Quote from: The Boo Man... on November 11, 2012, 10:40:50 AM
Oh. Ok

You have a brilliant way of avoiding actually refuting evidence. 

Quote from: Sci Fi Fan on November 11, 2012, 10:45:40 AM
You have a brilliant way of avoiding actually refuting evidence.

You have a brilliant way of avoiding asking for refuting evidence.

Quote from: The Boo Man... on November 11, 2012, 10:48:01 AM
You have a brilliant way of avoiding asking for refuting evidence.

Can I have refuting evidence?   

Quote from: Sci Fi Fan on November 11, 2012, 10:51:45 AM
Can I have refuting evidence?   

Let me ask you something. Can a state opt out of a federal law/program. A simple yes or no please.

Quote from: The Boo Man... on November 11, 2012, 10:52:57 AM
Let me ask you something. Can a state opt out of a federal law/program. A simple yes or no please.

How does this have anything to do with the part of my post you quoted?

Maybe you should quote relevant sections to respond to.

Quote from: Sci Fi Fan on November 11, 2012, 10:55:08 AM
How does this have anything to do with the part of my post you quoted?

Maybe you should quote relevant sections to respond to.

Yes or no.

Quote from: The Boo Man... on November 11, 2012, 10:55:58 AM
Yes or no.

I'll decide to say "red herring".

Quote from: Sci Fi Fan on November 11, 2012, 11:16:05 AM
I'll decide to say "red herring".

Really? So a state can or cannot opt out of the federal welfare program...

Quote from: The Boo Man... on November 11, 2012, 11:16:58 AM
Really? So a state can or cannot opt out of the federal welfare program...

No, it's that your question has nothing to do with the part of my post you quoted. 

But to humor, I'll say No.

Quote from: Sci Fi Fan on November 11, 2012, 07:22:12 AM
Now, I'm going to list a few commonly cited conservative positions.  Abiding with the board's premise, I'd like to see empirical evidence from reputable, non-partisan sources validating these beliefs.  Then, I'd be happy to present my own factual evidence that I feel debunks each of these prepositions; of which I have plenty.


1. Welfare encourages laziness and traps the poor in a cycle of poverty.
2. Tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and large corporations stimulate economic growth for working and middle class people.
3. Private charity is more effective than government programs.
4. State run education is more effective than federal run education.
5. Privatized health care is more effective than universal, public health care.
6. Guns deter crime.
7. The death penalty (which I somewhat support) deters crime.
8. Gays marrying is more dangerous than straight convicted murderers marrying (which is legal).
9. The Free Market can stop corporations from fraud and trust-forming without federal help.
10. There exist >5% of the world's climate scientists that reject global warming theory.
11. There exist >5% of the world's biologists that reject Evolution.
12. Abstinence only sex ed works.
13. Contraceptive use increases STD transfer.
14. Second hand smoking is not real.
15. Women rarely get pregnant from "legitimate rape".
16. A fetus is sentient.
17. The Bush Administration's foreign policy strengthened our national security.
18. Western Europe, which has all of Obama's reforms on steroids, is a totalitarian socialist state.
19. The Founding Fathers were conservatives.
20. College is overhyped.

Let me start by saying that much of what you present here are caricatures of conservative positions, or not conservative positions at all. I must wonder whether you are actually looking for answers here or are content to merely build up straw men to subsequently knock down.

I shall dismantle some of the most egregious assertions here:

8 - This is not a conservative position. Most conservatives oppose gay marriage on a moral level, not because it may induce some sort of immediate public danger to a greater extent than a marriage between convicted heterosexual murderers.

9 - This is not a conservative position.

10 - This is not a conservative position either. Of course the climate changes, if the climate didn't change I'd be concerned. This isn't the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is, are humans the principle cause? If so, to what extent are we the cause? Is this extent of such a substantial danger to warrant extremely intrusive measures that regulate our every day lives from regulating what light bulbs we can use to what kind of cars we can drive?

11 - Rejection of evolution is not a conservative position, some conservatives reject evolution from a Biblical literalism Christian background. But trying to make a connection between rejection of evolution and conservatism is bad form and just plain ridiculous.

14 - This is stupid, and not a conservative position.

15 - This is not a conservative position either. Are you really so impressionable as to think that because one conservative said something to this effect that this is somehow a position accepted by millions of conservatives?

16 - This is not a conservative position either. The general conservative position is that since life begins at conception, personhood is intrinsically linked to the beginning of life and all persons have rights that should be protected, the most basic of which is the right to life. Sentience does not play a role in the abortion position of most conservatives.

17 - nothing could be farther from the truth, I will contend that true conservatives would not believe Bush's foreign policy made us safer. Bush's foreign policy should rightly be seen as neoconservative and a great departure from foreign policy that is truly conservative. Bush's foreign policy was disastrous, this should be evident to everyone on both sides of the spectrum in my opinion.

18 - How hyperbolic, I doubt on a serious level an conservative would equate what is going on in Europe as true totalitarianism, perhaps only as hyperbole or being comedically derisive. 

19 - This is an interesting one here. And I will contend that the found fathers are closest to today's Libertarians than anyone else. And today's libertarians are much closer to American conservatives than American liberals. The founding fathers would be against gun control, liberals support it. The found fathers were opposed to an income tax (no income tax existed in the constitution at all), liberals not only support the income tax, they support high income taxes for those they deem fit to pay it. The founding fathers were big supporters of states rights, something liberals consider a largely antiquated notion. Liberals believe in a "living document" interpretation of the constitution which lets them interpret it any way that want. Conservatives believe in a strict interpretation of the constitution from the point of view of those who wrote it which can be easily ascertained from their expositions on the constitution in things like the federalist papers. So when it comes to today's American liberals and American conservatives, the founding fathers would not align completely in any camp, but I certainly believe they would be closer to today's conservatives than today's liberals. Just read any material from the founding fathers, I believe they align closer to today's libertarians than anyone else, but when it comes to liberal vs conservative, they are undoubtedly closer to the conservative camp.


But as I said at the beginning of my post, you really misrepresent and make caricatures of things you perceive to be conservative position when they really are not at all. If you truly want to debate this issues, I suggest you ascertain what real conservative positions are and try to make a distinction between what conservative positions actually are and what leftist rhetoric characterizes conservative positions as. 

Every single one of the aforementioned positions is held by at least a nontrivial minority in the conservative base.

Whether or not you personally hold these positions, even whether or not even a majority of conservatives hold these positions, is irrelevant.  I'm merely asking an explanation for relevant claims by those conservatives who do support said claims.

BTW, Sarah Palin, among others, has clearly supported abstinence-only education.  One of the many examples of a prominent right winger supporting a position that you may not openly endorse; that doesn't mean I can't attribute it to the Right.

Sci film Fan, I usually cut you slack because I agree with quite a few of your points and value the diversity of opinion you bring to the table...but I must bust you on this one. The burden of proof is on the party making the assertion (you) and not on the non-moving party. If you used that kind of logic in court, any judge I know would tear your rear end and ask you about which toilet diploma mill you got your degree from. He who asserts something has to provide evidence for his claim...not the other way around. You can't just post a random list and expect everyone  else to do the work for you.

Quote from: Skeptic on November 11, 2012, 12:33:41 PM
Sci film Fan, I usually cut you slack because I agree with quite a few of your points and value the diversity of opinion you bring to the table...but I must bust you on this one. The burden of proof is on the party making the assertion (you) and not on the non-moving party. If you used that kind of logic in court, any judge I know would tear your rear end and ask you about which toilet diploma mill you got your degree from. He who asserts something has to provide evidence for his claim...not the other way around. You can't just post a random list and expect everyone  else to do the work for you.

You're misunderstanding the purpose of the OP.  It made no claims that X numbers of conservatives harbored Y positions.  It simply listed a bunch of positions that have been held by conservatives of some sect, and asking conservatives to defend whichever ones they happen to support.

If (impersonal) you don't agree with one, just say so and move on.  It's not a debate over what the conservative position is; it's an appeal to actually defend whichever ones one supports.

OK, as a fiscal conservative with moderate social viewpoints, I do not agree with 1/3 of the things on your list, agree with 1/3, and partially agree and partially disagree on the other 1/3.

I won't get more detailed because the explanation on each issue point by point would be so large and complex that no one would read it and complain about how much space I wasted on one post in this forum.

Maybe for most people one liners and slogans are sufficient to explain their political views...but my political views are too complex and detailed to explain in one or two sentences,  and impossible to explain in one thread especially when you are asking about 20 things at the same time.

  Yeah to what he said

Question for Fiction: 

Quote2. Tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and large corporations stimulate economic growth for working and middle class people.

Do you believe Obummer is "targeting the "ULTRA WEALTHY" alone?  And why don't you believe they're entitled to the PROPERTY they own?