Liberals talk, Conservatives act

[sailaway21]

Did anyone notice how Acedia managed to omit, from his list of most important human right's campaigns by the US, the winning of the second world war against Nazi and Japanese fascism and aggression. Similarly missing was the victory over that most progressive of ideologies, soviet communism. It's remarkable how unremarkable it is that the two movements, fascism and communism, that have killed more human beings than any other strife in the course of human events receive such short shrift from progressives.

Of course, this particular progressive chose to leave foreign policy aside, with the assurance that he could argue it well, which can only lead me to believe that he views the US, and it's history, as fundamentally flawed in the area of human rights, as those above conflicts are deemed of less significance than the struggles within the US. Begging the question, if freedom is so easily attained and maintained, why isn't there more of it in the world?

Sorry for hijacking the thread. I'm sure Acedia won't be able to "resist" explaining why liberal/progressives are so cheap either.

[poopdeckpappy]

Originally Posted by sailaway21

It's remarkable how unremarkable it is that the two movements, fascism and communism, that have killed more human beings than any other strife in the course of human events receive such short shrift from progressives.

That's because neither are dead, they are alive and well in the far left of the democratic party

Most frogs don't feel nor see it because they stay in the pot while the heat was continually increased

Those frogs that jump in & out see it as plan as the worts on their ass.........so to speak

[Sailormon6]

I love the way you liberals claim credit for everything good and blame Republicans/conservatives for everything else, even though the facts are precisely to the contrary. To aid yourselves in doing that, you use words to describe yourselves that cloud the waters. You call yourselves "Progressives" to suggest that you're responsible for all lasting change in this country. If a change lasts, then it must be a good change, and you claim credit for it. Slick!

Originally Posted by Acedia

Here are the half dozen or so most crucial social—most crucial human rights—most crucial (more or less) political—issues in American history, and how conservatives and liberals (I’d be inclined to use the term progressives) approached them.

Slavery vs. freedom. Conservatives supported slavery. Progressives supported an end to slavery.

As I pointed out in another thread, the Democrat Party, which I think you'll agree is the liberal party in the United States (or, if you wish, you can call it the Progressive Party) not only supported slavery, but shed a great deal of blood to perpetuate it. Less than a century after the founding of this nation, Democrats resisted the Republican Party's abolitionist movement. Southern Democrats sought to secede from the Union, and northern "Peace Democrats," advocated "peace at any cost."

The Peace Democrats blamed the North for pushing the South into secession, by threatening to abolish slavery. They contended that, if we Republicans had just minded our own business, and let the plantation owners continue to use their slaves to work the cotton fields, there wouldn't have been a Civil war. It was all our fault! (Kinda like the way many modern liberals blame the US for pushing terrorists into terrorism. As Rev. Wright said, within a few days after thousands of our innocent citizens died violent and terrifying deaths in the World Trade Center, and in commercial aircraft, "The chickens...have come home...to roost!) The Peace Democrats opposed the Abolitionist-Republicans, who were unalterably committed to establishing racial equality. That prospect was opposed by many Democrat working class immigrants who wanted to protect their low-paying jobs, and it was opposed by outright racists.

The Peace Democrats also claimed that President Lincoln had become a tyrant and was bent upon destroying civil liberties. (Kinda like the way many modern liberals claim President Bush has become a tyrant and is bent upon destroying civil liberties.) It's good to know the Democrats/Liberals/Progressives haven't changed their tactics since the Civil War. At least we know what to expect of them. It's also good to know that, over the long term, the Democrats will eventually be shown to be as wrong in their assessment of President Bush as they were in their assessment of President Lincoln.

After the Civil War, the Democrats, who dominated southern politics, found a plethora of ways to deny the vote to blacks, through violence, intimidation, and Jim Crow laws, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and similar laws that prevented blacks from acquiring and holding political and economic power. For nearly a century, power in the south was held exclusively by white Democrats, augmented by terror, and Democrats were the progenitors of segregation of schools, lunch counters, rest rooms, drinking fountains, and other public facilities, and of discrimination in employment.

Desegregation/Civil Rights Act of 1964/End of Jim Crow/In general, equality for Black Americans. Conservatives opposed it. Liberals fought for it.

Throughout the legislative process, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was supported far more strongly by Republicans than by Democrats.

Voting by party

The original House version:

• Democratic Party: 164-96 (63%-37%)
• Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)

The Senate version:

• Democratic Party: 46-22 (68%-32%)
• Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

The Senate version, voted on by the House:

• Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
• Republican Party: 186-35 (84%-16%)

How is it that you guys are all so consistent in getting your facts so wrong? Is it because you don't know your history, or that you don't care? Is it just easier to fabricate a tale than to stare truth in the eye?

[2Gringos]

“I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer, just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals . . . The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom, and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

Ronald Reagan

[Acedia]

Sailormon--

Are you actually asserting that Southern Democrats in 1964, who you include in your statistics of who voted for and against the Civil Rights Bill, were liberals? Your mistake is in an easy association of Democrats with liberals and Republicans with conservatives. While that equation may be mostly correct, in broad terms, today, it certainly wasn't in 1964. The Southern Democrats who resisted the Civil Rights movement, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, clearly were social conservatives, not liberals. To suggest, then, that it was somehow the liberals who tried to block Civil Rights because Southern Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act, and to claim the victory for social conservatives is, I think, either accidentally or willfully mistaken.

It is also clearly a mistake to equate Democrats--and certainly liberals--of today with the Democrats of 1860, ignoring the almost complete party realignment that took place between then and now, with Republicans generally coming to adopt socially conservative positions, largely in opposition to the progressive (and liberal) reforms of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, and with the realignment completing itself when the conservative Southern Democrats and (finally) conservative union/labor folks moved to the Republicans. But it was still--yes, essentially by definition--the social conservatives who sought to preserve slavery, and sought to preserve Jim Crow and resisted the movement to abolish them.

Now, if you are claiming that social conservatives rather than liberals were the force behind abolition, are you also going to claim for social conservatives the credit for the liberal American revolution of 1776, the passage of child labor and antitrust laws, women's right to vote and Social Security and health care for the elderly poor? Are you really going to try to adopt Frederick Douglass, Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, FDR and Martin Luther King as blood sisters/brothers, as conservatives?

Implicit in your argument is that you agree that the major social progressive movements of American history were right in their cause, though you seem to believe it was conservatives rather than, or more than, liberals who were responsible for them.

Dave.

[GreenEgg]

Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) recruited members for the Ku Klux Klan and uses the n-word, yet he was elected #1 Democrat over and over.
Harry Belafonte smears Colin Powell in a way that no Republican could ever do or would want to do, and he's applauded. Strom Thurmond was a Democrat when he held those segregationist views. Democrats – including Algore's own father - stood in the way of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. More Republicans voted for it than Democrats, or it would've failed. Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower integrated the schools.

Wallace, Maddox, Connor – all segregationists, all Democrats. The Kennedys secretly tapped Dr. Martin Luther King's phone calls to blackmail him. It was our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who wrote and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and we've been fighting for equality and judging people as individuals rather than members of groups ever since.

Byrd and Kennedy are liberals, now, in 2008. They are also Dems.

[Sailormon6]

Originally Posted by Acedia

Sailormon--

Are you actually asserting that Southern Democrats in 1964, who you include in your statistics of who voted for and against the Civil Rights Bill, were liberals? Your mistake is in an easy association of Democrats with liberals and Republicans with conservatives. While that equation may be mostly correct, in broad terms, today, it certainly wasn't in 1964. The Southern Democrats who resisted the Civil Rights movement, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, clearly were social conservatives, not liberals. To suggest, then, that it was somehow the liberals who tried to block Civil Rights because Southern Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act, and to claim the victory for social conservatives is, I think, either accidentally or willfully mistaken.

You don't seem to understand the fundamental nature of political parties. A political party is an organization that seeks to attain political power within a government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns. Parties often espouse a certain ideology and vision, but may also represent a coalition among disparate interests. In order to reconcile all the disparate interests within any one political party, the party must often compromise its claimed ideals. You assume that the southern racists in the Democrat Party were all economic or social conservatives. I don't know that to be true, and you haven't shown it to be true. All I know for sure about the southern racists in the Democrat Party is that they were racists, and they believed their lifestyle would be best preserved by associating with the Democratic Party, rather than with the abolitionist Republican Party. I also know that it took the mostly liberal Democrat Party 100 years to gather the political and moral courage to support the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Even then, I'm not so sure it's accurate to say the Democrats showed moral or political courage in doing so. I think it was more a matter of recognizing the political reality that, due to the efforts of Martin Luther King, black people were rapidly gaining a powerful political voice that could no longer be ignored, as the Party had ignored them for 100 years. The Democrats had to make a choice between losing the southern white vote, as a block, or losing the black vote throughout the entire United States, as a block. They didn't choose to support the 1964 Civil Rights Act out of a sense of justice. They did it because they could count the numbers of votes. If justice for black people had been their compelling motivation, they could have done the right and just thing at any time during the previous 100 years.

You'd like to separate the liberals, or Progressives, if you prefer, from the Democrat Party to escape responsibility for the sins of your party, but it won't work. The members of your party, be they liberal, conservative, or racist, are responsible for the actions of your party, and for all the indefensible moral compromises they all made in the interests of party unity and the accumulation of political power.

It is also clearly a mistake to equate Democrats--and certainly liberals--of today with the Democrats of 1860, ignoring the almost complete party realignment that took place between then and now, with Republicans generally coming to adopt socially conservative positions, largely in opposition to the progressive (and liberal) reforms of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, and with the realignment completing itself when the conservative Southern Democrats and (finally) conservative union/labor folks moved to the Republicans. But it was still--yes, essentially by definition--the social conservatives who sought to preserve slavery, and sought to preserve Jim Crow and resisted the movement to abolish them.

Well, let's be completely accurate, shall we. It was Democrat conservatives who sought to preserve slavery, and sought to preserve Jim Crow. Republican conservatives descended from the abolitionist tradition.

I'm not "...equating Democrats--or liberals--of today with the Democrats of 1860, ignoring the almost complete party realignment that took place between then and now...." I'm just pointing out that it sure took you guys a long time to get yourselves adjusted to the notion of racial equality after the Civil War, and I'm making sure you don't change or ignore the facts, or try to re-write history.

Are you really going to try to adopt Frederick Douglass, ...Susan B. Anthony,... as blood sisters/brothers, as conservatives?

Frederick Douglass is quoted as saying, "I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress." I guess that would make him a Progressive/Republican.

As for Susan B. Anthony, on November 18, 1872, she was arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshal (probably a Democrat, although I must confess, I haven't checked) for alleged illegal voting in the presidential election two weeks earlier. She wrote to Elizabeth Cady Stanton on the night of the election that she had "...positively voted the Republican ticket -- straight...". She was tried and convicted seven months later, despite the stirring and eloquent presentation of her arguments that the recently-adopted Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" the privileges of citizenship. She argued that, since the 14th Amendment contained no distinction as to sex, it gave women the constitutional right to vote in federal elections. The sentence was a fine, but not imprisonment; and true to her word in court, she never paid the penalty for the rest of her life.

If she had believed that your Democrats/Progressives were more supportive of her cause, it would be reasonable to conclude that she would have voted a straight Democrat ticket, instead of a straight Republican one.

So, yes, we'll claim Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony for the Republicans and the conservatives. If you Democrats/Progressives were at all supportive of Mr. Douglass and Ms. Anthony, you weren't there when they needed you. We were.

Implicit in your argument is that you agree that the major social progressive movements of American history were right in their cause, though you seem to believe it was conservatives rather than, or more than, liberals who were responsible for them.

Now you're catching on! You guys do lip service to civil rights, and you play the game of political power and compromise, but when the chips are down, we Republicans/Conservatives search our consciences and do the right thing, while you Liberals/Progressives/Democrats are dragging your feet.

[2Gringos]

“Liberals seem to assume that, if you don't believe in their particular political solutions, then you don't really care about the people that they claim to want to help”

Thomas Sowell

[sailaway21]

The reason Acedia wants to leave aside the last thirty or forty years for discussion is that he wished to claim the mantle of liberalism unobstructed by what liberalism has become. Liberalism or Progrssiveism, whichever you prefer, today no more resembles classic liberalsim than does a cat a dog. Modern day conservatives, which can be dated as those since the 1950's, are today's classic liberals. Classic liberalism can be best seen in the founding documents of the US. Those documents reflect an adherence to the classic principles of Greek and Roman democracy and the best thinking of the enlightenment. Their primary concern regarding government is one of limitation. You'll read little of what government purports to do within the Declaration or the Constitution but read much on what government is proscribed from doing. These are liberal documents. But not the type of liberalism that Acedia references.

I'll admit that I was waiting anxiously to see how he categorized Lincoln as a modern liberal Democrat. (g)

Classic liberalism, and modern conservatism, both agree that individuals are the best, and only, arbiters of their own best interests. The two Roosevelt's mentioned were heirs to this tradition and rejected it. The seeds of modern liberalism/progressivism were sown by them. The government, directed by enlightened leaders, became the arbiter of the citizen's best interests. Most Americans reject this and so tend to be moderately conservative.

Acedia performed a somewhat successful hijack of the thread apparently to let us know how much good that his version of liberalism has done down through the ages. What he has not done is explain the basis for the thread; why are liberals so damn cheap in their charitable giving?

[GreenEgg]

Speaking of Liberalism VS Conservatism, tonight at 8pm local time is the beginning of Earth Hour.

The idea is to turn off all lights between 8 and 9pm, as a symbolic movement that highlights a surging demand for power in the 'developed' world.

Here's my plan.....at 7:59 pm, I turn on every light fixture I own, and leave them on at full brightness for the full hour.
We also charged our mother-of-all-search-lights last night, and will lighting up the night sky with it, for a full hour.

If there really is a shortage of electricity, "they" shouldn't build any more new homes, and as long as I continue to pay my power bill, I won't have some socialist busybody tell me which lights I can use, and when.

Happy Earth Hour, everyone.