Tuesday, August 17, 2004
WHAT HAPPENED?
The following is excerpted from the official GOP website:
http://www.gop.com/About/GOPHistory/Default.aspx
"The Republican Party was born in the early 1850's by anti-slavery activists and individuals who believed that government should grant western lands to settlers free of charge. Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to win the White House, against the advice of his cabinet, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves. The Republicans of their day worked to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, the Fourteenth, which guaranteed equal protection under the laws, and the Fifteenth, which helped secure voting rights for African-Americans. The Republican Party also played a leading role in securing women the right to vote. In 1896, Republicans were the first major party to favor women's suffrage."
Well it sounds like they got off to a good start. On the side of civil liberties...hmmmm, that can't be.....Republicans hate civil liberties don't they? I've often wondered where they get their ideology, so I did some research. The basic tenet of the Republican Party is that 'big government' is bad. In other words they want to limit the ability of government to meddle in the affairs of it's populace. Wrong. That may have been how it was, but not since before the first world war. What they want is to limit the governments ability to limit the ways they make money, they love it when government tells us how to live our private lives. They stand on what they call family values, values as they define them, or as defined in a very old book that's been translated a thousand times over.
It's also strange that the second major tenet of the GOP is fiscal conservatism. The three Presidents prior to the market crash of 1929 were republicans (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover), and a Democrat (Roosevelt) got us out of that mess. Reagan/Bush left us with a huge debt and Clinton fixed it and what happened to the surplus? Rhetorical, I know we all know the answer.
It started off auspiciously enough...but something happened...something went wrong, something called religion coupled with something called greed, which is a sin last I looked, and a deadly one.
The following is excerpted from the official GOP website:
http://www.gop.com/About/GOPHistory/Default.aspx
"The Republican Party was born in the early 1850's by anti-slavery activists and individuals who believed that government should grant western lands to settlers free of charge. Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to win the White House, against the advice of his cabinet, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves. The Republicans of their day worked to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, the Fourteenth, which guaranteed equal protection under the laws, and the Fifteenth, which helped secure voting rights for African-Americans. The Republican Party also played a leading role in securing women the right to vote. In 1896, Republicans were the first major party to favor women's suffrage."
Well it sounds like they got off to a good start. On the side of civil liberties...hmmmm, that can't be.....Republicans hate civil liberties don't they? I've often wondered where they get their ideology, so I did some research. The basic tenet of the Republican Party is that 'big government' is bad. In other words they want to limit the ability of government to meddle in the affairs of it's populace. Wrong. That may have been how it was, but not since before the first world war. What they want is to limit the governments ability to limit the ways they make money, they love it when government tells us how to live our private lives. They stand on what they call family values, values as they define them, or as defined in a very old book that's been translated a thousand times over.
It's also strange that the second major tenet of the GOP is fiscal conservatism. The three Presidents prior to the market crash of 1929 were republicans (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover), and a Democrat (Roosevelt) got us out of that mess. Reagan/Bush left us with a huge debt and Clinton fixed it and what happened to the surplus? Rhetorical, I know we all know the answer.
It started off auspiciously enough...but something happened...something went wrong, something called religion coupled with something called greed, which is a sin last I looked, and a deadly one.
Comments:
If you think for a minute that Bill Clinton fixed the deficit you need to go back to school my friend. He just squeezed the baloon the oposite way from what Reagan did (Bill raped the military budget until the armed services were paper thin everywhere tech, troops, and training, vs. Reagan robbing SS coffers to feed the military budget). Check off with your military sources to confirm if you like.
Bill Clinton was fortunate enough to preside over a rare period in market history where a new technology inspired a huge bull market run that made many middle class folks wealthy for a time until the bubble eventually burst (as I have stated before, I don't blame BC for the crash anymore than I do GW). The Gov't is like any business, when times are good operating cash flow is abundant. I think Bill did a good thing by applying some surpluses to our debt, but many of my enlisted friends will talk about how scary it was to put people on the ground in Bosnia, especially reserve units when they hadn't been on an exercise in years because the money wasn't there to do it. Most tell me we were fortunate on two occasions that this didn't backfire, one being the fact that ground forces were fortunately not required to stabilize the Yugo region, and again in Gulf war one when the U.S. used all the time alotted to them while diplomacy was running its course during "Desert Sheild" to adequately train our forces for the pending invasion. We had 125,000 troops in the theater for almsot a year prior to invasion if you recall.
Give it up man, Reagan spent the communists away and it was a good thing.
Can't argue with the religion comment, don't know why or when the Reps alligned with them, but it was a bad move.
You are as misguided about the greed think as you have ever been thinking the Dem's aren't driven by greed as well. Both party's are equal opportunists in this aspect.
Bill Clinton was fortunate enough to preside over a rare period in market history where a new technology inspired a huge bull market run that made many middle class folks wealthy for a time until the bubble eventually burst (as I have stated before, I don't blame BC for the crash anymore than I do GW). The Gov't is like any business, when times are good operating cash flow is abundant. I think Bill did a good thing by applying some surpluses to our debt, but many of my enlisted friends will talk about how scary it was to put people on the ground in Bosnia, especially reserve units when they hadn't been on an exercise in years because the money wasn't there to do it. Most tell me we were fortunate on two occasions that this didn't backfire, one being the fact that ground forces were fortunately not required to stabilize the Yugo region, and again in Gulf war one when the U.S. used all the time alotted to them while diplomacy was running its course during "Desert Sheild" to adequately train our forces for the pending invasion. We had 125,000 troops in the theater for almsot a year prior to invasion if you recall.
Give it up man, Reagan spent the communists away and it was a good thing.
Can't argue with the religion comment, don't know why or when the Reps alligned with them, but it was a bad move.
You are as misguided about the greed think as you have ever been thinking the Dem's aren't driven by greed as well. Both party's are equal opportunists in this aspect.
You put a good face on it Tony, but the facts are what they are. Bush blew a surplus. In Bosnia we had the support of our allies, Bush does not. It may have been a scary time for soldiers, but Bill was able to do what he did because he commanded the respect of the world, again, Bush does not. Reagan did a great job on out-spending the Russians, but was it truly necessary? Their system was doomed from the start.
Rod is right about LBJ I think, but I remember it was Reagan who welcomed them into the big leagues, gave them entree into the party, and helped them organize into a solid coalition.
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