through the mails of obscene materials"; it criticized the Democratic administration and Congress for resisting tuition tax credits; and, not least, it emphasized the rise in crime as a moral issue, not merely a sociological one.

The Conscience of a Conservative devoted an entire chapter to education, anticipating its importance in the eyes of social conservatives. Goldwater paraphrased Dorothy Sayers when he wrote that Americans must "recapture the lost art of learning." He argued that

in our attempt to make education 'fun,' we have neglected the academic disciplines that develop sound minds and are conducive to sound characters.... We have forgotten that the proper function of the school is to transmit the cultural heritage of one generation to the next generation.

As a solution, he advocated a renewed emphasis on basic subjects, within the context of local control of schools.
In The Making of the President 1964, political journalist and election chronicler Theodore White wrote:

Goldwater could offer—and this was his greatest contribution to American politics—only a contagious concern which made people realize that indeed they must begin to think about such things. And this will be his great credit in historical terms: that finally he introduced the condition and quality of American morality and life as a subject of political debateâ€¦. Yet he had no handle to the problem, no program, no solution—except backward to the Bible and the God of the desert.

It's worth reflecting on this paragraph. Writing in 1965, White of course could not have predicted Goldwater's contribution to the long-term rise of conservatism. Nonetheless, this respected center-left analyst held that the Republican nominee's "greatest contribution to American politics" and his "great credit in historical terms" lay not in any impact he might have had on foreign or economic policy, but in the way he forced the "moral issue" onto the national agenda. White also had no difficulty identifying Goldwater's prescription: "the Bible and the God of the desert."

It should come as no surprise, then, that a number of veterans of the Goldwater effort later made names for themselves as leaders of the burgeoning grassroots movement of social conservatives. As Goldwater biographer Lee Edwards has pointed out, "almost all the leaders of the New Right...were drawn into politics because of [Goldwater]," figures like Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, and Morton Blackwell. For them, the transition was seamless.

Goldwater's move away from social conservatism came only in the twilight of his Senate career—and more starkly after he had left the Senate in 1987. Throughout the 1970s, he opposed abortion on demand and taxpayer funding of abortions. (He wavered on a constitutional amendment restricting abortion.) In 1980, in the midst of his last and most difficult Senate race, he endorsed the Human Life Amendment. Only in his final term did he adopt a pro-choice position, voting in 1983 against a constitutional amendment that would have reversed Roe v. Wade and returned legislative authority over abortion to the states. In 1984, he reversed his 1964 position by voting against a constitutional amendment to restore voluntary prayer to public schools. As late as 1985 he opposed "gay rights" legislation. Only in 1993, six years after leaving the Senate, did he change his view.

Goldwater's shift was largely a reaction against the leaders of the New Right, for whom his dislike grew stronger as their influence increased. In 1981, Goldwater said of the leader of the Moral Majority, "Every good Christian should kick [Jerry] Falwell in the ass." He also had personal reasons: one daughter and three granddaughters of his had had abortions; and a grandson and a grandniece were homosexual. In 1937, his wife, Peggy, had become a founding member of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, and the couple remained active in the organization throughout Goldwater's Senate career. Though he initially rejected Planned Parenthood's position on abortion, his long association with the group would ultimately make a convert of him. For Goldwater, private considerations like these sometimes trumped abstract philosophy.

Liberty and Morality

So how has the myth developed of the great gulf between "Goldwater conservatism" and Reagan's and Bush's? To begin with, several of the hot-button issues that later mobilized social conservatives en masse were non-issues in 1964, or had barely begun to stir. The '60s counterculture was inchoate, as was radical feminism. The downward spiral of social trends had just begun, as had the Left's crusade to obliterate religion from public life. Key court decisions on abortion, criminal rights, and gay rights lay in the future. Consequently, a distinct mass movement of religious traditionalists—a "Religious Right" with tens of thousands of foot soldiers—did not exist for the Goldwater campaign to incorporate. (To be sure, an intellectual movement of social traditionalists, including Russell Kirk, existed already and backed Goldwater.)

When Goldwater underwent his transformation as the years wore on, liberals rushed to embrace him. This Goldwater became every liberal's favorite conservative—not the historic figure who had condemned moral decay, extolled the religious underpinnings of American society, championed school prayer, inveighed against big government, and helped launch the modern conservative movement. Yet it was the latter Goldwater who ran for president, who galvanized Reagan and pointed the way to a long-term Republican electoral realignment.

Conservatives today need to revive Goldwater's argument in the '60s, and Reagan's in the '80s, that liberty is not only compatible with morality, it depends on it. Limited government cannot long coexist with a collapse of moral order; and an unlimited government is usually the consequence of an amoral society. Sweden, for instance, has both one of the most hedonistic societies in Europe and one of its most smothering welfare states. When in 1964 Goldwater told the graduating class of the Pennsylvania Military College that "it is impossible to maintain freedom and order and justice without religious and moral sanctions," he at once echoed George Washington and Alexis de Tocqueville, presaged Reagan, and issued a clarion call for future generations. </blockquote>

[http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1237/article_detail.asp]

:*Are you going to make a point or just post an article you found on the internet? You might not have put in any text equating Conservative or Liberal with either American political party, but you did reverse my edits and by doing so it makes it seem like you are equating conservatives with the Republican party. --[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 21:30, 19 March 2007 (ED

'''[[BNP]]'''

The British National Party is not similar to the Republican Party.The BNP are in fact quite racist in their policies,something which the mainstream Republican party are not.--[[User:RCSENG|RCSENG]] 16:42, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Liberal List. ==

Shouldn't the list of things on this page be the reverse of the list on the liberal page? At least as far as US definitions are concerned.--[[User:British_cons|British_cons]] [[User_talk:British_cons|(talk)]] 06:03, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

I've always been partial to [[Steve Jackson]]'s definitions:
:Liberal: Politically 'Left', whatever that means.
:Conservative: Usually mad at the Liberals.
Concise AND accurate!
--[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:09, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

== Why was my addition deleted? ==

I'm just curious why my addition concerning the conservative's faith in God was deleted? Seems like that's the biggest defference between Librals and Conservatives, at least with respect to today's culture wars.

*I didn't do it, but I suspect it's because on the face of it, to suggest all Liberals don't believe in God and accept Jesus Christ, is not factual? This isn't a blog space for posting one's own beliefs, even if I personally might agree with your premise. ;-) --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 18:36, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

== Evolution ==

The article on evolution is locked. Please explain why this is as it violates the idea of a freely editable encyclopedia. The article is also extremely biased and contains very little information on evolution; is mainly the conservative Christan opinion on evolution and irrelevant information. --[[User:Tomt|TomT]] 15:10, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

*I don't know why you posted about Evolution here. However, you are trying to apply standards set by other Wiki's here, and as you can tell from the rules and commandments here, this is indeed the CONSERVApedia. --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 18:38, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
**I think he meant [[User:Conservative]] (Conservative's extremely creative nickname really makes things confusing sometimes). Well, actually, none of the rules says anything about the need to be Christian-conservative or YECist, unless I really missed a memo. That's what many people complain about: The obvious bias is not acknowledged in the rules. The only possible "reasoning" seems to be the "We do not attempt to be neutral to all points of view. We are neutral to the facts" from the Differences page, with "facts" having a VERY interesting definition ("A fact is what either disses Wikipedia or supports America, the Bible and the YEC position. Anything else is just atheist liberals trying to deny the truth"). --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 18:47, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
**And no, please don't move this to Conservative's Talk page. He locked it again. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 18:48, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

== Origins and conservative presidents ==

<s>If conservatism didn't arise until the 19th century, how was George Washington a conservative President? [[User:Myk|Myk]] 03:00, 28 March 2007 (EDT)</s> Sorry, someone already asked this. [[User:Myk|Myk]] 03:00, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Conservative

2007-04-01T21:06:11Z

BDobbs:

{{protected|Aschlafly}}

Really, why is George W. Bush listed as a conservative? He's gladly helped to spend far more than the government is bringing in in taxes, and ballooned the budget to ridiculous, formerly inconceivable heights, he's promoted programs like No Child Left Behind, which gives the federal government more money and control of education, rather than eliminating the Department of Education, as a true conservative would, and he's gone along with all this horrible prescription drug benefit garbage, all the while never making a serious effort to fix our broken tax system or taking steps to free us from the onus of a completely worthless and hopeless social security program with no future. Hardly conservative. [[User:Flinker du|Flinker du]] 04:30, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:While we're at it, how can George Washington be a conservative if conservativism did not arise until the 19th century as stated in the article. I am taking him off the list. --[[User:Wikidan81|Wikidan81]] 14:37, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

:The article includes ''"Return of prayer in school,"'' I'm going to guess this would mean like '''''The Lord's Prayer''''' and not the '''''Salaah'''''.

::And return of prayer to school isn't really conservative either - heck, most of American "conservatism" falls under propaganda to in fact increase the power and the size of the government. And I'd like to see what religion does with those values listed for conservatism... doesn't it, in fact, promote the opposite? [[User:Ninj4|Ninj4]] 20:08, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

::Probably no invocations to [[Nylarthotep]], either. The usual explanation for that is that Christians are the majority, so other, lesser religions just have to suck it up and endure. I wonder how well that'd go over in, say, [[Clearwater]], Florida? (Scientology world headquarters.)
::The First Amendment: proving once again that the Founding Fathers make our current politicians look like the retarded chimps they are. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::George '''H'''. W. Bush isn't a conservative? Weird. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
==definition==
Could someone explain what is meant by "Economic allocative efficiency"? Sounds a bit like gobbledeygood to me. [[User:Boethius|Boethius]] 18:08, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==The List==
The list that is in the article refers to an article written by Jonah Goldberg, who was quoting John Derbyshire, who, in turn was quoting, ''John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, in The Right Nation , tick off the six fundamentals of classical, Burkean, Anglo-Saxon conservatism''. It was a fun romp tracking it down. --[[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 00:51, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

== Inaccurate information ==

"Some Conservatives hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth."

This statement could not be further from the truth. Conservatives are the exact opposite of libertarians. To say someone is conservative and libertarian would be contradictory in terms. This statement should be some REPUBLICANS hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth. This statement would be true because Republicans are LIBERALS economically and would in fact not want government interference with the economy. Therefore I am deleting this statement from the article due to the inaccuracy of the statement.
--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 00:40, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*Around here, LiberalMedia, we communicate. Try it the next time. I have removed all of your changes. And I will continue to do so until you lower yourself to using this discussion as it was intended to be. FYI, libertarians do not believe in the government using forced income redistribution! --[[User:TK|TK]] 02:32, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:*I never said that libertarians believe in using forced income redistribution by the government. Where did I say that in my paragraph above. If you could read, I was saying that conservatives do not hold the same view as libertarians on the redistribution of wealth. People that are economically conservative want forced income redistribution by increasing taxes, etc. People that are libertarians don't want the government to increase taxes and definitely do not want the government using forced income redistribution. How are users intended to use this discussion? Is it to give false information and make this site look like a joke? Or is it to give factual information. Hopefully, it is the latter. --[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 03:08, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

::*Hey, LiberalMedia, you are the one who wanted the text that made the blanket statement that Libertarians side with the Democrats on economic policy, it wasn't me. One of they keystones of Democratic Party policy has been income resdistribution, not the Republicans, lol. You vandalizing the page as you did, adding the "Some Conservatives hold a strong libertarian conviction in the belief that the state should not interfere with the economy, gun control, and the redistribution of wealth. '''(This statement makes no sense)"''' will earn you a time-out. Perhaps Wikipedia will better tolerate your point of view? --[[User:TK|TK]] 03:31, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:::* Where did I say that the Libertarians side with the Democrats? I never said that, in fact, I was stating the opposite. You probably just realized your error and are now trying to cover your behind. Did you even read my first paragraph? I never mention the word Democrat once in the paragraph. So where did you get this statement that "Libertarians side with the Democrats on economic policy." You must have made that up because I never said that. Libertarians side with Democrats on political issues and with Republicans on economic policy. Conservatives which this article is about side with Republicans on political issues and Democrats on economic policy.

*Your paragraph read: ''"In America, conservatives tend to align with the [[Republican Party]] on social issues and tend to align with the [[Democratic Party]] on economic issues."'' Since the major tenet of Democratic Party economic policy is economic redistribution, that would indeed imply Libertarians buy into that. Sorry if you cannot see my point. I have been involved with public policy, at the federal level for over twenty years, working with both parties. I think I can judge fairly well, the difference between what Republican and Democratic policies are. That doesn't excuse you being a vandal, which is by its very nature, intellectual dishonesty.--[[User:TK|TK]] 03:53, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* The error that you are making is thinking the Democratic Party is the same as the Libertarians. Why would it imply Libertarians to buy into economic redistribution if Democratic Party believes in it? The Democratic Party disagrees with the Libertarians on economic policy.

*Are you in Grade School? If you state, as your paragraph did, that Conservatives align, generally, with the Democratic Party on economic issues, that is saying they must buy into income redistribution. Conservatives do not buy into that. Surely you know that. Just as those Conservatives with a strong libertarian bent also do not. You are a vandal, I will not continue to reply.--[[User:TK|TK]] 04:04, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* No, I am in college. Conservatives do buy into income redistribution. That is exactly what I have been saying the entire time. Finally, you were able to figure it out. Conservatives can never have a "strong libertarian bent." They are complete opposite. Obviously realized that I am right and that is why you aren't going to reply anymore. How am I vandal? I am only a vandal if giving correct information on this site is considered vandalism.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 04:11, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*Goodness! You, or your 'rents should demand your tuition back. Your professors are doing a crappy job, teaching you Conservatives believe in income redistribution. ROFLMAO!! --[[User:TK|TK]] 11:01, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:* TK, you are confusing conservatives with Republicans. Conservatives are not the same thing and have different views on economic policy. So if the statement "Conservatives believe in income redistribution" is not true then it means that Republicans believe in income redistribution. I am certain that you will agree that Republicans do not want income redistribution. Thus, conservatives want income redistribution.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 14:13, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

*That statement of yours, above, LiberalMedia, is utter nonsense. Please provide a citation, other than some moronic revisionist college professor. If you keep changing things to suit your fancy, I will either restrict you, or lock the article. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 18:26, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:*This is the definition of conservatism given by [http://www.dictionary.com Dictionary.com]:
::''A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism, and opposition to sudden change in the established order.''

:Now look at the definition of liberalism:
::''A political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.''

:Which one does a free market fall under? Liberalism or Conservatism? The answer is liberalism. If you look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism Wikipedia] they agree saying that economic liberalism is a free market ideal.

:The point that I am trying to make is that this article is talking about conservatism and its ideals. Not the Republican party agenda or anything of that matter. So when writing an article on it, it should be about conservative beliefs on social issues and economic issues. It doesn't make sense to start talking about economic liberalism because it is not the same as conservatism. Conservatism is about "big government" or to put it in terms you can understand, it is about government controls through established institutions(ex. taxes). Liberalism is about minimal government and freedom to do whatever you want, hence free market. In a truly liberal society there would be no government and it would be complete anarchy because everybody would have the freedom to do what they want.--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 20:00, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

*I'm sorry, Liberalmedia, but most of us live in the here and now, the real world, where dogmatic thoughts, such as yours, mean very little. What things should mean, and what they actually are, usually are very different. I note you have nothing to back your nonsense about Conservatives supporting income redistribution, as opposed to favoring a generally flat tax, equal for all. This entry has nothing to do with either the Republican or Democrat political parties. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 20:06, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:*I never put that conservatives want income redistribution in the article. Maybe on this discussion page, but never in the article. In the article I only said a fact that conservatives align with the Republicans on social issues and Democrats on economic issues. Shouldn't an encyclopedia talk about what things mean and not talk about how they are in the moment? Otherwise, you would have to change this article every time the majority changes its opinion. Actually, conservative and liberal still mean the same thing today in the real world. It is just the ignorant people that think conservative means Republican and liberal means Democrat. Also, if you are suggesting that conservative is a synonym for Republican (which is what your advocating) then wouldn't the people that are liberal Republicans be an oxymoron. Or how about conservative Democrats? Do you understand?--[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 20:19, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

*What I understand is, you quite possibly might get an "A" in debate tactics, however as an intellectual, an "F". I never introduced any text here, or in the article, equating Conservative or Liberal with either American political party. That was you, and others. I am willing to concede, generally, that there are more "Conservatives" aligned with the Republican Party, than with the Democrat Party. Take a look at the article below.....provided for your edification. --~ [[User:TK|Terry]] [[User_talk:TK|Talk2Me!]] 21:20, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

==Goldwater Conservatives==
<blockquote>"During the campaign of 1964, [he] was our incorruptible standard-bearer," recalled William F. Buckley, Jr., in his 1998 obituary of Barry Goldwater, the career senator from Arizona, 34 years after the watershed. Goldwater, of course, was defeated resoundingly on Election Day, winning only six states. "It was the judgment of the establishment that Goldwater's critique of American liberalism had been given its final exposure on the national political scene," Buckley continued. "But then of course 16 years later the world was made to stand on its head when Ronald Reagan was swept into office on a platform indistinguishable from what Barry had been preaching."

Strange, then, that these days many commentators believe that Goldwater's conservatism was a different species from Reagan's and, especially, from George W. Bush's. Though admittedly an economic conservative, Goldwater has become an icon of opposition to social conservatism. When the 2004 Republican national convention showcased social liberals like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani, George F. Will proclaimed, "[Goldwater's] kind of conservatism made a comeback." By "Goldwater conservatism" Will meant "muscular foreign policy backing unapologetic nationalism; economic policies of low taxation and light regulation; a libertarian inclination regarding cultural questions."

Will was merely restating the consensus view. Darcy Olsen, president of the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, argued on the fifth anniversary of Goldwater's death that "Goldwater conservative" had "a different meaning than just saying, 'I am a Republican,' because when you say 'I am a Republican,' people assume that you're involved in the Moral Majority. It's its own brand...very libertarian." Senator John McCain said that Goldwater "disliked the religious right, because he felt they were intolerant, because Barry was not only conservative, but he was also to a degree libertarian."

What does the notion that Goldwater was a libertarian mean? First, it suggests that the cultural Right has abandoned true conservatism. It implies that presidents like Reagan and Bush, who have relied heavily on socially conservative voters, deviate from Goldwater's rugged and pure frontier conservatism. And then there is the implication, appearing frequently in the mainstream media, that Republicans must move back in Goldwater's direction if they are to reclaim their intellectual credibility.

But this interpretation happens to be wrong: it overlooks the role of social issues in the origins of the conservative movement. William F. Buckley, Jr.'s, God and Man at Yale (1951) complained not only about economic collectivism but also about rampant agnosticism and atheism among Yale's faculty. Ever since, the conservative movement has been as concerned with religious and moral issues as with economic and libertarian ones. Goldwater's 1964 campaign actually shaped the social conservatism of the modern Republican Party in at least three crucial respects: his view of human nature and the American republic; his concern over the moral deterioration of American society; and his stand on several key policy questions.

Human Nature

Goldwater articulated a view of the American Founding and America's purpose, as well as the nature of man, that was fundamentally moral, even religious, in character. In the introduction to his bestselling The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), Goldwater argued, "The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline." Conservative principles "are derived from the truths that God has revealed about his creation." In the first chapter, he (and his ghostwriter, L. Brent Bozell) wrote:

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man's nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man's nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy.... Man's most sacred possession is his individual soul.

The 1964 Republican platform, the handiwork of committed Goldwaterites, declared:

Much of today's moral decline and drift—much of the prevailing preoccupation with physical and material comforts of life—much of today's crass political appeals to the appetites of the citizenry—can be traced to a leadership grown demagogic and materialistic through indifference to national ideals founded in devoutly held religious faith. The Republican Party seeks not to renounce this heritage of faith and high purpose; rather, we are determined to reaffirm and reapply it.

In his speech accepting the 1964 presidential nomination, Goldwater extolled "freedom under a government limited by the laws of nature and of nature's God." He warned that

those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for Divine Will, and this Nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.

Reagan and Bush later echoed this language.

Goldwater decried the general moral decline of the time. On the campaign trail, he asked, "What's happening to us? What's happening to our America?" His campaign ran several television spots on this theme, which he called simply the "moral issue." In one commercial an announcer shouts, "Graft! Swindle! Juvenile delinquency! Crime! Riots!" before Goldwater proclaims: "Let this generation of Americans set a standard of responsibility that will inspire the world."

Another spot linked the corruption of government officials to moral deterioration. Goldwater exclaims, "Americans everywhere are indignant about the moral decay in Washington," while the narrator calls on voters to "put conscience back in government." A third advertisement asked "What has happened to our America? We build libraries and galleries to hold the world's greatest treasury of art—and we permit the world's greatest collection of smut to be freely available anywhere." A fourth featured Goldwater speaking directly into the camera:

Is moral responsibility out of style? Our papers and our newsreels and yes, our own observations, tell us that immorality surrounds us as never before. We as a nation are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people.... [The] philosophy of something for nothing, [the] cult of individual and governmental irresponsibility, is an insidious cancer that will destroy us unless we recognize it and root it out now.

Goldwater made morality the centerpiece of a 30-minute televised address that aired on CBS on October 20, 1964. After citing George Washington's dictum, "'Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,'" Goldwater said, "The moral fiber of the American people is beset by rot and decay," and pledged "every effort to a reconstruction of reverence and moral strength."

The campaign also produced, but did not air, a television program called "Choice." It focused on the "moral issue," and featured disturbing footage of topless bars, wild beatnik parties, drunken college students, and riots by both whites and blacks. Goldwater declined to use the film in the end, but only, it seems, because he feared that scenes of blacks rioting would introduce unseemly racial overtones into the campaign. But he had no inherent objection to addressing the other issues raised in the show.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s History of American Presidential Elections included a scathing contemporaneous account from John Bartlow Martin: "Goldwater's moral strictures soon began to sound preachy; he almost castigated Americans for their wickedness.... Goldwater looked not only like the mad bomber, but the half-crazed moral zealot." Sympathetic observers would characterize his message differently, but what is clear is that Goldwater hardly eschewed moral, social, and cultural themes.

The Rise of the Moral Issue

Nor did he discuss these themes in outline only. He and his party took a socially conservative stand on a number of policy issues. The 1964 GOP platform endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's school-prayer decisions and to permit voluntary school prayer. In his CBS televised address, Goldwater asked, "Is this the time in our nation's history for our Federal Government to ban Almighty God from our classrooms?" He answered: "Ours is both a religious and a free people. Over years past we have encountered no difficulty in absorbing that religious character into our state institutions, while at the same time preserving religious liberty and separation of church and state." Goldwater pointed out that his Democratic opponents ignored far more than just school prayer: "you will search in vain for any reference to God or religion in the Democratic platform." The Republican platform called for enactment of legislation "to curb the flow through the mails of obscene materials"; it criticized the Democratic administration and Congress for resisting tuition tax credits; and, not least, it emphasized the rise in crime as a moral issue, not merely a sociological one.

The Conscience of a Conservative devoted an entire chapter to education, anticipating its importance in the eyes of social conservatives. Goldwater paraphrased Dorothy Sayers when he wrote that Americans must "recapture the lost art of learning." He argued that

in our attempt to make education 'fun,' we have neglected the academic disciplines that develop sound minds and are conducive to sound characters.... We have forgotten that the proper function of the school is to transmit the cultural heritage of one generation to the next generation.

As a solution, he advocated a renewed emphasis on basic subjects, within the context of local control of schools.
In The Making of the President 1964, political journalist and election chronicler Theodore White wrote:

Goldwater could offer—and this was his greatest contribution to American politics—only a contagious concern which made people realize that indeed they must begin to think about such things. And this will be his great credit in historical terms: that finally he introduced the condition and quality of American morality and life as a subject of political debateâ€¦. Yet he had no handle to the problem, no program, no solution—except backward to the Bible and the God of the desert.

It's worth reflecting on this paragraph. Writing in 1965, White of course could not have predicted Goldwater's contribution to the long-term rise of conservatism. Nonetheless, this respected center-left analyst held that the Republican nominee's "greatest contribution to American politics" and his "great credit in historical terms" lay not in any impact he might have had on foreign or economic policy, but in the way he forced the "moral issue" onto the national agenda. White also had no difficulty identifying Goldwater's prescription: "the Bible and the God of the desert."

It should come as no surprise, then, that a number of veterans of the Goldwater effort later made names for themselves as leaders of the burgeoning grassroots movement of social conservatives. As Goldwater biographer Lee Edwards has pointed out, "almost all the leaders of the New Right...were drawn into politics because of [Goldwater]," figures like Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, and Morton Blackwell. For them, the transition was seamless.

Goldwater's move away from social conservatism came only in the twilight of his Senate career—and more starkly after he had left the Senate in 1987. Throughout the 1970s, he opposed abortion on demand and taxpayer funding of abortions. (He wavered on a constitutional amendment restricting abortion.) In 1980, in the midst of his last and most difficult Senate race, he endorsed the Human Life Amendment. Only in his final term did he adopt a pro-choice position, voting in 1983 against a constitutional amendment that would have reversed Roe v. Wade and returned legislative authority over abortion to the states. In 1984, he reversed his 1964 position by voting against a constitutional amendment to restore voluntary prayer to public schools. As late as 1985 he opposed "gay rights" legislation. Only in 1993, six years after leaving the Senate, did he change his view.

Goldwater's shift was largely a reaction against the leaders of the New Right, for whom his dislike grew stronger as their influence increased. In 1981, Goldwater said of the leader of the Moral Majority, "Every good Christian should kick [Jerry] Falwell in the ass." He also had personal reasons: one daughter and three granddaughters of his had had abortions; and a grandson and a grandniece were homosexual. In 1937, his wife, Peggy, had become a founding member of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, and the couple remained active in the organization throughout Goldwater's Senate career. Though he initially rejected Planned Parenthood's position on abortion, his long association with the group would ultimately make a convert of him. For Goldwater, private considerations like these sometimes trumped abstract philosophy.

Liberty and Morality

So how has the myth developed of the great gulf between "Goldwater conservatism" and Reagan's and Bush's? To begin with, several of the hot-button issues that later mobilized social conservatives en masse were non-issues in 1964, or had barely begun to stir. The '60s counterculture was inchoate, as was radical feminism. The downward spiral of social trends had just begun, as had the Left's crusade to obliterate religion from public life. Key court decisions on abortion, criminal rights, and gay rights lay in the future. Consequently, a distinct mass movement of religious traditionalists—a "Religious Right" with tens of thousands of foot soldiers—did not exist for the Goldwater campaign to incorporate. (To be sure, an intellectual movement of social traditionalists, including Russell Kirk, existed already and backed Goldwater.)

When Goldwater underwent his transformation as the years wore on, liberals rushed to embrace him. This Goldwater became every liberal's favorite conservative—not the historic figure who had condemned moral decay, extolled the religious underpinnings of American society, championed school prayer, inveighed against big government, and helped launch the modern conservative movement. Yet it was the latter Goldwater who ran for president, who galvanized Reagan and pointed the way to a long-term Republican electoral realignment.

Conservatives today need to revive Goldwater's argument in the '60s, and Reagan's in the '80s, that liberty is not only compatible with morality, it depends on it. Limited government cannot long coexist with a collapse of moral order; and an unlimited government is usually the consequence of an amoral society. Sweden, for instance, has both one of the most hedonistic societies in Europe and one of its most smothering welfare states. When in 1964 Goldwater told the graduating class of the Pennsylvania Military College that "it is impossible to maintain freedom and order and justice without religious and moral sanctions," he at once echoed George Washington and Alexis de Tocqueville, presaged Reagan, and issued a clarion call for future generations. </blockquote>

[http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1237/article_detail.asp]

:*Are you going to make a point or just post an article you found on the internet? You might not have put in any text equating Conservative or Liberal with either American political party, but you did reverse my edits and by doing so it makes it seem like you are equating conservatives with the Republican party. --[[User:Liberalmedia|Liberalmedia]] 21:30, 19 March 2007 (ED

'''[[BNP]]'''

The British National Party is not similar to the Republican Party.The BNP are in fact quite racist in their policies,something which the mainstream Republican party are not.--[[User:RCSENG|RCSENG]] 16:42, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

== Liberal List. ==

Shouldn't the list of things on this page be the reverse of the list on the liberal page? At least as far as US definitions are concerned.--[[User:British_cons|British_cons]] [[User_talk:British_cons|(talk)]] 06:03, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

== Why was my addition deleted? ==

I'm just curious why my addition concerning the conservative's faith in God was deleted? Seems like that's the biggest defference between Librals and Conservatives, at least with respect to today's culture wars.

*I didn't do it, but I suspect it's because on the face of it, to suggest all Liberals don't believe in God and accept Jesus Christ, is not factual? This isn't a blog space for posting one's own beliefs, even if I personally might agree with your premise. ;-) --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 18:36, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

== Evolution ==

The article on evolution is locked. Please explain why this is as it violates the idea of a freely editable encyclopedia. The article is also extremely biased and contains very little information on evolution; is mainly the conservative Christan opinion on evolution and irrelevant information. --[[User:Tomt|TomT]] 15:10, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

*I don't know why you posted about Evolution here. However, you are trying to apply standards set by other Wiki's here, and as you can tell from the rules and commandments here, this is indeed the CONSERVApedia. --~ [[User:TK|TerryK]] [[User_talk:TK|MyTalk]] 18:38, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
**I think he meant [[User:Conservative]] (Conservative's extremely creative nickname really makes things confusing sometimes). Well, actually, none of the rules says anything about the need to be Christian-conservative or YECist, unless I really missed a memo. That's what many people complain about: The obvious bias is not acknowledged in the rules. The only possible "reasoning" seems to be the "We do not attempt to be neutral to all points of view. We are neutral to the facts" from the Differences page, with "facts" having a VERY interesting definition ("A fact is what either disses Wikipedia or supports America, the Bible and the YEC position. Anything else is just atheist liberals trying to deny the truth"). --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 18:47, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
**And no, please don't move this to Conservative's Talk page. He locked it again. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 18:48, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

== Origins and conservative presidents ==

<s>If conservatism didn't arise until the 19th century, how was George Washington a conservative President? [[User:Myk|Myk]] 03:00, 28 March 2007 (EDT)</s> Sorry, someone already asked this. [[User:Myk|Myk]] 03:00, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Debate:Is President Bush good for America?

2007-04-01T20:59:50Z

BDobbs:

{{debate}}
Ever since his contested election of 2000, the rest of the world have gone stark mad with hatred toward anything President Bush is involved with. If you ever had your doubts about the man, think of this. In 2000, the Supreme Court awarded the Presidency to GWB on December 12th. That is also the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroon saint of the Americas. Coincidence? Give Bush the benefit of the doubt. Divinity could be playing a larger role in America.--[[User:Jpatt|jp]] 04:35, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

:I do believe that God chose George W. Bush to be our president. In these days of pesticides and antibiotics, plagues of locusts and boils just don't have the impact they used to, so instead He sent us Bush. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 16:48, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

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NO

just what if......
We put GWB on the nuremburg war trials? Result? convicted of two counts of illegal invasion and other war crimes. having a criminal as a president is most definatly bad for a country

::No doubt having a criminal for a president is bad for a country, as we learned from 8 years of Clinton running around the Oval office. But let me see if I understand, are you attempting to compare President Bush with nazis who slaughtered millions of innocent people? Is this a joke? Are you saying that one of the counts of illegal invasion is Afghanistan or are you thinking of Waco? (That was Clinton) There are not many people who agree that the invasion of Afghanistan was illegal. Question: what about all of the democrats who voted for the war in Iraq, what if they were tried? Would they be criminals too? With Bush in office there have been no successful terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11. Also, Bush was not "awarded the presidency" by the supreme court. He won the electoral race, hence his election. [[User:Bohdan|Bohdan]] 16:40, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

No. If he hadn't gone into Iraq, he would have gone down is history as a great (or at least fine) president, but now he'll be remembered for dragging us into this unending Iraqi quagmire. His policies have slashed the social services budget (schools, health care, etc) and are bad for the environment. Sadly, he's been playing the 9/11 card as an excuse for everything. History, and history alone will show who's right. [[User:Czolgolz|Czolgolz]] 10:07, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:You're assuming there we BE any history. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/52331
:And I'd argue Bush would still not have been remembered favorably--he's the only President I know of who's let an entire city get washed into the Gulf of Mexico. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 16:48, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

No. He hasn't vetoed an entire spending bill. The national debt will destroy our economy once China wants to cash in. Bush is no conservative. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 16:52, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:Someone disagrees with you, MD: [[Conservative]] [[User:Myk|Myk]] 16:57, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:Yet so many Conservatives stampeded to vote for him both times, defended his every press-conference as though it'd come down off of Mt. Sinai, and denounced anyone who criticized him as VILE TERRORIST-LOVING '''TRAITORS'''.... And now they're denouncing him. Why the sudden change of heart? The Kool-Aide get too watered-down all of a sudden? --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 16:59, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

User talk:MountainDew

2007-04-01T20:50:38Z

BDobbs: /* Pat Robertson, On feminism */