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Heartless Conservatives Unite!
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Lee Siegel talks to Sam Tanenhaus, author of the era-defining The Death of Conservatism, about his Buckley fetish, Sarah Palin's culture war, and why the right wing abandoned politics.
“I have a Buckley fetish” Sam Tanenhaus said with a self-mocking laugh.
William F. Buckley, that is, whose biography Tanenhaus—who is the editor of The New York Times Book Review and that paper’s Week in Review—is thick in the middle of writing. Then he proceeded to tell me one of his favorite stories about Buckley. “Whenever one of his books got a negative review,” Tanenhaus explained. “Buckley would send the reviewer a devil’s food cake. And when he got a positive review, the reviewer would get an angel food cake. That was it. No recriminating letters or phone calls. Just the cakes.”
“These conservatives today are heartless. They are really heartless.”
The Death of Conservatism By Sam Tanenhaus Random House 144 pages $17
We were having a drink in a crepuscular bar on a warm summer evening in one of the hotel watering holes in the West 40s, between Grand Central Station and the old New York Times building, not far from the old offices of The New Yorker. It was a good place to meet and talk about Tanenhaus’s new book, The Death of Conservatism. Because the conservatism he is writing about is not just a political ideology. It was a way of thinking, and writing, and even being that went way beyond politics.
Really memorable nonfiction books have two premises. The first is the book’s argument, stated at the outset. The second is what you might call the author’s argument, embedded in his character. The finest nonfiction books are a public quarrel started by a set of private passions. This is why they are often said to “write themselves.” Even if they weren’t written, they would, in some way, be lived.
The explicit argument first. For Tanenhaus, the conservatives have abandoned their core values of respect for tradition and sensitivity to the necessity of change—of pragmatic, principled adaptability—for a rigid absolutism that expresses itself in a politics of destruction and mechanical negativity.
The party that once stood for governmental ballast and probity in the '50s, and for governmental order and responsibility in the late '60s—as the liberals’ well-intentioned war and their well-intentioned welfare state came crashing down on society—now identified government itself with the forces of evil.
An interesting consequence followed. Since political power can only operate through government, the conservatives had chosen to exert their power more directly, around politics, as it were, by means of cultural confrontation, personal attack, and reflexive stonewalling. This is why conservatives seem most politically organized when out of power, and why when they attain political power, they immediately begin to act like apolitical outlaws.
It’s also why their preferred battleground has been the arena of culture, not politics. As Tanenhaus observes in his book, ever since Buckley equated America’s “ruling class” with “the opinion-makers” (the media, mostly), conservatives have set their sights on liberal dominance of culture. The New Left’s desire to take power by making “the long march through institutions” (i.e. universities) has now become the right wing’s desire to acquire power by making a long march through the media.
Thus its main spokespeople have been cultural, not political figures: Limbaugh, Coulter, and the noisy pantheon at Fox News. This is why conservatism’s political figures often leave the hills and valleys of politics for the darkling plain of culture: Gingrich and Palin.
To make this argument—one strand among many in his book—Tanenhaus pointedly quotes the great political historian Richard Hofstader, who wrote in 1954 that McCarthyism was a “form of cultural protest, evidence that politics itself was assuming a new character.” That new character was the politics of culture, which is what drives today’s “movement conservatism,” as Tanenhaus calls it, as opposed to traditional conservativsm, which was motivated by a belief that “American politics is a replenishing exercise in adjustment and accommodation.”
What is most fascinating about Tanenhaus’s fascinating book is his nimble grasp of what Hegel called “the cunning of history.” He is ultra-sensitive to the social-psychological aspect of American politics, to the way opposing factions project themselves onto their adversary, covet and envy the opponent’s principles and social position, express antagonism by impersonating and/or parodying the enemy’s most successful values.
So, as Tanenhaus writes, the liberal rhetoric of compassion and the state’s responsibility to its most hard-pressed citizens—the poor—which led to the New Deal became the Reagan conservatives’ rhetoric of compassion and the state’s responsibility to its most hard-pressed citizens—the middle class—which led to tax cuts that undid or diminished many of the New Deal’s social programs.
Tanenhaus himself embodies this ironic complexity. He writes with warm admiration of the Ur-conservative Edmund Burke’s “distrust of all ideologies, beginning with their totalizing nostrums.” He glowingly describes how Burke “warned against “the destabilizing perils of extremist politics of any kind.” This conservative credo seems to be the root of his revulsion against today’s conservative extremists.
Yet his own antagonism to the totalizing extremism of movement conservatism is derived from his antagonism to the totalizing extremism of Soviet communism and its influence on certain branches of American progressivism. Tanenhaus’ sardonic treatment of liberal technocrats’ soulessness in the '60s is nearly as scathing as his contempt for what he calls today’s “revanchist”—i.e. reactionary—conservatives. He has no dogma in this race.
Which brings me to the book’s second, unstated premise. It is alluded to at the end of the book, when Tanenhaus writes about what he calls “a central truth of human nature. Most of us are liberal and conservative…” This is not a political observaton. It is a literary one. It is really of no use to the political operative or tactician looking for a leg up over the opposition. It is a quiet, almost Emersonian sort of paradox that invites reflection, not action.
“The Death of Conservatism”—it should really be called “The Death of Rational, Pragmatic Conservativsm”—has the intimate literary quality of that “classic” you read in college which stuck with you, which imparted a novelistic density to events that put your private life into dramatic relationship with the public world around you. Behind history are ideas, and behind ideas are men and women. And your own ability to perceive and make sense of these ideas is your way in the world. A little niche for yourself in history.
I have a weakness for this kind of adventure story about people’s role in making history, especially when it treats urgent contemporary events like episodes out of Tacitus or Carlyle. I don’t know of any other book about politics now by a living author that presents what we are living through with such riveting depths.
Sure, there are a few weak spots. Writing about the right wing’s “growing fixation on the [liberal] power elite in the early '60s, Tanenhaus might have added that the left wing’s own fixation on same—see C. Wright Mills’ classic work, The Power Elite—made the same argument with different targets.
And I wish he had elaborated on his intriguing suggestion that “Watergate secured the ascendancy of movement revanchism.” He means the perception that Nixon was destroyed by the liberal culture-makers, who were portrayed as anti-American, lay behind the sympathy for Reagan’s attacks on liberals. But surely Reagan’s triumph among the “Reagan Democrats” had just as much, if not more, to do with shifting economic realities. Sometimes the engines that drive reality are more prosaic than ideas.
But the unique virtue of this book is Tanenhaus' belief that individuals, to a great extent make their fate out of sentiments and concepts the way human life is made out of flesh and blood. Tanenhaus refuses to accept that, ultimately, there is anything at all prosaic about the public quarrels swirling around us.
As we left the bar, the natural light slowly gave way to the light from streetlamps and storefronts, and we walked through the thickening air of expectation that gathers on a humid summer evening in Manhattan. Some anecdote, or piece of gossip recalled what writers’ lives are like. We both agreed that the conservatives were exceptionally welcoming and kind to people who did not hail from exclusive backgrounds, and that this attitude had a genuine appeal to young writers lacking membership in a special group or club.
“But,” Tanenhaus said, shaking his head, “these conservatives today are heartless. They are really heartless.”
You might say that they want to have their devil’s food cake, and eat it too.
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Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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Conservatism is not dead, just moribund, as progressivism was in the Second Gilded Age of the 1980s and 1990s. These things go in cycles, and small government, laissez faire conservatism will make a comeback--probably in the 2020s. When will have Harding-Coolidge-Reagan type presidents again who favor limited government, reduced taxes for the rich and deregulation of business.
If history is any guide, though, they will not repeal the major reforms that Obama is going to pass in this New Foundation or Second Progressive Era--whatever it's going to be called.
If history is any guide, we will have more reform periods in each generation, every 30-40 years. Assuming this pattern hold good, will will have reformist eras in the 2030s and 2060s, and for some reasons the sixth decade of every century turns out to be a real barn burner.
I don't know why these cycles of reform and conservatism work this way, but they have been going on for 200 years or more, at least since Jefferson's time, and possibly even earlier in the 17th Centuries.
So let's not confuse these periodic shifts and pendulum swings with the "death" of reform or conservatism.
Bullshit - true conservatism is alive and well, except it exists in Asia and the Asian mind. The Reagan revolution, despite the protestations from the Left, never reversed the New Deal or LBJ's nanny state .
We have joined the Europeans as also-ran's.
No bullshit. These cycles are very real, and happen every generation, and not just in the US but also Britain, Canada and Australia.
As for true conservatism in Asia, you are forgetting that I lived out there for years. Those countries are all very statist and mercantilist, not laissez faire or free market capitalist. They have their own kind of conservatism that is authoritarian, hierarchical and Confucian, but it is not the same thing as American "conservatism".
"These conservatives today are heartless. They are really heartless."
Oh please, cry me a river,
Liberals are referring to dissenters as "Brown Shirts, Nazis."
Politics has always been ruthless in this country, left versus right,
now it's MSNBC versus Fox,
The Heritage Foundation versus ACORN.
We live in the age of hyper-sensitivity.
The age of political correctness, the indoctrination starts
at an early age now, from every little leaguer, winners and losers,
everyone gets a trophy. Don't want to be "Heartless"
and hurt the losing team's feelings.
(Take a cue from the current Little League World Series.
These kids live real life, where there are ACTUAL winners and losers,
where losing causes tears, but builds character.)
Some Liberal American school teachers would rather grade papers
with purple markers because red is too "harsh," it might be
"Heartless" and hurt the child's feelings.
Some Liberal schools of higher learning no longer
recognize the Valedictorian, because it might be
"Heartless" and "offend" the other students.
Keep it up and your coddled children will be in for
a rude awakening years from now, when children from
China and India will be the achievers, and kicking your kids' ass,
if they aren't already.
But at least your kids will be "sensitive."
Talk to a European, or people from other parts of the World,
and see how brutally honest they are.
It's refreshing. When they don't like something, they'll tell you up front.
In this country, what do we do if someone hurts our feelings,
we call a TRIAL LAWYER for "emotional stress." Boo Hoo !
When did we become a country of overweight, over sensitive pussies ?
"You're so mean, you're so heartless."
Politics has always been a heartless game from the right, and the left.
Butch up.
The usual false equivalency from sophie.
Wow, there's some good stuff here guys. I can always count on you to make me smile and think critically as I sit here burning up in Baghdad.
Through my studies of warfare, it seems one thing has changed over time (technology) and one thing has remained the same (human nature). Feeling sorry for people isn't something new, but in the old days, they didn't have the resources and time to provide for the welfare of those that couldn't produce for the betterment of the people. In those days, those folks were cast aside or discarded.
By viewing our modern day country as a system, you can put some objective view to the problem. A life system that carries around to much fat uses a lot of energy just carrying around the fat. The muscles provide for function and work, but are overused not only working, but carrying around the fat. Look at overweight people and they are generally not that healthy....why? Because they carry too much non-productive bulk. This is what we are doing systemically to this country. Liberals, God bless them want to care for everyone and conservatives see that carrying the fat for too long will eventually just kill the system. It's a catch 22, but when you look at the longevity of the country as a whole....in order to flourish, we would have to trim the fat, or turn it into lean muscle. Our current system doesn't motivate those on the tit to want to get off of it, so the viscious cycle will continue.
Humor-in-uniform, i think you really carry a broad brush there.
Liberals want a bloated overweight country/system. Really?
Conservatives have the obvious oversimplified answer?
You guys talk about "re-distribution of wealth - socialism", but your jack silent about the discrepancies in who has the wealth and what's happened to the middle class.
Oh no, it's not ok to say "Bush was not conservative" BS. What has "the other side" done for the economy of this country ever?
What about the middle class, the manufacturing in the country?
Isn't it so called conservatives leading the so called "free market" system with its outsourcing, and union busting?
The whole anti reform thing is an obvious right wing defense of insurance gouging and propping up obscene profits off of healthcare.
It's the DINO's too I know, but they are from mostly red states.
Dem pols aren't immune to greed either. But they can sit back and let you righties secure those ill gotten goods for them.
That is not the liberal agenda.
@Spohia5: the dining room table speaks again. That's one thing Barney didn't mention -- tables are hard to ignore when they yammer gibberish non-stop.
It also exists here at home, but lacks the leadership needed to bring it into the daylight.
We will bide our time until it happens, and looking over the political landscape, the 90 trillion dollar debt may just be the percursor to start it.
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sophia5 - I see a consistency in your posts on this site, i.e. you see the world through your own rose colored glasses. You have one of the most unbalanced an biased perspectives of anybody who posts on this site. In your screed here you natter on about the ills of our nation that are always the result of the evil-doing of liberal left. You never take any responsibility for the mess ya'll have made. The right wing has to a large degree been making policy for the last 15 (and closer to 30) years. If you don't like things then own up to your own neo-con republicans responsibility for them instead of constantly resorting to your straw dog attack on liberals. You are truly one of the most ideologically brain-washed and narrow minded people I have ever encountered. I'll bet you are just a delight to be around in person.
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Grumpy....we're not smart enough to do it like Denmark and we have MANY more people. If we tried to do it their way, the ACLU would somehow get involved and it would go back to the way it is now....you gotta know that man! ;-)
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Come on now easyrider....I'm a happy guy, but I think you're projecting. I just call it as it is. Heartless? Hardly. Unkind? Only to those that threaten me or my family. Resentful? Nope. Not too lovable? Nope, totally lovable? Angry at the world? Naah, just stupid people.
So, perhaps since this is what's at the top of your thought process, perhaps a little introspection would be in order? ;-)
Hello?! Japan just defeated its conservative government.
@sophia5:
Whew! Well, you really stated OUR brand of conservatism quite succinctly. Congrats. It's all about "butching up," isn't it? But there are other brands of conservatism (e.g. Asia's, as other posters have mentioned), and we must not get ourselves confused, as we do perpetually, that ours is THE conservativism, or there is no other kind.
Our national electoral system is two-party winner-take-all. It is therefore essentially conservative as per your definition. That's why the Dem Party inevitably drops the ball and the Repugs spend so much of their waking hours snickering.
But it's become a very boring exercise. People are beginning to see how it doesn't really serve them. Maybe the assumed dichotomy will change. Maybe we'll get a viable third party finally. Then the Repugs will have to loose their snicker and the Dems will have to find their back bone.
Let these deluded lefties dream on. The sleeping giant of Obamacare has caused the moderates and Independents to look again at the smooth talking "communtiy organizer" and the Chicago Rezko crowd. And the Rev. Wright surely gave him spiritual guidance.
2010 both the House and Senate return to adults, and 2012, the Presidency returns from foray into Democrat's socialist ideals.
and the way time is flying faster as you age, it will not be long. Just wonder if this so called bastion of journalism will be here. It is worse than the Daily Kos.
@sophia
There's just so much balderdash in your post it's hard to pick which part to respond to. So I'll just chose the part where you lied your ass off.
"Liberals are referring to dissenters as "Brown Shirts, Nazis."
That would be your folks and there's miles of news video tape to prove it. But you know that and just thought you'd slide the perversities of today's GOP right across the aisle. Just couldn't let you do it. Nope---
Your side owns the signs with Obama tricked out as Hitler, your side owns the morally corrupt position of using the true horrors of Nazi Germany to support your agenda---which you are free to do in this country! That's the final disgusting irony. Your side waves their ugly signs in front of the cameras, shouts whatever they want and then goes home for a nice dinner,
safe and sound with no fear of reprisals.
Tanenhaus says it all when he says "These conservatives today are heartless. They are really heartless." He's got you pegged.
StellaRay wrote:
Your side owns the signs with Obama tricked out as Hitler, your side owns the morally corrupt position of using the true horrors of Nazi Germany to support your agenda---which you are free to do in this country! That's the final disgusting irony. Your side waves their ugly signs in front of the cameras, shouts whatever they want and then goes home for a nice dinner,
safe and sound with no fear of reprisals.
_________________________________
*** If it's "a morally corrupt position" to compare a president to Hitler, then you and your ideological ilk had better come to terms your own sins.
You can't seriously believe that conservatives "own" the president-equals-Hitler comparison.
And if you do, join me in a trip down Memory Lane as we see how another recent president got the exact same "ugly sign" treatment from your side.
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
Too funny!
sophia5 wrote:
When did we become a country of overweight, over sensitive pussies ?
"You're so mean, you're so heartless."
Politics has always been a heartless game from the right, and the left.
Butch up.
___________________________________
*** Well stated, Sophia5.
I see your post has drawn plenty of spitballs from the cheap seats, but I always know I've won the argument when the other side starts attacking me instead of my position.
Similarly, I always know when my ideological side is winning in the marketplace of ideas when our opponents stop challenging what we're saying and start whining about the way we're saying it.
The result is usually what we see in Mr. Siegel's column: an inadvertently funny projection-fest.
Classically, he sobs about conservatives adopting a philosophy in "rigid absolutism that expresses itself in a politics of destruction and mechanical negativity."
Oh, please! Like we aren't witnessing the same absolutism, negativity and politics of destruction from the proponents of government health care?
Let's see ... Pelosi refuses to compromise on the public option. Pelosi calls town hall protesters "Astroturf," despite the fact that many of these folks bring homemade signs and look like greeters at Walmart.
Contrast that with Obama's minions -- the SEIU, ACORN and other rent-a-mobs -- who come to the meetings in identically colored shirts, waving identically printed signs.
Siegel is welcome to his own political fantasies, but given the plummeting poll numbers of Obama, the health care bill and prominent Democrats like Harry Reid and Jon Corzine -- not to mention the recent Gallup poll that found that conservatives outnumber liberals in all 50 states -- any new book called "The Death of Conservatism" is about as timely as "The 2009 Guide to Stagecoach Repair."
Actually, there are no booms or busts in a 'real world' economy. That only occurs in a Goldman Sachs regulated Fractional Federal Reserve System, which Thos. Jefferson viewed as a sure fire way for Americans to lose all of their wealth. But what does 'Tommy' know? Right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE&feature=player_embedded
Let's see if anyone can recognize 'truth'.
I want this book! The author of this article has an impressive vocabulary. I had to look up 4 words. What wonderful insight the book seems to make...
I had to look up revanchism.
Hats off to you Lee Siegel. Superb article.
In my adult life, it has been the democratic presidents who left a surplus or were revenue neutral (Carter and Clinton), and of course inversely, Reagan and the Bushes, left us with huge deficits, talk about following the elephants in a parade. Words or deeds, talk is cheap. I loved William F. Buckley (talk about looking up words), especially when he locked horns with Gore Vidal. We all become liberals in heart when we are about to meet our maker.
puarau I want some of what your on, you must be joking about Carter, who had 25% 9nflation 27% interest rates , forced a bill to make banks and lending institutions make home loans to people who couldn't qualify like everyone else.
Clinton came along and up the ante, to allow those that couldn't qualify to allow welfare checks to be used as income to qualify.
The last Democrat to make a tax cut was John F. Kennedy, get your facts straight.
Buckley was an icon for the brain trusts of this world, sad to see him go.
seed - you should share some of your stash too. So the inflation and high interest rates at the end of the Carter admin were entirely the result of things that took place in his 4 years? PLEASE!!! That is what just kills me about you neo-cons - you won't take any responsiblity for what your side screws up. Policy in this country until recently has been bipartisan. You and Sophia5 should hook up.
Seed managed to talk about everything BUT avoid Puarau's assertion that: it has been the democratic presidents who left a surplus or were revenue neutral (Carter and Clinton), and of course inversely, Reagan and the Bushes, left us with huge deficits.
I guess Seed DOES agree that Republican's talk the talk but can't walk the walk!
jonnyappleseed: Put this in your pipe, home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html
Let's see...Carter had our military in ruins and we were so feared that a bunch of Iranian college student's took a bunch of our people hostage. Clinton enabled what the terrorists completed against the Cole and the twin towers. Yes, they didn't spend any money on things that mattered...like...oh, the safety of the country. Yes the Iraq was is arguably misguided, but the financial system was a mess before we went in as a ripple effect of 9/11.
And the CIA provided the training and equipment for the mullahs, not to mention printing presses for cranking out counterfeit $100 bills. That's why we should not entrust "the safety of the country" to the idiots in the CIA, whoever is in office. The suggestion that the students attacked only because they thought Carter was a wimp is absurd. They were in part reacting against the CIA enabled state aggression.
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Hey easyrider, dude. The world trade towers were being planned long before Bush took office and while Clinton was wagging the dog, they were enabled to carry out their planning.
Sorry Humor: but doesn't the fact that the 9/11 attack was being planned prior to Bush and the fact that his administration had evidence of the need for vigilence and did nothing presuppose that your argument has no real need for partisan targeting? In other words, doesn't your comment prove Bush was just as bad as Carter or Clinton, and thus your argument can't be made for one side of the political spectrum or the other?
I appreciate your service (you have no idea how much I respect it), but I think this argument has gotten off track.
I might even posit that the reason we've seen such large deficits from Republicans in the past is due to LONG term military contracts which last well beyond their presidency. These contracts tend to be spent on military systems and NOT the everyday needs of our service men and women (like armour) or the needs of our veterans (see the fact that the Obama administration has decided to spend so much on veterans to make up for the cuts the Bush administration put into place and to do more; not being partisan, just stating a fact).
@Johnnyappleseed and Natural Selection
From what I can summarize you are losing this argument in a major way. You are throwing smoke and mirrors up to responses about deficits. Please resond directly at the core issue of deficits created by Democratic versus Republican administrations. This is a subject that the right has continually sold as their bread and butter (particularly with regard to controlled spending and lower taxes). I'm curious to hear your defense.
Fantastic article...I'll certainly be reading Mr. Tanenahus' book with your critique in mind.
If conservatism isn't dead, the viscous talking heads who preach it should be. The current line up, Glen Beck, Limbaugh,
Savage etc are all candidates for the 'nervous hospital'.
Conservatism isn't dead. This is such a shock title to hook people like convolved into having a wet dream. Remember, scottie, the liberals have their fair share of nut bag talking heads as well. I could name names, but you get the point.
I would agree with McHugh, this stuff goes in cycles.
I think he means a certain kind of conservatism (much more level headed and steeped in the belief that the government is a tool for reappropriation and the facilitation of states' rights) has died and been replaced with anitgovernment fiscal reactionism by way of cultural "advisers" who posit harsh, abrasive opinions.
Are you sure you can name names? I'd like to see them.
Thanks for the lovely book report, Mr. Siegel. At least you're off the topic of healthcare for the moment, a subject about which you know pretty close to nothing.
Not pretty close, who doesn't know anything about, it only looks good to write about it
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i too was transfixed by buckley. there hasn't been another to take his place. sounds like a very interesting book.
Why does everyone feel that Buckley was so great? He was to the manor born, never had to wait tables, mow lawns, caddie or set up pins, like most other Americans of his age. He had no idea how most people live..just one paycheck away from disaster. He was good with words and could talk rings around many people, but being conservative was easy for him like it is for many people with money or being born 'elite'. He did not speak for the middleclass person.
Don't forget, Coulter called Christians, 'perfected Jews,' and talked about putting rat poison in Justice Stevens' coffee.
When Jews aren't around, Palin's church preaches that Auschwitz and terror against Israel is devine retribution for not accepting the Christian lord. I saw a video of Hagee telling his congregation that "Hitler was Jewish, as was Karl Marx." He also told them that the anti-Christ would be "Jewish," and "a homosexual."
Huckabee: 'It would be easier to change the Constitution, than change the word of the lord.'
Evangelicals love Israel, but hate Judaism and Jewish culture.
Here's an oxymoron: conservative Jews.
Conservatism can drop dead.
Misha! Where is the love in your progressive heart?
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These uneducated Christians scare me with their Jew hatred. Here we go again...Hitlerism is back and right here in the U.S. Palin is dumb as mud. How she got to the public stage is beyond me.
Artrhur Schlesinger's analysis of the cycles of American political history supports mcmchugh99's observation. It's clear from this stimulating debate about what sounds like a seminal book that we are in need of new nomenclature .Borrowing from trhe 19th century, Today;s Republican leaders might be called the Know Nothings- and the arrogant left are clearly members of the Know Everything.party. Perhaps better still,- following Humor-in-Uniform we should divide threm between the Fatties (the liberal left) and the Skinnies( (the tight-fisted right).
That's right. Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. was also a historian, and described these cycles 100 nears ago. He predicted a reform era in the 1930s long before it happened. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. continued his father's work, and told the Kennedy's and LBJ that the 1960s would be another reform cycle. I think many politicians realized for a long time that something like this was really happening in US political history, and LBJ talked about the cycles in his autobiography "The Vantage Point".
I learned about these cycles from my major professor, Charles Forcey, about 30 years ago, although he called them "waves". He was the one who told me about the double conservative wave in the late-19th Century, which mark Twain called the Gilded Age. This was followed by a double reform wave in 1900-20 that historians call the Progressive Era.
Forcey told me that the 1890s was a near-miss as a reform era since president Grover Cleveland was unable to ride the reform wave; he was too rigid and inflexible in his views. This is where I got the idea that the 1990s was another failed reform wave under Bill Clinton, partially because of his own natural centrism and moderation. At any rate, reform just fizzled on him, and he became like another Grover Cleveland--a conservative Democratic president rather than a great reformer.
Since we had a conservative era for the last 30 years that was longer than the normal length, this is why I think we are going to get a reform wave now that will last at least a decade, maybe longer. It's not going to end in just a year or two, since too many problems were neglected in the Second Gilded Age of the last 30 years.
If we get a double reform wave, then this period really will be a Second Progressive Era.
Well put. That makes perfect sense.
I agree that the pendulum swings back and forth. I am old enough to have experienced it. But if we don't get the money out of the system we are going to end up with the corporations running everything. The parties (liberal and conservative) along with everyone else, except for the very wealthy, will be left by the side of the privatized road. We need, but will probably never get, public funding of elections.
In the 1800's, there were 'Panics' about every 10 years due to unbridled capitalism. It happened again under Bush when they took off regulations of companies, banks, etc. From now on I hope we will always regulate capitalists or we, the middle class, will pay, as usual.
newswoman
In the 1800's, there were 'Panics' about every 10 years due to unbridled capitalism. It happened again under Bush when they took off regulations of companies, banks, etc. From now on I hope we will always regulate capitalists or we, the middle class, will pay, as usual.
_______________________________________
*** And you seriously think that we, the middle class, won't pay for the $9 trillion (and counting) deficit the Obama administration has run up for the next 10 years?
Even Geithner recently acknowledged that he couldn't rule out a middle class tax hike.
Or did you actually believe Obama's fairy tale about no tax hike for 95 percent of Americans?
Whether or not Obama and Congress spend away at improving life for the Grand Canyon between the Haves and the Have nots (who used to be the middle class) we will be paying for generations on the spending policies of every Republican elected to office for the last umpteen years. Iraq war anyone? No bid Halliburton contracts?? Please folks the numbers are readily available on what political party has spent what while they were in office, look them up and make informed statements. What kills me is that the Repugnants prey on the poorest of the poor in the Midwest with no medical insurance and missing teeth and somehow have them convinced that Obama is evil and could do anything but improve their lot in life.When you are neck deep in crap the best course of action is to grab the rope being offered. Obama is the rope. Save yourselves please!
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So tell us all what the hell you have ever done to make our country better?You insult the dead that tells me all i need to know about your sorted character!
Oh yeah, The Liberals are the Ruling Class, oppressing all those Nobly Suffering Conservatives. You have *got* to turn me on to your dealer, he obviously gets you some amazing stuff.
Mixed, I agree that the Liberals are not the ruling class, but they are trying to be and we must stop them at every turn & at all cost.Glenn for Pres.
BRUCE MAJORS:
TEDDY KENNEDY
TEDDY KENNEDY
TEDDY KENNEDY
TEDDY KENNEDY
TEDDY KENNEDY
Major Blowhard - love the purple prose! I await you and yours marching down my street, "come the revolution;" you'll have a little surprise waiting for you!
HA!!!! Your party won't have squat waiting except some diplomacy and apologies.
Childish drivel. "Come the revolution" ... how 20th century of you.
Yes. Bush/Cheney take the country from surplus to deficits and somehow, Kennedy's responsible for 'debt slavery'. You are in some whole, other bizarro reality.
And you sound like a serial killer in waiting. Then again, you're a conservative, so it's tough to tell...
What ugly sentiments. You don't have to like Ted Kennedy. Just say so without the smears. We know Kennedy's mistakes, but what about the many other congressmen who have done similar things? Newt Gingrich was having an affair when he castigated President Clinton for the same! He admitted it on TV. Gov. Sanford, etc.
Crapulent, eh? You mean farty.
If you fly into Singapore it makes very clear on the Immigration form you fill out on the plane that drug possession is "punishable by death." Is this cruel? They don't have a drug problem.
In Hong Kong you go once a year to the "IRS" and there is someone sitting at a bare desk with only a calculator. he will ask you how much you made last year, and once you tell him, he will multiply that by 12% and ask you kindly to provide a check for that amount. Additionally, it is the tradition for business to provide workers with a bonus equivalent to one month salary at the end of the year- which is close to the tax amount. There are very few homeless people in Hong Kong.
In communist China corporation pay half the income tax that American corporations pay.
In Singapore the have a social net that is based on everyone paying into their own savings account and building up equity over time to cover retirement, education and other such expenses.
There is truth in what mcmchugh99 says, but there also is this dynamism and energy at the small business level thta we seem so intent to destroy in this Country. This is especially true of Obama, who sees small business at odds with elite Liberalism, and wants to tax it out of existence.
BTW: Virtually everyone has a multi currency bank account, where many poorly educated shop owners try to make money trading currencies, something that is probably even beyond the best educated in our Country.
Dynamic capitalism lives in Asia, though hampered by Statism to a large extent
One definite answer: making drug possession punishable by death is not only cruel but utterlly repulsive and stupid. We have a "drug problem" here because of our obsessive focus on the criminalization of what human beings have done forever: get high. You take a small problem and make it into a big, but very profitable, one.
Your conspiracy-theorizing about Obama's supposed wish to destroy small business is based on nothing. Obama does indeed seem to be in bed with the banks, but (here's a news flash) those who own the banks are not liberals.
Obama has made it very clear in his tax policy that he sees small business as a financial pinata to fund his big government - crony capitalism extension of George Bush programs.
Repulsive? There is not a drug problem in Singapore, while our acceptance of deviant behavior has created a war zone on our mexican border where innocent people are getting killed and has devastated our urban communities. That is repulsive to me.
neverlate: How can Obama use small business as a financial pinata to fund his big government after giving them tax breaks this year?
Regarding drugs, Prohibition create a war zone in Chicago and other places. Legalizing alcohol terminated the war. I suspect the same thing would happen if we legalized all drugs. This would also save us a lot of tax dollars by cutting our prison population in half.
Free drug use, it works so well in the Netherlands, look at their problems compared to none in Singapore.
No system works unless those incharge have the guts to do what they say they will do,once they are elected.
Another person using drugs is a choice they made, why should I pay to support bad and poor behavior?
Obama knows little or nothing about small business, he is not alone in that boat, most elected Democrats know even less.
Johnnyappleseed, please specify the problems you are aware of in the Netherlands. Singapore may be your ideal place, but it wasn't what Jefferson and Madison had in mind, nor would most Americans want to live under a regime that has you caned for chewing gum and shot for smoking dope.
Neverlate, it is not our "acceptance of deviant behavior" that has created the problems you describe, it is our non-acceptance of it. Prohibition has again created hugely profitable criminal enterprises that are more than happy to engage in bribery and murder. It's what criminals do.
Johnnyappleseed: Yeah. In a dictatorship like Singapore you can force citizens to do just about anything you want.
Personally, I'll stick with freedom, accepting occasional glitches. Feel free to move to Singapore. In fact, please do.
neverlate/Appleseed: you two carp about creeping government power under liberals yet you applaud Singapore's draconian social controls?
Typical Conservative denial of reality. Please, oh please move to Singapore.
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Oh, and Communist China is as "Communist" as Augusto Pinochet. Authoritatian, absolutely. Oppressive, you bet. Communist? In name only.
Since when are Dems the elitists? They are the ones who care about the middle class, blue collar workers, unions, God bless them, children the poor and the sick and senior citizens. The Reps care about big business, low taxes on the rich and companies, keeping money in off shore accounts, etc. TALK ABOUT ELITISTS!
"These conservatives today are heartless. They are really heartless."
Oh, really?
How many women have those conservatives let drowning in a car to get away?
They would rather go after the living, ever heard of a living hell?
those conservatives.
Chappaquiddick was a fuck-up, no doubt about it. How many conservatives do you think would look better than Ted Kennedy if reduced to the worst thing they ever did, or even the worst pattern and practice they ever engaged in?
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What lack of remorse? Where are you getting your "facts?"
dabeall! You realize you could apply the same exact sentence to Cheney and Bush over Iraq where the consequences were ten thousand times as severe.
But you never, ever will, you hypnotized sheep. You never will. You've only got the guts to shit on a dead man you only know as a cariacature.
A more important question: how many women would those conservatives force to die for their babies, even babies that were fathered by rapists or family members? If they could, it would be 100%. How many women would those conservatives force us to plug into life support, vegetating in the name of sanctity of life, technically dead but still breathing? Again, 100%. Conservatives hate freedom, they'd impose their religious mores on everyone else in a heartbeat, given the chance.
The only freedom they care about is the freedom for the rich to exploit the poor, because it's the rich who get them re-elected. It's a simple, greed-driven fee for services. They want to turn our government into a pay-to-play system, a system that's on sale to the highest bidder. To hell with the people who elected them. What's so wrong about it is that Republican voters are so blinded by identity politics that all they see is whether the politician is One of Us. As long as he is, he could grind them into the dirt, and they'd be too ignorant (or too misinformed by Faux News) to recognize it.
This response is, I think, the most to the point. A true conservative would be repulsed by the concept of choosing leaders on the basis of whom one would most like to drink beer with. Or ending an awkward sentence with a preposition.
One thing about it tehixe, you are full of it.
C.Everret Koop former Surgeon General, who was a OB (obstetrician) for over thirty years stated he never had a case that the mothers life was threatened enough to preform an abortion, rape and incest are minor compared to the abortions done as a means of getting rid of an unwanted baby, it's amounts to surgical birth control, nothing more, nothing less.
Johnnyappleseed your ignorant response exemplifies not only the heartless conservative but the brainless one as well.
Show me the source for the Koop quotation, liar.
Johnnyappleseed: Assuming you didn't make the quote up, who cares? It is what you call anecdotal evidence, i.e. it may as well not be evidence. One doctor's experience doesn't prove anything at all.
Regardless, the point is hypocrisy and hatred of freedom. You say you don't like government intrusion in private lives, and yet you want the government to intrude into potentially every marriage, every pregnancy, and every end of life decision. You are entitled to your opinion on abortion. I respect it. I even agree with it, to an extent. But unlike you, I recognize that I do not have the right to force people to do things my way. This is something that is a deeply personal moral, philosophical, and religious choice. The fact that you want to jail or execute those who make the choice differently from you is what makes you so despicable. That is why you and yours are heartless.
ortega: I seem to remember that Laura Bush killed somebody by running a stop sign.
Grow up. Everybody in America makes mistakes. It's just that some are bigger than others. We all need forgiveness - not hatred.
Or sucked the brains out of an unborn child, and aborted it?
Johnnyappleseed: This is legal under the law of our land. Do do believe in the rule of law, don't you?
By the way, most of the abortions done in the manner you describe are done to preserve the woman's capability to have more children. The fetuses are typically already dead or have such devastating genetic abnormalities that they could not survive very long after birth.
Oh go suck an egg. You have no idea about abortions. First of all, late term abortions are SELDOM performed. And when they are it is because the fetus is deformed in a way that it could not live outside the womb: i.e. it has 1/3 of a brain, or the kidneys are outside the body. As for abortion in general; they are legal!! Get it? It is nobody's business if I or my daughters have an abortion. You have no idea what happens in a person's life that they might consider the prospect. Mind you own business.
How many US soldiers, both men and women, have lost lives and limbs in a war which had no reason to be fought?
How many people in New Orleans did Conservatives let drown?
Then I'm sure neither of those things makes any sort of dent on the shriveled little thing you call a conscience.
What decade were you last in Asia??? Right now China is emulating Canada in its tax rates and laws. They are also working very hard on trying to get a public health care system. Mainly by studying various European systems.
Americans are sad. Especially the educated ones. They think they are special and elite when all they have managed to do is become what most of the world considers average.
I agree with you to a point. Americans are victims of our own success over the years. We are not very globally conscientious. Part of that is due to our geographic isolation; part due to our isolationist mentality as a nation. We perceive ourselves to be the best at everything (and in many respects we are very good at certain things), but over the years we allowed our successes and mentality to make us complacent. We have trouble adapting to the realities not only of the world in general, but also of our own nation. We choose not to see many ways we could improve because improving would mean we weren't perfect before. The rest of the world sees us as "sad" or arrogant, but America is a big place with big issues.
There's a great deal of spirit for change here. We are a people (as disjointed as we are) who can rise to the betterment of not only ourselves but our fellow man. The founders wanted that for their country. They wanted us to be an example of change and leadership in the world. We read the Constitution and think that it is a document of stone, inflexible and unchangeable, but that isn't the case. Our government was designed to change to adapt to evolve. We don't always agree with what it should be changing to, but it was never meant to be stagnant.
I respect Reagan in a lot of ways, but he was wrong; Government is not the problem. Our individual complacency and fear of change is. There's a reason all the Kennedy's and Obama were and are so well liked and respected. They spoke and speak to our aspirations as a country and as people. They called us all to do more and be better. And they used the government to make that happen.
We aren't "sad ... special and elite" (most of us don't see ourselves as betters), but we are a bit lost right now. Over the past decade we've wandered off our track, led primarily by our government. We've engaged in torture (or Enhanced Interrogation Techniques if you prefer). We've cut support to our impoverished (particularly by way of programs that help people help themselves and become the muscle and not the fat of our nation, to borrow from an earlier post). And we've lost our ability for rational national discourse (as can be seen by the town halls where protest has given way to disruption). We've been in the wilderness, but now it's time to find our way back to the path we created.
what's an "Ur-conservative?"
Ur I don't know, but er something.
The biggest problem with current conservative Republican's they aren't remotely what they try and tell voters they are. I voted for Reagan back in the 80's because he touted smaller government, less spending and etc. But, when he got into office he proceeded to bloat the federal government with useless military hardware, the deficit went up and little else that was useful to normal people got done. That's when the term homeless first surfaced. I learned very quickly current Republican's under conservative guidance have split personalities. What they claim to be is not the product you get in the end. They rail against government interference in ones lives when it comes to guns but devote their energies to stamping out gays, abortion and sexual freedoms. In fact, they do it when the economy is imploding all they continue to worry about are gays marrying and abortion. They are against government spending until it's for some military use then the sky is the limit. I learned years ago not to believe a word that comes out of their lying conservative mouths.
I guess it wasn't all the "useless military hardware" that kept the USSR from annexing us? Just good liberal intentions.
No, the USSR was just interested in annexing Alaska. They could see it from their porch, and could bare resist.
MAD? What madness.
Nat
It is still too early for you to come out from under your desk, that kept.....should be keeps according to your education. So duck and cover forever.
My education? At least I can write in coherent sentences? You thin skinned people can't see how easy you are to rile up.
Natrual/Humor:
Not riled up, just disagreeing. We found out that the USSR wasn't nearly as powerful as they proported in the end. I think mutual agression caused a stalemate in the case of the cold war.
Reagan is not the 'saint' he is said to be. He fired the air traffic controllers, which I think set a terrible precedent, and he closed mental institutions and sent mental patients out on the streets with no protection nor anywhere to go.
Saint, my a**.
Exactly - I never saw any group of people so beaten down as the air traffic controllers of that time.Their reasons for striking were totally valid - granted their presence or absence affected public safety but Reagan's cold hearted response is what soured me on being a repugnant back in the day.
Homeless on the streets was not the huge deal that it is today because those not there for purely economical reasons were able to be taken care of by the medical community - no one in their right mind or not in the grip of a substance abuse problem would choose that lifestyle. Since Reagan they are on the streets everywhere instead of managed care systems where they belong and heaven forbid a normal person runs out of gas or needs a ride because no one will help you for fear of them, that's republican progress for ya. If someone at the gas station needs a buck or 2 for gas are you able to believe them and give them the money??? yeah I thought not, and it's sad, truly sad.
Conservatism has been replaced by Yakocracy -- rule of the talk-show hosts.
After a generation of a virtual monopoly of right-wing propaganda on American talk radio, the Republican "base" is programmed to accept right-wing blather as gospel.
As new right-wing talk-show hosts come into the market, each must try to outdo the other with more and more cases of manufactured outrage to inflame their audiences -- where we have now arrived in the fantasy land of FEMA concentration camps, AmeriCorps private armies and death panels for granny.
.
Since the Republican base "hears and obeys" these cynical talk show hosts (whose only real interest is ratings) with slavish, cultlike devotion, Republican officeholders must defer to the nonsense and get out in front of the know-nothing mob.
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you've correctly got the left, they constantly project but i doubt you or anyone is capable of getting them to see it. however, maybe they have a right to be a bit paranoid because the right would readily shove their cultural view on all of us if they could. the right is confused by secularism and probably thinks it's a leftist plot.
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dabeall
ah, common ground. don't you just love the nine black robed oligarchy? not!
Oh yeah, the "wisdom of their audiences," like their "wisdom" that Obama is a Kenyan.
As with any con, when those yakkers keep telling the rubes they're smart, it doesn't mean they're really smart. It just makes them easier "marks."
How cute. Dabeall thinks those big media shouters actually believe what they are saying and care about the little folks like him.
dabeal
Hard to know what teacher you ever had, but the Constitution of the US says nothing of the sort...forbids the got't from preventing the people from bringing their rel. beliefs into the public and gov't realms. What an absurdity !
This country was founded by people whose religious practices were forbidden by authority, and the aim was to prevent further interference by gov't authority. This means the gov't cannot lock the doors of whatever religion you want to practice. It protects your practice and freedom of religion, but does not grant you the right to inflict your religion on others.
Separation of church and state follows from your right to practice as you will, and specifically prevents you from forcing your religious belief on others including the government.
Nice try.
How you feel you are entitled to put your spin on th
on the Constitution of the United States is beyond me.
dabeall
Oh, I know why--you are trying to wrangle a free copy of the book about Mr. Buckley, the intellectual, by showing your utter ignorance. Don't think it will work.
The wisdom and views of their audience wow what a hoot. Let's all bow down before a bloated hypocrytical windbag so he can yell sweet nothings to us. Telling us what we want to hear because it's much easier to blame others instead of acknowledging our mistakes and trying to fix them.
Glenn Beck can't even spell. He tried to spell OLIGARCHY, but it came out OLIGARHY! what a no-nothing. And conservatives think he is someone to listen to about politics? Whew! Where are the intelligent Reps? Are there any left? Do they all believe in death panels, Fema camps, etc.?
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dabeall: How convenient that you conservatives can label anybody in your party that you don't like as a RINO.
Within a few years, you will be the only "true conservative" left. Good luck.
P.S. All evidence suggest that Christian conservatives are on a crusade to subjugate the rest of us and force all of us to live in an oppressive Christian America. Sort of like Iran is today...
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dabeall: Perhaps you will believe Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church.
"And I'm going to tell you something. I hate Barack Obama. You say, well, you just mean you don't like what he stands for. No, I hate the person. Oh, you mean you just don't like his policies. No, I hate him.
"Now, turn back to Psalm 58 and let me ask you this question. Why should Barack Obama melt like a snail? Why should Barack Obama die like the untimely birth of a woman? Why should his children be fatherless and his wife a widow, as we read in this passage?
Well, I will tell you why. Because, since Barack Obama thinks it is OK to use a salty solution, right, to abort the unborn, because that's how abortions are done, my friend, using salt -- and I would like to see Barack Obama melt like a snail tonight.
"You are going to tell me that I'm supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth (INAUDIBLE) everything? You are going to tell me I am supposed to pray for God to give him a good lunch tomorrow while he's in Phoenix, Arizona?
"No. I am not going to pray for his good. I am going to pray that he dies and goes to hell."
This sounds like a guy on a crusade to me. I'm sure you can find other examples.
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dabeall: Abortion is the law of the land. People are entitled to different opinions, but if you don't like the law, work to see that Congress changes it.
When you demonize your opponents, call them killers (as you implicitly do), and pray for their deaths (as Anderson does), you are on a crusade.
AlanD2 is nothing but a baby killing low life.
He will rot in Hell when the Lord comes again, but selfish fools like him live for themselves, for today.
And then have the nerve to call conservatives heartless? They are too funny to be taken seriously, just patted on the head like a 3 year old, and say um hum, ok, play with your dolls now.
BullMoose: I love your cogent arguments. Unfortunately for you, they merely confirm my belief that people like you and your religious-right buddies are on a crusade to take over America, imposing your so-called "morality" on the rest of us.
BullMoose: By the way, I just wanted to ask.
How is it that I am "nothing but a baby killing low life", while conservatives like you and your pro-life buddies are righteous?
You know, of course, that your opposition to health care reform directly leads to the death of 22,000 uninsured Americans each year. These Americans would have lived if they had had access to medical treatment (which universal health care would provide).
Oppressive statist boot. Are you keeping a straight face as you type
that? What a pity the Berlin Wall has come down and you can't go live
there and suffer nobly. You might like China, though -- oppressive
statist boots galore, and they believe in capitalism too (though they
might call it something else).
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People, why don't you see that talking to dabeall is like arguing with a dining room table? It's a pointless endeavor. Are his views the result of ignorance, psychosis, or malevolence? Who knows? Who cares? Nothing is gained by talking to him as if he was a reasonable thinking human being. Best to treat him like furniture.
I do agree that Republicans have abandoned politics for culture. It's the only avenue that they have left for influencing the debate.
The problem with selling conservative culture is that they're currently selling it to septuagenarians.
Their cultural audience is getting smaller every day.
The left is always shaping our culture. Why is this a problem when it's done by the right? Seems there's a different standard for conservatives. Or is it just unacceptable when it's not one's own version of culture being promoted?
take the marbles out of your mouth...your not making any sense at all. People on the right are "shaped" by the word of God and people on the left are shaped by Al Gore. Why is this so difficult to figure out.
Ayn Rand is a better voice of reason and the right than William F. Buckley ever was, and he knew it. She understood socialism better than most having been born in Russia prior to the October Bolshevik Revolution.
As her now famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, was released in late 1957 Buckley commissioned Whittaker Chambers to write a review of the book for the National Review in December, 1957. That review entitled "Big Sister is Watching You" was liked by Buckley so much that he reprinted it in 2005 to celebrate 50 years of publishing his National Review. More than anything it shows that Buckley is no accidental enemy of Ayn Rand and a large segment of right thinking individuals.
Properly Buckley may be regarded as as a pompous stooge who postured as some sort of right wing conservative thinker, but was just part of the fraud being committed on the country and the world. Buckley was a puppet of a Shadow Government and a welcome member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the institution behind whose doors the phony loudest voices of the public enemies (left and right) drop their phony enmity and embrace and snicker knowingly.
If Buckley wrote books that did not receive favorable reviews, I'd be willing to bet that they would never come close to the slander and lies written in his journal about Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Maybe he could have commissioned a Whittaker Chambers facsimile to praise his phony shit.
And Buckley FAILED miserably in his attempt to keep people from reading her Rand's work and her opus "Atlas Shrugged" which even today continues to sell very well.
Too bad Rand was one of the worst writers ever to set pen to paper...verbose, trite, romanticized drivel. She had a few interesting ideas -- and her characterization of Toohey was very frightening...which is funny, because this character, who is supposed to embody all that is evil about communism -- sums up exactly the blood-sucking corporate turds that are currently destroying the country...so much for the noble conservative!
Rand always assumed that the people with the drive and the cash are also 100% unimpeachable saints who triumph over every ill and are completely noble at heart...and as we all see every day, we are all very much human and prone to wickedness as the sparks fly upwards.
Toohey could be a perfect representative of those intellectuals selected by the elitist who created "Operation Mockingbird", the New Yawk intellectual, so to speak. I think the "blood-sucking corporate turds" to whom you refer were clearly identified by Rand in "Atlas Shrugged". You know the type, the business man that bends and scrapes for favoritism from the government like James Taggart in the novel, or General Electric in the real world.
This is one of the things that cracks me up the most -- that somehow, Conservatives and Randians have been convinced -- or convinced themselves -- that the greediest and most acquisitive among us are also the most virtuous and deserve to be leaders and shapers.
Have these people never met a used car salesman? No wonder they're willing to swallow the most ridiculous crap imaginable -- as long as a rich person or a daddy figure is feeding it to them. There truly is a sucker born every minute.
Do you also admire Rand's atheism?
While it's true she was an adamant atheist and that may have alienated her from many of the conservatives such as Buckley, I'm more of an agnostic. If there is a God, hopefully we'll all find out definitively someday, and sooner than later, is my humble hope.
Yes, as far as I'm also an atheist...I think I may revisit Atlas or the Fountainhead as it's been years. I suppose I can suffer through the verbosity as I read quickly *smile*
Uh-oh, someone went off their medication again. Perhaps it would be better if you went back to the basement with the foil hat on and leave this discussion to the grownups.
good grief. i did learn one thing after reading this gooey eyed luv letter to little annie; you don't have to be 18 to post here.
You'll notice that the one thing the Right will never answer to - as evidenced on this thread - is the reality that their "heroes" Reagan and Bush, left behind a legacy of bloated government and staggering deficits. And did nothing positive for the country. Thus their only refuge is their lame-ass and ineffectual "culture war". Which, by the way, you lost.
Wm Buckley, he da man!
I would like to think of social trending not just wild pendulum swings. Look at American society and what we vote on, gay rights, same sex marriage, abortion, gambling etc. Compare how we vote today with any period in our history and it is easy to see a slight left leaning progression.
We less and less want to meddle in our neighbors lives, vices and affairs. That is liberal. We look at America without those conservative rose colored glasses, we are able to compare our country to others without being traitors. We are not shackled by words and can leave "American exceptionalism" to the radio boys.
We may fall back into social conservatism from time to time but we always seem to gain more ground on the rebound than we lost. And I do think social conservatism is a loss for humanity. Especially since much if not most of it comes from the misinterpretation of the Old Testament.
wishful thinking on your part of some ideal world unity that most liberals fall for. Your idea that conservatism wants to "meddle" in the lives of others is completely hypocritical when liberals are the ones who want big government "meddling" in everyone's lives stealing from the rich and giving to the poor bull crap. You want big government to say what is and what isn't "morally" based and sound. You believe America is just another country that belongs to the world and we should apologize for past discretions. You lack the ability to think for yourself or act on your own impulses to better your life, instead you rely on King Obama to lead you to the promised land. So when you go "incognito" do you, in fact, wear rose colored glasses?
I've never heard of a liberal wanting the government to say what is and what is not "morally" based and sound. It is the desire of religious conservatives to legislate morality.
Bunk. Progressives have done a fine job of "following their impulses towards a better life" by voting conservatives out of office everywhere they can. The GOP is a regional southern party these days because progressives thought for themselves and voted no thank you to the party who damn near ran this country right into the ground in the last 8 years.
roadhunter
I've never heard of a liberal wanting the government to say what is and what is not "morally" based and sound.
________________________________________
*** Are you joking? In recent days, liberal elected officials have been desperately trying to frame their bloated, fizzling health care bill as a "moral imperative" ... and it starts right at the top:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/1800/mobilizing_relig ious_progressives_on_health_care_
"The one thing that you all share is a moral conviction," Obama is reported to have said. "This debate over health care goes to the heart of who we are as American people... This is part of an ethical and moral obligation that we look out for one another."
I (and Google) can supply a great many more examples of lib politicians trying to convince Americans that supporting the health care bill is some kind of religious duty.
So the New York Times Book Review editor writes an "era-defining" book purporting the death of conservatism..........The only question to the Times is why they didn't break this as a Front Page News Story! LOL
They're going out of business and needed to have paying customers on the cover.
Thank you.
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