--- Elisabeth Carvalho wrote: > > Dear Mario, > It's a well-known fact that US Conservatives try to > claim as their own, heros that most certainly don't > belong to them. They do this by adding words like > compassionate and modern in front of the word > Conservative. > Mario replies: > This is a "well known fact" only among modern political liberals, who continue to promote the siren song of failed socialist policies and cast aspersions on conservatives to hide their failures. > Elisabeth writes: > > But to claim John Mill as one of their own is > stretching the truth a bit too far. > Mario responds: > I used John Mill's well known actions and words to show that he was clearly philosophically aligned with modern political conservatives in the US. As with Friedrich Von Hayek, you are confusing a classic liberal like John Mill, who abhorred government intervention in the economy and believed in free market economics with modern political liberals who are virtual socialists. > Elisabeth writes: > > I don't claim to know John Mill's writing in any > measure of depth. In fact, I just knew that one > quote from him. > Mario replies: > That was pretty obvious:-)) > Elisabeth writes: > > Much like you, I googled him and read about him. > John Mill was an acclaimed liberal thinker of him > time. He hated conservatives and any form of > conservatism. > Mario explains: > "Much like me"? Aren't you being a tad presumptious in insinuating that I wasn't familiar enough with John Mill to know he had nothing in common with modern political liberal philosophy? I only used Wikipedia for some specifics. The "conservatives" of his time were quite different from modern political conservatives. > Elisabeth writes: > > As per your reference to his economic philosophy, > since when was being "laissez-faire", a conservative > monopoly? Infact, the word liberal in its earlier > connotations referred to "liberal" economists, who > advocated minimal government interference in > capitalist ventures. > Mario writes: > You have just made my point that the earlier connotations of "liberalism" are modern political conservative philosophy. Surely you know that "minimal government interference" is the exact opposite of what modern political liberals espouse, who are socialists at heart. > Elisabeth writes: > > Again it is only in the US, where liberals are > associated with the Democratic party; that one > associates liberals with trade unions and other > forms of government contrivance. > Mario responds: > This is precisely what reconciles the difference between what you and I are saying. When I talk about modern political liberals I am talking about the American Democrat party and American trade unions. I must remember you are a temporary American resident with an international perspective:-)) > Elisabeth writes: > > In India for instance both the Congress and the BJP > are for the "liberalisation" of the economy. You > certainly wouldn't call the BJP or the Congress > liberals in other spheres of their politics. Infact > some of India's liberal thinkers come from the > Communist party. > Mario responds: > We are now in the realm of Indian political semantics. "Liberalization" in India is a euphemism for discarding the destructive extreme-socialist-economic policies of the previous 50 years. The last time I checked, the Communist party in India is resisting all of India's attempts at "liberalization" of the economy. The BJP support economic "liberalization" in the Indian context but are far-right religious zealots. > Elisabeth writes: > > Definitions are often skewed but this much I know > that John Mill would have his stomach churned if he > were in anyway associated with the US connotation > of the word. The Conservative Republican in the > US, in my opinion, singlehandedly will set American > back a few decades in terms of its thinking, > ideology and not to mention its geopolitics. And > John Mill would have had nothing to do with them. > Mario clarifies: > "This much I know"? You certainly could not arrive at such a definitive conclusion from anything John Mill said, or from anything that conservative Republicans have done. > Conservative Republicans comprise about 50% of the US electorate so they do nothing singlehandedly. Any claim that they will set geopolitics back a few decades can only come from the Clinton-era liberal Democrat ideology that would have allowed the attacks on the US that took place throughout the 90's to continue unabated and without response, for Afghanistan and Iraq to continue to be brutalized by sadistic and misogynist Muslim tyrants with no hope of freedom and democracy, for fascists to rule in the name of Islam unconfronted while developing nuclear capabilities and threatening on an almost daily basis to use these to wipe Israel off the map. > As an obvious critic of conservative Republican geopolitics you would have to have opposed the fall of the Iron Curtain (in which conservative Pope JP-II played a major role), the spreading of democracy in old Soviet states and the liberation of Liberia. You would be happy with the status quo in Darfur, and unconcerned about the decimation of the African continent by HIV/AIDS. Along with the previous liberal Democrat administration you would have to turn a blind eye to the atrocities in Rwanda and Burundi, as well as the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. > It took conservative Republicans to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and push a reluctant and feckless UN, whose job it is supposed to be to address such conflicts, to do something in Darfur, while the liberal Europeans objected to the US proposal to label it a genocide, which would trigger UN action. > As an obvious critic of conservative Republican geopolitics you would oppose the long overdue pushing by the US of dictatorial allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia towards political liberalization, and you would also oppose the close working relationship developing between the US and India. > In economics the liberal Democrat philosophy of high taxes and government interference would have sent the US into a deep recession from the declining economy that President Bush inherited which was exacerbated by the sneak attack of 9/11, made possible because previous liberal geopolitical policies had emboldened the Islamic terrorists. Instead, conservative Republican policies turned the economy around in record time and have made the US among the fastest growing and most productive economies in the industrialized western world with stable inflation. Yet they have been compassionate in using the government to improve health care for seniors, improve poorly performing public school systems and help minority business and home ownership to achieve historic levels. > In conclusion, I ask you if any liberal American Democrat could honestly say as John Mill did, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." > This is precisely what modern political Republicans believe and the exact opposite of what the modern liberal American Democrat party believes. By his own testimony, there is no way that John Mill would have been anything but a staunch Republican in modern America. >
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