The Greatness of the United States is Dying – and Conservatives are the Ones Killing It

[Quixote1818]

June 7, 2015 By Allen Clifton

Can someone please explain to me one “great” thing that conservative ideology has brought to this country? I just don’t get it. Even as much as Republicans worship at the temple of Ronald Reagan, what did he really do? And don’t even give me the “he ended the Cold War” nonsense. The wheels were put in motion for the downfall of the Soviet Union long before Reagan ever became president, he just happened to be the president when it finally all came crashing down.

To be honest, to find the last great Republican we have to go all the way back to the 50′s and Dwight D. Eisenhower, someone who the modern-day GOP would consider a radical socialist if he were running for office today. Eisenhower was a president who presided over much higher taxes than we have today, who built the Interstate Highway System and believed that taxes shouldn’t be cut until the budget was balanced.

That’s what you call “fiscally responsible.”


But it’s rare to see any Republicans cite Eisenhower when spewing their usual right-wing propaganda. They worship Reagan, a man who nearly tripled our national debt in eight years and never once balanced the budget, as a “conservative icon” – yet mostly ignore the last president from their party who actually showed true fiscal responsibility.

More: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/greatness-united-states-dying-conservatives-ones-killing/

[cali]

1. they may be leading the charge,but there are plenty of corporate dems

[daleanime]

2. Unfortunately....

true.

[Quixote1818]

3. Corporate dems are just moderate Republicans. nt

[Betty Karlson]

24. Real conservatives would distance themselves from corporatism.

Burke ( the man who coined the word conservatism) would rank the GOP's corporatists and superficial "Christians", and their Democratic counterparts, as radicals not conservatives.

True conservatives, in the Burkean sense, would oppose the drastic restructuring of society to suit the interests of the few at the cost of the common good. In Burke's view, conservatives are against any unnecessary change - and conservatives are not likely to embrace a complete overhaul of the constitution, elimination of 100 years of wokers rights achievement, and active discrimination / marginalisation of scapegoat groups. They would denounce the GOP and third way ideals as a utopian view - no matter whether those who hold those ideals place them in the past or in the future, the Burkean conservatives would call them unrealistic and unachievable and likely to disrupt the major part of society.

Like "conservatism" and "liberalism", many words have had their meaning twisted ever since the neo-liberal/neo-conservative/corporate newspeakers got their hands on them. That sad, long list includes "the Greatnesss of America": which in newspeak now means the common man's willingness to sacrifice his life and liberty to advance a few private interests.

[MFrohike]

4. Sigh

Nothing is quite as pathetic as seeing self-styled progressives argue they're more "fiscally responsible." It's stupid both politically and in terms of policy. Fiscal responsibility isn't about worrying about the chimera of the national debt, it's about ensuring effective demand while avoid too much inflation or spiraling into deflation. It's about ensuring full employment and making it possible for all Americans to have a base of support so that they don't need to fear homelessness, hunger, or disease. It's not about arguing over who can best run a surplus and suck money out of the economy.

[Quixote1818]

5. Did you read the rest of the article?

The tiny part about Eisenhower and fiscal responsibility was a minor part of the point he was making.

[MFrohike]

13. I did

It petered out after the Ike bit, so that's what I chose to address.

[Skittles]

18. Democrats are much more fiscally responsible than repukes

repukes scream about food assistance while clamoring for senseless wars

[MFrohike]

19. Interesting standard

I tend to think of fiscal responsibility as not buying into the lie that the federal government is anything like a household when it comes to its budget.

I won't deny that the conservative values of pointless wars are destructive, but I wouldn't attack those on a money basis. I'd simply point out that perpetually shifting real resources (I don't mean money) into military endeavors while neglecting the real economy that supports that military is a quick road to imperial collapse.

[Thespian2]

6. DDE

explained it for us in his last speech to the American people...beware of the Military-Industrial Complex, the current owners of the US of A...

[hifiguy]

8. ike had no truck with those who wanted to roll back the New Deal

[Betty Karlson]

25. Sound like a real conservative to me.

No neo-conservative radicalism, no reactionary hate.

Just common sense, keeping things that have proven their worth.

[Lizzie Poppet]

7. Precisely.

America's greatness stemmed, in part, from the ability of working-class people to make a good life for themselves, to aspire to a life with some amenities and and a comfortable retirement (and a legacy for their children). It stemmed from democracy and economic fairness...not plutocracy and thirty years of an ever-shrinking tiny minority of parasites grabbing more and more and fucking more for themselves at the expense of everyone else.

Most of the horrible trends we're experiencing began in the Reagan era. Our manufacturing sector, the source of so many good jobs for working people, is a crippled shadow of itself. Students are treated less as a precious resource than as a profit center. Our political system is a corrupt farce, rife with legalized bribery. Our police have become little more than enforcers for the plutocrats (and revenue generators, of course). Huge swaths of the population live from paycheck to paycheck, with no savings and no realistic hope for better. This once-great society is spiraling down the bowl.

I actually have more hope right now than I have in a long time (amazing how something like the Sanders candidacy will do that), but it's a damned faint one.

[Unknown Beatle]

9. Except for Eisenhower, the republican presidents

since then haven't been fiscally responsible, they spend like drunken sailors.

[AZ Progressive]

10. That Eisenhower "radical socialist" was a 5 star top general that was responsible for D-Day in America's greatest war

Funny how in history, Democrats / progressives tend to be associated with war. I bet the conservatives have been envious for decades that they don't have that kind of war background.

[hunter]

11. I've never suffered that illusion of our "greatness."

The U.S.A, happens to be the place I was born.

It was an accident, I swear. I wasn't paying any attention at all as all us preconception souls were queuing up in heaven as couples on earth fucked.

As a white male born in the U.S.A. with some family resources things didn't turn out too badly for me.

I might have been the offspring of some species now extinct.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. "...he just happened to be the president when it finally all came crashing down."

That's all part of the Reagan Myth as well.

The Soviet Union was still going strong when Reagan left office.

Daddy Bush was in office from the beginning of 1989 and the Berlin Wall fell at the end of that year. Demolition began the following year.

The Soviet Union didn't formally end until there was a failed coup by hardliners trying to overthrow Gorbachev in 1991. That was the last straw. It was over.

America played NO role in the fall of the Soviet Union. It was internal.

[former9thward]

20. Revisionst History

The Soviet Union tried to keep up with the Reagan military buildup and it bankrupted them.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. You do know WHY the Republicans did that,...right?

Last edited Mon Jun 8, 2015, 11:18 AM - Edit history (1)

The Reagan crowd made Nixon's look like choir boys.

It was so bad between the disastrous economy and the paper shredding and the people claiming they couldn't remember to avoid jail time for everything from graft to perjury that the folks in his administration would never be able to get a job in DC ever again.

Being a member of the Reagan Administration should have been a disqualification from public service. That would have taken out some of the heaviest hitters in the party. Instead they remained in decision making positions and one of those decisions was to value their own criminality as a virtue and to look for it in a candidate.

It's no wonder the party they built is the way that it is.

[eppur_se_muova]

23. Thank you !

Reagan said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" and got a tremendously useful soundbite out of it -- useful in the sense of building the Reagan legend. But Soviet-style Communism collapsed from its own internal weaknesses. Ironically, it was the Capitalists who danced on the Soviet grave, turning Kruschev's declaration upside-down. Then they took credit for the murder of a suicide victim.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. Actually, it didn't collapse from "weakness". That's another myth....

It collapsed because nobody outside of Moscow took it seriously anymore and it became too authoritarian to it's own people.

Sound familiar?

[F4lconF16]

14. This wasn't revisionist in the slightest.

America was definitely a wonderful place before the stupid Republicans ruined everything

[summerschild]

15. I heard Jim Webb interviewed on C-Span this afternoon and

I was glad I got to hear him. He spent ten minutes explaining how what we needed now was leadership - REAL leadership like Ronald Reagan. BARF.

How can anyone be so ignorant as to be a BONZO worshipper?

[madville]

16. The greatness of the United States is dying for white people

It's always sucked for everyone else.

[pampango]

22. Great point, madville. The 'lost' era of the mid-1940's to mid-60's was only 'golden' for white men.

Times were good for white men - rising incomes, a high level of income equality among white men, rising infrastructure spending, high taxes on the rich, an increasing safety net, etc.

For women, racial minorities, the LGBT community and others that pre-civil rights era was not 'golden' in the least. Nor were the decades before that.

[lpbk2713]

17. Raygun --- B grade actor.

F grade president.