30 Comments

• 1. Dennis  |  January 31st, 2008 at 1:12 am

  “In the end, I expect the Democrats to defeat themselves with their fool liberalism…”

  The Great Society opened America up for way too many people to take a remark like this seriously. From the time LBJ took office until 1970, the number of Americans living below the poverty level fell from 22 to 12 percent - the greatest drop over such a short time in the 20th century. If this “fool liberalism” had not prevailed, tens of millions more Americans would be living below the poverty line today.

  Before the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act only 41 percent of Americans had high school diplomas and jsut 8 percent had college degrees. We easily forget how far “fool liberalism” has brought us. Head Start, the food stamp program, Medicare and Medicaid, the Clean Water Restoration Act - the list is endless. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1968 Fair Housing Act set us all on a higher road from which most Americans have not looked back.

  All these changes were brought about by liberals, working for consensus beyond partisan or ideological compartments. Even conservatives found the worth in them, and helped make them happen.

  Such things will not happen with America in the grip of blind partisanship. Even if you could clone Reagan, his brand of conservatism would not mend the things that are broken now. For that perhaps we need a modest dose of “fool liberalism” - along with a good tool kit and a healthy dose of common sense.

  As for making a hash of things, that’s happened already. Now it’s time for a new show.

• 2. Mark Noonan  |  January 31st, 2008 at 1:17 am

  Dennis,

  Dollars to donuts the 59% of Americans who had a high school diploma could read, write and do math at what today would be a rather advanced, college level…today, with nearly 100% of Americans getting to high school, I doubt that one in ten high school graduates has the basic knowledge a high school graduate had in 1950…more people in school, but less actual learning going on…that is fool liberalism.

  All liberalism does is move money around - which is great for the money-managers, but not much use to the average American.

• 3. Dennis  |  January 31st, 2008 at 2:22 am

  It is amazing to hear that “All liberalism does is move money around.” That makes as much sense as saying “all conservatism does is criminalize more kinds of behavior.” Or any of a thousand cliches, some of which may rest on a kernel of truth - but the polemical and absolutist nature of such assertions render them absurd.

  What of the Civil Rights Movement? What of the Marshall Plan, for that matter? If that wasn’t liberalism writ large, I don’t know what it was.

  Can you clarify your statement, “McCain and Romney are certain to fight the war to victory”? Just what does this victory look like in your mind’s eye?

  Mr. Bush’s definition of victory in Iraq has morphed from one thing to another and the bar is continually being lowered so it’s hard to know exactly what you mean. We watched a victory celebration on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln nearly five years ago, yet Iraq has been splintered into ethnic enclaves, it is more dangerous by magnitudes than it ever was under Saddam Hussein and there are still several million refugees with no place to go.

  As for life issues, if the GOP were truly “foursquare for the culture of life” they would forego military solutions for diplomatic ones whenever possible. The entire war in Iraq should have lain that “culture of life” canard to rest long ago. You cannot have it both ways.

  But I digress. I share your optimism for the campaign ahead, but in a guarded way. The American people are highly motivated this season but there’s still a lot of prejudice and plain old ignorance out there. May the best man (or woman, but I’m holding out for my man Obama) win.

• 4. neocon  |  January 31st, 2008 at 7:49 am

  Dennis,

  I found it very telling that every liberal success you championed was a big government program. Do you personally need the government to take care of you? Do you believe that individuals are unable to enjoy a quality of life without a government porogram to subsidize it? Yes, I believe you do. Much like your parents took care of you, you’re now looking toward the government to pick up where they left off.

  What programs of Obamas are you most excited about that will further governments baby-sitting of you and your family?

  You must be a very weak, insecure man. Oh and the prejudice you have alluded to is primarily amongst the liberal ranks. GOPers object to Obamas policies, not his skin color like the Clintonistas and other elite liberals who have made it very clear that Obama has a different skin tone.

  GOPers believe in people, liberals believe in programs.

• 5. Magnum Serpentine  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:23 am

  I watched the debates and this is my impression of them.

  Mitt Romney acted like a spoiled child, who had just learned that he was about to loose the popularity contest at his Grade School.

  John McCain did very well but was overshadowed by Romney’s fits and childish behavior.

  Ron Paul won the debate because of his clear answers but the Moderators, all of them, kept trying to ignore him and Paul had to constantly keep interrupting them in order to be able to reply to a question.

  Huck kept looking around as if he was looking for a phone so he could call the fundamentalist to ask them how he should answer each of the moderators questions.

  Winner: Ron Paul with John McCain coming in a very close Second.

• 6. Retired Spook  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:23 am

  Dennis, just out of curiosity, why is Obama “your man”? What in his background or accomplishments leads you to believe that he would be a good president?

• 7. Bigfoot  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:41 am

  Dennis,

  Poverty dropped tremendously from the end of WW2 to about the mid-sixties. Then, the liberal’s anti-poverty program, known as the “great society”, kicked in. Poverty has dropped little since then, fluctuating with the overall economy. Meanwhile, because the programs subsidized out-of-wedlock childbirths, these have increased by leaps and bounds. As a result, the liberal’s programs have perpetuated poverty, where it had previously decreased.

  The 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1968 Fair Housing Act set us all on a higher road from which most Americans have not looked back.

  The Civil Rights Act was not a liberal (by today’s definition) achievement by any stretch of the imagination, even though it was signed by a liberal president. (LBJ was of the “old” left - the type which had the since to regard communism as evil.) The act was supported in Congress by people from both the left and right, and in both parties, and also had oppostion on both sides. A greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the act in both houses.

  If the Civil Rights movement was from the left, it too, was of the “old” left, which wanted to eliminate the unfair practices of discrimination and segregation, WITHOUT instituting reverse discrimination. (Senator Humphrey said that if the Act required preferences for non-whites, he’d eat the paper on which it was written. How does processed cellulose taste, Senator?) Modern liberalism, on the other hand, has no problem with making whites pay for all those previous unfair practices, simply for being white.

  All liberalism does is move money around - which is great for the money-managers, but not much use to the average American.

  Liberalism - the modern Robin Hood.

• 8. Magnum Serpentine  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:44 am

  Mark…

  Let me ask you this… You seem to be against the Democrats and liberals… Are you saying a one party state is better?

  In my view no party will remain the minority forever.

  I see nothing wrong with being Liberal. Its just another view in politics.

• 9. Joe  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:52 am

  Its between McCain and Romney, with McCain on the inside track for the Republican nomination. And I’m fine with that

  I don’t know, but it sure seems like you guys are trying to convince YOURSELVES that you like your candidates.

• 10. neocon  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:55 am

  Magnum,

  Liberalism is not just another view of politics. It’s a fundamental belief that government is the answer to many of lifes problems. It is a fundamental belief that, left to their own accord, most people will fail at life. It is a fundamental belief that government must regulate the actions of the individual to make life “fair”.

  That belief is highly offensive to many who believe that government is not the solution, it is the problem. That the individual, left to their own accord, can and will perform magnificently in improving their own life and in turn, helping others.

• 11. Magnum Serpentine  |  January 31st, 2008 at 9:05 am

  ok Mark…

  Are you saying a one party state is better?

• 12. neocon  |  January 31st, 2008 at 9:10 am

  Yes Magnum,

  I think that’s what Mark is advocating. Along with everyone wearing brown shirts.

  Anymore stupid questions?

• 13. Magnum Serpentine  |  January 31st, 2008 at 10:13 am

  Neocon I do not think I was asking you that question.

• 14. William Teach  |  January 31st, 2008 at 10:42 am

  A one Party state would not be better, but, do we really need one of our 2 major parties to be against everything America stands for, and doing everything they can to turn her in the United Socialist States of America?

  On one of the forums I frequent, we ask Liberals what their favorite country is? None of them say America, instead, usually deflecting away.

  We ask them what they love about America. Typical crickets.

  Furthermore, the Democrats are dangerous to our national security, as well as the welfare of children, among others.

  So, no, we do not really need the Democrat party, at least as it stands today. Perhaps if all the wackos in the party would go and form their own, or the normal liberals would take their show and create a new party.

• 15. Joe  |  January 31st, 2008 at 10:46 am

  You people are f-ing crazy. I love all the talk that this is going to become a SOCIALIST country. You people are out of your freaking minds.

  A one Party state would not be better, but, do we really need one of our 2 major parties to be against everything America stands for

  You could have stopped right there and said we don’t need the perpetual war, the wireless wiretaps, the signing statements making the executive not have to follow the law of the land, the theory of pre-emptive war, etc etc etc.

• 16. Mark Noonan  |  January 31st, 2008 at 1:27 pm

  Magnum,

  But is wasn’t a very sensible question for you to ask -

  As it is, I’m opposed to liberalism because it is wrong, and it is wrong because it is based upon a false premise - that the nature of mankind is not Fallen.

• 17. sleepygene  |  January 31st, 2008 at 2:04 pm

  Spook -

  I will answer why I think Obama would be a good president. First his personal story is one that is uniquely american. Kenyan father and Kanasan mother of a middle class background and raised primarily by his mother and his white grandparents. Through hard work and merit, not family ties and legacy, he graduated from an ivy league school which catipulted him to the top law school in the country, Harvard. Where he not only did well but excelled and was named the first African American of the Harvard Law Review.

  Instead of cashing in after law school he dedicated his life to helping the poor and disenfranchised on Chicago’s south side while also teaching con law at the University of Chicago, a place where Antonin Scalia once taught.

  Upon entering political life in Illinois he was known as a person who could forge alliances across the aisle to get things done for the people of the State of Illinois.

  But what is most important he had the judgment to recognize that Iraq was not a war we should wage. IMHO he was right about that and he is right about the need for UHC, a green energy plan, diplomatic relations with allies as well as with enemies, tax cuts for middle class americans and not for the wealthiest americans.

  Also, just as important as his policy positions, which I agree with and you disagree with, is the manner in which he conducts himself. He is an adult with dignity who doesn’t try to divide people as so many pols do but tries to bring people together. I know alot of his rhetoric is pie in the sky and hopeful, but that is what is appealling about him and it seems many americans are warming to it. My I am addicted to the hope.

• 18. Brian Gregory  |  January 31st, 2008 at 2:18 pm

  Romney can’t win in November, unless his Democratic opponent runs a terrible campaign. Voters won’t forget his pathetic pandering to the far right and the evangelicals who think of themselves as the “base” of the GOP. I have a lot of faith in John McCain…I can only hope that he doesn’t try to become the establishment, overly conservative candidate. This is for one simple reason: the establishment is unpopular and occassionally radical.

• 19. bongoman  |  January 31st, 2008 at 2:35 pm

  Mark, what about McCain & immigration? I know Malkin, Steyn, Coulter et al are in the grip of McCain Derangement Syndrome, largely because of his stance on immigration. They are far from relaxed.

  Indeed, a dominant theme on Malkin’s boards is whether conservatives should even get out of bed to vote for McCain in the general.

  They are far from relaxed.

• 20. Brian Gregory  |  January 31st, 2008 at 2:49 pm

  bongoman,

  You’re right about Malkin and the likes. Personally, I don’t understand it. They b***h and moan about McCain’s stances on issues like immigration, and then they reside themselves to stay at home on election day, effectively handing victory to the Democratic candidate. Surely they find more to like in McCain than the Clintons, right?

• 21. David.B.Schmidt  |  January 31st, 2008 at 3:32 pm

  I find it interesting when people like Joe, Dennis, and SleepyGene mostly, if not all, harp constantly about the war in Iraq being preemptive, illegal, etc. yet rally behind Senator Obama who started (and continues) to state things like (paraphrasing from his August speech) he would act unilaterally to bomb Pakistan if there was an “actionable” terrorist threat, with or out without the permission of President Musharraf.

  Sounds pre-emptive (which is what “actionable intelligence” is in the very words of liberals), and on a sovereign nation (the same as being “illegal” as applied to Iraq by these same liberals). Hmmm, sounds like you want at least four more years of warmongering and fear you keep warning everyone else about.

• 22. Dennis  |  January 31st, 2008 at 3:35 pm

  Mark - you’re “opposed to liberalism because it is wrong, and it is wrong because it is based upon a false premise - that the nature of mankind is not Fallen.”

  Your theological preoccupation is fascinating to me as a Christian. I strongly believe in the fallen nature of man, yet Christ’s admonitions and New Testament Christianity steer me decisively toward liberal policies and values. In the Old Testament economy as well, the theocratic nation of Israel was strongly commanded to charity in both practice and policy. There’s even guidance on the immigration issue - Israel was commanded to be hospitable to the strangers within their borders.

  The founders knew what they were doing by keeping personal faith outside of policy debates. I respect your opinions although we are on opposite sides of the political divide - but I would hesitate to make such blanket and absolutist statements as you do. There is room for a diversity of perceptions within both the American experience and the house of God.

• 23. Jeremiah  |  January 31st, 2008 at 3:43 pm

  The founders knew what they were doing by keeping personal faith outside of policy debates.

  That’s a lie!

  The main requirement for leaders of that day and age were to be God-fearing, and to hate men of dishonest gain (such as the Democrats).

  There is room for a diversity of perceptions within both the American experience and the house of God.

  Diversity can only be, because we have a Creator who endowes us with our rights and freedom!
  It is no Secular dream, my friend! It is God, and God alone who was to be magnified and served!

  –Jeremiah–

• 24. Joe  |  January 31st, 2008 at 3:47 pm

  David B Schmidt:
  There is a difference between attacking a sovereign nation to take out the dictator and occupying a country and this…

  “Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

  He is saying he will have a strike against the group behind the attacks on the U.S. in a country where the president of that country will not do anything about it.
  That is a strike in Pakistan, yes.
  That is also says that he would be working with Musharraf and if he doesn’t do anything a President Obama would.
  That also says “actionable” intelligence.

  Do you see the difference?

• 25. majoriot  |  January 31st, 2008 at 5:21 pm

  define victory (Ed. Note; been defined many, many times since 2003 - its never changed, its quite simple. Look it up)

• 26. neocon  |  January 31st, 2008 at 5:27 pm

  >>define victory - majoriot<<<

  If this weren’t so pathetic, it’d be quite funny.

  Question to Mark and other conservatives, how many time do you suppose this question has been answered by us, and by the Admin for the last FIVE years?

  Yet, they still DON’T GET IT.

  Liberals are the child in the back seat asking Dad if they’re there yet. Don’t you have homework to finish majoriot?

• 27. David.B.Schmidt  |  January 31st, 2008 at 5:30 pm

  Are you referring to the strike by what smells a lot like a predator/hellfire combination two nights ago? That would be working with President Musharraf, not “whether he will act or not”. A sovereign nation is just that-sovereign and President Bush respected that.

  I would almost venture the idea that if we (the US) did not signal our intentions for months on end and executed the invasion of Iraq on the “actionable intelligence” we had prior to the endless U.N. broadcasting of intentions—the WMD everyone cries about would have been found in Iraq and would not have been trucked into the Bekaa valley. At least that is part of what I remember hearing, the de facto leader of Libya, al-Gaddafi say after he gave up his ambitions for a nuclear bomb on behalf of Hussein and himself. Let’s send a strike team in there and find out the truth.

  Intelligence is just that—intelligence. No matter if you call it “actionable” or not. By the time you have a U.S. Forward Observer (FO) painting a target for you–you are acting so it is no longer “intelligence”—it is part of an action. No matter what you want to prefix the word “intelligence” with—it is still just intelligence. Actionable only indicates the urgency prior to the possibility of the intelligence being outdated.

  Also, according to your version of “sovereign nation”, we should have told Europe “Sorry, chaps” and struck only on the islands of Japan in WWII because they were the ones that attacked us.

  No matter how you believe it to be – Senator Obama’s statement, then and now, are no different than making threats of a pre-emptive strike against a sovereign nation that never attacked us. Basically, you are saying if they were hiding in Jamaica—we should attack Jamaica and its people (collateral damage will occur) from bombers way overhead in order to possibly get a half dozen “bad guys.” Nice going – better get my vacation in now.

  BTW, I think Senator Obama is the most reasonable of the Democrats running.

• 28. William Teach  |  January 31st, 2008 at 5:33 pm

  In Liberal World, victory is defined as America losing.

• 29. neocon  |  January 31st, 2008 at 5:51 pm

  OT,

  Is it me or is Obama getting more ethnic everytime he speaks? Each sentences now ends in a vowel. Strange.

• 30. Mark Noonan  |  February 1st, 2008 at 12:36 am

  Dennis,

  But there isn’t room for diversity of truth - there is only one truth, and our job is to adhere to it, come what may. It is absurd to think that the New Testament leads one towards liberalism - Christ said to love your neighbor…no, not the poor woman who lives 3,000 miles away…you neighbor. The person next door, or just down the street…before you go save they world, are you certain that you have expended all necessary PERSONAL effort to make certain that the people on your block have all they need?

  That is charity, Dennis - YOU going out and helping someone. Welfare - thats just a sociological narcotic designed to make liberals feel good.

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