Responsiveness

Having not had many posts from readers to deal with up to now, I’ve not thought much of what I would do relative to responding to such posts. Like a lot of things, it will likely vary depending on workload, the weather, my mood, and a host of other topics, but this entry is my “general thinking”. I think the general policy will be to ignore the fray at the post level, and provide feedback from a blog entry if I think there are things posted that I feel like commenting on.

One poster seems to put a lot more meaning in “Republican vs Democrat” than I think was warranted prior to the 60’s, or maybe even that ‘70s. The election of Ronald Reagan ushered in a new Republican era in which Republicans were that party of less Government, free market capitalism, strong defense, and a set of values that prior to the ‘60s would have been “American” rather than have any chance of being “owned” by one party or another … pro-life, pro-family, pro-religion, pro-sexual morality, pro-individual responsibility, pro-hard work, etc. As Reagan said, he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left him. It left a lot of Americans.

Some attempted list of “this is all the good things that Democrats have done” is meaningless to me, especially prior to Reagan. I wasn’t old enough to know anything directly about JFK, but from what I understand … cutting taxes, anti-communist, let’s put a man on the moon, etc, he would have made a good post-Reagan Republican. Reagan himself was an FDR Democrat, and nearly everyone supported the President in wartime in those days. There were a lot more issues that were “American” rather than owned by one party or the other. In the “big picture models”, my sense is there used to be a lot more agreement between Americans because they were Christians, Americans, members of a community, a profession or type of work (farmer, labor, shopkeeper, etc) and loyal to family and friends before they were members of some political party. Perhaps I believe in a time that never was, but those are my impressions … many core values of being an American were pretty much shared by both parties.

From 1865-1930, the “Party of Lincoln” Republican party held general sway. The party of Slavery, the Democrats turned the corner with the Depression and the election of FDR. The question of whether FDRs programs would have ever gotten us out of the depression without WWII can never be answered scientifically without some sort of an alternate universe time machine, but the fact is, he got credit for winning WWII and for the policies that ended the depression. There isn’t anything wrong with that for me. America ended up better, and if Democrats get credit for that, that is just fine with me. Americafirst, party loyalty should always contingent on what is better for the country. I've never cheered for America to do bad in Bosnia, or have a poor economy when Democrats are in control. I will live my life out as an American no matter what party is in charge.

It took the sixties and the “youth revolution” before one could concive that a US Political Party could be anti-family, anti-military, anti-religious, anti-life, anti-business, and in general “anti” and still have any viability at all. The Democrats, the party of slavery and the party of Jim Crow, with KKK members like Robert Byrd finally allowed the civil rights act of ’64 to pass 73-27, with 21 Democrats, and only 6 Republicans against. Modern Democrats (and thankfully for them, the media) don’t seem to like to point out that one of the great historical uses of the Filibuster was the Democrat party preventing anti-lynching and voting rights legislation).

The conversion of the party of slavery and Jim Crow into the party of Black Americans is one of the great government vote buying stories of history. By maintaining the idea that Blacks could not be successful on their own, breaking their families by having the Government replace their fathers as “the welfare father”, Democrats were able to enslave the same people that they had held in actual slavery, the slavery of Jim Crow, and finally the slavery of welfare. I find it to be one of the most amazing stories in American politics, and one of the saddest.

The idea that Republicans are “the party of the rich” is a pre-60’s idea that the media and many Democrats seem to remain fond of. Take a look at the very liberal book “What’s The Matter with Kansas” to see a long lament of how the “stupid poor” have hooked up with the evil Republicans and voted against their own pocketbooks”. I guess I’ll accept that Republicans are “the party of the rich” if rich in spiritual life, rich in work ethic, and rich in devotion to America (the real one, not some “hoped for America”) is included in “rich”. If Republicans must be the party of the rich though, then Democrats remain the party of slavery … slavery to old dead socialist and communist ideas that centralized government can provide, slavery to the belief that the economic pie is only so big so we must all beg the Government to cut the pieces so we benefit at the expense of someone else, and slavery as in the mold of enslaving special interest groups like Blacks, NEA, Government workers, and others through the purchase of their votes.

The term “liberal” used to refer to those that wanted less government of all types, as in “libertarian”, but when the “Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics” and the “National SOCIALIST German Workers Party” (Nazi) ended up making the name look less than stellar, the left decided that the term “liberal” sounded better than “Socialist or Communist” and made the switch. The Government staying away from your property … be it your house or your paycheck is one of those “basic liberties” that the modern “liberal” isn’t very interested in protecting. Rather than fight the standard terminology, I go ahead and tend to use “liberal” for the left and “conservative” for the right, since that is what people expect to see.

Oh yes, and on the old “am I better off” question. It is a Henny Youngman world. When asked how his wife was, he would answer “compared to what”. The stock market crashed in March of 2K when Clinton was still the President, the recession hit in 1Q ’01 when there wasn’t a Bush policy to be had, and of course we know about 9-11 (well, I guess conservatives do, most liberals seem to have forgotten it). Bush only needed to do better than the imagination of Al Gore’s potential to pass the “are you better off” question. It seems pretty clear that not even the DEMOCRATS never gave a second thought to putting Al up against Bush again to say “see America, you made a bad decision, you could have had **AL** !!!”. I rest my case.