In my opinion, since Nixon the right has moved disturbingly to the left and the left has moved even more to the left. GW Bush is on exactly par with LBJ. I say this with a straight face. No jape. I contend that the Democrat party is leftist beyond anything I have ever experienced or read in US history.
Just because the Democrat party has historically failed at almost all of their leftist initiatives over the last 25 years does not absolve them of currently being socialists. I will concede that their successes are much less socialist but I hand the trophy for that effort to the majority who do not want a socialist country. Individual pride and glory cannot be had at the government teat. The majority of Americans still hold that knowledge in their minds… well at least the voting ones.
It is nice of you to think of me… although it is hard not to in this thread… but I don’t believe I need a brush up on party histories. It couldn’t hurt, I guess, but where did that come from?
For the record, after reading the Wikis, I side more with the historians who say we are still in the Fifth Party System, especially if both parties take a step back in time in the next two cycles, as I predict they will. It would be annoying to designate a seventh system that is the same as the fifth with only a shift being of note in the sixth.
If you think the current Democratic Party is more leftist than FDR’s or LBJ’s, you have completely lost touch with the reality-based community.
If you think the current Republican Party is more leftist than Nixon’s, you have completely lost touch with reality, period.
The majority of Americans, and a growing majority, do want a “socialist” country, in the sense you are using the term. Check out the articles linked in this thread.
I am trying to help you fight your manifest and astonishing ignorance of American political history, especially recent history.
I am sorry that you have to deal with the existence of my opinion by creating a scenario that involves me having lost touch with reality… completely. I do not know what it is like to have to resort to such extremes to cope with the existence of an opinion of another, but I imagine it could be quite a burden to live with. The fact that you went and took the time to write out to me that particular mental shortcoming of yours is a bit odd…
– If you think xxxxx, you have completely lost touch with reality, period. –
Of course what you may be trying to do is conduct an argument by intimidation. By claiming that if I do not think a certain way, or perhaps do think a certain way, then you fantasize that you are somehow in a position to put psychological pressure on me by threatening to think less of me unless I fall in line with your way of thinking.
Not only were you never in a position to intimidate me, but now I know how you think and by pulling such a lame stunt you have lost any trust I had in your words. A person who resorts to psychological pressure is a desperate person. A person with an agenda.
I’m not trying to intimidate you. How can anyone intimidate anyone else via a text-based Internet message board? I’m just exasperated with your impenetrability. Look, I’ll spell it out for you: Until the 1960s, the dominant wing of the Republican Party was the “Rockefeller Republicans”: Socially liberal; pro-civil–rights; pro-business, but not deeply hostile to a limited welfare state. It was Nixon who gave us Medicare, remember. As for hard-right conservatives like William F. Buckley, they were viewed as marginal and eccentric.
But in the early '60s a radical ideological-conservative movement began. It won the Pub nomination for Barry Goldwater (“In your heart you know he’s right!” “In your guts you know he’s nuts!”). He lost by a landslide to LBJ in 1964, but the movement continued and eventually won control of the party, culminating in Reagan’s victory in 1980. And the party has only drifted further to the right since then – see the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, and everything the current Admin has done since 2001. (An excellent history of post-Goldwater “movement conservatism” can be found in Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by John Micklethwaite and Adrian Wooldridge; and another in The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America, by Godfrey Hodgson.)
The Sixth Party System has been characterized by a wholesale exchange of the Dems’ and Pubs’ geographical-regional bases, following the success of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” which broke the “Solid South” and transformed the GOP into a predominantly Southern party (which would have bemused both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis to no end). This realignment has resulted in making both parties more ideologically homogeneous than they were before – conservative “Southern Democrats” and liberal “Rockefeller Republicans” have alike been marginalized, or switched parties; however, in the process, both parties somehow have shifted their political center-of-gravity to the right.
All reputable historians and political pundits, regardless of their own politics, agree substantially on the above narrative. You are the first person I have ever encountered who perceives that story differently. And you’re not even backing up your perception with a persuasive counter-narrative. You simply assert, “The Republicans have moved too far left,” even though they are now further right than at any time since the Hoover Administration; “America is too far left, we need reform,” even though this is patently the most pro-corporate and economic-libertarian and militarily aggressive of all the industrialized nations. It’s not like we’re reading you in National Review or something, it really is like we’re channeling you from some alternate dimension.
It is sad to me that you do not understand what causes you to attempt to intimidate instead of debate. It is especially sad that you think you possess any moral or intellectual authority to event attempt such an act and succeed.
There are an infinite amount of ways. One way is intellectual intimidation. A whole story was written about the concept a long time ago. These hucksters conned an emperor into thinking he was wearing glorious clothes that could be only be seen by the righteous or something. The hucksters intellectually intimidated everyone into STFUing by saying “only the righteous can see the clothes”. It was the olden days and people were easier to trick back then but the principle remains the same. This kid walks up on the scene and just plain says the the emperor is naked. Which he was. I forget how it ended but IMHO kid didn’t get enough credit for not being an intellectually timid dink like the rest of the townsfolk.
No. I do not remember. Most people, myself included, believe it was Johnson. 1965. Part of his “Great Society” initiative.
They forgot to mention Nixon in that article. Maybe you can set them straight.
I don’t think I should listen to your history lessons anymore.
Tomndebb already winged out an accusation that I used sentiments borrowed from the remnants of the JBS. (post #206)
While the JBS is overall a noble and patriotic group, we part ways on many issues. Conspiracy theorists who double as organized political activists are tainted thinkers and a liability to actually learning something from anything else they may have to offer, IMHO. I love following and debating a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person but a belief in certain conspiracies are indicators of shaky logical thinking on the part of the group. Anyone who thinks the Bilderberger conference is a secret take-over-the-world plot in motion or that there is a decent New World Order movement in place is not worth my time and effort to get too deep into, let alone identify with.
A Bircher and I do share many ideals and the sheer similarities could easily lead one to believe I might possibly align myself with the organization. I do wish them luck and prosperity but I will not waste my time in getting too cozy with what I perceive as an ultimate waste of time. I find my path much more rewarding.
I would not be surprised if you find it amusing that I can be so picky on one hand, yet a flighty dismisser of details on the other hand. The fact is that I judge certain qualities to be more powerful than others. Hitler for instance. Not many people will concede to the fact that Nazis were falling all over themselves to give up their minds to the collective - fully and completely. I would not give a fig if the Nazis all owned rental properties, schooled at Harvard, and drove 1939 Mercurys to the drive-in with their best gal Bobby-Ann to eat pizza and watch a Mister Chips movie while their daddies owned strip mines and liquor stores to fund their decadent lifestyle. The fact is the Nazis surrendered their one and only key to individuality to the collective. Doing 400 anti-murderous things and committing one murder does not take away the one thing that earns the murderous label. Likewise, doing 400 free-market style things while surrendering 100% of your will to the collective is not the key to being a free market capitalist. Maybe there is a better word, but I do not believe totalitarianism or authoritarianism cover it because the Nazis surrendered their free will on their own. They surrendered voluntarily to the collective willingly and I am pretty sure for the most part, excitedly. “I will give my self to the collective because there is glory in the collective”. Yuck. Pure socialism. Why bother to bog the state down with bureaucracy when the central control is taken care of lock, stock, and barrel.
I pledge allegiance to the flag and to my country, but I do not surrender my will to anyone but myself. Screw the collectivists, their “leaders” and their will-killing vision.
:dubious: No, it isn’t. Not by any plausible or defensible definition of either term.
Every civilized society, including the United States at all historical periods, pre- and post-Revolution, is a “collective.” “Collective” and “society” are almost synonymous, whatever that heartless bitch Ayn Rand might have to say to the contrary. The most important differences between one society and another, or within a society at one period or another, are not in the relations of the collective vs. the individual, but in the relations between different social classes within that collective.
Yes it is. By every plausible and defensible definition of both terms.
Bullshit.
A collective is NEVER as free as a society may be, and that is where you fail, sir. That is why there are two separate words that have been invented.
The term “collective” can easily be used as a pejorative, but the term “society” needs a hefty qualifier to drag it down to the level of what your precious collective connotes every day of the week, every day of the year.
Collective: involving all members of a group as distinct from its individuals.
That is NOT the USA. That is not the spirit of the USA. That is not the history of the USA.
The “collective” you wish upon the United States is non-existent in a legal sense… thank the Founders. “We the People” are individuals in free thought and free actions to choose our own destiny. Our society is a free society free from collectivism.
We have one common goal as the USA, and that is to protect the Constitution which ensures our individuality, which involves pursuing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our society is free from collectivism as far as it takes to protect us from whatever shitty Chomsky buzzword you care to foist upon our fair society.
Heartless? Oh, I forgot. It is all about the feeeeeeeee-lings. Right?
I’ll play my few glorious winners who have conquered the challenges of society against your multitude of oppressed losers who can’t handle basic societal skills anyday. When your sloths are at the welfare office, my go-getters will be building an apartment building for your losers to live in and buying Lexii with the Capitalist profits.
See you at the finish line.
Or in other words, “Chomsky stole my keyboard and is saying stuff on the internets with it!”