It's always a good thing to sit down and question yourself and your own beliefs. Hear things from a different perspective. Listen to someone who disagrees with you and see why they do. Try and understand the criticisms others have of you and why they make those criticisms. Whether or not the person is right is irrelevant; you'll still probably learn something. I know I have.
I signed up here wanting to have serious discussions with conservatives. I made a couple of posts and, despite following the forum rules, was banned within a day without warning or reason. I was even specifically told in my introductory thread that I wouldn’t be banned for my views, but the promise was not kept. I emailed the administrator twice asking why I was banned, and never received a response. I won’t come here anymore since you obviously can’t handle anyone who disagrees with you (and I can't access this site from my IP address anyway because of the ban, I had to borrow a friend's computer to make this post), but I’m going to leave a few last words for you all.
First of all, I’d like to say that from what I’ve seen here (which, granted, might not represent the forum accurately since it was a small portion of its population) you all are extremely close-minded. I come on here looking for discussion, but since my beliefs aren’t entirely orthodox I’m immediately ostracized. Only a handful of posters made a serious attempt at discussion, the rest would simply try and argue minute details that had very little to do with my beliefs or the discussion at hand. The perfect example was the debate of Japanese and Scandinavian religions.
We were arguing about a few points in my OP when Mrs. Smith said that capitalism only worked well in Christian countries. I’m a Christian, but I believe in capitalism. I believe that free markets are effective and that they can work in any culture and that their performance depends on other factors (economic, historical, political, social, geographical, etc.). I cited examples of non-Christian countries that were successful, and there are many, but I said the most obvious one is Japan (some of the highest growth rates in history for decades, that constitutes a success for me). To set the record straight, I believe that Japan is an atheistic nation. They don’t believe in God, they believe in spirits. As a Christian, I believe there’s a big difference. Nonetheless, it’s a moot point because Japan is not a Christian nation, and they have been economically successful under capitalism (supporting my side of the argument).
As for Scandinavia, I said it’s the most atheistic nation in the world. Does that mean that every person there is an atheist? No. Most belong to the Lutheran church nominally, but don’t participate. But since a lower percentage there actually practice their religion than anywhere else in the world, it is the most atheist nation in the world. Ask any informed conservative Christian which country is the most atheist, and they’ll tell you it’s Sweden, which, of course, is also a socialist country. I asked people to name a country more atheist than Sweden, but no one could.
We had to spend pages talking about this. It was the majority of the discussion. But did any one of you stop and think for a second, what does this have to do with Curtis’ beliefs? What are his opinions, actually? And why I am arguing with him about this? Do I actually agree with Mrs. Smith and believe that capitalism only works well in Christian countries? One possibility is that you were on Mrs. Smith’s side, and that you don’t have much faith in capitalism as an economic system. You believe that it can only work within the right culture, and that it is not inherently effective at allocating resources--if it was, than it should work well within any culture.
But I don’t think this is what you people think. You all seem to believe very, very strongly in laissez-faire capitalism, so that must mean that you believe it is inherently effective and that it should work with any people or culture. If I’m wrong, be sure and tell me, but I’m pretty sure I’m right with this one. So, why then was I attacked so vehemently and had to spend so much time in stupid, pointless arguments that didn’t really have anything to do with my beliefs? Why was I banned without a warning or explanation even though I followed the rules, at least much better than the other people in the read (for example, the people calling me ‘dumb****’ and retarded)?
It’s because you can’t stand to be criticized by another conservative. The fact that there are other conservatives out there with different viewpoints from your own makes you feel threatened and hate such a person. If you meet a conservative who challenges your own beliefs, and calls you out for not being conservative enough, it infuriates you. You’ll argue with anything he says, even if it’s an obvious statement (and an inconsequential one having little to do with his beliefs or arguments) such as ‘Sweden is the least religious country in the world.’ You’ll want him out of your sight so he doesn’t question your own beliefs, and you’ll ban him.
You can keep me and others with my viewpoints away from your forum, but that doesn’t mean we’re going away. We won’t quit, and in a few years you’ll be on our side. The crisis just started and we elect Obama, of all people, as president. You think it’s bad now? You think this is socialism? Wait until the shit really hit’s the fan and the crisis starts to bottom out in a few years. We’re going to have a depression, it’s time. That’s the reality of the business cycle. You get bubbles and recessions, the occasional boom, and the occasional depression. They happen about once every 60-70 years, in the 1870s, in the 1930s, and 60 years after the post-World War II economic realignment, in the 2000s. It’s time for a depression, but since we’re so used to prosperity, many people will be unwilling to accept it. Even though the people from the 20s and 30s were much hardier and much more used to poverty than we are, they still almost turned to socialism. Union leaders led uprisings and the Communist Party saw its membership multiply. I believe it’ll be worse this time around since the people won’t be able to accept an economic crisis, and they’ll turn to socialism.
Liberal government can do nothing to stop it. It can’t stop the socialists from getting elected. It insists on protecting the rights of our enemies, and it can’t exclude them from politics. Heck we can’t even take the rights away from terrorists! We can’t let the socialists take over. Liberal government couldn’t have stopped them in Italy or Spain, only something more heavy-handed was able to do that. Yet with your peoples’ devotion to individual rights, the Constitution, and laissez-faire economics, we can do nothing to keep them in check. Without certain economic concessions to the hungry masses, they’ll give the socialists a base with which to revolt. Without subverting individual rights, we won’t be able to prevent our enemies from organizing. And as long as we treat the Constitution like the Bible, we won’t be able to stop them from taking over the government.
If you all are blind about what’s to happen and too optimistic, that’s one thing I can forgive you for. You’ll see in a few years. But you lack resolve in more than just stopping the socialists. You claim to have conservative values and to want to put Christianity back into the government. But your belief system is confined to Friedmanite, libertarian economics. Your talk about ‘values’ is a bunch of hot air. All you really care about is small government and low taxes. Your response to me made this pretty damn clear. Even though I’m a social conservative who believes in a strong foreign policy, I was ostracized for not sharing your dogmatic belief in laissez-faire economics. You’ll accept atheistic conservatives who aren’t socially conservative, who believe strongly in individual rights, who ‘want to keep the government out of the boardroom and the bedroom,’ and who believe in isolationist foreign policy. You’ll welcome them with open arms, just as you’ll welcome the Christian conservatives who speak a different political language. But when someone is a hard-line conservative and social issues and foreign policy but has economic views that resemble Nixon’s more than Bush’s, you don’t consider him one of your own, and he is not welcome.
But your libertarian economic views are why none of you are conservative enough. Such a system’s emphasis on individual rights and proceduralism (coming from our Constitution) prevents us from saving our culture. There is man’s law and there is God’s law, but you people are far, far too concerned with man’s law. God isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, and when asked why, Alexander Hamilton said: “We forgot.†Yet you people worship this document, a document that allows liberal elites to be the ultimate decision-makers on what’s legal. And when they make a decision that says millions of unborn babies can be murdered, this document says there’s nothing we can do about it. This document gives people the freedom to commit unspeakable sins as long as they are ‘legal.’ It can do nothing to stop our cultural decline, it can do nothing to stop the disintegration of the family unit. But insists on being ‘above’ religion and the values of our people. It has nothing to say about those things, only that people should be given the freedom to do whatever they want.
But most importantly, your libertarian economic views keep us from fighting a war. You’ve already seriously given up on the War on Terror since fighting it would involve too much intervention and too big a state. You people talk about tax cuts when we need to multiply the funding for our military. Measures must be taken to fight the terrorists. During World War II the government was very involved in and heavily regulated the economy. We had price controls and rationing for Pete’s sake. Yet these necessary measures would nowadays be considered ‘socialist’ by you lot. Well, we need at least two to three times the amount of troops to win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And if we want to win the War on Terror, we need to take out Iran next. It is a large, very mountainous country, with twice the population of Iraq, and its young population offers many potential conscripts. It will take hundreds of thousands more troops to win that war. And years down the line there’s China and North Korea to think about. What does this mean? Well, obviously we need conscription for most able-bodied males in between 18 and 25, but it also means that our military needs three to four times the resources. With a deficit that’s in the trillions already, this means that we’re going to have to raise taxes. For everyone, but most especially the rich, since they’re the only ones that can afford it. The last few decades has seen them enjoy nothing but major gains and big tax cuts. They sit there with their billions and their excessive lifestyles; they more than anyone else need to get behind the war effort.
And whatever shocks a much costlier war has on the economy need to be managed. If, for example, the price of commodities (especially oil, needed for the war effort) skyrocket out of control, than the government may need to step in and start rationing them and/or set price controls, or maybe even nationalize certain industries. Whatever it takes. I believe the war and our nation are more important than the economy and material comforts. The economy should serve us, not the other way around. Sacrifices need to be made in times of war, and back in the World War II era, that was something people were willing to do. Not anymore, everyone is too concerned with their “economic freedom†and getting tax breaks to seriously get behind the war effort. The market and our greed has made us weak.
I suggest you people take a long, hard look at yourselves and ask what your political viewpoints and the politicians you support will do for America. What are the plans for winning the War on Terror, and how will we get hundreds of thousands more troops and double the military‘s budget? What will they do to save our culture from the forces of liberalism, multiculturalism, and the market? What will they do to bring Christianity into our government? Having anti-abortion bumper stickers and shooting down gay marriage bills in the legislature is not enough to stop the decline of values in this country. It’s a sorry state of affairs we’re in when this is what constitutes social conservatism in this country. Much more extreme measures must be taken to save our culture and restore our nation and empire to greatness.
