So let’s pinch this off and see if it floats…
It seems to me that the conservatives have been wrong for over 200 years of American history. The liberals wanted to split from English rule, conservatives were loyal to the crown.
Liberals felt slavery was evil and needed to be abolished, conservatives saw it as a property issue.
Liberals wanted women to have the right to vote, conservatives thought women voting was silly.
There are more but I would like to ask… What makes them right today???
I know there are still some rednecky folk who think slavery was a good thing but I don’t imagine any who would be loyal to the king.
Another thing to ponder is the possibility (very high IMO) that 150 years from now hunting animals for sport will be seen as we see slavery today. Conservatives wrong again.
ya know, didn’t we just devote an entire multi-page pit rant yet again to our wintery friend who tended to demonize his opposition by ‘capsulizing’ their positions in an ‘either/or’ format?
I’m sorry but I missed that multi-page pit rant.
As you can see I am a long time SD member who does not post very often. I felt it was a legitimate post. I was hoping for some historic examples of where liberals were wrong.
…and liberals fought for civil rights in the '60s while the conservatives hosed the Negro down, blocked the schoolhouse door, and kicked 'em out of the cafeteria…
…and liberals believed women could do great professional work or be part of the military while conservatives wanted to keep 'em home…
…and conservatives feared and cursed rock ‘n’ roll music while liberals harmlessly danced the night away…
…and liberals unionized to fight conservatives to make working standards bearable, and those standards are generally and widely accepted as the norm to this day…
…and liberals have been champions of free speech and association while conservatives have tried to limit free speech and association (see, flag burning, McCarthyism, anti-government speech)…
…and liberals have been champions of freedom of religion while conservatives have constantly been trying to ram Chritianity down everyone’s throats in public fora for ages (see, prayer in schools, “In God We Trust”, “Under God”)…
…and conservatives are FINALLY starting to realize that acknowledging legitimacy of same-sex relationships isn’t a threat to heterosexuality and its not going to be the end of the world…
Don’t mind me, I’m just bored at work and having fun…
So…since I flamed a conservative yesterday, let’s turn to the liberals now.
You effectively brought up the three issues in American history where change was most needed, and attribute that change to the liberals. You then use that attribution to try to say that liberals are always right.
What you fail to realize, though, is that some change is going to be necessary in order to ensure the growth of a healthy nation. That is the only real problem I have with most die-hard conservatives. However, the die hard liberals don’t seem to realize that change isn’t always necessary. If what is being used works, then continue using it.
Would you say that the Reagan years of the '80’s were bad years for America? While I don’t particularly like Ronald Reagan, I have to truthfully say that Reagan was the best president of the latter half of the 20th century (very possibly by default). Ironically, nothing important historically really happened during Reagan’s tenure. A hundred years down the road, he will be forgotten.
That is the true definition of a great conservative president. Conservatives aren’t looking for groundbreaking reform. They aren’t looking to change the course of a nation. They are simply looking to keep things the way they are.
Or, in the case of Dubya, they are simply looking for power.
Not much of a flame, but thanx for showing an interest.
I am truly interested in hearing about historic liberal flaws.
A few recent examples may be obvious, but I am looking for a pattern of bad judgement by liberals over a long period of time.
Well, if you’re looking for flaws, there have been several attempts to forcibly re-form society based on oversimplified scientific or political theories that resulted in disaster. Eugenics, collectivized farming, and forcible removal of aboriginal children from their families in order to ‘civilize’ them all come to mind.
Of course, I’m defining ‘liberal’ simply as favoring change over the status quo, and ‘conservative’ as the opposite.
You must be an idiot to include slavery as a basis of the Republican party. Abe Lincoln, a Republican, issued the “Emancipation Proclamation” which declared that slaves would be forever free. It wasn’t the Republicans that fought for slavery. It was the Democrates of the time.
Did you actually learn anything about the history of the US? I mean there was the whole civil war thing that you apparently know nothing about. Note, the civil war wasn’t just about slavery but it was a factor.
zoo When you actually know what you are talking about please re-visit this thread. At this point you are making a fool of yourself.
Sleestak, zoo never said anything about Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter). He said conservatives. Your example of slavery is a good example of how the parties themselves have historically shifted between liberalism and conservatism on various issues.
You see, zoo, Liberalism and Conservatism really, really suck as names for ideologies, since, over time (as Sublight pointed out), the things designated “liberal” and “conservative” have radically changed. According to the ideas he espoused, Ronald Reagan would have been a liberal in the 19th century, on economic and social policy. At any given point, “liberal” has denoted the people interested in change; “conservative” has denoted the people opposed to change. This means that the content to which each of these terms refers depends on the change in question. If I am standing in Paris in 1789 and the question is, “Should we have a massive and uncoordinated revolt of the working class, without discernable goals, and subject to the control of a bunch of demagogues?” then I am a conservative. If I am standing in Stone Mountain, Ga., in 1862, and the question is, “Should we free the slaves?” then I am a liberal. So you see, binding either event endemically with either word makes it so that you have inconsistent ideas within the same ideology. For instance, “Liberal” in the 19th century referred to a free-market capitalist. These days it doesn’t.
This means that you can’t even assess the rightness or wrongness of liberalism/conservatism on the basis of whether change itself is good or bad. Some changes are good. Other changes are bad. Other changes are neutral.
In any event, someone once asked Chairman Mao what he thought the effect of the French Revolution was. His answer?
Lyndon Johnson - Vietnam, The Great Society.
George Wallace - anti-desegregationist.
Franklin Roosevelt - New Deal extensions of federal regulatory activities, attempt to stack the Supreme Court, secured passage of the first ever peacetime conscription in the U.S.
Harry Truman - ordered U.S. military involvement in North Korea.
Jimmy Carter - Stagflation.
Not to mention he somehow got it into his head that ust because it reamains a commonly heald ideal doesn’t make it right. Africans could be secretly trying to subvert the white mans culture -who’s to say?
In his book.* From Beiruit to Baghdad,* Thomas Friedman wrote that middle east correspondants would literally apply the terms left and right to the “good guys” and the “bad guys” in countries where neither side followed western ideas of liberal or conservative. I have the impression that this thread is implicitly using that definition.
After all, if “liberal” means “Democrat”, then the liberals were the ones opposing civil rights.
If “conservative” means opposed to change, then Bill Clinton was a conservative. He enacted very few changes during his 8 years as President. OTOH Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich would be flaming liberals according to that definition.
