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DC, I can drive two miles, and hit a neighborhood where immigrant families are packed just as tightly as in your pictures,

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and between here and there are two privately run food banks.

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Read a little further, and you'll find me pointing out things FDR was doing right.

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ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

Rich, I hear you. I honestly don't like entitlements.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

I saw that.

But since I agreed, there seemed no need to comment.

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Then maybe you've stumbled upon that answer for our President, which you were looking for elsewhere.

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

Reading is fundamental......

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

On another thread, Tazzy brought up a quote from good old Saul Alinsky that I thought was worth a look, and some comment.

A People's Organization is dedicated to an eternal war. It is a war against poverty, misery, delinquency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, despair, and unhappiness. They are basically the same issues for which nations have gone to war in almost every generation. . . . War is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play

The snip is from his 1946 book, Reveille for Radicals, and it's interesting because the libs of today would love to pretend that they hold exclusive interest in resolving these eternal ills. They would have us believe that the solutions they are offer are the only solutions, and that to reject their methods is to maliciously wish the problems continue.

I'm of the opinion that one big reason the Democrats squeaked through this election was by successfully defining and demonizing the opposition with just that slur.

That box which Dems want to force Repubs into, must be dealt with. It's time to call "bullshit," on the ploy.

Democrats love poverty. They love misery, and delinquency, and hopelessness, despair and unhappiness. It's how they recruit. Happy optimists with a few bucks in their pocket, vote Republican.

We now have a nice long record, a multi-generational record, of what happens when Democrats/liberals try their hand, at dealing with poverty. It has turned the traditional family into a rarity in our inner cities. It has given us taxpayer funded "mentors" for the poor, who cannot show their clients how to cover a hole in a window with a bit of cardboard, and who give them little plaques for not deserting their children, or getting themselves sent to prison. It has given us program rules that hold people right where they are in poverty, and deny aid to fixed income seniors who went into retirement with a little bit set aside. It has given us the thought process of the Obama phone lady, and a sub-culture that thinks a job is something you are given, instead of something you go out and get. It has given us 47 million Americans on food stamps, and radio advertising to go sign up. This is the Democrats idea of fighting poverty, and it has given us more poor people than ever before, whose leading health problem is obesity.

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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam
So, when is the fucking Republican party going to stop being a bunch of ignorant Bible Beaters who are against people even knowing how to think for themselves and go back to being conservatives?

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I agree. I've seen the phrase 'communist/socialist' used by some right wingers here because they can't, apparently, distinguish between the two - or don't think that the difference matters. In the same way, they can't see, or don't care about, the difference between 'conservative' and 'reactionary'. This, I think, is the major reason why so many conservatives outside of the USA (and not a few within it) find themselves opposing Republicans' views far more often than supporting them.

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
What is the conservative approach to poverty? You can look back to the quote above, and see what, "A People's Organization" is NOT committed to fighting for. Individual liberty. Self-determination. Economic freedom. These are the tools we address poverty with. Unlike the thoughts of our President, who denigrates the values of hard work and being smart, a conservative will believe that these are the core essentials to leaving poverty behind.

A conservative believes the way to assist people in leaving that miserable condition is with opportunity, and the freedom to pursue it. A conservative believes that if the government is going to deliberately create jobs to prime the pump of opportunity, then we should get something real and tangible for our money. Even FDR, the man who gave us the New Deal, understood this. The art is still there, in the old post offices, the stone guardrails still line many a scenic road. The Reagan military build-up ended the Soviet Union, after it got GM and Ford back to production.

The position is not, and has never been if conservatives care about people in poverty, it's what do we think is best to do about it.

What do Republicans need to do in the aftermath of this election? They need to stop allowing the Democrats to be the ones who define what conservatives values are.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

One of the reasons why the red side got such a shellacking in the recent election is that people don't believe them anymore. Why? Because they don't adhere to the values they proclaim, they say one thing and mean another.

Let's take a core conservative value, one that is continually pushed in the faces of non-copnservatives, like "personal responsibility". It means that one takes responsibility for one's circumstances and doesn't blame others. If things aren't going your way, it's your "personal responsibility" to change them until such time as your circumstances become more favourable. Is this core value, personal responsibility, present in the OP?

The election loss is not blamed on a poor candidate, poor policies, an inferior 'ground game', lack of funding or anything within the Right's area of responsibility. Instead, we are advised that "one big reason the Democrats squeaked through this election was by successfully defining and demonizing the opposition with just that slur." According to the OP, the Right is blameless, the loss was due to the other side playing dirty. The Right is absolved of all responsibility for the loss, it was down to those nasty liberals "demonizing' the poor innocent Republicans.
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Not a lot of personal responsibility being displayed here is there? The Right is an innocent and blameless victim whose choices and actions contributed not an iota to the outcome.

"Personal responsibility" makes a startling comeback later in the OP, when it discusses the issue of poverty and how to help those poor unfortunates out of their financial misery. Personal responsibility is for "them"only, it's used to avoid the "we" having any responsibility to help those less fortunate. It's code for "fuck the poor they're not my problem".

So, one of the major reasons why the Right lost the election is there in the OP after all - how the Right uses values like "personal responsibility". But it's only apparent when reads the OP closely and analyses the double speak that the Right uses to delude itself, and to try and delude the populace at large.

The American people weren't deluded by the Right's double speak. Neither are we.