Tag Archives: liberal

The Quotable Ronald Reagan

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Ronald Reagan was a conservative president who lowered taxes but increased revenue, never backed down yet avoided war, and was not afraid to call it as he saw it.A coworker sent these to me today among the myriad of political forwards that circulate within my consortium of conservative colleagues.  Many say that another Jimmy Carter can only lead to another Ronald Reagan.  This saying is really just a desperate attempt to cope with the fact that we have three and a half more years of “change” to live through.

In the meantime, fellow conservatives. enjoy this compilation of The Ronald’s best word-smithing:

“Here’s my strategy on the Cold War:
We win, they lose.”

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

“Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.”

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“I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.”

“The taxpayer: That’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.”

“Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.”

“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

“Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.”

“No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.”

“If we ever forget that we’re one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under.”

~Man Overboard, humbly filling in for Ronald Reagan

Image used in this Post

Ronald Reagan image courtesy of flickr Spacedustdesign user published under the CC license.

Tax Day Tea Party

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A Tea Party protester holds a sign that reads "pay your own mortgage."With Democrats passing bills that Republicans are not even allowed to read let alone contribute to, some in America feel like the left is out of control.  President Obama’s social engineering project disguised as a “stimulus” was the last straw for many.  Since then, a budget with a $1,000,000,000,000.00 deficit, bailouts for the automakers, another AIG bailout, 9,000 earmarks, and now Hillary-care.

Conservatives have had enough. After two straight elections of rout in both houses of Congress and now the White House, many conservatives feel their interests are no longer represented in the federal government. Then came Rick Santelli. In a widely publicized rant on the floor of the Chicago Exchange, he jokingly suggested that a “Chicago Tea Party” was in order to protest the inevitable tax increases that will follow President Obama’s careless spending.

The classic painting of the Boston Tea Party. Colonists angry over English taxes, dump a precious cargo of imported tea into the harbor.The idea quickly took hold. Shortly thereafter, many conservatives began organizing on the internet, a media outlet that has historically been dominated by liberals. Using social sites like Twitter, Facebook, Michelle Malkin, and countless other blogs, they have organized what many claim will be a massive nationwide protest on April 15th.

Let’s look at what some of my friends are saying about the Tea Party on Twitter (#teaparty).

A group of tweets about the Tax day Tea Party. #teaparty. People are angry over government spending and taxes.

The Tea Parties are a staunch reminder to liberals that despite a rash of election day victories, Conservative ideals are still alive and are not going anywhere.  There is a silent majority in this country that does not want to pay for his neighbors mortgage, health care, car loan, groceries, education, electric bill or anything else for that matter.  Many still believe that along with the pursuit of happiness, the right to be a failure in life is also protected under the Constitution.  It should not be the burden of the intelligent to compensate for the mistakes of the foolhardy.

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Tea Party-goers  also believe that borrowing trillions(with a T) from hostile countries like China is not a wise decision.  Somehow, Liberals are under the impression that insurmountable debt is the way to get out of an economic crisis caused by insurmountable debt.  Tea Party-goers do not want future generation to foot the bill for the pet projects and social agenda that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank have forced down the American throat.

A group of angry tax payers gather at one of the many Tea Parties to protest President Obama's economic policy.Many Tea Parties have already been held in several cities across the country. Up until now, they have been utterly ignored by mainstream media with the exception of Fox News (of course). Organizers claim that this time it will be too big to ignore. Just in case they try, Conservatives have rallied hundreds of independent media outlets, blogs, and community organizations to promote and report on the events.

~ Man Overboard

Images Used in this Post

Boston Tea Party image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons published under the CC license.

Pay Your Own Mortgage and Tea Party images courtesy of Flickr user Brooksbayne published under the CC license.

Word Power: Liberal

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Crumpled piece of paper that reads Word Power

Today’s lesson in Word Power is to understand the etymology and history behind the word liberal.

Liberal: [lib-er-al]

(Adj.)

  1. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
  2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behaviors of others; broad-minded.

(Noun)

  1. A person with liberal ideas or opinions.
  2. A member of a Liberal political party.  (American Heritage Dictionary)

Etymology

Portrait of the Third U.S. President, Thomas JeffersonUnderstanding the etymology of the word liberal is relatively simple.  Like most words that are used today, liberal has its roots in the Latin language.  The word liberal is directly derived from the Latin word liberalis, meaning of freedom or relating to freedom.  However, in order to fully understand the etymology we need to take apart the Latin word liberalis.  To do so, we must separate the word into two Latin words, liber and alis.

Liber, libera, liberum

Liber is a Latin adjective meaning free, unrestricted, unrestrained, etc. The adjective liber is likely derived from the Latin verb libero, liberare, liberavi, liberatus, which means to set free.  Liber could also be used as a substantive adjective within the context of the Latin language, meaning a freeman or freedom.  There are many words that we use today with the word liber in them, such as liberty, liberation, and liberator.

Alis

Alis is an older Latin form of the word, alius. Alius, alia, aliud is another adjective which typically means another, other, etc.  Throughout the centuries of linguistic evolution that followed, alius turned into the suffix -al.  Eventually, -al was attached to the end of words to change that word into an adjective, such as economical or political.  Another common way that we see the word alis used today is when you use the abbreviation et al. for et alii, which literally means “and others”.

Summary

So there you have it, the Romans combined the two adjectives liber and alis to form one word, liberalis.  Over the years that ensued through infusion of the Latin language into Old French and then Middle English, the last two letters -is dropped off to form the word liberal.  Taken literally and in Latin context, liberalis means another matter of freedom.  The word liberal became a component of everyday speech during the Age of Enlightenment (1637-1778) and had a hand in labeling the changing philosophy at the time of the American Revolution.

Extra Credit

The American Revolution was incited on the grounds that all men had a basic inalienable right to pursue liberty.  During the Age of Enlightenment philosophers, such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, heavily influenced the founding fathers of this great nation with thought of individual freedoms.  Their writings and philosophies served as the catalyst for our fore-fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and John Adams to orchestrate a revolt from British tyranny and oppression. Over the years that followed the American Revolution, the word liberal took on a new meaning in U.S. politics such that it described an individual or group that desired to have government action affect social change.

Image Used In This Post

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson image courtesy of Flickr user Cliff1066 published under the CC license.

Tune in this Tuesday for a Word Power special on the breakdown of the word Election.

Secret NeoCon Journal: Obama Bi(n La)den ’08

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I imagine that if a NeoCon kept a journal, it would read like this:

August 25, 2008

6:30 am: I had a dream that I helped the Great American (God bless) Sean Hannity kick that slimy liberal Alan Colmes off of Fox. Sean told the masses the Truth, and then he handed me an Obama ’08 tire pressure gauge. I can still feel it in my hand.

6:32 am: The LIBERAL Bohemian sluts stole another McCain ’08 sign off of my lawn. They replaced it with a picture of Jimmy Carter.

If they think their childish antics will stop this Son of Liberty from my Patroitic duty, they have another thing coming to them. Just because they want to get free handouts and leech out of my wallet doesn’t mean I want everyone to. I hope they at least do something useful in the eyes of Jesus and vote for Nader.

7:43 am: I’m eating an omelette (made from AMERICAN eggs), and then Fox News starts talking about how Obama wants us to LOSE in Iraq. I can feel my blood pressure rising, but I keep listening. He wants AMERICAN (God Bless) Troops to retreat from the field of battle. American Troops have NEVER lost a war before (Vietnam was a TIE), but Osbama wants the world to know that we can lose too.

Why doesn’t he just tax the troops until they lose? It’s easier.

9:01 am: Hey, my commute to work was pretty fast today! Don’t tell anyone, but I’ll gladly pay 2 dollars more a day in gas if it means all of the LIBERALS going to the shore will get off the road. But Foreign Oil and the Radical Muslims are evil, so we should still DRILLHEREDRILLNOW to punch them where it really hurts.

11:44 am: A company-wide email just got sent out stating that profits might be a little lower than “expected,” and that we shouldn’t expect our bonuses to be as big as they were last year. What kind of awful times are we living in? This is all Nancy Pelosi’s fault. The direction this country was headed in was great until the LIBERALS took the helm.

My Bermuda vacation will have to be a week and a half instead of 2 weeks. Who can even relax in that time? I’m going to call her office and demand a refund.

12:13 pm: I just went to the centerpiece of American (God Bless) ingenuity: McDonald’s. I don’t know about all of those other fluffy European countries, but America is so strong that we EXPORT our values.

1:01 pm: I need to take the rest of the day off. More later.

1:37 pm: OK. John was in my cubicle, and we were talking about how we would be forced to finally disagree with a President for the first time in 8 years if the Messiah gets elected, and then he said he’d show me something. He wrote this on the chalk board:

  • Obama Bi     den

and asked me if anything seemed strange. I said everything was fine (well, you know what I mean) but the spacing. He then writes

  • Obama Bi(n La)den

and my blood chills. My breath goes shallow. I felt the urge to vomit, but I dug deep to the military roots of my cousin’s best friend from the 80′s and I kept it in. I needed to go home from work so that I could do something about this.

This is worse than the Madrassa, funding Hamas, being friends with that guy who bombed the Pentagon, and trying to lose the war in Iraq. This is a warning, put right in front of our faces, and I’m going to do something to stop it.

The LIBERALS of the Great Country of America (God Bless) are going to be sorry for pulling the Blue lever when Obama enslaves the white race.

2:46 pm: I’ve been on hold with Rush for over an hour, and I finally give up. If he’s not going to help me spread the word, I’m going to do that thing the LIBERALS are doing and put it online.

3:17 pm: I’ve been sending emails to all of the major News networks telling them that America (God Bless) is under attack from the LIBERAL forces of darkness. So far they haven’t broken the story on the air. I’ve been flipping through all of the channels. Even Fox News is letting America down.

5:11 pm: I finally get through to the Sean Hannity Show, but the screener says that they don’t have time to put me on the air. I can’t believe it. Maybe he’s going to break the story himself at the DNC and show those traitorous Liberals their REAL Leader at their own gate.

6:13 pm: Steak for dinner! A good start to the week!

9:30 pm: I’m heading to bed. Hours more of expressing outrage online hasn’t seemed to put a dent in the poll numbers that are coming up on Fox. This isn’t over, Osbama Hussein Bi(n La)den.

The Great Divide

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I am certainly not alone in thinking that the past decade has seen a heightened sense of awareness around whether your fellow Americans are political conservatives or liberals. There are entire “news networks” (it pains me to even call them that, the label alone lends some credence to organizations that I wish had none) dedicated to only one political spin on the news. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, the list goes on and on of news networks that no longer will report the news at face value, but instead force upon their audiences stories discolored by the generic bias that particular network embodies.In the media you hear about “the liberals” and “the conservatives” as though they were analogous to the Civil War era “North” and “South”. One would be led to believe that these two groups of people are radical political activists who thirst for each other’s blood. The question I pose is: Is the political divide between conservatives and liberals actual or perceived?

The answer (from my personal observation and no other expert opinion at all): it depends on whether or not you strongly identify yourself with one of these two groups. If you strongly associate yourself with either being a liberal or a conservative, then this divide is more than likely very real to you; and you are, in fact, fighting a “politcal war” against the opposing ideology. Should you be an individual that does not necessarily associate yourself with either ideology with any real gusto or spirit, but may share opinions or views similarly to either group, then the divide may not be real to you.For those individuals who do strongly subscribe to one ideology or the other, then the divide is very real and very important.

It is important at all costs to do the following to those people who “belong” to the opposing camp:

  • Tell everyone you know that (insert “Conservatives” or “Liberals” here, depending on which group you DO NOT belong to) are evil and will precipitate the demise of this great nation
  • Use gross generalizations and misperceptions to describe the most basic characteristics of the opposing view while ensuring that they are cast in the least flattering light possible (this is a fine art form only seasoned fanatics can achieve with any cohesion)
  • Never allow yourself to slip and actually research and ponder the opposition’s stance on an issue lest you be led astray from your brainwashing
  • Espouse your unwavering support for all things, places and people that are (insert your affiliation of “Conservative” or “Liberal” here)
  • Never deviate the from the views personified by the label under which you categorize yourself no matter how illogical, impractical or unintelligent those views may be, or else how could you ever obtain any street credit from your peeps?

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The divide that exists in the schizo-paranoid minds of political radicals who allow their senses of logic, duty and patriotism to be over ridden by dogmatic views of a political ideology are a cancer to the principles of free will and thought upon which this country was founded. The moment you allow a personified political party to dictate your opinions and actions, you have done your country a great disservice. Perhaps a greater understanding of the opposing view point would, at the very least, promote a deeper knowledge and a more eloquent rebuttal to their positions rather than falling back on name-calling derived from the individual’s perceived political affiliation.

Yes, this was a rant-based blog based on the frustrations of being inundated with Conservative and Liberal bashing alike, by people who seem normal at first glance. One thing is for sure, if you hear (or are) a person who walks around talking about how either Conservatives or Liberals are the problem with this country, or something of the like, you should promptly place a mirror in this person’s face and kindly state, “Actually, what you see here is the problem.” Then smugly walk away, confident in the fact that the less evolved brethren you just had this little chat with will never quite grasp the underlying irony, but will probably ponder it for at least the amount of time they spend at a traffic light.