Healthy conservatism promotes the continuity of civilization, the importance of community, the dangers of thoughtless change. It does not, or should not, assert the right of white, Christian heterosexual males of a certain age to limit the rights of everyone else. The past 100 years of social history has been dedicated, on good days, to constraining the dominance of this minority. Yesterday was a good day. John Ibbitson, www.globeandmail.com Wed. June 29th.
The world moves at a pace quicker then most of us can handle. Whether breakthroughs in the science of how we understand ourselves, medical research, or the use of technology in our lives, something new is announced on an almost daily basis.
Careening along we ascend the heights of knowledge, desperately attempting to assimilate and acclimatize to the new altitudes. To a race that for thousands of years was relatively static the past hundred or so years has seen an unprecedented explosion of change.
Technological changes have given rise to societal changes. Through our advances in labour saving devices more and more people have been liberated from the drudgery of mind and soul destroying labour. With more people being exposed to education and it’s accompanying knowledge and awareness, more have craved the privileges so long confined to a few.
Demands for equal treatment in the eyes of the law no matter race, creed, or sex have resulted in massive societal shake-ups and opened the door on issues that had never been considered. The fight for equal rights for women resulted in the issues of abortion and day care to either rise from obscurity or come into existence. Before women worked en masse what need was there to be concerned about children during the day when school was done?
Traditional rules and mores that have long been held dear by so many are being discarded in the face of these new realities. It seems that although the technological changes have the potential to impact our quality of life and our very existence in some circumstances, it’s the social changes which cause the most consternation.
Article comments
1 - Randy Kirk
Fear of the unknown makes the familiar all the more attractive. But every now and again the time comes when we have to take a leap in the dark into something new.
1. 3% privatization of SS
2. Parental notification on abortion
3. Balance in classroom pov
4. Elimination of preferences
5. Get government off industries back
6. Sub minimum wage for entry level workers
7. Make 3 'r's only subject through grade 3 (maybe music and art)
8. Illiminate government charity, decrease taxes to allow more charity by individuals
I could go on for days.
P.S. When will folks learn that conservatives have no more desire to impose their morality on folks than liberals do. Different morality. Different motivation sometimes.
Some of the lefts motivation is to create libertine society. That is rarel the movivation on the right. (Just those pesky libertarians.)
2 - Al Barger
"If women are allowed to chose what happens to their own bodies... what does it harm anyone else?"
Well, one might not completely unreasonably argue that it harms the baby that gets killed.
I'M A CHOICE, NOT A CHILD
PRE-BORN MEETS THE ONE-EYED MONSTER
3 - Dave Nalle
Hmmm...I like this word 'Selfservative'. Seems to describe conservatives pretty well. They're people who would rather do things for themselves than have government take care of them. Makes sense to me.
Dave
4 - gonzo marx
gypsyman gets today's "Cookie"
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enjoy!
now let's have a look at Comment #1...it lays out some points in an Agenda that claims to be "conservative"
1)it has already been proven, and admitted by the WH, that the "privitization" plan does NOTHING to end the solvency problem of SS, and guarantees nothing about improving the system...but it does claim that there shoudl be better returns based on Market history...this will be up to our elected Representatives to work out, influenced (hopefully) by the Voters that put them there and not the lobbyists they normally seem to work for...the only sure winners i see are whatever private companies handle the money and the profits they reap...NOT my biggest priority here
2)my problem here are the cases where it was a parent that impregnated the child..show me how you protect those girls, and i will listen..otherwise i stand by that girl's Rights
3)another attempt to force religion into the public school system...sorry, that goes against the Rights of those that don't subscribe to it, not to mention the violation of separation of church and state...if i am mistaken by what alternative "pov" you are speaking of, please elucidate for the purposes of discussion
4)this one i'm all for...i fucking HATE any kind of "hyphen american"...just american will do
5)oh yeah, this one seems ok on the outside, but do we so quickly forget Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia Cable on and on...it is one of the purposes of our government to protect the Citizens against the unbridled Greed of rapacious companies that operate with NO ethics other than this quarters bottom line...let's start with raising the fines against polluters (currently maxxed at $25,00 a day)to be at least equal with the FCC fine against "obscenity"...everyday there are companies that send boats out to dump pollution into our oceans with an EPA man on board...a few million of shit is tossed overboard and a check is handed to the EPA guy...this is good for our Nation how? reasonable regulations that protect our Citizens are REQUIRED, anything less fails to serve the purpose of our Government to serve and protect the people
6) i'm confused here, are you asking for the minimum wage to be increased or to have it lowered?
7)i can go for this one if you keep music as a requirement, art as well..they both are woefully underfunded, and needed for so many things...music and math are so closely entwined in so many ways...and we NEED our kids to know more math
8) start with corporate welfare and i am halfway there, what else do you specifically have in mind? no AIDS helps to Africa?...what? as for taxes and charities, i woudl say eliminate the tax examptions for charities alltogether..if someone is truly charitable, they will do it formtheir own Heart and don't require financial re-imbursement...weird , huh?
as for Big Al's comment...as far as i understand it, our Society has a legal definition of when you are a baby and when you are a corpse...we give out certificates for each..until you change the definition of a Birth Certificate and a Death Certificate in each town that writes them then your "not unreasonable argument" is null and void because no "child" is being "killed"
you just got out Libertarian'ed by a gonzo
and it still hasn't gotten weird enough for me
Excelsior!
5 - WTF
Gonzo,
I did a research paper on the association of math and music. Read a lot of studies, papers, books, and articles, all taken from various dbases available through the university. The summary statement, in short was, after reading scores of documents, comparing the arguments (which were few the information blew away my misconception. While I thought that in general there was a correlation, there was â€" but not as I believed.
Through misconception of understanding, it’s really not a matter of being wired differently. Mathematicians don’t necessarily make good musicians and visa versa. However, musicians can figure out mathematical symbology easier, because they view symbology on the music they read.
By the way, if you don’t read music, there is no correlation.
Musicians overall, tend to be less stressed, able to connect with right side brain activity sooner, and remain there. Suicide was discussed, but was attributed to lifestyle and subsequent systemic stresses, rather genetic programming.
How many people in politics are musicians? That would be an interesting side note (pun intended).
Several hundred years ago, most everyone read some type of music, and sang or played an instrument. In fact, if attending a party or a dinner, it was considered rude if you didn’t bring your instrument, as the preferred social activity after the meal, was music.
6 - gonzo marx
thanks WTF, you stated quite clearly what my own addle pated self only alluded to
both mathematics and music deal in symbology...and the symbolic logic used to create harmonies as well as pattern recognition helps tremendously in algebraic expression as well as extrapolating curves derived from calculus and so on
there was a
Thread not so long ago that asked what we thought was man's greatest Invention
a lot of folks had a lot of good Thoughts...what i said was Symbols...representation of abstract Thought...this gave Man writing, music, math and it what i believe truly shows we are "intelligent" and raises us to a higher level fo existance
your mileage may vary
Excelsior!
7 - WTF
Also, of particular interest is chapter one of Fermat's enigma authored my Simon Singh.
The chapter deals with the developments in math from the greek through the 20th century. Very good overview. Amazing evolution of thought process.
8 - gonzo marx
WTF...you might actually enjoy "the Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin, a former Librarian of Congress
warning: this book is not for the feint of heart..it IS thick, and it IS a rather dry, albeit well written, scholarly Work
but if you want an Overview History of milesontes in Man's accomplishments dealing with the Mind...nothign i've found beats it
nuff said?
Excelsior!