Uhm, what is this “past” of which you speak? When Clinton was in office? Hah!
But… when was the last time you had a Democrat as president and a filibuster proof Senate and a large majority in the House? That might well have something to do with it.
We don’t know who these “bigwigs” were. And I’m not ready to accept that Esquire set out to get an impartial survey of the Republican “leadership” rather than gin up a juicy story for their rag.
The thing is–what’s a “bigwig”? “Current and former members” could mean two congresspeople. That kind of thing.
They’re dipping all the way down to county party chairmen? Esquire? Reliable? Do you people know the first thing about critical thinking?
And it always surprises me how Obama=socialist is treated like some ridiculous claim when we just had a huge movement to nationalize an industry. OK, so he’s no Lenin or Marx, but come on. It’s not hard to see where these people get their ideas from. It ain’t the Kool-Aid. Juxtaposed with the title of this thread, it’s a laugh riot!
Furthermore, how is it shocking that when asked “who would you want booted from your party?”, they picked the people that are least like their party? Doesn’t that make incredible amounts of sense, completely lacking a logical flaw?
It’s also nice how people just passed right over the “kick Glenn Beck out” part. “Uh, I actually agree with that. That doesn’t fit my agenda. Better not mention it.”
So, Whack-a-Mole, for your lame attempt to use a bad poll to smear Republicans, I hereby award you 22 Doper points. That’s almost enough for the SDMB decoder ring! Good Job! ::applause::
So, by that reasoning are Bush and Paulson also socialists? After all they’re the ones that started the bank bailouts.
If you’re referring to health care, you haven’t been paying attention. First, “nationalizing” the health-insurance industry (let alone the health-care industry) has never been on the table. Second, it would not be an instance of “socialism” if it had been; the industrial democracies where health insurance and/or heath care are nationalized (which includes almost all of them save the U.S.) are not socialist countries by any reasonable definition.
“Socialism” has become another of the boogeyman words. I don’t pay any attention to it when those assholes spout it anymore.
Frankly, I don’t think Obama is a socialist…but I kinda wish he were a bit closer to being one.
I’d certainly take a socialist president over a far-right president.
I am a capitalist…I honor free enterprise. I do not think that “wanting everyone to have equal” is a reasonable…or even a worthwhile goal.
But I would like to see more economic fairness…and I certainly want to see the excesses of capitalism as currently practiced in the United States…severely curtailed.
Socialism and Communism both had lots to learn from the free enterprise, capitalistic system. We’ve got to learn that the free enterprise, capitalistic system has plenty to learn from them.
If what the jerks are saying is: Obama is heading us in that direction…
…all I will say is: Great! I hope he succeeds.
What is the difference between this poll and a ‘real’ one? Please?
No one is claiming this is a scientific poll.
It does however produce answers that, given the anonymity promised, give us interesting results.
Now, you could say Esquire sought out every loony, fringey politician they could to skew the results for a juicy story. Of course then it should be easy to point to the many exceptions in Congress that put the lie to the Esquire article.
. . . . . .
It’s ok, I couldn’t think of more than one or two either.
The question is what is the complete population of Republican leaders? 75 people is way too small a sample for all Republicans, but it might be a fairly good one for leaders. I’ll consult my sampling theory text when I get a chance.
No matter - do you think you could find 58 of 75 Democratic leaders (not extreme fruitcakes) who would call George Bush a fascist in a similar poll in 2005?
What is the Republican definition of a socialist? It seems like anyone to the left of Milton Friedman.
For the reality based, I think it would be tough to find any definition agreed upon by economists that Obama would fall under.
BTW, I vaguely remember you nitpicking the definition of fascist when people used it on Bush. That people did not mean he was technically a fascist was quite clear. I assume you will nitpick with equal fervor in this case. Of course, back then the abusers of the term were random web forum posters, not party leaders.
Typical - use Pawlenty’s speech to smear all conservatives. Ignore the moderate voices. Cherry pick opinions from one poll and use it to paint them all as a bunch of ‘fundamentalists’.
If you were paying attention to the actual CPAC conference, rather than trolling lefty sites for ammunition to use against them, you would have noticed a couple of pretty startling things: First, the winner of the CPAC straw poll for Presidential candidate in 2012 was Ron Paul.
Here are the results of the Presidential straw poll:
Ron Paul 31%
Mitt Romney 22%
Sarah Palin 7%
Tim Pawlenty 6%
Mike Pence 5%
Newt Gingrich 4%.
What do you know - Sarah Palin only had 7% support. Tim Pawlenty, your choice as representative of the movement, only has 6% support. Not only did the Libertarian win, but he got more votes than everyone other than Mitt Romney - combined.
Second, the utter collapse of the ‘traditional values’ conservatives, Pawlenty’s speech notwithstanding.
Each year at CPAC, they poll the crowd to find out what their major issues are. In the past, the major issues have typically been immigration, abortion, and ‘family values’. Lower taxes would be somewhere in there as well.
You can see this year’s results here. The first and second choices were reducing the size of the federal government, and reducing government spending. 85% of respondents picked those as their first or second priority.
Guess how many choose “Stopping gay marriage”? ONE PERCENT. It’s a non-issue. There’s more opposition to gay marriage among Democrats than there was among the CPAC attendees. Traditional values only got 5% (with only 2% making it their top priority), and abortion only got 10% (with only 6% making it their top priority).
Another question asked of the attendees is, “What kind of conservative are you?” This year, 80% responded “Fiscal Conservative”. Only 9% responded “Social Conservative”, and only 7% responded “Foreign Policy Hawk”.
And while the majority support Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, a sizeable minority do not - almost 30%.
The speech that got all the buzz at CPAC wasn’t Pawlenty’s or Beck’s. It was Marco Rubio’s. Rubio is a very thoughtful, very smart congressman from Florida who is only 39 years old, but is already speaker of the house in the Florida legislature. He’s running for U.S. Senate against Charlie Crist, and he’s going to win.
Here’s his CPAC address. I don’t agree with all of it. There’s some red meat in it for the social conservatives and foreign policy hawks. But mostly, it’s a speech about economic conservatism, personal liberty, responsibility, and small government.
This guy is much more a representative of the people at CPAC than Pawlenty could hope to be. And you’d better keep your eye on him, because he’s a star in the making.
Now, CPAC isn’t representative of conservatives as a whole. The people there were very young - the majority under 25. That in itself is surprising. But CPAC IS representative of the tea party movement, of the current active base of the Republicans. And it’s much more libertarian than it is traditional social conservativism.
“Fundamentalist” is about the last word you’d use to describe them.
By the way, did you guys actually see Beck’s speech? He used it to absolutely hammer Republicans. Beck’s not a Republican - he’s a libertarian-minded gadfly. And he went after Republicans with gusto - and got huge cheers for it.
You mean this Mitt Romney?
The link is to an article I read a few days ago about rampant untruths in politics. An excerpt:
Not a fundamentalist, perhaps, but somewhat lacking in honesty.
I’m not going to debate Mitt Romney. I’ve never been a big supporter of his. It seems very likely to me that the CPAC people picked him because he has solid executive experience and says he wants to cut the size of government, and because he’s probably the most electable politician of the bunch. That doesn’t mean everyone agrees with everything he says.
Again, you want to focus on the worst aspects, because it fits your narrative. Don’t you think it’s remarkable that at the largest gathering of conservatives, only 1% care about stopping gay marriage, and that only 9% consider themselves social conservatives?
The big story about the right side of American politics is that it is being increasingly dominated by fiscal conservatism and Libertarian/classical liberal ideals. This explains why books like Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” and Ayn Rand’s books are best sellers again, and why the old guard of the Republican establishment, like Trent Lott, Phylis Schlafly, Newt Gingrich, Ralph Reed and Rick Santorum are almost invisible. Their day is done. The old big-government, corporatist, ‘compassionate conservatism’ eastern establishment Republicans are history. The new party is much younger, much less animated by social issues, and they’re on fire right now.
I’m not sure “on fire” is ever the appropriate descriptor for members of a party who - if they have a very good 2010 - will only be a slightly larger minority in Congress.
I jsut read that Esquire Poll. It seems like you guys pretty much focused on the one question that you could hang a ‘crazy Republican’ hat on, at least from your point of view.
I thought it was more interesting that 86% of them described themselves as Fiscal Conservatives or Libertarians, and only 8% considered themselves social conservatives.
It was also interesting that only ONE percent said that social issues should be a major concern in the next election. That’s an astounding change from the Republians of 2004.
I also noticed that whoever wrote the poll is clueless, because many of the answers were ‘none of the above’. For example, “Republican of the Year” seems like a liberal’s idea of who Republicans like. But 64% of the respondents didn’t like any of them.
As for Obama being a socialist… Hell, -I- think he’s a socialist. I don’t think his policies are socialist, because he could never get away with it. But if he were suddenly made king, I have little doubt that he’d nationalize critical industries, crank up marginal rates on the rich to a large degree, adopt extreme pro-union and pro-labor policies, and treat large businesses like dirt. I think he’d like far more regulations on commercial activity, and a much heavier hand of government in American decision-making. Sure, there are some areas where he doesn’t fit the strict dictionary definition, but he’s close enough that I could be comfortable fitting the label to him.
And I’m sure that will cause howls of outrage in this thread.
Pawlenty is considered one of the moderates.
And the fact that conservatives are now obsessed with fiscal issues is probably just timing. If you went back to 2003 it would be something else. In 1997 it would be something else.
Had you asked in 2002 you would’ve gotten far more foreign policy hawks than you do now. Basically, you are taking a contemporary window of political behavior and trying to extrapolate it into a movement of conservatives away from social issues onto fiscal issues. I don’t believe that. I think the fiscal issue is just taking center stage due to the trillion dollar deficits and the great recession. Once those are over, they will go back to being social/foreign policy conservatives.
Oh, so you can see into his brain and read his mind now? Fucking Bullshit.
Of course they’re going to downplay their social conservatism now. They know that showing their racist, homophobic anti-choice true selves the will kill them in elections. So they cover themselves up, hide behind fiscal conservativism, and throw out scarey words like “socialist” to scare the sheep. Then once in office, they’re back to the same old religious Jesus God Bless America bullshit.
Not anymore. They’re never getting back in.
so·cial·ism
1.a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of productionand distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfectimplementation of collectivist principles.
Let’s start with this. The second definition is moot, so let’s focus on 1 and 3. We do this every day by paying taxes and allowing our government to propagate funds to the nation at large. Most would agree that this is a reasonable level of socialism (perhaps just not the rate of the taxes). Public schools are paid for by townships, cities, districts, etc for the community. Again, many people would say this makes sense (though more are vocally against this level of socialism).
To call Obama a socialist is authentic in one sense and disingenuous in another. By the above definition, all presidents are socialist to some level or another. I would say Obama is much more socialist leaning than most. However, the Republicans who use this against him deny how socialist Bush was. They ignore the ways in which he was socialist because it was in favor of things they supported.
Point 3 is much more interesting to me, because it would not surprise me if our government (on BOTH sides) were working towards this end in an effort to usurp a free society into bondage. Obama may just be the person initiating this phase in Marxist theory, but he couldn’t of gotten here all by himself. I tend to not trust the government (based on history, the US’ and elsewhere) so I admit I’m biased on this point.
Let’s move on to…
fas·cism
1.(sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimentingall industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
2.(sometimes initial capital letter) the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.
3.(initial capital letter) a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.
So here we can pretty much focus on the first definition.
While we are not in full blown fascism quite yet in this country (getting closer every day!), it would be ignorant to ignore the fascist tendencies of presidents in history.
Fascist might be better understood as Authoritarian, or, a rule of people by force. Common themes (as mentioned above) historically are nationalism and racism. Class warfare is one not mentioned by the definition, but often proponents of fascism promote an end to class warfare, while in reality institutionalizing it through corporatism (Hitler and Musselini come to mind).
Let’s start with executive orders. These by themselves are fascist by their very nature! Furthermore, there is no explicit grant of these mentioned in the US Constitution (only a vague mention of “executive powers”). They were first used in 1789 and were unannounced and undocumented until the 1900’s. Bush issued more than any other president in history, so that says a lot right there.
Media is controlled, plain and simple. No right/left wing to blame, it’s a unified front by the government to control what the people know. Sure there are power struggles, information leaks, and the like. The bottom line is we’re all being kept in the dark while they fight each other for a bigger piece of the pie of control (when in reality, they both bow to the larger god of international banks). American media is fascist for the most part. The internet is about the only place you can find out all the facts to a story through following information trails. This isn’t new though, even Pulitzer got busted controlling the news (and there’s an effing prize named after him!). In fact, the media is often how the government controls what people focus on in politics via press releases. Meanwhile, news stations have lists of rules/talking points called “memos” that are handed to newscasters before broadcasts. This could be everything from avoiding certain topics to avoiding certain words to specific arguments to use in given situations to keep the conversation CONTROLLED. There are exceptions still (we’re not totally fascist yet remember?) but “news” in this country is a joke, at least of the TV variety. Newspapers aren’t much better, mostly reprint stations for the same stories across the country (with exceptions of course). News “magazines” are all fluff and no substance. They are like the “human interest stories” of political and world news, and they are all horribly biased and ignorant in one way or another. The internet is really the last place to get news, but most people don’t care at this point, rather being spoon fed mush by the Glenn Becks and Keith Olbermanns of the world.
Phew! Got on a rant sorry.
Racism. Republicans tend to use “hard racism” to enrage people. Democrats tend to use “soft racism.” What I mean by that is that they make race an issue to belittle others and make them feel bad for not being “sensitive” to other races. They promote the idea we are all the same, but in the same breath say why every race is different, keeping race an issue. There are differences to culture, but Democrats and “soft racism” tend to promote the idea that the dominant culture is ALWAYS RACIST, which in it’s nature is racist itself. It’s oxymoronic, and just moronic.
Back to fascism as a whole. Let’s focus on Obama. He’s had the government buy out GM, banks, and he’s trying to move into healthcare (and if you think the government won’t try to snatch that up later even after Obama’s gone, I don’t know what to tell you). Not only that, but if you decide to have the FREEDOM to not have healthcare, you face a $25,000 fine and jail (under the proposed bill). The corporatization of America is reaching a new level. Shit even our political parties are like brand names now. I’ve heard talking heads even refer to the parties as the “republican/democrat brand.” Obama certainly isn’t stopping it, he’s encouraging it (same as Bush I, Bush II, Clinton, and Reagan did, to name a few). He’s trying to pass a law taking the control of student loans to federal jobs. Overall, Obama is INCREASING GOVERNMENT CONTROL. Now, he’s not really dissolving powers of congress, but that’s because Dubya already took care of that for him, via executive orders that provide ground for circumvention of congress.
Let’s look at military. Obama certainly hasn’t downplayed the military, budgeting MORE MONEY FOR MILITARY THAN GEORGE W BUSH DID. I’ll type that again. OBAMA BUDGETED MORE MONEY FOR MILITARY THAN BUSH DID. He’s promising troops to come home, only to keep shipping them out to Afghanistan is my guess (I hope I’m wrong). He’s still sabre rattling with Iran and Pakistan though much more subdued than Bush & Co. Our fascist foreign policy is alive and well under Obama. He strengthened the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act of 2006. He kept all the fascist pieces put in place by Bush and added his own socialist flair.
So you can be socialist (economic) and fascist (style of rule). If I’m not mistaken, that’s how Hitler operated (The National SOCIALIST Party). I’m not sure if your point was you can’t be both, but I would encourage you to rethink that if that’s the case.
Lastly, this is a matter of perspective. What I see as completely unjust and evil someone else might see as just what the country needs. Also, fascism is hard to be aware of if/when:
I’d like to think we have a chance to escape this fascist socialism nightmare America has slowly been turning into over the last century (perhaps longer…they’ve been challenging the Constitution before the ink dried on the page). I just really lose hope on the whole thing though.
So Obama is socialist and he is also fascist, but these are components of his politics, not his sole definition.
I would say though that they are slowly becoming America’s only definition.
Read them both. Want my money back. Want my time back. Want to re-program the nuerons currently dedicated to that memory to recalling details of the Olympic USA Hockey team drubbing the pee out of our nettlesome northern neighbors. So there, beaver boy!
Do you honestly believe that? Do you really think the next GOP nominee won’t be entirely bought and paid for by US corporations before he even gets nominated? And that the GOP won’t use the same old social issues as wedge issues during/after the next election?