Crooks & Liars: Mike Lux: 'Two Kinds Of Meanness: The Modern Conservative Movement'

Source:Crooks & Liars- with a look at so-called modern Conservatives.

Source:The New Democrat 

"I grew up and did my early work in politics in Nebraska, and my wife is a farmer's daughter from rural Missouri. I spent about ten years organizing and door-knocking for campaigns in rural Iowa. So I know a lot about the kind of Bob Dole conservatism that used to be the dominant political culture of those places. Since I became a progressive Democrat, I didn't agree with those conservatives on many things, but I mostly liked and respected them. Wary of the unintended consequences of change, suspicious of big government, fiscally conservative, traditionalist in many ways, they were generally decent folks with much to admire in them, and very worthy political opponents." 

You can read the rest of Mike Lux's piece at Crooks & Liars

"The Modern Republican Party. Real.Time.with.Bill.Maher.2012.03.02." 

Source:Real Time With Bill Maher- talking about the modern Republican Party.

From IW Boomer

It must be snowing in San Diego right now, because I actually agree with Mike Lux on something. But he’s right about at least a couple of things about the modern Republican Party. ( As I would put it ) 

Can you imagine what Barry Goldwater would’ve said had he heard Vice President Dick Cheney back in 2003, saying that deficits don’t matter? The Republican Party, still has that strong conservative libertarian wing, that I and Mike Lux I guess both respect. I for sure anyway, that is now led by Senator Rand Paul and a few others in and out of Congress.

But in Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater’s day, the Christian-Nationalists and Religious-Right, were still a growing force. But the Goldwater-Reagan Republicans and their supporters still ran the party. We’ll see what 2016 looks like and how big a movement the Conservative Libertarians led by Senator Paul are. But since 1988 or so, a Republican couldn’t win the presidential nomination without having the Christian-Conservatives behind him. They also couldn’t win the presidential election without these two groups as well.

Back in the day, the so-called Religious-Right, (which is another way of saying Far-Right religious cult) the Pat Robertson’s and Rick Santorum’s of the world, were seen as extremists, as dangerous to the Republican Party. Now, the Santorum’s and Mike Huckabee’s of the world are seen as major presidential contenders. But, that could change in 2016 depending on how big a movement the Paul Conservative Libertarians have become. And has the GOP returned to some form of sanity and really gotten back to their conservative libertarian routes. The Patriot Act debate in Congress the last few weeks, suggests that the GOP might be ready to get back to where they were. And move away from their big government Republicanism.

Back in the day, the GOP was the anti-big government party. Not the: 

"We don’t like your big government when it comes to economic policy. So we’re going to replace your big government with our big government. And stick it in the homes of every American. And show them by force what it means to be a real American.” 

Back in the day, deficits and debt not only did matter, but they mattered regardless if the President was a Democrat, or Republican and who was in control of Congress. Back in the day, Republicans weren’t in favor of invading countries, simply because they didn’t like the dictator who was in charge of the country. The GOP, up until the last few years, have taken the opposite positions on all of these issues.

I don’t agree with Conservative Libertarians on everything, obviously. Otherwise I would be a Conservative Libertarian, instead of a Liberal myself. But I can work and talk to Conservative Libertarians, because we tend to have similar principles: 

That we both believe individual freedom, both personal and economic. That we need an effective, but limited government doing for the people what we can’t do for ourselves. 

And then the debates and discussions become about what exactly government should be doing. How they should regulate and what services they should perform. Instead of should people have the freedom to do this or that for themselves.

American politics would be a lot more fun and interesting today for me as a Liberal Democrat, if the Republican Party didn’t have their big government religious, theocratic, faction. And their anti-government Libertarian faction, that has almost no role for government. Which is more extreme than the Conservative Libertarians, who aren’t anti-government so much as they’re anti-big government, which is different. 

Whatever you think of Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, they’re not anti-government, or even in favor of big government into people’s personal lives, for the most part. Certainly for Senator Paul, on most if not all issues. And maybe we’ll see the GOP in 2016, move away from both their anti-government and big government trends and become a responsible political party again.

CNN: U.S. Senator Rand Raul- 'The Right to be Left Alone is The Most Precious'

Source:CNN- U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) on the Patriot Act.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Sen. Rand Paul spoke out against the Patriot Act on Sunday, hours before it was set to expire." 

From CNN

First of all, the Patriot Act is going to expire at midnight in less than two hours from the time this piece is posted, because of Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and his Neoconservatives in his caucus. They could’ve spent the last two weeks on either the USA Freedom Act that was passed by the House with 388 votes. A huge bipartisan majority of Republicans and Democrats in the House.

The Film Archives: Kevin Phillips- 'The Triumph of Anglo-America: Religion, Politics & Civil Warfare'

Source:The Film Archives- owns this photo.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Phillips was educated at the Bronx High School of Science, Colgate University, the University of Edinburgh and Harvard Law School. About the book:Amazon. 

After his stint as a senior strategist for the Nixon presidential campaign, he served a year, starting in 1969, as Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General, but left after a year to become a columnist. In 1971, he became president of the American Political Research Corporation and editor-publisher of the American Political Report (through 1998... 

From The Film Archives

From this topic, I’m more interested in the founding of the American Federal Republic and American liberal democracy. Thanks to the American Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) we have the liberal democracy that we have today. Along with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s to see that liberal democracy and American constitutionalism applied to all Americans.

The Founding Fathers, wanted to break away from the British Monarchy, the British King and build a free society in America. The U.K., obviously had a problem with that, since the American Colonies were still part of Britain. The Founding Fathers, wanted their own free society and no longer live under dictatorial authoritarian rule under the United Kingdom, where there was a state religion from the U.K, where they were taxed heavily for services that they didn’t receive and build their own country and created a Federal Republic that was going to be a free society.

The Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) were very brilliant. Yes, they didn’t want this liberal democracy, liberal free society to be for everyone. At the time, just Anglo-American men who owned property. And they owned African slaves and treated the American-Indians like second-class citizens. But what they put on paper applies to everyone as far as our constitutional individual rights. And not just Anglos and Caucasians in general. And not just for men and men who are property owners. 

The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights today, applies to all Americans. Regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or property status. And they created a brilliant form of government and free society, that is our Federal Republic and liberal democracy.

The Beacon: Randall Holcombe: 'Progressivism: Rhetoric Versus Reality'

Source:The Independent Institute- The Economist, which is a center-right, liberal publication in Britain, with a look at progressivism.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Contemporary supporters of an expanded role for government are increasingly moving away from calling themselves liberals and toward referring to themselves Progressives, so it is worth considering what the ideology of Progressivism entails.

Progressivism began in the late 1800s as a political movement that advocated expanding the role of government. Before the Progressive era, Americans viewed the role of government as protecting individual rights. The Progressive ideology argued that the proper role of government should go beyond protecting individual rights to include looking out for people’s economic well-being.

Progressivism is explicitly designed to use the force of government to take from some to give to others. In its early days, Progressives envisioned the state reining in the economic power of people like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt to prevent them from exploiting those with less economic power. Even this vision makes clear that the goal of Progressivism is to impose costs on some for the benefit of others.

The Progressive ideology is now firmly ingrained in the political system, and everybody recognizes that the government routinely takes from some to give to others. Because this is how our government now works, Progressivism encourages people to engage in politics to increase their chances that they can be on the receiving end of those transfers.

Meanwhile, the idea that some might be using their economic power to exploit others has fallen by the wayside. It’s not that Progressives don’t think this can happen; it’s that the Progressive transfer state recognizes claims made by anybody, regardless of whether they were harmed or exploited by others.

Welfare programs transfer wealth from taxpayers to recipients without any thought that the recipients deserve the transfers because they are being exploited by taxpayer. Instead, coercive wealth transfers are the “compassionate” thing to do. But the rich as well as the poor see Progressive government as a source of economic support. Giant corporations receive subsidies, tax breaks, and regulatory protection even though when Progressivism was born, its core idea was to transfer from them rather than toward them. Progressivism leads to cronyism.

While the idea of Progressivism was to expand the role of government to both protecting people’s rights and looking out for their economic well-being, the actual result of Progressivism has been that because it provides economic benefits to some by imposing costs on others, it violates people’s rights rather than protecting them. Progressive regulations limit people’s freedom of choice, and Progressive tax and transfer policies take the property of some for the benefit of others.

Despite its compassionate-sounding agenda of looking out for people’s economic well-being, the political philosophy of Progressivism justifies a government that violates the rights of some to provide economic benefits to others." 

From The Beacon 

Replace the words progressive and progressivism, with socialist and socialism and I probably agree with everything that Randall Holcombe said about progressive and progressivism here. But he's just dead wrong, unless he's talking about socialist and socialism, accidentally and just made those mistakes. 

The actual definition of Progressive, is someone who not just believes in progress (where the word progressive actually comes from) but progress through government action. That government can be a force for good (to sound corny) to help people improve their own lives. That doesn't mean taking from the rich to take care of everyone else, or essentially outlawing independent wealth and individual freedom. But using government to try to create a society where as many people as possible can succeed in it. 

What people need to understand about progressivism, is that it isn’t socialism. Progressivism isn’t completely about government. And doesn’t think individualism and individual initiative is necessarily a bad thing. Or that freedom is necessarily a bad thing. Progressives, unlike Socialists in many cases, believe in all of those things. 

A true Progressive, doesn’t believe that government can and should do practically everything if not everything for the people. Socialists, don’t seem to have a problem that a new tax increase and government program can’t solve and do something new for the people.

Progressivism, was basically born in the late 1890s and early 1900s, under people like Teddy Roosevelt and later Woodrow Wilson and many others, as part of the so-called Progressive Era. These people who might have seem radical then, but today they would be mainstream, Center-Left, Progressive Democrats. 

Thanks to the Great Depression and with Franklin Roosevelt coming to power as President in 1933 with an overwhelming Democratic Congress in both the House and Senate, the New Deal was born. The American safety net and social insurance system to help people in need help themselves and get themselves back on their feet.

The originally Welfare system was badly designed. Because it didn’t require people on Welfare to finish their education and even look for work. Unlike Unemployment Insurance where people have to look for work and even get help from the program looking for work. 

The basic idea of progressivism is that government can help people when they are down get on their feet. And protect the innocent from predators. Either in the economy with the regulatory state. And put criminals way when they hurt the innocent physically and otherwise with the law enforcement state. And protect the country from foreign invaders with the national security state.

If you look at the economic options of the 1930s, the progressive economic approach was actually the middle ground. Which might sound strange even for that period. 

But think about it, you had Conservatives and Libertarians on the Right, saying that government shouldn’t do anything to help people who are down and stay out of the economy all together. 

Democratic Socialists and Communists on the Far-Left, saying that private enterprise and capitalism is the problem. And that government should take over a lot of these sectors in the economy to serve the people. 

Progressivism, is not socialism, but a very mainstream American ideology.

Paul J. Watson: 'Absolute Proof Liberalism is a Mental Disorder'

Source:Paul J. Watson- playing an escaped mental patient who was kidnapped by right-wing Nationalists and forced to lie about liberalism. Actually, I don't even know if he's lying here. I mean if he's an escaped mental patient, he might simply not know what he's talking about, because he's not only an escaped mental patient, but he escaped reality as well.

Source:The New Democrat 

“If you want a glimpse of what happens to countries when they embrace the mental disorder of extreme liberalism, look no further than Sweden." 

From Paul J. Watson, who could be the Minister of Miss-Information for Info Wars.

Keep in mind, Paul J. Watson is a spokesman for Info Wars, which is the right-wing populist version of The Onion, except they report fewer facts than The Onion and don’t sell themselves as satirists, but truth tellers. And if you can keep that in mind, then you should find a lot of what Alex Jones and PJ Watson very entertaining and even humorous, even if they’re not trying to make you laugh intentionally.

Actually, Info Wars or Prison Planet Live, the group I guess that Paul Joseph Watson works for, Alex Jones’s clan, is another way of saying The Onion. The difference being, that The Onion has a better record as far as reporting things that are actually true.

Actually, Fox News reports more real news than Prison Planet Live and Info Wars combined. And if it wasn’t America’s liberal First Amendment, which is our Freedom of Speech for all you out there who don’t know what the First Amendment is, (God help you) PPL and Info Wars wouldn’t be allowed on the air.

The Capital Gang: March 27, 1993: Foreign Policy & The Clinton Budget

Source:My Vintage Video- CNN's Al Hunt.

Source:The New Democrat

President Boris Yeltsin who certainly has his issues as President of Russia, looks like a good guy if not a saint, at least compared with Vladimir Putin today. It would’ve been nice had Russia been able to transition away from President Yeltsin and to someone like him. And continued with the economic and political reforms in Russia. And not of moved in a neoconservative if not Far-Right direction. That they’ve been on ever since Putin became President of the Russian Federation in the late 1990s.

As far as the Clinton 1993 budget, I agree with then Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole. Who then was not only highest ranking Republican in Congress, but in the U.S. Government at least, when he said that President Clinton shouldn’t get that much credit for getting his budget plan through. Because he had an overwhelming Democratic Congress back then. Of something like 257 seats in the House and 57 in the Senate. And where the Senate Minority can’t block the budget and require sixty votes to pass it. Leaders shouldn’t get extra credit for simply doing what they are able to do and should do.
Source:My Vintage Video

My Vintage Videos: The Capital Gang- February 20, 1993: The Clinton Deficit Reduction Plan

Source:My Vintage Video-CNN's The Capital Gang.

Source:The New Democrat

This whole show was about the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act. That was offered by President Bill Clinton, which was his first major economic bill as President. That was passed by a Democratic Congress by a total of two votes. One vote majority in the House and a one vote majority in the Senate. With only Congressional Democrats voting for the DRA. With not a single House or Senate Republican voting for it. You can make a case that the DRA cost Democrats Congress in 1994. But the plan worked with the budget almost balanced by 1996. With most of the new revenue to the Federal budget coming from the new revenue and tax hikes from the 1993 plan. Which was a combination of spending cuts both in defense and non-defense and a tax hike on the wealthy. And reversing some of the tax cuts from the Reagan Administration from the 1980s. The plan was costly politically, but it worked.
Source:My Vintage Video