Republicans..The real allies of African Americans

[Dragon]

There we go, exactly as I said. You have no argument, you are just trying to exercise reality-altering powers you do not possess.

I haven't been here very long, but if I stay around and you get to know me better you will come to learn that I have no respect for popular myths and prejudices. Franklin Roosevelt is not a liberal by definition; nobody is. The fact that many people who have no clear idea of what he was actually like or what he actually did consider him one -- these are people who have only a dim conception of history before they were born -- does not sway me.

You have no way of knowing this, because again I haven't been here long, but I have considered Roosevelt a moderate at best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) for a long time and have repeatedly said so in many other places and times. This is not an idea taken up for convenience here, it is what I actually believe. He deserves neither the odium of conservatives nor the canonization by liberals that he often receives. I have already stated why.

You have nothing to say.

What I have to say (on this thread) is that today's Republican Party is not even close to the same entity as the Republican Party that stood firmly in support of civil rights and racial equality for a whole century. The original Republican Party was a progressive party, and in terms of civil rights it remained one until it began to change in the 1960s. That this is so, does not accrue to the credit of today's Republican Party, and is no reason for African-Americans or anyone who believes in civil rights to vote Republican today.

If you wish to take issue with this claim, take issue with this claim and stop playing pointless games.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Dragon and Right Winger have pulled Unkotare's arguments to pieces, but Unkotare is as stubbornly immoral as JRK or Jroc when proven wrong: all three stand as if they were a pitcher on the mound having just watched their best pitch get wacked over the center field fence. Then dance around yelling, "I just struck the bastard out!"

They are either simply ignorant, or mentally feeble, or malignatly motivated, or all three.

Liberals like to think that reality is subject to their shallow declarations.

Unkotare, like Jroc and JRK, projects his failings on others. The fact is that they fail in this thread. Lincoln was not a conservative as they understand the modern term. Neither was TR. They are historically both classical liberals, who would have nothing to do with the Hard Right today.

 

[Unkotare]

You have no way of knowing this, because again I haven't been here long, but I have considered Roosevelt a moderate at best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) for a long time and have repeatedly said so in many other places and times. .

I don't give half a shit what you "consider." You are blatantly trying to alter reality to fit your argument and it is completely illegitimate.

 

[Unkotare]

Dragon and Right Winger have pulled Unkotare's arguments to pieces, but Unkotare is as stubbornly immoral as JRK or Jroc when proven wrong: all three stand as if they were a pitcher on the mound having just watched their best pitch get wacked over the center field fence. Then dance around yelling, "I just struck the bastard out!"

They are either simply ignorant, or mentally feeble, or malignatly motivated, or all three.

Liberals like to think that reality is subject to their shallow declarations.

Unkotare, like Jroc and JRK, projects his failings on others. The fact is that they fail in this thread. Lincoln was not a conservative as they understand the modern term. Neither was TR. They are historically both classical liberals, who would have nothing to do with the Hard Right today.

Once again we see the dishonest democrats running hard from the clear and shameful legacy of their own party, thinking they can really rewrite history from Lincoln through 1964, Robert Byrd, and to today. They are desperate to do so because otherwise their false accusations and continuing agenda of oppression are indefensible even to themselves.

 

[Dragon]

what a bunch of liberal bull. You've got to be one of Jake's friends "from the U"

Never met him before, but you're going to find that well-educated people tend to lean left. Reality has a liberal bias.

Liberty means liberty for all men not only to people to whom the government defines as deserving of it

Precisely. All liberals believe exactly that, always have, and always will. (Nowadays, we would say "men AND women." Feminism is a more recent development than classical liberalism, though, and those old liberals were often not very liberal in that regard.) Also, all liberals believe that the greatest danger to liberty is individuals holding too much power. That's true whether the power comes from government or outside it. To prevent one person holding too much power from the government, we champion separation of powers, democratic accountability, and protection of individual rights. To prevent one person holding too much power from outside the government, we champion regulation of business, leveling of wealth, and protection of the rights of working people. It's all in service to the same goal.

and for every so-called "limitation" that you can cite I' can cite a 100 or more instances of expansion of government and it's power to control our lives there are probably 100 in the Obamacare law alone

Why don't you get specific here, and I will show you how those "expansions of government" are in service to the same ends as the restraints of government that liberals also believe in.

Truth is, liberals are not believers in either big government or limited government as an end in itself, but will use either one as appropriate to protect liberty and promote equality.

I know what the law says and if you are forced to send a person back into slavery once he is free that is legalized slavery in my book. And infringing on the rights of the non slave states.

Well, I would agree as far as my own values are concerned, naturally -- I am hardly an advocate of slavery! But you have to understand that in those days, slavery was a burning issue, not a dead one. If you advocated for abolishing it, you were a liberal (on that issue); if you wanted to preserve it you were a conservative. Today, of course, you won't find conservatives in favor of chattel slavery, because the issue is dead; our side won, and it is now a universal value rather than a political issue.

There's not much point in quoting liberals of the time, like Frederick Douglass, against the institution of slavery. I fully agree with the man, and with Lincoln that the nation could not ultimately remain half slave and half free; I consider the Fugitive Slave Act, and all other attempts to compromise around the issue, to have been futile, and I think the 600,000 casualties suffered in the Civil War pretty much proves that.

My only point in connection with this is that the Republican Party, which in its inception was an anti-slavery party, was therefore the liberal party at that time. It was the Democrats -- the ones in the North who didn't want to rock the boat or make such a radical change as abolishing slavery, as well as the ones in the South who were so determined to preserve the institution that they sundered the union -- who were the conservatives.

I never said they were exactly the same but gernally Real conservative Republicans stand for liberty and liberal Dems stand for central planning and bigger more powerfull federal government

"Real conservative Republicans" certainly do not stand for MY liberty. Maybe they stand for the liberty of my boss (if I had a boss) -- at my expense, by failing to protect my rights as an employee. Maybe they stand for the liberty of big corporations to maximize their profits -- at the expense of their employees outsourced out of a job, or of the communities suffering their environmental degradations. Maybe they stand for the liberty of the very rich to accumulate as much private fortune as possible -- at the expense of those who would benefit from having some of that accumulated money invested in job-creating wealth-producing ventures and spread around a bit.

"Liberty" means nothing unless one defines whose liberty to do what one is talking about. Often, one person's liberty means another person's enslavement. For an obvious example, one person's liberty to own slaves cannot coexist with another person's liberty not to be a slave. Extrapolate that extreme example out to anything else: person A's liberty to oppress person B is incompatible with person B's freedom from oppression.

Conservatives, in such conflicts, stand with person A. Liberals stand with person B. What that means in terms of "expansion of government" depends on the exact circumstances. When it's the government that A is using to oppress B, then the power of the government to do that needs to be restrained. But when A is using his own private power to oppress B, and the government can be used to restrain A, then it should be so used.

The equation "liberal = big government" is completely simplistic and, as stated, not true. It isn't liberals who have generally championed the huge, overextended military establishment we have today, for example. It isn't liberals who want to re-criminalize abortion and in other ways have the government butt into people's private lives.

On the other hand, it is liberals who want to use government to regulate business so as to prevent both abuses against people's rights and the kind of collapse we had in '08. So liberals and conservatives both like big government in some areas and dislike it in others. The common factor lies elsewhere, and size of government may not be used as a definition.

 

[Dragon]

Unkotare: Thanks for the update regarding Supreme Court decisions in re the Nissei and Issei. You are correct there, all ambiguity may be removed and it was indeed unconstitutional.

I am not a Democrat. I am a liberal. The two are not the same. I am not, therefore, running from the "shameful legacy" of MY party, because it is not my party. Actually, I am not running from anything. But I do feel free to criticize Democrats when they deserve it, as is often the case.

Barack Obama, by the way, is not a liberal either, or at least he is not governing as one.

 

[Dragon]

I don't give half a shit what you "consider."

Then you are the one who is saying nothing.

You are blatantly trying to alter reality to fit your argument and it is completely illegitimate.

That Roosevelt was a liberal is not "reality." It is the opinion of people who don't know squat. I am not "altering reality." I am disagreeing with an ignorant opinion. If YOU think he was a liberal, then your opinion is ignorant, too.

 

[daveman]

Never met him before, but you're going to find that well-educated people tend to lean left. Reality has a liberal bias.

Your distorted view of reality has a liberal bias.

 

[daveman]

I don't give half a shit what you "consider."

Then you are the one who is saying nothing.

You are blatantly trying to alter reality to fit your argument and it is completely illegitimate.

That Roosevelt was a liberal is not "reality." It is the opinion of people who don't know squat. I am not "altering reality." I am disagreeing with an ignorant opinion. If YOU think he was a liberal, then your opinion is ignorant, too.

Did you know that stamping your feet and pouting is not a compelling argument?

 

[Dragon]

Ah, Daveman -- I forgot to exclude business degrees, and speak only of real educations. Thank you for the correction.

 

[Unkotare]

Ok, it seems clear by now that Dragon is playing in his own little Dragonworld where he can make anything mean whatever he wants it to mean. Not to be taken seriously.

 

[Dragon]

Ok, it seems clear by now that Dragon is playing in his own little Dragonworld where he can make anything mean whatever he wants it to mean. Not to be taken seriously.

In that case, you may feel free to go away and stop playing your silly games at any time. Won't bother me a bit.

Or, if you feel like it, you can try to actually address my point on this thread, which, in case you've forgotten, is that the Republican Party of today is dramatically different from the Republican Party of the 1850s -1960s that stood so firmly in support of civil rights and racial equality. Everything you've addressed to me on this thread so far has had bugger-all to do with that and has therefore been either a diversion or, as the above, argumentum ad hominem.

May I assume, since you refuse to address it, that you agree the GOP of today is hardly the GOP of the past, and that consequently the OP was nonsense?

 

[Dragon]

Did you know that stamping your feet and pouting is not a compelling argument?

Did you know that that isn't one, either?

EDIT: Here's a contemporary view of Roosevelt by a genuine liberal. http://www.inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2010/volume_2/number_2/john_t_flynn.php

"Flynn believed that Herbert Hoover had allowed the Great Depression to occur by his failure to regulate the stock market. (I realize that some revisionists, especially libertarians, will disagree with this explanation of the Depression, but I'm profiling Flynn, not libertarianism.) And so, in 1932, Flynn voted for Franklin Roosevelt for president and against Hoover, who he sarcastically dubbed "the great Miracle Man."

"However, Flynn soon became disenchanted with Roosevelt's New Deal, because of Wall Street-connected individuals appointed to positions by FDR, and because of several New Deal programs, including the NRA, which he saw as favoring big business. . . .

"Flynn also came to agree with Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas that Roosevelt was "a born militarist." By 1936, asserted that Roosevelt would "do his best to entangle us" in a coming European war. That year, Flynn voted for Norman Thomas for president as a protest against Roosevelt. Flynn came to believe that Roosevelt was working with conservative, big-business, Wall Street interests to bring about economic recovery based on war scares."

Here's a bit more: http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/liberal-criticism-of-franklin-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/

"In my examination of the historical record, it is clear that Roosevelt endured vicious, unrelenting attacks from his left that often exceeded the level of vitriol directed at President Obama, and correspondingly, Roosevelt was not viewed by liberals of his day with the adulation and reverence liberals view him today.

"In fact, it’s pretty remarkable how closely the attacks Roosevelt experienced from his left echo the attacks that liberals make against Obama today. There was criticism of Roosevelt for being too close to Wall Street, criticism of the New Deal’s pragmatism and non-ideological approach, criticism of the New Deal for not going nearly far enough, criticism of the New Deal and Roosevelt as preferring conservatism to liberalism, and so on.

"What I found in my research not only painted a picture of the relationship between liberals, the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt that is far more complex and nuanced than the mythologized and often distorted version of that era you often find in the liberal blogosphere and elsewhere, it also has led me to view the current schism among liberals as less severe or unique than I previously thought.

"First, let me provide some context. As I’ve mentioned, the relationship between Roosevelt and the liberals of his day was not as smooth or happy as many of you might have believed. The sort of adulation with which some liberals today treat Roosevelt has created the impression of him as a liberal superman. This could not be further from the truth, and this was especially the case beginning in late 1934."

That entire article is worth reading, in fact. Because Roosevelt led the nation through what was surely its second-greatest crisis to date, myths are created around him, but the reality is not the myth. He was not what you could call a moss-back right-winger, but he was far from the icon of liberalism that many believe today.

 

[Unkotare]

democrats just can't seem to get over the FACT that they have always lagged far behind the Republican Party in championing civil rights and racial equality. What democrats have been opposed to for most of their history they fail to understand even today.

 

[Dragon]

democrats just can't seem to get over the FACT that they have always lagged far behind the Republican Party in championing civil rights and racial equality.

That is not a fact, because this is 2011, not 1963. It was a fact, decades ago. Today, it's not.

 

[rightwinger]

democrats just can't seem to get over the FACT that they have always lagged far behind the Republican Party in championing civil rights and racial equality. What democrats have been opposed to for most of their history they fail to understand even today.

What has the republican party done to champion the civil rights of gays? How about the Civil Rights of Muslims?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Liberals like to think that reality is subject to their shallow declarations.

Unkotare, like Jroc and JRK, projects his failings on others. The fact is that they fail in this thread. Lincoln was not a conservative as they understand the modern term. Neither was TR. They are historically both classical liberals, who would have nothing to do with the Hard Right today.

SNIP .

A true Republican like me can never be a Democrat, because I am a classical liberal. Unkotare is trying to pretend that progressives like Lincon and TR can come in Republican colors. They were not Hard Right pretend-conservatives as those today. Not only would Lincoln and TR tell Unko and his buddies to get lost, so would Eisenhower, Ford, Nixon, Reagan and Bush the Elder. Everyone of these GOP leaders would be too left for Ryan and the wierdos.

Unko, you are not historically relevant, you will not be allowed to revise without metaphoically getting kicked in the ass. Robert Byrd did shameful things then spent his life reprenting them. Strom simply changed parties and pretend he was not as asshole and never recognized his black daughter.

You fools will never learn, but you will be schooled by your betters in the GOP.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Hard Right wacks, read this.

Progressivism is a process of educational, economic, governmental, social, and cultural reform through political processes. Progressivism has a conservative wing as well as a more liberal impulse.

Neo-con progressive imperialism in Iraq is a conservative example. Trying to pass anti-gay marriage amendments at the national level is a conservative example. Trying to block people from voting at the state levels is another example.

So understand: progressivism is a political process for reform.

 

[daveman]

A true Republican like me can never be a Democrat, because I am a classical liberal. Unkotare is trying to pretend that progressives like Lincon and TR can come in Republican colors. They were not Hard Right pretend-conservatives as those today. Not only would Lincoln and TR tell Unko and his buddies to get lost, so would Eisenhower, Ford, Nixon, Reagan and Bush the Elder. Everyone of these GOP leaders would be too left for Ryan and the wierdos.

Unko, you are not historically relevant, you will not be allowed to revise without metaphoically getting kicked in the ass. Robert Byrd did shameful things then spent his life reprenting them. Strom simply changed parties and pretend he was not as asshole and never recognized his black daughter.

You fools will never learn, but you will be schooled by your betters in the GOP.

I got on Obama about not pushing through a single payer health care, got on him about not bringing the Iraq troops home more quickly, plus a few other things.

True Republicans don't criticize Obama for not being far enough left, boy.

 

[JakeStarkey]

But you are not a Republican, daveman, so you don't count.

Obama has failed in part because he has not satisified his base. We are going to fail in the GOP because we will not take care of the health care problem either. The fact remains that both parties will fail until they deal with it.

Now, that is a deflection. The OP is that GOP is the real ally of blacks: not since Nixon.