Double_R

Watching right wing media fawn over Rush Limbaugh yesterday really got me thinking about something...

In one interview Dan Quayle was talking about Rush's ability to speak on conservatism and highlight its virtues, which he summarized about 3 or 4 times as "less taxes, less regulations". In another interview (I did not get the speaker's name) she described conservatism as "not being for handouts, but rather an opportunity to build your own leg up in life".

Regarding the first interview, what I realize is that "less" anything is a relative term. In order for you to be "for" less of something then someone else must first propose an amount of that thing. In other words this cannot be a value, it's merely opposition to someone else's values.

But I found the second interview more bothersome, for if this is how conservatism is defined then it is an entire ideology built on opposing a strawman. To define yourself as being against handouts is to assert by definition that anyone who does not share your ideology is for handouts. Setting aside that this completely misrepresents what liberalism is all about, this is more importantly and once again; not a value but merely opposition to someone else's values.

So I ask, if you are a conservative and you largely agree with what these interviewees had to say... what is your ideology "for"?

Curious to see where other members stand on various arguments being made in this trial. Here are some of mine:

“This impeachment is unconstitutional”

It seems clear to me that republicans are going to hang their hat on this because they have no defense of the president’s actions. Of course this argument itself doesn’t hold any water. The impeachment took place while Trump was in office, so the argument here is that you cannot *convict* a former president for their final actions in office, which is absurd. And as many have pointed out, this would mean that a president can simply resign just before the final vote and then be free run again.

“The president didn’t incite an insurrection”

Most who make this argument are pointing to the president’s  use of the phrase “peacefully make your voices heard” in his infamous Capitol speech. This is classic cherry picking and ignores common sense. The president’s message to his supporters was that their voices have been stolen and that they need to “fight like hell or you’re not going to have a country anymore”. Who in their right mind would walk away from that with making their voices heard peacefully to be the take away? This is clearly said for plausible deniability.

“But look at what the democrats said”

Point me to the insurrection that resulted from any of the falsely equivocated words of anyone else and we can talk about whether they should be impeached as well.

Any others? Agree? Disagree? Why?