House of Jamie - The right side of history...

The right side of history...

2009-Jan-27

" If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal', then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal." - John F Kennedy

This isn't an attack on Conservatives as people, this is purely a defence of the Liberal, and a partial attack from my own point of view, on the ideals of Conservatism.

There isn't a day goes by without a Conservative/Republican blog on Wordpress dedicated to discussing how out of touch and 'pansy' Liberals are. It's amazing, given that the current economic mess is the sole responsibility of a Conservative ideology dedicated to deregulated markets, allowing the greedy few to get away with murder. To be Liberal, is a proud feeling in these ever growing days of intolerance, hatred, war, and despicable propaganda.

Conservatives and Republicans alike, appear to be of the belief that it is some sort of crime to be Liberal. As a Liberal, i'm proud to hear the Conservative sentiment... "you weak Liberal". It was a Liberal who ended slavery. It was a Liberal who gave women the right to vote. It was a Liberal that created the NHS and Welfare state. In fact, Liberals created America.
I'm yet to see a socially progressive act by a Conservative dedicated to 'freedom' (Reaganomics like Thatcherism, cannot be suggested, for the very reason that their concept of 'free' does not apply to the less fortunate in society).

In 2004, George Bush referred to John Kerry as.... "The most liberal member of the senate." And suddenly the label is dropped and "Progressive" was picked up by Democrats. Why is Liberal such a term of abuse rather than pride? Why is Conservative, not a term of abuse? Conservatives originally opposed the civil rights act; they STILL have serious issues with homosexuality; they continue to preach pro-life nonsense yet allow any American to carry a gun; whilst supporting the death penalty; they have decided that unborn children have healthcare rights that children born into poor families shouldn't be entitled to because to do so would mean the dreaded Socialism; they consider the poor to be nothing more than a nuscience in the way of big business; they still think Obama is wrong to be closing Guantanamo suggesting that the Conservatives like to torture; and they produced Sarah Palin. How are Liberals considered worse than that?
The concept that Liberals are soft on National Defence is a weak one at best. No major terrorist attack happened on Clintons watch. It did on Bush's watch. Nixon, a Republican was forced to resign, and Reagan was shot. Bush however, may have even known that Terrorists planned to hit America, and didn't act in time. He then waged an unjust war, with no rebuilding plan, that sparked even greater hatred toward America and the West.

Franklin Roosevelt was Liberal in the sense that he created The Social Security Administration. Lincoln put an end to Slavery and so was Liberal. Martin Luther King was as Liberal as one get be, and is so widely respected he has a day named after him. The bill of Rights is a Liberal document. The Global Warming Lobby with their pesky evidence, need a Liberal to champion their cause. We saw the destruction that dripped disastrously from the mouth of Conservative Sarah Palin, whose main concern was not that we're clearly killing the planet, but the profit to be made from oil drilling. John Adams is quoted as saying quite beautifully and eloquently, in a way that only Adams could... "Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant." .......And so from this, we can deduce that America was born of the virtues of the Liberal mind.

George Bush once said... "Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough. "..... He's wrong. Not just a liberal from Massachusetts would say such an education funding increase isn't enough, I would also say it's not enough. A 70% increase is not enough, education should be a priority, whether private or state education, children should have the best. They should be at war with each other for the best teachers, paying a fortune to secure them, they are the future, they need the very best, the money needs to be going to the education of tomorrows CEOs and Politicians, so that they do not make the same mistake as this generation of CEOs and Politicians. 49% is not enough, when so much has been wasted on unjust and illegal wars.

Over here in England, The National Health Service Act of 1946 created a free healthcare service regardless of social status, implemented by Clement Atlee's Labour Government; Liberal achievement. Liberals continue to invest more money in State Schooling than any Conservative Government has ever done. Liberals introduced both the Minimum Wage and the Education Maintenance Allowance, and made it possible for people on low incomes, like myself, to go to University. Conservatives, originally opposed the NHS and have cut funding to it ever since, opposed the minimum wage under the flawed idea that the Markets are best placed to deal with wages, and opposed the idea that we're all entitled to equal levels of education, regardless of Wealth.
In 1918, "Representation of the People Act" gave Women the right to vote, a Liberal achievement. Less well known was the "Abandonment of Animals Act of 1960", making it an offence to abandon an animal. A Liberal achievement. And what do we have to show for Conservative achievements? Thatcher. A nightmare of a woman.
"The Factories Act of 1961", put great emphasis on the safety of Factory Workers, whose welfare had been ignored throughout successive Conservative Governments whose concern was merely "profit". Let us Liberals deal with humanity, Conservatives should stick to greed. "The Suicide Act" of the same year, decriminalised Suicide, so that anyone who failed to take their own life, could no longer be prosecuted. Liberal achievement.
In 1988, the "Local Government Act", in particular Section 28 stated "The Local Government Shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". This nasty little piece of hate filled legislation was the work of the Conservative Government. Local Governments worked tirelessly to ban any publications that suggested Homosexuality was ok. It's nazi-esque approach was nothing short of disgusting, yet characterises the Thatcher years perfectly. In 2002, the Labour Government, having revoked Section 28, allowed Gay couples to adopt. Liberal achievement.

The Conservative Government of the 1980s may be considered Progressive in that they allowed those renting Council Houses to buy their homes at cheap prices from the local authority, with the Housing Act. Putting this into context is much more difficult. Whilst it's a nice idea to sell council houses to tennants, you also have to keep building new council houses because suddenly the demand in the private sector shrinks and so available housing becomes less, and so prices shoot up, and we're left with the mess of a housing market we have today. Not only that, but if you're going to allow poorer people to buy their homes from the local authority, be sure you look after the economy. The Tories didn't. When the recession hit, people suddenly couldn't afford their repayments, and so many homes that wouldn't have been taken from tennants had they been renting from the council still, were repossessed. Homelessness almost doubled in London. And people still appear to worship Margaret Thatcher. The Right To By, Housing Act was a disaster of a Government trying to win usually safe Labour Votes.

The bulk of Conservatives felt in necessary to allow the Bush administration to keep as many secrets as it liked as long as it cited "National Security" as it's reasoning. You can bet that those same Conservatives wont allow Obama to do the same. Unless Obama's White House is fully transparent, those Conservatives are going to become more and more hypocritical and more and more quasi-Liberal by the moment.

The term Liberal should be a badge worn with pride. Liberals are on the right side of history.

2009-Jan-27 - Untitled Comment

Posted by thedietcokeofevil

John Adams also pushed through the Alien and Sedition acts, essentially revoking the first ammendment in probably the greatest attack on civil liberties in America's history.

And wasn't Atlee involved in the CIA overthrow of Iran's first democratically elected Prime Minister, Mossadegh on behalf of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company?

Just saying, you need to check up on your heroes a bit. Certainly those men did great things, but they also did some despicable ones. No one is all hero or all villain, and while I support high ideals as well, I don't think either the Conservatives or the Liberals have all the answers. Certainly after Bush's administration, it's easy to react strongly against anything at all conservative, but I believe it's more because of his genuine ineptness and the ambition of the people around him than simply because he was a conservative. Reagan, whose economic policies were certainly problematic for the poor, also did bring down the Berlin Wall, after all. And Nixon, despite all his many faults, reopened diplomatic relations with China. I don't think an all-capitalist solution is the answer, and I don't believe an all socialist solution is the answer. If you were going to build a house, you wouldn't bring only a hammer along, you'd take lots of tools. So why would you try to build a nation out of a single ideology?

To claim as you have here "we are on the right side of history" is just to deepen the "us" and "them" aspect and serves to divide people and entrench them deeper in their stated position. It's a lot like religion in that way. "Well, certainly, those folks BELIEVE what they believe, but clearly, they are wrongheaded we have the right of it, and after it's all said and done, when they're burning in a fiery hell, they'll understand I was right." I just can't believe that the world works that way.

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2009-Jan-27 - Untitled Comment

Posted by libertine

I think what he means by "the right side of history" is that the historical trend has been toward liberal ideas, even if it is somewhat two steps forward and one step back much of the time. And it refers to the fact that human progress has always come from liberals -- and what is considered liberal or even radical at any point in history, is eventually adopted by conservatives -- albeit years or decades later, which they then invariably claim was their idea all along!

I agree that the current trend of liberals calling themselves "progressives" is a bit of a cop-out. I'm a liberal and I'm not afraid to say it. I'll start calling myself a "progressive" when conservatives start referring to themselves as "regressives".

The Kennedy quote is a good one. Here's another that I like:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

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2009-Jan-28 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Rubicon

What a skewed sense of history you have....Lincoln was not a liberal nor a Democrat. Kennedy was a good man and certainly would've done good things for this country had he had the chance, he was more Democrat than liberal in my opinion.

FDR's New Deal eventually fell through. LBJ signed onto welfare with little in the way of a checks-and-balances system and we can see what it's become today. You opened your post by saying that it's more of a defense of liberals yet you paint conservatives/Republicans as inept, warmongering, torture happy and seriously behind the times. It certainly doesn't read like a defense of liberalism but more like an attack on conservatives and conservatism.

There were more attacks on American interests abroad during Clinton's watch than while Bush was in office. Jimmy Carter is as liberal as they come and look how he ran this country into the ground. Now he defies state department requests to stay out yet he goes to foreign countries and bashes his own country. He is so liberal that Ayatolah Khomiany(sp) felt quite comfortable in taking 400 plus American's hostage for over a year. They were released as soon as Reagan took office....it took Reagan to mop up and fix Carter's mess. And yes....trusted intelligence sources did have viable information that indicated that there may be an attack(s) on American soil but not where, how, or when. So yes, Bush was apprised of this but the ridiculous notion that he KNEW about 9/11 before hand and did nothing is complete rubbish.

Liberals preach tolerance yet are very intolerant of any ideas or ideals that differ from theirs. Liberals have changed school text books to suit their ideas of history and now our children either don't learn the factual history, or they get a watered down version. They've taken God out of our pledge and our schools.
Republicans are always held to a different standard than Democrats....this has been proven time and again. When a treasury secretary purposely evades his taxes and it's just as plain as day, the Democrats tasked with his confirmation to become Secretary of The Treasury simply gloss right over it, next thing you know, Obama's pick is confirmed. Had this man been a Republican? That Senate Committee would've been all over him like white on rice.

You can hate, dislike, and disagree with conservatives and conservatism all you want, you're not going to break any hearts, but the least you can do is get your facts straight and get your perspectives on a more level playing field.

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2009-Jan-29 - Untitled Comment

Posted by thedietcokeofevil

K, let me disavow any association with that guy. While I agree that Jamie's post is a bit hostile, I don't think the answer is necessarily an equally partisan counterattack.

Second, just because I like playing devil's advocate so much, it's hardly fair to level the watering down of history in the schools charge at the liberals without heaping a pretty big share of blame on Conservative folks too. Reconstruction comes to mind. Labor movements. So on and so forth.

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2009-Jan-29 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Rubicon

Huh? Reconstruction? Labor movement? I have no idea what you're talking about. But as far as an equally partisan counterattack, it wasn't meant to be. More like some corrections to what I thought was an attack on conservatives and Republicans.

You can 't heap a bunch of blame on conservative Republicans for watering down, or just downright changing the history books. Where you can lay blame is their not fighting harder to ensure that this type of thing wouldn't happen. God has been taken out of our schools, conservative Republicans stood by and let it happen.

Finally....the term progressive was used, as in "I call myself a progressive." You should look up the definition of a progressive as it applies to political beliefs, I think you'd be surprised.

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2009-Jan-29 - Untitled Comment

Posted by thedietcokeofevil

conservatives have consistently painted this nation as a "christian" nation, and while it WAS founded by men who were largely christian, the great majority of the founding fathers made statements to the effect that religion and government have no business together.

We've repeatedly heaped praise on men who did terrible things in the name of profit and greater power, starting with Christopher Columbus.

In search of greater profits and power, we've repeatedly invaded weaker countries and suppressed popular revolutionary movements (the phillipines, cuba, guatemala, hawaii for that matter) and conservative governments have lied to "the people" time and time again to get them to go along with it. In the event we felt a government we didn't like was too strong to invade directly, we destabilize them with propaganda and then stage and support Coups (Iran)

Reconstruction is painted as a time when everything went to hell, and not much was accomplished, and everything went backwards for a while, particularly in the south, but the evidence suggests that there were large advances in improving race relations during that period. Black people were elected to public offices, there were successful integrated communities. It wasn't until the KKK started to rise to power and attempting to keep black people from their rights and from voting that race relations really started to deteriorate again, and it wasn't until the KKK, through the Democratic party (which at the time was the conservative party) dominated legislatures and local governments (and so controlled the content of textbooks) that the current picture of Reconstruction began to be painted.

Many labor movements have been suppressed by the federal or state governments on behalf of businesses, to the point of imprisoning or killing participants in peaceful protests against low wages, poor living conditions and unfair or unethical business practices. Check out the Ludlow Massacre or the Pullman strike, for example.

The government also routinely suppresses peaceful protest. I'm sure we've all seen the footage of protesters being attacked with firehoses and police dogs during the civil rights movement. Kent State also comes to mind, when members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a group of protesters, killing four.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a patriot. I love the ideals this country is founded on, but I do think we need to do a better job upholding them, and we need to remember when we fail, and fail miserably so that we don't allow the people in power to keep taking advantage of their position and the trust we've placed in them to support the powerful at the expense of the poor and weak, and against the will of the people.

Maybe before you accuse someone else of not being familiar with their history, you ought to read a book or two yourself, rather than just standing on the "America is great because it is America" bandwagon. Symbols are only meaningful as long as you live up to them, and nations are only worthy of admiration when they live up to their ideals behind closed doors, not just when the press is watching, and the founding principal of the U.S. is that ALL people are created equal and that governments are subject to the will of the people, not just the wealthy people.

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