Conservative Versus Liberal - A Peace Offering
Posted: Wednesday, April 21, 2010
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
Are liberals and conservatives opposite? If you are a conservative, does that mean that liberal ideas are opposite of yours? And if you are liberal, are conservative ideas opposite of your way of thinking?
The opposite of liberalism is not conservatism - but tyranny (a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator - not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.). Liberals like to be able to change things and not be told what to do unless they have a say in it.
So neither anarchy nor tyranny sits well with true liberals or conservatives, but perhaps only resonates with far out fringes which will never, in my opinion, garnish more than a fraction of the support needed to sustain legitimate movements anyway. They're so contrary, they can't even agree among themselves, which precludes any kind of serious organizing, other than emotional rallies which are no more than tailgate parties between football seasons!
Actually, true liberals and conservatives have much in common. Both are fiercely independent and don't want anyone telling them what to do unless they agree to it. Therefore, when one or the other party is out of power, there are bad feelings of being told what to do by the party in power. This is a common and understandable reaction.
Of course, historically no one party has survived too long and it's just a matter of time before the other party gets it's say. Historically as well, the differences are not intractable, usually revolving around arguments between individual freedoms and distribution of wealth (liberal) and balanced budgets and free capitalism (conservative), all of which is rarely legislated to the point of long term detriment to either side, depending upon general popular support and the vote.
Originally, our founding fathers rejected any kind of authoritative power, such as the Church of England, and instead opted for a quite liberal interpretation of democracy. However within these liberal ideas of a government solely made up of elected officials, lie many conservative safeguards that insist that no branch of government could really get the upper hand.
So when we look at contemporary liberalism and conservatism carefully, we can see that even in the most seemingly intractable arguments is a common ground. For example; let's look at gay marriage and a proposed constitutional law prohibiting it.
This would place a segment of our population at risk to guaranteed freedoms of our constitution (liberal view). From the conservative standpoint, gays have no fundamental rights to marriage, as defined by the church, and therefore the constitution does not apply to them. That being the case, a constitutional law banning gay marriage would be justified and prohibit gay marriage from becoming a possibility through the unpredictable legislatures, courts and justice systems of the various states. A federal law would trump the states.
As you can see, this conservative argument against states rights and for federal control is based on a fear of anarchy, or things changing beyond their control at the state level. Therefore, conservatives embrace a kind of federal tyranny, which interestingly enough is pure liberalism.
Mainstream liberalism and conservatism therefore have distinct similarities. Even the fringes of the right and left have similar authoritarian views. Most transparent on the right at this point in time are fundamentalist Christians who envision a Government run on Christian and Biblical ideals, as well as white supremacists who would like to see all the Jim Crow laws repealed and the government fall under their complete control.
The fringe left would like to see socialism develop with public ownership of all property and businesses, and an equalization of wealth across the board. Capitalism would be tightly regulated, as in China, and all would share equally in the national wealth.
Although these extremes go nowhere, it is the mere threat of these extremes that incite moderate liberals and conservatives to distrust each other to the point of paralysis in legislation. They are not actually concerned with the legislation at hand, but with how the legislation will politically erode the power of the other side in the future.
If you look at both the left and right wingnuts, you will see a distinct liberalism, in that changes in government (or destruction of ) are the primary interest. Therefore tightly held conservative values merge into liberal actions. Restricted governmental powers, distrust of the judicial system as an unpredictable wild card, self sufficiency and self determination are all liberal roots emanating from our founding fathers.
The basic tenet, on both sides, has always been and probably will always be that the limited interests of the few should never constrict the freedom of the masses, although the rights of the minority is also to be protected. A bit of a dichotomy! Liberally speaking, selfish companies and multinational corporations should not have power over congress, therefore affecting the masses by profit for the few. And conservatively, one president should not wield so much power as to have influence over the many who disagree. Both ideals come from the same basic principles of personal freedom.
Both conservatives and liberals love freedom; freedom to do as they please. Our constitution is filled with freedoms and our society is set up this way as well. But with our freedoms comes the possibility of excess, and with excess comes the possibility of a media driven society where a very few powerful voices force realities to take a back seat to ideologies. This is unique to our country, and the results of which remain to be seen.
But we all love freedom, as previously stated; liberals like freedom to worship any and all religions, as well as freedom from religion being jammed down their throats in the public forum, freedom to make a living as they see fit, and freedom to run their own lives but with the safety net of a benevolent government to help if they run into some bad luck.
Conservatives love the freedom to proselytize their religion, not only in churches but in schoolrooms and places of employment, freedom to work without having to pay off the government in the form of taxes and fees, and freedom to run their own lives without the government telling them what to do.
Both conservative and liberals have the same intuitive urges regarding freedoms. Unfortunately, living in a society where the personal freedoms of one person can become anothers nightmare and prison requires compromise. Also, there is the recognition that some things require team effort, and can't be adequately handled independently, such as a national armed forces and a national interstate highway system, plus thousands of others.
At the intersection of these personal freedoms is politics as usual. However the root of our politics here in America is still freedom. And the constitution, recognizing both the liberal and conservative drive toward fairness of the masses in deference to the profit of a few, protects minority rights, probably because the founding fathers had a disdain for organized religion aka the Church of England and the debilitating restrictions placed on the populace as well as the attempted theocratical control of the new colonists here in America.
Although liberals now consider themselves anti-conservative, and vise versa, the fact remains that rooted in all of this controversy lies a fundamental fact: Americans are independent as hell.
Within this fierce independence is a comradeship of sorts that cuts through all the heated rhetoric of the left and right, which when found again will bring us together. Unfortunately, only a good war has ever been able to do that, and if you look at the lingering costs of a war, both psychologically and monetarily, that's a too simplistic and expensive solution.
Hopefully, peace be found amongst us without the trauma of fighting the next war, although that kind of thing (not counting political wars like Vietnam and Iraq) always seems to arise when we have way too much time on our hands.
So the question is; can we find enough similarities within ourselves to begin cultivating true brotherhood? I know that brotherhood doesn't make the nightly news and excite cable channel ratings, and that is why it probably will never work as a movement of some kind, however, if things continue as they are, the next war will more than likely be fought right here amongst ourselves in the good ol' U. S. of A. And that would be a tragedy brought on by nothing but a lack of intelligence.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Good article e, I wrote an article a couple of years ago on search warp titled "Uniting conservatives and liberals, a proposal"
This article is riddled with so many errors on so many levels it would take a comment much longer than the article to explain them. The author does not understand liberalism or conservatism, confuses classical liberalism with modern statism, and it otherwise generally vary careless in his descriptions and historical fact, rendering the article virtually useless. Mr. Rock needs to do considerably more research, and, yes, actually read books about conservatism written by true conservatives, as distasteful as that might be to him. This is the kind of article I would expect from a college sophomore in a political science course who has not read all of the course materials. Very slipshod, superficial, immature and poorly researched.Thank you, could you be more specific in your dissent, other than using a typical conservative ploy of ad hominem. You can use as much time and space as required."Conservatives like set rules to live by and structured, unchanging principles, as long as they have a say in the structure and principles."No. Principles are principles BECAUSE they are unchanging. Liberals are unprincipled and constantly seek to change (in the name of being "progressive") to suit the historical moment."From the conservative standpoint, gays have no fundamental rights to marriage"Wrong again. Gays have no fundamental righs under any historical precedent. Liberals decided they wanted to change the definition of marriage which has existed from the dawn of man. Conservatives merely take the position that we should not change what has been established from time immemorial to accommodate a relationship which many view as deviant, or at least not the norm. And there are obvious good social reason why government should encourage normal, heterosexual marriages. So don't place it on conservatives seeking a constitutional ban on gay marriages. That is a deliberate distortion. It is the Statists who are looking to distort the Constitution that they revile.Why do you hate this country so much that you (and the current adminstration) what to "fundamentally change America"? You need to get some perspective. Travel, read some history, appreciate the greatness of America. Conservatives want limited government, individual liberty and free-market enterprise. Statists want the government to run just about everything. This is a gross oversimplification, but so is your article.The Founding Fathers were not against organized religion. They were against mandatory membership in the Church of England. They came her to practice freedom of religion, any religion, but clearly organized religions were practiced from the earliest days of the settlements. Read the early historical documents written by the Colonists. These are riddled with religious references. The so-called "doctrine" of separation of church and state does not come from the Constitution, read the establishment clause. Progressives look to stamp out anything that has the slightest hint of religion, which is completely misguided.As for your swipe at gun ownership, (not sure what you have against Bibles, but I can guess) this is an important American right. It is the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. I don't see health care, abortion, Medicare or Social Security, as enumerated rights under the Constitution. You obviously do not understand the importance of gun ownership as a Constitutional principle. The Founding Fathers made this a part of the Constitution for very good reasons which completely escape you.And so on and so on. I don't see the point of parsing article further. I disagree that the polar opposites of conservatism and liberalism are anarchy and tyranny, but I do agree that as modern forms of political thought, conservativism and classical liberalism have a great deal in common. No so modern progressivism/Statism and conservatism, the former being an aberration of classical liberalism.I applaud your desire to mediate the differences between conservatives and statists, however, while not polar opposites, in the context of political history, particularly in the last 200 years, statists need to understand that running a country is not a glitzy Hollywood production, with touchy-feely approaches to difficult problems. Unfortunately, because too many live in some fairytale perception of the world, Bush caused Barack Obama.No. Principles are principles BECAUSE they are unchanging. Liberals are unprincipled and constantly seek to change (in the name of being "progressive") to suit the historical moment.No principle is unchanging, that’s a bible thing."From the conservative standpoint, gays have no fundamental rights to marriage"Wrong again. Gays have no fundamental righs under any historical precedent. Liberals decided they wanted to change the definition of marriage which has existed from the dawn of man. Conservatives merely take the position that we should not change what has been established from time immemorial to accommodate a relationship which many view as deviant, or at least not the norm. And there are obvious good social reason why government should encourage normal, heterosexual marriages. So don't place it on conservatives seeking a constitutional ban on gay marriages. That is a deliberate distortion. It is the Statists who are looking to distort the Constitution that they revile.Again a bible thing.Why do you hate this country so much that you (and the current adminstration) what to "fundamentally change America"? You need to get some perspective. Travel, read some history, appreciate the greatness of America. Conservatives want limited government, individual liberty and free-market enterprise. Statists want the government to run just about everything. This is a gross oversimplification, but so is your article.Conservative blather.The Founding Fathers were not against organized religion. They were against mandatory membership in the Church of England. They came her to practice freedom of religion, any religion, but clearly organized religions were practiced from the earliest days of the settlements. Read the early historical documents written by the Colonists. These are riddled with religious references. The so-called "doctrine" of separation of church and state does not come from the Constitution, read the establishment clause. Progressives look to stamp out anything that has the slightest hint of religion, which is completely misguided.The founders were Deists, not Christians.As for your swipe at gun ownership, (not sure what you have against Bibles, but I can guess) this is an important American right. It is the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. I don't see health care, abortion, Medicare or Social Security, as enumerated rights under the Constitution. You obviously do not understand the importance of gun ownership as a Constitutional principle. The Founding Fathers made this a part of the Constitution for very good reasons which completely escape you.Again, look at my comment.above from your previous post. Guns are stupid.And so on and so on. I don't see the point of parsing article further. I disagree that the polar opposites of conservatism and liberalism are anarchy and tyranny, but I do agree that as modern forms of political thought, conservativism and classical liberalism have a great deal in common. No so modern progressivism/Statism and conservatism, the former being an aberration of classical liberalism.I applaud your desire to mediate the differences between conservatives and statists, however, while not polar opposites, in the context of political history, particularly in the last 200 years, statists need to understand that running a country is not a glitzy Hollywood production, with touchy-feely approaches to difficult problems. Unfortunately, because too many live in some fairytale perception of the world, Bush caused Barack Obama.Sorry, I disagree with about everything you say. But thanks for the input. I’ll leave you with some comments by a good friend of mine:A look at the historical changes that both sides effect on the citizenry shows if you are the target of a Conservative law, you’re screwed, permanently, and maybe mortally. Look at this new immigration bill in Arizona, for example. Assuming it passes, if a cop stops you, your life will become a thing of permanent misery. It is the few out to deliberately hurt the many.If you are affected by a Liberal law…ok, let’s say gun control…well, you won’t be allowed to own or carry a gun under certain circumstances, and if we managed to get rid of all the guns, there would be far less gun crime. So, there is nothing to report on. There is the absence of an event. And that’s how I see Liberal laws, the absence or removal of negative or aversive events.Conservative laws are more like active events, we see and feel them, they hurt, they militarily invade Third World countries (every time…prove me wrong, homey!). So, although in theory the Yin and the Yang are equal and opposite forces, one of them pounds us in the face, while the other cushions our backside.“The basic tenet, on both sides, has always been and probably will always be that the limited interests of the few should never constrict the freedom of the masses, although the rights of the minority is also to be protected.”See, I don’t quite believe that is true, e. I think the essential, unspoken fear of the Conservative is that the limited interests of the few should be preserved, even as the historical trend will be that they enter minority status, and the more generalized interests of the masses will tend to close down those few Conservative special interests. Having come from a Conservative family heritage (at least, on my mother’s side), I don’t think that class of people are the least bit interested in the general good of the people, but in the protection of property and a sort of privileged life style that dates back to the King’s Grant.I had a very conservative friend who likened the U.S. to a hornet’s nest. “Stick your hand in a hornet’s nest,” he said, “and what do you think will happen? We must be like the hornet.”That was his wisdom. Mine is that I would rather we were like a school of swimming porpoises. I don’t want to be a nasty, stinging, angry, agitated hornet. I don’t think the analogy is very flattering to a society of wise and noble creatures.
"Conservatives love the freedom to proselytize their religion, not only in churches but in schoolrooms and places of employment, freedom to work without having to pay off the government in the form of taxes and fees, and freedom to run their own lives without the government telling them what to do."No. Conservatives love the freedom to PRACTICE their religion. No one is compelled to accept another's religion. Your problem is that this country's history is so solidly steeped in Judeo-Christian principles (accept it, America is essentially a Christian country; always has been, but much less so now than ever) and you seek to eradicate just about anything that smacks of religion, which is one of the things that has made this country great. Public schools and most colleges are controlled by Leftists, so I really do not accept your point in the least. If you are talking about proselytizing, let's talk about Muslims call for jihad in American mosques and prisons. You statists don't seem to have a problem with that. I guess you identify with Islamists hatred of America, so you give them a pass.Conservatives do not resent having to pay taxes. I am not sure where you are getting the notion that they are tax dodgers. (There are more of these in the Obama administration than in any past Republican administration, but don't confuse Republicans with conservatives.) The problem lies in what the government does with taxes that are collected. Redistribution is theft.Yes conservatives very much enjoy "the freedom to run their own lives without the government telling them what to do." I guess you prefer a Statist solution where the government encroaches in every part of your life: your healthcare, your life-and-death decisions, your income (how much is too much?), banking, business, education, and on and on. Quite a contradiction from the beginning of your article where you state that conservatives just love structure and authoritarianism. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. You just plain don't get it. Your emotional approach eclipses your ability to reason. You like liberal causes just because you do; you think they sound nice and feel good and they're easy. You are unable to understand conservative principles because they may sound difficult and are not always easy, and can't understand why anyone would want to do anything difficult. (Maybe because it is the right thing to do! But right and wrong are trumped by what makes you feel good, so that does not compute in your world.)"Conservatives love the freedom to proselytize their religion, not only in churches but in schoolrooms and places of employment, freedom to work without having to pay off the government in the form of taxes and fees, and freedom to run their own lives without the government telling them what to do."No. Conservatives love the freedom to PRACTICE their religion. No one is compelled to accept another's religion. Your problem is that this country's history is so solidly steeped in Judeo-Christian principles (accept it, America is essentially a Christian country; always has been, but much less so now than ever) and you seek to eradicate just about anything that smacks of religion, which is one of the things that has made this country great. Public schools and most colleges are controlled by Leftists, so I really do not accept your point in the least. If you are talking about proselytizing, let's talk about Muslims call for jihad in American mosques and prisons. You statists don't seem to have a problem with that. I guess you identify with Islamists hatred of America, so you give them a pass.Christians love to push their religion in every aspect of their lives, and our lives, the bible tells them to, their “practice” is nothing more than a big sales pitch. It’s disgusting. Oh, and your red herring arguments re Islam etc., are getting a bit stale.Conservatives do not resent having to pay taxes. I am not sure where you are getting the notion that they are tax dodgers. (There are more of these in the Obama administration than in any past Republican administration, but don't confuse Republicans with conservatives.) The problem lies in what the government does with taxes that are collected. Redistribution is theft.Redistribution is fair. Since Reagan and Greenspan, the disparity of the rich and poor has progressively gotten worse.Yes conservatives very much enjoy "the freedom to run their own lives without the government telling them what to do." I guess you prefer a Statist solution where the government encroaches in every part of your life: your healthcare, your life-and-death decisions, your income (how much is too much?), banking, business, education, and on and on. Quite a contradiction from the beginning of your article where you state that conservatives just love structure and authoritarianism. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. You just plain don't get it. Your emotional approach eclipses your ability to reason. You like liberal causes just because you do; you think they sound nice and feel good and they're easy. You are unable to understand conservative principles because they may sound difficult and are not always easy, and can't understand why anyone would want to do anything difficult. (Maybe because it is the right thing to do! But right and wrong are trumped by what makes you feel good, so that does not compute in your world.)I love government, its protects me from unbridled capitalism, which is killing the poor and middle class.I fear that liberalism truly is a mental disorder. "Guns are stupid." At least you admit you don't understand gun ownership. The UK is not doing fine; read the statistics; only the criminals have guns. The citizens are left at their mercy by the stupid government. If you "love the government" you deserve to have the government take away everything it has taken the power to bestow. This is dangerous, but, as I said, you don't get it. Try Cuba for a while; see how you "love government." They have a lot of it there. China and Iran and North Korea too. Lots and lots of government, that you love. Consider moving. I would wager you would return in a heartbeat.No one said "unbridled capitalism" is a good thing. A free market economy with a modicum of regulation works. Our problem is over-regulation. Over regulation, not under regulation has caused most of our economic problems since the Great Depression. But government lovers like yourself love to meddle in the free market, which has a way of working out its problems without serious intervention.The trouble with redistribution (besides being morally wrong) is that you eventually run out of other people's money, which I suppose is how you subsist. John F. Kennedy would probably be seen as conservative in the current radical climate; "... ask what you can do for your country." Not to mention his tax cuts.You probably would have hated Kennedy though; so Catholic and all. We don't want any of those awful Christians around here, right, E.? Just give us those wonderful Islamists. (Love the way you just sidestepped this one by calling it a tired red herring, or whatever. Nice liberal way to not discuss the merits of a point. And you know I have a point. But you are a lover of political correctness. Which is nothing other than intollerance. Making certain subjects "unmentionable." What nonsense. ) Can't get enough of those Islamists. Once they destroy America, you can remake it just the way you like. (I'll bet Saul Alinsky never dreamed of Islamists helping his revolutionary cause.) No Christians allowed. What tolerance. No gun owners. What tolerance! Love those gays; its the normal people we hate.Try as you might to destroy this country that you hate, and everything that has made it great, you will not succeed. You are in a minority, and you just can't stand it. This country is about religion (First Amendment), it is about guns (Second Amendment) it is not about redistribution (although we are doing plenty of that beginning with Social Security, and it's not all bad, but it must be limited - Socialism has not worked anywhere that it has been tried - PERIOD).You live in a fantasy. You have a false dream of an unatainable utopia. Dreams are fine. But they are not and never will be reality. Your "Let's all get along" approach is childish and pollyanish. Naive. Reality is not and never will be fantasy. You cannot accept reality. That is unfortunate. Particularly since it seems to drive your entire world view. If you were rich and powerful like many of today's statists, then you would not be affected much by your world view. But I doubt that you will be a beneficiary of socialistic changes, since socialism is the equal distribution of misery. At least free-market capitalism is the distribution of wealth, albeit unequal. That is what you resent. You envy those who have more than you do. Everyone in your world should have equal wealth. That is not reality, nor should it be. You dislike exceptionalism. Mao did too. And Marx and Stalin and Lenin. So I guess you see yourself in good company.Your article is disingenous, and you prove this in your responses. You have no tolerance for conservatives. You seek some type of compromise by floating a specious argument of "common ground" between statists and conservatives, but all you seek to do is to denigrate conservatives and not see any validity to conservative principles. (Oh, I forgot, there are no principles. You can just make them up as you go along. Makes life more interesting, right? Unless you're on the short end of one of those principles. So, let's see now, who is going to make those principles up? Well, if we keep going the Obama way, it will surely be some Imam some day. The One is waiting to bow to him as soon as he takes power. Loves to bow to America's enemies. Sorry, I know you love him. He has no principles either.)I have news for you, the government that you love is what is killing the poor and the middle class. (And what qualifies as poor these days, having only one flat panel TV with basic cable?? Please.)I fear that liberalism truly is a mental disorder. "Guns are stupid." At least you admit you don't understand gun ownership. The UK is not doing fine; read the statistics; only the criminals have guns. The citizens are left at their mercy by the stupid government. If you "love the government" you deserve to have the government take away everything it has taken the power to bestow. This is dangerous, but, as I said, you don't get it. Try Cuba for a while; see how you "love government." They have a lot of it there. China and Iran and North Korea too. Lots and lots of government, that you love. Consider moving. I would wager you would return in a heartbeat.Sorry, guns are for killing.No one said "unbridled capitalism" is a good thing. A free market economy with a modicum of regulation works. Our problem is over-regulation. Over regulation, not under regulation has caused most of our economic problems since the Great Depression. But government lovers like yourself love to meddle in the free market, which has a way of working out its problems without serious intervention.Underegulation caused the gambling on wall street where banking got confused with roulette. Sorry.The trouble with redistribution (besides being morally wrong) is that you eventually run out of other people's money, which I suppose is how you subsist. John F. Kennedy would probably be seen as conservative in the current radical climate; "... ask what you can do for your country." Not to mention his tax cuts.Sorry, if you want to live in a society and enjoy the benefits, the poor and middleclass must be secure from the uncontrolled greed of the wealthy when they are not regulated.You probably would have hated Kennedy though; so Catholic and all. We don't want any of those awful Christians around here, right, E.? Just give us those wonderful Islamists. (Love the way you just sidestepped this one by calling it a tired red herring, or whatever. Nice liberal way to not discuss the merits of a point. And you know I have a point. But you are a lover of political correctness. Which is nothing other than intollerance. Making certain subjects "unmentionable." What nonsense. ) Can't get enough of those Islamists. Once they destroy America, you can remake it just the way you like. (I'll bet Saul Alinsky never dreamed of Islamists helping his revolutionary cause.) No Christians allowed. What tolerance. No gun owners. What tolerance! Love those gays; its the normal people we hate.Well, at least “God didn’t tell” JFK to bomb small countries :)Try as you might to destroy this country that you hate, and everything that has made it great, you will not succeed. You are in a minority, and you just can't stand it. This country is about religion (First Amendment), it is about guns (Second Amendment) it is not about redistribution (although we are doing plenty of that beginning with Social Security, and it's not all bad, but it must be limited - Socialism has not worked anywhere that it has been tried - PERIOD).Sorry, Bush and his policies are what almost destroyed this country. You are not keeping your eye on the ball.You live in a fantasy. You have a false dream of an unatainable utopia. Dreams are fine. But they are not and never will be reality. Your "Let's all get along" approach is childish and pollyanish. Naive. Reality is not and never will be fantasy. You cannot accept reality. That is unfortunate. Particularly since it seems to drive your entire world view. If you were rich and powerful like many of today's statists, then you would not be affected much by your world view. But I doubt that you will be a beneficiary of socialistic changes, since socialism is the equal distribution of misery. At least free-market capitalism is the distribution of wealth, albeit unequal. That is what you resent. You envy those who have more than you do. Everyone in your world should have equal wealth. That is not reality, nor should it be. You dislike exceptionalism. Mao did too. And Marx and Stalin and Lenin. So I guess you see yourself in good company.Capitalism must be heavily regulated, re the current financial crisis. Again, you are losing sight of the reality that is happening.Your article is disingenous, and you prove this in your responses. You have no tolerance for conservatives. You seek some type of compromise by floating a specious argument of "common ground" between statists and conservatives, but all you seek to do is to denigrate conservatives and not see any validity to conservative principles. (Oh, I forgot, there are no principles. You can just make them up as you go along. Makes life more interesting, right? Unless you're on the short end of one of those principles. So, let's see now, who is going to make those principles up? Well, if we keep going the Obama way, it will surely be some Imam some day. The One is waiting to bow to him as soon as he takes power. Loves to bow to America's enemies. Sorry, I know you love him. He has no principles either.)Love Obama!I have news for you, the government that you love is what is killing the poor and the middle class. (And what qualifies as poor these days, having only one flat panel TV with basic cable?? Please.)Here’s what killed the middle class:How has our nation come to this? How has the middle class been weakened to the point of no voice while corporations, through their influence paddling, big money, and lobbying, is running the country? How did America almost go under last year because of reckless behavior in the financial markets.It all began in earnest by one individual in particular and his intense war against the impoverished and the middle class and the government programs that supported the common people, while doing everything he could to promote the wealthy and big business interests.1. In the late 1940s, he provided the FBI with names of his fellow actors whom he believed to be communist sympathizers within the motion picture industry. This witch hunt, which proved nothing but embarrassing to our country, was however a good indication of the character of the informants.2. In his position with General Electric, he . . . . wrote his own speeches, laboring diligently and daily upon his prose. . . . Eventually, the speeches became too controversial for the company's liking, and he was fired by General Electric in 1962. He formally switched to the Republican Party the same year, revealing, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."3. He opposed certain civil rights legislation, although he later reversed his opposition to voting rights and fair housing laws. He strongly denied having racist motives.4. When legislation that would become Medicare ( helping poor and middle income Americans) was introduced in 1961, he created a recording for the American Medical Association (See “Operation Coffee Cup”) warning that such legislation would mean the end of freedom in America. He said that if his listeners did not write letters to prevent it, "we will awake to find that we have socialism.”3. He was involved in high-profile conflicts with the protest movements of the era. On May 15, 1969, during the People's Park protests at UC Berkeley, he sent the California Highway Patrol and other officers to quell the protests, in an incident that became known as "Bloody Thursday". He then called out 2,200 state National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks in order to crack down on the protesters. When the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst in Berkeley and demanded the distribution of food to the poor, he joked, "It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism." He didn’t want to hear what the common people had to say.4. Only a short time into his administration, federal air traffic controllers went on strike, violating a regulation prohibiting government unions from striking. Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, he held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, where he stated that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated." Despite fear from some members of his cabinet over a potential political backlash, on August 5, he fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work, busting the union. According to Charles Craver, a labor law professor at George Washington University Law School, the move gave Americans a new view of he, who "sent a message to the private employer community that it would be all right to go up against the unions.” Again, workers to he were second class citizens, a scourge to free enterprise and making money.5. The minimum wage remained the same during the tenure of his administration.6. He implemented policies based on supply-side economics and advocated a classical liberal and laissez-faire philosophy (for big business) seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts. Citing the economic theories of Arthur Laffer, he promoted the proposed tax cuts as potentially stimulating the economy enough to expand the tax base, offsetting the revenue loss due to reduced rates of taxation, a theory that entered political discussion as the Laffer curve. Heomics was the subject of debate with supporters pointing to improvements in certain key economic indicators as evidence of success, and critics pointing to large increases in federal budget deficits and the national debt. His policy of "peace through strength" (also described as "firm but fair") resulted in a record peacetime defense buildup including a 40% real increase in defense spending between 1981 and 1985. (Budget deficits and increased military spending insured reduced social benefits for the common people, a known tactic for those who support big business and Wall Street).6. His policies proposed that economic growth would occur when marginal tax rates were low enough to spur investment, which would then lead to increased economic growth, higher employment and wages. Critics labeled this "trickle-down economics"—the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will create a "trickle-down" effect to the poor. Questions arose whether his policies benefited the wealthy more than those living in poverty, and many poor and minority citizens viewed him as indifferent to their struggles.7. Following his less-government intervention views, he cut the budgets of non-military programs including Medicaid, food stamps, federal education programs and the EPA. He protected entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, however, his administration attempted to purge many people with alleged disabilities from the Social Security disability rolls.8. The administration's stance toward the Savings and Loan industry contributed to the Savings and Loan crisis. It is also suggested, by a minority of heomics critics, that the policies partially influenced the stock market crash of 1987, but there is no consensus regarding a single source for the crash. In order to cover newly spawned federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion.As a result of his legacy, Wall Street, banks and security firms have been regulated less and less over the years. So much so that regulations, it was believed, became unnecessary because the markets knew intuitively what they were doing. The Las Vegas effect that developed infected even the middle class with their amateur day traders and portfolio connoisseurs, while the real gamblers only became more wealthy. But it was a house of cards originally built by him.Now, things have gone too far to back out. Easy credit is being again hyped even by the government because the economy cannot function without it. We’re hooked. This is where we are, and it stands to reason that it can’t continue this way. Things have gone way over the top since he deserted the common man. Just look at middles class wages, and the percentage of wealth held by the top tier of the population.We might hold off judgment day for awhile, we can still borrow a lot of money, but eventually we will have to face the truth about our status in the world, which is becoming increasingly dicey with many jobs going to more competitive countries. And right now, that status, which relies almost solely on credit, is under the gun to the point that we are paralyzed in congress to do anything about it, other than throw more borrowed money at the problem. Without borrowed money, our economy would surely crash unlike anything we have ever seen.Thank you, Mr. Ronald Reagan.
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