Differences Between Conservatives and Liberals

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by REASON

This is exactly why I became an Independent. I refuse to align myself with any political party, and I will support the benefits and reject failures of all as I see them.


I believe there is a disconnect as to what it actually means to have a Liberal or Conservative viewpoint in our society.

Let's explore it.

Question:

Is the desire to drill for oil in ANWR conservative or liberal ideology?

Or how about the desire to protect our National Parks and National Forests, conservative or liberal?

I had a conversation recently with a man from California that complained about the tree huggers that were always complaining about logging the red woods. He stated that he put “people first not trees” and this was his view on why they were wrong . I asked him what future generation that could only look at videos and read descriptions about what it was like to walk in a forest of giant trees thousands of years old.

This wildlife refuge is the last untouched wilderness in north America. The only reason it is still pristine in complete the lack of roads. Once you build the roads no more wilderness. Future generations will look back at Conservatism as the great oxymorons of the 21st century.

Arctic Refuge Oil Is a Distraction, Not a Solution
What would America gain by allowing heavy industry into the refuge? Very little. Oil from the refuge would hardly make a dent in our dependence on foreign imports -- leaving our economy and way of life just as exposed to wild swings in worldwide oil prices and supply as it is today. The truth is, we simply can't drill our way to energy independence.
Although drilling proponents often say there are 16 billion barrels of oil under the refuge's coastal plain, the U.S. Geological Service's estimate of the amount that could be recovered economically -- that is, the amount likely to be profitably extracted and sold -- represents less than a year's U.S. supply.
It would take 10 years for any Arctic Refuge oil to reach the market, and even when production peaks -- in the distant year of 2027 -- the refuge would produce a paltry 3 percent of Americans' daily consumption. The U.S. government's own Energy Information Agency recently reported that drilling in the Arctic would save less than 4 cents per gallon in 20 years. Whatever oil the refuge might produce is simply irrelevant to the larger issue of meeting America's future energy needs.

NRDC: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Why Trash an American Treasure for a Tiny Percentage of Our Oil Needs?

[questor]

To understand this subject, you can't rely on things you read in liberal blogs. You must at least take a look at reliable information from other sources.

Chris Dodd, Barney Frank & The Subprime Crisis

There is a wealth of information, video and audio on the left's responsibility for the subprime crisis. Two at the center of it all are Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, two men who insured that nothing was done about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the name of "affordable housing" - that's code for a massive redistribution of funds on the basis of identity politics. Yet there is a total news blackout amongst all but a few media outlets on this. Fox News covers at least a portion of it today.

Link: Wolf Howling: Chris Dodd, Barney Frank & The Subprime Crisis
Read this about Franklin Raines:
Link: Business & Technology | Franklin Raines to pay $24.7 million to settle Fannie Mae lawsuit | Seattle Times Newspaper
Raines was CEO of FNMA.. with congressional aquiescence fannie mae and freddie mac were major players in the subprime debacle. They were determined to finance ''affordable housing''. This was NOT a conservative undertaking as it can be viewed as a redistribution of wealth.

[REASON]

questor,

Please identify where it states in any law that private lending institutions are REQUIRED to provide loans with unacceptable risks to disadvantaged borrowers. Or how about a law that REQUIRED these institutions to bundle these loans up and sell them to larger banks and lenders several times, which in the process, was contributing to their devaluation.

I keep hearing that the majority of forclosures are due to people getting into far more house than they can afford. Can you provide any demographics that show that most of the forclosures are with low-income housing?

I don't know about you, but I was getting around four calls or mailings a week from about 2001 to 2005 asking if I wanted to refinance my home mortgage, and that the current ARM loans were providing some of the lowest interest rates in history. They were offering to let me borrow up to 125% of the value of my home so I could roll any credit card debt I had into my mortgage payment and they would give me charts that would show how many hundreds of dollars a month in savings I could reap by doing so.

Were the Democrats forcing them to do this?

Big surprise, I'm not getting those calls anymore.

[questor]

Since you are Reason, I'm sure you understand cause and effect and the law
of unintended consequences.
This was the start: On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (also known as CRA '68), which was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1866[1] prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions. The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and as of 1974, sex; as of 1988, the act protects the handicapped and families with children. It also provided protection for civil rights workers. The Act is commonly known as the Fair Housing Act (of 1968) .

Victims of discrimination may use both the 1968 act and the 1866 act (via section 1982) to seek redress. The 1968 act provides for federal solutions while the 1866 act provides for private solutions (i.e., civil suits).



Types of banned discrimination
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibited the following forms of discrimination:

1. Refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of his race, color, religion or national origin. People with disabilities and families with children were added to the list of protected classes by the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988.

2. Discrimination against a person in the terms, conditions or privilege of the sale or rental of a dwelling.

3. Advertising the sale or rental of a dwelling indicating preference of discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin (and, as of 1988, people with disabilities and families with children.)

4. Coercing, threatening, intimidating, or interfering with a person's enjoyment or exercise of housing rights based on discriminatory reasons or retaliating against a person or organization that aids or encourages the exercise or enjoyment of fair housing rights.

This on the surface was a good law in that it allowed everyone Equal
Rights with no discrimination, but it also engendered a feeling of entitilement
in some people without just cause.

This was another factor:

The New Focus Group: Low-Income Home Buyers
by Blanche Evans
There has been a lot of media attention on the first time buyer, moveup buyer, and luxury buyer driving the current record-setting market. But another type of buyer, overlooked until now, is starting to gain the spotlight - those with low incomes.

Low-income buyers are being viewed by the government and the private sector as the possible solution for several social problems. When people rent, or live in low income or federal housing, they don't tend to take ownership of their surroundings, nor do they participate as much in their communities.

Low-income buyers could be the key to turning troubled neighborhoods around. With an economic stake in their homes, they are more likely to maintain their homes with care and pride, take more interest in social issues that affect their neighbors and themselves, and earn equity as a means of savings.

For most low-income families, the immediate barrier to home ownership is perception. There is a myth that pervades - buying a home requires cash for a down payment and good credit, two things most low-income families don't have. Many low-income families have no idea that there are numerous programs, from the private sector, the non-profit sector, and the government to help them achieve the dream of home ownership, and often with little or no money down...

Link: http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/19990122_newgroup.htm

[freeztar]

Let's be clear Q. There's a big difference between anti-discrimination and predatory lending. The CRA merely forbid lenders from declining a loan based on race/etc. Some of the groups listed in the article probably extended loans to some people that were unqualified (whether minority or white). They are certainly part of the blame, but there's lots more blame to throw around, and it lands on both sides of the aisle, both conservatives vs. liberals.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by REASON

questor,

I keep hearing that the majority of forclosures are due to people getting into far more house than they can afford. Can you provide any demographics that show that most of the forclosures are with low-income housing?

I'd like to see this data as well.

[questor]

The more you read, the more you learn. Here is some more info. I assume everyone here has access to Google. If you have info to counter this, let's share it. I have said before there is plenty of blame here for everyone.

Obama-ACORN Root Causes of Mortgage Crisis?

FBI Investigates U.S. Financial Crisis - Where Did $1 Trillion Go?

The high-risk subprime mortgage social engineering community service experiment by left-wing ACORN and Obama has created the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression. The full reach of the corruption and scandal may never be known but those who created it must not be rewarded. The architects, primarily left-wing Democrats, created laws, took donations, looked the other way and instead were too busy overseeing donations to their own presidential campaigns and robbing main street blind. Now these same left-wing Democrats blame everyone else and get up on their high horses and say, "we are here to save you" from the crises they created.

Yes, Mr. Obama knows a great deal about the mess. He is a central figure in the left-wing ACORN exploitation of financial institutions and pressuring them to make high risk loans. The very same left-wing ACORN was guilty of voter fraud in the last presidential election.

Now these same Democrats want to do another high risk "community service," social engineering experiment. They want to elect a high-risk, low experience, socialist one of the same community organizers that created the mess to be our next president. We cannot experiment with the office of president and learn as we go. Barack Obama is not qualified and has no history of success as a leader in government or business.

The FBI investigation

An FBI investigation is under way at Lehman Brothers and three other contributors to America's financial crisis to determine whether they put pressure on ratings agencies to award top ratings to securities they issued.

Concerns that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG or Lehman may have sought to encourage agencies to inflate their ratings - by offering higher fees or the promise of more work - form part of a broad inquiry by the bureau.

The agencies are widely regarded as having failed debt holders by attributing the top ratings to many securities that turned out to be extremely risky and have lost investors hundreds of billions of dollars.

The FBI, which is also investigating whether any of the four institutions deliberately misled investors about the true health of their assets, is expected to demand that they "hold all papers and e-mails under lock and key" as it sifts through the evidence, a source said.

How did we get here?

FOLLOW THE MONEY AND CORRUPTION! A Lending Policy created by democrats for democrats run by democrats monitored by democrats enforced by community organizer democrats and profited from by democrats.

The following information is condensed from an article by Stanley Kurtz. O's Dangerous Pals.
Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster. ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.

Obama Trains ACORN Staff in Shakedown Tactics

It would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.

He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.

Obama Funds ACORN
More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.

More, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report acknowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.

Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship."

Obama Aware of Intimidation Tactics

The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.

And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts.

In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama's first campaign for state Senate, saying, "We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer."
In short, to understand the roots of the subprime mortgage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.

Link: HumanEventsOnline.com

[questor]

A simple but succinct story explaining the difference between a conservative and a liberal....

''I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl, and she said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."

"Wow - what a worthy goal." I told her, "You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food or a new house."

She thought that over for a few seconds 'cause she's only 6. And while her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

And I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party." ''

From the internet.

[REASON]

Originally Posted by questor

The more you read, the more you learn. Here is some more info. I assume everyone here has access to Google. If you have info to counter this, let's share it. I have said before there is plenty of blame here for everyone.


Link: HumanEventsOnline.com

Good grief, questor. You're so gullible. Can't you see that there is not a shread of evidence to support the rampant speculation in your link.

Example:

The high-risk subprime mortgage social engineering community service experiment by left-wing ACORN and Obama has created the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression.

Based on what? According to whom? How do you know it's ACORN? Do you have any evidence?

The full reach of the corruption and scandal may never be known but those who created it must not be rewarded. The architects, primarily left-wing Democrats, created laws, took donations, looked the other way and instead were too busy overseeing donations to their own presidential campaigns and robbing main street blind.

The architects are left-wing Democrats? I knew it!

Created what laws? What did they say? How were the laws implemented?

Where's the evidence they took donations and as a result, returned favors? Just because it says so doesn't mean anything in reality. But it sure gets your panties in a wad doesn't it?

How were they "robbing main street blind?" That's a pretty inflammatory statement without proof.

Now these same left-wing Democrats blame everyone else and get up on their high horses and say, "we are here to save you" from the crises they created.

It's ironic that this article is attempting, rather pitifully, to place blame and provides no evidence to support it's claims.


This is just red meat for suckers like you, questor. Why do you insist on perpetuating an us-against-them mentality? Maybe you could explain the cause and effect of that approach.

[REASON]

Originally Posted by questor

A simple but succinct story explaining the difference between a conservative and a liberal....

''I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl, and she said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."

"Wow - what a worthy goal." I told her, "You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food or a new house."

She thought that over for a few seconds 'cause she's only 6. And while her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

And I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party." ''

From the internet.

"...she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

Maybe it's because he's bound to a wheelchair after getting his legs blown off by a landmine in Vietnam. But don't worry little girl, now that your with the Republican party, you don't have to worry about those wierdos anymore. Helping people is for bleeding heart Liberals. Now hurry up, you don't want to be late for church.


What a stupid story. It mearly reflects callous selfishness and indifference. What a disgraceful lesson for children.