As long as we're being honest, I'll trust you can back up that claim? Conservatism is the belief in limited government and individual liberty. Maybe you're trying to use a centuries-old definition of conservatism, just like some people try to argue that the centuries-old definition of liberal is one who believes in liberties. But we don't live in the 1700s. American conservatives believe in individual liberty. Islamic extremists do not.
OK, since Micro /'d the thread, thread drift it is.
Now just based on my own experiance, those of us here on APS that care strongly for limited governmnet and individual liberty seem to be a limited subset of american "Conservitives". John McCain and George W. Bush tend to personify the majority of conservitive that I see in central and north florida, as well as what I see written in national op-eds.
I can hear your keyboards spinning up with versions of "They're not conservitive", to which I'd answer that they think they are, most conservitive voters think they are and the liberals think they are, so for all intents and purposes they're part, a large part in fact, of the American Conservitive movement. You can throw the RINO label around as much as you'd like. The cold fact is outside of APS
we're the fringe wacko conservitive, and the RINO's are the ones leading the movement.
Now I'm all about changing that, and reforming or kicking out the wanna be's, but denying the truth of that is counterproductive and pretty silly. If you disagree with me about the kind of "Conservitive" most conservitives like, ask JD Hayworth what he thinks. Or how the Hell we elected Charlie Christ governer of Florida. Or how Sherif Joe keeps getting elected. He seems all for limited government, as long as it's not his department that is limited.
Hell, look at the entire US federal government from 2000-2006. It was dominated by the "Conservitive Movement" and I didn't see a whole lot of limited government and pushes for individual liberty.
Before you fail my definition, make sure your's matches reality.
Life(except yours), Liberty(except our wimmins), and the pursuit of happiness(by blowing ourselves up). Small levels of gov't in everyone's life once we kill the gov't.
Life (except abortion doctors and fed agents), Liberty (except for the fags) and the pursuit of happyness (as long as beer on Sunday doesn't make you happy). Small levels of government (after we use it to block a church in a place we don't like).
One of the most annoying things to me, as some one who actually has had to go fight Jihadists, is Americans tendency to lump them all into "Crazy Terrorist" and dismiss them. I'm not defending either their ideas or their tactics, but as someone who's helped kill his fair share, they're not all stupid. Their life seems (is) ugly and repellent from here but for them it's actually pretty well thought out, and the leaders tend to be as well or better educated then us around here. The actual guy wearing the vest is often a moron, but he's not much of a threat.
So the leaders of radical islam believe that men should be free to live as long as it's inside gods will, that they should spread god's word, and that if needed the government should be used to enforce god's laws. Have any of you ever listened to Billy Graham? Because the imams of Iran have more in common with him then Hitler.
And before everyone jumps on me defending the Conservitive movement, save me the trouble of going back and Quote Mining from Sep-oct 2008.
Yes, conservitives in America are more liberty minded then most in the world, and yes there's a small subset (us mostly) that really believe it, but look around you act what is actually the conservitive movement. Most still don't mind the Patriot Act, G-Bay's fine, use the .gov to shut down the GZM, Sure the cops can GPS tag your car, send SWAT after thos nasty weed dealers, and make sure my Social Security gets paid on time.
