It is OFFICIAL! Fred Thompson is coming to Dallas on Wednesday July 25th.

Can you ask him why he considers himself a conservative?

I mean, he voted for Campaign Finance Reform, which limited free speech.

He voted for Medicare Reform, which was the largest increase in welfare since LBJ was president.

He voted for Patriot Act, which increased the size and intrusiveness of the federal bureaucracy.

Please ask him which of these things is a conservative idea.

^ I'd be interested in his answer as well.

I guess I will ride out there and ask him if he would work to remove the Unconstitutional (Patriot) Act. If so I will vote for him, if not than that will be the end of it. I think I will get it it on video just to be sure.

He voted for Patriot Act, which increased the size and intrusiveness of the federal bureaucracy. Not it does NOT.

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How does your saying it does not change the fact that it does?

Good for you, TC-TX. I couldn't care less what YOU support, and that hardly wins anyone over. Explaining why might.

I could vote for Fred Thompson, but I don't support some of those positions, either. However, I do understant that a "Yes" vote doesn't mean you agree with something 100%, or you would have written them that way yourself. That's not how politics work.

Sometimes, also, people do the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right ones. Trying to discern that helps inform my vote.

But my not supporting some things he's voted for is not because I don't understand the issues. Give me a break. You sound like a Paulista, now.

Lone_Gunman said:

Can you ask him why he considers himself a conservative?

I mean, he voted for Campaign Finance Reform, which limited free speech.

He voted for Medicare Reform, which was the largest increase in welfare since LBJ was president.

He voted for Patriot Act, which increased the size and intrusiveness of the federal bureaucracy.

Please ask him which of these things is a conservative idea.

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Clearly Thompson is using his acting skills to trick the liberals into a false sense of security so that once he's in the white house he can make a complete 180 and lead us all to freedom! Like Bush and the AWB!

TC-TX said.

We can agree to disagree on these issues.

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I agree, or +1
I wish that folks could keep these discussions on THR.
I enjoy a good debate, and would like these threads to stay active.
Even when I disagree, I enjoy an intelligent debate.

Personally, I simply can't get as animated about the Patriot Act as a lot of people. I can't rally behind it like a certain ultra-loyalist sliver of the GOP -- I'm old-school conservative, which means I don't see any government act as the great salvation we've all been waiting for, and I think Federal Government expansion is the problem, not the solution. Nor can I howl about all its supposed infringements on our rights, like a certain sliver of the Left, which couldn't care less about individual freedom normally. Show me the money. Show me what has really happened, either way.

CFR is, plain and simple, the Incumbent Protection Act. There's just no other way an objective person could read something that prohibits interest groups -- which are the way for people to be heard in a country with 300,000,000 people -- from criticizing a candidate in public, 60 days out from the election. However, I do understand that, when the law was passed, many did not see it that way.

Medicare as we know it is something I'd like to see eliminated entirely, so it's hard for me to put myself in the place of a representative who had to vote yes or no on a bill, especially if that was seen as the better compromise at the time, with any alternative being far worse.

So, I won't hold it against someone when he does his job the way the job gets done.

Ron Paul's approach is quite different, and commendable in its own way.

But I do think that demonizing Thompson the way some do is silly, and it's wrong, whether or not he's my choice in the primary.

Uh oh. Thompson thread. Here we go.

This will be my only post. I will be watching the carnage.

Good day.

My personal postion was only a quick side note. Not intended as an absolute for anyone else. I have taken time to educate myself on the issues instead of asking everyone else for a position.

I urge everyone to review what Fred has done.

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I have and I have. If there is a more wrong headed piece of legislation to come out of the congress in the last 30 years I haven't seen it. It is worse than AWB I.

Personally, I simply can't get as animated about the Patriot Act as a lot of people. I can't rally behind it like a certain ultra-loyalist sliver of the GOP -- I'm old-school conservative, which means I don't see any government act as the great salvation we've all been waiting for, and I think Federal Government expansion is the problem, not the solution. Nor can I howl about all its supposed infringements on our rights, like a certain sliver of the Left, which couldn't care less about individual freedom normally. Show me the money. Show me what has really happened, either way.

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*Sigh* Do you really, really want to see it? The eight Supreme Court rulings showing various parts to be unconstitutional, the infringement of rights, especially the fourth and first? The abuse by the Department of Injustice the lying about it in front of Congress by the AGUS? The money wasted by the giant bear-act-crazy? You want to see the money just look around, look at the results we have. I don't think you are that obtuse bear. I have posted many postings in L&P showing the money...

Is it official that he is running?

Titan6-

You pick a certain large piece of legislation, passed in stranger-than-usual times, and show how it's a lot like many other bills passed by Congress and signed by Presidents.

If "obtuse" means "cynical enough that I fail to see the dramatic contrast that you and Michael Moore do, between this and many other bills", I'll plead guilty as charged.

YOU'RE the one who said that government can work, if you want it to work, not me.

I see this bill as yet another example of why I want limited government, in the broad sense. If you pick one bill and ignore countless others, and countless other problems, you're really not looking at the problem. It's like fixating on a stuck window, as if that's the real problem, while the whole car is falling apart around you.

If I look at the car and say, "Well, the thing is just plain broken," that doesn't mean I think the window works. I'm just not fixated on the stuck window.

So, a candidate is probably someone who sees the system as relatively functional. I can't rationally blame him for every deviation from my ideals, if I disagree on a fundamental level with a significant premise. If all we have are candidate with that premise, I can choose between them, and try to choose as best I can. Or I can bloviate about the "lesser evil." I'm done with the latter.

Is THAT clear enough?

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I am not sure how anyone can disagree that the Patriot Act increased the size and intrusiveness of federal government. I am not talking about paranoid delusions involving black helicopters and the like, I am talking about bureacracy and the amount of personal information the federal governments collects. It created a new government department (homeland security), and added many new bureaucrats. It also makes the federal government more intrusive in our personal affairs. If you buy a house, or open a checking account, or transfer large amounts of money, the federal government is notified. Whether or not the Patriot Act has resulted in any huge abuses of privacy like some claim, it clearly increases the size and intrusiveness of federal government.

As for the Medicare Reform Bill, it most certainly increased the amount of money the federal government spends on welfare, and I don't see how anyone can argue that. Telling me "its the right thing to do" doesn't change the fact that it is the largest increase in social spending since LBJ, and clearly not something a traditional conservative would approve of. When does the "right thing to do" quit being the right thing? Maybe when my federal income tax rate is 50%? or 75%. The government needs to quit spending other people's money on things like this.

Campaign finance reform has interfered not only with free speech, but specifically with the most important type of free speech, that which relates to politics. President Bush himself thought this law was probably un-Constitutional.

These facts are not arguable. Your opinion that these things were the right things to do does not change the fact that NONE of these things are conservative.

I think people have forgotten what a real conservative is. A real conservative wants a small, limited, non-intrusive federal government that gets out of the way and lets people lead their lives. Conservatives want a minimum of bureacracy. Conservatives want minimal welfare programs.
Conservatives want to protect, not limit, basic human rights.

Fred Thompson is not a conservative. He is a neo-conservative. He believes that big government can solve most of our problems. Hence, he votes for bills like the Patriot Act that expand federal powers. He believes welfare should be increased (again, because only big government can solve problems), so he votes for Medicare Reform. He believes in maintenance of his own power, and that of the federal government, so he votes for Campaign Finance Reform.

If you are a Fred supporter, you need to quit trying to convince people he is a conservative, because only the stupid will fall for that. You need to do what the Bush campaign did, and simply offer Fred as a "lesser of two evils" when compared to Hillary and/or Obama. Thats the best you will be able to come up with for Fred. He is not the conservative messiah many are looking for.

I am not sure how anyone can disagree that the Patriot Act increased the size and intrusiveness of federal government.

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If you stop and think, you'll have a very hard time finding a bill in DC that doesn't.

But if you are looking for a candidate who has been in Congress, who has never voted for a bill, you'll look a long time.

Unless you look for Ron Paul.

But when he doesn't win the Primary, despite my donation, some of us will still have to figure out for whom to vote.

ArmedBear said:

But when he doesn't win the Primary, despite my donation, some of us will still have to figure out for whom to vote.

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You could stay home like most eligible voters do.

You could stay home like most eligible voters do.

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Hell no!

If I don't vote, I can't bitch.

ArmedBear said:

Hell no!

If I don't vote, I can't bitch.

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I've always thought it was the other way around. If you vote for them, you have no reason to be complaining about them.

You might want to post this to Free Republic, lots of Thompson supporters there.