Democrats in history - Let's take a look.

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

A liberal today is better described and defined by the government he proposes and represents, which is authoritarian. I might suggest to you that a better description of your politics would be "Statist." A conservative is the enemy of authoritarian government, he stands for freedom; you, a statist, stand for tyranny.

You're abusing the term "statist." We are all statists, except for the most radical of Libertarians and anarchists.

You are also abusing the term "authoritarian." Castro's and Kim Jong Il's governments are authoritarian (and totalitarian). Pinochet's and Franco's governments were authoritarian (though not totalitarian). The social democracies of Europe are neither authoritarian nor totalitarian.

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

A true master of the obvious, the terms are relevant in degree. Just because our authoritarians haven't resorted to killing the opposition doesn't mean they aren't authoritarian.

No, just because they are elected, and can be turned out of office, means they aren't authoritarian.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Karen Kraft]

That statement was pretty controversial at the time. Keep in mind that in 1976, it was still a major novelty for any southerner, especially a Democrat (still the majority party throughout the south), to be openly seeking black votes. Carter's comment struck an awful lot of people as an endorsement of de facto segregation, and he had to work very hard to get blacks outside of Georgia to trust him. The 1976 election map, where Carter lost Illinois and won Mississippi, was the last gasp of the political demographic that was in force in the U.S. for over 100 years.

I've seen posts like KK's opening post here before, but one thing I've never understood is why the facts she brings up, which I don't believe any liberal here has ever disputed, prompt so much glee from the board conservatives. Racism in modern politics bothers them not at all, but racists of the past are something to be embarrassed about?

Yet another instance where the wingnut thought process goes way over my head.

This is a reasonable question and deserving of a reasonable response. Well, it WAS a reasonable question until, in order to preserve status amongst the litmus test liberals, a cheap shot was required: A list of historic facts is not “wingnut” thought process. Shifting focus from what is said to the person who said it IS “wingnut.”

Back on topic:

The insistence on clarity with respect to this sort of thing is one of the grumpy aspects of being a history buff. I have read a lot of American history, as you all know, and I have come to understand that American history is not really taught in schools. Many U.S. college-educated people don’t understand how we got to this point in our collective history, which makes rational progress more difficult. For example, I submit that the average public school educated American adult thinks the following is true, vis a vis this topic:

There were some old parties that don’t exist anymore and one of them was Federalist. Forgot what that was, but I think the other one was Republican (or maybe it was Democrat).

Anyway, there was the Anti-Federalist Party and they became wigs or wogs or something.

Then the parties changed names a couple of times and by the Civil War, it was Democrat and Republican. Lincoln was a Republican but he thought like a Democrat, since he was in favor of ending slavery and protecting poor people from rich plantation owners, etc.

In the North, rich people (Republicans) owned factories and poor/middle class people (Democrats) worked in those factories – Irish and Italian immigrants mostly; in the South, rich people (Republicans) owned plantations and poor/middle class people (Democrats) worked on the plantation or had some sort of mercantile job in town.

Republicans have always owned stuff and Democrats always work for Republicans. That’s why unions are so important, because the Republican Party is the rich party that pretty much controls the government and the Democrat Party is the poor party, struggling to help the disadvantaged, who are constantly being cheated by greedy Republicans – at work and in government.

So, in the South, for example, whenever there was a fight between good and evil, between advancing people and discriminating against them, with only a couple of minor exceptions, the Democrats always fought on the side of Blacks, former slaves, and the poor white farmers. That continued through the dust bowl days when FDR finally put an end to the Republican Depression by creating a bunch of programs to better the environment and put everyone back to work while, at the same time, helping to protect the earth – you know, like the guys who built the power dams and made the lovely mosaics at the old post office downtown.


This is what passes for “history” in the minds of many Americans. Why? Because that is pretty much what they were taught. The heroes are guys like Jefferson, who fought to end slavery, and Jackson who championed the cause of the Indians and poor Blacks. The bad guys are like Hamilton, who tried to make the whole country controlled by money and people who have a lot of money, and Reagan, who was a senile old cowboy actor who did everything he could to put Black and poor people down (like Republicans have always done) and who destroyed the years of progress and prosperity the country enjoyed under the Carter.

 

[Karen Kraft]

You're abusing the term "statist." We are all statists, except for the most radical of Libertarians and anarchists.
****.

LOL
LOL

Ummmm..... no.


WE THE PEOPLE …. ever wonder why the constitution starts out that way? It is because we are NOT statists. Statists believe that sovereignty is vested in the government and the people and their institutions are there for the good of the state. A classic example of statism is found in fascistic philosophy, where the state (often led by a charismatic or despotic absolute ruler in practice) derives its power from the unity of a controlled population and where the distracting and often divisive influence of individualism are banned or kept to the shadows.

I can see you went to the same schools that taught that Southern racism was Republican. LOL

Read a book. Might be fun.

 

[Karen Kraft]

So....

There you have it, folks:

When faced with the ugly truth about their Party's true history, the Democrat posters here on Lit. are easily reduced to Demo-alts and Demo-trolls, an excellent admission that their party IS the party of hatred and racial vitriol, of violence and endless rage.

No nicer admission could ever be obtained. Thanks everyone. Good job!

[/THREAD]

 

[hogjack]

Thanks everyone. Good job!

Thank you, sir. You've done it again!

 

[KingOrfeo]

LOL
LOL

Ummmm..... no.


WE THE PEOPLE …. ever wonder why the constitution starts out that way? It is because we are NOT statists. Statists believe that sovereignty is vested in the government and the people and their institutions are there for the good of the state.

No, Karen, statists believe a state is necessary; that is all. The Founding Fathers were statists. They met in Philadelphia in 1787 because the existing American national state under the Articles of Confederation was too weak and ineffectual, and they wanted to design and found a stronger one. That was the whole point of the Convention and the Constitution.

 

[KingOrfeo]

So....

There you have it, folks:

When faced with the ugly truth about their Party's true history, the Democrat posters here on Lit. are easily reduced to Demo-alts and Demo-trolls, an excellent admission that their party IS the party of hatred and racial vitriol, of violence and endless rage.

No nicer admission could ever be obtained. Thanks everyone. Good job!

[/THREAD]

You used to be one of the more rational and coherent RWs on this board, Karen. Obama's election seems to have really unhinged you somehow.

 

[RightField]

No, Karen, statists believe a state is necessary; that is all. The Founding Fathers were statists. They met in Philadelphia in 1787 because the existing American national state under the Articles of Confederation was too weak and ineffectual, and they wanted to design and found a stronger one. That was the whole point of the Convention and the Constitution.

BIG Statists

A government big enough to support all your wants is big enough to take all your liberties.

The Consequences of Big Government
By Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON -- The question that President Obama ought to be asking -- that we all should be asking -- is this: How big a government do we want? Without anyone much noticing, our national government is on the verge of a permanent expansion that would endure long after the present economic crisis has (presumably) passed and that would exceed anything ever experienced in peacetime. This expansion may not be good for us, but we are not contemplating the adverse consequences or how we might minimize them.

We face an unprecedented collision between Americans' desire for more government services and their almost-equal unwillingness to be taxed. The conflict is obscured and deferred by today's depressed economy, which has given license to all manner of emergency programs, but its dimensions cannot be doubted. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office ("The Long-Term Budget Outlook") makes that crystal clear. The easiest way to measure the size of government is to compare the federal budget to the overall economy, or gross domestic product (GDP). The CBO's estimates are daunting.

For the past half-century, federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of GDP, federal taxes about 18 percent of GDP, and the budget deficit 2 percent of GDP. The CBO's projection for 2020 -- which assumes the economy has returned to "full employment" -- puts spending at 26 percent of GDP, taxes at a bit less than 19 percent of GDP, and a deficit above 7 percent of GDP. Future spending and deficit figures continue to grow.

What this means is that balancing the budget in 2020 would require a tax increase of almost 50 percent from the last half-century's average. Remember, that average was 18 percent of GDP. To get from there to 26 percent of GDP (spending in 2020) would require another 8 percent of GDP in taxes. In today's dollars, that would be about $1.1 trillion, a 44 percent annual tax increase. Even these figures may be optimistic, because CBO's projections for defense and "nondefense discretionary" spending may be unrealistically low. This last category covers much of what government does: environmental regulation, aid to education, highway construction, law enforcement, homeland security.

Whatever the case, the major causes of the budget blowout are well-known: an aging population and rapid increases in health spending. In 2000, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- the main programs providing income and health care for the 65 and over population -- totaled nearly 8 percent of GDP. In 2020, CBO projects that will reach almost 12 percent of GDP. But the deeper source of our predicament is a self-indulgent political culture that avoids a rigorous discussion of government's role.

Everyone favors benefits and opposes burdens (taxes). Republicans want to cut taxes without cutting spending. Democrats want to increase spending without increasing taxes, except on the rich. The differences between the parties are shades of gray. Hardly anyone asks the hard questions of who doesn't need benefits, which programs are expendable and what taxes might cover remaining deficits.

What long sustained this system was falling defense spending and routine, though usually modest, deficits. As defense declined -- from 9 percent of GDP in the late 1960s to 3 percent in 2000 -- social spending could rise without big tax increases. Deficits provided extra leeway. But these expedients have exhausted themselves. Deficits have risen to alarming proportions; in a risky world, defense cannot drop indefinitely.

Obama would make matters worse. He talks about controlling "entitlement" spending (mainly Social Security and Medicare) but hasn't done so. He's proposing just the opposite. His health care proposal would increase federal spending. He says he will "pay for" the added outlays with tax increases or other spending cuts, but what people forget is that every penny of this "payment" could be used (and should be) to close the existing long-term deficit -- not raise future spending and taxes.

The latest excuse for avoidance is the economic crisis. True, deep spending cuts or big tax increases would be undesirable now; they would further depress an already depressed economy. But that doesn't preclude action. Changes could be legislated now that would begin later and be phased in -- a gradual increase in eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare; gradual increases in energy taxes; gradual elimination of some programs. Such steps might improve confidence by reducing uncertainty about huge budget deficits.

There is little appetite for any of this, and so we face the consequences of much bigger government. Certainly higher taxes for future Americans. Probably a less robust economy. The CBO notes that elevated deficits would penalize saving, investment and income, while unprecedented tax burdens could "slow the growth of the economy, making the (government's) spending burden harder to bear." To such warnings, Americans' collective response is: Go away.

 

[Aviator1976]

No, Karen, statists believe a state is necessary; that is all. The Founding Fathers were statists. They met in Philadelphia in 1787 because the existing American national state under the Articles of Confederation was too weak and ineffectual, and they wanted to design and found a stronger one. That was the whole point of the Convention and the Constitution.

Well a substantial number of people disagree with you. I was a poli sci major and I learned that statism is the belief that sovereignty does not rest in the people, but in the state. It also ties into the relationship between government and the economy... i.e. government plays a central role in the economy. That belief is best exemplified by the recent acquisition of GM by the US government.

Statism stand in direct contrast to laissez-faire, which is an economy free of government intervention and was the original philosophy in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laisse_faire

 

[RobDownSouth]

You used to be one of the more rational and coherent RWs on this board, Karen. Obama's election seems to have really unhinged you somehow.

I disagree. Even the more rational right wingers typically unilaterally declare victory around page 3.

 

[Karen Kraft]

You used to be one of the more rational and coherent RWs on this board, Karen. Obama's election seems to have really unhinged you somehow.

Nah.

I think the past few days have clarified what passes for conversation around here (present company excluded). DryerLint is looking better and better.

Someone posts some ideas you don't like, so you go to another web site and find out who that person's friends are, noting their real names and their Lit. screen names, etc.

There you have your Party and the all-new TOS-less Literotica.com.

Congrats.

 

[NymphGoddess]

If blacks were given the right to vote, that would "place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored Negro in the country upon an equality with the poor white man."

--Rep. Andrew Johnson, (D., Tenn.), 1844
President, 1865-69


Blacks are "a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race."

--Chief Justice Roger Taney, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1856
Appointed Attorney General by Andrew Jackson in 1831
Appointed Secretary of the Treasury by Andrew Jackson in 1833
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Andrew Jackson in 1836



"We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1900



President Truman's civil rights program "is a farce and a sham--an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. . .. I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill."

--Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1948
U.S. Senator, 1949-61
Senate Majority Leader, 1955-61
President, 1963-69


"I'm not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that's made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods."

--Jimmy Carter, 1976
President, 1977-81
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002



"I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation."

--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008


Democrats to not respect minorities. They see them as pets, farm animals, and perennial children. When a woman or minority dares wander from the Demo-plantation, Palin, Thomas, Steele, etc., they are personally attacked as "stupid." Anyone who would be female, black, or any other minority or formerly downtrodden group who does not lock-step to the DemDrum is a total idiot -- and it's best to call their kids "retards." That's very cool.

have you devled into the evolution of republicanism and demcocratic parties? I don't think you have....at one time they were the same party and also they were the reverse of what they are now....look at what you say before you act like a fool next time

 

[Karen Kraft]

No, Karen, statists believe a state is necessary; that is all. The Founding Fathers were statists. They met in Philadelphia in 1787 because the existing American national state under the Articles of Confederation was too weak and ineffectual, and they wanted to design and found a stronger one. That was the whole point of the Convention and the Constitution.

No, you're wrong (again), but it's no use.

Here> Pretend these links don't exist.

Just say "poo-poo" and it's high-fives all around. Democrat platform a la Literotica.


lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/egypt/eg_glos.html


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statists


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statism


http://www.thefreedictionary.com/statism


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-statism


You guys just keep the rally going. Don't let any real facts get in the way of your fervor. It's so very impressive.

 

[Aviator1976]

have you devled into the evolution of republicanism and demcocratic parties? I don't think you have....at one time they were the same party and also they were the reverse of what they are now....look at what you say before you act like a fool next time

They were not the reverse of what they are now, that is a myth.

 

[Ishmael]

No, you're wrong (again), but it's no use.

Here> Pretend these links don't exist.

Just say "poo-poo" and it's high-fives all around. Democrat platform a la Literotica.


lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/egypt/eg_glos.html


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statists


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statism


http://www.thefreedictionary.com/statism


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-statism


You guys just keep the rally going. Don't let any real facts get in the way of your fervor. It's so very impressive.

This is true KK.

Ishmael

 

[Karen Kraft]

have you devled into the evolution of republicanism and demcocratic parties? I don't think you have....at one time they were the same party and also they were the reverse of what they are now....look at what you say before you act like a fool next time

See?

That is exactly what I was talking about:

Sub-humans who make shit up, read no history, understand nothing and, when confronted with the facts, offer insults. Running for party chair-turd, hunnie?

 

[Ishmael]

See?

That is exactly what I was talking about:

Sub-humans who make shit up, read no history, understand nothing and, when confronted with the facts, offer insults. Running for party chair-turd, hunnie?

Feelings

Ishmael

 

[Karen Kraft]

Feelings

Ishmael

LOL

.... yeah...

 

[Ishmael]

LOL

.... yeah...

You'll love this one.

Faster Horses

Ishmael

 

[NymphGoddess]

See?

That is exactly what I was talking about:

Sub-humans who make shit up, read no history, understand nothing and, when confronted with the facts, offer insults. Running for party chair-turd, hunnie?

I was taught by a woman who is a Phd in history and knows more than you....a woman in my family...so whatch what you say about folks who you claim know little.....for thats what you do

 

[Ishmael]

I was taught by a woman who is a Phd in history and knows more than you....a woman in my family...so whatch what you say about folks who you claim know little.....for thats what you do

So, teach us. Or forget about all you learned.

Ishmael