America is a liberal country

45degreeN · Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:24 am Post subject: America is a liberal country

1. Who but liberals would rebel from their mother country just to set up their own? Conservative would like us to still be British.

2.Who but liberals would offer incentives to move west? Conservative would have us all live on the Eastern seaboard

3.Who but liberals would insist that an economic system that depended upon slavery is wrong and fight a horrible civil war to correct that wrong. Conservatives would leave us with slavery, and offer tax incentives for the owners.

4.Who but liberals would waste so much money on a space race and then just give the moon up. Conservatives would still support the buggy whip industry with horses and the auto industry wouldn't have caught on.

All-in-all America has done well with liberals in charge. Like it or not America is in fact a liberal country.

Classical conservatives have only been around since the 1940's with the build up of the Military-industrial complex and the Neo-cons have only been around since the 1980's. Both rather naive political positions. We cannot go back into to some mythical womb and hide from change.
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RevJP · Moderator Joined: 18 Apr 2003 Posts: 7002 Location: USA

That's the silliest post I've read in a long time.

Is it meant to be a joke or do you have some socio-political/economic substance to back up those outlandish assertions?
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45degreeN · Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:57 am Post subject:

Economist and historian Roberts Higgs wrote a book called Against Leviathan in which he outlined the rise of the modern conservative movement and he cites the origin around the end of the WWII. It was against the backdrop of the "cold war" that the modern conservative ideology began and it was primarily an anti-communist agenda rather than a true ideology. Prior to that time there simply was no organized conservative ideology.

John Dean in his book Conservatives without Conscience cites a similar beginning to the modern conservative movement. Dean points out that the modern conservatism is completely disconnected with its republican roots in the 19th century and he cites approximately 1950 as the beginning of the modern conservative movement.

Lee Edwards writing for the Heritage institute wrote about the origins of the modern conservative movement and he cites 1953 and the publishing of Russel Kirk's "The Conservative Mind." So we have three sources for establishing of the origin of this movement, can you possibly offer some differing points of origin? Citing sources?

Rather than just being "silly" as you put it, conservatism in its raw form is just a way of returning to some past that may or may not have even existed. Holding onto a mythos of how things were (at least in their own minds).
Imagine the reality of "Leave it to Beaver."

America in its grandest scale and most generous ways always looks forward to a future that is changed, and usually for the better in as yet unknown ways. Having faith in God allows for those changes to take place quite outside anyone particulars control but it somehow gets done. Conservative seem to try and lay their grip on that change and brake it or steer it into their own preconceptions of how it should be, placing themselves into the position God would be who is the real controller of all the changes.

No America and Christians have been and will always be liberal.
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45degreeN · Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 6:24 am Post subject:

Possibly to clarify: conservatism has always been around but it has included so many different ideas that from one place or time frame to another have been contradictory. The Modern Conservative movement as defined by the authors mentioned in the previous post has only been around for a short time and it will probably shift and change also over the coming years.

The Neo-cons are an even newer movement and they are simply scary in their ideology. They began under president Reagan and they have inhabited primarily the defense department. Ironically none of them have ever served in the armed services.

"The Christian science Monitor describes them as mostly liberal Jewish intellectuals who became disenfranchised with the left in the 60's and 70's. By the 80's they had become Republicans, having found a home for their aggressive policies in the Reagan administration. According to the Christian Science Monitor, what distinguishes neoconservatives from other conservatives is their desire for militarily imposed nation building. They believe that the United States should use its unrivaled power-forcefully if necessary- to promote its values around the world" (from the John Dean Book cited above).

Basically conservatism as an ideology is rather scattershot in its point of view changing from era to era place to place and the modern American version of it is rather a reaction to the communist ideology rather one which has its own point of view.
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RevJP · Moderator Joined: 18 Apr 2003 Posts: 7002 Location: USA

45, I appreciate the laundry list of books regarding the origin of 'conservativism', but it doesn't address the question.

You said:

45degreeN · Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:25 am Post subject:

So REVJP which part of the past do you want to conserve?
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RevJP · Moderator Joined: 18 Apr 2003 Posts: 7002 Location: USA

I don't believe I claimed to want to conserve any part of anything, have I?

Your question proves my point. Conservativism is soooo much more, much more eclectic in focus and ideals than you have tried to paint in your picture of a pigeon hole.
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45degreeN · Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:57 pm Post subject:

So far you haven't refuted my proposition that America is a liberal country and has been from its inception.

You, yourself may choose to be conservative but this thread is not about your own particular point of view but America as a whole.

Conservatives have been the minority party all along and as an exception they have managed to get their own people into positions of power but never for long.
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theseldomscene · Banned Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 7817

hi 45..of course you know i like what you are saying and we are seemingly usually on the same side in political discussions...but could you please explain this a little more...

saintmichaeldefendthem · Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:52 pm Post subject:

Seldom!

I'm so glad to see you. I haven't seen you on the bible debate board so I thought you got booted.

This place would be boring without you.

In Christ,

James

45degreeN · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:06 am Post subject:

TSS the premise is rather simple but hardly exists anymore in American politics.

When the liberals are divided over some issue and cannot find a agreeable candidate their votes get divided and sometimes it is possible for an alternative candidate to get enough votes to make it into power.

There has not always been such a strong two party politics here in the US. During the election that brought us Lincoln there were 5 parties, some rather local, but the Republicans (a new party at that time), it consisted of factions from other parties lumped together.

Remember a party called the Know Nothings? They were an actual party during that era and they were severely ant- Catholic but when asked, they knew nothing hence the name of that party. It never amounted to much though.

There was two democratic parties (North and South) there was a "Constitutional Union Party" that actually polled many votes.

Lincoln won because the opposition was split and he hardly won by any landslide.
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saintmichaeldefendthem · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:50 am Post subject:

Boss,

Your posts are a mixture of truth and nonsense. Yes it's true that liberals were the driving force for freedom both in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. What we call "classical liberals" are today's libertarians, not today's liberals. Founding liberals like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson were distrustful of government power and sought to limit it in every way possible, correctly viewing an overbearing government as an affront to freedom. They believed in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not government guaranteed happiness.

Today's liberals by deep contrast seek to aggrandize the government as much as possible. They are socialist in their outlook and don't view liberty as given to men by God and protected by the government. They view it as revokable when it seems to conflict with the "common good"

The classical liberals believed in self determination and responsibility, that one worked for their own welfare and not for another's. There was no safety nets except for voluntary safety nets erected by charity, because charity wasn't mandated. Classical liberals were generous with their own money, not with someone elses. They will reach into their own pocket to help someone in need, not reach into my pocket. They believed high taxes to be a form of oppression. They were right.

To understand the sentiments of our founders it becomes necessary to read not only the Constitution, but the Articles of Confederation, because their sentiments lied in the middle. While they believed the Articles suffered several fatal errors, they distrusted the amount of power the Constitution gave to a central government. The proponants built in safegards to assauge those concerns; safeguards that are today routinely ignored. The Constitution passed by a slim margin.

Today's liberals are not champions of freedom. They're champions of socialism, moral decay, burdensome taxes, suicidal policies, treason, extreme causes, abortion, racism, and the new world order. Today's liberals are what the liberals of the past warned this country about.
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Pondering · King of the Jungle Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1501

ah yep....and ditto Wink

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RevJP · Moderator Joined: 18 Apr 2003 Posts: 7002 Location: USA

45degreeN · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:17 pm Post subject:

My assertion that began this conversation has not been even questioned except by the rhetoric you spill out, REVJP.

Assertion1: that America has been and still is primarily a liberal country. I have cited three sources that support the secondary assertion that the modern day conservatives are merely a recent phenomenon.

Political polls today count the democrats and republicans and guess what, it is those democrats that outnumber the republicans. This of course doesn't take into account the variations each party has within them. Add to that the historic fact that America has been basically liberal since its inception and you must prove the opposite that America is more conservative that liberal.

While there are a whole laundry list of the various types of conservatives such as cultural conservatives and religious conservatives, the "Neo cons" and even the "classical conservatives" all of them dont add up to a majority simply because they dont have common agendas, cant seem to agree on many of the issues and frankly in the last few years their little coalition under Bush seems to be going the way of the Dodo bird.

However you choose to insult them with pejorative labels those liberals will be running this country after the next election and nothing El Rushbo can do about it. So get used to it the Neo-cons failed miserably.

Offer me some source that counters my proposal that the conservatives outnumber the liberals...anything legitimate. I think you have simply lived in a cocoon of conservatism and not stuck you head out of the sand to check the real world.
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