I think Mallard Fillmore says it best:
The view of a more powerful presidency and a weaker congress, which came mostly from Cheney’s office, was based on their experience working for Nixon. How is that a liberal view? Conservatives criticized Bush mostly on fiscal issues, not on his use of executive power.
No, it means that this particular liberal philosophy has been so totally successful that it has all but totally driven out the opposing philosophy, leaving it a practice of the political fringe. The fact that most people have grown up in a time where these things were the norm is a sign of the total domination of this particular liberal cause in American society, to the extent that racial and sexual equality are no longer considered a liberal/conservative issue. But that doesn’t change their history as primarily liberal causes.
I can’t say as I can think of a conservative philosophy that has achieved such total penetration into the social consciousness.
There has never been a consistently “liberal” or “conservative” position on the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. Generally liberals favor a strong executive when there is a liberal POTUS and conservatives do when there is a conservative POTUS.
I’m basing that on this.
Bullpuckey.
Wanna buy a rock? This rock is guaranteed to prevent tiger attacks. How do I know? Have you seen a tiger around here lately?
Bullshit.
Actually, all I really needed to see was “Mallard Fillmore” to know that there was no way it said anything best. Or coherently. Or in any kind of touch with reality.
Or in any kind of touch with humor, for that matter.
Oh my yes. Many mythological beasts still not conceptualization, and all the drawings I’ve seen of Bigfoot and skunkapes thus far have been largely…pedestrian, shall we say.
But I don’t believe that those idealogies are necessarily dead or repudiated; they’ve simply evolved or are no longer needed. Some of the programs I mentioned (the FDIC, for instance) are still around because they got the job done; we don’t need new programs to correct or end successful ones. Others, such as public housing, have definitely evolved. The dangerous public housing (I’m blanking on the name; the big Soviet-esque institutional tenement things, like Cabrini Green) were largely a failure. But then to move beyond that, those are getting torn down and new homes built in its place. Cabrini is a good example. Although it’s Chicago and going to be rife with corruption, the new homes in Cabrini are mixed-income; a certain percentage are going to be reserved for those displaced by tearing down the big housing complexes. Others are being given vouchers, or are getting section 8 funding, etc.
What I’ve badly phrased is that public housing as it was originally conceived was a failure, but the ideal of it is still going strong.
Oh, and by the way, I don’t mean to disparage Chicago in particular; I used to live there and loved it. It’s just the first example I could think of.
I whole-heartedly agree about “what’s in the constitution/what isn’t.” Judge-made rules are generally slap-dash fixes that are going to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. BUT, that being said, judge-made rules were/are a fixture in the common law, and they’re a fixture under a constitutional system. And they’re used to address the blank spots in the Constitution.
Now, even though I’m a huge abortion-supporter (well, I support the right to have one; infrequently am I actually in a Planned Parenthood with a foam #1 mitt and an air horn…), you are right about abortion, the right-to-privacy, and the Constitution. But Roe v. Wade was merely a judge-made rule to address an issue upon which the Constitution was silent. And it certainly wasn’t a liberal/conservative thing; two Nixon appointees agreed with the decision (it was before Blackmun became…you know, Blackmun, but still). And it appears that the majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade: I know it’s Wikipedia, but it cites to a Harris poll, so…. That’s hardly a repudiation of a liberally-created “right.”
But it is! Many politicians are elected based on the premise of turning back the liberals, of overturning abortion and gay rights, of ending welfare, big government etc. If Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush couldn’t turn back the “liberal tide,” that’s either indicative of people not actually wanting that, or those presidents not actually being much good at keeping promises (although, to be fair, that’s almost every president). These programs are still around because people want to keep them. It’s not that they’ve grown accustomed to there being an unemployment office or a planned parenthood in town; rather it’s because they recognize the value of these programs. And for many of those programs, it’s certainly not apathy; just look at Focus on the Family.
I do sincerely believe that people want these things; they want public housing and social security; they want abortion (albeit “safe, legal, and rare”) and OSHA and child labor laws and a minimum wage. Because if people didn’t want them, I don’t think we’d have them.
Yes, the media has been totally lax in its duties by failing to print a big story every time something didn’t blow up.
[Peg Bundy]“Thank the man for our nice new Depression, children.”[/Peg Bundy]
The burning question: is Mallard Fillmore funnier than Dennis Miller? If you read *Dullard Fillmore *for an hour, and then watched ten minutes of Carrot Top, would you get the giggling shits?
Capitalism
Yeah, that’s a good one.
Whenever the subject turns to “liberal media”, I like to turn the issue around:
OK, so let’s read a couple issues of Time and Newsweek. That’s your liberalism? That’s what inspires such fear and loathing?
Now if you watch some Fox news and listen to some talk radio to get an impression of what conservatism is like, then yeah, conservatism sounds pretty awful.
To be more specific, LBJ, a master politician, got the Civil Rights legislation through, fully aware that he was losing the South for the Democrats for years to come. Plus, in 1964, there was a terrific fight at the Democratic convention between the all-white southern delegations and a rival integrated set of delegates. The Democratic party was rife with bigots, but they mainstream of the party knew it and tried to improve things. They left for the Republican party, where they were and still are welcomed - and appear to be the mainstream now. The racism has moderated a lot, thanks to the permeation of that liberal idea of tolerance. The top dogs, like Bush, Goldwater, and Reagan, weren’t personally bigoted but were happy to appeal to those who were. Nixon I’m not that sure about.
Elites!!!
Capitalism is a liberal philosophy.
I was waiting for that. Then I submit that environmentalism would be a *conservative * philosophy. 
Liberal != libertarian.
Nixon was a bigot by habit and inclination, but not on principle; but he was perfectly willing to inflame and exploit racist sentiments for political gain. See Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein.
The dark ages but them damn liberals had to go ruin it with their “enlightenment”. Why it couldn’t be like it’s 1450? People were polite then.
Nobody ever respects the Spanish Inquisition.