As long as they are worried about saving Christmas, maybe they leave the president alone for a few weeks ;o)

I mention these programs because they were variously opposed by conservative groups. As have many, many other programs that were patently in the public interest but imposed what some saw as an unwarranted restriction or protection.

At its core, conservatism is a denial of responsibility to anyone but oneself. If I want a gun, the government has no right to take it away from me. If I own a business, the government has no right to impose extra costs through regulation. And so on.
Which would be just fine and dandy if I lived in a yurt in Outer Mongolia and there wasn’t another human being within hundreds of kilometers of me. But I don’t, appealing though that may be.
As a member of society, I have a certain responsibility to those around me and vice versa. Government exists to regulate and, when necessary, enforce that responsibility. Otherwise, everything devolves to a simple matter of ‘might makes right’. By demanding their own rights while denying the personal cost of complying to other’s rights,
Conservatism demands the benefits of society while denying the responsibilities.

That is why I despise Conservatism as a “me-first” philosophy.

To me, Facebook is what I call a “social inventory” site. It’s driven by connecting/re-connecting people and NOT in a particularly deep or meaningful way. To wit:

Facebook and Bebo risk ‘infantilising’ the human mind

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/24/social-networking-site-changing-childrens-brains

The article is a little strong in supporting it’s stance and a lot of points can be argued about the Web, technology, and media circa 2009 in general.

When I originally approached FB it was purely from a marketing standpoint. After all, you can’t ignore the critical mass audience that populates FB (175 million. More interesting FB stats here: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics). But after studying the system for a while I have come to the conclusion that unless you yourself are massive – Obama, Apple, CNN, etc – there is little marketing potential. I posted a question to my friends asking them if they ever click on the ads in the sidebar. Of 120 friends at the time only 4 responded – a virtual clickthrough-rate, if you will, of 3.33% (about the average for the web). So even if your small business FB profile had 10x that many friends you’re still not getting the worthwhile return IMHO.

I guess the only reason I still use it is to reconnect (like your brother) and to keep up with my relatives in Ireland and throughout the world. That’s been nice. I do push a lot of content down to FB but the only thing that seems to draw attention is recent pics of Olie. FB privacy policy articles, of all things, go ignored. So even my personal branding is limited.

It could work for someone like your Amy if she ever wanted to connect (redundant usage, I know) with other crafters. The nichers out there seem to really enjoy and benefit from the FB experience. I guess we need a hobby.

As for everyone else…myeah, probably not worth the effort.

And I don’t find Root’s article to be persuasive in the slightest. He cherry-picks his examples and misses the larger historical context. He dismisses modern progressivism (whatever that may be, I don’t really know how that label’s applied these days) because of errors of the original progressives. Ultimately, he says that libertarianism is important because government abuses people because of “the illiberal impulses of progressive majorities”.

He doesn’t explain how business and commerce is the solution to the problems he cited. He doesn’t acknowledge that much of the New Deal was aimed at solving or correcting inhumane conditions created by business and commerce. And, perhaps most pertinent, he doesn’t explain how libertarianism is important to protecting people today, only how it may have been somehow relevant a century ago.