Has the "conservative movement" ever been right? (Congressmen, school, politicians)

[desertdetroiter]

Originally Posted by Spartanguy

It's not an accident modern Republican social conservatives don't want the taint of racism from Democratic social conservatives of the 50's and 60's. That's why you get people claiming Republicans were the party of civil right even though those Republican votes came from liberals and moderates,

I'd like to remind people that opposition did not just come from KKK types, "intellectual" conservatives like William F Buckley opposed the civil rights movement.

National Review editorial, 8/24/1957

The central question that emerges … is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.”

“National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct… It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.”

“The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class… Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function.”

Very damning. And I'm someone that is a fan of Buckley. When I first read this many moons ago, I was floored at the arrogance that prevailed in the conservative movement at the time. I mean, "let the South never permit itself to do this?" Hell, that's EXACTLY what they were doing and had been doing for a few hundred years.

Originally Posted by Refresh1

Dont forget President Johnson. He played a big role but gets little recognition. He was for the poor and oppress.

President Johnson played the only role that mattered relative to presidential action. The others basically did little to nothing.

Originally Posted by BentBow

Thing is, they were not that conservative after all.

You guys keep saying this, but those knumbskulls still have their bullhorns. They're still exalted by the Republican Party. Look at Michelle Bachman.

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by MTAtech

As I posted before:

Liberalism ended slavery in this country.
Liberalism got women the right to vote.
Liberalism got African-Americans the right to vote.
Liberalism created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty.
Liberalism ended segregation.
Liberalism passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act.
Liberalism created Medicare.
Liberalism passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things; every one.

They first took them away and then gave all that back, like it was a privilege.
Conservatives ended slavery.
Susan B. Anthony went to jail for voting for a Republican. Women's right to vote was a very Conservative move.
Conservatives got blacks the right to be more than 3/5ths.
SS got no one out of poverty. It only kept them from starving as much.
Progressives started segregation. Republicans created the law to end it, with very little support from the Democrats.
Republicans authored the civil rights bill. JFK refused to sign it twice. LBJ went against his party and signed the civil rights bill. The entire reason he didn't even try to run for a second term. He had no party support.


A Progressive decision can be made by a Conservative.

[desertdetroiter]

Originally Posted by BentBow

They first took them away and then gave all that back, like it was a privilege.
Conservatives ended slavery.I
Susan B. Anthony went to jail for voting for a Republican. Women's right to vote was a very Conservative move.
Conservatives got blacks the right to be more than 3/5ths.
SS got no one out of poverty. It only kept them from starving as much.
Progressives started segregation. Republicans created the law to end it, with very little support from the Democrats.
Republicans authored the civil rights bill. JFK refused to sign it twice. LBJ went against his party and signed the civil rights bill. The entire reason he didn't even try to run for a second term. He had no party support.


A Progressive decision can be made by a Conservative.

Lol...so many untruths in this post, that it oughta be removed by the mods. Geezus.

Conservatives ended slavery? You've gotta be kidding me.

[nononsenseguy]

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

Conservatism is synonymous with ''applying the brakes'' on progress.

It is??? What is your definition of "progress?" Is abandonment of our founding principles, "progress," in your view?

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the strength of the conservative movement in the U.S. has contributed to that country's not-too-shabby outcome. Being said, the very nature of conservatism is such that, while they may be good in short ''bursts'' - I'm not big on Reagan but I'll pretend just for the sake of being balanced that he did good things (he did to some extent) - in the long run, the more glorious movement, and the one that will ALWAYS get the most credit is the liberal movement.

Really? "Glorious?" How so? What has "liberalism" done but to be the greatest cause of the destruction of liberty?

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

They make the BIG plays. Conservatives control the pace.

Abolition of slavery, women's rights, black civil rights movement, SCIENCE,

Science???

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

labour movement, etc, etc, are all the product of progressive thought & actions.

The labor movement is socialist in nature, and is more so today than it was in the begining. Richard Trumka is a proud socialist. Abolition of slavery was based on the "self evident truth" that "all men are created equal." It was inevitable, and it had nothing to do with "liberalism," (liberalism in the modern sense) but it had everything to do with Liberty. In my opinion, the same goes for women's rights. It had nothing to do with "liberalsim."

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

Don't give me the ''Lincoln was a republican'' argument. Parties change over time... Lincoln was progressive in his view that we had to learn to get along as one big family.

Oh, please How inane! Lincoln stood firmly on America's founding principles.

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

Republicans today could come up with innovative, progressive solutions too if they wanted. Sadly, they've become so well-entrenched as the party of NO they've lost their way.

The "party of 'no' is always the party that is out of power. In a Republican administration, the "party of 'no' is the Democrat Party. That is the way our system was designed. It's called "check and balance." It was never intended that it should be easy to ram through the Congress legislation that might not be wise or good. Debate and deliberation was designed into the system for a reason, and one Party should never just be a "rubber stamp" for the other.

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

Just think of the people in the past 100 years who've made spectacular contributions to the greater good of society: Gandhi, Einstein, FDR, MLK, Freud, Oppenheimer, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc, etc... all progressives and firm believers in the tenets of liberalism.

Which are?

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

It's rather important not to confuse the Republican/Democrat dichotomies of the past with the liberal/conservative divide.

[MTAtech]

Originally Posted by nononsenseguy

The thought that crossed my mind as I was reading the OP's long list of things that conservitives are always wrong about (according to the OP) is that our founding was probabaly the greatest "conservative movement" in the history of man. Does the OP think the Founders were wrong about everything?

Sorry, conservatives can't take credit for founding the U.S., a nation based upon democracy. One only has to look at conservatives challenging the agnostic nature of religion in the First Amendment to realize that Jefferson and Madison were liberals. In colonial times, believing that a nation shouldn't be ruled by a monarch was a liberal notion. Jefferson wrote that inheritance law was the best way to prevent the overgrown wealth of an individual from becoming a threat to the state. Jefferson believed in a separation of church and state.

This is from The Federalist #10:

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

Note, Madison believed that these interests were properly managed by government, unlike those that believe that capitalism should be unfettered.

[NoJiveMan]

Originally Posted by BradPiff

Over the past few decades they have vehemently wrong about almost everything. From

civil rights, gender equality, gay rights, trickle down economics, immigration, Iraq War and neocon foreign policy, Medicare, deregulation of the banks, privatizing social security, fiscal stimulus, climate change, separation of church of state, war on drugs, abortion rights, stem cell research, healthcare, etc

Conservatives have always been RIGHT, liberals have always been LEFT.
Sometimes, I will refer to the right wingers as the reich wing because of their ideology.

[Robin Rossi]

Originally Posted by desertdetroiter

Conservatism hasn't always been this pathetic, and they still have some good ideas. It's more the characters than the philosophy.

Since Reagan, the main players in the conservative movement have been a joke.

I didn't think it was possible for a single post to be so pathetically, and stupidly, wrong, but you did it.

[It'sAutomatic]

Originally Posted by FabianS

Let it be noted that 16% youth unemployment and 2% annual growth is "fine".

Keep in mind 8 years ago liberals were screaming that 5.6% unemployment under Bush was the end of the world.

Yes, our economy isn't so great. You want to know why the economy is lukewarm? It's the economy's fault. Freaking out and blaming people or ideologies is the biggest BS coming out from either side in the last few years. It's been going up and down forever in this country and I think we're still strong enough to get back on the upswing.

Some right wing nuts think we're going down the hole for good now and we're going to turn into the Congo now. I don't buy their fearmongering alarmist BS for one second. More moderate conservatives think we're screwed until we do more to help business and other policy changes. I'm willing to listen to those ideas but I still don't see any reason to think we're screwed. This isn't our first economic recession and it's not going to be our last.

[biggunsmallbrains]

Originally Posted by Robin Rossi

Conservatism built this country, runs this country, and creates prosperity for all willing to actively participate.

Liberalism create nothing save for misery. It just steals what the conservatives create.

Sure and thats why liberal states create much more wealth than conservative states.

America's fiscal union: The red and the black | The Economist

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by BradPiff

Over the past few decades they have vehemently wrong about almost everything. From

civil rights, gender equality, gay rights, trickle down economics, immigration, Iraq War and neocon foreign policy, Medicare, deregulation of the banks, privatizing social security, fiscal stimulus, climate change, separation of church of state, war on drugs, abortion rights, stem cell research, healthcare, etc

Man, how do you real feel? Geeze, you are a bit off base: Civil rights, do you know which party voted which way? gender equality: would you like to explain where the conservatives and liberals differ on this? immigration: I don't think much has changed on immigration in many years: what did Clinton's administration do about it? Iraq war: are you saying this was all the doings of the conservatives? Medicare, what are you talking about, you mentioned the past few decades, I doubt you were even alive when medicare came into law? Abortion: who was the first governor to sign a liberal abortion law? climate change? I haven't seen the Democrats as a group jump in on this one..I guess I could go on and on, but I realize, you have your mind so set no one could begin to convince you, not all the bad or the good is done by one party...
BTW, how do you know privatizing SS wouldn't be a good thing and no one ever suggested a persons entire SS should be privatized or the plan should be forced on anyone, It was suggested as an option and only a very small part of ones SS deduction...